Natural Causes (48 page)

There was the hum of machinery coming from the buildings that Matt assumed housed the Herbal Weight Loss factory. But there was no one in sight, either there or at the farmhouse. From the woods to the wing of the farmhouse was no more than twenty feet, and from there to the Jag fifteen more. It seemed quite possible to reach the car unseen. If it was unlocked, he would take a crack at finding the radio detonation device. Failing that, he would take as much of a look around as he could manage and then slip back out the way he had come. Even if he failed to uncover anything to connect Ettinger with the death of Colin Smith, there was always the chance that the attendant at the yacht club parking lot would have seen and remembered the Jaguar, or possibly even Ettinger himself.

Staying low and just within the tree line, he crept to the rear of the farmhouse and flattened himself against the wall. Next he worked his way to the corner of the building and was gauging the distance to the Jag when he heard sirens approaching from the direction of the main entrance. He pushed back into the shadows. Not thirty seconds later two cruisers, their sirens now cut, sped up to the farmhouse and stopped on either side of Ettinger’s car. Two officers stayed by the Jag, while two others raced to the front door of the farmhouse. One of them had withdrawn his service revolver. Matt inched back into the woods and nestled into concealment in a shallow swale. Several minutes passed. Matt tried desperately to imagine what might be happening inside the farmhouse. He strained to make out the exchange between the two remaining policemen. They were close enough to him, but with one seated in the cruiser, and the other facing away, their conversation was muffled.

Finally the door to the farmhouse opened, and the two officers emerged, one on either side of a clearly agitated Peter Ettinger. Ettinger’s hands were manacled behind him.

“I was there. I admit that,” Matt heard Ettinger protest. “But dammit, I didn’t do anything! Colin Smith called and told me to meet him at the yacht club. At least he said he was Smith.…”

“Remember, Mr. Ettinger,” one of the officers said. “Like I told you inside. Anything you say may be used against you in court. Now, is this the car you were driving?”

“Yes, of course it is.”

“And these are the keys you just gave me?”

“Yes, yes. Now go ahead and open it, dammit. There’s nothing in there.”

Totally bewildered, Matt scrunched even deeper into the leaf-covered gully.
How could the police have gotten here so quickly?
Ettinger
was
a national celebrity, and
the Jag hardly an inconspicuous car. Perhaps the lot attendant or someone else at the club had recognized him.

“Got it,” the officer searching the car said after just a minute or so. “Under the front seat.” He held up by its edges what was clearly a radio control box. “Someone get me an evidence bag, will you? Mr. Ettinger, do you really think we’re that dumb?”

Ettinger, suddenly stoop-shouldered and almost limp, gazed from the policeman to the control box and back. Even at some distance, Matt could see the filmy confusion in his eyes.

“I want to call my lawyer,” he said.

“From the station, Mr. Ettinger.”

Ettinger was helped into the screen-enclosed back of one of the cruisers. The slam of the door echoed in the still afternoon. Matt waited until well after the cruisers had disappeared before he worked his way over to the factory. He assumed there were security people about someplace. But without Ettinger around to identify him, he could be a bit more brazen. Some sort of inspector, perhaps.
Yes
, he thought as he backed against the wall of the smallest of the factory buildings. Better not to get caught. But if he did, a health inspector story should work.

There was a small anteroom near where the Huron truck was parked. Matt glanced around for the driver, and then rolled along the wall and peered in the window. The space was empty save for two freezers, both top-opening. Each had
Huron Pharmaceuticals
painted across the front, in letters identical to those on the truck. Neither appeared locked.

A final check around him, and Matt slipped inside. The half-glassed door from the anteroom to the main building was closed. Through it, Matt could see twenty or more women, each at a work station, filling shipping boxes with what he assumed were the components of the Ayurvedic Herbal Weight Loss System. He backed
away from the door and moved to the freezer that was out of the line of sight of any of the women.
KEEP VITAMINS FROZEN UNTIL SHIPMENT
was stenciled on the lid. Carefully he twisted the handle to one side and eased up the heavy lid. The fitted rack, containing sheets of vitamin capsules, completely filled the space just beneath the lid. Matt studied the sheets for a moment. They were identical to those Sarah had received from Annalee Ettinger. Each contained ninety capsules—a three-month supply. He was about to lower the freezer lid when, for no particular reason, he lifted one of the racks.

