Dead Pan (11 page)

“Munday talked John into going back with him to find the mine. The legend speaks of a journal John kept recording all their adventures. They found the silver and mined it for years. Then the American Revolution broke out, and the British put poor, old John in prison. By the time he got out, he was old and blind and didn’t know where the silver was anymore.”

“So why is his treasure believed to be at Breaks Interstate Park?” I asked.

“I don’t know. It’s as good a place as any, I reckon.”

“Well, that was a let down.”

“Want me to make something up?”

“Yes, especially since you won’t let me listen to my book.”

“Fine. You know about Paul Revere and that bunch in Boston that had a lookout for the British? Well, they weren’t the only ones. Minutemen everywhere were at the ready. Since John was English but had American sympathies, he figured that wouldn’t go over well with the British army. So, he began to grab up bags of silver in hopes of hiding it and laying low until after the war. See, he’d met himself a little woman, and they’d built a little cabin, and they were all fixed up to get married and live a little-house-on-the-prairie life.

“Well, wouldn’t you know it, John made one too many trips to the mines after bags of silver. He got caught. The British confiscated that last bag of silver and threw poor John in prison. His little woman tried to visit, but he sent her away.”

Myra placed a hand on her chest. “‘Go away from me, my dear Mary,’ he told her. ‘You must not see me like this. Live in our little cabin, and I will come to you anon . . . after these red coats let me out of prison.’”

“Anon?” I asked.

“Yes, anon. Would you let me tell my blasted story?”

“Yes. Please continue.”

“But the British didn’t release John until he was old and blind and pitiful. And poor Mary was even more pitiful because she’d had to keep up the little log cabin and forage for food and wash her clothes in the creek and all that jazz without her man or any electricity. She probably even had to chop wood, for goodness sake! The end.”

“The end? Didn’t John ever make his way back to her?”

“No, he was blind and didn’t have directions. Besides, she had all she could handle taking care of the wood chopping and cleaning and scrounging for food and cooking the food and mending her clothes. She didn’t have time to take care of an old, blind man. Give her a break already.” She thought a second. “And that’s why they call it the Breaks Interstate Park. There.
Now
the end.”

“You still didn’t tell me why people think the money is buried there.”

She sighed. “Because that’s where Mary’s cabin was. Happy?”

“No. If all the silver was there, wouldn’t she have known it and used it to have a better life?”

“Good grief. Is there no pleasing you? First, she was waiting for John to come back. By the time she realized he wasn’t coming, she’d forgotten where the silver was. Besides, no amount of money would’ve given her a better life because she couldn’t have used it to buy the stuff that would have made her life better because it had not been invented yet—electricity, dishwasher, washing machine, dryer. I know they try to romanticize all that olden days junk on television, but that’s a lot of hooey. Times were hard. People worked from daylight to dark and probably had callused calluses. No, thanks.”

I laughed.  “Sewing by candlelight is not for you then?”

“No, ma’am. I like my modern conveniences, thank you. And two of my favorites are electric lighting and sewing machines. Now, are we there yet, because I’m storied out.”

*

By the time we did get to Haysi, the narrator for Agatha Christie’s book had put Myra to sleep. She was snoring softly. I pulled into a parking space near the fabric shop. I thought maybe someone there or someone on the street could give us directions to the medical research facility.

I gently touched Myra’s shoulder.

“What?!” she yelled, straightening up and looking about wildly.

“It’s okay,” I said with a grin. “We’re here.”

“Oh . . . yeah. I know. I was just . . . .”

“Resting your eyes?”

“That’s it.”

We went into the fabric shop. It was cool in the shop, as if it lacked adequate heating. The proprietor was sitting in a rocking chair by the window with a space heater at her side and a long green . . . something . . . she was crocheting. For some reason, the heavy woman with her squinting black eyes and her gray hair pulled into a bun reminded me of Madame Defarge. That was ridiculous, of course; Madame Defarge was a knitter, not a crocheter.

“Help you?” Madame said, barely glancing up from her work.

