Stung

by William Deverell

  The happy results from those impromptu experiments encouraged Jinks to undertake the larger test with paid volunteers. “We were spurred in that effort because the company eventually hoped to put out a home-and-garden version of Vigor-Gro and we wanted to be irrefutably certain it was safe for domestic use.”

  Nancy draws from him the history of this study. In late 2003, a call went out to several colleges in Missouri and Kansas, offering as bait three thousand dollars plus expenses to attend a few weekend trials. Several hundred applied, and after interviews that was winnowed to one hundred and three, the median age about twenty-one.

  “You chose only men and women who were in robust health?”

  “Basically so. All were given checkups. Some were more fit than others, of course. A true cross-section, I believe, of our region’s undergraduate population.”

  As to the procedures, he recalls that Vigor-Gro was taken orally, with a chaser of juice, a few millilitres on first exposure, then a higher dosage the next weekend. I fight a vaguely hallucinatory sense of tasting it, a horrible green sludge sliding down my throat. Lucy’s Mix Two has sharpened my sensations, it’s definitely some kind of speed.

  “Everyone had to sign a release, correct?”

  “A form of release. Acknowledging they’d been fully informed about our testing procedures.”

  “Did the release limit the rights of these students to sue for negligence or malpractice?”

  “Our legal team didn’t . . . Well, let me be clear, we were a hundred percent confident in our product, so we didn’t feel such a provision was necessary.” Nancy just stares at him, demanding elaboration. “As well, our legal department felt that the courts might look askance at such a restriction.”

  “Sage advice,” says Judge Donahue, dryly. Dr. Jinks looks startled by that interjection — he’d been assured the judge was onside.

  Further probing reveals that records of the volunteer program remain at head office “under lock and seal and closed to the public to protect the identities of participants.”

  “Why the secrecy?”

  “I’m afraid you would have to ask Legal.”

  “Surely the test results on these students are available?”

  “I regret, counsellor, that I lack clearance to make them available. However, I recall these tests were conducted without any undesired consequences.”

  Nancy keeps after him, with an air of incredulity, but he claims not to recall any issues reported by the student volunteers, other than the occasional loose bowel, which staff physicians attributed to eating disorders unrelated to Vigor-Gro or their patented ziegladoxin.

  “You had no complaints from any of the one hundred and three about side effects from these dosages?”

  “None come to mind. These tests occurred in late 2003, through 2004, so that’s fifteen years ago.”

  “Were no claims in damages against Chemican made by any of these students?” The circling lioness slowly closes in on her prey.

  “You mean, like a court action? I’m not personally aware of any.”

  “I mean a claim that didn’t become a court action. One that was settled. Please help me here, Dr. Jinks. Dover was the injured party’s name. Charles Arnold Dover.”

  This is new. Nancy has dug up some background on him, his full name.

  “I’m sorry. Charles Arnold Dover? It’s not coming back.” He has gone a little pale. “You might ask our legal team—”

  “Right now I’m asking you.” Nancy hands him a copy of the fax. Jinks’s face kind of flinches, a threat reaction, but he’s quickly back to form: alert, serious. Another copy goes to Khan, a third via Miss Pucket to the judge.

  “This copy of a facsimile transmission, as you will note, is stamped ‘Legal, Volunteer Testing Program,’ and is dated July eight, 2005. The addressee is Baylor Jessup, Chemican’s chief counsel at the time. You know him, of course.”

  “Mr. Jessup. Yes, retired now.”

  “And it’s from His Honour W.W. Squirely, former judge, of Joplin, Missouri, and you see that it’s headed ‘Re: Dover and Chemican-International Ltd.’”

  “Mm-hmm, yes.”

  “Please read us the text.”

  “It says, ‘Sir, please be advised that settlement documents, duly executed, have been dispatched this date to the addressee by DHL Courier,’ and I assume that’s a tracking number.”

  “Surely, Dr. Jinks, this rings a bell?”

  Jinks can’t be sure if Nancy is armed with copies of the settlement papers, or some confidential memo that the document-shredding unit overlooked. So he screws up his face with mighty concentration. “I do recall now an issue arose involving one of the participants.”

