“Would you like some grilled corn,” I asked. “It’s delicious. I used Bobby Flay’s recipe that I found online.”
“No corn for me. It’ll ruin my make-up. Plus, I’m really not that hungry,” Jodi replied.
“No problem,” I said, “more for us! I would recommend that you start with the twice baked sweet potato and asparagus. They won’t be nearly as good if you let them cool down.”
Of course, my main concern was that she’d receive an adequate dose of ipecac to have her kneeling before the Porcelain God in Hank’s bathroom within an hour or two. There had been no simple way to befoul the corn, so I really didn’t care if she partook of it at all.
Chapter 61
It took me a while to figure out how I would approach my final evening with Hank and Jodi. I knew I needed to create a scenario that implicated only Hank in an act of murder/suicide. This way, the authorities would not feel compelled to look for another possible perpetrator of the crime which would take the lives of a prominent local physician and businessman, as well as his lover.
I had to find a way to physically control Hank and Jodi during the last few minutes of their lives in order to stage the scene perfectly. The fictitious scene I wanted to create would be most convincing if I could actually force them to fight and injure each other in a way that would provide the police with physical evidence of the altercation.
My idea—I must admit, was genius. It was so genius, in fact, that it made me wonder if I, and not Hank, was the one turning into the danger to society. Over the previous weeks, I had forced myself to ask one obvious question—the answer to which would determine whether I was an evil genius who was at risk of being sucked even further into a life of recurrent murderous endeavors, or if I was just a decent man who was trying to do the right thing in a very difficult and precarious situation.
Why should I prevail? I repeatedly asked myself. What, in fact, made me correct and Hank wrong? He was a pretty gifted guy in a lot of ways. Was his perspective the correct one, or was mine?
I was counting, somewhat, on fate to answer these questions. The only thing that I knew for certain was I had no desire or drive to ever kill another human being after this night—and I knew this was what made me different from Hank and Jodi. There was one truism which undeniably justified my mission and convinced me that, relative to my would-be victims, I held the moral high ground. It was the fact that should Hank be allowed to survive and continue his own mission, others would die. I also tried to keep reminding myself that if I were to allow Hank to maintain his current course, my own history would eventually come to light and every member of my family would be irreparably damaged by the truth that would, without a doubt, be revealed. Besides, if I were to allow Hank and Jodi to continue down the path they had chosen, I would be culpable in whatever vicious acts they would commit. I had to believe that I was doing the right thing by bringing an end to Hanks life.
It really came down, in my mind, to the cosmic balance sheet to which I previously alluded. Lacking the religious compass that most people used to determine whether a given path through life would lead to virtue or sin, I had to depend on the principle of beneficence versus malevolence. Would a particular action or behavior result in a net positive effect to mankind and the universe, or would it bring about a net negative effect? Driving drunk—net negative. Cheating on taxes—net negative. Robbing a bank—net negative. Killing a terrorist before he blows himself up in a shopping mall—net positive. Killing a vigilante serial murderer and his skanky, whorish sidekick—net positive with a capital P.
Once I was convinced that I was in the right, it had all come together pretty easily. My medical training had helped me to solve some of the puzzles which initially confounded me regarding how to manipulate Hank and Jodi into a position of vulnerability. Although I was dreading carrying out my scheme, I was confident that I could pull it off efficaciously and get the hell outta’ Dodge quickly and without leaving even a trace of evidence that I’d been present. Of course, the advantage of committing a crime at a location where one has, admittedly, spent a lot of time previously, makes it a whole lot easier to plan and carry out. I didn’t need to worry about my DNA being detectable in Hank’s house since I’d spent countless hours there over the previous decade and a half. All I needed to avoid was leaving a trail of evidence which would reveal my presence on the evening in question, and I felt completely self-assured that no such evidence would-be discovered.
There was only one way I knew of taking complete musculoskeletal control over another human being. Fortunately for me, I had access to medicinal compounds that were not available to the average person contemplating a murder, regardless of their motivation. As I had demonstrated, even medications such as succinylcholine, that I typically did not have access to, could end up in my hands if I were to use a little ingenuity and if I had the balls to swipe them. I also had the means of delivering, when requested, certain medicinal treatments. As a practicing physician, I was expected to have access to medications that were commonly found in a medical office setting.
Of course, neither Hank nor Jodi were going to let me walk up to them and inject a medication that would take away their voluntary and involuntary muscle control, leaving them paralyzed and unable to breathe without assistance. I had to disguise the sux as a medication they would want me to administer. Then I had to create, in them, a reason to request such an intervention. I needed them both to simultaneously need me to provide a treatment for a symptom which was both common and easily treated with a common medication—one which I would be expected to have on hand. The solution to this riddle was, fortunately for me, obvious. The only trick would be how to induce an acute illness—or a perceived illness, at least—in both of them concurrently, in a way that they would not suspect me of any malevolence.
