The Fifth Vial

by Michael Palmer

  If she could just get up the nerve, how would she do it?

  This wasn’t the first time she had actually considered the possibility of ending her own life, but it had been many years. Living as a pulmonary cripple simply would not compute. Nor would the debility of immunosuppressive therapy following a lung transplant. And worst of all would probably be waiting around, watching her lung allocation score rise and fall like the Dow Jones Average.

  It was hard to believe that a life with such promise had come to this.

  The walls were closing in on her, and there seemed to be no way, no way at all, to stop them.

  Pills, probably, she decided. It had to be pills. She remembered hearing someplace that the Hemlock Society recommended enough sedatives and painkillers to go into a coma, in conjunction with a plastic bag over the head just before consciousness vanished altogether. That didn’t sound all that pleasant, or even all that possible. Perhaps it was worth going online. If one could learn to make a thermonuclear device there, one could certainly learn the most efficient, pain-free way to commit suicide.

  Staring across at the Pan Am Games photo, and almost in spite of herself, Natalie began mentally ticking through how she would go about obtaining enough OxyContin or Valium to induce coma. The phone on the end table beside her had rung several times before she became aware of it. Caller ID listed only the words “New Jersey” and a number.

  Probably a telemarketer, she thought, smiling tightly at the notion of something so trivial interrupting something so profound. Bemused at the irony, she answered the call.

  “Hello?”

  “This is June Harvey of Northeast Colonial Health calling for Miss Natalie Reyes.”

  Northeast Colonial—her medical insurance carrier. What now?

  “This is Natalie Reyes.”

  “Miss Reyes, I’ve been assigned the claim for all charges connected with your recent operation in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and your medevac flight back to the United States.”

  “Yes?”

  “First of all, I hope you are doing well.”

  “Thank you for asking. I don’t think I’ve ever had someone from my health insurance company actually inquire about my health. The truth is, I’ve had some recent setbacks.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Well, I’m calling with the good news that Northeast Colonial has reviewed your case and has committed itself to reimbursing you in full for your flight back to Boston.”

  Reimbursing. Until this moment, Natalie hadn’t considered at all how her flight back had been paid for. Now, she realized, Doug Berenger had taken care of it. Not that he would have gone under financially without being reimbursed, but such a flight had to have been a good-sized nut. Typical of the man, he had never mentioned that he had paid for it out-of-pocket.

  “Well, thank you,” she said. “Thank you very much.”

  “There’s just one thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “Our records state that you had a lung removal performed at the Santa Teresa Hospital in Rio de Janeiro.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, we have received no medical records from the hospital validating that fact, and in fact, although you are fully covered, no claim has been filed for your surgical procedure or hospitalization.”

  “Well, I was unconscious for a while, but after I woke up I called home and got my insurance number and gave it to the people at the hospital. I don’t remember a lot of things from that hospitalization, but I do remember very clearly doing that.”

  “Well,” June Harvey said, “perhaps you could write or call Santa Teresa Hospital. We need copies of your medical records, plus a claim. If you wish, I’ll send you the appropriate forms.”

  “Yes, yes. Do that, please.”

  June Harvey wished her well with her setback, confirmed her mailing address, and then ended the conversation. Natalie remained in the recliner for a few more minutes, aware that, for whatever reason, the call had defused some of the urgency of her self-destructive impulses. There will still be time, she thought now, plenty of time.

  She pushed herself up, boiled some water, and brewed a cup of Constant Comment tea, which she then took into the tiny study off her bedroom. Instead of doing a Google search for the Hemlock Society, she did one for Santa Teresa Hospital. There were 10,504 entries, the vast majority of them in Portuguese. The search engine found them all in 0.07 seconds.

  Who would want to leave a world where this is possible? she asked herself. A backpack-sized mechanical lung might be just around the corner.

  It took half an hour, but finally Natalie had an address for the hospital in the Botafogo section of Rio, and a phone number.

