Touching Cottonwood

by Randall Simpson

  Mr. Silverstein: And is this condition relatively rare, say, as compared to the frequency of heart attacks, for example?

  Dr. Clemens: Yes, it is certainly a far less common occurrence than a heart attack.

  Mr. Silverstein: Is there any way to predict exactly when a spontaneous cardiac rupture might occur?

  Dr. Clemens: No, absolutely none.

  Mr. Silverstein: Well, are there any factors that make such an event more likely?

  Dr. Clemens: Absolutely. We usually see this event occur after a patient may have had a heart attack, but any other injury to the heart could also predispose them to a greater chance of having a rupturing of their heart.

  Mr. Silverstein: Could you please explain the term “predispose” as you’re using it here?

  Dr. Clemens: It means something that increases the likelihood of an event occurring. When talking about heart disease, heart attacks, and even the heart rupturing, which is the rarest of all of them, we always deal with probability. If you smoke or live a sedentary life style, for example, you have a greater likelihood of heart disease. So, if the heart has been weakened in an area, certainly that area has a greater likelihood of rupturing at some point.

  Mr. Silverstein: And if the heart has been weakened, is there any way of knowing that a specific event may lead to a heart rupturing?

  Dr. Clemens: Again, not with certainty, but you can look at probabilities and say there is an increased risk.

  Mr. Silverstein: So, if a heart has been weakened, could you look at a specific event and talk about probabilities of whether or not a given event might cause a rupture?

  Dr. Clemens: Again, you could only talk probabilities—never certainty.

  Mr. Silverstein: Are you familiar with both the medical history and the autopsy report for a Mr. Dominic Montoya?

  Dr. Clemens: I am.

  Mr. Silverstein: And do you agree with the medical examiner’s conclusion that Mr. Montoya died from a spontaneous cardiac rupture?

  Dr. Clemens: Her work and analysis were very thorough, and I completely concur with her conclusion.

  Mr. Silverstein: With your specialized knowledge of the heart and specifically of this very rare event of a heart rupture, could you make any statement as to the increased or decreased probability that some event could have triggered the spontaneous cardiac rupture in the case of Mr. Montoya?

  Dr. Clemens: I could only say that an event may increase the likelihood of a cardiac rupture occurring. Again, we’re dealing with probabilities, not certainties.

  Mr. Silverstein: I think you’ve made that clear.

  So, what about the presence of a stranger at the bedside of Mr. Dominic Montoya while he was a patient in the Critical Care Unit, might that have led to the rupturing of his heart?

  Ms. Yates: I object, Your Honor! This clearly calls for speculation by the witness.

  Mr. Silverstein: Your Honor, the witness is an expert. We are clearly not asking him for a definitive analysis but for a statement of probability based on his expertise. Clearly, Your Honor, even in the use of DNA evidence, which is clearly admissible, we only ask for statements of probability. This is exactly the same.

  Judge Nelson: Objection overruled. The witness may answer.

  Mr. Silverstein: Thank you, Your Honor. Again, Dr. Clemens—would the presence of a stranger causing some emotional upset at the bedside of a critical care patient, someone who had a weakened area of the heart, in your professional opinion, increase or decrease the likelihood of that patient having a rupturing of the heart?

  Dr. Clemens: I would say that it would certainly increase the likelihood.

  Mr. Silverstein: Thank you, Dr. Clemens. I have no further questions.

  Judge Nelson: Ms. Yates, your witness.

  Ms. Yates: Thank you, Your Honor. Dr. Clemens, you have just stated that a certain event would increase the likelihood of a patient having a spontaneous cardiac rupture. Are you able to quantify on that increase? I mean, is it two percent, ten percent, or fifty percent more likely?

  Dr. Clemens: That would be difficult. There are too many other factors that we simply don’t know.

  Ms. Yates: But you are confident that it does at least increase the likelihood?

  Dr. Clemens: With the facts I have, yes, I am.