The body beneath it, a man’s, lay serenely on its back. Eyes open, it was staring sightlessly up at Matt. It was dressed in a dark business suit and red silk tie, and fit into the freezer with no more than an inch or two to spare at each end. Its hands and bronze, mustached face were covered by a thin film of rime. But Matt had no difficulty recognizing the man. He had seen him a number of times on videotape and had wondered about him often over recent weeks.

Pramod Singh, the X-factor in the Ayurvedic puzzle, was a factor no more.

Suddenly queasy, Matt lowered the freezer lid and wiped off the handle with his jacket. Then he slipped out the back door and braced himself against the building, breathing deeply and deliberately, fighting the vision and the nausea. Sarah nearly murdered. Colin Smith and Pramod Singh dead. Peter Ettinger either guilty of killing them or, more likely, set up to look guilty. Someone was tying up loose ends in a hurry. Someone was panicking.

Relax
, Matt said to himself.
Just get the hell out of here and back to Sarah
.

He sensed the presence behind him an instant before he saw the shadow on the wall—the shadow of an arm, slashing downward toward his head. He began to react,
but way, way too late. An object, heavy and unyielding, slammed onto a spot just behind his right ear. His teeth snapped together as paralyzing pain exploded through his head and into his neck. The last thing he saw was the ground, careening up toward his face.

R
OSA
S
UAREZ HAD JUST PASSED THE
G
LOUCESTER ROTARY
at the end of Route 128 when the Medical Center’s ancient Chevy wagon began handling strangely. She sped up, wondering if perhaps she had snagged a branch. But the problem only worsened. Cursing softly in Spanish, she pulled over. As things were, she had gotten off to a much later start than she had wanted. If Martha Fezler closed her shop early for any reason, the day, and possibly the whole weekend, would be lost. She carefully folded the map that was spread open on the passenger seat and slid across. Chastising herself for not renting instead of borrowing the wagon, she stepped out onto the soft shoulder and into the hazy midafternoon glare. The problem, it was immediately apparent, was the right rear tire, which was shredded and hanging off the rim in spots.

Rosa had never in her life changed a tire. She opened the rear door and located the jack and the spare. Then she retrieved the owner’s manual from beneath a stack of repair receipts in the glove compartment. If the procedure
seemed clear to her, she decided, she would give it a try. If not, she would risk flagging someone down.

She returned to the rear of the wagon, engrossed in the instruction manual.

“Hi.”

The man’s greeting startled her so, she dropped the instruction book.

He was standing a few feet away, arms folded, grinning kindly. He was in his late twenties, Rosa guessed, with a fine, handsome face and wire-rimmed glasses. He wore a woolen seaman’s cap and a dark windbreaker. His car was parked twenty or so feet behind hers, its hazard lights flashing.

“Sorry if I frightened you,” he said. “I just stopped to see if you needed a hand.”

Rosa took a calming breath, assured herself that her heart was still beating, and retrieved the manual.

“Oh, my,” she said, patting her chest. “You did startle me, yes. But I thank you for stopping. It’s very kind of you. As a matter of fact, if I change this tire myself, it will be a first for me.”

“I’d be happy to do it for you.”

The man came forward and pulled out the jack and spare. He walked with a fairly marked limp, caused by his left leg, which seemed not to bend at the knee at all. She hoped the problem was nothing permanent.

“An old college football injury,” he said, setting the jack in place. “I often wish I could have that moment back.”

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry. I didn’t mean to be staring.”

“You weren’t, really. It’s just that I notice things. Except that I didn’t notice that linebacker. If I had dodged to the left instead of to the right, who knows where my life might have gone? You heading into Gloucester?”

“As a matter of fact, I am. Are you from there?”

“Temporarily. I’m a biologist with the Department of Marine Fisheries. We’re doing a lobster project up here.”

“How interesting. I’m a scientist with the government,
too. An epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control.”

“Atlanta’s a nice place,” he said. “Although a little hot for my taste. One hint in changing a tire is always to loosen the lugs before you jack up the car. It makes everything much easier and safer. Where’re you headed in Gloucester?”