  After considering, then rejecting, the notion of enlisting her mother’s help in making the calls, Natalie looked up the country code for Brazil and the city code for Rio, and began dialing. Initially, her conversations were limited by lost connections while being transferred, as well as by her awkward Cape Verdean Portuguese. Little by little, though, her navigational skills improved. She made it to patient information, then to billing, to records, and even to security. An hour and fifteen minutes after she set the receiver down from her conversation with June Harvey, she finished an animated discussion with the director of the Santa Teresa record room, a woman named DaSoto, who actually spoke English—probably about as well as Natalie did Portuguese.

  “I am sorry, Miss Reyes,” she said, “but Santa Teresa is one of the fine hospital in all Brazil. Our electronic record system is be very good. You were not admit to our hospital on July eighteenth. You never did received an operation on in any of our operating rooms. And you were not certainly a patient in here for twelve days, or even one day. You ask if I am positive of which I say. I tell you that I would hang my career on it. No, I would hang my life.”

  “Thank you, Senhora DaSoto,” Natalie said, aware of her heart beginning to beat heavily, but still unwilling to fully believe that the woman, however certain she was, hadn’t overlooked something. “I know it was a hard decision for you to talk with me about this without proof of who I am.”

  “You are welcome.”

  “I have one last request.”

  “Yes?”

  “Could you give me the number of the police station that would have been most likely involved with my shooting?”

  Twenty

  His life is manifold and motley and an epitome of the lives of many.

  —PLATO, The Republic, Book VIII

  Big Bend Diner. Sandy Macfarlane flicked off the red-and-green neon sign even though, technically, the place was still open for another ten minutes. What the heck, the Corlisses wouldn’t mind. In six years of working for them she had hardly missed one day. She was a pretty woman with orange-red hair, and a sensual, desirable figure that she often boasted about by bemoaning the weight she had to lose.

  “Closin’ early, Sandy?” Kenny Hooper asked.

  Hooper, a widower in his late sixties, still held down a regular job working for Tennessee Stone and Gravel. There was nothing for him to go home to except his old hound dog, so every evening after his shift was over he stopped by the Big Bend for a late dinner.

  “Got some errands that need doin’, Kenny,” Sandy said. “Besides, there ain’t no one comin’ in between now and closin’ anyhow. I got me a sixth sense about such things.”

  Sandy didn’t like lying, even about something as insignificant as her plans for the evening, but if Twin Rivers, Tennessee, was the world’s best at anything, it was gossiping, and Kenny Hooper was as good at that as anyone. If he learned that she was dating one of the customers from the diner, the whole town would be talking about it in no time, and every Jack Snap in the valley, married or not, would be considering making a run at her. A single woman with an eight-year-old kid and a decent body was fair enough game as it was, without people thinking she was desperate.

  But Rudy Brooks seemed like he was worth the risk.

  “Any possibility a gittin’ one last cup a joe b
efore you dump the pot?” Kenny asked.

  Sandy was about to say that the coffee had already been emptied and the grounds cleaned out when she saw the man staring right at the pot behind the counter.

  “All right, all right,” she said, filling a mug and adding two creams and two sugars without having to be asked. “But make it quick.”

  Hooper watched her fix her hair and apply a swatch of lipstick at the mirror behind the bar.

  “You sure you just got errands?” he asked with a glint.

  “Just drink your coffee, Kenny Hooper. Here. Here’s the last piece of blueberry pie. I was gonna throw it out anyway.”

  Rudy was a Texan, rugged-looking and smart, with jeans and a sports shirt that didn’t come off the racks in any Army-Navy store. He was narrow in the waist and real broad across the shoulders—just the way she liked her men. But what got to her most was his smile. It was sexy and sly, like that of a gunslinger who knew that no matter how fast you were, he was quicker. Of course, in Twin Rivers, when it came to available men, there wasn’t a heck of a selection—certainly few or none that looked like this one.

