by Robin Lamont
And when he emerged, her feelings were confirmed. He was slight of build and had a kindly face with large ears. She had a soft spot for people with overly-big or oddly shaped ears. To her, they spoke of vulnerability. “What can I do for you? Miss …?”
“Brannock,” replied Jude, preparing once again to recite from the script. “I’m looking for a dog, a beagle actually, that a friend of mine might have brought here last week. The dog would have been quite ill.”
The tips of his ears turned pink and he said, “I’m not sure. Let me think … no, I don’t recall that.” He was a terrible liar.
“Dr. Packer,” said Jude urgently. “This is very important. I really need your help.”
His brow furrowed, he eyed Jude with some trepidation. “Why are you asking? Who are you?”
“I am not from the lab, if that’s what’s worrying you.”
“Then you need to explain yourself.”
She did, leaving out certain details. But she told him about The Kinship, about Tim working undercover at Amaethon, and of her belief that he had taken one of the dogs. “It’s not legal, I know,” she defended. “But Tim has disappeared and we’re very worried about him. I had a hunch that he would have left Bailey with someone who could help. And that would be you, right?”
Packer took a deep breath and nodded. “Come with me.”
He led her out of the barn and toward the back of his house. His wife, or so Jude assumed, was folding laundry on a back porch that overlooked the swing set. Nearby was a boy, about five or six, sitting on the grass playing with a beagle. The child wore glasses and, unlike his father, had short, round ears. A huge grin was plastered on his face and his tongue protruded slightly from his mouth; it appeared he had lost a couple of front teeth early. Packer stopped short of the lawn and watched the boy who seemed oblivious to anyone but the dog.
“That’s my son Jackson.”
It was clear, now that she had taken in the boy’s appearance, that he was born with Down’s Syndrome.
“And as you can see,” said the vet, “he’s fallen in love with Cooper.”
“Cooper?”
“That’s what we call him. Jack-o picked the name. I guess he’s your Bailey.”
“Well, a couple of the techs at the lab called him that, but it looks like Cooper fits just as well.”
As they watched the two play happily together, Dr. Packer told the story. “I knew right away from the number tattooed in his ear that he was from a lab somewhere. And yes, he was very sick. He’s doing better now, but I nearly lost him that first night.”
“And Tim brought him in?”
“He didn’t identify himself. He just pushed Cooper into my arms and said he’d be back in a couple of days to pay whatever fees. He said something about believing the dog wouldn’t make it to Washington. It was late, around dinnertime. I heard him pounding on the front door of the house. I occasionally get emergencies at that hour, but they usually call first.”
“And then Tim left?”
Packer turned to look at her. “Your friend was in a bad way. He was extremely agitated, and he didn’t look well. I advised him to go to a hospital. I even offered to drive him, but he said he had to go back – he didn’t say where to – and get his stuff. He promised to see a doctor the next day.”
“Did he say anything else?”
“He insisted I treat Cooper right away and asked that if I did blood tests, to save the samples.”
“Did he tell you anything about the dog’s condition?”
“I could see that Cooper was lethargic, and your friend told me that he’d seen blood in his stool and in his mouth. He also told me what they were testing at the lab.” Packer’s eyes hardened and the muscles of his jaw rippled with tension.
“It’s some kind of heart drug?” asked Jude.
“You could call it that. But it can’t be a beta blocker or vasodilator. I can’t say with a hundred percent certainty, but I’m pretty sure they’re testing an anti-coagulant.”
“Why would that be a heart drug?”
“It keeps blood clots from forming, usually to prevent pulmonary embolisms from causing a heart attack or stroke. When someone is put on drugs like warfarin or heperin, they’re monitored carefully so there’s only enough drug in the system to decrease the clotting tendency, not to stop it altogether.”
“But I don’t suppose the animal test subjects are monitored that way, other than to simply see what happens.”
“That’s right.” He nodded to Cooper. “The poor thing was hemorrhaging internally. Any bump or cut that might bleed was going to keep bleeding. For God’s sake, they make rat poison out of the stuff. It’s a good thing that Tim gave me a heads up on the substance they’re testing, because it allowed me to skip a few steps and get the bleeding under control.”
Jude’s mind spun crazily as she remembered what Bobby G told her about Tim’s reaction to seeing Ostrovsky in the field … the razed cornfield … he who walks behind the rows. Recombinant proteins for large scale production. She finally asked, “Did Tim tell you how it was being tested at the lab?”
“They’re feeding it to the dogs. Mixing it in with their other food.”
“And what if … what if a person ingested that food?”
“If he didn’t need it? And wasn’t being monitored?”
Jude nodded.
“He’d be in serious trouble.”
“Like bad nosebleeds?” she breathed.
“Sure. There might be other symptoms too, like bleeding gums, an unusual rash, or bruising.” When Jude didn’t respond, he became alarmed. “Did Tim eat any of what they were testing?”
“I think he might have.”
“He would eat dog food?”
“I … I don’t know.”
“What makes you think he ingested the warfarin?”
“He was complaining about having nosebleeds that wouldn’t stop.” But Jude was not thinking only of Tim. She was thinking about the boy at the farmer’s market and his nonstop bloody nose. She was thinking about Heather and the odd rash that covered her arm.
