Oink

by J. L. Newton

  “Do you know his password?”

  “No, that was secret too.”

  I stared at the screen. “Pigs,” I typed. Then, one by one, “hogs,” “swine,” “boar,” “sow,” “porcine,” “hog barn,” “hog farm,” “pigsty,” “hog feed.” This was getting nowhere.

  “What was the name of Peter’s new corn?” I asked Teresa.

  “Double Dare.”

  I typed in “Double Dare.” Zilch. But pigs and corn weren’t Peter’s only interests. I entered “Teresa.” Nothing. Then “Jenny.” Zip. “Mei Lee.” No. Then, on a hunch, I typed in Mei Lee’s nickname, “Beautiful Plum.” The computer screen came alive. I turned to Peter’s e-mails, and for fifteen minutes the two of us read silently.

  “Oh, Dios,” Teresa said.

  “What’d you find?”

  “Peter had a contract with Syndicon giving them first rights on patenting any of his discoveries. That was one of his corrupt practices. He’d done it before.”

  “I thought the university didn’t permit that kind of thing.”

  “Peter did it anyway. Syndicon’s about to launch a genetically engineered corn that’s resistant to insects and disease. It was Peter’s discovery, and it was going to make them both tons of money. But over the summer he seems to have found some data about the negative effects of this particular corn on pigs.”

  “Maybe that explains these e-mails to Syndicon. Take a look at this list I’ve sorted out.” I stood up, and Teresa took my place.

  “Yes, he’s referring to his research in this one.”

  Teresa read through the e-mails, then looked up at me, her face drained of its usual color.

  “Peter was threatening to go public with his results. Syndicon forbade him to do so on the grounds that it would reveal trade secrets. That’s what they do to prevent researchers from blowing the whistle on things they don’t want the public to know. Syndicon is famous for saying right out loud that their responsibility is to market products and that responsibility for establishing their safety rests with the FDA.” Teresa gave her hair a twist and secured it in a low ponytail with a band she’d taken from her purse. “Of course the data they give the FDA often lacks critical information on the grounds that it’s a trade secret too. It’s the greediest, most corrupt operation you can imagine. And they’re extremely aggressive in court, and out against anyone who threatens their profits or reputation.”

  I looked into Teresa’s eyes, which had grown larger as she talked. They reminded me of Juan Carlos’s.

  “Was Peter going to blow the whistle on Syndicon?”

  “Yes, I think he was blackmailing them to keep him silent.”

  “Or did he suddenly develop a conscience?”

  Teresa frowned, then glanced at Peter’s desk as if trying to read its meaning.

  “Peter loved those pigs. He’d been around them all his life. Maybe he was taking up their cause by threatening to go public.”

  “Either way, Peter probably was being followed and harassed. That happens to people who threaten to reveal corporate corruptions. The two men at the hospital were probably involved. As long as Peter was in a coma, the information about the pigs was safe, but when he came out of it, he became a danger again. That robbery at your house this afternoon—they were after his data.”

  “But they didn’t get it because Peter doesn’t keep it on his home computer.” Teresa returned to the couch and continued to read while I scrolled through e-mails.

  Click. The door opened with a low sound, and two men in chinos, plaid shirts, and highly polished black shoes appeared. One held a briefcase. Oh, I thought, it’s the men in black suits I saw at Halloween. They’ve disguised themselves as scientists, but they’ve gotten the shoes all wrong. Both were tall and clean-shaven, one thin, one blond and thick. The thin man was wearing rimless glasses. Both looked straight at me and the computer.

  “We’ll take that laptop,” Rimless Glasses said.

  “And we’ll take the contents of those drawers,” Blondie added. He had a large round face and looked as if he could have been jolly, only he wasn’t.

  “They don’t belong to you,” I said.

  “On the contrary, I believe they do. It’s in Professor Elliott’s contract. We’re only taking what is rightly ours.”

  “Please step away from the computer,” the thin one said. His hand rose from his hip revealing a small, stainless steel gun.

  I stood up slowly. Shouldn’t they be wearing their suits? I had a hard time putting the gun together with the shirts and chinos.

