The fifth vial

CHAPTER 12

AIthea Satterfield bustled around Ben's small kitchen to the extent that her years allowed.

"Would you like lemon with your tea, Mr. Callahan? You don't have any in your refrigerator, but I do in mine."

Ben was impressed that his neighbor chose not to remark on those other food items that he also did not have in his refrigerator — virtually all, in fact. It had been three days since his return from Cincinnati, and the octogenarian had interpreted his two blackened eyes as a call to action, along with his swollen nose — "Just a crack at the tip," Dr. Banks had said. "Nothing to do for it but don't get hit there again" — and unremitting pain in his chest — "Just a crack in one of your ribs. Nothing to do for it but don't get hit there again." The truth was that as frustrating as the woman could be sometimes, Ben was grateful for the help. The headaches he was experiencing, which Banks was attributing to a concussion — "Nothing to do for it but don't get hit there again" — had diminished from an eight to somewhere around a four, and from present all the time to present only when he moved. He had never been very macho when it came to dealing with any sort of pain, and at the moment he was exhausted from coping with his various discomforts, and more than a little annoyed at being inactive. There were things he needed and wanted to do.

"I'll take the tea straight up, Mrs. Satterfield. I really appreciate your help. I only wish I could find a way to repay you."

"Nonsense, dear. Just wait until you're my age. You'll be desperate to matter to somebody."

Don't bank on it, Ben thought.

The quixotic dedication of Alice Gustafson, the draining week in Florida, the remarkable encounter with Madame Sonja, the surprisingly lucid Schyler Gaines, the close call on Laurel Way, and finally the identification of Lonnie Durkin — granted each had made a dent in his armor of detachment and ennui, but he saw those dents as insignificant. He had done what he had been hired to do, and mostly he still planned to crawl back into his cocoon until the next call came along. Before he did that, however, there was one final loose end he wanted to tie up — this one involving a family in Conda, Idaho.

"Well, Mrs. Satterfield," he said, "if you really mean that, I could use another favor."

"Just name it, dear."

"I have to go away again. I need you to feed Pincus and water my — what I mean is I need you to feed and water Pincus."

"Pardon me for saying so, Mr. Callahan, but you're in no condition to travel."

"Probably not, but travel I must anyway."

The continuous, stabbing pain in his side, made worse by even minor movement, he could handle. But until today, the headaches had made a trip to Idaho impossible. After his return from six hours with Dr. Banks and the radiologists, a concerned Alice Gustafson, bearing a vase of wildflowers, had visited him at his apartment. Over tea and Danish, courtesy of Althea, he recounted in minute detail the findings and subsequent assault in the garage on Laurel Way.

"I knew it!" she exclaimed when he had finished. "I knew that woman in Maine was telling me the truth. You can tell these things." Her grim expression held an odd mix of vindication and toughness. "The guns worry me greatly," she went on, "but they do not surprise me. Where there is illegal organ trade of any kind, there is very big business, with very high price tags. Many of those involved in the trade are little more than gangsters."

"Most of the gangsters I know would be envious of the weapons in that garage."

"There is really no estimating the money involved. In certain countries, those who go abroad to receive illegal kidneys are reimbursed up to one hundred thousand dollars by their health ministries. They ultimately save the system much more than that in dialysis fees and other medical costs, and also make the transplant waiting list for kidneys that much shorter, thereby lowering the dialysis expenses even more."

"I would imagine those needing a bone marrow transplant would be in even more desperate medical straits."

"Exactly. It's always under the sword of life and death that the procedure is done. And of all the organs, the one demanding the closest tissue match between donor and recipient is bone marrow. I can't help but wonder if these people are dealing with other organs as well."

"I wouldn't be surprised. Whatever they are into, those guns I saw say they're deadly serious about it. Speaking of deadly, why do you think the RV people didn't just kill Lonnie and the woman from Maine?"

Gustafson shrugged.

"Maybe they draw the line at murder," she said. "Or maybe they keep these people alive in case they have to repeat the procedure. Remember, the woman said she was blindfolded or drugged most of the time. She recalled few details of what happened to her, so maybe there was just no need to kill her."

