The Tesla Experiment

Chapter 24

Healy cooked for a change. Ever since his employer had begun to invite people to her house by some miracle of mind, he had not had time to really prepare a good meal. There were so many things to take care of here since Dave Purdue, Sam Cleave and Nina Gould came to visit and help Professor Jenner with her obsessive experimentation. No longer did Healy only have house chores and errands to do. Now he had three rooms to clean and new flower arrangements to collect; he had to keep the kitchen stocked with more than just Lydia’s special protein shakes and the odd take away hamper.

Shopping for groceries used to be a once a month thing and now it became a daily run for the eclectic needs of the guests. If he did not know better he would have thought that the always reclusive and anti-social Professor Jenner was actually enjoying having house guests. He had been in her employment for almost five years and not once had he ever heard her laughing and talking about trivialities with anyone as she did with Dr. Nina Gould. Usually she only had something to say when she was faulting someone less intelligent for an assumption or when she had to explain a scientific principal. He could not believe that she knew anything about fly fishing, cognac or the Dallas Cowboys.

Every hour was a colorful change of discussion with Sam about headlining news in other countries, electronic equipment and UEFA league football. They had been here for no more than two days and already Healy felt the house light up with life, as if they were not guests, but boarders. In turn Sam and Nina spent time together during Lydia’s compulsory day naps. Healy wondered if they were an item, but butlers had no place in asking.

He constantly stared at the fiery beauty Sam liked to argue with, listened to her astute manner when she vibrantly recounted old stories from history documents that would never be found in books to share with the world. Healy was always one for women a bit older than he, because he was raised by only his mother. Learning the value of respect, efficiency and discipline came from a feminine approach when he grew up. Perhaps this was why he managed perfectly to maintain his nurturing, emotional understanding while being perfectly capable of taking on the most ruthless bastards on God’s earth with his bare hands.

Lydia chose his service and company because of just that — his ability to be both a strong character to lean on and a listener with gentle sensibilities.

“Hard at work, Jeeves?” Sam jested as he walked past the kitchen to the toilet, slapping the doorway as he went. Healy smiled. It was refreshing to have someone like Sam to talk to. The journalist was always up for a wager, a beer and a challenge while having no problem busting Healy’s balls with playful insults that he thoroughly enjoyed.

The thunder clapped just outside the back door. Stirring the gravy on the stove, Healy’s smile instantly disappeared. It was replaced by a wince of fear as he subconsciously hastened his stirring. Sam reappeared in the door a minute or so later.

“You alright?” he asked Healy. The butler responded only by looking toward the window where the blue and white flashes lit up the curtain with pulses of light.

“Ah!” Sam realized. “I don’t like it much either, actually. Was almost struck three times in my life. Being Scottish is hazardous. Golf courses, fly fishing, Highland sword dancing… none of which is a good idea under Scottish weather conditions.”

Healy chuckled, grateful for the distraction.

“So, how is the beer in this town? I was thinking of getting us a six pack or two while we sit on guard at the chamber,” Sam asked.

“Not bad, sir. I have a friend who owns a liquor store that stocks from Pilsen and Prague which is excellent. Not that pissy stuff, if you get my meaning,” Healy said, sounding out of place talking about heavy beer in his refined British accent.

“Sounds good. Pull the pot on the other plate, my friend. You are going to escort me to said shop. If I have to spend one more hour drinking wine I’m going to kill myself,” Sam announced zestfully. “Come, my good man!”

Healy reported to Lydia, asking her permission to accompany Mr. Cleave to stock up on beer before the next severe weather was due.

“Oh absolutely. He has been driving us insane with his whining over beer, draughts, real beer, weak beer…” she told her butler while Nina nodded in agreement as she dove into another glass of whatever French wine Lydia had her sampling this time round.

“Don’t take too long, you two,” Lydia called after Healy as he joined Sam at the door. “Purdue should report anytime in the next three hours.”

“Trust me, I don’t want to take three hours to get back before I can hear that hiss of a newly opened beer,” Sam replied. “We’ll be back shortly.”

After the men left, Nina finally had to satisfy her curiosity. “Lydia, what’s the deal with Healy and thunderstorms?”

“Ha! I see you noticed that,” Lydia remarked. “From what I know about my darling butler — and I do not know half as much as I should about his clandestine past — is that he saw his mother struck by a bolt thicker than a tree trunk when he was a teenager.”

“Oh my God! That is so sad,” Nina frowned with sympathy for the attractive man who always looked a bit lost or lonely under his painfully neat, stern exterior.

