Blood Runs Cold (30 page)

The summer rain in Denver always emptied quickly and heavily from black clouds. Ren ran from the Jeep into the old red-brick building, ten minutes late for her appointment. She was dressed in a pink tracksuit, no makeup.

There was no one at the reception desk. The waiting room was empty, the tables scattered with obscure magazines on crafts and interiors. Ren picked one up – how to liven up denim with prints of the Great Masters. There was a small photo on the cover of a girl with the
Mona Lisa
down the leg of her jeans.
Jesus Christ
.

A grim-faced woman came out from the room behind the desk. Ren had a small flash of irritation. She was replacing the regular receptionist, the one that could make Ren feel better just by her presence.

‘Who are you here to see?’ said the woman, without bothering to look up. There were two
offices off the waiting area – dermatologist and psychiatrist.

Breakouts/breakdowns.

‘Dr Helen Wheeler,’ said Ren.

‘Pardon me?’

‘Dr Helen Wheeler.’

The woman finally looked up. ‘Oh. Dr Wheeler’s gone for the evening.’

‘I … are you sure? I really need to see her. I …’ …
don’t think I will make it through the
night
.

The woman gave her a God-bless-the-mentally-ill smile.

Bad sparks flew.

‘Hey, Ren,’ said Helen, walking into the waiting room.

Ren glanced at the receptionist and back at Helen. ‘Hi, Helen. Sorry I’m late.’

Helen led her into the office and closed the door. ‘Well … finally you make it back in to me.’

‘Yes,’ said Ren. ‘Being forced by Gary Dettling had nothing to do with it …’

Helen smiled. ‘Well, whatever it takes, I guess. Sit down. How are you holding up?’

Ren didn’t speak.

‘Do you want to talk about what happened?’ said Helen.

‘No,’ said Ren, drawing out the vowel.

‘That’s OK,’ said Helen.

‘Agent in not-talking-about-shooting shocker.’

‘Yes,’ said Helen. ‘I may have come across that before.’

‘But you’ve broken them all down, right? Every time.’

Helen smiled. ‘You bet.’

They sat in silence for twenty minutes.

‘OK,’ said Ren. ‘I left Vincent. I left Billy. I was faced with the failure of a massive investigation. A long-dead case, responsible for me almost losing my mind, has come back to haunt me. I miss Vincent. I cannot believe what happened to Jean Transom. I can’t believe there are people out there who do that kind of shit. And I can’t believe how easy it is for me not to have a flicker of emotion about any of it.’ She burst into tears.

Helen let her cry. She handed her a Kleenex. She didn’t watch the clock.

‘I … I’m sorry,’ said Ren. ‘I …’

‘Don’t be,’ said Helen.

‘I feel like everything is falling apart.’

‘Why do you feel that?’

‘Everyone who comes near me is hurt or dies. ’

‘Ren,’ said Helen gently, ‘that is not true.’

‘It is. I ruin everything. I drag people down.’

Ren cried harder.

‘I understand how it could appear that way right now,’ said Helen. ‘You’ve been through a lot. And you probably have been running on empty for quite some time.’

Ren nodded.

‘You have done a great job, Ren. You set out to solve this case. And you achieved that. And you solved another case that you weren’t even assigned to.’

‘Yeah, because
that’s
professional, getting sidetracked.’

‘Ren, everyone gets sidetracked at work. We just don’t all end up arresting people as a result.’

Ren laughed. ‘I need another Kleenex.’

Helen handed her one. ‘You can’t keep beating yourself up.’

‘Watch me.’

‘I don’t want to. I want you to get better. Maybe we need to take a look at how you’ve been.’

Ren stared at the floor. ‘No, thank you.’

‘Do you think you may have felt your trust slipping away?’

‘I’m an FBI agent,’ said Ren, deadpan.

Helen smiled, ‘Seriously.’

‘I’m not paranoid, OK? People
were
out to get me …’

‘Everyone? Were they? Didn’t you express concerns about Paul, Billy, even Vincent at one point …’

‘But they were all hiding things.’

‘They weren’t out to get you, though. There was no big conspiracy to wreck your career or your life.’

‘Yeah, well, sometimes it didn’t feel that way.’

‘I understand that.’

‘Don’t I need to be a little paranoid to do my job?’ said Ren.

‘Maybe, but in the rest of your life? No. And they’re all tied up together. Can you see that?’

‘Anyway,’ said Ren, ‘everyone has two sides. Jean Transom: two people. Malcolm Wardwell: two people. Jason Wardwell, Billy Waites, Paul Louderback …’

‘I don’t know who all those people are, but …’

‘I’ll take myself as I am and –’

‘Yes – sometimes you’re so happy you’ll explode and then … the dark side. Can you see how that brings you down?’

