Tainted

by Ross Pennie

  Natasha arrived at Zol’s house at nine fifteen the next morning to collect Ermalinda on the way to Vanderven’s mansion. Zol had suggested it might help to have Ermalinda along because she and Vanderven’s housekeeper had long been friends, and they attended the same Filipino Catholic church. Perhaps Letty would feel more comfortable opening her pantry cupboards to a sympathetic compatriot.

  As Ermalinda sat smiling shyly in the front seat, her mittened hands folded in her lap, Natasha mused about what her father had once said about Filipina women being housekeepers to the world. From Hong Kong to Helsinki, Dallas to Dubai, families were coddled and vacuumed and laundered by millions of gracious, nearly invisible women who had developed personal service to an art form. What power they could wield if they organized and shared all the secrets they’d witnessed in the bedrooms and bathrooms of the global elite.

  Natasha pulled her Honda to the sloping curb and set the handbrake. Vanderven’s three-storey mansion dominated a cul-de-sac at the edge of the Escarpment. It looked like a brand-new French château, right out of the box. The slate roof alone would have cost more than an average Hamilton house. Natasha clutched at the gaping collar of her coat and picked her way up the long flight of front steps, Ermalinda two steps behind her. There was no handrail, and the shards of ice that had escaped the gardener’s shovel made the fashionable fieldstone treacherous. An icy wind howled through the cedars screening the back garden.

  “Good morning,” Natasha said to the small woman who cracked open the front door. Dark, almond eyes squinted in the burst of unexpected sunshine that leapt from behind a bank of heavy clouds.

  The wind whipped across the vulnerable spot between the hem of Natasha’s skirt and the tops of her boots. “I’m Natasha,” she said, shivering, “from the health unit.”

  The housekeeper, her jet-black housedress and frilly white apron ironed to perfection, ushered the visitors in. Ermalinda completed the introductions. Natasha, who had never thought of herself as tall, towered over the two Filipina women. She was struck by how gentle they were, how slowly they spoke, how carefully they moved.

  Letty took their coats and led them into a sun-filled room at the rear of the house. Most other families might have furnished such a space with a pair of loveseats, a plump armchair, pastel colours, and wicker accents. The Vandervens had crammed it with stiff faux Versailles: French-provincial settees and matching hardback chairs, porcelain vases sprouting silk flowers, gilded bowls stuffed with wax pineapples and pomegranates. The formality reminded Natasha of the reception area at Vanderven’s office and sparred with the California windows that stretched to the vaulted ceiling on three sides. The effect was no less tacky than Mrs. Patel’s Gujarati kitsch.

  Natasha chose a chair and pulled her notepad from her briefcase. “Thank you for meeting with us, Letty. I hope we won’t take too much of your time.”

  The housekeeper lifted a plate of home-baked gingersnaps from the coffee table. “You like a cookie?” There was sadness and uncertainty in her eyes, as if to say, This is a lonely place — I don’t know how I’m supposed to help you — I’m afraid I’ll make a mistake.

  Natasha took a cookie, placed it on a napkin, and wiped her fingers. She had no intention of eating the gingersnap. She never ate on the site of an outbreak investigation. “I’m not sure what Mr. Vanderven has told you, but we think Mrs. Vanderven ate something that made her sick.”

  Letty’s hand leapt to her mouth. “You mean,” she cried, “I . . .” Tears filled her eyes, and her shoulders heaved.

  Ermalinda jumped from her chair and sat beside Letty on the loveseat, her arm around the sobbing woman. “It’s okay, Letty, dear. Don’t worry. It not your fault. Miss Sharma not saying it’s your cooking.”

  “I’m sorry, Letty,” Natasha said. “I didn’t mean to . . . Ermalinda’s right. It’s not your fault.”

  Ermalinda dabbed her friend’s cheeks with a tissue. The two women held hands while Letty sobbed, wrapped in a grief so intense one would think Joanna Vanderven had died last week, not five months ago. Letty blew her nose and stuffed the tissue into her sleeve. She stared at her shoes and looked like she would never open her mouth again.

