Gerrie Nelson - Lab Notes

The carts made their first stop at BRI’s lobby where Maxine settled Raymond onto a sofa. “This is beginning to look like a freakin’ triage center,” she muttered. Across the lobby, on the other sofa, lay the snoring police officer. His partner remained at large.

Diane and David in one cart, and Wilbur in the other, took the sleeping chimps to the primate house. After David did a quick physical assessment of the animals, they were settled gently into the cages. The chimpanzees had survived their romp in the woods unscathed except for Kong’s leg and foot contusions, caused—in David’s professional opinion—by contact with a baseball bat.

The ambulance arrived to pick up Raymond Bellfort. Charlotte was meeting him at the emergency room. Raymond’s bleeding had diminished to a slow ooze. He’d require the services of a skillful plastic surgeon to suture his ear and some jagged facial wounds.

The police left. Maxine went home. David and Diane walked through the labs assessing the damage. After checking the first three floors, they arrived on the fourth floor and entered the lab through the back door.

“Intruder entering, intruder entering,” Maggie blared out. Diane switched on the lights, ran to the controls and pushed “reset.”

“I guess she’ll never accept me,” she said.

“At least she’s still in good voice; they didn’t mess with her,” David said.

“Obviously, the real intruders didn’t come through the back door. If they had, Maggie would have set off the alarm and alerted Wilbur.”

They walked through the laboratory. Like the labs downstairs, broken glass littered the countertops. David picked up the bottom half of a beaker and tossed it into the trash as they walked by.

“We’d better leave the mess for the insurance company,” Diane said. Then she pointed to a box containing the new spectrophotometer. “It’s interesting that they left the large equipment intact.”

“Maybe this was just a warning visit,” David said.

“I would have preferred a phone call… They didn’t even leave a note. How are we supposed to know what they want from us?”

“My bet is on the animals. The activists want us to stop using them in our studies.”

The chimps were to take part in the conclusion of Vincent’s Peruvase animal studies. Diane remembered how excited he was the day they arrived. But now, with Vincent and Peruvase gone, BRI didn’t need the chimps, unless another study came up.

If, indeed, animal rights people were the culprits, the chimps’ presence would keep BRI under a continued threat. And the chimps themselves were in danger if the activists returned and released them again. They didn’t do well running free in a strange environment.

After a quick pass through the lab, David headed for the door. Diane followed, switching off the lights on her way out.

She walked across the hall to check her offices before David drove her home.

Diane entered the suite. The lights were on. At first glance she saw her assistant’s desk had been rifled. Joyce would have to inventory the damage in the morning.

Diane headed to her office, stopped dead in the doorway and sucked in her breath. The destruction had become personal.

She ran to her desk. The computer was still there, but her papers were in disarray as if someone had looked through them and tossed them aside.

The desk drawers stood open—even the ones she had carefully locked. She slammed the top drawer closed and stared down into the second drawer in disbelief.

“Coast Guard Galveston. Chief Petty Officer Barker speaking.”

“Chief Barker, this is Diane Rose. I was supposed to bring in the video cam from Woodwind this morning.”

“Yes Ma’am?”

“We had a break-in last night. The camera was stolen.”

“Sorry to hear that, Ma’am.”

“But I viewed the video prior to the theft, and I’d like to discuss what I saw. Can we do that over the phone?”

“Certainly.”

Chief Barker’s voice was pubescent. But his professional demeanor helped Diane deliver a dispassionate account. She described the fast approach of the white yacht and the collision. “It was a hit and run; there’s no doubt about it,” she said. Then she told him about the letters on the stern: “The yacht’s name ended in AV—I’m certain of that. And its hailing port ended in either UDA OR UBA.”

“UBA could be Cuba,” Chief Barker responded. He didn’t sound encouraged. “And that AV ending sounds like a Russian name. There are some old Russian yachts in Cuba—left there from the Cold War era. They’ve been used to smuggle black market goods between Mexico and the sparsely-populated western end of Cuba.”

“What kinds of goods?”

“You name it: drugs, cigars, flesh trade. We’ve also had reports of piracy involving those Cuban boats. They board fishing trawlers and private yachts and rob them, sometimes tossing the crew overboard, sometimes not.”

Diane didn’t want to dwell on that. “Is there an international registry for boats?”

“Not for private yachts. It would be difficult to do a search anyway, not knowing the first letter of the name.”

“Yes… Of course.”

“I could check shipyards along the U.S. Gulf Coast for boats having hull repairs around that time. Even if it were a steel hull, it would have sustained some damage in a collision like that.”

She knew he was trying to give her hope. But why would a Cuban boat come to the U.S. for repairs?

“I don’t want to waste any more of your time,” she said. “But I’m curious about something: Vincent’s last reported coordinates placed him south of the Texas-Mexico border. How would Woodwind have gotten back up to Padre Island?”

“There’s a strong current flowing northward from the Caribbean into the Gulf of Mexico. It squeezes through the Yucatan strait between Mexico and Cuba. That current spawns large eddies. The boat could have ridden an eddy around to the northwest, then washed ashore.”

Chief Barker assured Diane he’d alert Coast Guard patrols in the Gulf to look out for the Cuban yacht.

Diane hung up the phone in despair. The reality was: even if the Coast Guard found the culprits, they couldn’t return Vincent to her.

She yearned for the halcyon days when shipwrecks and pirates only appeared in her storybooks.

It was her first visit to the cupola since Vincent sailed away. But judging by the pile of rawhide bones and toys near the telescope, Huck had been keeping a vigil there.

She could feel Vincent’s presence.

She pressed a button and the roof opened. It was a perfect night for viewing the heavens, even with the naked eye.

She picked out the brightest star. “Is that Venus?” she asked Vincent. “Or is it The North Star? I know, I know. You’d have told me their names if I hadn’t been too busy to stargaze with you.”

She removed the cap from the telescope eyepiece and ran her finger around rim where Vincent’s face had touched “I’m so sorry I let your video get away. But maybe they won’t watch it. I’d hate for anyone to see you in that state. You had such a wonderful mind. But even the greatest among us has a breaking point… I think I can play our song for you now.”

Diane closed the roof and headed downstairs to the piano with Huck at her heel.

She sat for a moment and stared at the keyboard. Perhaps the song would provide some sort of closure. She began playing. But almost immediately, several keys stuck. “That’s strange.” She jumped up, opened the top of the piano and gasped. There, strewn over the hammers and strings, were piles of Vincent’s notebooks and flash drives.