Chapter 99
I didn’t really think they would allow me to see Sandeep. I expected to sit there and wait for an indefinite amount of time, and to see Avery appear in my room by herself with a strained expression on her face, apologizing. But I was wrong.
“Hello Iris”, Sandeep said, entering my room pushed by a nurse on a wheelchair
I tried to pull myself up on the bed, but when I did I realized that I didn’t have enough strength for that. It was odd, it seemed like I was living in one of those dreams where you want to walk but you can’t, and you don’t know why, and you feel your unease turn into a slowly rising panic.
“Here”, the nurse said, seeing my struggle, and lifted the bed so that I sat in a semi-upright position
I thanked her, then said, looking at Sandeep, “You must tell me, I beg you”
“I will tell you whatever I know”
“Who did I kill?”
“Amy. Amy Turner”
I turned towards Avery. “Your daughter’s baby-sitter”
She nodded slowly, and from her lack of reaction I sensed she had known all along, but had decided not to tell me.
“Why did you not speak to me? You knew this, didn’t you?”, I asked angrily
“Yes, I knew”
“Since when?”, I asked again, feeling cheated
“I had suspected this, but I wasn’t sure about it till recently. You suspected it too, but why did I have to make your fears worse by telling you that you were right?”
Why was I even blaming Avery considered what I had done?
I looked at Avery, then at Sandeep and finally at the room. I pondered the way each object looked, I listened to the blipping of the machine that recorded my heart beat, regular, then fast, then slow. I watched the fluid drip in my arm, and the arms of the watch spin. It all seemed strangely new to me, and oddly avulsed from the reality I knew, as if I recognized the shapes of the objects and the sounds but could not connect them to their functions and meanings.
Then Avery spoke, and pulled me out of the trance.
“Why did the “cleaning lady”, Donna Simpson, go after Iris rather than after Jonathan Woods?”, she asked Sandeep
“Joanna did take her revenge with Jonathan Woods”, Sandeep said
Avery bugged her eyes.
“But I had my colleagues verify, and Woods is still alive”
“Is he?”, asked Sandeep arching his brows
Avery tilted her head slightly. “Why are you surprised?”, she asked
“Because Donna told me she poisoned Woods with the same polymer that killed her sister. Donna didn’t want to kill him rapidly, she wanted him to learn what it meant to suffer. She hated him much more than Iris, she felt Iris should be killed as a preventive measure to avoid the production of other chemicals, rather than as a punishment. But she did want to punish Woods. She checked on him and told me he was in rough shape. Woods had an intuition of what happened, and was trying to find a cure for himself”, said Sandeep
Avery looked at Sandeep, then at me. “Did he find it the cure then? With whom was he working to find a it?”
“With a doctor from NY. I don’t know what they found, but if he is still around then maybe they did find something after all. Donna gave him a quite massive dose though, I’d be surprised if he made it”
“Were you involved in all this?”, Avery asked
“No, I wanted to stop these people, but not this way”
“What were you doing with Joanna Simpson and Ronny Davis the day we found you digging out the polymer in the middle of nowhere?”
“I told Iris before. Ronny discovered that Jonathan Woods had hidden samples there, we don’t know exactly why. He hid them after Donna had poisoned him, maybe to make sure he had a stock in case something happened in his lab…he was taking extra precautions. We were there to steal the sample for him. On my end I mainly wanted to make sure nobody else could get damage, Donna wanted to make sure Woods had no way out”, Sandeep said
Avery nodded with a pensive expression, as if things were starting to come together but some pieces of the puzzle were still missing
“You were never in contact with Mike Vanderbilt?, she asked
“Of course I was, he is the one who sent Iris over with her polymer”, he replied
“But was he involved in any of what happened afterwards?”, Avery insisted
“No…I wanted to speak to him for advice about it though, he is the person at FoodTech labs I trust the most. We have known each other for years. He never got back to me…but why? Don’t tell me that…”, he began
“I don’t think he can do anything dishonest, but…”, I started, and told him the facts as McMurrich had described them
“My boss found him hiding away some of the polymer, and after that he disappeared”, I explained
“Disappeared?”, Sandeep asked in disbelief
“Yes, he never went back to FoodTech labs and we cannot trace him. He might be innocent, but his behaviour tells a different story”, replied Avery
“So he is gone…but I am sure there is an explanation, although it is not an obvious one. Trust me, Mike is a clean man”
As clean as any of us can be at FoodTech labs, I thought. But I knew what he meant
“I trust him too”, I agreed
There was a pause, during which each of us was lost in separate thoughts.
“What I don’t understand is why you are in the hospital”, said Sandeep after a moment, looking at me
I smiled.
“Oh, I’ve had some of the polymer too”, I said casually
Sandeep pushed his head forward a bit, and started at me incredulously
“Deliberately?”
“No, the polymer is around. HealthyFood Inc is circulating it, isn’t that funny. HealthyFood…”, I laughed
“Is this true?”, he asked in consternation
“We’ve been trying to take back all the products additioned with the polymer, and we’ve opened an investigation on HealthyFood Inc.”, said Avery
I looked at her, but before I could ask she added, “This doesn’t mean something might not still be out there”
Sandeep sighted
“I need to go back to my room and lie down now”, he said
I pressed the call button near my bed
“I’ll come talk with you again”, told him Avery
“Yes, now that I’ve spoken to Iris…”, he started saying
“Why did you do this for me…why speak to me first, I mean?”, I interrupted
“I wanted to make sure you got the right information, not distorted second hand voices of what had really happened. It was not supposed to get to this point, and I know you didn’t intend it to”
“I don’t need comfort”, I replied, unnerved all of a sudden without knowing why
Sandeep seemed to sense my state of mind, because he added, “Iris, I know what you feel like because I also helped Woods to pursue his deviant purposes, indirectly”
“Thank you Sandeep”, Avery said as if he had been trying to reassure her instead of me
“Thank you”, I repeated, echoing her, my head devoid of thoughts