‘I’m on an even keel right now.’

Helen looked at her.

‘I am. Stop. I’m fine.’ Tears flowed down her face.

‘There’s no middle ground for you, Ren. Can you see that?’

‘Stop asking me can I see things.’

‘Either someone loves you or hates you,’ said Helen. ‘There’s no room for someone just to be annoyed at you. Or to maybe be frustrated. Most people operate somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, not at either end, Ren.’

‘Yeah, well, that’s why it’s called bi-polar …’
Shit
.

Helen waited.

‘Ren, you know you have a condition …

‘Ah,’ said Ren, ‘that explains why I never get
unconditional love.’ She stood up. ‘I’ve got to go. Thank you.’

Helen slid back in her chair and stood up. ‘Are you OK?’

‘I will be,’ said Ren. She pointed at the prescription pad and the pen in Helen’s hand. ‘I don’t want meds right now. But I promise I’ll come back if I do. And I give you my permission to call Gary and check in with him. And whatever he says, I’ll go along with that.’

Helen paused. ‘OK, Ren. I’m going to go with you on this.’

‘Thank you. And don’t worry – I have a plan.’ She smiled. ‘Like most lunatics.’

Helen smiled. ‘What kind of plan?’

‘To meet up with a friend. So I can be the one who takes care of someone for a change.’

Ren drove through Clear Creek County and thought of the crooked man ripped apart and discarded in the river. Domenica Val Pando had gone to his family, taken his mother’s hands in hers and promised them she would take care of his medical expenses if he came to work for her. And ten years later, he lay, still twisted, on a cold slab.

Did Gavino ever stand a chance? In such a cosseted world, he had no chance to fight what he had been born into. The night the compound was stormed, Ren had watched him from her hiding place in the woods. He was seven years old and his mother had hidden him in the undergrowth so she could be free to leave with ‘the man who wasn’t there’. Gavino had turned to Ren, his eyes wide, reaching out a shaking hand, the tiny little fingers moving like he was playing the piano.
Oh, God. I want to save you so
bad
. Ren had put her finger to her lips and slowly shook her head.

There are too many victims of too many decisions: bring a baby boy into your screwed-up world, lose your business for your meth-addicted daughter, turn your back on your alcoholic son. Domenica Val Pando, Gavino Val Pando; Charlie Barger, Shannon Barger; Diane Wilson, Mark Allen Wilson …

Ren’s meeting with Warwick and Monahan was like a wound re-opened, a vivid flashback of that final night. And the fire that raged. Ren had seen men in flames that night, fleeing from all the buildings screaming: the same men she used to see shuffling around the compound, blistered and blackened and scarred; all victims of Domenica Val Pando’s whims.

Ren was hit with a sudden and violent nausea. She lost the sense of what foot should hit what pedal. Her mind was telling her to brake, to stop everything from moving. But the stronger part had her slam her foot on the accelerator and speed toward Breckenridge.

I always knew there was a bigger picture
.

Bob Gage was waiting in reception for her when she arrived in. She didn’t stop, just kept moving toward his office. All she managed on the way was:

‘Please tell me Mike is not here.’

‘No … his little boy’s ill,’ said Bob.

‘Oh, no,’ said Ren. ‘Will he be OK?’

‘I think so.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘Oh, he’s the little guy with the health problems. He had some kind of asthma attack last night, Mike brought him to Charlie Barger, but he wasn’t home, so they had to go to the hospital. He’s OK now, though.’

‘I’m afraid Charlie Barger won’t be home any time soon,’ said Ren.

‘What? Why?’

‘Charlie Barger was working for Domenica Val Pando. And I’m betting, with the attention Gavino brought down on the operation, Charlie Barger no longer is. Because I’m guessing Domenica Val Pando took care of him and his daughter, Shannon.’

‘What?’ said Bob.

Ren nodded. ‘There is always a bigger picture with Domenica Val Pando. Robberies are not just robberies, drugs are not just drugs, even people are not just people to her. I realized yesterday when I was shouting at my bosses that I knew, from … previous research, that Val Pando was moving into chem-bio weapons. And the night her compound was destroyed, the lab work was destroyed and the scientists she had hired were either killed or scared enough to disappear.

‘Since she’s been gone, 9/11 happened and the
market for chem-bio weapons has shot up – nationally and internationally. And she’s logically going for where the money is. And where she can sit back and watch all the chaos.’

Bob was staring at her.

