"Not much. We're top priority now." He ran fingers through the thick, brown hair and massaged his scalp, trying to generate stimulation to his wary and confused brain. "What's new?"
"I've gone though some of these," she said. "Tried to save you a little time."
"Thanks. Sit down."
She pulled up a chair and thumbed through the papers. "So far, no fatalities. That's why there's no panic yet, I guess. But it's spreading like ... well, like a plague." Fear flickered deep in her dark eyes.
"Any water reports?" Andy asked.
"Wichita O.K., Indianapolis O.K., Tulsa O.K., Buffalo O.K.,—and a bunch more. No indication there. Except"—she fished out a one-page report—"some little town in Tennessee. Yesterday there was a campaign for everybody to write their congressman about some deal and today they were to vote on a new water system. Hardly anybody showed up at the polls. They've all got it."
Andy shrugged. "You can drink water, but don't vote for it. Oh, that's a big help." He rummaged through the clutter on his desk and came up with a crude chart. "Any trends yet?"
"It's hitting everybody," Bettijean said helplessly. "Not many kids so far, thank heavens. But housewives, businessmen, office workers, teachers, preachers—rich, poor—from Florida to Alaska. Just when you called me in, one of the girls thought she had a trend. The isolated mountain areas of the West and South. But reports are too fragmentary."
"What is it?" he cried suddenly, banging the desk. "People deathly ill, but nobody dying. And doctors can't identify the poison until they have a fatality for an autopsy. People stricken in every part of the country, but the water systems are pure. How does it spread?"
"In food?"