Drawing Conclusions (13 page)

“Yes, and the coroner did note that here. Apparently, you can also test positive for a sensitivity but not have an anaphylactic reaction until multiple exposures occur.”

“So he might not have known. Or maybe Teddy realized this sensitivity as an adult. I'm sure it's easy to avoid macadamia nuts—they're not as common as a peanut or almond.”

“It's possible,” DeRosa said. “Are you absolutely sure, Mrs. Prentice, that you had no idea Teddy had an allergy?”

My mother shook her head.

I relegated the visual image of my brother's last gasps of air to the far recesses of my subconscious—an act my mother appeared incapable of performing. With shoulders sagging and the skin around her mouth growing slack with remorse, it was evident that my mother could not bear the weight of the news. She cupped her hand to her mouth and for a second I thought she might regurgitate. Heaving sobs welled up from her chest and she reached forward for DeRosa while Norma struggled to pull her back in the opposite direction. Strangely, my mother's eyes had been locked on the detective throughout the entire episode. It may have been an inopportune moment for my mother to recognize the flickering resemblance between DeRosa and Teddy, but I suspected this had just transpired.

“Mom, you need to sit.” Norma and I led my mother, her steps growing increasingly smaller, back toward the kitchen. Her movements became so constricted that I suspected she was having a full-blown anxiety attack, yet her eyes remained glued on Frank DeRosa.

Trina, God bless her soul, spotted the crisis immediately and slid a cushy chair across the room to receive my mother. Exhibiting expert skill, Trina forced my mother's head between her legs and placed a brown paper bag over her mouth to regulate the balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide. With the color from my mother's face drained to gray and her throat dry from overexhaling, she spoke for DeRosa's ears only.

“Maybe it isn't an oversight.”

“What are you saying, Mom?” I knelt next to her, my arm wrapped around her bony back and my hand clasped to her shoulder.

“I think what your mother means is that it's possible someone connected to the labs had access to Teddy's medical records and used the knowledge of his allergy to create the perfect murder. It's possible he received a very high dose of the nuts' condensed natural oils.” DeRosa turned to me. “Are you getting this, CeCe?

“I think so,” I said, as I made room for more mind-bending information.

He rubbed his jaw, thinking out loud. He spoke as if every assumption he proposed were a puzzle piece being strategically moved into place. “It is nearly impossible to commit a murder without leaving a clue. If someone wanted to murder Teddy leaving little to no trace, using nut oil in a baked good would be ideal. People allergic to nuts typically look for the nut in the food. If it were just oils, Teddy wouldn't see a nut and therefore, wouldn't bother to ask. We also know that he ate something in his office, which means this person would have had to enter the facility.”

“Or already be there,” I added.

“That's what I'm thinking. Almost five hundred people come and go from the labs each day, but full-time employees are there regularly without question. And a select group of full-time employees would have authorization to pull personal files.”

“This makes almost every scientist at the labs a suspect.”

“Yes. And your father isn't going to like that.” DeRosa pulled out his iPad and sent off an email, supposedly to my father. “I'll meet with him tomorrow.”

twenty-four

The Monday-morning train to
the city was packed so thick with commuters that I had the uncomfortable sensation of swimming at a public pool on a scorching summer day. I had nothing against the masses of honest working people trudging through the routine of a forty-hour week, but I knew I'd never be one of them. It had nothing to do with my near-royal lineage, which at this point was merely a pencil line connecting me to previous generations of insanely rich people. In my adult state of poverty, I should have revered the carload of earnest business people crammed neatly in rows of two or three. Instead, I reacted like a caged animal at a petting zoo hoping to grab some kid's candy bar and then scurry back to my lair. My analogy was not far off, since I could probably pick up about a dozen half-eaten Danishes wrapped in butter-soaked paper had I waited around the train station long enough. My stomach grumbled with discontent at the mere suggestion of pre-eaten pastries. Craving partially eaten food is the litmus test for a true Freegan.

Hoping to achieve a Zen moment that would last long enough for the train to creep its way from the Jamaica stop all the way to Penn Station, I located my sketch pad and made room on my lap. By looking at the reflection in the window, I could stare directly at a man located two seats ahead and to my left without being obvious. I attempted a wistful, vague expression as I let my eyes loll softly at the passing landscapes morphing from suburban green to brick and mortar. For all the unsuspecting man knew, I was caught in a meandering daydream. In reality, I was studying his face and capturing his features on my pad. As always, I worked top down, focusing on his hair. Just like shoes, hair can tell an awful lot about a man. My subject was a particularly neat man with his short, almost military-style cut, parted and swept slightly to the side. I imagined him skimming the sun-tipped ends with a comb and then checking to make sure his quarter-inch sideburns were symmetrical. The rest of the commuters appeared rumpled and drowsy, but this man's posture was alert, almost anticipatory, and his suit and shirt remained crisply starched.