  Natasha felt like an idiot. She’d treated Letty like a witness instead of Ermalinda’s friend, and now Letty had clammed up. Natasha forced herself to pick up the cookie and bite into it. Barely tasting it, she washed it down with a swig of orange juice. “These cookies are delicious. I wish I could bake,” she said, hoping Letty would look up from her shoes, or at least stop sobbing. She took another bite, surprised that the gingersnap actually was tasty. She told Letty so again, this time with genuine conviction.

  Letty stopped sobbing, pulled the tissue from her sleeve, and wiped her cheeks. Ermalinda squeezed her friend’s arm and handed her another tissue. Then she looked at Natasha as if asking for permission to restart the questioning. Natasha raised her eyebrows and nodded quickly, glad of any help.

  “Dr. Zol need to know about the meat,” Ermalinda said softly.

  “What meat?” Letty whispered between sobs.

  “Well,” Ermalinda said, “maybe something wrong with the meat Mrs. Vanderven used to buy.”

  Letty placed her palm on her chest. “But I never use bad meat. I never . . .”

  Natasha made her voice sound as soothing as possible. “We don’t mean your cooking, Letty.” She took another cookie from the plate. “We need to know where the meat came from.”

  Ermalinda nuzzled closer to Letty. “She worry something hidden in it.”

  “Hidden?”

  Natasha smiled, glad of Ermalinda’s well-chosen words. “That’s right. Something so tiny that nobody could see it.” She was itching to have a look in the pantry and kitchen cupboards of this impressive mansion, but there was no way she was going to rush Letty. “I’d like you to tell me where the Vandervens bought their groceries.”

  Ermalinda handed Letty a glass of juice. She sipped it slowly.

  Natasha smiled as sweetly as she knew how and added, “Did Mrs. Vanderven do the shopping herself?”

  Letty put down her glass. “Yes. She like shopping.”

  “You can tell Miss Sharma, Letty,” said Ermalinda. “Mrs. V., she like Kelly’s SuperMart.”

  “And Four Corners,” Letty said.

  “The gourmet-foods place on Concession Street?” Natasha asked, looking at Ermalinda. Her pen was poised. “What’s its full name?”

  “Four Corners Fine Foods,” Ermalinda said, her voice confident. “Dr. Zol shop there.” She raised her eyebrows. “Max, he love the sausages and the chocolates.”

  Letty smoothed her apron with her palms. “Mrs. V. say best chocolate anywhere. She only eat the kind with the little bird on the box. It calm her nerves before . . .” She looked to Ermalinda as if asking for permission to carry on. “Before visiting the derm — the dermatologist.”

  Natasha had occasionally seen Joanna Vanderven featured in the society columns of the Hamilton Spectator. “She always looked beautiful in her photos,” Natasha said. “I didn’t realize she had skin problems.”

  “Her skin, it perfect,” Letty said proudly, as though she’d had a hand in keeping it that way.

  Natasha shifted in her chair and stretched her shoulders. How strange for a woman with flawless skin to need her nerves calmed before visiting a dermatologist. Did she expect bad news each time she went? The discovery of a tiny wrinkle or a single moustache hair, perhaps? There was no point in being cynical. After all, the poor woman had been right to worry. She had died. In one of the bedrooms upstairs. Natasha shuddered. “Getting back to the food, did she buy all her meat at Kelly’s and Four Corners, or did she have a favourite butcher?”

  “She have account at I and W,” said Letty. “She always phone and they deliver.”

  “I and W?”

  “Yes,” Ermalinda said. “I and W Meats. It a butcher shop on Upper James Street.”

  Letty plucked at her apron. “Yes, that right. You want to
see the fridge magnet? It have their phone number in case . . . in case you forget.” A shadow passed across her face. The corners of her eyes filled with tears. “Before, Mrs. V. always remember it. Then, she always forget.” Letty covered her face with her hands. “She forget everything, even my name.”

  When Letty regained her composure, Ermalinda suggested they visit the kitchen so Natasha could look for clues in the cupboards. Natasha noted all the meats in detail, including those in the basement deep-freeze. There were many packets of beef and pork, and a wide selection of sausages from I and W Meats and Four Corners. And, as Bernard Vanderven had said so emphatically, not a single piece of chicken.

  After a thorough tour of the mansion, Natasha put on her coat in the front hall as Ermalinda descended the stairs with a gorgeous leather handbag. Natasha recognized it instantly from its shape and design: Louis Vuitton. In spite of herself, she was awed.