“Christ!” exclaimed Packer. “I hope he got to a hospital. Warfarin is nothing to fool around with. What are you going to do?”
“Go to the police.”
Packer’s son looked up finally and saw his dad. He wrapped his arms around Cooper and his smile grew even bigger. The vet waved, and Jackson waved joyfully back.
“You know, of course, that if you go to the police, they’ll come and take Cooper back to the lab,” said Packer. “He’s stolen property. He belongs to Amaethon.”
“Tim is gone,” said Jude bitterly. “And I need help figuring out what the hell happened.”
The doctor drew his hands roughly down his face. “They’ll take him back to the lab and euthanize him.”
“I can try to convince the cops not to do that,” Jude said, her voice rising. “But I think there may be other victims besides Tim.”
“Jude, I don’t see how the drug could get out of the laboratory,” cautioned Packer. “Maybe something happened in the lab with Tim. He ingested it by accident or inhaled it somehow.”
All at once, she felt the sickening ache of guilt return. She hadn’t listened to Tim. And if she was halfway right, this thing was too big to fight.
Packer was saying, “Look, if you feel you have to go to the police, then I suppose you have to. But can you wait a couple of days before telling them about Cooper? If something happened in the lab, they’ll have the other animals there to examine. Please, just a day or two,” he pleaded. “Give me a chance to find another suitable dog. I haven’t seen Jackson this happy in a long time. He deserves some happiness.”
Jackson’s mother stepped down from the porch and walked over to her son. She crouched down and began to pet Cooper, who promptly rolled over, luxuriating in t
he grass. She and Jackson rubbed his soft, white belly as his tail whipped back and forth. It looked as though they were all laughing.
“You’re right,” said Jude. “Your boy deserves some happiness. So does Cooper. I won’t say anything to the police. They think I’m out of my mind, anyway. If they do trace Tim’s movements to you, just … tell them that Tim took the dog with him.”
Dr. Packer gratefully took her hand in both of his before joining his family. The young beagle scrambled to his feet and licked the face of the man who saved his life. For a young dog, Cooper hadn’t yet regained that frantic puppy energy, but as he got better, he would. And she felt sure he was with the right family, not only because Dr. Packer would take care of his physical health. Jackson’s slow, deliberate moves and the simple joy that bubbled up from his core were just what this dog needed to heal. Cooper was finally free of the confines of his breeding facility and the testing lab, free of the sterile cages and the latex-gloved hands – the only ones he had ever known until now. He was finally home.
Jude turned and walked back down the driveway, vowing never to tell a soul. At least she could do one good thing.
CHAPTER 22
Katherine climbed the stairs with heavy feet and a heart even more burdened. She’d just gotten off the phone with the school which informed her that Heather had not come in and no one called to tell them she was sick. She’d have to bring in a note for tomorrow. “Of course, I’ll make sure she does,” Katherine reassured the administrator, her hands forming tight fists.
She expected to see her daughter listening to music with earphones clamped to her head and didn’t bother to knock. But when she swung open the door, the room was empty.
“Heather?”
No answer. Tinny music was coming from the bathroom down the hall.
“Heather, I need to talk to you,” called Katherine irritably through the closed door. A country-pop song continued to beat out an insistent rhythm from the iPhone, but there were no accompanying sounds from inside. “Heather?” Katherine tried to open the door and found something blocking it. “What’s going on in there?”
But even as she asked, her chest constricted in alarm. She shoved harder on the door and felt it give a little. Through the crack, she saw her daughter’s legs on the floor. Katherine began to scream.
The next fifteen minutes were a stampede of sounds and images. The pounding of Kurt’s boots on the stairs, Heather curled up in a ball on the tile floor, the ambulance siren, her daughter lifted onto the stretcher, pale as death … and oh, God! The blood. So much blood on her flowered PJ bottoms and on the bathroom floor.
Then came the interminable, torturous wait in the hospital. Katherine took turns staring at the toes of her shoes and at the double swing doors where they had been stopped from following the gurney. Her husband hovered around the admitting desk, inquiring every few minutes if they had any information.
Finally, the ER physician came out to tell them that they had stabilized Heather as best they could. “She’s lost a lot of blood,” he cautioned.
“What happened to her?” Kurt implored the doctor.
“We don’t know yet.”
“Did she … try to kill herself?”
“We don’t see any indication of that, but ….”
Katherine offered up lamely, “She was having her period.”
“Is Heather a hemophiliac?”
“No, no.”
“On any type of blood-thinning medication?” he pressed, slight accusation in his tone.
Her parents looked dumfounded and shook their heads. The doctor frowned. “We’re giving her an infusion now and running some tests. We’ll know more in a little while.”
“So, you don’t know what’s wrong with her?” asked Kurt.
“We’ll know more when the tests come back.”
Running a hand over his face, Kurt said, “I suppose we should tell you that about ten days ago she … she shot up some heroin. Maybe it was a bad batch or something in the needle?”
“I doubt it.”
Kurt felt it necessary to throw in, “It was just the one time. Crazy kid’s mistake.”
