Death Watch Read online

  She looked at her watch. The third name on the list was Jennifer Magill, thirty-one, a grocery store checker. According to the sheet she had less than three hours to live.

  Sydney wrapped up her half-eaten taco with resolve. Somehow, she was going to keep Jennifer Magill alive.

  Hunz slid back into the booth. The taco was unwrapped and a bite taken before he sat down. “They dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “Both of them?” He took another bite and chewed thoughtfully. “You know, this idea of trying to keep someone on that list from dying is a waste of time. We need to find out who’s behind it and stop them.”

  “That’s a heartless thing to say,” she snapped.

  Though Sydney had never met Jennifer Magill, the image of a young, vibrant woman came to mind. She found it hard to think of the woman’s life as a waste of time.

  Hunz appeared taken aback by her anger. “Look, even if you succeed in saving one person’s life, what good does it do?”

  “It gives everyone hope,” Sydney said. “If we can prove that death is not inevitable for those who receive these notices, it will provide immeasurable relief to a lot of people.”

  “Granted. But my point is, you can’t protect them all. From everything we know so far, more people are going to die. Hundreds. Possibly thousands. Wouldn’t it be better to use our time tracking down the people behind this assault and stop them? Cut off the head of the snake, and he can no longer bite you.”

  “So you suggest we just turn our back on Jennifer Magill?”

  “Who’s Jennifer Magill?”

  “The next person on the list.”

  Hunz chewed. “What’s the time on her notice?”

  Sydney consulted the sheet. “7:22 p.m.”

  Hunz checked his watch. He sighed. “All right,” he said, “but just this one. Then we do it my way.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  As it turned out, Jennifer Magill didn’t want to be saved by television station KSMJ. For fifteen minutes Sydney pleaded with her to get her to change her mind. But Jennifer Magill stood firm. “I’m not going to die in front of a bunch of television cameras.”

  Sydney had no choice but to go to the next person on the list, Lyle Vandeveer of Pasadena. His notice had a time of 10:05 p.m.

  Hunz wasn’t happy about losing an additional two and a half hours. “I have better things to do than hold an old man’s hand.”

  “Does that mean you’re not going with me?”

  “I’ll go, but I’m not going to waste time sitting around.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Something productive.”

  The KSMJ team descended on Lyle Vandeveer’s house in force—a mobile news truck, an ambulance with two paramedics, a car with four armed private security men, and Sydney’s beige Volvo. Their arrival drew stares from Vandeveer’s neighbors on Fair Oaks Avenue, an older section of town lined with palm trees.

  Even in the dark it was clear Vandeveer kept his house nice. The lawn was carpet smooth and trimmed. The house was white with green trim.

  It was 7:56 p.m.

  When Lyle Vandeveer opened his front door, he seemed staggered by the commotion just outside his house. “Wasn’t expecting all this,” he said, as the technicians raised the satellite dish on the van.

  Sydney introduced herself and Hunz, and Vandeveer invited them in.

  Lyle Vandeveer was a sixty-one-year-old machinist who had taken early retirement. The aerospace industry had brought him and his first wife to California from Texas in 1964. Of medium build, Vandeveer had a round face and a belly that stretched his shirt. He was wearing beige shorts, white socks, slippers, and an open flannel shirt over a T-shirt that read:

  REAL RAILROADERS

  DO IT WITH STEAM.

  “Mind if we go back here?” Without waiting for an answer, he led them to the back of the house. “It helps if I keep my hands busy.”

  He flipped on lights as they went from room to room, passing through a kitchen that was orderly and clean. A single plate, cup, fork, and knife had been washed and were in the dish drainer. A new liner was in the trash can.

  “For a man who lives alone,” Sydney said, “you sure keep everything spick-and-span.”

  Vandeveer stopped and looked at her. He smiled. “Haven’t heard that phrase in years. My mother used to use it.”

  He flipped on a light switch in the next room. A spacious area came alive with scenic color.

  “Oh my, this is lovely!” Sydney said.

