“And the basis for this assumption is?” Geena lifted a brow.
“It takes about twenty-four hours for half the dosage you took to leave your system. With women, that time can be even longer. In roughly the next twenty-four hours, another half leaves the body, and so on. For people with a normal metabolism, it would take about five days to have it completely expelled from their system. Considering that Kesha was a woman, which means the half-time for sertraline is usually one point five times longer than for men, seven to nine days make sense.”
“Did she know this?” Andi could sense Dr. Aoki’s surprise at his question. It was the first time she heard him speak after the introduction. She caught herself quickly, though.
“Yes. As I said, she was very involved with her treatment, tried to learn everything she could about what was going on with her body and mind.”
“Why would a well-adjusted woman who was used to military discipline suddenly decide to stop her own treatment, knowing full well what she was getting into?” Geena was now tapping a staccato rhythm on her thigh. She was truly curious, her pheromones painting a sharp picture in Andi’s mind.
“My guess is probably a lot more off the mark than yours, Agent Davis.” Dr. Aoki shook her head.
“Can you send us Kesha’s medical files?” George gave Dr. Aoki his card.
“Of course, since Dr. Blackton said it’s fine. I’m sending you the articles Dr. Fulton and I wrote on the subject as well. Since Kesha was one of our test persons, it might give you some additional insight.”
“That would be very kind of you, Dr. Aoki.” George got up, smiling at the woman. Geena and Andi followed suit. “If you could direct us to the break room for the staff? We were told Thomas LeClerk is off soon.”
“Let me show you. Navigating this building is a bit complicated because of all the additions made over the years.” Dr. Aoki got up to open the door for them. They filed out of her office and followed her through the maze of corridors to the left wing, where she pointed out a room with a table, several chairs, a comfy-looking sofa, and a huge coffee machine on a smaller table in the corner. A man of perhaps forty years was sitting on the sofa, holding the largest cup of coffee Andi had ever seen. He was exhausted, the dark circles under his eyes talking as loudly as his body’s chemistry, even though the signals were diluted. The man had clearly been in close proximity to drugs of all kinds. Andi could detectantidepressants, all of them kind of hazy, a washed-out pink with swirls of scarlet, pain medication, ibuprofen, like an old, familiar blanket in different hues of blue with an undertone of something metallic on his tongue, benzodiazepines, muddy and cloying, like glue on his antennae, amphetamines, sharp and cutting, black and a color he had no name for, he felt it in the nerves of his feet, rising up through the hair on his legs, repelling,something else, smoke, like he had sensed it on Dr. Aoki, only stronger, but he had smelled it—felt it—experienced it—before, the bees, yes, bees, the bodies in the ground, the man who put them there saturated in it, was it this man, could it be, so hard to tell, the height would fit, the man was calm, but perhaps just too exhausted, how should Andi tell, there was so much, he couldn’t—
“Seems we came just at the right time.” Dr. Aoki’s voice cut through the images flooding Andi. “Agent, Detectives, this is Thomas LeClerk, one of our senior nurses. Thomas, these are Agent Geena Davis from the FBI and Detectives George Donovan and Andrew Hayes from the CPD. They are here to talk to you about Kesha Raport. You remember her?”
The man got up from the sofa to shake their hands. “Yes, of course. She was part of the research you and Dr. Fulton conducted.”
“Thomas was one of the nurses permanently assigned to the study,” Dr. Aoki explained. “I need to go back to my office now. Thomas, Dr. Blackton has given permission to tell the agent and the detectives everything about Kesha. I’m sorry to say she’s dead, though I guess we all kind of knew deep down.”Pain, sharp like a knife, flaring up like a fire doused in gasoline.
She sighed deeply before she bid all of them goodbye, promising to send George everything she had about Kesha. When she was gone, Thomas LeClerk gestured toward the chairs around the table. “Why don’t we sit down and you can ask your questions?”
8. Confering with Bees
TO SAYGeorge was on pins and needles was putting his current state of mind mildly. Granted, Geena wasn’t half as bad as he had feared, but that was only a small consolation considering the overall circumstances. He tried to appear calm while keeping an eye on Andi the entire time. His partner had slipped into his other state two times already, even though nobody seemed to have realized. It was one reason George had no problem with Geena taking the lead during their questioning. It allowed Andi to stay in the background.
They sat down around the table with Thomas LeClerk. The man was clutching his oversized coffee mug like a lifeline. The way Andi was eyeing the nurse made clear there was something going on. Without any pointers from his partner, though, George didn’t know what it could be. Which was why he waited and let Geena do the questioning again.
“Mr. LeClerk, can you tell us anything about why Kesha might have left House Cusabo four years ago?”
George kept one eye on Andi while he watched the nurse’s reaction. The man was absolutely calm—or so exhausted he just couldn’t muster the energy for a reaction; the way he looked, both things were entirely plausible—and whatever Andi was picking up was so unspecific, he didn’t give George any clues.
“No, I’m afraid not. One day she was excited about how well the treatment was working for her, the next she demanded to be released.”
“Were you there on the day she left?” Geena’s tone stayed calm.
“Yes. My shift started when she signed all the papers. I tried to talk to her, but she was… very agitated.”
“And that was unusual for her?”
The nurse sighed. “I don’t know how much Dr. Aoki has told you about PTSD and all the different faces it has. For some patients, agitation is a common state, while others appear to be calm most of the time and then there’s an explosion, depending on which meds they are on and what kind of trauma they have experienced. Kesha was well on her way to getting it under control. We had found the perfect balance for her medication, she was doing all those therapies, successfully, I might add, and she had her coping mechanisms down pat. In fact, we’d talked about starting to get her back out into society in a few months. She was excited about it, talked about maybe starting a self-help group for people with PTSD. And then she just left, didn’t want to talk to me or Dr. Fulton, refused to say anything beyond that she wanted out. What a shame.” Thomas sighed before he took a huge gulp of his coffee. “This here is not the easiest job, as you can imagine, and we see people being thrown back to zero more often than we see them succeed. The Keshas are the ones that keep us going, that show us we’re on the right track. Losing her was a blow.”
“Hard enough to kill her?” Geena struck out of nowhere, like a viper waiting patiently in the sand. George was impressed.
Thomas less so. Again, George wasn’t sure if it was sheer exhaustion keeping the man from reacting or the fact that he was indeed innocent. He didn’t even seem to be angry. The way Andi leaned his body forward told Georgesomethingwas going on with the man, though.
“Killing her would have defeated the purpose, don’t you think, Agent Davis? A dead patient is hardly a success story. The research Dr. Aoki and Dr. Fulton were doing was aimed at bettering the lives of people suffering from PTSD, not ending them.”
“Why did they stop with the research? Because Dr. Fulton retired?” Geena was back to being jovial, all aggressiveness gone from her voice.
“No. Dr. Aoki could have done it alone or found somebody else. They lost the funding. Unfortunately, money is the main reason why research is stopped. While PTSD is an important field, the distribution of the money is not always… plausible.”
“When did they lose the funding?” George was the first to admit he didn’t know much about the world of science, but he did know that money ruled the world with an iron fist.