“But I got that from his sister. She was here for a weekend with her husband once and we got talking while the men were catching a football match. That’s when she told me. But, you know, we all have our secrets and our fears. I don’t pry for more than what affects me directly and so I left it at that,” Lydia shrugged.

The rain was ample, but light enough to navigate through the streets without too much trouble. Healy seemed nervous, Sam noticed, but with constant questions about places of interest he kept Healy’s mind occupied so that he would not hear the odd rumble of the skies.

“Where did you work before the Professor burdened you with her insanity?” Sam asked, smiling. Healy laughed, but his anxiousness was obvious.

“I was a security consultant for years after I left the military. My father was a colonel. His father was an admiral, so they expected me to enroll just after school so that I could complete my studies through the force. But I enjoy this job much more, even with the madam’s moods and that pedantic nature of hers. Under it all she is really a sweet woman.”

Sam was impressed by how fond the butler was of the professor. Most of the nicest subordinates, as he learned through journalism, usually turned hostile given a moment of mock privacy to vent about their employers, but not Healy. There was an innate loyalty about the rigid butler who had now turned into a proper caitiff. Healy was downright edgy, clutching at the steering wheel as they turned from the riverside lanes into the parking lot of a very dilapidated looking shopping complex in a decent neighborhood.

“No wonder they sell booze other places don’t stock,” Sam remarked. “I don’t imagine the fuzz likes to bother here.”

“You are exactly correct, sir,” Healy agreed, looking around vigilantly. A clap of thunder had him shrugging, just about sinking into his seat. His eyes fluttered, but he recovered quickly. “Goddamn weather,” he mumbled as they parked in the back.

“I’m sorry sir, but I don’t park on that side. Twice now they smashed the wind shield and the second time they almost stole the vehicle,” he apologized.

“No worries, Healy. Let’s go get a yeast infection,” Sam smiled, tapping the lackluster butler on the shoulder as he got out.

Dodging the shower, Sam never saw the enormous body of the man who struck him down with a crowbar. The journalist hit the gravely tar with a splitting headache so severe that he could not manage to open his eyes. While he tried with all his strength to sit up and find his bearings, his brain switched off. Healy raced around the car to catch Sam before his skull hit the dark grey tarmac, but the man who towered over him simply looked out for any witnesses.

“Help me, Foster!” Healy told the giant with the crowbar. “I can’t believe you still wear that Christian memorabilia while you do what you do.”

“Even God needs killers, Healy. And even sinners deserve mercy,” Foster delivered his sermon to the annoyed butler.

“Where are you taking him?” Healy asked as Foster, who tossed aside the crowbar and picked up Sam’s limp body to hang him over his shoulder like a bag of potatoes.

“That is not your concern, is it?” he told his old friend.

“It is very much!” Healy insisted. “My job is on the line for this.”

“Well, that was the same concern Albert Tägtgren had before Sam killed him, Healy. That poor man lost more than his job that day,” Foster empathized. “Go home and tell his girlfriend anything you need to. Your money has been transferred, old boy. Adieu!”

Healy stood in the rain, drenched. As the large SUV pulled away with Sam Cleave inside, he regretted agreeing to the subterfuge, but he direly needed that kind of money. He earned well enough under Lydia’s employ, but he was not about to give up a few thousand Euros for a stranger’s well-being. Still, he wondered exactly how far Foster was planning to take matters with the alleged murderer. It was a bit too hard to believe though, that Sam was a killer. Yes, he was a hardened investigative journalist in constant scraps with very dangerous organizations and deadly arms dealers, but he was not the kind who would kill.

Healy stood still while in conflict about Sam’s just deserts, not even flinching under the shattering thunder that threw bolts of lightning in his direction.

“Maybe I deserve to be struck, Mum,” he said under his breath. The ex-SAS man still struggled to see Sam Cleave as a murderer, but he also knew Christian Foster to be a man with an impeccable moral compass, one not to judge easily, nor harshly. If Christian was pursuing Sam for killing someone there was hardly any reason to doubt him. Never had Healy ever been this torn with a decision he thought he made perhaps too hastily.

The thunder shook the windows of the liquor store where Sam was anxious to pick up his beer. It was open. Healy went inside to purchase it anyway, although he thought it was in poor taste to do so. While the weather grew worse Healy sat in the car, opening the container of brew. It felt nauseating and therapeutic at the same time to swallow away that first bitter mouthful to ease his guilt. One after the other Healy drank beer after beer in a miserable attempt at taming the cancerous remorse that infected his heart.

“I’m so sorry, Sam. I had to. I had to,” he slurred after the fourth he tried to drown himself in. There had to be something he could do to purge him of this unfortunate position, because he had no idea how to explain his treachery to Lydia or Nina once he returned home.