Dripping and grass-stained, Jody raced Vader back to the cabin. Patrice wiped her hands on a kitchen towel and came out to the porch to greet him.
“I told you he’d be okay,” she said.
Idiotically happy, Jody nodded and then stroked the dog.
Patrice bent over and ran her fingers through the black fur. The wedding ring, still on her finger, stood out among the dark strands. The black Lab had a difficult time standing still for her, shifting on all four paws and letting his tongue loll out. His tail wagged like an out-of-control rudder, rocking his body off balance on his four paws.
Other than mud spatters and a few cockleburrs, she found nothing amiss. No injuries, no wounds. Not a mark on him.
She patted the dog’s head, and Vader rolled his deep brown eyes up at her. With a shake of her head, she said, “I wish you could tell us stories.”
Hughart’s Family Veterinary Clinic Lincoln City, Oregon
Wednesday, 5:01 P.M.
As they approached the veterinary clinic in X the sleepy coastal town of Lincoln City, Scully could hear the barking dogs.
The building was a large old house that had been converted into a business. The aluminum siding was white, smudged with mildew; the wooden shutters looked as if they needed a coat of paint. The two agents climbed the concrete steps to the main entrance and pushed open a storm door.
On their way to tracking down David Kennessy’s survivalist brother, a report from this veterinarian’s office had caught Mulder’s attention. When Scully had requested a rush analysis of the strange fluid she had taken during the security guard’s autopsy, the CDC
had immediately recognized a distinct similarity to another sample—also submitted from rural Oregon.
Elliott Hughart had treated a dog, a black Labrador, who was also infected with the same substance.
Mulder had been intrigued by the coincidence. Now at least they had someplace to start looking.
In the front lobby, the veterinarian’s receptionist 90
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looked harried. Other patrons sat in folding chairs around the lobby beside pet carriers. Kittens wrestled in a cage. Dogs whined on their leashes. Posters warned of the hazards of heartworm, feline leukemia, and fleas, next to a magazine rack filled with months-old issues of
Time
,
CatFancy
, and
People
.
Mulder flashed his ID as he strode up to the receptionist. “I’m Agent Fox Mulder, Federal Bureau of Investigation. We’d like to see Dr. Hughart, please.”
“Do you have an appointment?” The information didn’t sink in for a few seconds, then the harried woman blinked at him. “Uh, the
FBI
?”
“We’re here to see him about a dog he treated two days ago,” Scully said. “He submitted a sample to the Centers for Disease Control.”
“I’ll get the doctor for you as soon as possible,”
she said. “I believe he’s performing a neutering operation at the moment. Would you like to go into the surgery room and wait?”
Mulder shuffled his feet. “We’ll stay out here, thanks.”
Three-quarters of an hour later, when Scully had a roaring headache from the noise and chaos of the dis-tressed animals, the old doctor came out. He blinked under bushy gray eyebrows, looking distracted but curious. The FBI agents were easy to spot in the waiting room.
“Please come back to my office,” the veterinarian said with a gesture to a small examining room. He closed the door.
A stainless-steel table filled the center of the room, and the smell of wet fur and disinfectants hung in the air. Cabinets containing thermometers and hypodermic needles for treatment of tapeworms, rabies, and distemper sat behind glass doors.
“Now, then,” Hughart said in a quiet, gentle voice, but obviously flustered. “I’ve never had to deal with the FBI before. How can I help you?”
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“You submitted a sample to the CDC yesterday from a black Labrador dog you treated,” Scully said.
“We’d like to ask you a few questions.”
Mulder held out a snapshot of Vader that they had taken from the family possessions at the ransacked Tigard home. “Can you identify the dog for us, sir? Is this the one you treated?”
Surprised, the veterinarian raised his eyebrows.
“That’s almost impossible to tell, just from a photograph like this. But the size and age look about right.
Could be the same animal.” The old veterinarian blinked. “Is this a criminal matter? Why is the FBI involved?”
Scully withdrew the photos of Patrice and Jody Kennessey. “We’re trying to find these two people, and we have reason to believe they are the dog’s owners.”