‘Charlie Barger wasn’t making beer, Bob. He was using the brewery to make hydrogen sulfide. The day we found Mark Wilson’s body in the grounds of the brewery, there was a terrible smell in the air like rotten eggs – that’s what H2S smells like. We taped off a reasonable-sized crime scene around the body, but the building was a ways away, so we didn’t formally search it. I had a look around, though, and I saw a pallet of nitrogen tanks.

‘Anyway, I called Colin Grabien on my way over here to go through Charlie Barger’s financial records. I heard what was going out of his account – and I’m thinking, OK, a pallet of nitrogen tanks, the guy is brewing beer, you need nitrogen for that. Then I hear, hold on – another pallet. And another. And another. And soon we realize that Charlie Barger has bought four pallets, each with twenty tanks.’

Bob stayed silent.

‘OK,’ said Ren, ‘no one needs that much nitrogen for brewing. But he could have been draining the nitrogen out and replacing it with H2S, and there it is – ready to be shipped all over the place with a nice shiny nitrogen label.

‘Even our shitty friend, Erubiel Diaz, was involved.
The manure in his truck was being delivered to the brewery. The bacteria that create H
₂
S are put in a vat – the same kind you brew beer in – manure is added and, when the bacteria feed off it, they release H
₂
S.’

‘I’m sorry to stop you, Ren, but I’m not getting the H
₂
S thing,’ said Bob.

‘H
₂
S is a gas that kills instantly. And it’s odorless. In small concentrations, you’ll get the smell of rotten eggs, but even then it’s probably too late, especially in a non-ventilated space. For most people, their first breath of H
₂
S is their last.

‘All you would need is for a guy to slap on an HVAC uniform, get a couple of tanks labeled nitrogen through a hotel lobby, into a bank, into wherever, and they’re good to go. You can direct it through vents into whatever room you want it to go into. It is an instant – mass – killer.

‘It is one of the scariest chem-bio weapons out there. It could be rolled out all over the country for a simultaneous attack on cities – whatever Domenica Val Pando or the people she is supplying feel like doing with it.’

‘And Charlie Barger is the guy manufacturing it?’

‘This is Domenica Val Pando. She went for the best. She researched him and he came up fairly high on the list of people she could use. Because he would also know how to bio-engineer the bacteria to make it all even more powerful.

‘Charlie Barger was a desperate man, Bob. She found his strengths – he is a world-renowned bio-chemist – and she exploited his weakness: his financial problems. His father was this huge success whose shadow he has always stood in. Charlie Barger comes back to Breckenridge after a successful career all around the world. And here he is, four hundred and fifty thousand dollars in debt. But a month ago he was five hundred thousand in debt.’ She shrugged.

‘Jesus,’ said Bob.

‘I know,’ said Ren. ‘And we didn’t know at the time, but when we found Mark Wilson’s body in the grounds, we put a stop to the whole operation by swarming around the brewery. We’ll never know, but I’d say Charlie Barger roped Wilson in to working there – he knew he had no money and was in debt. Those vats need to be monitored all the time – it’s a delicate process. And maybe Mark Wilson was supposed to be there that afternoon instead of getting shitfaced at the Filly.

‘I think it was back in action as recently as two weeks ago, until Gavino Val Pando decides to go flash some stolen cash at the chicks in the Filly. He was blessed with his father’s brains. Augusto Val Pando operated on a primal level: eat, fight, fuck. I guess the potential for fucking is what fucked Gavino.’

‘What about the brewery?’ said Bob.

‘A HazMat team is on the way,’ said Ren. ‘I don’t
think Barger got as far as Domenica Val Pando would have liked in the manufacturing, but we can’t risk it. As far as the press are concerned, we’re shutting down a meth lab. And with Shannon Barger’s tragic history, no one’s going to question that.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ said Bob.

‘I know,’ said Ren. ‘Anyway, the team will be in touch with you any minute now. They’ll be the ones to go to Barger’s house too. So all you need to do is sit tight. And prepare to tell Casey Bonaventure some nice lies.’ She stood up.

‘Thanks, Ren.’

‘My pleasure.’

Ren got into the Jeep and clung to the steering wheel, her head bowed.
Get your shit together
. She pulled out of the parking lot, did a tour of the roundabout and drove to Frisco under a dusky sky.

Gary had once said to her, ‘I swear Domenica Val Pando has an island somewhere where she breeds those fucked-up goons.’

Ren disagreed.
She just breaks into your nightmares
and takes out the very worst parts – right at the black
peak that wakes you up screaming – and she crosses
them with an animal that, for a fraction of a second,
can convince you he’s a man
.