by Graham Parke
Blog entry: The really bad news came on the fourth day.
“Is Mr. Porter in? I need to speak to him,” a strong, authoritative voice said. It drifted to the storage room where I was sorting my administration.
“If you could let him know I’m here? He’ll know what it’s regarding.”
I put down the forms and listened, wondering if I should go out to the front.
“Hello? Are you okay? There seems to be some blood coming from your mouth…”
I realized someone was attempting to converse with Hicks. I also realized I’d never actually seen Hicks talk to anyone but me. I hurried over to find out what was going on.
Hicks stood transfixed by the door, staring at Detective Moran. Detective Moran, only halfway through the door, seemed at a loss about how to proceed.
“Ah, detective,” I said, drawing his attention away from my frozen assistant. “Nice of you to drop by. Let’s talk over here by the counter, shall we?” I motioned him over.
Detective Moran glanced in my direction, shot a frown back at Hicks, then joined me at the counter.
Hicks breathed a sigh of relief and disappeared to the back, wiping his chin with his sleeve.
Blog entry: “Take a look at this.” Detective Moran handed me an old, dog-eared book. I opened it at the bookmark and scanned the chosen pages. There were some hand drawn pictures in between columns of tiny script. A few lines had been highlighted with a marker. At first glance, it appeared to be an ancient tome on different styles of Chinese martial arts.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“Pressure points,” Moran said. “They’re like acupuncture points, but, when manipulated by an expert, they cause the subject physical harm.” He gave me a grave look. “According to this,” he tapped one of the highlighted paragraphs, “you can disturb someone’s energy so badly they become ill, or they die. Could be a matter of seconds, could be over a period of days. It’s up to the attacker.”
I scanned the pages more carefully. One of the things that stood out was a map of points on the upper body. Most notably a point called Gendokki. It was somewhere half way up the side of the neck.
“Looks like science fiction to me,” I said. “I mean, Vulcan death grips and all that, it’s all for a laugh, right?”
Detective Moran shrugged. “Friend of mine swears this stuff is genuine. I was discussing some of the strange aspects of the Norton case with him the other day, then he gave me this book. He’s a black belt in Wukai Chi. Says this stuff is definitely real. Not many practitioners, though.” He glanced around, as if worried Hicks might overhear. “Needless to say, you never saw this book!”
“No problem. So, you think this is what happened to Norton and Miller?”
“It might be part of what happened to them.” Detective Moran closed the book and put it away. “It’s not going to appear in my official report, of course, but I’d urge you to stay away from any and all martial arts practitioners for the time being. You happen to know any?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so, no.”
“Well, until I get to the bottom of this, be careful.”
“Are you telling me I’m in danger?”
Detective Moran gave me a weary look. “I’m not sure. I guess I’m telling you that I have no idea how this killer chooses his victims. All I have to go on are the ties to the Miller case. That means both you and I need to be careful!”
With that ominous warning he left.
Blog entry: Hicks returned from the back and apologized for not receiving Detective Moran properly. “I’m not sure what happened,” he said. “I must’ve gotten distracted.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I know for a fact Moran has bigger problems on his mind.”
“Good.” Hicks didn’t look relieved. “Anyway, I don’t think it’ll happen again.”
Blog entry: Rest of the afternoon was uneventful. Finished cleaning up the store and arrived back at Dr. Hargrove’s place late. Over dinner I asked her about martial arts. Whether she’d ever practiced or knew anyone who did. She gave me an odd look, then shook her head and told me she’d always been too clumsy for sports. Called herself a nerd.
“By the way,” she said, “maybe you should start calling me Christine?”
I gave her a look. “Why?”
“It seems only right, Gomez,” she said. “I mean, we’re sleeping together and everything, you should probably call me by my first name.”
I didn’t like the sound of that.
“Come on,” she said, pinching my cheek over the dinner table. “Don’t look so glum. I don’t go around calling you Mr. Porter, do I? That would be weird, right?”
“Of course it would,” I said. “But you’ve been calling me Gomez from the beginning.”
“Please,” she said, “do it for me?”
I thought it over. “I guess I could call you Christine,” I said, “if you really wanted me to. But, deep down, you’d always be Dr. Hargrove to me.”
“Yes,” she said. “About that, Gomez. It’s cute and everything, don’t get me wrong. And I’ve actually started enjoying that. But, you know I’m not actually a doctor, right? I mean, it was always our little inside joke, wasn’t it?”
For a long moment I was too stunned to react. An inside joke? Not really a doctor? What was she talking about?
“What about the clinic?” I burst out. “What about the trial? Are you saying you don’t even work there? You just walk in off the street, find an empty office, and sit there messing with test subjects’ heads?”
“No, Gomez, of course not! I do work at the clinic, but –”
“What, then? It’s not a real drug trial? You’re all just pretending to be doing valiant medical research when in actuality you are – what exactly – some evil conglomerate experimenting on people?”
“No, Gomez, you’ve got us all wrong!”
Ms. Hargrove tried to take my hand. I pulled away.
