Katrina Stone: The Death Row Complex Part 14

"Well," the guard said, "unless you have an appointment, which you don't or she would have told me, I'm afraid you're S-O-L. Next time, try the phone."

Chuck considered his options for a moment and decided not to slit the guard's throat in the hallway. Instead, he fixated a long glare upon him and then turned to re-mount the elevator.

He took the elevator back down and stepped out of the building. As soon as he was outside, he reached into his breast pocket for a cigarette, and then remembered for the thousandth time that he had smoked his last one the day before, halfway between San Quentin and San Diego. The mild nausea, severe headache, and nervousness that had been following him all morning as a consequence were not helping his mood. Not one bit.

Chuck shook his head and looked around. He remembered the piece-of-s.h.i.+t red Honda that he had tailed from San Francisco. There was no parking lot near the building that he could see. A few utility vehicles occupied a designated area, and even fewer miscellaneous cars sat in s.p.a.ces marked for temporary parking. No faded red Honda.

Along the west side of the building was a small food stand. The sign along its top read "The Hotdogger." Outside of "The Hotdogger" was a small collection of cheap tables with two people sitting at one of them. There was n.o.body else in sight with the exception of a solitary employee attending the stand. Chuck approached the stand and asked the attendant if they sold cigarettes.

The employee laughed out loud. "Are you serious?"

"Yeah, why." Chuck did not see the humor.

"You can't buy cigarettes anywhere on campus, Dude. That's about like asking for meth."

Chuck refrained from informing his new friend that a little meth was also sounding like a good idea, but he'd settle for a smoke. Out of ideas, he turned and sat down at one of the tables.

And then the woman from the photograph in Chuck's hand stepped out of the North Life Sciences building.

Katrina Stone, Ph.D., did not seem to notice Chuck as she walked briskly away from him. Chuck waited for a moment to allow her a lead and then followed.

She pa.s.sed through another building and crossed a street before approaching a cliff. Then she disappeared, having seemingly walked right over its edge.

Chuck rushed forward. Descending from the top of the cliff was a steep staircase leading to a parking lot below. Stone was already halfway down. Chuck remained standing at the top of the stairs from which he had a bird's eye view of the parking lot. The woman approached a silver sedan, clicked her keychain to unlock the doors, and slipped inside.

Not the piece-of-s.h.i.+t red Honda after all.

5:24 P.M. PST.

The sun was gone, the evening breeze cool, when Alexis Stone stepped out of the market. A tuft of her shoulder-length hair-exactly the same auburn color as her mother's-billowed across her young face. Alexis s.h.i.+fted the grocery bag on her hip to free one hand and brush the hair aside. Then she b.u.t.toned her jacket while she walked.

A man followed her out of the store. "Excuse me," he said politely.

Alexis turned and looked at the man. He was cute, and probably in his twenties.

"I don't mean to be forward," he said, "but I make great veal parmesan and I was wondering if you'd be interested sometime."

"Thanks," Alexis said, "but I have a boyfriend, and we don't eat meat. Besides, I just can't see myself having dinner with someone who has dead rotting animals inside of him." She smiled sweetly.

The man gave her a strange look and shuffled quickly away, muttering something under his breath. Alexis continued walking and grinned, already envisioning Kevin's reaction to the story. He'd fall over laughing. She couldn't wait to tell him.

Lexi's pace was leisurely as she followed the familiar route home in the dark. Mom wouldn't be there. Not for quite a while. As she approached a corner a few blocks from her house, the evening silence was broken by a single, friendly bark.

Lexi looked up with interest. As she rounded the corner, a middle-aged woman was approaching with an Alaskan malamute on a leash. He looked almost exactly like Eskimo, Lexi's childhood pet.

"h.e.l.lo," the woman said, smiling.

"He's gorgeous," Alexis said breathlessly. "Is he friendly?"

"Oh yes, go ahead and pet him if you'd like."