“A place called Fezler Marine.”

“Never heard of it.”

The man took off his cap and wiped his brow with the back of his hand. His hair was the color of the sun. He had all the physical attributes of a movie star or a model, Rosa noted. Yet here he was, a highly educated scientist. She was impressed.

“It’s on Breen Street,” she added.

“Never heard of that either,” he said, jiggling the spare into place and spinning the lugs back on. “Maybe I should pay more attention to where I’m living.”

“I suspect you have more important things on your mind. I’d like to pay you for helping me. I’m very—”

“Nonsense. I could use a cup of coffee, though, if you’d like.”

“I’m sorry. I would very much like to learn about your work. But I really must get going. I’m terribly late.”

“Hey, no problem. My name’s Darryl. It’s been a pleasure.”

“Rosa,” she said. “Thank you so much.”

The man smiled warmly, shook her hand, and then hobbled back to his car and drove off. Rosa glanced at her watch. Fifteen minutes was all it had taken.

“Díos hace las cosas,”
she said as she slid back behind the wheel, and headed into Gloucester.
God provides
.

Two sets of service station directions and two missed turns later, Rosa found Breen Street. It was tucked among a tangle of narrow waterfront byways that were paved, but were probably still laid out exactly as they
were when the Revolutionary War began. Fezler’s Marine Railway and Automotive was a huge, decaying, shingled barn, flanked by two equally dilapidated wooden warehouses. The whole area seemed like a tinderbox—a conflagration just waiting to happen. Rosa drove nearly two blocks away before she found a street wide enough for parking.

Both of the large street-side doors, and a smaller entrance just around the corner of the building, were closed. Rosa knocked once, waited, knocked again, waited, and finally entered, shutting the door behind her. It was as if she had taken a step back in time.

The inside of Fezler’s Marine Railway was as cluttered and dimly lit as it was spacious. Tools, some fairly modern, many antique, filled the barnside walls. Lines and chains and hauling blocks of various sizes hung everywhere. The atmosphere was heavy with the pungent odor of oil, grease, and gasoline. To one side of the shop was a large rolltop desk, cluttered with invoices, magazines, and catalogs. Above the rolltop was the same calendar Rosa had seen in Elsie Richardson’s bedroom. From somewhere on the far side of the shop, classical music was playing.
Almost certainly Mozart
, Rosa thought.

“Hello?” she called out.

No one responded. There was an enclosed loft on the water side, accessed by an open staircase that climbed up one wall. Rosa glanced upward at the moment someone closed the door at the top of the stairs.

“Hello,” she called again. “Is anyone here?”

“In the back,” a gravelly voice hollered.

Rosa followed the voice toward the music and the water. The huge doors at the rear of the building were open to the harbor. A set of steel rails rose up from the water, cut through an opening in a narrow platform, and leveled off on the floor of the shop. Two feet above the tracks hung a large marine engine. It was suspended perhaps thirty feet from the ceiling by a complicated series
of pulleys and lines. Standing beside the engine, working on it, was a woman. She was not impressively tall, but she was physically imposing in almost every other respect.
Big
was the only word that came to Rosa’s mind. Not fat. Not even heavy—although she most certainly was that. Just
big
. Her broad shoulders and back splayed the straps of her grease-stained bib overalls. The sleeves of her black T-shirt were stretched to the limit by her arms. Her hair, beneath a Mobil cap, was tied back in a short ponytail.

“Welcome,” she said. She glanced up at Rosa just long enough to size her up and then returned her attention to the engine.

“I’m looking for Martha Fezler,” Rosa said.

“You found her.” She loosened several bolts and dropped them into a coffee can half filled with an acrid-smelling liquid. “Fezler’s famous degreaser,” she explained. “Gasoline, boric acid, and just the right amount of saliva.” She looked up at Rosa again, smiled mischievously, and winked. “The boom box is over there by the stairs. Feel free to turn it down if you want me to hear what you have to say.”

Rosa did as the woman requested. When she returned, Martha Fezler had taken hold of a heavy, oil-stained line and was hoisting the massive engine up over her head.