Linwood Barclay - The Twenty-Three

He parked two blocks from the hospital and hoofed it over.

Even before he wandered into the emergency ward waiting room, he could see the mayhem playing out before him. Paramedics and nurses and doctors all being run off their feet. People puking their guts out. People collapsing.

He’d never seen anything like it. Promise Falls, he bet, had never seen anything like it. Upstate New York had never seen anything like it.

Ever.

“Out of the way!” someone shouted, and Victor Rooney spun around to find himself in the path of two paramedics wheeling a gurney toward the sliding ER doors. There was a teenage girl strapped to it, hands clutched to her stomach. Trailing the gurney were a man and a woman, presumably the girl’s parents.

The woman said, “You’re going to be okay, Cassie! You’re going to be okay!”

Victor stepped out of their way, then followed them, as though slipping into their jet stream, and entered the ER.

He stood to one side, cast his eye about the room. There had to be seventy to a hundred people in here. And that was just the ones he could see. Those beds in the examining area, behind the sliding curtains, were likely all full, too.

It took only a few seconds for him to spot someone he knew.

Walden Fisher, the man who’d nearly become his father-in-law.

“Christ on a candlestick,” Victor said.

Walden was seated in one of the waiting room chairs, doubled over, elbows on knees.

“Walden,” Victor said under his breath.

The man looked up suddenly and when he saw who it was, his mouth opened in surprise.

“Victor,” he said, putting his hands on his knees and starting to make the effort to push himself up.

“No, stay there,” Victor said. He’d have taken a seat next to him, but they were all filled with people waiting to see a doctor.

“Whoa,” said Walden, settling back into his chair. “Even trying to get up, things start spinning. I’m pretty light-headed. How sick are you?”

“I’m fine,” Victor said.

Walden appeared puzzled. “What are you doing here? Did you bring someone in?”

The younger man shook his head. “No. But my landlady’s dead. Found her in the backyard. I just wanted to come up, see what was going on.” He paused, added, “It’s all over the news.”

“What are they saying?”

“Might be something in the water,” Victor told him.

“Jesus. You didn’t drink any?”

Victor shook his head. “Guess I was lucky. What about you?”

“I… I had coffee. I made a pot. Never used to do it. Beth always did it, but now I make it. I got real sick, and my heart started doing weird things.” He gazed about the room. “Some of these people, they’re real bad.”

“Maybe you didn’t drink enough,” Victor said.

Walden gave him a look. “Whaddya mean by that?”

“Nothing. I’m just saying, maybe you didn’t drink enough to get as sick as these other people. What did you think I meant?”

Walden waved a weak hand at him. “Nothing, nothing.”

“There anything I can do for you?”

Walden found enough strength to nod. “Get someone to see me. I’m just sitting here, like I’m invisible or something. I’m gonna be dead before they know I’m here.”

Victor said, “Okay. Hang on.”

Victor interrupted three nurses and two doctors who were in the middle of treating other patients before he found someone who’d give him some attention. “Are you a nurse or a doctor?” he asked a woman whose arm he’d grabbed hold of.

“I’m Dr. Moorehouse,” she said.

“No one’s looked at that man,” Victor said, pointing at Walden. Moorehouse took a breath, headed for Walden, knelt in front of him. “Sir? How are you doing?”

“Not so hot,” he said. She asked his name, and he told her. She asked him several other questions. How long he’d been here, what he’d had to eat and drink this morning, how he was feeling now compared with when he’d gotten to the hospital.

The doctor listened to his heart, shone a tiny beam of light into his eyes. “I can’t admit you,” she said. “You’re sick, but we’ve got way worse.” She tipped her head toward Victor. “This your son?”

“No,” Walden said.

“I’m a friend,” Victor said.

“He should be looked at, but we’re swamped here. I’d suggest you take him to Albany, get him checked out there.”

“Albany?” Walden said.

“Hospitals there are taking people,” Dr. Moorehouse said. “We’re not equipped to handle something this big.”

“I can do that,” Victor said. “Can you handle that, Walden? Can you make it to Albany?”

Walden patted his chest, as though diagnosing his ability to travel. “I guess.”

“Take care, Mr. Fisher,” the doctor said, and went off to look at someone else.

Victor helped Walden Fisher to a standing position. “I’m parked a few blocks away. Can you walk it?”

Walden let go of Victor’s hand to test his balance. “I think so.” But he took the younger man’s elbow as they left the ER.

Halfway to the van, Walden asked to stop. He leaned forward, rested his hands on his kneecaps.

“You gonna be sick?” Victor asked.

“Just a wave of something,” he said, then stood, tentatively. “I think it’s over.”

When they reached the van, Victor opened the passenger door for Walden and helped him into the seat. Victor ran around, got in, and said, “I’m telling ya, what a clusterfuck. You know?”

Walden said nothing.

“Kind of takes your mind off it, though,” Victor said.

Walden turned his head. “Kind of takes your mind off what?”

“All this shit that’s happening. Kind of takes your mind off the fact that it’s been three years.”

Walden stared at him.

“You know. Three years since Olivia-”

“Of course I know,” Walden said, his voice stronger than it had been up to now. “Nothing ever takes my mind off that. Ever.”

“Okay, well,” Victor said, and turned the key. The van sputtered to life. He put the vehicle into drive, checked his mirrors, and pulled out into the street. “You have to wonder, though.”

“Wonder what?”

“Whether any of them died today. The ones that did nothing.” Walden turned away, looked out his window, chewed on the middle fingernail of his right hand.

“Forget Albany,” he said. “Take me home. If I die, I die.”

Duckworth

“HOWlong has Tate Whitehead worked for the town?” I asked Garvey Ottman as we wandered through the treed area between the water treatment plant and the highway.

“Long as I can remember,” Ottman said. “Twenty-five years, maybe.”

“Has he always had a drinking problem?”

Garvey was scouring the bushes to the left and right, pretending, I thought, not to hear. If Whitehead had failed to do his job properly because he was hammered, resulting in the deaths of God knew how many Promise Falls residents, Ottman had to know there was a good chance it was going to come back on him.

“I said, has Tate had this problem a long time?”

“I guess it’s all in how you define ‘problem,’ you know?” Ottman said.

“Let me help you with that,” I said. “Did Whitehead come to work drunk?”

“Like I told you, our shifts didn’t really overlap.”

I stopped trudging through the tall grass, turned, and raised a hand in front of the man. “Cut the bullshit,” I said.

Ottman blinked. “What do you mean?”

“You’re in charge of this plant. You telling me you don’t keep track of the people you don’t actually see? You have no mechanism in place to make sure they do their jobs?”