  Rimless leaned over to close the lid of the laptop. Blondie began to rummage through the drawers, turning his back to me. I looked at Teresa and then at the large stone paperweight on the edge of the table. The open door had hidden Teresa and the couch. I raised my leg in a quick left forward kick that sent the thin man sprawling on the desk. Pivoting, I caught Blondie with a right roundhouse to the side of his back using all my strength. He plunged forward onto the back of his companion. Teresa picked up the paperweight and brought it down on the side of the thick man’s head. The two of us bolted through the door, ran to the end of the hall and down the backstairs, and pushed through the door into the chilly air.

  It was night now. We sprinted between the tall shadowy trees on Biology Way, swerved left at Engineering, then right along a road that ran beside the Hog Barn.

  “Let’s see if the Hog Barn is open,” I said. “The door’s on the other side.” I suddenly longed for the warmth and innocence of the baby pigs. We skirted the pens where the giant hogs were no more than inky forms and a piercing odor. The white double doors on the front side of the barn were locked. I pounded on them and yelled for help, but no one answered. Inside I could hear the high squeals of piglets.

  “We don’t have time for this,” Teresa said. “They won’t be out long, and at least one of them had a gun.”

  “Okay, the parking lot.” We skirted the far end of the Institute for Analytical Dynamics. One window was lit. I looked at it longingly, wishing it were Wilmer’s, but even if it were, we could never make ourselves heard. The parking lot, which lay adjacent to the Institute, was empty except for three cars. Teresa’s white Volvo, faintly illuminated by a single light, looked apparitional. We dashed across the lot, but as we got closer to the car we saw that all four tires had been slashed. How did they know this was our car? I wondered. But we had driven Teresa’s sedan. The men who’d been following Peter must have known both family vehicles.

  “Your office?” I asked breathlessly.

  “They probably know where my office is.”

  “Then let’s keep going. Maybe we’ll see some lights and find a building that’s open. Haven Hall. The computer lab. There’ll be people there.” For a change, the annoying computer lab seemed like a good idea. “We’re on the other side of campus, but we’re near the arboretum. It will lead us back, and we won’t be so exposed.”

  We ran across the lot and found the road to the arboretum trail, hurried across, and turned left. The dusky trees of the arboretum swallowed us. It was a different world in darkness. We slowed our pace to catch our breath and walked quietly and quickly in the night. A Delta Breeze carried the low sound of voices. Someone was behind us in the distance. We had almost reached the prickly pear and giant yucca of the arboretum and saw the outline of the palm trees rise against the sky. But the path beyond the trees was lit. Lights in the arboretum? I’d never noticed them during the day.

  “Wait,” I said. “If we keep going, they’re going to see us.” I looked around. Beyond us to the north the giant legs of the water tower loomed pale and ghostly in the darkness, its usual lights extinguished. I remembered how I had studied the tower on my walk with Helena and then how I had climbed the tower in my dream, the campus lights spread out beneath me, and something about the tower began to compel me, to draw me in. “There’s a ladder on the far leg of the water tower. If we climb it, we’ll be off the ground and since we’re wearing black, we’ll be ha
rd to see. We’re a threat to them now that we’ve seen what they’re up to.”

  “Are you crazy?” But then we heard the nearby sound of a car backfiring or perhaps a shot.

  Teresa grabbed my hand. We edged our way through the bushes and ran into the darkened space around the water tower legs. Someone had parked a university vehicle next to the ladder, which was eight feet off the ground. Perhaps an employee had been working on the lights.

  “If we get on the truck’s roof,” I said quietly, “we can reach the ladder.” I forced myself not to look up at the towering structure. Focus, I thought. It’s like the kickboxing bag. Just look at what’s in front of you. I climbed onto the hood and then the truck’s roof and reached for the ladder. I knew the climb was straight up, one hand over the other, one foot after the next. I looked at my hands in front of me and began to climb. I felt Teresa just behind.

  “Madre!” Teresa said softly. “Mother of God.”

  We ascended without a word until my legs began to ache, my arms to burn. I paused.