The doctor looked curiously from husband to wife before saying, “Mr. and Mrs. Buck, I don’t think it has anything to do with this bleeding, but your daughter is a regular heroin user.” He gauged their reaction. “I thought you knew. From the marks on her arms, she’s used dozens of times. I’m sorry.” Then he recognized the shock on their faces and added, “Don’t be discouraged, we’ll get her some help … when she comes out of this. Hang in there.”
He turned to go, leaving Kurt and Katherine dizzy with the realization that they didn’t know their daughter at all. Worse, they might never get the chance to find out.
* * *
Now what? thought Jude, after she left Dr. Packer’s practice. Go to Haydon with her suspicions? Speeding back toward Half Moon, she barked out a laugh imagining how that might go. Well, you see, Sergeant, Amaethon’s testing a freakin’ blood thinner by feeding it to dogs. One of them nearly died of internal bleeding according to a source which I cannot reveal. And then Tim had all these nosebleeds that wouldn’t stop. Probably from the same drug. And there was this kid at the farmer’s market. And I have a theory about how they ingested it …. She didn’t even want to imagine his face when she told him what that theory was.
Maybe she could get Jim Davidson to talk. He knew what had gone wrong. And she guessed that the owner of one cobalt blue BMW knew as well.
The dried grasses and razed fields flew by. God, it was hot. Summer in Vermont was supposed to be over by now. Her car’s air conditioning was malfunctioning again, and Jude rolled down all the windows to let the wind cool her. Feeble attempt. She was sweating bullets, her mind ricocheting from one idea to the next. She had to get something solid to bring to the cops. Something besides a license plate that might back out to Ostrovsky or Byer – if she could find the BMW. If she did, and the car belonged to someone at Amaethon, Haydon might speed up the paint chip analysis, and then—
Her phone sounded on the seat next to her. Jude glanced at the incoming caller and snatched up the phone quickly.
“What is it, Madelyn? ” she asked anxiously. “Finn? Is he okay?”
“He’s fine, Jude. He misses you, but he’s fine.”
“I miss him, too.”
“Listen, I have to tell you something.”
“Say again?” It was hard to hear over the noise of her wheels on the road.
Madelyn upped her volume. “It’s about Rocky. I’m really sorry, but I had to let him go.”
“I can’t hear you.”
“I had to let Rocky go,” yelled Madelyn into the phone. “We tried. But he bit one of the volunteers, and he was wreaking havoc in the kennel.”
A truck passed Jude, its rumble drowning out Madelyn’s voice. “He bit somebody?” Jude bellowed back.
“Yes, we had to let him go.”
“What do you mean ‘let him go’?”
“We had to send him to County.”
“You what? When? Is he still there?”
“I’m sorry. They … they put him down this morning.”
“No!” wailed Jude. “You promised.”
Madelyn argued, “I know I did. But you haven’t been here for over a week. I can’t just hold on to everyone that you want to rescue. I have to look out for all the others, too.”
“Shit!” Jude pounded the steering wheel. “Shit, shit, shit!”
She didn’t hear what Madelyn said in response, if anything, because the sky had suddenly darkened, and she could barely make out the road. There was a stop sign ahead and she braked, but the road curved at the last second. Didn’t it? Jude spun into the sign with a frightening crunch of metal on metal. She was aware only of her head snapping forward and hitting the steering wheel.
&n
bsp; “You okay, ma’am?”
Jude came to and blearily looked into the craggy, pockmarked face of an older man peering through her window. “Can you move?” he asked.
She attempted to lift each of her legs and arms, one at a time. They seemed to function given her limited ability to maneuver behind the wheel. Her right knee was sore and her head pounded like a demon, but she felt generally whole.
“Let me help you out,” said the man. “Easy now.”
She took his sinewy hand and inched herself out of the car. The front headlight looked as though it was embedded in the pole of the stop sign. “What happened?” she asked, still foggy.
“You drove into the stop sign.”
“Why?”
“Damned if I know. But to be honest, I’ve always felt it was a dumb place for it. It’s not like there’s an intersection here, just a tractor crossing, and any farmer with half a brain – and those are most of the farmers I know – would wait until there wasn’t any traffic.”
Jude remembered losing her vision just before the crash. But it seemed to be returning somehow and she zeroed in on the man in front of her. He wore baggy jeans and a green t-shirt that read “Don’t Blame Me - I Voted for Bernie.” The effort of standing upright, however, was making her dizzy and she put her head down and groaned.
“You got a nasty cut there, young lady. I think we should take you to the hospital.”
She felt sweat drip down into her mouth. But when it touched her tongue, she tasted blood, not sweat. “Oh,” she said, touching her forehead. “No, no, please. I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“I’m okay.” Jude was beginning to get her bearings. “I couldn’t have hit it all that hard because the air bags didn’t inflate.”
“They shoulda. Anyone I can call for you?”
“No, thanks.”
“If you say so.”
“Do you think the car will start?”
“I’ll give it a try. Here,” he said, handing her a bandana. “It’s clean. You go sit over there while I give it a spin.” He pointed to the flatbed of his truck a few yards away.