Linwood Barclay - The Twenty-Three

“Homicide.”

“What? Who?”

“Student named Lorraine Plummer. She was one of the ones-”

“I interviewed her,” Carlson said. “I remember. What happened?”

“Later. Why are you calling?”

“I’m still at the hospital. Story’s not really changing. Same symptoms with everyone. Number of people coming in has slowed. Guess the word’s getting out. Local and state health officials already all over it, taking samples, looking for E. coli, like maybe there’s sewage or animal waste in the water, but it’s not like they can tell you immediately whether that’s the cause or not. It takes several hours to do the tests on the water to confirm what it is.”

“Is that their best guess?” Duckworth asked.

“They’re kind of hedging. The symptoms they’re seeing are not totally consistent with E. coli. So they’re not issuing a boil-water advisory. Like, if they were pretty sure it was E. coli, they’d say if you boil the water, that’ll kill the bacteria, and then it’s safe to drink. But lots of people, they had boiled the water, and they still got sick.”

“The overnight guy at the water plant-shit!”

“What?”

“Why didn’t I think of that?” Duckworth said. “Maybe he’s one of the ones who got sick.”

“Say again?”

“Find out if someone named Tate Whitehead has been admitted.”

“I’m going back in. I’ll get back to you.”

Carlson ended the call and reentered the hospital. A paramedic told him a list of patients’ names was being kept at the admitting desk, on paper and on computer. Carlson saw a nurse behind the desk. Early twenties, fair-skinned, black hair that would have fallen to her shoulders if she didn’t have it pulled back into a ponytail.

Carlson gave her the name.

“Whitehead,” she said. “Whitehead.” She looked up, shook her head. “Nothing. Maybe he’s sitting out there and hasn’t checked in with us.”

“Thank you,” Carlson said.

He was about to step away when the young woman looked at him, her eyes filled with fear, and said, “Eighty-two.”

“Excuse me?”

“Eighty-two people have died. And the number just keeps going up. I feel… I feel-”

“Scared,” he offered, and she nodded. “What’s your name?”

“Sonja.”

“Sonja what?”

“Sonja Roper.”

“Sonja, everyone’s scared. I know I am. We’re scared for ourselves and our loved ones.” Amid the chaos, he smiled. “Do you have children?”

“No,” she said. “Soon, I hope. My boyfriend-his name is Stan and we’re going to get married in the fall-and I really want to have kids. He’s missed all this, lucky him. He’s a pilot for Delta and won’t be back till Monday.”

“When you see what’s going on here, does it make you rethink that? That the world is too dangerous and unpredictable a place?”

Her eyes moved down to the desk as she thought about that. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“Sonja!” someone shouted. “We need you!”

“I have to go,” she said, and flew away from her desk.

Carlson took a position in the middle of the ER waiting room and shouted loud enough to be heard over the chatter: “Is there a Tate Whitehead here?”

The noise dropped slightly for several seconds, people glancing at one another, waiting to see if someone would step forward.

One man raised a weak hand.

“Mr. Whitehead?” Carlson said.

“No. But I know him, and he ain’t here. Haven’t seen him.”

Carlson went back outside to give Duckworth the news.

THEconvoy of ten Finley Springs Water trucks lined up on the shoulder of the road that ran past the park at the foot of the waterfall in downtown Promise Falls. Randall Finley had trailed behind in his Lincoln, figuring he would give his employees a few minutes to get things set up before he made his appearance.

Sitting in the passenger seat, David Harwood had been making some calls along the way, getting in touch with the same news outlets he’d alerted to Finley’s campaign announcement a few days earlier. He’d made that announcement in this very same spot, there at the park. Even if that news conference hadn’t gone as well as Finley had hoped-inevitably, reporters had brought up his involvement years before with that underage prostitute who’d later died-he liked this park for events. The falls always made a great backdrop, and the park was centrally located.

David was still on the phone, but this call didn’t sound like it was to one of the news organizations.

“Sam,” he said, lowering his voice. “Please call. I went by your place, to warn you about this whole water thing. Where’d you go? How could you leave without telling me? Please, please get in touch. I love you. I-”

“David, we’re here,” Finley said.

“I have to go,” David said. “I’ll try again later.” He tucked the phone into his jacket.

“What the hell was that?”

“Nothing,” David said.

“Come on. You got a problem, you can tell ol’ Randy.”

David shot him a look. “You’re not someone I’d go to with my personal problems.”

Finley shrugged. “Have it your way. But I’ve got a big shoulder to cry on if you need it.”

David opened the door as the Lincoln came to a stop.

“First thing we gotta do is get the signs up,” Finley said. Before leaving the plant, he’d had posters made up that read FREE BOTTLED WATER to be plastered on the side of the trucks. “Just make sure they don’t put them over the logo.” By that he meant the Finley Springs Water markings on the sides of each of the panel vans.

“Sure,” David said, closing the door.

Finley muttered, “It’s so hard to get good help these days.”

He got out of his Lincoln and strolled up the street past his trucks. They’d been parked with half a car’s length between them so the back doors could be opened up and flats of water handed out from there.

As he was walking by the third truck, he saw Trevor swinging open the back doors.

“Not yet,” Finley told him.

“But I’m all set to-”

“Not yet,” he repeated. There were no news crews here yet. How much death and mayhem could they film at the hospital? There was another important part of the story happening right here.

“David!”

Harwood had been helping to put a sign on one of the trucks and taking questions from drivers of passing cars who were already slowing, powering down windows to ask if free water was really being handed out. He stopped what he was doing and ran over to Finley.

“How long’s it going to take for the press to show?” he asked.

“They’ll get here when they get here,” David said.

“Oh!” Finley shouted, pointing. “Look!”

A news van with an NBC logo emblazoned on the side was working its way up the street. “This is good, this is good,” Finley said. “National coverage.”

But the van didn’t slow, and went right past the convoy of trucks.

“What the fuck?” Finley said, turning on David. “Run after them!”

“They’re heading for the hospital,” he said. “Did you not hear anything I said to you before?”

Finley ignored him. A car had stopped and a woman who looked to be in her eighties was slowly getting out from behind the wheel.

“You have drinking water?” she asked.

“That’s right,” David said.

“Oh, please, could I get some?”

“Not yet!” Finley whispered. “There’s no one here!”

David got out his phone. “You do it. Get a case out of the back and give it to her. I’ll get pics.”

Finley gave that a second’s thought. “Okay, fine, that’ll have to do for now. But tweet it or Facebook it or whatever it is you do soon as you get the shot.” He put on a smile and strode toward the woman. “You bet we have water for you,” he said, opening the closest van’s rear door.