  Two concrete steps led down to a room addition that looked like it had once been a recreation room. Now it was a miniature countryside, complete with mountains, bridges, valleys, and streams.

  “This is what keeps me busy,” he said.

  Model train tracks wove their way through a miniature countryside that was intricately detailed with trees and bushes. Figures created mini scenes: a train station with a man reading a newspaper on a bench; a line of people purchasing tickets, with a woman holding a child’s hand; and another scene with people on an embankment, waving to a passing train.

  In one corner of the room there was a workbench with a magnifying-glass light on an arm, bottles of model paint, brushes, pictures everywhere, and stacks of magazines—Great Model Railroads, Model Railroader, and Trains.

  With shaking hands Vandeveer donned a blue-and-white-striped engineer’s cap. He settled down into an overstuffed chair. There was an identical chair beside it, which he offered to Sydney. Hunz started to sit on the wooden stool at the workbench, then hesitated, checking it first. He was obviously worried about getting paint on his suit pants.

  The paramedics entered the room, carrying boxes of medicine and equipment.

  “We’re going to hook you up to an EKG so we can monitor your heart,” Sydney said. “The paramedics will also monitor your vital signs. Blood pressure. That sort of thing.”

  One of the paramedics asked Vandeveer to take his shirt off.

  Vandeveer looked at him with wide eyes. “Can I keep this one on?” He tugged at the open flannel shirt.

  The paramedics hooked him up, checked his vitals, and took a history. Vandeveer’s blood pressure was elevated, but not to the point of concern. His medical record showed him to be in good health. There was no reason for this man to die tonight.

  On the wall was a clock, an oversized pocket watch complete with chain, the kind old-time stationmasters used to keep trains on schedule.

  It read 8:17 p.m.

  According to his death watch notice Lyle Vandeveer had one hour and forty-eight minutes left to live.

  “It’s not a very good layout.” Vandeveer gestured toward the model countryside.

  Hunz had left the room, saying he wanted to check on the security guards. Three were posted outside. One was in the kitchen.

  Checking on the guards was obviously an excuse. Hunz used his cell phone to contact his people in Germany. A nine-hour span of time separated them, which meant the early-morning news team at EuroNet was already at work. Sydney figured Hunz wanted to find out if the station had developed any new leads on the death watch phenomenon.

  “Why would you think this isn’t a good layout?” Sydney said. “It looks impressive to me.”

  Vandeveer shook his head. “To be a top-notch layout, all the elements should have a unifying theme. The time period, the geographical setting, the architecture, the scenery, the people—all of it should be influenced by the type of railroad you’re running. This is just a hodgepodge of things I like. Sort of a picture postcard of my ideal world, I guess.”

  Sydney walked over to get a closer look. Vandeveer’s world was orderly, colorful, and serene. All the resin figurines appeared content. Happy.

  Vandeveer, standing beside her, pointed out his scale locomotives and cars, the precision of the re-creation, the separately applied handles, the real metal springs on the trucks, the directional lighting, and the five-pole skewed armature motor with dual flywheels for optimum performance at all sp
eeds. “Museum quality,” he said with pride. He calmed as he talked about his trains.

  He ran the train, making sure she listened to the authentic sound of the locomotive bell and whistle, the squealing brakes, and the Doppler effect.

  The film crew captured it on tape.

  “Some people go overboard with all this,” Vandeveer said, “the historical detail, precision re-creation of a time period. Some guys run their trains precisely on a designated schedule. I know one man who synchronizes his pocket watch with the atomic clock at the Naval Observatory every morning. That kind of detail takes all the fun out of it for me.”

  Sydney looked at the wall clock.

  8:55 p.m.

  At 9:05 p.m., precisely one hour from the death watch time, the medical technicians gave Vandeveer another checkup. The results were the same. He was in good health.

  “Tell you one thing,” Vandeveer said from his chair. “If I’m gonna go, this is where I want to be, with my trains and a pretty young thing at my side.”

  He reached over and patted Sydney’s hand.

  She didn’t mind. “Tell me about your family,” she said.

