Adverse Effects

by Joel Shulkin

  Devi’s cell phone chirped.

  “That’s my guy.” She gave Cristina a lingering look. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Go. Have fun.” Cristina shooed her off. “In fact, take your time coming in tomorrow morning. I’ll open up.”

  “But I always check the answering service before anyone gets here.”

  “I think I can handle a few voicemails on my own.”

  Devi beamed. “Thanks, boss. Have a good night.”

  Twenty minutes later, Cristina gave up on her plan to get any work done. Her mind kept drifting back to the vision of Corcovado. She shut down her computer and donned a black, double-breasted overcoat.

  As she stepped from the office building into Boston’s wintry night air, she found it easier to chase away the chill than the images of Rio. The experiences Recognate uncovered were comforting, like a warm blanket. But this particular one made her as confused as she was when she had woken in a hospital two years earlier. Could false memory be a side effect of the drug?

  Cristina chided herself as she walked to the bus stop in front of her Brookline Avenue office. How many times had she reviewed risks and benefits with her study subjects? ReMind promised genuine memories. And that’s what Recognate delivered. Cristina cinched her belt tighter and laughed at her silliness. She was overworked. The memory of Brazil faded away; an odd dream probably stemming from something she’d seen in a commercial.

  When she reached the bus stop and stopped to wait, the back of her neck crawled.

  Someone was following her. Reaching for her.

  She spun and grabbed the man’s arm. Twisted it around behind his back.

  He cried out in pain.

  Cristina wrapped her other arm around his neck. “What do you want?” she demanded. She squeezed his wrist.

  He was a head taller than her. Bulky muscles contracted under a flannel jacket.

  “I—I wanted . . .” His voice was strained.

  She loosened her grip on his throat.

  He coughed. “I wanted to return your book.”

  He held up his free hand, displaying a dog-eared novel. José Lins do Rego’s Menino de engenho.

  Her face tingled. The book must’ve fallen out of her purse.

  She released him, then stepped back and accepted the book, dropping it into her purse.

  The man massaged his neck. A dirty fisherman’s cap covered his head, and the collar on his jacket obscured his lower face. Crow’s-feet lined his obsidian eyes.

  “I’m so sorry,” said Cristina. “You startled me. I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

  “I’ll be fine.” His voice was deep and rough, with a trace of a Latin accent. His clothes were unwashed. Eyes rimmed with redness.

  “Do you have a place to stay?”

  His gray-flecked eyebrows rose. “You’re offering your home to a stranger?”

  “Well, no, but I could walk you to the Longwood shelter. It’s not far from here.”

  “You’re very kind, but no.”

  “But—”

  He jerked his chin. “Our bus is here.”

  She turned as the yellow-and-white 47 bus pulled up, brakes hissing. She nodded. “Again, I’m sorry for my freak-out.”

  Where had those moves come from? Her friend Andrea had taught her self-defense moves, but nothing as advanced as that—whatever that had been. Cristina shook her head and tapped her monthly T-pass on the reader. First, the weird Rio vision and now this. Maybe it was a good thing she’d be spending some alone time tonight.

  She made her way through the empty bus, choosing her usual seat at the midpoint near the heater, the only one with some cushioning. Her heart still pounded.

  As he walked by her, the husky man’s eyes flicked in her direction. The corner of his mouth twitched. She couldn’t read his expression but doubted it was positive.

  He plopped into the seat behind her.

  Cristina sat up straighter, forearm hairs bristling. An empty bus and he chose to sit there?

  The bus started moving. She forced herself to relax. He probably wanted to be near the heater, too. She had no idea why she was so jumpy.

  She needed to calm down. She pulled a copy of the New England Journal of Medicine from her purse and flipped to an article describing beta-endorphins, naturally occurring opiate-like neurotransmitters. The authors claimed a synthetic version restored memory in mice that had been exposed to toxic drugs. However, the mice became aggressive over time.