  “Let’s rest.” I could hear Teresa breathing right below me. Suddenly, a flap of wings and a feathery thing flew past me, and a surge of weakness pulsed through my hands and arms and legs. I began to feel the familiar dizziness I’d always experienced with heights. My hands began to slip, and I saw my body on the ground and Polly, motherless. But then as if a dam had broken and emptied its watery force into a dried streambed, a flow of energy filled me, and I closed my hands more tightly on the rung.

  “A bird,” I said at last. “Maybe a dove. It must have been nesting somewhere. Okay,” I said and reached for the next rung. I thought of the push-ups I’d done in class. “Twenty push-ups,” my instructor had yelled. “Now twenty more. You can do it!” The metal rods bruised my palms and bit through my thin leather shoes into the bottoms of my feet. But we were near the top and I had not looked down, not even once. We climbed the final rungs. I counted them to myself the way I’d counted the seconds when I’d squatted, my thighs on fire, against the wall in class.

  At the top of the ladder, I scrambled under the metal railing that ran along a narrow ledge. We’d reached the catwalk that encircled the dome. Tightly grasping the railing, I edged sideways to make room for Teresa, and in a moment I felt the weight of her body hit the ledge and smelled the faint plum and rose of her perfume. We stood side by side, breathing deeply, fifteen stories above the ground.

  The campus lay beneath us, a patterned mass of dark with twinkling lights. It’s beautiful, I reflected, if I could just stop thinking about where I was. Never in my life would I have imagined myself at the top of this tower. How had I dared? Had the dream prepared me in some way? And if I ever got down from here, would I dream about the tower again, would I have overcome my fear of heights? Sweat curled down my chest, but the metal bar was cold and soon I felt the chill. I looked down and saw a light in the pool of dark below.

  “They must have known we wouldn’t follow a lighted path,” I said softly. “They’re taking a look around.” The light bounced off the truck beneath us, and I could hear the growl of voices.

  “Can you tell what they’re saying?” I whispered to Teresa.

  “No.”

  “Can you stand to look down the ladder?”

  “I’m looking. Oh, Dios! They’re coming up!”

  For a brief moment, I imagined myself and Teresa being pushed from the catwalk to the distant ground below, two figures dressed in black sailing forward into a moonless night, but this time I had the presence of mind to steady myself by hooking my hands on the metal bar.

  “Maybe we can dislodge them,” I said, remembering the dove and how the suddenness of its feathery flight had almost made me lose my grip. “Let’s throw our shoes,” I said. I was wearing flats. I took them off and Teresa removed her heavy clogs. Then one after another we hurled them quickly down the ladder.

  “What the hell?” we heard. Then a cry and another cry.

  Teresa peered over the edge. “I think the first guy fell on the other and knocked him off.”

  I looked carefully over the railing, both hands gripping the metal rail. It was impossible to see anything on the ground. The night was still, and we stood rigidly, like ancient statues in the gloom, until headlights cut through the tomb-like dark and a red light flashed. It was a campus police car, and we could hear the fluty sound of women’s voices.

  “Help,” I yelled down.

  “We’re up here at the top. We were being chased.”

  “Wait there,” I heard a woman’s voice call back. “Don’t try to climb. We’ll have the fire department get you down.”

  Teresa looked down the ladder. The headlights of the car had illuminated the scene underneath. “They’re loading the two men into the back of the police car.”

  I felt the tension draining from my body, but my mouth still tasted of metal. After what seemed like hours, a fire truck arrived, lights flashing. And Teresa and I climbed down to the cherry picker that received us and lowered us gently to the truck and then down to the welcome earth. Two officers walked up to us.

  “Professor Addams?” It was Sergeants Gina Garcia and Dorothy Brown.

  “I’m so glad to see you. This is Professor Teresa Fuentes-Elliott.”

  “Hi, Officers. I know them both,” Teresa said. “They’ve been to see me plenty.”

  Gina slowly shook her head, as if to say, what next? She’d seen me and Teresa too, evidently, way too much.

  Another police car arrived. We searched for and found our shoes.

  “We’ll take you to the police station first,” Dorothy said quietly, “and then we’ll get you home.”

  * * *

  Teresa and I shivered at a metal table in the station as we told the story of our day and evening.

  “We’ve had our eyes on these two for a while, ever since they started hanging out at the hospital like turkey vultures,” Gina said. “I’d guess they were waiting to see if Professor Elliott would come out of his coma.”

