I walked into my office at eight-fifteen. When Rose heard me, she came through her doorway.
‘I hope you got some rest,’ she said, more worried about me than I’d ever seen.
‘I did. Thanks.’ I smiled, and her concern made me feel guilty and shamed, as if I were bad somehow. ‘Any new developments?’
‘Not about Tangier.’ I could see the anxiety in her eyes. ‘Try to get your mind off it, Dr Scarpetta. We’ve got five cases this morning. Look at the top of your desk. If you can find it. And I’m at least two weeks behind on correspondence and micros because of your not being here to dictate.’
‘Rose, I know, I know,’ I said, not unkindly. ‘First things first. Try Phyllis again. And if they still say she’s out sick, get a number where she can be reached. I’ve been trying her home number for days and no one answers.’
‘If I get her, you want me to put her through?’
‘Absolutely,’ I said.
That happened fifteen minutes later when I was about to go into staff meeting. Rose got Phyllis Crowder on the line.
‘Where on earth are you? And how are you?’ I asked.
‘This wretched flu,’ she said. ‘Don’t get it.’
‘I did and am still getting rid of it,’ I said. ‘I’ve tried your house in Richmond.’
‘Oh, I’m at my mother’s, in Newport News. You know, I work a four-day week and have been spending the other three days out here for years.’
I did not know that. But we had never socialized.
‘Phyllis,’ I said, ‘I hate to bother you when you’re not well, but I need your help with something. In 1978 there was a laboratory accident at the lab in Birmingham, England, where you once worked. I’ve pulled what I can on it, and know only that a medical photographer was working directly over a smallpox lab . . .’
‘Yes, yes,’ she interrupted me. ‘I know all about it. Supposedly, the photographer was exposed through a ventilator duct, and she died. The virologist committed suicide. The case is cited all the time by people who argue in favor of destroying all frozen source virus.’
‘Were you working in that lab when this happened?’
‘No, thank goodness. That was some years after I left. I was already in the States by then.’
I was disappointed, and she went into a coughing spell and could hardly talk.
‘Sorry.’ She coughed. ‘This is when you hate living alone.’
‘You don’t have anyone looking in on you?’
‘No.’
‘What about food?’
‘I manage.’
‘Why don’t I bring you something,’ I said.
‘I wouldn’t hear of it.’
‘I’ll help you if you’ll help me,’ I added. ‘Do you have any files on Birmingham? Concerning the work going on when you were there? Anything you could look up?’
‘Buried somewhere in this house, I’m sure,’ she said.
‘Unbury them and I’ll bring stew.’
I was out the door in five minutes, running to my car. Heading home, I got several quarts of my homemade stew out of the freezer, then I filled the tank with gas before going east on 64. I told Marino on the car phone what I was doing.
‘You’ve really lost it this time,’ he exclaimed. ‘Drive over a hundred miles to take someone food? You coulda called Domino’s.’
‘That’s not the point. And believe me, I have one.’ I put sunglasses on. ‘There may be something here. She may know something that could help.’
‘Yo, let me know,’ he said. ‘You got your pager on, right?’ ‘Right.’
Traffic was light this time of day, and I kept the cruise control on sixty-nine so I did not get a ticket. In less than an hour, I was bypassing Williamsburg, and about twenty minutes later, following directions Crowder had given me for her address in Newport News. The neighborhood was called Brandon Heights, where the economic class was mixed, and houses got bigger as they got nearer the James River. Hers was a modest two-story frame recently painted eggshell white, the yard and landscaping well maintained.
I parked behind a van and collected the stew, my pocketbook and briefcase slung over a shoulder. When Phyllis Crowder came to the door, she looked like hell, her face pale, and eyes burning with fever. She was dressed in a flannel robe and leather slippers that looked like they might once have belonged to a man.