The answer to the dilemma was one of the simplest and most prevalent maladies of human existence for which people seek medical care—nausea and vomiting. Acute, severe, puke-up-your-toenails nausea and vomiting—and a common medication called Zofran. I knew the only reason someone like Hank would want me to treat him with a medicinal injection in a relatively out of the blue situation would be if he were to become suddenly and violently ill. Who on earth, after all, would choose to endure waves of gut wrenching nausea and repeated regurgitation of foul smelling, nose stinging, acidic stomach contents if there was a simple and readily-available remedy which could be administered by a trusted medical provider and friend who happened to be close at hand.
I have always maintained that one of the greatest benefits of owning a medical practice is the ready access to medications. Most folks can only gain access to medical treatments by calling for a clinic appointment, sitting in a crowded office waiting to be seen, enduring a humiliating exam, and then going to a pharmacy to pick up their prescription—often after an inexplicable delay. I’ve spent my adult life bypassing the normal processes involved in medical diagnosis and treatment for myself and my family members in the setting of most common medical conundrums.
Kid with strep throat? Go to the office and get injectable antibiotics for them. Wife with a bladder infection? Antibiotics and bladder pain relievers are readily available in our sample cabinets. Poison ivy or some other severe allergy attack? Injectable steroids are commonly stocked at the clinic nurses’ station. Nephew smacks his forehead on the side of the swimming pool? Local anesthetic and sutures are stocked in every exam room. Kid or wife or neighbor or dog or self or niece or best friend plus/minus his girlfriend with nausea and vomiting? Injectable anti-nausea medications are kept and used almost daily at the office.
The next best thing to having readily available medications at the office is the fact that many of those medications will eventually reach their expiration dates. When this occurs, the clinic can no longer keep them around and the owners of the medical practice, who paid for them in the first place, can take them home to have on hand for ‘emergency’ situations. The fact that they are ‘expired’ doe
s not make them ineffective or dangerous, it just means that we can no longer expect them to be one hundred percent effective. That’s okay by me, I’m very happy to have a small pharmacy at home of 90-95% effective medications that I have immediate access to.
The aforementioned phenomenon is why a vacationing OB/GYN would be anticipated, if not expected, to have injectable anti-nausea medication on hand. Therein lay the access that I needed to the circulatory systems of my intended victims. Once I had determined that my Trojan horse would be the Zofran that I carried in my shaving kit, just in case I were to contract viral gastroenteritis or food poisoning in my travels, it was just a matter of determining how Hank and Jodi would succumb to the misfortune of acute nausea and vomiting which would lead to a fatal request for relief from me and my mobile pharmacy.
I considered over-serving them with alcohol to the point that they’d get that head spinning sensation that beckoned them to the cold tile at the base of the commode, where they would experience the overproduction of saliva and the inevitable feelings of regret that accompanied the anticipation of a gut wrenching expulsion of their stomach contents. It was not hard to imagine a scenario where both of them would have reached a toxic level of drunkenness, at which time they’d beg for any relief that I could offer them in the form of a therapeutic injection.
Unfortunately, although overconsumption of alcoholic beverages was a mistake that many people made on a regular basis, no one could really anticipate who would commit this fateful sin on any specific occasion. I knew that the prospect of sustaining my own sanity and my ability to carry on with my self-preserving goals was directly related to my ability to vanquish my foes as expeditiously as possible. I literally needed to make this homicidal effort the only one that I would have to contemplate and attempt. I had a lot of flaws, but I was no cold-blooded killer, and I would never be able to survive with my mental health intact if I had to repeatedly plot the murder of my former best friend and his pernicious paramour.
I was left with the option of finding a way to induce nausea on my unsuspecting dining companions. Yes! I thought to myself, now I was on the right track. Why had this not occurred to me immediately? Every frickin’ first year medical student knew about syrup of ipecac. It was a well-known remedy for accidental poisoning, although it had fallen out of favor among medical training institutions due to the fact that it harmed as often as it helped. Along with my medical school compatriots, I had been lectured about the danger of administering this naturopathic remedy to any patient who had possibly ingested a corrosive substance or a petroleum product. The basis for this principal of was the relatively high likelihood that it could lead to aspiration of the noxious material into the respiratory tract, which may lead to subsequent lung damage. Beyond that, there was little evidence that induction of vomiting was helpful to most patients who had ingested poison orally. Fortunately for me, I would not have to worry about the possibility of aspiration pneumonia or the lack of therapeutic efficacy with my prospective patients.
I had done a bit of research on ipecac. It was a natural product, derived from a Central American flowering plant with the scientific moniker Carapichea ipecacuanha. It had a long history of being used as a cathartic for patients who were believed to have ingested toxic substances. Although it was no longer easy to find ‘syrup of ipecac’ on the shelves of the local drugstore, it could still be easily obtained. With minimal research, I was able to find it online in the form of fluid extract of ipecac, which is fourteen times more potent than the previously ubiquitous syrup. Through my internet research, I discovered that this natural toxin exerted its actions on the human body via irritative effects on gastric mucosa and, once absorbed into the bloodstream, through stimulatory effects on the central nervous system within medullary chemoreceptor trigger zone. Oh, that crazy old medullary chemoreceptor trigger zone, I giggled to myself, it was simply incorrigible! In other words, ipecac fucked with your stomach and it fucked with your brain. The end result was that, if you were unfortunate enough to have ingested it, you were literally fucked and going to spend some time on your knees wishing you were dead. It sounded perfect for my plan!
