“Mr. CDC called in a domestic terrorism alert. Sixty-three kids puking up their cookies all in a matter of an hour. Tends to trip an alarm or two.”
“Any fatalities?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“Aren’t you homicide?”
“Yes.”
Platt stopped mid-stride to look at her.
“I was already here,” she said.
“Excuse me?”
“Off duty. I was picking up my partner’s kid.”
He started walking again. “Picking up your partner’s kid, that seems beyond the call of duty,” he said, trying to lighten the tone.
“Not my professional partner. My personal partner.”
“Oh.” He didn’t know what to do with that tidbit of information. In the few times he had met her at Maggie’s house, he hadn’t picked up on the fact that she was gay. He chose to not comment. “Does Bix know you were here when it started?”
“Bix?”
“The CDC guy.”
“No. We’re here to secure the area. That’s all we bring to this party. He doesn’t much care what else we have to offer. FBI and Homeland Security have people here.”
Platt nodded. Sounded like Bix was getting all his ducks in a row, so to speak. But for a guy who wanted to keep things under wraps, he couldn’t be happy with the entourage of news media already setting up.
Earlier when Roger Bix had called Platt he only doled out scraps of information but had been adamant that this school’s incident was, in fact, related to the one in Norfolk, Virginia. When Platt asked how exactly he knew they were connected and what new information pointed to that—after all, just last night Bix didn’t even know what had caused the contamination in Norfolk—Bix would only say, “I have it on indisputable authority that these two incidents are, indeed, related.”
Obviously from the show of force Bix knew much more than he was willing to disclose. Platt wondered how the hell he could help if the man had already decided not to trust him.
“When I finish with Mr. Bix I’d like to talk to you about what you saw,” Platt told Detective Racine as they turned another corner. “Would that be possible?”
“Sure. I’m not going anywhere for a few hours.” She pointed to a doorway and added, “I’ll be out front.”
She turned and left him. Even after she disappeared around the corner he could hear her heels echoing down the hall. The only other sound came from beyond the open door, hushed voices giving orders. One of which Platt already recognized.
Two men in dark suits shouldered past Platt on their way out, leaving only three people in the small office. Bix had a cell phone pressed against his ear as he sat behind a desk with a nameplate that proclaimed it as Principal Barbara Stratton’s. Ms. Stratton, most likely, was the woman in a navy suit with long silver hair tied back. Platt wasn’t surprised to see the third person, Special Agent R. J. Tully.
The tall, lanky FBI agent had been leaning against a corner but stood straight when Platt entered. He offered his hand while Bix only nodded and continued to make demands to some poor soul on the other end of the phone line.
Platt had met Agent Tully on the same case that Bix had referred to last night. It was the same investigation where Platt had met Maggie O’Dell. Almost a year ago a madman had stuffed envelopes with the Ebola virus and sent them to what appeared to be random victims.
Maggie had been exposed and ended up in a USAMRIID isolation ward at Fort Detrick under the care of Platt. The case had taken a personal toll on Tully as well, resulting in his suspension during an internal investigation that eventually cleared and reinstated him. When Platt recommended Agent Tully to Bix last night, he did so knowing that Tully was one of only a handful of people Maggie trusted. For Platt that was justification that he met Bix’s criteria.
Platt exchanged greetings with Ms. Stratton then asked her to fill him in. She glanced at Bix as if looking for permission but only momentarily.
“At first I thought it might be some kind of prank. In my thirty-two years I’ve never seen so many children ill at the same time. It was awful. Absolutely awful. And it happened so suddenly. My secretary noticed a line to the nurse’s office and not fifteen minutes later the line had doubled. Then I heard children vomiting in the hallway. Some of them using the trash receptacles. Others holding their bellies and not able to get to the restrooms, which, by this time, were also backed up.”
“Did you notice any odd smell prior to the students getting sick?”
“What kind of smell?”
“Anything out of the ordinary.”
“We have a school full of children. There’s no such thing as ordinary smells.”
Platt smiled until he realized she wasn’t joking.
“I think Colonel Platt means something like natural gas.” Agent Tully stepped in. “Rotten-egg gas, perhaps, or any strong chemical smell.”
“Oh, heavens no. Nothing like that. You think a chemical could have caused this?”
Bix snapped his cell phone shut with enough of a clap to draw everyone’s attention. He stood up, sending Ms. Stratton’s desk chair smashing into the back wall. He ignored the scowl from the principal as he unleashed his outrage at her.
“You didn’t tell me one of your cafeteria workers was sick when she reported in this morning.”
“What? This is the first I’m hearing about it.”
“She’s at the front entrance babbling to the police officers that this is all her fault.”
“That’s not possible! We abide by the highest standards.”
“Right. Well, she came back after the evacuation. Appears she has a guilty conscience. Admitted she wasn’t wearing gloves today.”
“We require gloves on all our kitchen servers.”
“Well, it sounds like her gloves were a bother. She got tired of taking them off to blow her nose.”
TWENTY-THREE
NEBRASKA
The girl was lying.
Maggie tamped down her impatience. She was beginning to think these interviews were a waste of time. She glanced at her watch. Maybe the autopsies would reveal more. She leaned against the bedroom wall next to a bookcase topped with stuffed animals belonging to a much younger version of the girl they were now talking to, although her mannerisms seemed to slip into little-girl mode as the questioning progressed.
Sheriff Skylar’s kid-glove treatment of Amanda Vicks was in stark contrast to what he’d put Dawson Hayes through. Yes, Dawson had been in possession of a Taser, but there was no evidence, as of yet, to prove any of the teens had been shot with the gun. And Dawson had been severely injured. Amanda only had a bite mark on her forearm that she couldn’t seem to explain beyond her declaration at the scene that “He bit me.”
Now when Maggie asked, Amanda said she couldn’t remember where or when she was bitten. If it had been a wolf or cougar certainly she would have remembered, but Maggie didn’t press the matter. They had taken photos of the injury. She’d trust Lucy Coy to determine whether it was animal or human sooner than she’d trust the memory of a girl who had most likely been tripping out on a hallucinogen when the incident happened. And to Maggie, that was further evidence that this interview was probably worthless.
Maggie wondered if Sheriff Skylar knew the girl was lying. Perhaps that was why he was taking a gentler approach and using a different interrogation technique on her. However, earlier he seemed much too polite with