The doctor shook his head and shrugged. “They weren’t the ones who brought him in. The dog was hit by a car, brought in by a tourist. The man was real anxious to get out of here. Kids were crying in the back of the station wagon. It was late at night. But I treated the dog anyway, though there wasn’t much cause for hope.” He shook his head. “You can tell when they’re about to die. They know it. You can see it in their eyes. But this dog . . . very strange.”
“Strange in what way?” Scully asked.
“The dog was severely injured,” the old man said.
“Massive damage, broken ribs, shattered pelvis, crushed spine, ruptured internal organs. I didn’t expect him to live, and the dog was in a great deal of pain.” He distractedly wiped his fingers across the recently cleaned steel table, leaving fingerprint smears.
“I patched him up, but clearly there was no hope.
He was hot, his body temperature higher than any fever I’ve seen in an animal before. That’s why I took the blood sample. Never expected what I actually found, though.”
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Mulder’s eyebrows perked up. Scully looked at her partner, then back at the veterinarian. “With severe trauma from a car accident, I wouldn’t expect the temperature to rise,” she said. “Not if the dog was in shock and entering a coma state.”
The doctor nodded his head patiently. “Yes, that’s why I was so curious. I believe the animal had some sort of infection before the accident. Perhaps that’s why he was so disoriented and got struck by the car.”
Hughart looked deeply disturbed, almost embarrassed. “When I saw there was no hope, I gave the dog an injection of Euthanol—sodium pentabarbitol—to put him to sleep. Ten ccs, way more than enough for the body mass of a black Lab. It’s the only thing to do in cases like that, to put the animal out of its misery . . .
and this dog was in a world of misery.”
“Could we see the body of the dog?” Scully asked.
“No.” The veterinarian turned away. “I’m afraid that’s impossible.”
“Why?” Mulder asked.
Hughart looked at them from beneath his bushy gray eyebrows before glancing back down at his scrubbed-clean fingers. “I was working in the lab, studying the fresh blood sample, when I heard a noise.
I came in and found that the dog had jumped off the table. I swear its forelegs were broken, its rib cage crushed.”
Scully drew back, unable to believe what she was hearing. “And did you examine the dog?”
“I couldn’t.” Hughart shook his head. “When I tried to get to the dog, it barked at me, turned, then pushed its way through the door. I ran, but that black Lab bounded out into the night, as frisky as if he were just a puppy.”
Scully looked at Mulder with eyebrows raised.
The veterinarian seemed distracted by his own recollection. He scratched his hair in puzzlement. “I antibodies
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thought I saw a shadow disappearing toward the trees, but I couldn’t be sure. I called for it to come back, but that dog knew exactly where he wanted to go.”
Scully was astonished. “Are you suggesting that a dog struck by a car, as well as given an injection of concentrated sodium pentabarbitol . . . was somehow able to leap down from your operating table and run out the door?”
“Quite a lot of stamina,” Mulder said.
“Look,” the veterinarian said, “I don’t have an explanation, but it happened. I guess somehow the dog . . . wasn’t as injured after all. But I can’t believe I made a mistake like that. I spent hours searching the woods around here, the streets, the yards. I expected to find the body out in the parking lot or not far from here . . . but I saw nothing. There’ve been no reports either. People around here talk about unusual things like that.”
Scully changed the subject. “Do you still have the original blood sample from the dog? Could I take a look at it?”
“Sure,” the veterinarian said, as if glad for the opportunity to be vindicated. He led the two agents to a small laboratory area where he performed simple tests for worms or blood counts. On one countertop underneath low fluorescent lights stood a bulky stere-omicroscope.
Hughart pulled out a slide from a case where a dried smear of blood had turned brown under the cover slip. He inserted the slide under the lens, flicked on the lamp beneath it, and turned the knobs to adjust the lens. The old man stepped back and motioned for Scully to take a look.
“When I first glanced at it,” the veterinarian said,
“the blood was swarming with those tiny specks. I’ve never seen anything like it, and in my practice I’ve 94
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encountered plenty of blood-borne parasites in animals. Nematodes, amoebas, other kinds of pests. But these . . . these were so unusual. That’s why I sent the sample to the CDC.”