Alexis again shuffled the grocery bag and reached down to bury a hand in the thick fur behind the dog's head. For a moment, she closed her eyes, and then she was seven years old again.

She never really believed what they told her. Not Christopher. Not her little brother. Her "Bubba." He was too little. She told Mommy in private that maybe it was a joke someone was playing, and that soon Bubba would come back and it would be funny how he had fooled everyone.

Mommy and Daddy were always fighting. And then Daddy was living somewhere else, and Mommy was sleeping all the time.

And then Mommy was just too busy. And Daddy had to go away for a long time for his work, all the way to a different country. It was called Eye-Rack. People were afraid that her Daddy might die.

Then Lexi was nine. Her stomach started hurting all the time, mostly at night when she was trying to sleep. None of the doctors could help. And her parents always seemed sad, or mad, or disappointed, and Lexi couldn't understand why they didn't seem to love her anymore.

But someone loved her. Eskimo. Eskimo knew that things were not good. Mommy and Daddy didn't pay any attention to him either. He started sleeping next to Lexi's bed, then at the foot of the bed, and eventually, beside Lexi-her thin arm around his body, her tiny hand buried deep in his thick, comforting fur.

Alexis taught Eskimo to sit, stay, and lay down, to fetch, to open the door for her, to kiss her cheek, to stand on his hind legs and hug her, and to speak. Eskimo was her best friend. One who never cried, never took her toys, never asked for anything, never needed attention from grown-ups, never got mad at her, and was always happy to see her. A best friend who loved her no matter what.

Eskimo died when Lexi was ten. She was not allowed another pet by either of her parents. Dad was on deployment too often, and Kimberly was allergic to dander. And Mom just didn't have time to take care of a pet. Of course she didn't.

Alexis found other ways to keep animals in her life. Now, at fifteen, she took the bus every Sat.u.r.day afternoon to volunteer at the local humane society. She was active in PETA. It was at a PETA meeting that she met Kevin. And it was Kevin that brought her into the Animal Liberation Front.

"We'd better get moving along then," the Alaskan malamute's owner said softly, breaking Lexi out of her reflection. The woman turned the dog, who looked so much like Eskimo, and rounded the corner. When they were out of sight Alexis wiped a tear from one eye and sighed. The scent of the dog was still on her hand.

10:08 P.M. PST.

More than eight years had pa.s.sed since Katrina Stone-not yet a doctor-was working furiously at a crowded kitchen table in a disheveled house, studying for her qualifying exam and unaware that her life was about to be destroyed. Tonight, the scene at Doctor Katrina Stone's kitchen table appeared uncannily similar to that night eight years distant. With one exception. Tonight, the woman at the table was Katrina's daughter, who resembled her mother strongly in appearance but not at all in ideology.

It was late. Her mom had not come home, and Alexis had lost track of time while she worked. She was currently addressing envelopes and stuffing them with flyers she had generated and duplicated. She still had hundreds of envelopes to go and hundreds of emails to send. It was a school night, and she had a test the next day.

Lexi was startled by a noise. She looked up from the flyers and sat motionless for a moment, listening to determine if the noise would repeat. For a moment, she heard nothing. Then it happened again.

The doork.n.o.b was being tested.

Lexi looked at the clock and suddenly became aware of the hour. Mom should have been home hours ago; even with her 14-hour a day schedule, she usually stopped by the house around 7:00 or 7:30 to change before das.h.i.+ng off for a run on the beach. In any case, she always entered through the garage and not the front door.

Slowly and silently, Alexis slipped out of her chair and tiptoed across the living room. As she neared the front door, she reached into a pocket in her jacket, which was hanging nearby on a coat rack. Her hand encased a small tube, and she withdrew from the door.

The doork.n.o.b made no more noise, but Alexis could see a shadow across the front window. Someone was still standing there.

Lexi poised the tube in her right hand and reached for the door handle with the left. Then, taking a deep breath, she flung the door open. A small, quick burst of pepper spray billowed directly into the face of her mother.