  The bag rattled as Ermalinda held it up. “I think maybe Dr. Zol he should see this.”

  “Dr. Zol?” Natasha asked. “Why? Is there something in it?”

  Ermalinda glanced at Letty, as though confirming it was okay to continue. “Mrs. V.’s medicines,” she said. “And it quite heavy.”

  Letty stiffened. “She try many doctors but no one say what wrong — why she cry so much — why she forget everything.”

  “Letty help her put the pills in one of those special boxes,” Ermalinda explained. “You know, to keep them straight, after Mrs. V. get things mixed up.”

  Letty, her eyes pleading, took the bag from Ermalinda and held it out to Natasha.

  “And Letty hear them fighting,” Ermalinda added.

  Letty nodded, still holding the bag with both hands. “He say she visit too many doctors. That she not sick, she just lazy. So she hide the medicines.”

  Ermalinda pulled on her mittens, then put her arm around Letty and held her tightly. “Letty keep the medicines in her own room after Mrs. V. died,” she said. “You the first one to see them.”

  If Joanna had a problem with her medications, it wasn’t a matter for the health unit. Natasha lifted her hand to push the bag away but caught the look of desperation in both women’s eyes. Standing side by side, Letty and Ermalinda seemed small and vulnerable. They’d been so helpful, how could she refuse them? “Sure,” she said, taking the bag’s handles. “Dr. Zol may know what to do with this.”

  CHAPTER 7

  At eleven o’clock that Thursday morning Hamish hunched in his laboratory at Caledonian Medical Centre. It was impossible to put the CJD business out of his mind, but he had to review the results of the latest batch of research experiments performed by his technician. He could save scores of lives every day, but if he didn’t get his research published in the right journals every year, his career would be toast. The dean would see to that.

  He was working on one of those ironies that added to the complexities of medical practice: antibiotics, the drugs meant to kill bacteria, sometimes had the opposite effect. In the presence of antibiotics, a species of bacteria called C. difficile released toxins that torched the lining of the bowels. Elderly patients often died within hours, their dignity stolen and their beds soaked in blood and excrement. No one knew where the bacteria came from or how antibiotics incited such a storm of inflammation. As Hamish saw it, the key to the puzzle lay in locating the exact source of the offending C. difficile. During an epidemic, when the disease marched along the corridors of a hospital from patient to patient, the source seemed obvious. But where did the first person in an outbreak pick up the C. difficile? Hamish reckoned the microbes must lurk somewhere in the food chain, in the form of barely detectable spores. He proposed to develop a reliable method of finding those spores.

  Several papers in the food-science journals had captured his imagination. While searching the Internet one evening, he’d discovered that scholars were abuzz with a new approach to identifying specific animal DNA in food. They’d commercialized a test that could detect chicken, beef, pork, horse, sheep, and even cat in any food sample. Using a polymerase chain reaction — the technique for determining which culprit’s blood was on the murder weapon, made famous on television crime shows — food scientists could identify what they called “species-specific mitochondrial DNA.” They admitted the name was a mouthful but claimed the method was so accurate that Jewish and Muslim caterers could test all-beef sausages to be certain they were free of pork. Fast-food restaurants could make sure their beef patties were free of horse meat. But why a kit for detecting cat meat, Hamish had no idea until he read the manufacturer’s package insert. It said the test had been developed to “preserve the integrity of the food supply across the global village,” code for keeping cat meat out of take-out curried lamb and mu shu pork.

  Hamish knew that the mitochondria inside the cells of every mammal shared a common ancestry with bacteria, back to the time when all life on Earth was a soup of microscopic ocean creatures. He figured that a food-science test for animal mitochondria could probably be adapted for detecting free-living bacteria. After all, mitochondria and bacteria were close cousins. And if his test turned out to be accurate and easy to perform — and not too expensive — he might even revolutionize infectious-disease practice.

  He’d optimistically purchased several of the food-testing kits for his technician to evaluate. The test had turned out to be more finicky than expected, and these latest results were disappointing. Hamish decided he would try repeating the experiments himself tomorrow, Saturday. He wasn’t on call, so he’d have the whole day free. In the meantime, he had Ned Krooner and a dozen in-patients to see before lunch and then an afternoon clinic’s worth of outpatients. He hung up his lab coat, washed his hands, and headed for the elevator.