“I should’ve known!” I said. “Reputable companies don’t get their test subjects through ads in gaming magazines, they don’t pay this well, and they don’t have cute members of staff that take you home and fool around with you. So,” I gave her a hard stare, “what is it you people are doing exactly? Something illegal? Bio-warfare? Testing chemical mind mines? Dabbling in personality altering substances? Are you checking up on me, is that what this is? Keeping me close to make sure I don’t die or go insane or dislocate myself from reality?”
“Gomez, stop it!” Christine said. A tear formed in her eye. “It’s nothing like that. I should’ve corrected you at the beginning but I didn’t because I thought you were just flirting. I’m not a doctor – not yet – I’m a research assistant. That’s all. The rest of what I’ve told you is true. The clinic is real, I do work there, and we’re not testing anything remotely dangerous!”
“Actually,” I said, composing myself, “that was going to be my next and final guess; research assistant, almost a doctor, no evil conglomerate.” I constructed my best make-up smile. “You should’ve let me finish, dear. It’s not polite to interrupt.”
Blog entry: Close call.
That almost blew up in my face.
Good thing I can think on my feet!
Dr. Hargrove sulked for the remainder of the evening, but, when it was time for lights out, she didn’t show me the door, nor did she make up the couch. I figured that was a very good sign. We’d had our first fight and we’d survived.
Decided to show I was more than willing to do my part, called her Christine a few times. In my mind, though, she was still Dr. Hargrove.
Part four
33.
Blog entry: Over the next couple of weeks our relationship strengthened. We became more comfortable around each other and eventually managed to relax enough to enjoy our time together. Dr. Hargrove visited my apartment (she liked it!) and my store (no comment…) and she introduced me to her friends.
Her work at the clinic continued uninterrupted.
No one assumed we were at the party together or had even cared. It turned out that test subjects were a dime a dozen and nobody knew who I was.
Which suited us fine.
Blog entry: Hicks returned to normal. His gums stopped bleeding and his skin cleared up. His pathological fear of all things unpunctual remained, of course, as did his plethora of other phobias, but by and large, he was doing better.
We kept the store clean and tidy and we opened up on time. We had some customers in and even some sellers. I think some of the stuff I bought might’ve been actual antiques, but I couldn’t be bothered to find out.
Although I did feel watched from time to time, I never noticed any martial artists hanging around, nor anyone who looked in any way threatening. I kept vigilant, though, I wasn’t going to have my pressure points fondled unexpectedly.
Most days I worked on my blogs and perused the site about picking up girls. I didn’t need the advice anymore, but it was still an interesting read.
Blog entry: When our first month anniversary came up, I found myself wondering about my love life.
You’d think that a doctor would be better in bed.
Not that Dr. Hargrove wasn’t good. She was terrific. Incredible, in fact. So far, though, she hadn’t done anything special. Anything I hadn’t seen before. Somehow I expected a person who’d devoted her life to understanding the human body to, well, know a few tricks.
As I pondered this, I remembered she wasn’t actually a doctor. She was only a research assistant. Maybe she’d learn the tricks later.
Couldn’t wait.
Blog entry: Dr. Hargrove and I spent our weekends traveling and during the week we’d meet up in the evenings. We alternated doing the shopping and cooking, and after dinner we’d read the papers or take a walk. Often we’d check out the stalker places. They were always nice and empty.
Around nine each evening we ended up on the couch and had some tea while watching TV. One evening I had a brilliant idea. When Dr. Hargrove asked me, “Do you want some tea, dear?” I growled back, “Make your own damn tea, woman!”
She shot me a surprised look. “I am making my own damn tea,” she huffed. “I just offered to make you some too.”
“Stop whining about the tea,” I said, “and leave me alone!”
You see, girls like drama.
“Gomez!” She sounded hurt. “Why are you doing this?”
“No reason,” I said. “I don’t care, do what you want. Just ignore me like you always do.”
I didn’t want Dr. Hargrove to get bored with me, just because there wasn’t enough drama in our relationship. So drama she’d have. In droves.
I zapped channels, paying her no attention. She left the room and returned ten minutes later, eyes puffy and red, carrying two cups of tea.
“Just in case you changed your mind,” she said, “I made you some tea.”
“Oh, what’s the use,” I sighed. “I can’t hide it any longer; I’m in love with your sister!”
“What?” She almost dropped the cups.
“It just happened,” I said. “We didn’t plan for it, we didn’t want it to happen, it just did.”
“What sister?”
“Both your sisters, actually. You see, they’re so much prettier and skinner than you, and they can jump higher.”
Dr. Hargrove stared at me. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you, Gomez! Please, stop it!”
“I couldn’t help it,” I said. “It just happened. Over and over and over again.”
She was devastated “Gomez, I don’t understand any of this. I don’t have any sisters!”
“I’m sorry, honey,” I said, “I didn’t want this to come between us. They mean nothing to me, I promise. Let’s forget this ever happened and get back together. What do you say?”
They like the drama so very much.
“We were apart?” she said. “When were we apart?”
But they love the sickly sweet romance.
“Honey, it feels like we were never apart, and it feels like we were apart forever.”
That should tide her over till next Tuesday.
34.