  Ms. Yates: Would you then be confident enough to say that beyond a reasonable doubt—the standard we use for conviction of manslaughter—the presence of a person at the bedside of Mr. Montoya caused a spontaneous cardiac rupture?

  Dr. Clemens: No, I wouldn’t go that far.

  Ms. Yates: Thank you, Dr. Clemens. I have no further questions, Your Honor.

  Judge Nelson: Re-direct, Mr. Silverstein?

  Mr. Silverstein: Thank you, Your Honor. Dr. Clemens, when dealing with medical issues, especially in the area of probabilities that some factor caused some other event to occur, how often do you come across events that are beyond a reasonable doubt?

  Dr. Clemens: Hardly ever. It’s not a standard we use.

  Mr. Silverstein: So, in your field of cardiology, you are dealing with probabilities and few events that are beyond a reasonable doubt. Is that what you are saying?

  Dr. Clemens: I deal with probabilities, not reasonable doubt.

  Mr. Silverstein: Yet every day you see patients who have smoked their whole lives or have had sedentary life styles, who have heart disease, and you feel confident that their condition was likely linked to those factors?

  Dr. Clemens: Yes.

  Mr. Silverstein: So, you’re saying that something being beyond a reasonable doubt is not a standard that you use in the medical field?

  Dr. Clemens: It is not.

  Mr. Silverstein: And yet you are willing to use the standard you use in your profession, and say that the presence of a stressful visitor to Mr. Montoya’s hospital bedside increased the probability of his already weakened heart experiencing a spontaneous cardiac rupture? Do you stand by that?

  Dr. Clemens: I do.

  Mr. Silverstein: Thank you, Doctor. I have no further questions, Your Honor.

  Judge Nelson: Ms. Yates, would you like to re-cross?

  Ms. Yates: No, Your Honor. I have no further questions.

  Judge Nelson: In that case, I would now like to propose that we take our lunch break. Members of the jury, once more, I ask you to mind my instructions to you relating to the discussion of this case with each other or anyone else. Court is in recess until 1:30 p.m.

  Agent Westmore pushed his chair back from the table and stretched. For a moment he considered pouring himself a drink but instead stood up and decided some fresh night air would do him good. He put on his shorts and sandals and stepped out into the dark streets of Montrose.

  As he walked along, his stomach growled just about the time he passed by a closed fast-food restaurant. He studied the darkened sign in the parking lot—Tim’s World Famous Tasty Burger. Underneath the sign was the same slogan he’d seen a dozen times on the trip down from Grant Junction: “Find out what a burger is meant to taste like!” Though he’d promised himself to resist, he knew if the restaurant were open at that very moment, he would have gone in and done just as the sign suggested—buying at least two of the largest hamburgers they had—and a chocolate shake.

  He continued walking, and before long, he realized he’d worn the wrong shoes for the distance he’d already gone. Several blocks further, he found a small park with a bench close to the street. The area was dimly lit, and he sat down and took off his sandals, rubbing his feet as he looked up into the clear and starry night sky. Only one or two cars passed by on the otherwise serene and quiet street.

  What a nice, peaceful town, he thought.

  It was then that the lights hit him squarely in the eyes, and he instinctually held his hands up to shield the glare. With the lights mostly blocked, he could see the outline of a car in front of him on the street.

  “Hey, what the hell?!” yelled the agent in the direction of the lights and car.

  A moment lat
er, a shadow appeared in front of him, partially blocking out the light. He started to stand up.

  “Don’t move!” said a man’s voice.

  The agent remained motionless. “What’s going on?!” he demanded, looking up at the dark silhouette of a man towering over him near the bench.

  “I want you to slowly get down off the bench onto your knees and put your hands on top of your head!” said a voice from the silhouette.

  Slowly, the agent complied. The grass by the bench felt cool and damp on his knees. He felt hands roughly holding his shoulders while another hand was doing something under his left arm.

  My pistol! I’m wearing my pistol!

  He felt his pistol being taken out of its holster.

  “All right, face to the ground!” ordered the voice.