"Or maybe they purposely choose people whom the authorities aren't likely to believe."

"That's a theory, except that if these RV people know what they're doing, the completeness of the tissue match is all that matters."

"How many perfect matches does each person have?"

"Perfect, not very many — especially if the recipient has type O blood and an unusually rare protein or two on their white blood cells."

Initially, Gustafson wanted to call Lonnie Durkin's family on the spot, but Ben insisted he be allowed to go there in person.

"I feel like I need to do this," was all he could say.

"You're not fit to go anyplace."

"I will be. Give me three or four days."

"Why the sudden zeal, Mr. Callahan? I really don't have much left to pay you with."

"It's not about money, Professor. It's, I don't really know…maybe it's about closure."

"I see…Well, please don't be embarrassed by those feelings, Mr. Callahan. Many of our supporters find that the more they understand of what is going on in the world, the more their fog of skepticism burns off." She handed him an envelope. "You've done an excellent job. Someday maybe we'll be in a position to keep you on a retainer. Now, what do you want to do about the Winnebago?"

"I don't think the guy in the van who did all this to me could be certain whether I was a detective of some sort or just a run-of-the-mill burglar," Ben said. "In fact, I don't think he even got a good look at my face before I blacked out his eyes. It was quite dark in that garage. If cops show up there now, that's it. The people who own that Winnebago will be alerted that I wasn't just a petty thief."

"But Lonnie Durkin is dead because of them. If we chose to do nothing and someone else got hurt, or…or worse, I for one would be terribly upset."

"Okay, okay. Point made." Ben thought for a time, then offered, "How about if I go online and also make some calls to people I know, and see if I can locate a PI in Cincinnati who has some connections on the force? He can make sure the RV is still there, and then bring the cops in with a warrant to search for weapons or some such."

"I'm afraid we don't have any money left to pay him," Gustafson said.

Ben held up the Organ Guard check. "I do."

It took a painful trip to the office and more than twenty-four hours for Ben to connect with a PI in Cincinnati who was willing to do what they needed for what he could afford. The man's name was Arnie Dolan, and it didn't take long for him to complete his investigation.

"It's gone," he said, calling back after just a couple of hours.

"The van?"

"That, too, but I mean the garage. Burned to the ground yesterday. The charred remains are still smoldering. Took another building down with it. Three alarms."

"Do the police know it's arson?"

"Clumsy arson, they're calling it. Apparently they found a gas can."

"That would be just a bit suspicious," Ben said, wondering if the response meant the people in and around the van knew he wasn't just a burglar, or if they were merely taking stringent precautions. Either way, when he found the photo of Lonnie Durkin, he knew he simply should have tiptoed out of the garage and driven off.

Even in the stable cocoon of his Range Rover, there wouldn't have been enough Tylenol and Motrin in the state to enable Ben to drive the sixteen hundred miles from Chicago to Conda, Idaho. The town was just north of Soda Springs, which was fifty-seven miles south and east of Pocatello, which was in the southeast corner of the state, not a hundred miles from both Wyoming and Utah. Instead, he flew into Pocatello via Minneapolis and rented a Blazer.

The money from Organ Guard had already melted like spring snow, and his bills remained virtually unchanged — at least until the mailman's next delivery. Perhaps when he got back to Chicago, he would put some sort of ad in one of the local papers. For the moment, though, he was where he should be, doing something that, in truth, he wanted to do.

Throughout the trip, he continued to wonder why the inventor of the elastic rib belt had never been awarded a Nobel prize. His headache had become manageable, and his nostrils had actually begun to admit some air. But the rib fracture was something else again. Dr. Banks had assured him that only one rib was cracked, and that there was no displacement of either of the two pieces, but after almost six days, Ben still refused to believe it. Even with the miraculous rib belt strapped on, most movements were still broadcast to his pain center in Dolby Surround Sound, but without the elastic splint, even shallow breaths were a challenge.