  Sandy finished wiping down and made a last check of the kitchen. Rudy might be married, she acknowledged. Men were always lying about that. But tonight they were just going to meet at the Green Lantern for a couple of drinks. No fancy stuff. If, as he said, his company was going to build the first shopping mall in Twin Rivers, and if, as he said, he was going to be a regular visitor to the site just west of town, he would get his chance to be amorous. Maybe plenty of them.

  “So, where’s little Teddy tonight, Sandy? Nick got ’im?”

  “Nick has Teddy every Wednesday.”

  “I heard your ex put on quite a show at Miller’s t’other night. Took four men to throw him out. Man has a problem, I’d say.”

  “And I’d say keep your notions to yourself unless you have proof and it involves Teddy.”

  Sandy felt her heart tighten at the notion of Nick hitting the bottle again. Although as far as she knew, he had never hit their son, he had hit her plenty over their five years of marriage—always when he was drinking. She had told the judge about his temper and his alcohol problem, and had even provided witnesses to support her request that there be no overnights at all until Nick could document he had been going to AA or therapy or something. But the judge had strong ideas about a child’s need for two involved parents, and turned her down. So every Wednesday and every other Saturday, there wasn’t a damn thing she could do except to pray that Nick could keep it together, and that his girlfriend Brenda could keep her drinking together, too, and then the next day ask Teddy indirectly if there had been any problems.

  Even though there hadn’t been any alcohol-related incidents, at least until now, the truth was that Sandy ached every time the boy was away from her—even when it was for an overnight play date with one of his friends. He was the sort of kid who made even long hours of waiting tables seem worthwhile. People met him, and after just a few minutes, they loved him. He just had that way. Maybe it was his smile, maybe his freckles, or maybe just the fact that he had never done or said an unkind thing to anyone in his life. Whatever the reason, Sandy knew, as did almost everyone in town, that Teddy Macfarlane was going to amount to something special.

  Finally, after what seemed an eternity, Kenny Hooper pushed himself back from the table, left enough money for the tab plus his usual five-dollar tip, then shambled out the door. Anxiously checking the time, Sandy wiped down Hooper’s table and shut out the lights. Then she hurried to her fire-engine red Mustang convertible, decided in the interest of her hair to leave the top up, and skidded out of the parking lot onto the Brazelton Highway. Brazelton, about the size of Twin Rivers, was much more interesting, with more bars and clubs, it seemed, than there were people in the town. She was two miles down the highway when she picked up her cell phone and called Nick.

  It was not usual for her to interrupt Teddy’s time with his father, and Nick really didn’t like her doing it, but even through the anticipation of meeting up with Rudy Brooks, she felt a powerful ache to connect with her son—and, she admitted, to check up on his father.

  “’Lo?”

  “Hi, it’s me.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I was just calling to see how you guys were doing?”

  “We’re doin’ fine. Jes fine.”

  That was already plenty of words for her to tell that Nick had a couple under his belt, although he wasn’t in the bag. His speech was always the first to go. Asking for confirmation that he was drinking, though, was the same as asking him to hang up on her.

  “Think I could just say good night to Teddy?”

  “He’s watching cartoons with Bren. I don’t want to bother him unless you have somethin’ important to say.”

  “No, not really. I…I just wanted to say good night.”

  “I’ll tell him you called.”

  “Do that, Nick, okay?”

  “See you tomorrow.”

  “Yeah…thanks.”

  Helpless, Sandy set her cell phone down. Almost instantly, it began ringing.

  “Sandy, hi, it’s Rudy.”

  Damn, she thought, first Nick won’t let me talk to my boy, and now I’m about to get blown off.

  “Well, hi, yourself,” she said. “I just got out of work. Are we still on?”

  “Been looking forward to seeing you all day.”

  At least something was going right.

  “That’s sweet of you to say. Well, I been lookin’ forward to seein’ you, too, Rudy Brooks.”

  “Just one little change. I’m still here at the mall site with one of the contractors—Greg Lumpert. I think you know him.”

  “I know who he is, but we’re not really personally acquainted.”