The man had caught my eye from the platform when he got out of a car chauffeured by his wife. Seated at the wheel, his wife stood out in contrast, still wrapped in her bathrobe, hair tousled, and gripping a travel mug loaded with caffeine. The scene seemed benign—harried wife drops husband at the station and then rushes home to hustle the kids to the school bus. What really grabbed my attention was the couple's goodbye kiss. The man had leaned tentatively toward his wife and air kissed her as if he were a woman protecting his make-up. It's these obscure, meaningless moments that always seemed to crowd my head as if I had anti–attention deficit disorder. I had a tendency to linger too long. This was probably why I'd never be able to manage a regular, nine-to-five job.

Since I had nothing better to do than sketch a complete stranger, I gave the man's eyes a suspicious slant and turned his lips in such a way that it appeared he was withholding a pertinent fact. I pulled his shoulders back and lifted his chin to create an exaggerated sense of self. And then, just because I could, I made his right sideburn a tad longer than the left, a fact I'm sure would drive the man crazy. I imagined him gripping my picture, frantically looking for a pencil with an intact eraser to even out my artistic license.

As I finished the intricate pattern on the man's tie, the train rolled into Penn Station so slowly I could have walked alongside. The majority of morning riders seemed pleased with the train's feather pillow landing, as if horns and whistles might insult their morning coma. My guy, on the other hand, had places to go. He rose quickly and positioned himself against the door, ready to spring in action. Since I didn't have a briefcase or work paraphernalia to slow me down, I fell easily into pace behind the man. We led the rush, but the foot traffic bottlenecked at the base of the escalator, leaving me so close to the man that I spied the faint markings of a single closed earring hole. Sure enough when the escalator unloaded, the man bee-lined straight into the arms of an equally neat man awaiting his arrival, and this time there was no hesitation in their kiss.

I chuckled out loud to no one in particular and watched with pleasure as the man's face lit upon seeing his companion. If I had taken my trip in reverse, my sketch would have revealed a completely different scenario, a happy pairing of two people counting the hours until their next meeting.

I left the couple in peace and headed toward the subway. Tremont Avenue Elementary School was a hike from Penn Station. I joined the mobs of straphangers on a subway north to the Bronx until I reached 174th Street, a shaky neighborhood in the shadows of the Cross Bronx Expressway. The art program at Tremont had been all but obliterated when the last art teacher retired with no replacement in the budget. My monies allowed for two new teachers an
d enough supplies to last a decade. I relinquished all supervisory control because I fell madly in love with the teachers hired to revive the program. Both are experienced professionals yet somehow immune to teacher burnout, and I trusted them implicitly. My only condition was the ability to see the money at work.

On this particular day, I had to escape Harbor House. I should have tried to follow up with Becky via phone or her new address, but I had wimped out. I figured we'd catch up in the city in the next few weeks.

I also didn't want to hang around the house and obsess over the news of Teddy's autopsy results. I had absolutely no memory of a nut allergy, and I grew weary trying to re-create every morsel I had ever seen my brother ingest. Teddy was not an adventurous eater by nature, and I had to assume he knew to avoid sensitive foods. Most importantly, I did not want to be in shouting range when DeRosa met with my father to request full access to the labs. As it stood, my father had received wind of my dramatic pursuit of Igor, and it did not thrill him. DeRosa's inability to control me was a disappointment. In fact, my ill-planned vigilante act so unnerved my father that he'd appeared once more on my front porch. He'd arrived at the crack of dawn that morning, obviously squeezing me into his busy day. He was frustrated, and it showed with a thin row of perspiration forming along his thinning hairline.

“Constance, this is unacceptable,” he had said. “Isn't it enough that you are already in danger without creating it yourself? I am working very hard to keep you safe, and your actions are making it difficult.”

“Dad, you can't control everything and you know you can't manage me of all people.”

“This family is not having another funeral,” my father had said, actually stamping his foot for emphasis. “For once, Constance, do as I say.”

The meeting between DeRosa and my father was scheduled for early today and in a fit of self-preservation, I decided to make myself scarce. I took advantage of my exile and booked myself as a guest artist at Tremont Elementary in the South Bronx. This meant I got to enjoy an afternoon in an art studio equipped with tiny chairs and desks and enough glitter, glue, and string to challenge Santa's workshop. It was a safe haven for both me and the children of Tremont Elementary.

Along the walk from the subway to the school, I nodded pleasantly at the heroin-addicted prostitutes who either started early or were finishing up a long night. It was unimaginable to me how parents could walk their children to school along this parade route of destitution. Although my art program was a drop in the bucket compared with the sums of money required to overhaul the area, it was all I could do short of loading these kids in a van and transporting them back to Harbor House in search of asylum. On the upside, I could probably pick up some Dumpster diving tips from my young charges.

Before every school visitation, I planned an art lesson that was both educational and fun. Today I was assigned to work with five- and six-year-olds. The objective was to have the children learn the letters in their name by designing each symbol into an animal. I illustrated my name on the board, carving my two Cs into giant crabs. Although many of us enter school already counting to ten and spelling simple words, the task seemed well beyond the kindergarteners and most of the first-grade classes. And it wasn't just the letters that were daunting. Apparently, inner city children have little to no exposure to animals besides rodents, pit bulls, and bugs. I stumbled my way through the lesson, revealing my unfamiliarity with urban names such as Taneisha and Ka'sheena. On my third attempt to spell Du'vaine (having grossly misplaced the apostrophe), I changed the project to freestyle watercolors.