  “Right. A student at Missouri Southern State University in Joplin?”

  “Probably . . . yes, we had several volunteers from Southern State.”

  “And what was the issue that arose?”

  “Thinking back, a young gentleman expressed some unhappiness with his test consequences. I honestly can’t remember the specifics.”

  “Surely you remember that he hired counsel and threatened court proceedings against your company.”

  “Frankly, madam, I had no further involvement with that matter or with Mr. Dover. Mr. Jessup handled it. Legal tends to keep everything under wraps. I heard something about a settlement of a nuisance claim, but I don’t know the terms.”

  Khan makes a show of rising with great effort. “If it please the court, why is this alleged fax being sprung upon us without forewarning?”

  Nancy responds: “Because we came upon it only yesterday. The original resides among Chemican’s legal files.”

  “More importantly,” Khan continues, “why are we being asked to wade through a flood of hearsay?”

  Donahue: “I wondered when you would ask. I am struggling, Ms. Faulk, to find this even remotely relevant to your stated defence of necessity.”

  Arthur gives Nancy an encouraging smile that suggests they prepped for such a challenge. “The tests on humans,” she says, “are relevant because through their actions the accused will have shielded thousands, maybe tens of thousands — none of them volunteers — who are facing present danger from the crippling consequences of close contact with Vigor-Gro. I believe we can prove that statistically.”

  Donahue grapples with that slippery claim, in her peculiar nose-twitchy way. She seems torn about whether to send out the jury or cut this debate short. Khan doesn’t wait for her to decide, amps up the rhetoric, accusing Nancy of a “glib argumentum ad hominem” to support not just a flood but a “tsunami of hearsay.” The fax was hearsay, and so was Dover, and so were his complaints, whatever their nature.

  Donahue swivels to the jury: “There are many exceptions to the rule against hearsay, but generally speaking statements made outside this courtroom, relayed to the witness, are inadmissible. So there is no proper evidence before you that a Mr. Dover or any person raised any issues or complaints relating to the human testing program described by Dr. Jinks. You are to disregard all testimony to that effect. The fax proffered by Ms. Faulk will not be marked as an exhibit.”

  Many would cave, but not our Nancy. She seeks an order allowing Dover to give “commission evidence” from his domicile in Missouri.

  Judge Donahue’s tone is sardonic: “Ms. Faulk, I presume you are aware that taking commission evidence from afar could result in this trial being delayed for weeks or even months. Perhaps you could offer a cogent reason why Mr. Dover can’t just hop on a plane to come here to testify.”

  “Because, M’Lady, as a result of imbibing neonicotinoids during the Christmas holidays of 2003, in the course of Chemican’s Volunteer Testing Program, he developed and still suffers severe nervous system complications. That’s what his law office told me this morning, if you’ll excuse the hearsay.”

  Maybe because of Lucy’s Mix
Two, I have to blink away an optical illusion of Donahue’s nose twirling like a propeller on a beanie.

  “Counsel’s application to take commission evidence is denied. The court will not hear a further such motion in the absence of affidavit material attesting to the relevance of testimony to be sought. I see it is nearing the half hour. Are counsel finished with this witness?”

  “Not quite, M’Lady,” Nancy says. “For the purposes of further cross-examination I ask that Dr. Jinks be instructed to have all files relating to the Volunteer Testing Program couriered to him overnight from Kansas City.”

  “If that’s a motion, it’s denied. Adjourn to ten o’clock tomorrow.”

  11

  I’m in the back seat of Nancy’s Leaf, crashing again, fighting it, hoping to survive until I make it home. I protested, she insisted. “You’re not walking home, kid. Or anywhere. Until that creep is off the streets.” She now knows about Stumpit, has joined our pact of silence.

  It’s rush hour, we’re crawling along to Parkdale. Nancy and Arthur are doing post-game analysis and I’m their silent audience, leaning forward between them.

  Arthur asks, “What about their retired head of Legal?”