  The agent felt strong hands applying force in his shoulders, pushing him forward from his knees. He fell face-first into the cool moist grass and was now sprawled out flat on the ground.

  “It’s a god-damn Glock twenty-one!” said a second voice.

  “What are you doing carrying a gun out here tonight?” asked the first voice.

  Turning his head slightly to the side, with the cool grass pressed against his cheek, the agent said, “I’m a special agent with the Washington State Bureau of Investigation. I was just out for a walk.”

  “A special agent, you say? Where’s your identification?”

  “I…it’s probably back in my hotel room.”

  The second voice said something to the first that the agent couldn’t completely make out, and then the first voice said, “All right, get back up to your knees, and put your hands in the air, slowly.”

  He got up from the ground to his knees and was frisked completely. His plastic hotel key-card was retrieved from his right front pocket.

  “All right, what’s your name?” asked the first voice.

  “David Westmore—Agent David Westmore, Washington State Bureau of Investigation.”

  “And this hotel key looks like it’s from the Slumberjack. Is that where you are staying?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, why don’t we just go see if we can find some identification for you in your hotel room. Are you staying there alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Please stand, and place your hands behind your back. This is just a formality, you understand.”

  He rose and put his hands behind his back. The handcuffs were cold against his wrists. They led him to the backseat of their patrol car and drove the few short blocks he’d walked from the Slumberjack Hotel. They walked him up to his room, and one of the officers used the key-card to open the door. After telling the officers where his wallet and identification were in the room, they were retrieved, and the handcuffs were finally removed.

  “I think you put those on a little too tight,” said the agent.

  Neither officer’s expression changed.

  “We hope you realize how stupid it was to walk around Montrose at night carrying a Glock twenty-one, Agent Westmore,” said the first officer. “I don’t know how they do things up there in Washington State, but here in Colorado we tend to arrest people who carry guns like that around at night.”

  “It was a mistake,” said Agent Westmore. “I just went out to get some fresh air and put it on out of habit.”

  “And what brings you to Colorado anyway?”

  “I was tracking an escapee…but now it’s an extradition case.”

  “From here in Montrose?” asked the second officer.

  “Nope…from Cottonwood.”

  The officers looked at each other and smirked.

  “Well, good luck with that,” said the first officer.

  After final admonishments to be more careful in the future, the very last thing the officers did before leaving the hotel room was give the agent his Glock 21. He poured himself a drink and sat at the table, embarrassed and angry with himself for being so careless. Though he had arrested many people in his years in law enforcement, this was the first time in his life he’d ever been on the receiving end of the transaction. It was a perspective that one had to experience to understand.

  He took off the empty holster and returned his Glock 21 pistol to its resting place. He then hung the whole affair over the back of the chair. He took a long sip and rested the glass on top of the Matthew Duncan case file he’d finished earlier. A few drops of whiskey dribbled down the glass to blur the black print on the starch-white pages. After he finished the drink, he closed the curtains and climbed into bed. The thin curtains dimmed the light from the neon Slumberjack sign outside, and the whiskey dulled his senses just enough for him to ignore the axe under the mattress and find a few hours of sleep.

  Sixty-Two

  Into Cottonwood

  Akash Mudali was scheduled to leave Denver around 6 a.m. and arrive in Montrose to pick up Agent Westmore at the Slumberjack Hotel around noon. The agent sat waiting for him in the small lobby of the hotel, yawning and reading The Denver Post. Toward the front of the paper was a small article on the Cottonwood Dead Zone in which the regional director of CDEM, a Ms. Gwendolyn Mercer, was quoted as saying that she was sending “one of the state’s top investigators to Cottonwood on Monday.” She also said she had full faith and confidence that the investigator would figure out what was causing the Dead Zone. The newspaper quoted her as saying, “If Akash Mudali can’t figure this thing out, then no one in the world can.”