  “Well, me an’ Lumpert got some more business we need to finish. Any chance you could stop by here for a few minutes? We could actually use your opinion about some things. The site’s right on the way to the Green Lantern, and just a couple a hunnert yards off the Brazelton Highway.”

  “I…guess so, sure,” Sandy said, deciding that Greg Lumpert had no reason to start rumors about her, and grateful that her date with Rudy was still on.

  Rudy described the turnoff in some detail, although he needn’t have bothered. Sandy knew almost exactly where it was.

  “I’ll be there in less than ten minutes,” she said.

  “Terrific. See you soon by the light of the moon.”

  The turnoff to the mall site was not more than a mile from the Brazelton line in a wooded area that was still largely undeveloped, but had been the subject of much speculation over the past few years. Sandy found it exciting—even titillating—to be in on the ground floor of a project that was going to change the physical and economic landscape of the town she knew so well.

  She turned off the highway onto a stony dirt road and slowed way down to keep from bottoming out or sending a stone up through the muffler. Her high beams jounced up and down off the forest ahead. Just as she began to think she was too far off the highway and might have actually taken the wrong turn, the woods fell away into a good-sized clearing that looked as if some sand and gravel operation might have done some excavating there. Parked off to one side was a Ford Bronco, with Rudy standing there alone, leaning against the hood. Just beyond the Bronco, close to the trees, stood a massive motor home. Lights from inside the RV shone through the huge front windows.

  Rudy waved her over. He was wearing tight-fitting jeans, tooled cowboy boots, and a colorful long-sleeved sport shirt. Just a fine-looking man, Sandy thought.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “You look great.”

  “Thanks, where’s Greg Lumpert?”

  “Oh, his wife called. Some sort of problem at home. We were just about done, anyhow, so I told him to go ahead.”

  “You sure it was his wife? I was pretty certain I heard she died a few years ago.”

  “I thought that’s what he said,” Rudy replied, “
but I coulda misheard. I had other things on my mind.”

  He nudged Sandy’s arm for emphasis, and gave her a gunslinger smile. From his two visits to the Big Bend, she knew he was well built, but tonight he seemed even bigger and stronger than she had pictured.

  “So, what’s with the bus?”

  “Callin’ that just a bus is a little like callin’ Jessica Simpson just a girl.”

  Sandy decided against mentioning that she couldn’t stand Jessica Simpson.

  “Does it belong to your company?” she asked instead.

  “It’s like my home away from home when we’re doin’ site work. Wanna peek inside?”

  Suddenly, inexplicably, Sandy felt uneasy.

  “Some other time, maybe. It’s like, I don’t know, it’s like that’s your hotel room.”

  “I don’t see it that way,” Rudy said, “but suit yourself.”

  Sandy looked around at the absolute blackness of the forest. The traffic noises from the highway were barely audible.

  “Maybe we should get going to the club,” she said nervously. “I hear the band they have playing there is great.”

  “What’s the rush?” Rudy asked, not moving from his spot by the truck.

  “Rudy, please, let’s go. This is starting to creep me out.”

  “Trust me, darlin’, there’s nothing to be creeped out about.”

  She stood just a few feet away and watched in confusion and mounting fear as he took a handkerchief from his pocket, folded it neatly on the hood of the Bronco, then doused it thoroughly with something poured from a metal flask.

  Sandy gauged the distance to the Mustang. It wasn’t a good bet that she could make it. Then the sickly sweet odor of chloroform reached her. At that exact moment, the door to the massive RV opened, and a young woman, thin, shapely, and blond, stepped out.

  “Hey, Sandy,” she called out cheerily, “come on over and let us give you a tour of this thing.”

  Reflexively, Sandy swung around toward the voice. In that single second, any chance she had to resist vanished. Rudy closed the distance between them with two quick steps and clamped the chloroform-soaked rag across her mouth and nose so tightly that she could not even struggle. In just moments, the scene around her began to swirl, then dim. Terror exploded through her mind, but was immediately replaced by a single image, a single word. Teddy. The vision of her boy was the last thing Sandy saw before darkness engulfed her.