By the end of the school day, my back hurt. I thanked the teachers profusely for indulging my whims and dragged my beaten body back through the overcrowded hallways, sincerely regretting that I had not driven into the city. Standing on the building's stoop, I scanned the neighborhood now filled with children running aimlessly among the crack addicts and streetwalkers. Even an experienced Freegan would have trouble rustling up a meal here. Like a prince on a horse, Charlie's blond head stuck out of the crowd like the white man he was. He leaned against the car with his hands shoved deep in his pockets and longs legs crossed casually, as if posing for an ad. The only thing that fit properly into the scene was the rundown Gremlin.

“Someone is getting detention,” Charlie reprimanded.

“A girl can't get a day off to contribute to society?”

“Not if her disappearance freaks out her housemates and sends her bodyguard cop into full metal jacket mode.”

“Oops, I never thought about that.”

“S'alright sweetheart,” Charlie said as pecked me on the cheek. “I figured you had a bit of wanderlust in you, so I called the school to see if you scheduled anything in the 'hood today.”

“You know me well.”

“I know you well enough to know that you don't feel like going home just yet, so I thought we'd take a side trip to Brighton Beach.” Charlie shrugged his shoulders impishly. “Who knows? Maybe we'll get a lead on Igor. You're already in trouble with Frank; how much worse could it get?”

“Fantastic.”

“Your chariot awaits, Miss Prentice.”

Charlie was correct in his assumption. Like characters in a play, I wanted to erase myself from a storyline where I was a central figure: Teddy's autopsy revealed that he'd eaten something with macadamia nut oils, triggering an anaphylactic episode. The incident alone could have appeared to be a tragic mistake. It was entirely possible that Teddy himself purchased a sweet in the lab's cafeteria ultimately causing his demise. However, his death wasn't isolated. When combined with the threats on my life and Naomi's suicide, a pattern was emerging. People associated with Sound View Laboratories had a difficult time staying alive.

Fatal allergic reactions happen within minutes. The fact that Teddy died in his office meant he ingested something while there, which led DeRosa to believe that the murderer had unfettered access to the building. To further that theory, Teddy's medical records were housed at the labs, making every authorized employee a suspect. The investigation was now at an important juncture. DeRosa needed to wrestle control from my father because, whether my father liked it or not, odds were good that someone associated with the labs was causing deaths.

Before distracting myself with the neat-looking man on the train into the city, I'd tried to predict the conversation between my father and the detective. Should I assume DeRosa could even make a dent in my father's hubris? I expected this meeting would be a shadowboxing event where both maneuvered for the most advantageous position. They each wanted Teddy's death solved, but on their own terms. Although DeRosa was a team player, he also seemed like he was used to being the captain of that team. I sensed my father's back-seat driving got on his nerves. Still, it was imperative DeRosa understand that if he couldn't bring the investigation to a swift end, then my father—with his endless resources—would make it happen.

My mother's meltdown and her admission that our father controlled a lifetime of our medical assessments allowed DeRosa a window into my father's overriding authority. After my mother's hurried departure the previous day, I'd reminded DeRosa that my father defended many a controversial scientific hypotheses in front of highly educated panels of PhDs. Dr. William Prentice was used to being on the defensive and was therefore a formidable match.

“What's your strategy?” I'd asked DeRosa Sunday afternoon.

“To avoid having you tell me my strategy,” he'd replied.

“I promise to just listen.”

“I'm going to let your father talk about Teddy from a father's perspective. It will give me room to compliment Teddy and develop a rapport.”

My father loved to talk about Teddy and his achievements because it was a direct reflection on him. DeRosa, it seemed, had already figured this out.

“Don't corner him,” I'd directed.

“I'll try to remember that, Nancy Drew.”

“And don't mention my name. He'll clam up.”

“I already checked that box.”

–––

Charlie drove toward Brooklyn with the windows down, the radio blasting, and his arm draped over the car door. He sang along to the top hits of the seventies, slapping his free hand on the car in time with the beat. This was a guy who hadn't a care in the world, and I loved him for it. I was also aware that if I conjured up an image of Teddy right now, Charlie would burst into tears. I mentally arranged the men in life and ranked them on a fictitious scale of emotional expression. If Charlie was an eight, my father ranked in the decimals, with DeRosa, Jonathan, and Teddy inching up the scale. Teddy'd had a zest for life, but he lived within the serious constraints of his professional career. It was almost as if wasting time would have an impact on all humanity. Jonathan, I felt, had “found” himself in his twenties and was confidently content in his choices, leaving him firmly anchored at a 5 on my emotional-expression scale. The enigma DeRosa exposed very little of his light side. However, given his penchant for puzzle-solving, I expected to see his joy emanate if and when Teddy's murder was solved.