  “Jessup. Moved to Palm Springs, where all rich lawyers go to die. Phone is listed but doesn’t answer. A search for Dover v. Chemican came up empty, so it was settled before it got that far. Nothing in the media, so it was hushed up. One of us is going to have to talk to Mr. Charles Arnold Dover. Was nineteen then, now thirty-six. That’s all I know, aside from he’s in bad shape.”

  She had got through to the office of W.W. Squirely, but spoke only to his secretary, though he could be heard in background, loud and slurring. Nancy made out: “Our tongues are tied. ’Splain that to her.”

  The blunt-talking secretary, named Cherry, told the judge to shut up, and explained that he meant their hands were tied because of a non-disclosure clause.

  Arthur groans over the prospect of a trip to Missouri, especially this weekend, with his wife coming. But he and Nancy are determined to work the angle that Vigor-Gro messes up some people.

  We finally get to Beaconsfield, a one-way north, and to the semi-detached bricker of Nancy’s jailed client, the swindler. As I alight I check across the street to see the curtains slightly part at the Willis Whites. You belong across the road!

  Nancy comes in for a drink, which she earned, she had a big skookum day. While Arthur puts on tea, she opens one of her husband’s two-hundred-dollar Cabs, splashes some for me, and toasts her wannabe ex with some select coarse language, but not with much zap, more out of habit. I want to ask how her thing with Doc is coming along, but decide it might embarrass her, and maybe Arthur doesn’t know about it.

  I also want to talk to her (not to Arthur, that feels awkward for some reason) about Abbie Lee-Yeung and Lucy’s theory she’s stuck on me. But it’s a ticklish topic, better raised when I’m not so pooped.

  Six o’clock. I’m gone. If I can get in ten hours I’ll be up before dawn for my morning ritual run.

  Chapter 21: Arthur

  1

  Thursday, May 23

  Arthur is on lunch break in the barristers’ lounge, alone with his thoughts and a stale egg sandwich, avoiding company by pretending to be absorbed in a legal brief as he relaxes his mind for the contest ahead. A kind of meditation, though that’s an art he’s never mastered.

  For the last few days Arthur has served no role whatsoever at this trial — he was a dispensable accessory, a ceremonial sword. He and Nancy divvied up the cross-examinations equally, but to her goes the greater glory: she takes on scientists while Arthur’s specialty has been cops and muddled night watchmen.

  But finally, today, he will be back in the ring, duking it out with Dr. Jerod Easling, the star player of this sellout show. The other evening, Nancy showed Arthur YouTube videos of Easling on panels and in debates. She did so to fortify her argument that her more brittle, needling style of cross-examination could backfire when met with Dr. Easling’s poise and cordiality. She thinks Arthur can out-affable him.

  She added: “Also, Donahue abhors me, and she likes you. In fact, she’s hot for you.”

  That seemed extreme hyperbole but he has sensed the judge’s growing respect, the kind combatants hold for each other. At any rate, it was finally agreed they would both cross Easling, Arthur going first, to soften him up.

  Hot for him or not, Arthur has zero hope Donahue will let the necessity defence go to the jury. She’s a proud woman, unlikely to change a view so forcefully held. In which case a guilty verdict becomes almost obligatory — unless Arthur and Nancy can somehow tweak out a hung jury. In which case nineteen-year-old Abbie Lee-Yeung becomes key.

  He feels rusty. He’s been missing in action for so long that he expects he’s little remembered by the jury — except for his cross of Jake Maguire. Dismayingly, he is still seen as responsible for sending the old bull away on a stretcher. Her Enigmatic Ladyship is off the hook because she’d merely followed up with an amiable question about a comical photograph. (Now unheeded, forgotten by media outlets with their short attention spans, their lust for the latest.)

  Arthur has learned that Maguire had dietary problems, so he ought not to have accompanied his get-well card with chocolates — a gift prompted by having seen the fellow occasionally sneaking off with a candy bar. He’s recuperating at home, and the word is he’ll be back in court next week.

