the Devil's Workshop (1999) (6 page)

"Right this way, ma'am." They led her through a door and down an overlit corridor. One or two corridor doors she passed had small windows in them, and she could see telecommunications and satellite TV rooms that connected Fort Detrick with bases all over the world. Finally she was led through a door that was marked "SATELLITE UPLINK SITUATION ROOM" into a huge, high-ceilinged area the size of half a basketball court. In the center was a wooden table. Around the table were six wooden chairs. Otherwise, the room was completely empty.

"Where is the bathroom, please?" she repeated.

"If you'll wait, I'll tell the skipper you're here," Naval Captain Wilcox said, and then he and Captain Carpenter left her alone in the huge, windowless space.

Aside from a nervous and growing need to piss, she was beginning to feel vaguely frightened and alone. She fought a round of nausea and fear. "Don't leave me, Maxie," she said softly to the spirit of her dead husband.

She didn't know how long the bastards kept her waiting because the battery in her watch was running down and the drugstore timepiece was slowing badly. If the wait was supposed to intimidate her and make her pliable, it had just the opposite effect. She was spitting mad when the door finally opened and a large, lumbering man walked into the room wearing a Rear Admiral's two stars. He had gold wings pinned on his tan Class C uniform and under the wings were at least six rows of combat and campaign ribbons, along with four or five C
. I. B
. decorations, which Stacy knew from being an Army brat were Combat Infantryman Badges. The C
. I. B. S
indicated that he had been under fire in several ground combat zones, which she thought was unusual for a Naval officer. Wardrobe aside, Rear Admiral James G. Zoll was a huge John Wayne
-
sized man with grizzled forearms and a raptoresque jawline. He moved into the room, flanked by his two pet Captains and trailed by Army Colonel Laurence Chittick. He stopped a few strides from Stacy and looked down at her. She came to about his breastbone. Colonel Chittick moved forward and made the introductions.

"Admiral James G. Zoll, this is Max Richardson's widow, Stacy Richardson."

The Admiral put out his hand, and, after a second's hesitation, she shook it.

"Shall we sit?" Admiral Zoll said.

"You kept me waiting for almost forty minutes. I'd like to use the facilities," she said.

"I have a limited amount of time," the Admiral replied. "If you could wait, I would appreciate it." He sat, indicating the meeting had begun.

Stacy also sat at the table. She found herself flanked by the two Captains. Admiral Zoll and Colonel Chittick were directly across the rectangular wood table from her.

"To begin with, I've been briefed on your meeting with Colonel Chittick yesterday and I regret, very deeply, some of what was said." His voice was gravelly and deep, a commanding voice used to giving orders and getting its own way.

"That's nice of you," Stacy said, coolly.

"I know you are distraught, and I know you think something strange happened regarding the cremation, or even the death of your husband. However, it is an incontrovertible fact that your husband stated on his medical form that he desired cremation in the event of death. It is also a fact that he shot himself with a shotgun that he purchased in town, two weeks ago, at the Rod and Gun sporting goods store, and picked up after the waiting period last Tuesday. The Provost Marshal here on the base has all of the documentation dealing with his purchase of the weapon, along with two boxes of twelve-gauge, double-aught shotgun shells."

"So then, just what part of yesterday's meeting with Colonel Chittick is it that you're regretting so deeply?" Stacy said, holding his steady gaze.

Admiral Zoll was accustomed to being in charge. He didn't have much use for cheeky repartee, and she could see him bristle slightly at her remark. "I do not believe that your husband was using drugs," Admiral Zoll said in his sandpaper voice.

"Oh, that. Well, of course that was bullshit."

"I am also not accustomed to hearing women use truck-stop language."

"And I'm not accustomed to having people accuse my husband of being a junkie or being told he was depressed and moody. To remind you, Admiral, he was the Dean of the USC Microbiology Department. An honor not usually given to moody, unstable people. Colonel Chittick said that several of his colleagues had written complaints about Max's behavior. I'd like to see those complaints and talk to the people who wrote them."

"For what purpose?" Admiral Zoll asked, taking a deep breath and then letting it out slowly.

"Let's suppose, Admiral, that you had just blown your head off sitting in a kitchen chair in your backyard."

"That is not something I'll ever have to worry about."

"Neither did Max. But let us suppose it happened to you anyway, surprising your wife, who knows you'd never solve your problems that way. Then let's suppose that, despite all those fancy decorations you so proudly wear on your chest, and despite a career of military excellence, some unnamed people who claimed to have worked with you suggest that you were irrational, with wild mood swings. That you were depressed and, of all things, a drug user. Wouldn't you expect somebody who loved you, your wife for instance, to come forward and demand that your memory be correctly preserved? And if you say no, then you're a goddamn liar."

She watched a line of red climb Admiral Zoll's neck and spread across his face. He didn't look at Colonel Chittick, or the two Naval Captains. His eyes were locked on Stacy. "You might do well, young lady, to curtail your attitude. I do not appreciate it, and it gets you nowhere."

"Well, Admiral, since I'm not in the military and not under your command, I'll adjust my attitude to fit my feelings, not yours. And right now, I'm one very mad widow who couldn't give less of a shit how you feel about it."

"And just what do you want us to do?" he said, containing his rage at some cost to his military posture.

"I want you to admit that he didn't commit suicide, because he didn't."

"And you can prove it?"

"Beyond a shadow... no, make that beyond a scintilla of a doubt."

"I see. And just how would you do that?"

"You don't want to know, and I would very much like to use the bathroom," she said, starting to rise.

"You sit right where you are, Mrs. Richardson! I want to know what the hell you're talking about."

One of the Captains put a hand on her shoulder and pushed her gently back down into her chair. She glowered at him, then turned back to the Admiral.