“We’re just looking,” Myra said. “I haven’t been here in years, but I remembered you have a great little shop here.”

“Thank you. But it’s not my shop. It’s my sister’s. I’m watching it today while she does some Christmas shopping.”

“Well, I’ll just browse around then,” Myra said.

“Help yourself.”

I inched closer, wondering if you could actually crochet names into a long piece of green whatever. If you could knit names into something, you could surely crochet names into it.

“Help you?” the woman asked.

“I was just admiring your work,” I said. “I can’t crochet.”

She nodded and looked back down at her work. She never dropped a stitch, and I thought that probably meant she was pretty good.

“Somebody told us there’s a medical research place near here,” I said. “Do you know where it might be?”

This actually made Madame stop crocheting. “What do you want to go there for? Ya’ll don’t look hard up to me.”

“Hard up?” I asked.

“Yeah. Ain’t you going there to volunteer to be a guinea pig? I hear the pay is fairly decent, but ain’t no way I’m gonna volunteer to test drugs. Too many people have had bad experiences there.” She shook her head. “They’re doing some weird stuff over there, I’m telling you. They take advantage of people that’s fell on hard times. I’ve seen people get worse. But I ain’t ever seen anybody get better from going there.”

Chapter Eight

After what Madame Defarge had said about the medical research facility, I was afraid there would be junkies and all sorts of scary looking people lurking outside. There was, in fact, no one outside—lurking or otherwise. Unless they were lurking in the bushes. We didn’t see a soul.

Myra and I walked in to the sterile looking facility, which appeared much like any other doctor’s office. Black chairs lined the walls, broken up in twos and threes by wooden tables piled with outdated magazines. At the moment, all the chairs were empty. To the left was a receptionist’s window, enclosed by a glass partition.

I stepped up to the receptionist’s window. The receptionist—a woman with short red hair and glasses with tortoise shell frames—looked up and opened the window.

“Hello,” she said. “Do you have an appointment?”

“No, we’re here to ask about someone who might have been a patient here.”

“We’re not allowed to give out any information on test subjects,” she said.

“Well, I’m not even sure he
was
a test subject. His name is Fred Duncan. Can you tell me if he’s on your client list?” I asked.

“No, I can’t. We’re bound by strict confidentiality agreements with both our test subjects and our corporate sponsors.” She closed the window.

“Well, she has a nerve,” Myra said.

I knocked on the glass. “Is there someone else I can speak with?”

The receptionist shook her head. “No. If you don’t leave now, I’ll be forced to call the police department.”

Myra and I left. She had bought lots of cute fabric at Madame Defarge’s shop, but I doubted they’d let her do anything with it in jail.

“This bugs me,” I said, as we left. “Let’s find a library and see if we can’t dig up more on this medical research/test subject stuff. Maybe we can find something that will make her tell us whether or not Fred was working for them.”

“You go ahead. I’ll thumb through some magazines. I’m not dealing with her and her nasty little threats anymore.”

The library wasn’t hard to find. I was relieved to discover that it was comfortable and had a friendly staff, especially since the earlier two receptions I’d received in this town were about as warm as an ice chest.

“Hi, there,” said a tall, thin woman with a dark blonde, shoulder-length bob. “May I help you find anything?”

“Do you have computers for public use?” I asked.

“We sure do. Do you have a library card with us?”

“I’m afraid not. I’m from Brea Ridge and I’m here on business.”

“You got a Brea Ridge library card?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s good enough for me.” Smiling, she led me to the public computers and signed me in. “Let me know if you need anything.”

I did a search for human test subjects and clinical drug trials, and I learned quite a bit. One article spoke about researchers’ lack of upfront information to test subjects, indicating they weren’t informed about the unknown problems scientists are paying “guinea pigs” to find. Another article mentioned that some researchers refuse to share information about the number of human test subjects they employ, the types of studies they perform or how many adverse reactions have occurred during their studies.

