Natural Causes

XANADU

The huge billboard-elegant lettering, overlaid upon a Himalayan sunrise-also included a number to call for an introductory tour and interview. Matt stopped by the sign as the man he assumed was Peter Ettinger drove on down the deserted, newly paved road toward the entrance. Across the street, two endless stretches of seven-foot chain-link fence converged in what was probably one corner of Xanadu.

Xanadu. Matt knew the name came from a mystical, magical land in some poem-one that he had once been forced to study and, it seemed, even memorize.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure dome decree…

His mind's eye saw the words printed in an even hand on some teacher's blackboard. Milton? Wordsworth? Maybe Coleridge. He simply could not remember the author. Nor could he remember anything else of the poem. The image, though, of Peter Ettinger as Kubla Khan was not a hard one to conjure.

Matt was sorting out his options when he heard a car approaching-the same direction from which he and Ettinger had just come. He ducked behind the Subaru and inspected its right front tire just as a white panel truck flashed past, continuing on along the road perpendicular to the one Ettinger had taken. Having read Ettinger's deposition almost to the point of memorization, Matt immediately honed in on the name painted on the truck. Huron Pharmaceuticals produced the vitamin capsules that were included with the Ayurvedic Weight Loss powder. Assuming the truck was making a delivery, and the billboard was pointing toward the main entrance, there had to be some back way into Xanadu. Matt scrambled into the Legacy and followed the truck.

After half a mile, another newly paved road cut off to the right, as did the chain-link fence. Keeping a safe distance, Matt continued following the Huron truck until it made a right turn onto a dirt road that apparently cut through the fence and into the sprawling compound. He found a little-used path off the opposite side of the paved road, left the Subaru in a concealed spot, and hurried across to where the truck had turned in. The gate in the fence was about a hundred feet up the dirt track. Not surprisingly, it was unlocked. The Huron delivery man clearly anticipated a quick turn-around. Matt glanced about. Then he slipped through the gate and headed into Xanadu.

For about a hundred yards, the dirt road snaked through dense woods. The trees and bushes were well past fall peak, but autumn had been unusually mild, and they were still far from barren. The forest ended suddenly at expansive acreage that had been carved out of the rolling woodland. Straight ahead of where Matt crouched was an impressively large lake, newly landscaped, and probably man-made. Spaced along the far bank were new, sumptuous homes. Merely within his line of sight, Matt could see several that appeared completed and several more that were under construction. In Xanadu did Kubla Khan…

The Huron Pharmaceutical truck was parked behind a complex of low, whitewashed buildings, set in a densely wooded grove a short distance to Matt's left. To his right, perhaps two hundred yards, was a large, two-story farmhouse, also white, with a single-story wing jutting toward the spot where Matt was hiding. Parked on the drive by the farmhouse was the XJS.

There was the hum of machinery coming from the buildings that Matt assumed housed the Herbal Weight Loss factory. But there was no one in sight, either there or at the farmhouse. From the woods to the wing of the farmhouse was no more than twenty feet, and from there to the Jag fifteen more. It seemed quite possible to reach the car unseen. If it was unlocked, he would take a crack at finding the radio detonation device. Failing that, he would take as much of a look around as he could manage and then slip back out the way he had come. Even if he failed to uncover anything to connect Ettinger with the death of Colin Smith, there was always the chance that the attendant at the yacht club parking lot would have seen and remembered the Jaguar, or possibly even Ettinger himself.

Staying low and just within the tree line, he crept to the rear of the farmhouse and flattened himself against the wall. Next he worked his way to the corner of the building and was gauging the distance to the Jag when he heard sirens approaching from the direction of the main entrance. He pushed back into the shadows. Not thirty seconds later two cruisers, their sirens now cut, sped up to the farmhouse and stopped on either side of Ettinger's car. Two officers stayed by the Jag, while two others raced to the front door of the farmhouse. One of them had withdrawn his service revolver. Matt inched back into the woods and nestled into concealment in a shallow swale. Several minutes passed. Matt tried desperately to imagine what might be happening inside the farmhouse. He strained to make out the exchange between the two remaining policemen. They were close enough to him, but with one seated in the cruiser, and the other facing away, their conversation was muffled.