Chapter 62
As we dined, I was pleased to see that Jodi seemed to have an unusually good appetite. She pretty much finished off her potato and she had four spears of asparagus that I’d dished up on her plate. The time we spent that evening was nothing short of surreal to me. It was a very strange feeling knowing that, as I served them some of the best home-cooked food they’d ever eaten, I was gradually poisoning them. As we spoke about family, friends, and work, I found it just as enjoyable to be around Hank as it had been the many other times we had socialized together. Jodi even came up with a few clever statements, and I was surprised to discover she actually had a personality separate from being Hank’s skeevy fuckbuddy. I had to remind myself throughout the evening that these two people, despite current appearances, were not my friends—they were my enemies. Being a straightforward person who had never been good at the art of deceit, it was a real mind-fuck knowing that within a very short period of time, Hank would understand I was not his friend anymore either. He would come to see me as not only his enemy, but as his assassin.
They were both heavily buzzed from their cocktails, but I really wanted to get another drink in them, so I pulled out my secret weapon. I went to my cooler and pulled out a bottle of Gosset Grand Blanc de Blancs Brut, which was Hank’s favorite sparkling wine. I’d heard him discuss this particular product multiple times as he provided impromptu lectures to whoever would listen regarding his thoughts on which wines were underrated, which were overrated, and which were receiving the appropriate accolades based on quality and cost. Once, when we were in Vegas, he nearly got in a fistfight with the sommelier at a steakhouse who suggested that the Gosset Grand would never prevail in a ‘Pepsi challenge’ if it were up against more expensive sparkling wines, including Dom Perignon.
When I returned to the table with the bottle and three champagne flutes, Jodi spoke up first.
“Oh, boy!” she said, “I guess you really did want to score some points with Hank. Did you know that this was his favorite champagne?”
“Well, Jodi,” I replied, “I have heard him say once or twice that he was a fan of this particular sparkling wine, but—”
“Jodi,” Hank interrupted, “how many times do I have to tell you that not all sparkling wines are called champagne? You know we’ve been over this and you know it’s one of my biggest pet peeves.”
“Hey now,” I broke in, “I’m sure that Jodi, of all people, knows she misspoke. No big dealio! Let’s just crack this baby open and enjoy it.”
“Thank you, Mark,” she said, with a pout. “Of course, I know the difference. Like you said, I just misspoke. You don’t have to try to make me feel dumb, Hank. I’ve learned a lot about wines—including sparkling wines—from you, so you should give me a little credit for not being stupid. Now, let’s get Chef Marky to pour us some Blanc de Blancs Brut.”
“Music to my ears!” I declared. “Let’s have some of this nectar of the gods. If my buddy says that this is the best cham—I mean sparkling wine around, then I have no doubt that it’s the total shit.”
I was surprised to hear Jodi talking back to her demigod and found it very entertaining. On the other hand, I needed to keep the situation from leading to any seriously hurt feelings, which could disrupt the evening and even bring a premature end to our dinner party. Fortunately, Hank followed my lead and chose to keep the spirit of the evening alive.
“Prepare to be impressed,” he said. “By the way, let me apologize to my beautiful Jodi for being a dick. I’d hate to leave town in the morning knowing that I’d hurt your feelings and I’d failed to say that I was sorry for talking down to you. I’d also hate to think I wasn’t gonna get some ass tonight when we go to bed!”
“Don’t worry, Hanky-panky,” she said, “I wouldn’t let you go out of town tomorrow without getting some ass from you!”
/> There it was again, that barely suppressible urge to puke that I always got when I was around these two. There was some comfort, at least, in knowing I’d never again have to endure their pre-mating rituals. The world around us would go on, but Hank would never again tap any ass, and Jodi’s ass—just like a beer keg at the end of a fraternity party—was all tapped out.
I unwound the wire which kept the cork stopper mated to the neck of the bottle, stripped off the foil, and launched the cork projectile off the deck and into the darkness. A satisfying explosion of carbon dioxide, followed by a small eruption of foamy spirits, accompanied the instant decompression of the effervescent liquid.
I filled each of the flutes with the sparkling elixir, topping each of them off after the substantial foamy head settled into the underlying liquid layer. The light buzz I’d felt after my second drink was gone, so I went ahead and drank a glass of the delicious sparkling wine.
“Well,” Hank asked me, “what do you think. Is that the best bubbly you’ve ever had, or is that the best bubbly you’ve ever had?”
“I have to say it is very good,” I said. “As I’m sure you know, I’m not normally a champagne—or sparkling wine—kind of a guy. I have to admit, though, this stuff is pretty tasty. On the other hand, I’m not sure it’s worth what I paid for it. I mean, I could have bought two large bottles of Grey Goose vodka for about the same amount. If it pleases you, though, it was worth every penny. I really wanted to show you tonight just how much I think of you!”
Fatal Flaws Page 39