  Every few years, the journal editors rehashed the beta-­endorphin theory, but they were never any closer to finding a viable treatment. Cristina knew their research was close to becoming moot. Once Recognate was approved for mass market, there’d be no need for snake oil and holy water.

  The bus stopped and a few more passengers boarded before it continued its route.

  The vibrations as the big engine accelerated soothed Cristina. She glanced at the article. There was a reference to a study on gamma-aminobutyric acid agonists for memory restoration. She made a mental note to look that up. It never hurt to follow competing theories.

  “You’re not who you think you are.”

  Cristina was startled. The voice came from the seat behind her. She recognized it as the man she’d senselessly attacked. Was he talking to her? No, that was silly. He was probably on his phone. She stuck her nose in the journal and kept reading.

  “You may think you know, Doctor, but you do not.”

  The back of her neck prickled. Clearly, he was speaking to her. He knew she was a doctor. Maybe her initial protective instincts had been correct, after all. She’d heard stories about criminals following people home on the bus and then robbing them. Well, she wasn’t about to be a victim. She reached out for the stop request wire. Better to catch a cab than take chances.

  “If you want to know the truth, stay on this bus,” the man said in thick Brazilian Portuguese. “I know who you really are.”

  His sudden use of her mother’s native tongue surprised her. Cristina hardly considered herself fluent, but she knew enough to understand him. And the confidence in his voice—the way he said, I know who you really are—made her hesitate.

  “The way you attacked me at the bus stop and your confusion afterward prove I’m right. You can feel it, can’t you?”

  Cristina’s heart fluttered. She had felt differently when putting him in that choke hold. It was almost as if someone else had taken over her body. But that was ridiculous. She took a deep breath and gathered her nerves. That false memory must’ve shaken her more than she thought. Calmly, she turned to face the man. “Look, I don’t know what—”

  “Don’t turn around!”

  His tone was so sharp, so commanding, she automatically obeyed, her breath quickening.

  After a moment, she chided herself for letting him intimidate her and asked, “Who do you think you—?”

  “Keep facing forward and act natural.” His voice deepened, becoming more threatening.

  “Act natural?” She laughed despite—or maybe because of—her fear. “Why? You’ll shoot me if I don’t?”

  “Yes.”

  The blood drained from her face. “You have a gun?”

  “I won’t use it if you remain calm and do as I say.”

  Her heart pounded. He was serious. How many times had her friend Andrea told her not to take the bus? Cristina had always dismissed these suggestions as being overprotective. She knew how to take care of herself.

  Now Cristina regretted ignoring Andrea’s warning. Even if she could pull off another move like the one at the bus stop earlier, she couldn’t be sure this man wouldn’t shoot one of the other passengers first.

  But Cristina could get help. Carefully, she slipped her hand into her purse, hunting for her cell phone. While she searched, she needed to keep the man behind her distracted. She’d k
eep him talking.

  “What do you want?”

  “I need your help, but we don’t have much time.”

  “Why not?”

  “We’re being watched.”

  “By who?” Her fingertips brushed cold plastic. She withdrew her phone. She was vaguely aware of the bus stopping and its doors opening.

  “Stop asking questions, Cristina!”

  She paused in the middle of dialing 911. “How do you know my name?”

  “Because I knew you before your memory was stolen.”

  Cristina’s mouth went dry. The phone slipped from her hand back into her purse. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Sebastian dos Santos. Everything you know is a lie,” he whispered. “When you find the truth, find me. Trust no one.”

  A group of teenagers jostled past her seat. One of them, a gangly boy with spiked hair and low-hanging jeans, paused and winked at her. She opened her mouth to plead for help but then stopped herself.

  What if the man behind her really knew something? Nearly everything her parents owned had been destroyed in a fire a month before their deaths in a car crash. Since then Cristina had failed to locate any other relatives. And since the head injury she’d sustained from the backseat of that crash had wiped out most of her own memory, all she knew about her parents—and of herself, even her age of thirty-five years—had been gathered from a few surviving documents, the police detective who investigated the wreck, and her recovered memories. But there were many black holes, even of the crash itself. What if Sebastian dos Santos could provide the missing pieces? Wasn’t it worth the risk to be whole again?

