Something Deadly

“I would have expected that.” Joe yawned again. “Between you, me and the fence post? This isn’t going to be an easy solve.”

“Do you have to sound so damn happy about it?”

Joe laughed. “Admit you’re intrigued, doctor.”

Declan was. But he wasn’t happy to admit it. Not at all.

Tim Roth wasn’t happy, either. He’d cornered Steve Chase on the way out of the hospital.

“Let’s take a drive,” he’d said, his hand tightening on the man’s forearm.

They’d climbed in his Land Rover and wound their way up into the hills, where he pulled off onto the shoulder. To their right, six hundred feet below, a white beach was empty despite the picture-perfect teal expanse of the Caribbean. To their left, a handful of blackened, chiseled stones fought a losing battle with the underbrush. They were the sole remains of a plantation house that had been burned to the ground two hundred years before.

“Why here?” Steve asked, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “Why here, of all places?”

“You need to calm down,” Tim said. “Quinn had his eyes on you. You’re a public figure.”

“Declan Quinn is my doctor,” Steve said. “If he was concerned, it was strictly medical.”

“Maybe. Probably. But we don’t need the attention.” Tim pointed to the ruins. “It’s rubble, Steve. Dust and ash, just like she is.”

Steve’s chin set. “Carter Shippey said he saw her. Carter wasn’t the type to make up stories.”

Tim hesitated, then met his gaze. “Carter was a fisherman. He’d spent his life at sea. Tall tales are as much a part of a sailor’s life as salt spray.”

“You’re a fisherman.”

“I’m a businessman,” Tim countered. “I send rich people out for day trips with a bottle of champagne, a case of beer and the hope that they’ll catch a marlin to hang on a wall. The sea isn’t a mystery. It’s a cash cow.”

He paused for a moment. “And Annie Black isn’t a ghost. She’s a legend you tell to make people feel like they’re buying a slice of the supernatural with their five-thousand-square-foot Colonial Georgian with verandah and pool. She’s an extra five grand on the asking price. That’s all.”

“And the Shippeys are still dead. Of unknown cause.”

“Exactly.” Tim sighed and repeated the words. “Of unknown cause. Could be a virus. Could be some chemical he got hold of at the high school shop. There’s just no reason to assume they were killed by a two-hundred-years-dead murderer.”

Steve shifted uneasily, eyeing the blackened stones again. “I didn’t say that.”

“No, but it’s crossed your mind ever since Cart opened his damn mouth.”

Steve nodded, and Tim pressed on.

“Look, we’ve lived on this damn island most of our lives. If the ghost of Annie Black were hanging around, don’t you think somebody would have seen something at some time? But nobody ever has. So relax. Besides, ghosts are bullshit, and you know it.”

“My sister saw one in our house in New York.”

Tim sighed. “Yeah. Right. A twelve-year-old hysteric home alone at midnight sees a ghost. That’s one for the headlines.”

Steve flushed, but this time it wasn’t an unhealthy color. “Okay. Okay.”

Tim clapped Steve’s shoulder bracingly. “Annie Black’s ashes were strewn all over this island two hundred years ago. That’s a lot of time for wind and rain to work. There couldn’t possibly be enough left of her to do anyone any harm.”

At that Steve laughed nervously, and the two men headed back into town. Steve even managed not to look over his shoulder as the burnt-out husk of the old plantation fell away behind them.

But he felt Tim was somehow lying to him. And he felt someone watching.

Jones and Perlman bought it today. Shit, this is starting to be like Nam. Nobody will say anything. But I know. Hell, everyone knows. Jackson said he saw it happen to Jones. One minute he’s sitting in his barracks room, working his damn crosswords. The next minute, he’s shaking like a leaf. Then he’s dead. Flat dead.

Word is the CO called Washington last night. Of course, he’s not going to tell us anything. We’re just peons. Bunch of damn draftees who’d rather be sitting home, smoking some weed, listening to Jimi Hendrix and painting flowers on the VW minibus. That’s how they see us. Worthless.

They’re going to kill us all.

6

The day turned out to be extraordinarily busy for Markie. She’d half expected that most of her appointments wouldn’t show because of the fear of contagion. Instead, she was overrun by pet owners worried about dogs that had begun to chew their own fur off.

After the fifteenth time Markie had prescribed an antihistamine and said, “It’s just nerves. This will calm him down and stop any itching that may be contributing,” it suddenly struck her: the island’s dogs were having nervous fits. Out of the blue. She usually only saw this kind of thing with separation anxiety or in an extremely high-strung dog, and never this many cases in a single day.

Looking at case sixteen, she heard herself asking, “Was Candy barking last night?”

“She went crazy,” Candy’s owner, Celeste Worthington said. Her beautiful cocoa-skinned face was creased with concern. “All that barking. Did you hear how the dogs started up?”

Markie nodded. “I sure did.”

“They did that the other night, too. But this time…” Celeste shook her head. “It was worse, Markie. Candy barked until she was hoarse, but she didn’t calm down like she did the other night when the dogs stopped barking. She started running in circles, like she was chasing her tail, bouncing off the furniture. Then, when she was too exhausted to do it anymore, she curled up and started nipping at her hind leg. At first I thought she had a flea, but when I got up this morning… Well, you can see what she did.”

Indeed. A huge patch of fur was missing from the inside of Candy’s thigh, and the skin beneath was scabbed and bleeding. The worst one yet. “There’s a lot of this going around all of a sudden.”

“I know.” Celeste’s gaze reflected uneasiness. “I talked to some of the others in the waiting room.”

Markie nodded again and began to apply salve to Candy’s irritated skin. “I’m doing scrapings to see if there’s some kind of fungus going around among the dogs. It’ll be a few days before I know for sure, though. In the meantime, we’ll try to calm her and keep the itching down.”

Celeste and her pet left a few minutes later. Candy didn’t seem happy with the cone Markie had put on her and was howling mournfully. Kato, who’d been nearly invisible all day, watched the poor animal leave.

Markie squatted down, stripping her rubber gloves and tossing them in the waste pail before scratching him behind the ears. “Where have you been all day, big boy?” Usually he would have been out here with her playing nurse to all the dogs. Instead, he’d vanished.

Kato answered, a deep almost mournful sound. It didn’t last long, but Markie felt it carried a huge portent of some kind. “Do you know what’s going on here?”

Wolf eyes held hers steadily, but Markie couldn’t read what was behind them.

She scratched him for another minute, then straightened. Her assistant, Donna, came into the cubicle. “Four more of the same,” Donna said as she began to disinfect the steel examining table.

“Great. Do me a favor, will you?”

“Sure.”

“Run down Dr. Declan Quinn. I need a word with him.”

Donna looked at her, as if sensing something, but merely gave a nod. “You got it. Your next patient is in the other room.”