BLIND TRIAL Brian Deer (best novels for beginners TXT) 📖

Thirty-six

THE TWO-BANK, no-Micky-D, town of Garberville, California, nestled among Douglas fir and ponderosa pine forests where the South Fork Eel River rejoined Route 101 after a four-mile meander to the west. Slopes rose two thousand feet to Little Buck Mountain, and the river drained creeks from a warren of canyons (Connick Creek, Sawmill Creek, Little Sproul Creek) before swelling into Benbow Lake. Elevation: five hundred feet. Population: one thousand. Nearby fields of marijuana products mellowed in the morning fogs.

Ben tried to refuse to drive north from Ukiah. But Doc Mayr brushed aside his objections. Upon instruction from Doctorjee to return to the hospital, she vowed to do anything but. After fixing the car, she demanded to see trees. “Trees are my passion,” she insisted. To prove it, she got out fifteen miles south of Garberville, and hugged a massive coast redwood trunk.

The redwoods lent their name to the tiny town’s main drag: the old through-route of Redwood Drive. He checked out storefronts as they searched for the place he’d arranged to meet Gennifer Heusch. Then Doc Mayr raised a hand toward a double-fronted restaurant, with a neon sign.

Calico’s Cafe

He spun the wheel right and brought the Sentra to a halt outside a sporting goods store across the street. As they turned, he glimpsed a woman who he guessed was the sister, sitting at a table outside the restaurant. She was aged maybe forty, in a lumberjack shirt: blonde hair, big breasts, and narrow shoulders.

A pair of turquoise earrings bounced around her face. “You medical people, you’re so conscientious,” she called. Her accent: Pittsburgh meets pit bull.

Doc Mayr ordered carrot cake and tea for three, then lied even better than Sumiko. “Oh, epidemiology, you know? Routine sampling. And we’re partly concerned with oral contraceptives.”

“Helen weren’t on no pill.” The earrings bounced. “Wanted a baby out of Peter, would you believe? Oh, how we laughed. That city turned her soft in the head.”

“Yes, my colleague here spoke with Mr. Glinski, but he didn’t say a great deal, I don’t think.”

“Huh, Peter. Know when Helen was sick? Know what he did? Took some youth away on vacation, out the country.”

The women traded pleasantries until the carrot cake arrived, then Doc Mayr reverted to their mission. “So, your sister’s heart issue wasn’t silent then? I assumed it was. She’d prior symptoms of some kind, did she then?”

“I’d say you need to speak with her physician about that. Said to your colleague here on the phone, ‘Track him down and save yourself the journey.’ He’ll give you everything you need.”

The vaccine chief shook her head. “Oh, no. No trouble. We were in the neighborhood. Glad to get out of the office.”

“Dr. Desai. Indian gentleman.”

“Oh, thank you. That’s useful. Ben, could you write that down?”

He pulled out his Samsung. “How you spell that?”

“Look, it’s all here. I was forgetting. I found it after all.”

Ms. Heusch produced a document from the back pocket of her jeans: the certificate for her sister’s death. She unfolded the paper and pushed it across the table. “There you are, Dr. Pandit Desai. Was great, he was. Fantastic. Nothing he wouldn’t do for our Helen.”

Doc Mayr took the certificate, donned her tortoiseshell glasses, and Ben watched her inspect the page. Then he saw her face twitch as if a snake bit her foot. For nearly the first time: an expression. Her mouth slipped open. Her eyebrows shot up. Her cheeks drained as pale as her hair.

Ms. Heusch leaned forward. “You okay there, doctor? Looking peaky as a bowlegged mule.”

The vaccine chief stared like the certificate was her own. She raised it, as if checking a watermark. “Must admit I’m feeling a little off today. Thank you. I have a condition, I’m afraid. Do you think I could get a glass of water, please?”

Ben moved to stand, but the sister volunteered. “That’s okay, honey. You stay there.”

The cafe door banged behind her.

“Something wrong?”

“No. Not at all. Not at all. No, no. There’s nothing wrong.”

He reached over the table and took the paper.

California Department of Public Health

His eyes danced through a standard death certificate.

Name of deceased͒—First—Middle—Last…

Sex—Race—Birthplace—Decedent’s residence…

He skipped across the page and down grids of boxes.

Manner of Death: Natural—Accident—Homicide—Suicide…

Then his eyes backed up. “Fuck me.”

The certificate was completed—handwritten—in black ink. And the writing? He’d seen it before. The grandiosity. The ls. The cross-strokes. The G in “Glinski.” Bottom left to top right. Unmistakable.

He focused on the “Signature and Title of Certifier” box.

Pandit Desai, MD

The name was different, but there could be no mistake. It couldn’t be. And yet it was. The attending physician at the death of Helen Glinski was the Executive Vice President, Research & Medicine. Here he was again. Doctorjee.

“Fuck me. Fuck me. Fuck me.”

Ms. Heusch came back with a big bottle of water and three glasses packed with ice. “Been in the sun? You city folks need to take care.”

“Thank you so much. Yes. Yes.”

Cause of Death… Immediate cause… (a) Cardiac arrest

Sequentially list conditions, if any, leading to cause…

(b) Heart failure

(c) Dilated cardiomyopathy

Ben refolded the certificate as Doc Mayr talked. “This is such a lovely part of the country, isn’t it? You mind if I ask what you do in these parts? So lucky to live with the trees.”

Ms. Heusch sampled the cake. “Ted—that’s my husband—works at a little thing they got going over Rancho Sequoia way, and I got me a part-time job at this and that.”

“Oh, you’re so lucky.” The blowup sex doll was now concrete.

“Yup. We got fishing, hunting, and stuff we don’t talk about—and Shelter Cove ain’t so far. Got a mighty fine black pebble beach.”

Ben relaxed his lips to keep his face neutral and forced himself to think of other things. Was that dog a Border Collie or a Shetland Sheepdog? Why so many faces on that ‘Missing Persons’ poster? Three seniors played cards at another table outside the restaurant. But what game? Why the deck in the middle?

Then, without really meaning to, he found himself speaking. “So, your sister…