  Still unaccounted for, unaccountably, is supposed star witness Howell J. Griffin. The Crown is either saving him for dessert or has decided not to risk calling him — in which case much of the evidence about the role played by Rivie Levitsky would be circumstantial.

  As to Ms. Levitsky, his housemate, she continues to sneak out before daybreak for a run or a pedal, despite Arthur’s warnings. Her attempts to tiptoe softly down the creaky stairs invariably wake him — often from recurrent dreams of Ulysses waiting across a yawning, bottomless chasm — and he frets until she returns. She lightly flouts danger: “Five thirty is not a typical lurking hour, especially for an out-of-shape hatemonger like Donald Stumpit who gets his courage up with drink.”

  Arthur is eager to impress her with his cross of Easling, though he isn’t sure why her approval is important to him. He certainly won’t be at his best; he fears he has lost his stuff, his fire, and will be seen as a doddering old actor making a pitiful return to the stage.

  Dr. Easling was on the stand all this morning, confident and twinkle-eyed, charming jurors and reporters with what pundits describe as “charisma,” which once meant a divinely inspired talent but has become a prosy triteness that makes Arthur want to throw up.

  Easling went on the charm offensive right off the bat, while relating his credentials (“those Amazonian field studies persuaded me I loved bugs more than the bugs loved me”), and blushed as Azra Khan read out his many international honours, including his several honorary doctorates.

  Easling then pitched his credentials as a conservationist, a lover of the great outdoors, its wildlife, its wild spaces. He hikes forest trails, he camps, he canoes, he truly cares about the planet, he’s not some “Starbucks environmentalist.”

  Then he won the jury’s respect by conceding Chemican had covered up faulty science and cannot escape culpability by scapegoating half a dozen employees. However inexcusable, these corporate lapses could not negate the “powerfully positive impact of neonicotinoids” and “the vastly improved crop yields earned by their judicious use.”

  He had backup for those claims, the sworn testimony yesterday of a few carefully chosen growers from afar: well-spoken, militantly non-organic farmers from Silesia, Gloucestershire County, and North Dakota. (Chemican had generously paid their fare and room and board and, presumably, a bonus, though Her Ladyship wouldn’t let Nancy pry further.).

  The Englishman bad-mouthed the EU for its ban on neonics: “We didn’t use Vigor-Gro last yea
r, and the flea beetle larvae made short work of the oilseed rape. The crop was hardly worth its harvest.”

  The Pole, a prosperous landholder, had a similar complaint about the EU ban: it cost him an additional forty thousand euros to apply several different licensed insecticides.

  The Dakotan, a struggling widow and mother of five, had tried to break her neonics habit but found aphids had developed resistance to standard insecticides. When she went back to Vigor-Gro she claimed to have found bees thriving in a sea of neonic-infused canola.

  Easling enlarged on that: studies showed that pre-neonic chemicals destroy beneficial insects while neonicotinoids systemically target aphids or beetles. “So, obviously, neonics are more environmentally friendly.”

  He scorned laboratory studies that pointed to neonics as the main culprit in colony collapse — they did not reflect realistic outdoor conditions. He derided many field studies too, as being scientifically weak, scoffed at a recent one from Harvard that warned that neonicotinoids were killing bees at an exponential rate. However, he applauded research done at a few universities of lesser renown — Wageningen, Ghent, Maryland — that gave neonics a pass.

  At times, Easling resorted to scaremongering: as pesticide use drops, food prices rise — annual double-digit jumps must be expected wherever neonics are restricted, a crippling, maybe mortal blow to the poor and needy. Thus Vigor-Gro helps save humankind from wholesale starvation.

  At times, he was conciliatory: it was essential to strike the right balance between protecting the environment and providing a reliable supply of healthy, affordable food. That could happen were growers to set aside tracts of land for untreated plants rich in pollen.

  The main thrust of his argument was that neonics have been unfairly tried and convicted by the kangaroo court of espousers of the Brave New Green World. The true perpetrators were varroa mites and a fungal parasite called Nosema ceranae “and a host of other parasites and pathogens unwittingly spread about the planet by human action.”