  “That would have solved Syndicon’s problem all right,” I said. “What lengths would they have gone to if Peter hadn’t been in a coma in the first place?” Had Lorna’s corn bread, unbeknownst to her, momentarily placed her unfaithful lover out of greater harm’s way? Peter had easily manipulated Lorna, but in challenging Syndicon’s control he’d reached too far. He was lucky to have ended up in the muck beside the pig’s pen. At least he was alive.

  “We’ll drive you home,” Dorothy said.

  I remembered my purse.

  “Could you take us to Peter’s office first? I left my purse there.”

  Dorothy let us in using her master keys. Peter’s office bore only the slightest trace of the scuffle. His laptop was on the floor with his pen and paperweight. Teresa picked up the laptop.

  “I think we’ll need that,” Dorothy said gently.

  “You’ll need these too,” Teresa said sheepishly as she handed over the CDs in her purse.

  My turquoise leather purse lay near the desk, seemingly untouched. I hung it on my shoulder. It sagged heavily. I was glad I hadn’t had it on the run. Gina drove us both to Wild Deer Lane.

  “We’ll talk,” I said. Teresa and I embraced, and then I drove home.

  The grinning pumpkin on the front porch stared at me darkly. I’d forgotten it was Halloween. Fortunately, no tricks had been played on me at home. On campus it had been a different story. Malevolent forces had unleashed themselves and run amok. It was twelve o’clock, and I was soon in bed. At 3:00 a.m. my phone rang once and stopped. The phone company was keeping its promise. Perhaps it was a student after all—I’d surmised from Alma and the police that such pranks were not uncommon. At least Hallows’ Eve had passed, and it was now El Dia de Los Muertos.

  Tess’s Genetically Engineered Corn Bread

  2 tablespoons butter

  2 eggs

  ¼ cup GE canola or corn oil

  2 tablespoons honey

  1 cup buttermilk

  1 cup
GE cornmeal (freshly ground if possible)

  ½ cup whole wheat flour (freshly ground if possible)

  ½ cup barley flour (freshly ground if possible)

  ½ teaspoon salt

  2 teaspoons baking powder

  Preheat oven to 425°F.

  Place 2 tablespoons of butter into an 8-inch square pan. Set pan in oven while it is heating.

  Beat eggs. Then add oil, honey, and buttermilk to them.

  Add dry ingredients, gently mixing.

  Pour batter into the preheated pan and bake for 25 minutes.

  Adapted by permission of Pam Ronald from Tomorrow’s Table: Organic Farming, Genetics, and the Future of Food by Pamela C. Ronald and Raoul W. Adamchak. (Oxford University Press, 2008.)

  Epilogue

  I lay in bed. It was cold and too early for the heater to kick in. My thighs and arms ached, my palms and the soles of my feet felt raw, and the top of my right foot bore a dark purple bruise. Kicking a padded bag was a different thing from landing a blow on a human body. I’d often wondered whether kickboxing could be a form of self-defense, and now that I’d proved it could, I felt amazed and stunned that I’d pulled it off. The kicks had probably saved our skins, the kicks and our crazed ascent of the water tower. Not experiences I was eager to repeat any time ever, but this morning, my state of shock still unabated, they seemed far off, like frightening sequences in a really bad dream.

  What will come of this? I wondered. What will happen to Peter Elliott? Will he be physically impaired? Disciplined by the university? Lose his job? Or will he slip right back into the privileged place that was his usual habitat? Will others like Collin Morehead take Peter’s place? Collin hadn’t poisoned Peter, but there was plenty of the noxious in him. With the arrest of the Syndicon representatives—were they representatives or hit men, maybe both?—Peter’s double dipping and his data about Double Dare Corn would be revealed. Maybe, there would be greater scrutiny of corporate ties, greater reflection on the role of greed and corporate profit in university research. Perhaps Arbor State’s historically communal spirit would reassert itself against the culture of me-first, profit-driven values that had become so familiar in the last few years. The university’s long-standing collegiality, after all, had formed part of the environment in which our own smaller union of women’s, ethnic, and American studies had come about.