Katrina leaped violently backward, choking and sputtering.

Alexis dropped the vial. "Oh, my G.o.d, Mom, I'm so sorry! I thought you were someone trying to break in! Why didn't you come in through the garage?" As she spoke, she raced forward and grabbed Katrina's elbow just in time to stop her mother from flipping headfirst into a planter alongside the walkway.

"Jesus Christ Lexi!" Katrina's voice was ragged. "My garage door opener battery died! I didn't... "

Her sentence was cut off by another coughing fit, and in the midst of it, she jerked her arm away from Lexi to turn and vomit into the planter.

An hour later, Katrina's red eyes were the only visible indication of her recent encounter with her daughter's pepper spray. But for the next two days, her throat would continue to feel scratchy and people would be asking if she was stoned.

Katrina still felt that she could smell the noxious gas even after a long shower. She donned her favorite sweats and slippers and then walked out into the kitchen to confront Alexis, who had now resumed her work at the kitchen table. "OK, Lexi," Katrina said, her voice raspy. "We need to talk."

Alexis looked up with clear annoyance.

Katrina took a deep breath and continued. "You know I'm supportive of your work with PETA and your interest in animal rights, even though I still don't think you fully understand the necessity of animal research."

Alexis rolled her eyes and sighed dramatically.

Katrina ignored her. "I think your actions tonight have made it obvious that you're a bit paranoid these days. I personally think it's your involvement with the Animal Liberation Front and all its whackos in ski masks that are doing this to you. And where the h.e.l.l did you get a vial of pepper spray in the first place?"

"The source of the pepper spray is confidential, Mother," Alexis spat. "And besides, you can buy it at any army surplus store."

"What are you doing wandering around an army surplus store? Are you running off and joining the armed forces? I thought you hate the military!"

"That's irrelevant. It isn't paranoia-it's preparation. I need to be able to protect myself because I am here alone all the time. If someone really had tried to break in here tonight, my pepper spray would have been my only defense. I certainly would not have had any parents around to help me, and you and I both know how much can happen in the time it takes San Diego police to respond to anything.

"Regarding my activities with the ALF, I think you should consider yourself lucky that I won't let them target your research. The San Diego chapter of the ALF has wanted to go after you for quite some time. The only reason they don't is that I'm an active member and we have a deal. They need people like me, so they let your work slide in order to keep me on the team. You should thank me for that. But you're still on their list of Exploiters, so don't blame me if something happens one day. It would be out of my hands."

Katrina raised her eyebrows at the threat.

Alexis continued. "I know d.a.m.n well what goes on at your BSL-3 facility with all those poor mice and rats. You deliberately infect them with anthrax just to watch them die. Do you realize how sick that is?

"And now, you've got monkeys. Monkeys. You're a scientist, Mom. Surely you must know that the genetic ident.i.ties of primates are up to ninety-eight percent identical to humans. Yet, you seem to think it's OK to kill them for research purposes.

"Why don't you kill humans that way? Oh, wait-I know why. Because it's illegal. Because for some reason, that two percent of DNA makes the difference between scientific research and criminal behavior. It's just not right, Mom. Why can't you see that? The ALF is just trying to make right what should have been right all along.

"Two thousand years ago, humans were thrown into the Coliseum with wild animals, to be torn limb from limb for sport. Society finally realized one day that the activities were barbaric, and Roman games were banned. Just like that.

"Yet, eighteen hundred years later, the notion of 'owning' another human being and forcing him or her to work to make someone else richer was still just fine. But then, again, the voice of reason spoke-and today, we as a collective society consider slavery outrageous.

"The ALF is the voice of reason fighting to liberate the slaves of today. Two hundred years from now, the notion of owning, enslaving, and conducting research on an ape-or a mouse, for that matter-will be considered barbaric as well."

"Alexis, you don't understand," she said. "Without animal research, there is no medical progress. I love animals-you know I do! And it makes me sad to do the things we have to do to them. But we're looking for cures for horrible diseases. Thousands and even hundreds of years ago, people died routinely from things we consider absolutely trivial today.