Finally the door to the farmhouse opened, and the two officers emerged, one on either side of a clearly agitated Peter Ettinger. Ettinger's hands were manacled behind him.

"I was there. I admit that," Matt heard Ettinger protest. "But dammit, I didn't do anything! Colin Smith called and told me to meet him at the yacht club. At least he said he was Smith…"

"Remember, Mr. Ettinger," one of the officers said. "Like I told you inside. Anything you say may be used against you in court. Now, is this the car you were driving?"

"Yes, of course it is."

"And these are the keys you just gave me?"

"Yes, yes. Now go ahead and open it, dammit. There's nothing in there."

Totally bewildered, Matt scrunched even deeper into the leaf-covered gully. How could the police have gotten here so quickly? Ettinger was a national celebrity, and the Jag hardly an inconspicuous car. Perhaps the lot attendant or someone else at the club had recognized him.

"Got it," the officer searching the car said after just a minute or so. "Under the front seat." He held up by its edges what was clearly a radio control box. "Someone get me an evidence bag, will you? Mr. Ettinger, do you really think we're that dumb?"

Ettinger, suddenly stoop-shouldered and almost limp, gazed from the policeman to the control box and back. Even at some distance, Matt could see the filmy confusion in his eyes.

"I want to call my lawyer," he said.

"From the station, Mr. Ettinger."

Ettinger was helped into the screen-enclosed back of one of the cruisers. The slam of the door echoed in the still afternoon. Matt waited until well after the cruisers had disappeared before he worked his way over to the factory. He assumed there were security people about someplace. But without Ettinger around to identify him, he could be a bit more brazen. Some sort of inspector, perhaps. Yes, he thought as he backed against the wall of the smallest of the factory buildings. Better not to get caught. But if he did, a health inspector story should work.

There was a small anteroom near where the Huron truck was parked. Matt glanced around for the driver, and then rolled along the wall and peered in the window. The space was empty save for two freezers, both top-opening. Each had Huron Pharmaceuticals painted across the front, in letters identical to those on the truck. Neither appeared locked.

A final check around him, and Matt slipped inside. The half-glassed door from the anteroom to the main building was closed. Through it, Matt could see twenty or more women, each at a work station, filling shipping boxes with what he assumed were the components of the Ayurvedic Herbal Weight Loss System. He backed away from the door and moved to the freezer that was out of the line of sight of any of the women. KEEP VITAMINS FROZEN UNTIL SHIPMENT was stenciled on the lid. Carefully he twisted the handle to one side and eased up the heavy lid. The fitted rack, containing sheets of vitamin capsules, completely filled the space just beneath the lid. Matt studied the sheets for a moment. They were identical to those Sarah had received from Annalee Ettinger. Each contained ninety capsules-a three-month supply. He was about to lower the freezer lid when, for no particular reason, he lifted one of the racks.

The body beneath it, a man's, lay serenely on its back. Eyes open, it was staring sightlessly up at Matt. It was dressed in a dark business suit and red silk tie, and fit into the freezer with no more than an inch or two to spare at each end. Its hands and bronze, mustached face were covered by a thin film of rime. But Matt had no difficulty recognizing the man. He had seen him a number of times on videotape and had wondered about him often over recent weeks.

Pramod Singh, the X-factor in the Ayurvedic puzzle, was a factor no more.

Suddenly queasy, Matt lowered the freezer lid and wiped off the handle with his jacket. Then he slipped out the back door and braced himself against the building, breathing deeply and deliberately, fighting the vision and the nausea. Sarah nearly murdered. Colin Smith and Pramod Singh dead. Peter Ettinger either guilty of killing them or, more likely, set up to look guilty. Someone was tying up loose ends in a hurry. Someone was panicking.

Relax, Matt said to himself. Just get the hell out of here and back to Sarah.

He sensed the presence behind him an instant before he saw the shadow on the wall-the shadow of an arm, slashing downward toward his head. He began to react, but way, way too late. An object, heavy and unyielding, slammed onto a spot just behind his right ear. His teeth snapped together as paralyzing pain exploded through his head and into his neck. The last thing he saw was the ground, careening up toward his face.