Phantoms

make sense, damn it. Living tissue couldn’t swell that fast. Abrupt swelling was symptomatic of certain allergies, of course; one of the worst was severe allergic reaction to penicillin. But Jenny was not aware of anything that could cause critical swelling with such suddenness that hideously ugly, universal bruising resulted.
    And even if the swelling wasn’t simply classic postmortem bloat—which she was sure it wasn’t—and even if it was the cause of the bruising, what in the name of God had caused the swelling in the first place? She had ruled out allergic reaction.
    If a poison was responsible, it was an extremely exotic variety. But where would Hilda have come into contact with an exotic poison? She had no enemies. The very idea of murder was absurd. And whereas a child might be expected to put a strange substance into his mouth to see if it tasted good, Hilda wouldn’t do anything so foolish. No, not poison.
    Disease?
    If it was disease, bacterial or viral, it was not like anything that Jenny had been taught to recognize. And what if it proved to be contagious?
    “Jenny?” Lisa called.
    Disease.
    Relieved that she hadn’t touched the body directly, wishing that she hadn’t even touched the sleeve of the housedress, Jenny lurched to her feet, swayed, and stepped back from the corpse.
    A chill rippled through her.
    For the first time, she noticed what lay on the cutting board beside the sink. There were four large potatoes, a head of cabbage, a bag of carrots, a long knife, and a vegetable peeler. Hilda had been preparing a meal when she had dropped dead. Just like that. Bang. Apparently, she hadn’t been ill, hadn’t had any warning. Such a sudden death sure as hell wasn’t indicative of disease.
    What disease resulted in death without first progressing through ever more debilitating stages of illness, discomfort, and physical deterioration? None. None that was known to modern medicine.
    “Jenny, can we get out of here?” Lisa asked.
    “Ssssshhh! In a minute. Let me think,” Jenny said, leaning against the island, looking down at the dead woman.
    In the back of her mind, a vague and frightening thought had been stirring: plague . The plague—bubonic and other forms—was not a stranger to parts of California and the Southwest. In recent years, a couple of dozen cases had been reported; however, it was rare that anyone died of the plague these days, for it could be cured by the administration of streptomycin, chloramphenicol, or any of the tetracyclines. Some strains of the plague were characterized by the appearance of petechiae; these were small, purplish, hemorrhagic spots on the skin. In extreme cases, the petechiae became almost black and spread until large areas of the body were afflicted by them; in the Middle Ages, it had been known, simply, as the Black Death. But could petechiae arise in such abundance that the victim’s body would turn as completely dark as Hilda’s?
    Besides, Hilda had died suddenly, while cooking, without first suffering fever, incontinence—which ruled out the plague. And which, in fact, ruled out every other known infectious disease, too.
    Yet there were no blatant signs of violence. No bleeding gunshot wounds. No stab wounds. No indications that the housekeeper had been beaten or strangled.
    Jenny stepped around the body and went to the counter by the sink. She touched the head of cabbage and was startled to find that it was still chilled. It hadn’t been here on the cutting board any longer than an hour or so.
    She turned away from the counter and looked down at Hilda again, but with even greater dread than before.
    The woman had died within the past hour. The body might even still be warm to the touch.
    But what had killed her?
    Jenny was no closer to an answer now than she had been before she’d examined the body. And although disease didn’t seem to be the culprit here, she couldn’t rule it out. The possibility of contagion, though remote, was frightening.
    Hiding her concern from Lisa, Jenny said, “Come on, honey. I can use the phone in my office.”
    “I’m feeling better now,” Lisa said, but she got up at once, obviously eager to go.
    Jenny put an arm around the girl, and they left the kitchen.
    An unearthly quiet filled the house. The silence was so deep that the whisper of their footsteps on the hall carpet was thunderous by contrast.
    Despite overhead fluorescent lights, Jenny’s office wasn’t a stark, impersonal room like those that