  Though never wanting or expecting it, Agent Westmore suddenly felt right in the thick of things in Colorado. Even though the sheriff of Cottonwood had fortunately or unfortunately already made the actual arrest of Matthew Duncan, at least, thought the agent, he would get the honor of riding into Cottonwood with the man who was given the task of solving the Cottonwood Dead Zone mystery. All things considered, he would rather have made the arrest.

  At a few minutes after noon, a red sedan pulled up in front of the hotel. The vehicle was a newer model all-electric. The agent watched the vehicle through the hotel window as a dark-haired man of slight build got out. This had to be Akash Mudali. The agent picked up his bags and went outside to meet him.

  “Mr. Westmore?” asked Akash as the two men met just outside the front door of the hotel.

  “And you must be Akash,” said Agent Westmore, smiling and shaking his hand. “I sure appreciate the ride.”

  “It’s no problem. It reminds me of my college days. I drove a taxi to pay the bills back then.”

  The agent smiled, and the two men walked over to the car. Akash opened the trunk, and the agent tossed in his briefcase, small overnight bag, and the brown bag containing the orange prison jumpsuit. Akash closed the trunk, and the two men got in. They pulled out of the parking lot and onto the main avenue through Montrose, which turned into Highway 550, and headed south toward Cottonwood.

  “This is my first time in an all-electric,” remarked the agent after they’d been driving for a few minutes. “Sure are quiet.”

  “Yes, they are…especially since I’ve turned the engine noise off.”

  “You’ve done what?”

  “These all-electrics are so quiet that they can cause problems for pedestrians—especially blind ones who rely on sound to tell them when cars are coming. They’ve added an artificial engine noise to help warn pedestrians—but you can turn it off. I hate the extra noise, so I turned it off. I’ll put it back on when I’m in a big city with lots of pedestrians. But out here, well, who needs the extra noise?”

  “Good thinking,” said the agent.

  They drove for many minutes without talking, eventually leaving Montrose behind. The countryside unfolded into a broad open valley, with the highway paralleling the Uncompahgre River. Looming directly ahead of them, the rugged San Juan mountain range sprang from the floor of the valley.

  “Since you were driving, I didn’t bother checking my map last night,” said the agent as he gazed on the approaching mountains. “How far to Cottonwood?”

  “Right at
the base of those mountains,” replied Akash.

  The agent continued to study the jagged peaks. “Reminds me of the Swiss Alps or something—though I’ve never been—but I’ve seen pictures.”

  “A lot of people say that about these San Juans. They’re certainly beautiful.”

  After a few more moments of silence, Akash asked, “So what sort of business brings you to Colorado anyway? I was only told to pick you up, but not why.”

  “I was chasing an escapee from one of our prisons,” replied the agent. “The trail led me here to Colorado, but it turns out the sheriff in Cottonwood nabbed him before I could.”

  “You don’t sound too happy about that.”

  The agent paused before replying, “No…it’s fine with me. An arrest is an arrest. I was still right on target in my conclusion about where he was headed—it just so happened that the sheriff beat me to him, that’s all.”

  Akash didn’t respond but nodded his head. The two men again remained silent for several minutes as the agent studied the passing scenery and the approaching mountains, which, he noted, were climbing higher and higher in the front windshield. He had only been to Colorado once, for a ski trip many winters before. He’d flown into Denver and then rented a car and drove right to Breckenridge and the ski slopes. This part of Colorado, however, seemed different—it was more open and far less commercialized.

  “So, do you have any idea what might have caused this Dead Zone?” the agent finally asked.

  “Between you and me,” replied Akash, “I would suspect that the rumors are probably, at least partially, true. This was likely caused by some kind of military program gone awry. The feds are denying it up and down, but they never admit to this kind of thing. Undoubtedly, some kind of mistake caused this, and the feds just don’t admit mistakes. I once investigated a series of electrical power surges and fluctuations in an area down near the New Mexico border. The military denied it up until the point that I proved, beyond any doubt, that it was being caused by some tests they were conducting that were zapping the power grid in the whole region. They then issued a very short apology, and the whole thing just went away. My guess is something similar here—maybe an electromagnetic-pulse experiment or something of the kind.”