  After the teenager shrugged and joined his friends at the back of the bus, Cristina gathered her courage. “What do you know?”

  No response came.

  “I promise I won’t call for help. Tell me what you know.”

  In the back, the teenagers hollered and laughed.

  Cristina’s cheeks burned. Her knuckles whitened as she gripped the seat. She struggled with her instincts, but they won out. She turned around.

  The seat behind her was empty—except for an unmarked manila envelope.

  Chapter Three

  Paramedics labeled him a DRT: Dead Right There. Male, white, midforties. Eight-story fall from the victim’s Somerville apartment window between four and five in the afternoon. Detective Gary Wilson scratched the light stubble growing on his chiseled chin as he surveyed the scene. Lush slate-gray carpet reeking of stale beer. Empty bottles littering the rich hardwood of the kitchen floor. No sign of forced entry. Likely suicide.

  The victim’s blood stained a few jagged glass shards still clinging to the frame of the shattered window. Cold wind blew inside. Detective Wilson tapped a latex-gloved finger on one of the bigger pieces. Double-pane; it’d take a lot of momentum to break through that. He kept himself in good shape, even by standards for a thirty-seven-year-old cop, but he doubted he could’ve punched a hole in the glass. He looked over his shoulder to check the angle. Living room was small, and the luxurious leather couch was in the way. Still, a good running start from the kitchen might be enough. He stripped off the gloves.

  “Arriving officers found these in the bathroom,” Detective Rick Hawkins said as he handed Wilson a baggie containing a pill bottle. The wrinkles around Hawkins’s eyes were deeper than ever, his hair winter white. “Dated two weeks ago, but there are only four or five left.”

  Wilson held the bottle up to the light. A handful of tiny green capsules rolled around inside. He read the label. “Recognate? What the hell’s that?”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “It’s prescribed by a Dr. Cristina Silva. Let’s find out what she knows.”

  “Gary, it’s a suicide. You know, Valentine’s Day, death by broken heart. Wah, wah, wah. Captain Harris wants us to wrap this up and move on.”

  “Something about this feels different. Look at this place. Expensive furniture. Fancy clothes. His flat screen TV costs more than my monthly rent. He was living the good life. What would make this guy decide to off himself?”

  “Suicide isn’t limited to the poor.”

  “I know.” Wilson scratched the bristles covering his cheek. He kept his dark hair cut shorter than police regulations required, but he insisted on keeping the sideburns. “He could’ve overdosed on the painkillers in his medicine cabinet or hung himself in the closet. Why run through a double-pane window?”

  Hawkins shrugged and said, “According to his neighbors, the dude had been shouting nonsense five times a day for the past two weeks. Sounds like he went nuts.”

  A chill ran down Wilson’s neck at the memory: hearing the coroner say, She just went nuts . . . seeing the ghastly look frozen on his mother’s face when Wilson identified her and his father at the morgue.

  Wilson shook off the painful memories and studied the pill bottle. If the guy had been hearing things, he might’ve jumped through the window to make it stop. Not a planned suicide, but a suicide all the same. “Are any of the neighbors still around?”

  “One’s going over his statement with Officer Capshaw outside.”

  “Let’s go talk to him.”

  A few minutes later, the detectives met in the hallway with Marko Novak. The pasty-skinned man with shaggy blond hair and a goatee lived next door to Carl Franklin. He wore jeans and a Star Wars T-shirt.

  “How well did you know Mr. Franklin?” Hawkins asked.

  “Not well. He didn’t talk much to neighbors. Maybe because he always had pretty women over.”

  “Girlfriends?” Wilson asked.

  “At least for the night.” Novak sniggered. “The women looked professional, you know?”

