As soon as he started explaining himself, his voice became stronger.

He’d been working on Y. enterocolitica with army research grants. “Only for help in developing vaccines and other antidotes,” Kiel added sharply. “I was hopeful that we could use enterocolitica in a fashion similar to Jenner using cowpox for the original smallpox vaccines.”

The Department of Defense had carried out tests of airborne organisms in other locations; they thought rural Douglas County would make a good test site. And yes, Kiel admitted, it was a way of getting the last of the protesters off the missile base.

“I worked with the air force team to check the prevailing winds on the day we seeded the land. We mapped it all out, we knew which communities might be affected. After that, I started monitoring hospital admissions through the state’s public-health department. I expected to see a spike in GI symptoms. Then two people died of pneumonia; their families described the onset and the symptoms and I knew what I was looking at. I asked Magda. She blamed Matt and I was willing to believe her; he was constantly making mistakes in the lab. I alerted the air force. We got to the camp and they found Jenny, they shot Matt. They told me my career was over if I ever spoke about what had happened.”

“Those pesky careers, they take a lot of care and feeding.” My throat was tight; I could barely squeeze out the words. “When did you realize that Sonia was there?”

“How did you know she was there?” Kiel demanded.

“The film the air force was making of your test; I’ve watched it. Sonia’s in it.”

He didn’t react to news of the film; his mind was absorbed by the events themselves. “Sonia . . . she’d been embarrassing me for months with her infatuation for Matt. Gertrude told me Sonia had been lurking around Jenny’s tent off and on all summer, spying on Jenny and Matt. When we went out to prepare to burn the field, I found her—it was grotesque.”

He made a gesture of disgust and turned his face away.

“She was lying next to Matt?” I asked. “He was dead, and she had his T-shirt on?”

“It was revolting. The soldiers who’d come out to do the burn saved her. A day hasn’t gone by when I wished—” He cut himself off, realizing what he was about to say.

“Comfort yourself. Sonia also wishes she’d died that day. Why do you think she drugs herself? She wishes she could unsee everything you caused her to see.”

“It wasn’t my doing,” he said angrily. “It was Matt, in his stupidity, letting Magda change the specimens on him.”

“Nate is never responsible for anything that goes wrong.” Shirley had been standing silent in the shadows behind her husband; her gibe startled me, but I stopped Kiel from snapping his own insult back at her.