by Robin Lamont
“Nothing … I just hit my head.”
“You should see a doctor.”
“I did.”
He took a moment to take in the bandage on her head, the gray hollows in her cheeks, the grimy jeans, and the fever-like glaze in her eyes. “I’ve been looking for you,” he said.
She huffed, “Really? You couldn’t get rid of me fast enough at the diner.”
“Why don’t we sit down?” He walked over to one of the benches overlooking the valley and motioned for her to sit, which she did. He remained standing.
“You can cross Bobby Gravaux off your list,” she said, brushing away the bench’s flaking white paint. “That is, if you were ever interested in following up on that lead. I know what happened to Tim. Well, not what exactly … but I’m pretty sure it was someone at Amaethon.”
It was as if she hadn’t spoken. Haydon said, “I need to ask you a few questions, Jude.”
“Okay,” she answered hesitantly.
“When did you last talk to Tim?”
Good. Haydon was on it and finally putting his own timeline together. Her jaw relaxed a bit. “I guess it would have been … let’s see, Sunday before last.”
“And how did that conversation go?”
“He sounded drunk and messed up.”
“The two of you fought?”
Jude was surprised by his question. “I wouldn’t call it a fight. It was an argument.”
“About what?”
“It was personal. But if you must know, I thought his involvement with Heather Buck, although I didn’t know her name at the time, was getting in the way of his assignment.”
“And the personal part? You were involved in a relationship with Tim, weren’t you?”
“Yes, but it wasn’t serious.” Jude flushed, as much from Haydon’s peering into her intimate relationships as from the knowledge that she had lied. If she were telling the truth, it had been serious. She just refused to acknowledge it at the time.
“And when did you arrive in Half Moon to look for him?”
“Thursday. That’s the day I reported him missing, remember?”
“That would have been Friday, Jude. You didn’t report him missing until Friday.”
“Okay. Yes, Friday.” Jude shook her head in confusion. Why was his timeline focused on her? This was about Tim.
“Where were you earlier in the week?” he pressed.
“What are you talking about? I was at work.”
“That was on Wednesday and Thursday, yes?”
“Why are you asking me all this?”
But Haydon didn’t answer. Instead, he said, “And you told Mr. Silverman that you were in New York visiting a friend the previous weekend. The weekend, plus the early part of the week, which is why you didn’t get in to work until Wednesday.” When Jude didn’t respond, he continued, “In fact, you told your office that you were visiting a friend named Alice Cantrell.”
She was beginning to catch on to his line of questioning. “What the hell is this? You think I had something to do with Tim’s disappearance?”
“But I contacted Alice Cantrell who is, in fact, living in New York City. But she told me that she hasn’t seen you since last May.”
Jude glared at him, bristling with anger.
“Why did you lie to your colleagues about where you were?”
“I … was having some medical tests done, and I didn’t want anybody to know.”
“What kind of tests?”
“It’s none of your goddamn business. And you have some nerve to question me this way. I’m the one who brought Tim to your attention.”
“I just need to get some facts straight.”
Jude had enough. She started to get up, but Haydon blocked her. “Where were you on Monday and Tuesday of last week?”
“I told you where I was,” she fumed.
Haydon kept his calm. “Someone saw you and Tim together on Tuesday. In Half Moon.”
“What? That’s a lie! Who told you that?”
Pulling out a cellphone from his pocket, Haydon said, “This person also found Tim’s phone and turned it over to us. You sent off some pretty angry texts to him.”
“Give me that!” she cried.
But he held it out of her reach and said, “You didn’t like that he wasn’t calling you back like he was supposed to. And there was the issue with Heather.”
“Okay. I was angry at him, but that wasn’t … who found his phone? Where?”
“It was at the lab.”
Jude scoffed, “That can’t be true. He sent me some photos from his phone after he left the lab on Tuesday. I showed them to you, remember?”
“You don’t know that he sent them from his phone. In fact, I have two witnesses who say that he clocked out of Amaethon on Tuesday evening and later returned because he’d left it there.”
It stopped Jude short. “No, no,” she stammered. “He went back to the lab to get Bailey. He only told Sylvia that he came back for the phone. It was a pretext, don’t you understand? Whoever supposedly found his phone at the lab is lying to you. Maybe they got it out of Tim’s car after driving him off the road. Was it Stuart Ostrovsky? Or the other one. Dillon Byer.” There was a slight movement at the edge of Haydon’s mouth that gave it away. “It was Byer. He drives a blue BMW, doesn’t he?”
“Why do you ask?”
“The paint chips, Sergeant. Remember those? That sonofabitch ran Tim off the road and then got his car repainted. Call the autobody shop.”
“Which autobody shop?”
Jude was so confounded by the accusations being thrown at her she couldn’t think straight. “I don’t recall right now. But I have it, I can get it for you.” And then, she exploded. “This is bullshit. Byer’s lying because he killed Tim. Their fucking experiment went off the rails and Tim threatened to expose them. Now Byer’s trying to set me up. Screw this. I’m out of here.”
She tried to brush past Haydon, but he caught her arm. “Afraid not,” he said. “I need to take you in and get you on record.”