  Wilson made a mental note. If the victim spent more time with hookers than having actual interpersonal relationships, it could go along with depression. “Tell us again what you overheard.”

  “Shouting, shouting, and more shouting. Sometimes in the middle of the night.”

  “Did you ever try to find out what was wrong?” Wilson said.

  Novak made a tsk sound with his tongue. “One thing I’ve learned about life, Detective: if you value your nose, you do not stick it into other people’s business.”

  Hawkins gave Wilson a look he took to mean, Speed it up.

  “All right,” Wilson said. “Were you able to make out anything clearly?”

  “Most of it was nonsense,” Novak said. “But, today, he kept shouting over and over again, I know who I am and I’m not a killer.”

  “He said he wasn’t a killer?”

  “Yeah.”

  Wilson turned to Hawkins with a knowing look.

  “Also, I definitely heard two different voices,” Novak said. “One of them kept saying the name Quinn.”

  Wilson committed the name to memory. “Could you tell if that was a first or last name?”

  Hawkins shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Door was locked from the inside. Franklin was alone. And crazy.”

  Wilson ran his fingers through his hair. Was Hawkins right? Even as a kid, Wilson had pissed off his teachers by trying to make the round pegs fit into the square holes. He pissed them off even more when he succeeded. Whenever he had faced an impossible puzzle, an itch started behind his ear. It intensified with every new piece until he solved the whole puzzle.

  The back of his ear itched right now.

  “Do you know what kind of work Mr. Franklin did?” he asked Novak.

  “I think he was an accountant.”

  Wilson turned to Hawkins again. “He lived an extravagant lifestyle for an accountant. Maybe he embezzled from the wrong client.” To Novak, he asked, “Did you ever see anyone suspicious lurking around? Or maybe Franklin invited someone in today?”

  “Sorry, Gary. Time’s up.” Hawkins held up his cell phone to display a text. “There’s been a break-in at the W
inter Hill stationery store. Perps ran off with a carload of heart-shaped cards and paper flowers. Captain thinks it’s tied to the eBay racketeer case we’re investigating and wants us to check it out.”

  After thanking Novak for his statement, the detectives started down the stairs.

  Wilson’s ear still itched.

  “Did you hear Novak say how Franklin was shouting that he wasn’t a killer?”

  “Carl Franklin was delusional,” Hawkins sighed.

  “Are there any warrants out for Franklin’s arrest? Maybe he’s tied to one of our unsolved murders and killed himself because he thought he was about to get caught.”

  “No criminal records. Not even a parking ticket. C’mon, Gary, let it go.”

  Wilson sighed and stuffed the baggie into his pocket. He’d leave the pill bottle with the evidence room, but the read he was getting off Hawkins made it clear there was no way anyone else was going to push the investigation any further. Hopefully, Dr. Silva’s other patients were more fortunate than Carl Franklin.

  “I hate Valentine’s Day.”

  “Why do you ride the bus, anyway?” Andrea Rojas reclined on her red leather couch. Colorful reproductions of paintings by Monet and Gauguin hung on the caramel living room walls of her one-bedroom Porter Square apartment. Flipping her auburn hair over her shoulder, she ran a crimson nail around the edge of her martini glass before taking a sip. “You’re a doctor. Shouldn’t you—I don’t know—have a car service drive you around or something?”

  “That costs a lot of money and wealthy patients aren’t exactly rolling into my practice.” Cristina, who sat next to Andrea, was still trying to keep her still cold hands from shaking. Twenty minutes earlier, she’d come straight to Andrea’s apartment after rushing from the bus stop. Now she took a tentative sip of her mojito. It was good, but even her favorite drink couldn’t calm her frayed nerves. “I’m still paying off student loans.”

  “Can’t you buy a used car?”

  Cristina set the glass onto the coffee table next to a bowl of cinnamon potpourri. “I can’t believe you’re asking me that. You know why I don’t drive.”