Lord, I’ve been asleep. It’s 10:40 a.m.
When he looked up, he saw a beautiful woman. She was tall and leggy, with long blond hair the color of corn and a face made to be studied and admired. She was the most alluring woman he’d ever seen. When he looked into her eyes, he had to force himself to look away. Her face and smile radiated both charm and personality. She stuck out her hand and Shelby was surprised by the firm, strong grip.
“I’m Heather Kendrick,” she said, “from the Disease Control Center in Atlanta. I’ll be your liaison with the medical team that’s working out of Ben Taub. They called Wednesday when victim number three came in. I got the assignment Thursday morning and flew into Houston last night. Well, I guess it was really this morning. You are Captain Shelby, aren’t you?”
The flu and lack of sleep almost had him down. He had to struggle for words. “Yes ma’am, I’m Shelby.”
“May I sit down? Are you okay?”
Shelby pushed himself up and indicated that she should sit. “Yeah, I’m sorry, please. I’ve got a touch of the flu. I guess I’ll be okay if I don’t die first.”
She was about thirty-five, wearing khaki pants, a blue turtleneck sweater and carrying a tan trench coat. When she saw Shelby staring at it, she said, “I didn’t realize it would be this warm here.” She was confident and her composure made Shelby think about Nancy. He could still see her that first day when he found out she was to be his new partner. The memory of Nancy standing in the squad room, both hands on her hips, mad because he was late, was still vivid. He remembered and, when he looked into Kendrick’s face, he was sure he didn’t need that kind of trouble again. He’d learned years ago that trouble usually came in the form of beautiful women.
“Is that the last victim’s billfold?” she asked.
“Yes ma’am, I was just going to inventory its contents,” he answered and opened the tattered wallet. “Ninety-six dollars, credit cards, three pictures, a package of condoms, and a key. The key has a number seven stamped on it. That’s about it.”
“This guy married?”
“Yeah, I think so. Why?”
“If he’s married, why’s he carrying a package of condoms around in his billfold? Seems a little unusual, don’t you think?”
I had a feeling she was going to be like this, Shelby thought. “Probably has a girlfriend or maybe he’s divorced. But that’s a good point. I’ll make a note of it.” Lady, I don’t feel good. Please just stay out of my way and let me do my job. Give me a break. This isn’t even a homicide. At least not yet. I need to get off my duff and call the chief. And maybe I can turn all of this over to some other department. After all, everyone is still alive. Human Brain Virus, what the heck do I know about stuff like this?
“Do you have any connections between the victims?” she asked.
“Look, we’re not even sure we have victims. There’s no evidence to suggest that these men aren’t suffering from some medical condition. The doctors are talking about Human Brain Virus, aren’t they? The victims aren’t dead so we sure don’t have a homicide, at least not until one of them dies. Okay?”
“Captain, is there a problem here I’m not aware of?”
“No…I guess not. I’m not feeling well, that’s all. Maybe we could continue this a little later in the day. I need to talk with my boss, fill him in and get some legal advice on how to proceed with this. You’ve got to admit this isn’t your usual criminal investigation, dead men who aren’t dead?”
“Why don’t we meet at your office at four-thirty, Captain? That will give us both time to do a little investigating to see how we can best proceed, if at all. Maybe then we’ll know if we have a criminal act or if this is strictly a medical investigation.”
Before he could get up, Kendrick walked away. He watched her move down the crowded hall with the grace of a gazelle. Then she disappeared.
At the downtown library, Shelby waded through the hushed and muffled trampling of forty or fifty pairs of dirty sneakers as a group of fourth graders were corralled out the front doors, their story hour over. When the glass door closed, shutting off the pushing, whispering, and giggling like an on-off knob on a radio, the silence seemed to push heavily into his ears.
He had already talked to the assistant chief and could not shake the investigation. Now he was the official case officer and the assistant chief had been stern when he told Shelby to extend all of the department’s cooperation to the health investigator from Atlanta.
Kendrick reminded him of Nancy. That was what bothered him. Nancy Atkinson had been a cop for eight years and a homicide detective for three months when she was killed, murdered, five years ago. Women and police work don’t mix. I should’ve watched her better, been there when it happened. I should have never sent her out by herself.
A routine investigation gone sour was the way the investigators summed it up in their report. They said Atkinson followed all the procedures, said the guy just went nuts. One of the investigators told Shelby, “The perp was a big-shot executive who couldn’t face the embarrassment of being arrested. He grabbed Atkinson, bear-hugged her, and threw himself out his office window, fourteen stories down to the street. Man, she never knew what hit her.” Five years and she still haunts my days and, even worse, my nights.
He could still hear her last words to him. “Come on, James, lighten up. This is no big deal. I’ll have him arrested and booked in an hour. Go on, finish your report, and I’ll be back by five o’clock and we can get a drink. Okay?”
He leaned back in the chair and recalled how they’d gotten involved. They both knew it was wrong, but it had been about a year after his wife had died and he needed to be with someone and she was on the rebound from a divorce. A month later, Nancy was dead.
After years of working to get his master’s degree in criminology, Shelby was familiar with libraries and quickly found a book on computer viruses. Now thirty-nine, he had made a hobby of going to school. Next May, just six months, he thought, all the work will pay off with a doctorate, and when I make my twenty at the PD, I’ll give up the blue ghost and find a faculty position somewhere and spend my “golden years” teaching. I’m not sure forty-two qualifies for golden years, he’d thought many times. At thirty-nine, he was still looking for his peak.
In thirty minutes he knew more about rogue software and virus attacks on hard drives than he had ever wanted to know. He was surprised to read that thousands of known computer viruses existed and hundreds of new ones were discovered each month. He read of software pirating and people intentionally inserting a logic trap or Trojan-horse computer virus onto stolen software and using computer bulletin boards to set off these tiny time bombs. Shelby paid careful attention to the pages on Michelangelo and virus-scanning utilities and devices.
He had trouble concentrating; his mind wandered, and he heard a hissing voice cautioning him. It was his mother’s voice, warning him just as she did when he was a child. Jimmy Dick. Oh, Jimmy Dick, be careful. He tried to shake the thought but her warning continued. You don’t want to hear Michelangelo sing inyourear. Don’t listen to his death march. Jimmy, when the phone rings,don’tanswer it…When the phone rings, don’t answer it. When the...
Shelby gasped and jumped to reality when someone laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. It was Heather Kendrick back again.
“Well,