  A few minutes later he stepped to Ned Krooner’s bedside. The tips of Ned’s fingers poked from beneath a bulky white bandage that extended all the way to his shoulder. Ned’s face had changed since yesterday. His eyes glowed above his grizzled cheeks with a brightness they had lacked before the surgery. “Good morning,” Hamish said. “How’s the pain?”

  “Better,” Ned said. He pointed to a bag of intravenous morphine hanging on the pole above his head. “That stuff is working good.”

  Hamish reached for the chart at the foot of the bed. Ned might be enjoying the effects of the narcotic, but it was the timely surgery and the correct choice of antibiotics that had made all the difference. Ned’s temperature had come down; his urine output was normal; the morning’s blood results were good, too. The infection seemed under control and hadn’t damaged his kidneys. “Glad to hear it,” Hamish said. He was relieved to see that Ned still had all his fingers. Dr. Blayne had noted in the chart that the fasciitis hadn’t damaged any muscles or tendons but that Ned had lost a great deal of skin from his forearm. In a couple of weeks a skin graft procedure would be needed to fix the gaping wound.

  “Hi, Doc,” said a deep voice. Lanny Krooner entered the room carrying a large plastic bag and a brighter face than yesterday. “Doing not too bad, eh?” He slid a pizza box from the bag and placed it on Ned’s table. The smell of cheese and tomato sauce filled the room. A change from yesterday’s sweat and manure.

  Lanny unzipped his leather jacket and extended his hand to Hamish. “Like you said, Doc, he didn’t lose his arm.” His grip was a bit too firm. He released it too slowly.

  “Yes, yes, things do look good,” Hamish said, his mouth suddenly dry. “But we’re not done yet.”

  Lanny stiffened. His amber eyes glowed. “What?”

  “I mean . . . I mean, Ned’s got a large wound that’s going to take some time to heal.”

  “But he’s still gonna keep his arm, eh?”

  “I expect so.”

  “He better.” Lanny handed Ned a piece of pizza, then lifted a small package from the plastic bag. “Ned wanted me to give you this.”

  A red and white packet slid into Hamish’s hand. He turned it over and saw a half-dozen sausages lined up on a polystyrene tray beneath a p
lastic wrapper. The label said Escarpment Pride Viennese Pork Sausages.

  “His biggest seller,” Ned said in a chirpy voice. “Four Corners can’t keep ’em in stock. And they charge big bucks for them in that fancy store o’ theirs.”

  “You mean . . .” Hamish said.

  “Yeah. He makes them hisself. On the farm. He’s a butcher, eh? We got the farm to ourselves ever since our parents passed away. I do the mink, Morty tends the hogs, and Lanny does the books and his sausages.” He looked at Lanny as if apologizing for saying too much then stuffed his mouth with pizza. A spark of humour flashed in his eyes as he licked tomato sauce from his lips. “Haven’t found no women to take us on.”

  It was awkward accepting gifts from patients, particularly food. You never knew the condition of the kitchen it came from or whether it had been properly stored. But these sausages did look professional, as though they’d come straight from a grocery-store display case. If they stayed wrapped and frozen in the laboratory freezer until he took them home, and if he cooked them thoroughly, Hamish reckoned it might be okay to try them.

  “Gotta ask you, Doc,” Lanny said. “Will Ned be on any pills when he goes home?”

  “I expect so. He may need to take antibiotics for a couple of weeks after he’s discharged, maybe longer.”

  Lanny slid out of his jacket and looked around as if to be certain no one else was listening. “We don’t have a drug plan, eh? Being self-employed and all. So I’m gonna get you to put Andy Krooner’s name on the prescription. He’s our cousin. Works at the Ford plant. Got a great drug plan.”

  Hamish slid his thumb across the slippery packet in his hand. The sausages suddenly felt tainted, no longer a gift but an obligation. He swallowed hard. “I’m sorry, Mr. Krooner. I can’t do that. I’d lose my licence.”

  The defiant glare returned to Lanny’s eyes. Acid burned the back of Hamish’s throat as Lanny studied his face, memorized his features. Lanny turned to the pizza and tightened his fist, the muscles of his back and shoulders rippling beneath his T-shirt.