  Vandeveer glanced at the clock, looked at her, and took a deep breath. “Outlived two wives,” he-said. “The first died early. We hadn’t been married two years.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Sydney said. “That must have been difficult for you. Was it sudden?”

  “Cancer. She was dead two months after they discovered it.”

  “What was her name?”

  He smiled. “Mildred. Great gal. Guess when we were married.”

  Sydney leaned forward. “When?”

  “November 22, 1963.” He laughed.

  “The day Kennedy was shot.”

  Vandeveer raised a lecturing finger. “Learned a lesson that day. Never get married on the day a president is assassinated. Makes for a lousy wedding reception.”

  “That must have been horrible for Mildred!”

  “She was a trooper. Big gal. Strong. She was one of those girls who could handle anything. I always thought she’d outlive me by a couple of decades.” He drifted away for a moment, caught up in a private memory of Mildred. “Anyway,” he said, “a year and a half later, I married her best friend, Bea.”

  “You knew Bea when you were married to Mildred?”

  Vandeveer grinned. “Mildred’s maid of honor. Close as sisters. They used to talk about me. Anyway, we had a daughter, Cindy. That’s her.” He pointed to a framed picture on his workbench. A happy young woman with bangs and a dazzling smile. It looked like a high school yearbook photo.

  “Where is Cindy now?”

  A shadow passed over Vandeveer’s face.

  “With her mother,” he said.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Sydney said. “I didn’t know.”

  “Lost both of them on the same day in that airbus crash in Queens, November 12, 2001.”

  “Oh, my.”

  “Yeah. Cindy worked at the museum in New York. She restored old paintings. You know, spruced them up, took off layers of dust and grime, that sort of thing. We thought it was funny that she chose that particular profession since we couldn’t get her to clean her room.”

  Sydney’s heart went out to this man who was so well acquainted with grief. In his perfect world, the one through which his model trains traveled, there was no hint of his pain. All the figurines were smiling.

  “Bea flew out there to visit Cindy. We hadn’t seen her in a couple of years, and Cindy kept hounding us to come to New York.”

  “Why didn’t you go?”

  “Couldn’t get the time off. You see, the trip was supposed to be more than just New York. Bea had always wanted to see the Caribbean. She said, ‘You can have Paris and London and Rome. Before I die I want to see the Caribbean.’” Vandeveer’s eyes teared.

  “Anyway, Cindy had some business down there. Something about scheduling an artist for a show. Not usually her job. She was doing it as a favor to the museum. Bea and me, we’d always talked about going. We’d get the brochures from travel agents and sit at the kitchen table and plan it all out, but then we’d start to worry about who was going to water the yard, and we’d have to stop the mail.“ His mouth clamped shut; his lower lip trembled.

  Sydney reached over and covered Vandeveer’s hand with hers.

  “Got the call that morning,” he said. “The news said the plane went straight down. Almost vertical.”

  Neither spoke for a time.

  The clock on the wall ticked off a minute.

  Vandeveer lay back in his chair and stared into space, his shirt open. Wires stretched from a machine to the white circle patches on his chest.

  “Do you have any other family?”

  “A brother. Both parents are dead. Never knew my dad. I was the product of one last good-bye before he shipped out. He was killed at Guadalcanal. My mother raised us. She died of lung cancer a few years back. Everybody smoked in those days.”

  Sydney was almost afraid to ask, “And your brother?”

  “Canada,” Vandeveer said. “He’s a minister of a church up there. He was always the good one. Ever since he was little he had a religious streak in him. You know how kids pretend they’re a cowboy or Superman? Lawrence would line up chairs, use a table for a pulpit, and pretend he was Billy Graham.”

  He shook his head. “I never bought into it, myself. Especially after Mildred died. She was a strong Christian woman. Look how much good it did her.”

  Sydney wanted to disagree with him, but now didn’t seem the time. “Have you talked with your brother recently?”