"You take aspirin, don't you? Of course you do. I've seen you. How do you think that aspirin was developed? And I know for a fact that you're on the pill-you have left the packages out on the dresser in your room. Remember that urinary tract infection you got last year? You thought you were going to die from the pain-until we took you to the doctor, and you were given antibiotics and painkillers that were developed through animal research. You didn't think twice about taking them.

"Lexi, I understand your motivations. I really do. And for the record, I myself am opposed to unnecessary animal cruelty. But don't you think it's a bit hypocritical that you condemn the work I-we, as scientists-are doing, while you also sit back and reap the benefits?

"And by the way, monkeys are not apes-so at least get your facts straight if you're going to continue on this crusade."

Alexis reddened. "Whatever. You know what I mean. Monkeys may not be officially cla.s.sified as apes, but they are still evolutionarily right next to humans, and you know it. And to demonstrate this point, I will be protesting-along with ten thousand of my closest friends from PETA and the ALF, at the biotechnology convention.

"Yes, I know, you're going to be a big speaker there. You're getting a great, big, fat 'congratulations' for killing the most animals. Well, guess what. I'll be outside. My boyfriend will be dressed as a monkey. I will be holding him on a chain with a knife to his throat. And I will be dressed as you."

JANUARY 21, 2016.

6:36 P.M. PST.

Two nights later, the sun had long since set when Katrina pulled into the dirt parking lot at the Torrey Pines Gliderport. It was something to which she was well accustomed. During the winter months and into March, it was dark every moment that Katrina was not in her labs. This evening, with just a sliver of moon peeking out from a foggy coastal sky, the blackness was almost total.

Katrina was happy to see that the rocks on Ho Chi Minh Trail were dry, and she began trotting down the staircase with abandon. The exercise felt freeing until reached the sand and her heart rate and breathing began to increase. It was then that the pain returned to her lungs.

Normally a religious nightly runner, Katrina had just taken an unprecedented two nights off, the residual effects of the pepper spray still too strong for cardiovascular exercise. Tonight, as she tested her ability to return to her routine, she grimaced against the stabbing in her lungs. But she ran even harder.

Tonight, she ran to calm down.

Alexis had all but physically threatened her. And aside from the brief moment of rushed apology, which had seemed more like shock than true regret, her daughter had not really seemed disturbed by the fact that she had attacked her mother with pepper spray.

The paranoia. The drastic changes in friends. The att.i.tude. Above all, the fanatical animal rights activities that Katrina could not help but take personally.

Katrina reflected back over the last few years, wondering when Alexis had begun to spiral out of control. In retrospect, it had been happening gradually for quite a while.

At first, it was the occasional snotty remark or lack of respect toward Katrina and Tom. Now, she treated both of her parents with utter contempt. She drank to get drunk. And rather than serve as a wake up call, a DUI had only led Alexis to stop concealing her behavior. Apparently, she no longer felt the need to bother.

The pepper spray incident revealed a horrifying truth to Katrina. She was beginning to fear her own child.

Katrina was literally sprinting as she turned to ascend the steep hill toward North Torrey Pines Road. On the first switchback, she sharply cut the corner, running within inches of the trees flanking the paved street. And as she did, a thick, muscular body emerged instantly from the shadows and crashed into her from the side.

The momentum of Katrina's uphill charge carried the stranger for a step or two, but he was easily twice her bodyweight. The pair crashed sideways to the pavement, Katrina's pet.i.te body crushed to the hard surface by the weight of her attacker. A rough, ma.s.sive hand over her mouth m.u.f.fled an instinctive scream.

Katrina had been breathing rapidly from her run and the effects of the pepper spray, and now, with her face covered and the weight on top of her, she could not catch her breath at all. As she was violently flipped onto her back, a second hand encircled her throat. Katrina felt the reflexive, choking cough that accompanies compression of the trachea, but there was no air. There was no air.