“And they called us.” Scully looked down and saw the dog’s blood cells, as well as numerous little glints that seemed too angular, too geometrical, unlike any other microorganism she had ever seen.
“When they were moving and alive, those things looked almost . . . I can’t describe it,” the old vet said.
“They’ve all stopped now, hibernating somehow. Or dead.”
Scully studied the specks and could not understand them either. Mulder waited patiently at her side, and she finally let him take a look. He looked at her knowingly.
Scully turned to the veterinarian. “Thank you for your time, Dr. Hughart. We may be back in touch. If you find any information on the location of the dog or its owners, please contact us.”
“But what is this?” the doctor asked, following as Scully led Mulder toward the door. “And what prompted an FBI follow-up?”
“It’s a missing persons case,” Mulder said, “and there’s some urgency.”
The two agents made their way out through the reception area, where they encountered a different assortment of cats and dogs and cages. Several of the examining room doors were closed, and strange sounds came from behind them.
The veterinarian seemed reluctant to get back to his routine chaos of yowling animals, lingering in the door to watch them go down the steps.
Mulder held his comments until they had climbed back in the car, ready to drive off again. “Scully, I think the Kennessys were doing some very unorthodox research at DyMar Lab.”
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“I admit, it’s some kind of strange infection, Mulder, but that doesn’t mean—”
“Think about it, Scully.” His eyes gleamed. “If DyMar developed some sort of amazing regenerative treatment, David might well have tested it on the pet dog.” Scully bit her lip. “With his son’s condition, he would have been desperate enough for just about anything.”
She slumped into the seat and buckled her seatbelt.
“But, Mulder, what kind of treatment could heal a dog from disastrous injuries after a car accident, then neu-tralize the effects of sodium pentabarbitol designed to put the dog to sleep?”
“Maybe something in the combined expertise of Darin and David Kennessy,” Mulder said, and started the car.
She unfolded the state highway map, looking for the next stopping point on their search: the vicinity where Darin Kennessy had gone into hiding. “But, Mulder, if they really developed such a . . . miracle cure, why would Darin have abandoned the research?
Why would someone want to blow up the lab and destroy all the records?”
Mulder eased out of the parking lot and waited as a string of RVs drove along the Coast Highway, before he turned right and followed the road through the small picturesque town. He thought of the dead security guard, the rampant and unexplained growths, the slime. “Maybe all of DyMar’s samples weren’t so successful. Maybe something much worse got loose.”
Scully looked at the road ahead. “We’ve got to find that dog, Mulder.”
Without answering, he accelerated the car.
Mercy Hospital Morgue
Portland, Oregon
Thursday, 2:04 A.M.
Some people might have thought being X alone in a morgue late at night would be frightening—or at least cause for some uneasiness. But Edmund found the silent and dimly lit hospital the best place to study.
He had hours of quiet solitude, and he had his medical books, as well as popularized versions of true crime and coroner’s work.
Someday he hoped to get into medical school himself and study forensic medicine. The subject fascinated him. Eventually, if he worked hard, he might become at least a first or second assistant to the county medical examiner, Frank Quinton. That was the highest goal Edmund thought he could reach.
Studying was somewhat hard for him, and he knew that medical school would be an enormous challenge. That was why he hoped to learn as much as he could on his own, looking at the pictures and diagrams, boning up on the details before he got a chance to enter college.
After all, Abraham Lincoln had been a self-antibodies
97
educated man, hadn’t he? Nothing wrong with it, no way, no how. And Edmund had the time and the concentration and the ambition to learn as much as he could.
Fluorescent lights shone in white pools around him on the clean tile floor, the white walls. The steel and chrome gleamed. The air vents made a sound like the soft breath of a peacefully sleeping man. The hospital corridors were silent. No intercom, no elevator bell, no footsteps from crepe-soled shoes walking down the halls.
He was all alone down here in the morgue on the night shift—and he liked it that way.
Edmund flipped pages in one of his medical texts, refreshing his memory as to the difference between a
perforating
and a
penetrating
wound. In a penetrating wound, the bullet simply passed into the body and remained there, while in a perforating wound, the bullet plowed through the other side, usually tearing out a larger chunk of flesh in the exit wound, as opposed to the neat round entry hole.