Blog entry: It felt weird visiting Dr. Hargrove at the clinic.
Even though that’s where we’d met, going to the clinic somehow felt wrong. It felt a bit like French kissing an old lady; all the right moves, but in totally the wrong places.
No idea why.
We weren’t doing anything wrong, exactly. In fact, what we did at the clinic was probably the only part of our relationship that wasn’t wrong. Still, I’d sit there, answering Dr. Hargrove’s questions, feeling guilty. Especially when Dr. Hargrove answered a question for me. She’d say something like, ‘You looked a bit flushed last time’, or, ‘I noticed your pee turned deep yellow again last night’, and that’d make me very uncomfortable.
Dr. Hargrove was fine with it, though. You’d never tell from her demeanor at the clinic that we knew each other intimately. Sometimes, she could be hard as nails. Had to be all that medical training.
Blog entry: More things were weird today. My predecessor wasn’t in. I sat out in the waiting room for all of five minutes when Dr. Hargrove called me in. I waited for my predecessor to exit her office, but he didn’t. In all the months of the trial, he’d never skipped a session before.
I asked Dr. Hargrove, “No Tommy today?”
“Who?” She gave me a look.
“Fat guy, comes in before me. Sometimes your assistants chase him around the office a bit. Wild eyes, beard, looks like a Tommy.”
“You mean Mr. Ferguson?”
“Could be. Maybe. He’s not in today?”
“I haven’t seen him.”
Dr. Hargrove started on her form questions and my discomfort quickly made me forget about Tommy. I’m not sure I even noticed his absence the next few visits. It wasn’t until something peculiar happened that I was reminded of him again. Dr. Hargrove and I were sitting at the dinner table in my apartment and I was scanning the paper for the cartoons. Suddenly I came across a familiar face.
“Isn’t that Tommy?” I handed Dr. Hargrove the obituaries, tapping the only entry expensive enough to carry a photo.
She looked it over, nodded, then went back to reading her own paper.
“It’s Mr. Ferguson,” I explained, “the fat guy from your trial.”
“Ah,” she said, “I thought he looked familiar.” She checked the photo again. “Yes,” she said, “I suppose it is.”
“And he’s dead!”
Dr. Hargrove nodded. “Yup.”
“But,” I said, surprised at her meager response, “he was in your trial, doesn’t that bother you?”
“Not at all.” She looked up, read my face, then took my hand. “Oh,” she said, “I think I know what you’re getting at. There’s really no need to worry. Mr. Ferguson had already missed so many treatments, we had to take his data from the models. His death won’t influence my results. Luckily I made the test sets large enough so I could safely discard one or two subjects without jeopardizing the entire trial.”
“But don’t you think this is significant?”
“What is?”
“The fact that he just died like that!”
“Why?”
“Why??”
Dr. Hargrove donned a sympathetic smile. “Look, Gomez,” she said. “I don’t know what to tell you. People die every day. Even people we hardly know.”
Blog entry: Dr. Hargrove failed to share my worry. Didn’t even grasp the nature of my worry. I tried again.
“He was in your trial, and now he’s dead. Just like Joseph Miller.”
“Is that what’s got you so upset?” Dr. Hargrove seemed surprised.
I rolled my eyes at her. “Well, yeah, just a little!”
“I assure you, Gomez, our experiment had nothing to do with that. We’re not testing anything remotely dangerous.”
I was getting tired of that line. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. “Look,” I said
, “you’re doing this trial to find unexpected side effects, aren’t you? You’re not expecting people to die, but they do. That seems like a pretty big side effect to ignore!”
Dr. Hargrove closed her eyes with a sigh. “Gomez,” she said, “I don’t expect you to understand, and you don’t have to, but I need you to trust me. Okay? Can you do that?” She gave me a sad smile. “Can you do that one thing for me?”
Blog entry: I couldn’t.
Of course I couldn’t. I also couldn’t tell her that I couldn’t. I didn’t want to make another mistake, start another fight, but at the same time I didn’t want to be involved with someone who might be killing me, or was associated with people who, unbeknownst to her, were killing me, or even people who thought they were doing me a huge favor and that everything in the world was brilliantly fine, while they were accidentally killing me.
It was time to take matters into my own hands.
I might really be in danger. It was as if a veil had finally been lifted from my eyes. I had to get away, go into hiding until I figured out once and for all what was going on and who knew about it.
I should’ve done this a long time ago. Looking back, my infatuation with Dr. Hargrove was probably what stopped me, which, in turn, might be down to the trial drugs.
What if Tommy and Joseph had thought Dr. Hargrove was their girlfriend? What if the three of us had been taking some weird aphrodisiac that made us hang around the poisoning she-devil like a couple of lovesick puppies?
It seemed unlikely. It seemed all wrong. But logic dictated I should run until I was sure. If I didn’t, that’d mean some drug was messing up my head. I had no choice but to go, it was the only way to prove I believed in Dr. Hargrove’s innocence.
35.
Blog entry: Next morning, while Dr. Hargrove was still sleeping, I packed a quick bag (couple of pairs of underwear, some socks (pre-matched), pants, a jumper, my laptop).