No matter what the pain, though, it did not measure up to the emotional ache at the prospect of having to sit with a mother and father and tell them that their son was dead. Not wanting to upset Lonnie Durkin's family for too long, but also unwilling simply to show up unannounced at Little Farm, Ben called from the airport in Pocatello. Lonnie's mother, Karen, did not press him to say over the phone that her son was dead, but it was clear to Ben that in her heart, she knew. They set a time when he would meet with her and her husband, and she gave him directions to their farm. Then, after a brief stop in Soda Springs to compose himself, take a few Motrin, register at the Hooper Springs bed-and-breakfast, and pass some time joylessly viewing the impressive geyser at Hooper Springs Park, Ben turned onto Route 34 and drove north to the hamlet of Conda.

Sleepy, peaceful, and very small, Conda reminded him eerily of Curtisville, Florida, home of Schyler Gaines and his gas station. He tried to imagine the massive Adventurer, with Vincent at the wheel and Connie perched on the throne-like passenger seat, gliding through the town like a hungry great white on a reef, searching for Pugsley Hill Road and the man whose cells, they somehow knew, were a near-perfect match for those of a person twenty-five hundred miles away.

Karen Durkin's directions brought Ben onto a long, dry dirt road that knifed through a vast tableland of grain fields. He wondered where, in the flatness, Pugsley Hill could possibly be. After nearly two miles, the fields gave way to corrals, stables, and some horses. Beyond the corrals was a large, rust-red barn, and across from that a prim, white two-story home, perched on a modest rise. A wooden sign arching over the drive announced it to be Little Farm.

Karen Durkin and her husband, Ray, were waiting anxiously on their narrow front porch. Both were in their fifties, but might have been a decade older. Their faces were weathered and honest, and spoke of years of hard work in an often harsh and unpredictable profession. Ray's handshake was firm and his hands callused, but the soft sadness in his eyes was inestimable.

"Lonnie's dead?" he asked before they had even entered the house.

Ben nodded.

"I'm truly sorry," he managed.

Karen led them into a bright, homey kitchen, with print curtains and a worn, round oak table that was almost certainly handmade. He paused by the door to scratch the family dog behind the ear.

"That's Joshua," Karen said.

"A black-and-white pit bull," Ben replied. "He's just beautiful."

"Thanks. He's our second one. Just turned four. Woody, our first one, lived to be sixteen. Lonnie named them both. Totally gentle and totally loyal. Maybe if Joshua had been with Lonnie that day — "

She stopped speaking and dabbed at her tears with a tissue.

Off to one corner of the kitchen was a built-in desk, and on it were several framed photos of a young boy, and one of a young man. All of them, Ben felt fairly certain, were of Lonnie.

"He was always a very good boy," Karen said, after she had placed mugs of coffee and a platter of brownies on the table. "They said the cord was around his neck in the womb, and he didn't get enough oxygen to his brain, so he wasn't much in school. But he loved animals and all the people who work on the farm loved him."

Ben flashed on Madame Sonja's explanation for making two sets of drawings. One was clearly the Lonnie depicted in his photographs. Was the other the man he might have become? He wondered that as he went through the details of Lonnie's death. There seemed no need to expose them to the coroner's photos and Madame Sonja's renderings unless, of course, they asked to see them.

"Here are the numbers of the police in Fort Pierce and Dr. Woyczek, the medical examiner. They'll tell you whether or not you will have to identify him in person, or whether you can send down something with his fingerprints on it and possibly some dental records. The state police here should be able to help you deal with them, and whatever mortician you choose should be able to help you out, too — especially in making arrangements to bring Lonnie's body back."

"I told you, Karen," Ray said stonily. "I told you he was dead."

"I'm just glad he didn't suffer none," his wife replied. "Mr. Callahan, I think we both want to know everything you can tell us about how our son ended up in Florida, and who might have done this to him."

"I think I know why, in a general sense, and even how, but as for who, and why specifically Lonnie, well, believe it or not, you might help me answer that question."

