When Esquivel cut the lights off, the office was cool and quiet. Shelby laid his head back, and was asleep.
Jimmy Dick…Jimmy Dick, answer the phone. Jimmy Dick, it’s your mother calling. Hurry, Jimmy Dick, answer the phone…Hurry, Jimmy Dick, and answer the phone…
“Captain,” Patrolman Ramirez said. “Lieutenant Esquivel told me you wanted to see me about the Feller report.”
Shelby woke with a start. “Yeah, come on in, Ramirez. Turn on that light and have a seat. Sorry, but I’ve been up most of the night and still have several hours to go. I’ve got the flu on top of all that. Okay, tell me what you can about Feller. His first name’s Robert, right?”
Ramirez sat straight in the chair in front of the captain. He’d had a bad day. Everything had gone wrong and now he was going to have to relive every horrible detail, tell the whole story to the captain. Less than a year on the street, still just a rookie, he wasn’t sure just how much trouble he was in over the incident. After all, he had almost ripped a guy’s nuts off, trying to control him until help arrived.
“Yes sir, Robert Feller. I guess he’s some kind of pervert or something the way he was naked and running around at the school.”
Ramirez scrunched around in the chair. “Highland Heights Elementary on Paul Quinn. I got the call Thursday morning about eleven, see the principal at the school about a man exposing himself to the kids on the east side playgrounds.”
“What happened?” Shelby asked.
“When I got there, the principal and two other teachers met me in the drive. They said a man, a white male, was naked, running around and screaming at the children. They already had all the kids back in the classrooms. The principal thought the man was high on drugs. Said he had got into the jungle bars and couldn’t get himself out. He said the coach, a John Richter, was on the playgrounds, keeping an eye on the man until the police arrived.” Ramirez closed his eyes and let out a sigh.
“Go on,” Shelby said.
“I drove around to the back and called for some backup. That was when I saw him tangled in the monkey bars. He was screaming, ‘Michael Angelo.’ By the way, they don’t have any students named Michael Angelo at the school. When I got close to him and tried to calm him down, he came out of the bars like a crazy man, eyes wide and kind of foaming at the mouth. He bit me on the hand and, get this, today I find out that he has AIDS. Now I’m going to have to have tests…today…and every year for the next seven years. How do you think this is going to affect my home life?”
“You’re telling me that Feller has AIDS?” Shelby asked and sunk back into the chair.
“Yes sir, full-blown. Don’t that beat all? What a nightmare.”
“And you’ve been tested already?”
“Yes sir, they had me go by the hospital ’bout an hour ago. It’ll be tomorrow before they let me know anything. They said this test would most certainly be negative. I think they’re just being sure I don’t have it already, you know. The doctor said the ninety-day and six-month tests were the real important ones. Said if I’m negative then, probably I’m okay. The one-year test will be 99.9 percent final.”
Ramirez looked like he might cry. Shelby said, “I don’t think you have anything to be concerned about, Ramirez. What’d the doctors tell you?”
“They told me not to worry, that there was one chance in a million that he could pass the virus by biting me. Easy for them to say don’t worry when they weren’t the one that was bit.”
Ramirez’s jaws clenched and he swallowed hard before he continued. “Well anyway, he mounts me like a bull, strong and out of control. He takes me to the ground and I grab for anything I can. We were elbows and knees for a few minutes until I got hold of his hair and tried to rip his head off. That slowed him down for a second and then my backup got there and we beat him like a piñata. Didn’t slow him down any. He just kept dancing around, screaming for that Michael Angelo and then, like a rock, no warning at all, he just went limp. Into this coma. I don’t think we hit him that hard. Not on the head. You know…we know better.”
“Then what happened?”
“Paramedics took him to Ben Taub and that was it. Never heard another word out of him. After we dumped him at the hospital and filled out the paperwork, I went back out there and found his clothes and car ’bout a block from the school. I had the car impounded. That’s how we ID’d the perp. I got off about ten minutes later, gave the info to the next shift, and went home. Someone didn’t follow up with the paperwork so he was carried as a John Doe.”
When Shelby stood and shook Ramirez’s hand, he saw the bandage on the young patrolman’s right hand. Poor guy. “Thank you, Ramirez, I’m sure everything is okay. What little I know about this sort of thing is that it’s almost impossible to pass HIV through biting.”
When the door closed behind Ramirez it was quiet again, and the emotions of the last twenty-four hours flooded through Shelby’s body. Coupled with the flu and exhaustion, there was now an overriding sense of foreboding. When the phone rang, he stared at it through the fourth ring and was almost afraid to answer. It was the assistant chief and the news wasn’t good.
“Captain, the media is on this virus thing like ducks on a June bug. Get over to the Ben Taub. The hospital’s going to hold a press conference at six p.m. and I want you there.”
Shelby felt a chill settle around him as he filled in the assistant chief on what he suspected and about the call he had received on his car phone.
“You’d better choose your words carefully, Captain. Don’t give them anything you don’t have to. From what you’re telling me, I think we’re in a position where you and Ms. Kendrick could be in real danger. Let’s go ahead and tell the press we’ve had contact from a man who claims to be responsible for these acts of violence and that he said it’s being done for revenge. Word it any way you think will satisfy him. I’m not sure I want to answer the phone again.”
When Shelby stepped out the rear door of the department’s main building, the sky was turning a brilliant orange in the western sky. He looked at his watch. Five-thirty. He thought he’d drive to the hospital, do the news conference, fill Kendrick in, and then get a burger and go home to bed. For the first time in maybe ever, he would let the answering machine screen his calls.
Traffic was horrible. By the time he made the few blocks to Ben Taub, it was 6:00 p.m. and the press conference was underway.
“As of now, we’re looking at an unknown virus,” Salinas was saying. “We don’t know how it’s transmitted and we don’t have a prognosis as to its outcome. Not yet. At this time, we don’t feel there is anything for the general public to worry about. We do know that four of the men worked at the Johnson Space Center and tomorrow, Ms. Kendrick from the National Disease Control Agency in Atlanta, Audi Duke, who is with NASA, and Captain Shelby of the Houston Police Department will begin an investigation to determine any health risks at the Space Center. I see the captain has just arrived, so I’ll turn the meeting over to him at this time.”
Shelby suddenly felt very uncomfortable, though he had often faced TV cameras and reporters. Maybe it was the surroundings, a hospital rather than the usual dingy back alley where most of his interviews took place. Or maybe it was because he was so unsure of what this case would bring. Perhaps it was knowing that his own life was on the line. Whatever it was, he shuddered as he walked to the podium.
There were several people standing behind Dr. Salinas, who stepped back into the group to make room for Shelby at the row of microphones. Kendrick was standing near the back next to a tall man with stylishly long, graying hair. The man’s dark eyes were intent and he had a lean, hard look about him. All business, must be Duke. The man’s