Frozen Solid A Novel

46




HALLIE DROVE HALFWAY TO THE STATION, STOPPED, TURNED around to look. She could just make out Graeter’s figure, a smudge blacker than the dark purple background. If he decided to take a penguin, she would go after him, but then what? Lasso and hog-tie him with line from the emergency kit and haul him back in? Not likely. If that happened, she would have to rely on her powers of persuasion. With Graeter, she suspected, they would be less than compelling. But she didn’t think he would do that now.

After ten minutes she saw him heading toward the station. She waited long enough to believe that he would come all the way, then started the snowmo and drove on back.

She secured her ECW gear and was walking along the corridor to the stairs when she heard footsteps behind her. Turned, saw the woman who had been angered by her loud knocking on Fida’s door, the snow-white face and black-circled eyes. Two other women were with her. Anyplace else, Hallie would have thought it unusual for three women to be out and about after midnight. Here, where work went on around the clock, she did not.

“Hey,” she said. “Talk to you for a minute?” Friendlier voice, hint of a smile. Maybe she wants to make peace, Hallie thought.

“Jan Tolliver,” the woman said, hand extended.

“Glad to meet you. Look, I—”

The woman grasped Hallie’s hand. Hard. “Why don’t we talk in there,” she said. The three women herded her toward a door before she knew what was happening. Tolliver was small and slender. The other two were neither. One was white, the other black. The white woman had curls sticking up from either side of a very broad, curved forehead. Hallie thought of a musk ox. The other woman was black, just as big, hair clipped close to her head. Ox and buffalo.

One woman opened the door, and they pushed her through the entrance. Tolliver followed them in, shutting the door. Hallie jerked her arms free.

“You should have talked to me when you had a chance,” Tolliver said.

“What the hell are you doing?” she snapped.

“Take it easy,” Tolliver said. “We just want to ask you some things.”

“Not like this.” Hallie started toward the door. Ox moved very quickly for a woman of her size, setting herself between Hallie and the exit. Hallie turned to face Tolliver.

“What do you want?”

“When did you get here?” Tolliver asked.

“None of your goddamned business. Get out of my way.”

“Answer her question,” Buffalo said.

“Who the hell are you?” Hallie said.

Hallie’s knees buckled and her vision filled with silver sparks. Buffalo had hit her with the heel of one hand on the side of the head. It had happened so quickly that Hallie felt the effects first, realized what happened only afterward, like a soldier being hit by a bullet, then hearing the sound of its firing. Tolliver and Ox grabbed her, helped her stay upright, waited for her head to clear.

No cut or visible bruising, Hallie thought. Smart. She’s hit people before.

The black woman said, “Women are dying. Answer her when she asks you.”

“You’re in a world of trouble,” Hallie said. Her voice sounded strange, distant, louder on one side than the other.

“Three witnesses against one? Not likely,” Tolliver said.

Hallie always thought in terms of odds and probabilities. She would stand a good chance against one woman. Three, bad gamble. “I got here Monday.”

“The last flight in or out since then,” Tolliver said.

“Yes.”

“How’d you feel coming in?”

“Like hell. I’d been traveling for four days.”

“She means, were you sick?” the black woman said.

“No, I wasn’t sick.”

“How many airports did you come through?”

She thought back. “Five, counting McMurdo.”

Ox turned to Tolliver. “See? She could’ve carried anything in.”

“You seriously think something I brought killed the women?”

“Nobody was dying before you got here,” Buffalo said.

Any reason is better than no reason, Hallie thought. I’m the easiest X factor.

“Tell us why it didn’t happen that way,” Tolliver said.

“That’s easy. Harriet Lanahan died a few minutes after I came into the cafeteria. Something happened to her before I arrived. There’s no way I could have been the vector.”

“I wasn’t there. That true?” Buffalo asked Tolliver.

“Yes.”

“Still …” Ox said. Midwestern accent. Big healthy farm girl. Just Hallie’s luck.

“That’s not all,” Hallie said. “No microbe on earth could transfer, colonize, and kill that quickly. Smallpox takes a week. Ebola symptoms can surface after two days, but it takes a week or more to kill a victim. The only one of those women I had contact with was Rockie, and she died from some kind of allergic reaction.”

“What do you think?” Buffalo said to the other two.

Ox shrugged, watching Tolliver.

“I think she’s full of Beaker bullshit,” the smaller woman said.

“All right then.” Ox pinned Hallie’s arms behind her.

“I don’t know,” Buffalo said. She looked as if she were about to ask Hallie a question. A quick metal-on-metal sound and the door opened. Ox let Hallie go, stepped back. A man came in. Hallie recognized Grenier.

“How’re you doing, Jake?” she asked.

Perhaps sensing something in her voice, or picking up on body language cues, he looked from woman to woman. “Everything all right here?”

For a second no one spoke. Then Hallie said, “We just wanted a little privacy. Some woman-to-woman talk.” She gave him a knowing wink.

“Why are you here?” Tolliver asked him.

“Somebody said snowmo tracks were in this storeroom.” He glanced around, not completely satisfied.

Hallie waved. “Good to see you again.”

“You too, Doc.” He studied the scene one more time, then nodded. “I guess they were wrong about the tracks.”

When he was gone, Hallie said, “I understand how you feel. And I should have stopped and talked to you, Jan, but I thought my lab partner was in serious trouble.” She paused, looked at each woman in turn. “It’s not me. Something is going on here. I don’t know what, but I’m trying to find out.” The air in the room loosened, a sense of threat dissolving.

Buffalo looked at the other two. “I think we’re done.”

“Yeah,” Ox said. She threw Hallie a sheepish look.

Hallie rubbed the side of her head, grinned. “Quick hands,” she said to Buffalo.

“I’m from Philly. Boxed a little.”

“How’d you do?”

“Eight and three before I quit,” she said, pride showing in her eyes. “No money in it, though.” She looked at Tolliver, said again, “I think we’re done,” and headed for the door. To Hallie: “Really am sorry about that.” Ox followed Buffalo out.

“We’re good,” Hallie said. At the door she looked back. Tolliver was still standing, arms crossed over her chest. Hallie waved. Tolliver didn’t wave back.