Rachel Lee - Something Deadly

To Markie’s way of thinking, anyone who could handle two hundred pounds of slobbering dog was special. Someone who loved them enough to breed them, and love each of them as her own child, was a rare gift. To adopt one of Dawn’s mastiffs required a background check that would have put the FBI to shame.

Today her patient was Brindle Castlereagh, a champion female who was into late pregnancy. Brinnie, as Dawn called her, had gone into heat out of season. The result was going to be a litter that couldn’t be registered, because the sire couldn’t be identified. That didn’t faze Dawn; she was caring for this litter as carefully as all the rest.

“Isn’t it horrible about Carter Shippey?” Dawn asked as Markie palpated Brinnie’s belly, identifying two healthy and vigorous pups.

“Soon now,” she told Dawn. “Any day, in fact.”

“I thought so.”

“And yes, it’s terrible about Mr. Shippey.”

“He was only sixty-three.”

Markie nodded. “He wasn’t all that old.”

“No. To tell you the truth,” Dawn said, her voice dropping, “it put me into a tailspin about Tim. He works so hard at his fishing business, and lately he’s not even having time to play tennis or golf….”

Markie patted Brinnie’s shoulder, then turned toward Dawn. “Tim’s a lot younger and very healthy. You know that.”

“So was Carter, I thought.” Dawn shook her head. “Not that I really knew him all that well. I understand he was quite the character in his younger years, when he owned the boat.”

“So I’m told,” Markie said. She had only known Carter Shippey as a somewhat grizzled old sailor who loved his dog more than life itself. He’d sold the boat and retired just after she’d come to Santz Martina. “I didn’t know him well, either.”

“But I know his wife, Marilyn, from my work at the school. She teaches English, you know. A wonderful woman. She and Carter had such plans….” Dawn’s voice trailed off. “Well.” She visibly gathered herself.

Markie straightened and sat in the chair next to Dawn’s. Brinnie, sensing Dawn’s discomfort, gave her owner a sloppy kiss. Dawn managed a chuckle.

“I’m worrying for no reason,” she said. “Sometimes people die young. But most don’t, right?”

“Right,” Markie said. “But when it’s someone near our own age, it makes us really uneasy.”

“Yeah. I think I’ll go home and make Tim a key lime pie. He loves my pies. When we first got married, he was always so tickled when I’d bake one. I haven’t done that for him in years now.”

“That sounds like a wonderful idea.”

“Yeah, it does.” Dawn was suddenly smiling again. “I’ll call you when Brinnie decides to whelp, then.”

“Yes, do. I want to be there.” Mastiffs sometimes had trouble giving birth, and none of Dawn’s ever whelped without a vet present. Markie loved the opportunity to be there; most dog owners didn’t bother, and nearly everyone on the island had their pets neutered anyway. Seeing puppies born was becoming something of a treat for her.

After Dawn left, Markie noticed that Kato had vanished from the back rooms of the clinic, no doubt gone to his cool retreat in the farthest reaches of the kennel. The reason was soon evident, as Markie discovered that her next three patients were cats.

Kato took after his husky forebears in his dislike for cats. At least he merely disdained them and didn’t look upon them as part of the food chain, as many huskies did. The cats, of course, weren’t insulted. They disdained him as the lower order creature he clearly was.

Once the cats were gone, and the iguana and the rabbit arrived, Kato reappeared, licking the rabbit comfortingly and regarding the iguana with sympathy as Markie cleaned and patched a festering wound in its side.

The day passed as so many others before it had, with only two differences: Declan Quinn popped into her mind dozens of times, and by the end of the day she was wishing she had invited him in for coffee last night. And she couldn’t shake the memory of Kato’s low, mournful howl.

“I am not going to quarantine this island,” Stan Freshik told Declan on the phone. He was the chief of the emergency management team, a good man who was used to dealing with hurricanes, not diseases. He had plenty of excellent evacuation plans, but no quarantine options. Such an eventuality had never been considered. “Do you have any idea what kind of panic that will cause?”

“It’s going to cause a panic anyway,” Declan told him flatly. “I can’t keep this a secret. That would be criminal. And CDC is already sending a biohazard response team. If you won’t shut us down, they will.”

“Jesus, Dec. You don’t even know what this is. You can’t say for sure it’s contagious.”

“But I can’t say for sure that it isn’t. I can’t even tell you how long its incubation period is, if it is contagious. I wish I could. But my point is, there’s going to be panic whether you declare a quarantine or CDC does. My advice to you is to get some planning underway and take the first steps, because you might be able to minimize the public response if you start right away. Because once CDC gets here, the shit is going to hit the fan.”

Stan’s sigh was both irritated and impatient. “God damn it!”

“That’s not going to help anything,” Dec reminded him. He was looking through the window at the cooler where the body was once more stashed. “You know I have the authority. I’m the chief medical officer on this island. Consider this a heads-up. CDC will be here by five.”

“By five? My God, that’s not any time at all.”

“Exactly.” Dec glanced at the clock on the wall. “Seven hours. I suggest you shut down the airport first. If you don’t call the Coast Guard, I will.”

“If this isn’t contagious…”

“Then you can have my head on a platter. Stan…” Declan hesitated. Finally he said, “I’m scared, too. But we have to do the responsible thing.”

When he hung up, assured that Stan would do what was necessary, Declan continued to stare into the autopsy theater. Because he had already had two unprotected exposures to Shippey’s body, he had canceled all his appointments for the day, not wanting to risk infecting a patient.

It was sort of like sitting on death row, he thought sourly. Trapped here with that body, basically. He’d already sent Hal home, with strict orders to stay there. At least Hal didn’t have a family.

But there were others who’d already been exposed: Carter Shippey’s wife, certainly. The cops, the crime scene team and all of Carter’s friends and family.

He could, he supposed, judge himself to be no more contagious than anyone else. But he was. Decon suit notwithstanding, from the instant he had cut into the body, this entire morgue had become a death zone. An airborne virus couldn’t be contained by a mere door.

The morgue had its own air circulation system because of the highly contagious diseases that were sometimes autopsied here, so whatever it was shouldn’t spread beyond the morgue very fast, especially since a slightly lower atmospheric pressure was maintained in here. Nothing was too good or too expensive for the wealthy.

But this wasn’t a maximum security biocontainment facility. It was state of the art for the routine types of contagion that were expected, but it was not proof against the worst that Mother Nature could offer.

Declan had never had any desire to be on the cutting edge of research. Doctoring people had been his highest ambition. It gave him no pleasure at all to consider that he might have discovered a brand-new disease.

Happiness filled Kato when the day was over and he and Markie began their evening walk home. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy being at the clinic. Being so near to other animals, especially dogs, filled him with joy, even when they hurt and needed his attention. But today there had been too many cats.