"I'm saying that he didn't commit suicide and I can prove it!"

"How are you going to prove it?" the Admiral asked.

"I need to use the bathroom."

"You're not going anywhere until we get this sorted out."

"You mean you are refusing to let me go to the bathroom?" she asked, the disbelief and sarcasm heavy in her tone.

"How are you going to prove something that isn't true?" Admiral Zoll repeated.

"I read Max's autopsy report."

Admiral Zoll shot a questioning look at Colonel Chittick, who shrugged.

Zoll nodded at the two Captains and Colonel Chittick. They all got up ftom the table and moved out of the room, leaving the Admiral and Stacy alone.

"I must use the facilities."

"How did you get a copy of the autopsy report?"

"None of your business, but I've got it."

"So what? It says he shot himself in the head. End of story."

"It's not the end. It's the beginning. The end of the story makes no damn sense at all."

The door opened and Captain Wilcox had a cellphone in his hand; he motioned to Admiral Zoll, who got up and moved out of the huge room. Again, Stacy was alone. She was cursing herself that she hadn't used the bathroom before she left. She had been so angry she had flown out the door when the cab arrived. Now all she could think about was urinating. She needed to keep her mind off that and on her adversaries, so she got out of her chair and, while she was alone in the room, she removed her panties and quickly squatted by her chair. Hiding as best she could behind the table, she urinated on the floor, then moved the table over to cover it.

Ten or fifteen more minutes passed. She estimated that she had been at Fort Detrick for almost an hour, maybe an hour and a half. With no windows and a broken watch, it was impossible to judge.

Then the door opened and Admiral Zoll, the two Captains, and Colonel Chittick returned to the room and again sat down. All o
f t
hem unwittingly placed their shiny shoes under the table in Stacy's urine, which had puddled there.

"Okay," the Admiral said, "we just verified that somebody probably snuck into our primate lab and stole a classified document. I'm sure you found it very interesting, but you'd need advanced medical training to understand the intricacies of an M
. E
.'s death report. You undoubtedly misunderstood what you were reading. It is military property and we demand it back."

"Your own autopsy says that the shotgun blast obliterated the palatoglossal arch and moved upward, destroying everything from the soft palate uvula to the sphenoid sinus. Those two membranes, by the way, are in the back of the mouth roughly at the veli palatine muscle."

Admiral Zoll now looked at the two Captains, who had their eyes on Stacy.

"I can read a medical report," she clarified. "I'm less than two weeks from my doctorate in microbiology at USC." Admiral Zoll and the other officers now traded surprised looks.

"If that's what it says, then okay, that's what it says," Admiral Zoll replied.

"What it also says is, the pattern of buckshot continued up, expanding and destroying everything in its path, including the brain stem. The exact word the report used was 'obliterated' the brain stem. Then the pattern passed into the cerebellum, exiting out the back of his head near the crown."

"Where is this going?" Admiral Zoll asked.

"The autopsy also stated that in the middle region of the left lung, in the anterior region, and in the basal quadrant of the right lung, he had substantial quantities of aspirated blood."

The Admiral looked over at Colonel Chittick. Zoll wasn't a doctor, Colonel Chittick was.

"He inhaled blood before he died, sir," Colonel Chittick clarified, but already he could see where she was going and was getting pale.

"So what?" Zoll snorted. "So he blew his head off and inhaled the blood from the wound before he died. What the hell does that prove?"

"Can't happen," she said. "It's a medical impossibility. What I think happened was somebody beat him up, for what reason I don't know yet, maybe to find out what he knew. During this beating, he inhaled the blood that was in his mouth. At this point, he was still alive. Then somebody shot him in the mouth to hide the extensive damage the beating caused. Because Max knew something he shouldn't have, they needed him dead to get him out of the way."

"Of course that's ridiculous, and I don't see why it couldn't happen my way," the Admiral said.

"Sir," Colonel Chittick said, but the Admiral held up his hand for silence, glaring at Stacy.

"The brain stem was gone, Admiral, obliterated." She continued, "The brain stem controls the breathing reflex. Without it, he couldn't inhale. It is impossible that blood was inhaled into his lungs after he was shot. It had to happen before ... making your whole theory on Max's death a lie."

There was a long silence in the room.

Now there was something new in Admiral Zoll's eyes. The killer look that had once defined him as a pilot in Vietnam. He flew Intruders off the deck of the Kitty Hawk. One afternoon in '72, seven Chinese MiGs jumped him. Young Lieutenant James Zoll became an ace in less than three minutes, splashing five MiGs in the ocean before flying his mortally wounded Intruder at a sixth, ejecting scant moments before impact. He'd been fished out of the drink two hours later. His fellow pilots and shipmates had done something that almost never happened; they changed his call sign from "Hacksaw" to "Crazy Ace." It had followed him throughout his career, and after he reached Admiral, it had been his nickname, behind his back.

"Just what are you suggesting?" Admiral Zoll asked, after taking several moments to consider.

"I'm suggesting he was murdered," Stacy replied, holding his gaze across the wooden table. "And I think you know why."

Then his manner changed abruptly. "Just who the fuck do you think you're talking to?" he said, rising out of his chair and leaning across the table at her.

"I guess, under the right circumstances, even an Admiral will use a little truck-stop language," she said.

"You have the fucking audacity to sit there and say somebody on this base murdered your husband. Okay, so you can read an autopsy finding, big deal. But you can't say without a shadow of a doubt what happened. It's just your opinion. You can't say your husband was murdered!"

"Yes, Admiral, I can! And unless you're planning on doing the same thing to me that you did to him, which would really be tough for the police in this county to swallow, then you've got yourself a giant-sized problem, 'cause I'm gonna keep digging until I find out what got Max killed."