Jude tried to wrest herself from his grasp, yelling, “You’re crazy! You think I killed Tim? Fuck you!”
“I don’t want to have to cuff you,” said Haydon. “But I will.”
And he did, forced to drag a screaming Jude to the back of his squad car. Haydon stayed mute while Jude kicked the back of his seat and cursed roundly. He had intended to take her to the barracks, but even after she stopped yelling, she started with the real crazy:
Genetically engineered corn;
Growing a blood thinner on a local farm;
Cross pollination, people getting sick;
People in town who know about it and are keeping quiet;
Dr. Harbolt part of the conspiracy;
And he tried to DRUG her!
Haydon changed his mind and drove directly to the hospital.
* * *
Stuart Ostrovsky flipped on the overhead light when he entered the office. The long fluorescent bulbs began to hum softly overhead, sending an uncomfortable electric sensation through his veins. It intensified into a jolt when he saw Byer.
“Jesus, Dillon,” he exclaimed. “What are you doing here in the dark?”
Byer swiveled in the desk chair to face him. “Thinking,” he replied grimly.
“What’s wrong?”
“The animal rights gal found the dog.”
Ostrovsky could barely breathe. “Where?”
“Mains took it to a vet in Roxbury.”
“Mains?”
“Jeffries. Tyler Jeffries.”
“How do you know all this?”
Byer brushed some imagined lint from his chinos and said, “Jeffries must have told her. Either that, or someone from the lab is talking. But earlier today, she spent an awful lot of time wi
th a vet in Roxbury.”
After processing what Byer had said, the scientist reluctantly asked, “You’ve been following her?”
“She’s asking way too many questions.”
Ostrovsky began to look wildly around his office as if searching for a way out. He could feel the tremors getting worse. “We … we have to report it.”
“Report it to who?” Byer demanded.
“The USDA, the police, I suppose. Tell them the truth. The cross pollination wouldn’t have occurred unless some freak winds came up. It was completely unpredictable.”
Byer jumped out of the chair. “No, no. My father invested eight million dollars into this project, and I sunk every penny I have, too.”
“But people are still getting sick.”
“No one has died.”
“That we know of!”
“Chill, Stu. I’ve been following the local news. We would have heard. Listen, by the time the process is approved, this little incident will be history. All the animals will be gone. It’ll just be your records. There will be nothing else to find.”
“Nothing?” croaked Ostrovksy. “You don’t get it. Kurt Buck is an organic farmer – he keeps his seeds. Even if he doesn’t, there’s pollen in his soil. The drug will be in his corn for years and could cross-pollinate someone else’s field. No, Dillon, we have to come clean. It’s the only way.”
Stepping over to his partner, Byer grasped Ostrovsky’s shoulders to look him square in the eye. “There’s no need to panic, Stu. We’re okay.”
“Too many people know,” groaned Ostrovksy. “Jim Davidson.”
Byer leaned in closer, saying, “We give him another ten grand and Davidson will keep his mouth shut. He knows what’s going on. He’s in as deep as we are.”
“What about Jeffries? He’s out there somewhere.”
“Don’t worry about him,” said Byer, waving him off.
The scientist backed away from Byer as he discerned his meaning. “Oh, my God,” he whispered. “How did you know his real name? Oh, Dillon, Dillon, what did you do?” Feeling his hands go out of control, he fumbled in his jacket pocket for the new pills that were supposed to help. He shook out two and popped them in his mouth.
“Listen to me, Stu,” said Byer, becoming frustrated with his partner’s whining. “This is no time to fall apart. We can contain this, okay? The protocol is, for all intents and purposes, finished. The ninety days are over. We just have to wrap it up, and fast.”
“How do we do that?”
“You do what you would have done anyway. Get rid of the animals and clean up the lab.”
Ostrovksy nodded feebly. “I need a few days.”
“No. Do it tonight.”
“Tonight? That’s impossible. I have twenty-three dogs down there, and more than a hundred rats. It takes time to euthanize them all.”
“There’s the incinerator.”
Ostrovksy looked up at him, horrified.
“Whatever you have to do,” pressed Byer. “Who’s scheduled to work tomorrow?”
“Sylvia and Lester,” he replied dully.
“Any chance they know what’s going on?”
“No. They’re aware of what we’re testing, not where it came from.”
“Fine. I’ll call them and the others and tell them not to come in. I’ll say there’s a delay because of the USDA or something.”
The pills hadn’t kicked in yet. Ostrovksy shoved his shaking hands into his pockets so Byer wouldn’t see. He was about to ask what his partner intended to do about the animal rights woman but decided he didn’t want to know. The overhead lights thrummed on, the sound softly burrowing into his brain, like maggots on rotting food.
* * *
“Why won’t you listen to me?” cried Jude, as an orderly took over from Haydon. “Give me a chance! I can prove it to you.”
The head nurse pointed to the last cubicle in the emergency room, and they brought her in there, sat her on the bed, and screeched the curtain closed. Haydon stood at the entrance with his arms crossed.
“Are you on Amaethon’s payroll, too?” she accused him. “Call Gordon Silverman. Where’s my phone? Get your fucking hands off me!”
