Мэтт Рихтел - Dead on Arrival

“A witching of a night,” Mayor Ron McCloud said. He added that he was praying for the sergeant, eight-year-veteran Leonard “Len” Parker.

Lyle saw plainly that the unusual night being described matched the date of his landing in Steamboat. He drifted over the article again and again and kept settling on the words electrical problems . He felt the liquor clouding his thoughts. His head lolled with exhaustion. He fought it and scrounged for his laptop.

He looked up Dr. Jennifer Sanchez, the darling of the infectious disease department. She had moved her office from Parnassus to Mission Bay, the new UCSF research headquarters. She had taken the title of associate dean. Just days earlier, he dismissed the idea of going to talk to her and now backtracked, considered it.

He next went looking for his former assistant at UCSF. Searching through various disciplines and using Emily as a keyword, he eventually found Emily Chase. That was her, his former assistant in his lecture class. That was someone he’d have no problem talking to; she’d always seen him for what he was, guileless, rather than cunning, in his less conventional tactics. Maybe she could help guide him through the department if he needed expertise, and maybe she could make sense of this text about a student he might’ve made reference to.

With blurry eyes, he pulled up Eleanor’s text. He put his fingers on the keyboard to respond and typed Let’s meet again and fell asleep before he hit send.

For two days, that was it. He slept and sat, and thought. Repeat. He ate there, too. He looked to be waiting. He looked in the direction of the refrigerator but his mind’s eye often went to Steamboat, the little of it he could recall. Little by little, his efforts gave way to images and reflections of Melanie. He dreamed about her.

When he could no longer take the company of the stench of his dead ardor, he took a shower. Long beneath the hot water he scrubbed. He shaved away the itchy stubble. He put on khakis and a clean T-shirt.

He emerged into the kitchen, walked to the refrigerator, and stared at the magnet where the note had been. Now the magnet once again held a note. Lyle glanced around the apartment. He saw no one, heard nothing. He walked to the refrigerator and read the note. It was the same piece of paper as before, but it was turned around and a new message had been written on the side opposite.

It read:

I’ve got yourback this time.

And there was a little red drawing of a heart.

Lyle carefully plucked the note and read it again, and again. The handwriting was neat, careful. As to meaning, Lyle couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Only briefly did he wonder if the note had been written by Eleanor. No way, he dismissed the idea. Equally briefly, he wondered if he, somehow, had written the note himself. Could he be truly losing his mind—truly?

In fact, the opposite was true. Lyle was completely about his wits. Through his inaction, he had prompted the note to be written, smoked out a move by an invisible adversary. He smiled sadly. On some level, it’s what he had wanted, hoped for, manipulated, even if he wasn’t fully conscious of his tactics. If only subconsciously, he’d sensed a pattern that entailed a foe, an enemy—his match?—trying to get his attention, and when he lay fallow, it provoked him. A car followed him, or a note disappeared, and then reappeared. Still, this reappearing note hardly qualified as a victory because Lyle didn’t exactly know what he would do with this new data point. He didn’t know if he could muster the energy to pursue the answers.

He had to look at his phone to discover the date, day, and time. It was a Tuesday in early December at 10:20 in the morning.

He pulled on a leather jacket and headed down the stairwell.

Mission Bay’s campus had exploded since he’d abandoned his life. High-rises had sprung up in clusters belonging to different medical specialties. A wide promenade ran to the water, bisecting the sprawling campus. Open space braced one side of the promenade and shops anchored the other. Lyle drained black coffee at a café and listened to researchers bitch and moan.

He found Dr. Sanchez’s office on the eleventh floor of the new Kartling Immunology Center, a modern building that, despite its large windows and curved middle, came across as boring, lacking creativity. Dr. Sanchez wasn’t in her office and Lyle didn’t leave his name with her assistant. He did pick up that she’d be back in an hour.

Thirty minutes later, he found Emily Chase, his former assistant, in the Neuroscience Department, a long block away. She was a postdoc now, which entitled her to a small, shared office with desks along opposite walls. She was alone when Lyle poked his head in. She practically leapt from her chair.

“Dr. Martin!”

He looked bewildered and she laughed. “I forgot: you never grasped how appreciative your fans are.”

He smiled and looked down and realized that his assistant had changed. Her tone now came across not as unctuous or adoring but, rather, as confident enough that she could speak freely and candidly. She was all grown up.

“What brings you in? Are you coming back? What are you up to, Dr. Martin? I get asked all the time.”

He waved his hand and said, “Long story.” Which was true. “I could use your help.”

“Of course.” She picked up his seriousness and adjusted. She sat in her swivel chair and gestured to a plastic black chair against the wall. “I’ve got a subject coming in fifteen minutes. You want to talk now or will it take longer?”

Lyle sat and explained with as little fanfare as he might that he needed to get a list of the students from his last survey class. Did she have something like that? She pursed her lips, thinking about it, and, Lyle figured, considering about whether to ask him why he needed such a thing. But, in the end, she didn’t. She pulled her chair up to her computer and she clacked about on the keys.

“Something like this is probably the best I can do without working through the administrative system, and, even then…”

He stood so he could peer over her shoulder. Her screen showed an old e-mail that she’d dug up. It was titled: Martin, Section II; Population List.

Lyle, looking at the screen, realized he’d been copied on the e-mail. Naturally, he’d not paid attention; no point in a survey class like this and the e-mail had been little more than a formality. Emily clicked open a spreadsheet. It included names, student ID numbers, and affiliation as med student, postdoc, fellow, or audit/other. Lyle looked for a tab that might indicate there were pictures, though he was not surprised to find no such thing.

“Can you print it out?”

“Of course.” She clicked the command. In the corner, a printer hummed to life.

Lyle sat back and looked glassy-eyed.

“The deep-in-thought look,” Emily said. She laughed.

“Sorry. Sorry. Congratulations. Neuroscience?”

“All the rage these days,” she said.

“What’s your area of research?”

“Attention, prefrontal cortex, with some emphasis on the default network. Gets granular from there.”

“Good for you,” Lyle said and meant it. He cleared his throat. “You know much about seizures, electrical activity, ion channels?”

She studied him. “Only in passing.”

The printer came to a stop. Lyle could see her desperate curiosity to understand his reappearance. There would be gossip.

He stood. “Thank you, Emily.”

At Dr. Sanchez’s door, he didn’t have a chance to consider a strategy. She’d already seen him. An instant of concern-colored surprise crossed her face as she stood beside her assistant’s desk holding an opened manila folder. She snapped the folder shut and quickly reoriented as the best politicians can do.