  “Ah!” Vandeveer straightened himself up in the chair. “Glad you mentioned that. I’ve been meaning to tell you something. Lawrence called yesterday. Strange, really. Said he’d received a phone call about me. The caller didn’t identify himself. The caller told Lawrence I was marked for death or something like that. He called to see if I was all right.”

  Sydney leaned forward. “Was it someone who knew about your Death Watch?”

  “That’s the funny thing. I hadn’t told anyone yet. I was about to call Howard Kressler—a guy I know, another model train hobbyist—when the phone rang and it was Lawrence. Why? Is that important?”

  Sydney was writing on her notepad. “It’s the first time we’ve heard of someone other than the vict other than the person to whom the death watch notice is addressed, being notified. You’re certain he received a notice about you and not him?”

  “Who would want to kill Lawrence? He’s perfect.”

  Sydney wrote down Lawrence’s phone number.

  The sound of hurried footsteps came from the kitchen. Hunz Vonner could be heard saying, “Hold on, I’ll ask him.” As he stepped through the doorway, he covered the mouthpiece of his cell phone. He didn’t ask if he was interrupting. “Vandeveer, have you had any injections recently? Say, within the last four or five months?”

  Lyle Vandeveer looked up, searching his memory. “No…not that I can recall…I’ve been pretty healthy, haven’t seen the doc… wait, injection? I had a flu shot last Christmas. Is that what you’re looking for?”

  Hunz Vonner’s eyes widened. He spoke into the cell phone. “That’s affirmative. A flu shot. Yeah. It does, doesn’t it?” He turned and left the same way he came. Heels clicking, his voice grew softer, then dissipated completely with the closing of the front door.

  “What was that all about?” Vandeveer asked Sydney.

  “I have no idea.”

  “Can I ask you a question?” Vandeveer said. “What on God’s green earth is going on with these notices? I mean, it’s sick, isn’t it? Who’s behind it?

  Sydney was amazed Vandeveer hadn’t already asked this question. She attributed it to the invasion of cameras, equipment, and personnel. All of it at once could be intimidating. Under similar circumstances Sydney had once interviewed a man who couldn’t remember his wife’s name on camera.

  “Mr. Vandeveer, we’re as perplexed as you are.”

&nbs
p; Vandeveer thought about this a moment. “Do you really think you can save me?”

  “We have security, medical personnel, and equipment. You’re going to beat this thing, Mr. Vandeveer.”

  “Did I tell you when my wife died, the plane fell vertically?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It landed on some houses. Killed the people inside. Security and medics couldn’t have done anything to save those people.”

  “I don’t think a plane’s going to fall on your house, Mr. Vandeveer.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right. Still… ”

  It was 9:41 p.m.

  Twenty-four minutes remained.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Sydney learned that the US Post Office delivered Lyle Vandeveer’s death watch notice together with a MasterCard bill, an offer to join the History Book of the Month club, a fund-raising letter from Azusa Pacific University—Cindy had attended there for two years before transferring to USC—and a page of pizza coupons.

  The envelope and letterhead matched: cream-colored linen paper. A simple DW appeared at the top of the page, centered, TrueType Castellar font, thirty-six point. There was no address, nor was there any return address on the envelope. The message was identical to the one Jeffrey Conley received in telegram form, only the time stamp was different. No fingerprints other than Lyle’s and the postman’s were on the envelope. It had a Pasadena postmark.

  Lyle reported receiving a confirmation phone call, only he wasn’t home to take it. It was on his answering machine. The police had both the letter and the answering machine tape.

  A broadcast van technician poked his head in the room. “Mr. Vandeveer? There’s a crazy broad out here and she says she won’t go away until she talks to you. Says she’s your neighbor. Opal Whitcomb?”

  Vandeveer nodded at Sydney. “He’s right, she is a crazy broad. Lives next door. She wanders the neighborhood with a coffee cup, on the prowl for java handouts and gossip. But she’s a good neighbor and good company when she wants to be.” He looked back to the technician. “Tell her I said I’ll call her in the morning and fill her in. Oh, and tell her I bought some of that hazelnut cream blend she likes.”