The most recent article—one which appeared in
Wired Magazine, Issue 15.05
—discussed the disturbing trend of some “guinea pigs” to make a career of being a test subject. The article also indicated the existence of such inane studies as “the impact of the club drug GHB on driving ability.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

I didn’t realize I’d spoken the thought aloud until the librarian asked, “I’m sorry. Did you say something?”

“Oh . . . um . . . I came across an article on human research test subjects. Don’t you guys have a medical research facility near here?”

“We do.”

“And does that facility use human test subjects?”

“I believe so.”

“What do you think about it?” I asked.

“About humans volunteering to be test subjects or the research facility being located in our town?”

“Both.”

“Well, if somebody wants to be a test subject, I guess that’s up to him or her. I’m sure the researchers explain the risks and the fact that they may or may not be on a drug. After all, you have to have the mean, right? Isn’t that what they call it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Besides, I figure the people who allow themselves to be tested on know what they’re doing. Personally, I wouldn’t do it. But I’ve talked with people who have, and they act like it’s no big deal. As far as the facility goes, it did bring in a few new jobs.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

I retrieved Myra from the pages of
Modern Woman
, and we headed home.

“So do you think Fred was coming over here to take part in some freaky Frankenstein experiments or something?” Myra asked.

“I don’t know. If something shows up in the autopsy report that the coroner finds odd, then I suppose it’s a possibility. But the librarian pointed out something I hadn’t thought of with regard to the testing.”

“What’s that?”

“Even if Fred was coming over here and taking part in some sort of clinical trials, he wasn’t necessarily being given the drug being tested. Some people are given a placebo so the doctors can observe the differences between the two groups.”

“Hmm. I’d love to have a gazebo. Not this time of year, naturally, but during the late spring, summer and early fall, I think it’d be great.”

I smiled. “Myra, you are priceless. What are you planning to do with all that fabric?”

“Oh, I have all sorts of plans. Tote bags, dresses, blouses, place mats, curtains. But, in truth, I’ll probably put it in the sewing room with all the rest of my junk and forget I have it.” She shrugged. “But at least I have pretty new fabric, and it’ll be there if I take a notion to do something with it. If we have some snowy days, I’ll probably get bored and decide to do something. Might even make you a new apron.”

“Wow, I’d love it.”

“Then you’d better pray for snow. And keep the baked goods coming.”

“Hey, do you remember when Fred had his car accident?” I asked.

“Yep,” Myra said with a nod. “Everybody in town was on the lookout for that car—and not just because it wrecked Fred, but because we were all afraid we’d be next. I mean, of course, we were all upset about what happened to Fred. He’d always been a good boy . . . never been in trouble. But the fact that whoever was driving that car didn’t take responsibility for his—or her—actions . . . well, that bothered us all. Before that, we’d all felt like Brea Ridge was a town with integrity.”

“That shook your faith, huh?”

“Yeah. I mean, you know there are bad apples in every tree, but it wasn’t just the driver.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, somebody else had to know about that car wreck. I mean, if there was an accident where the driver pulled a hit and run, and the police were looking for a little red car, and you came home with your car all boogered up, I’d have to ask you about it.”

“I know that’s the truth,” I said.

“But, let’s say you came home at night and had a garage and you hid the car in there, people would have to see it when you drove it again . . . unless you had somebody come to your garage to fix the car. And, in that case, the person who fixed your car would know.”

“And what if I’d suffered an injury?”

“Exactly,” Myra said. “And if you’d hit a car as hard as that one hit Fred’s—”

“Wait a sec. I thought Fred hit a utility pole.”

“He did, but that other car still clipped the back hard enough to crush the back end of Fred’s car. Plus, the police found one of the other car’s hubcaps in the road.”

“So there was no question that the other car was damaged.”

“Right.”

I nodded slowly. “So now you’ve got a car that has to be fixed unless the driver has alternative means of transportation, a driver who might be hurt—not to mention drunk—and when you add all that together, you have at least a handful of people who have a decent suspicion of who the other driver was.”