Over the next hour, with very little interruption from the Durkins, Ben recounted his involvement from the first meeting with Alice Gustafson through his decision to visit Conda and personally deliver the sad news of Lonnie's death.

"So that's how you got them black eyes," Ray, clearly impressed, said when he had finished.

"It was kind of you not to ask before. Believe it or not, I still think I got the best of him."

"You haven't told us why these people chose our Lonnie," Karen said.

"That's because I don't know. I can tell you this much — it makes no sense that they would have come all the way up here for Lonnie unless they already knew his tissue type."

"But how would they get that?"

"There's only one way — through a blood test."

"Except he never had that sort of test."

"Has he had any blood test at all?"

The Durkins exchanged inquiring looks. "Two years ago," Karen said suddenly.

"When he had those dizzy spells," Ray added. "Dr. Christiansen ordered them."

"Do you think he would speak with me?" Ben asked.

"She," Karen said. "Dr. Christiansen is a lady doctor. I would think so — especially if I come into Soda Springs with you."

"Can we call her today?"

"I don't see why not. She's a very nice doctor."

"Even I go to her," Ray said proudly.

"Hopefully, after I speak with her, she'll agree to see you without us. I don't mind driving down to Soda Springs if I have to, but with what you've told us today, we have quite a bit to do."

"Oh, yes. I'm sorry for being so inconsiderate."

"Nonsense. You're a fine man. There's nothing you can do about what's happened except to get to the bottom of things, and that's what you're doing."

Ben sat quietly for a time, looking at the woman and her husband — trying to comprehend their inestimable emptiness. Could there possibly be anything worse than the loss of one's child? In that moment, studying their strained, worn faces, he sensed something else as well — something that he now acknowledged had been percolating within him over the weeks since he first met Alice Gustafson. He cared. He cared about this couple, now without their son for the rest of their lives. He cared about a frightened, confused, ridiculed motel housekeeper in Maine, whom he had never met. He cared about bringing some sort of justice to a remorseless killer, who was responsible, at least partly, for so much pain and suffering.

"So, is there a hospital in Soda Springs?" he asked finally.

"Caribou Memorial Hospital. It isn't very big, but folks say it's a terrific place. Thankfully, we haven't any need for it. What I mean is — "

In spite of herself, Karen Durkin began to cry.

Ben sat quietly, sipping absently at his coffee, swallowing against the fullness in his throat. He had always thought he'd be a father — two or three times over, in fact. Since the breakup of his marriage, and his gradual dc scent into ennui and detachment, he hadn't cared much about the time that was slipping past. Now, despite the anguish of his hosts, he found himself wondering what it might be like to have kids.

"I'm staying at a bed-and-breakfast in Soda Springs," he said. "Why don't I go there now and we can talk about things tomorrow."

"No, no," Karen said, regaining her composure. "I'm okay. Let's call Dr. Christiansen now."

"If you're sure you're up to it. Caribou Memorial, is that where Lonnie's blood test was done?"

"I suppose so," she said.

"No t'wasn't," Ray cut in. "That new lab had just opened right by the pharmacy. I took him there myself."

"New lab?"

"That's right. Brand-new building. It opened maybe six months, maybe a year before we went there. I can't remember its name."

"I don't think I ever knew it," Karen said. "Let me call Dr. Christiansen to see if she'll meet with you, Ben. She's gonna be very sad about Lonnie. Even though he never had to see her all that much, he was one of her favorites."

She made the call from a phone on the built-in desk while Ray and Ben sat in silence, both staring down at their coffee.

"No problem, Ben," Karen announced when she had finished. "The doctor will see you in her office at ten tomorrow morning. That'll give you time for a good breakfast, and maybe to see the geyser in Hooper Springs Park."

"I'll do that," Ben said, rising and shaking their hands.

He turned, patted Joshua, and was reaching for the door when Karen said, "Oh, by the way, it's the Whitestone Laboratory."

"Pardon?"

"The lab where Lonnie had his blood drawn, it's called the Whitestone Laboratory. I think it may be part of a chain." "Only the largest chain in the world," Ben said.