The orderly stepped away and the nurse moved in, hands on hips, a few inches from Jude’s face. “You’re disturbing the other patients. If you don’t knock it off, we’re going to have to give you a sedative.”
Her hands still cuffed at her waist, Jude straightened her shoulders in an attempt to salvage some dignity. “You probably shouldn’t do that,” she warned.
“And why not?”
“Because … I took some pills before.”
“How many?” the nurse wanted to know.
“Two.”
“What were they?”
Jude calculated: maybe Harbolt had really given her Tylenol because her headache was better. On the other hand, she didn’t know for certain. In any case, she sure as hell didn’t want to be injected with anything that would knock her out. Let them worry they might be on the hook for a negative drug interaction. She finally said, “I don’t know. I found them,” adding, “I’ll be quiet.”
“I’m holding you to that,” said the nurse, and then to Haydon, “Are you staying to watch her? Because I can’t spare anybody.”
“I’m not babysitting, but I’ll send someone over. For now ….” He unlocked the handcuffs and rerouted one of them to the upper bar of the metal bed frame.
Jude shot him a hostile glare.
“It’s just for a little while,” he apologized, “until you get yourself under control.”
As he was leaving, Jude said, “Haydon, I remember the name of the shop – True Service Auto Body. A few days ago, a guy there named Pete worked on a blue BMW with the right fender smashed. Some kid brought the car in, paid cash and gave him what he thought was a fake address. The kid was clueless. I’ll bet that the owner of the car paid him to bring the car in – so no one could identify him. Would you check it out? Please? See, I’m being nice.”
The sergeant stared at her for a moment before walking out. A minute later, she saw his feet below the curtain and then his hand deposit her backpack just inside. “Another thing?” called Jude. “My neurologist? He was doing the tests. His name is Michel Amin at Columbia-Presbyterian in New York. He’ll vouch for me.”
Jude heard him tell the nurse that he’d leave the handcuff keys at their station. And then Haydon was gone.
Left alone, Jude eyed her backpack intently. She had a metal nail file in one of the pockets that might do the trick. It had been a long time, but back in her protest days when she and other activists would handcuff themselves to the front doors of a university lab testing on baby monkeys, they practiced the art of cuff-picking. Under normal circumstances, she thought she could unlock them. If she could get to the nail file. The nurses’ station just outside her cubicle was a problem, however. She’d have to drag the bed over, which would make a lot of noise.
She risked it. There was constant activity at the station which left it unmanned on occasion. And each time she saw more than two pairs of orthopedic shoes trot off to answer calls, with one wrist still attached to the upper bar, Jude pulled the bed an inch or two closer to the possibility of freedom. She’d managed a few feet when she heard a voice behind her, “Good Lord!”
She twisted around to face Dr. Harbolt.
They stood staring at one another in utter surprise until Jude said, “Don’t come near me or I’ll scream.”
“Whatever are you talking about?” he asked.
Fearful that if she did scream, they’d label her as hysterical and permit Harbolt to drug her, she kept her voice low, answering, “Nothing. Nothing.” Don’t let on that you saw him with Ostrovsky. Try to get rid of him.
“Did something happen? Are you alright?”
“I’m fi
ne,” she said, stupidly.
“You’re handcuffed to the bed,” he observed.
“Ah … yes, so I am.” She scrambled for something to say to get rid of him. “It’s a misunderstanding, that’s all. When I had the car accident.”
“Are you under arrest?”
“No.” Shut up and go away.
“Do you need me to talk with someone? I honestly don’t think your injuries are serious enough to be hospitalized.” But rather than seek out a nurse, he stepped into the cubicle and drew the curtain behind him.
She was about to call for help when Harbolt said in a hushed voice, “You’re right, Jude. It’s the corn. Kurt Buck’s daughter is here and is in serious condition. She’s been eating it raw for nearly two weeks. And I reached one of my other patients on the phone. He had eaten the corn without cooking it, too.”
Jude was stunned. Was it possible there was some other explanation for his meeting with Ostrovsky in the parking lot? Warily, she asked, “Why are you here?”
“I told you, I had an emergency. Heather Buck was brought in hemorrhaging.”
“Heather?”
“She’s still critical. The on-call doctor wanted to know if I’d ever put her on blood thinners.”
“What were you doing with Stuart Ostrovsky?”
“You saw him?”
“I saw both of you.”
“And you thought ….”
“Damn right.”
“He’s a patient. I treat him for a problem with tremors. Stuart wanted to come in, but I was afraid he’d see you, so I wrote him a prescription outside and sent him away. I think we should call the police.”
Jude searched his face for deception but could find none. His concern was either entirely genuine or he was a brilliant actor. She decided to jump off the cliff and replied, “Not unless you want to end up handcuffed in the next cubicle. I tried to tell them what Amaethon is doing, and it only landed me here. Probably would have been a psych ward if there was one closer. Ostrovsky and his partner Dillon Byer know that I’m on to their disaster. Byer went to the cops with a story to get me out of the way.” She lifted her restrained hand as far as it would go. “And here I am.”
“So, what can we do?”
“Get me out of here for starters.”