The Serfanatin Trial

By Tom Dalton

In an industry where it costs a billion dollars to bring a new pharmaceutical drug to market the
pressure to cut corners and manipulate information is always present. Adding to this is the inherent
human weakness of greed when large amounts of money are at stake. Tommy Lee Jessup has
over the years developed a successful Phase I drug testing program and he now sees the opportunity
to benefi t fi nancially when he is given the chance to conduct a clinical trial for a new anti-psychotic
drug, Serfanatin.
As early trial results begin to go awry, Jessup takes action to cover up the negative testing results.
Each such move leads to increasingly deadly results. As the pressure mounts, Jessup turns to his
confi dant and uncontrollable fi xer, Caleb Guernsey, for help not realizing that the body count
will increase even faster.
New York State Police Lieutenant, Connor Lachlan tries to make sense of what appears to be
a series of unconnected deaths in his rural upstate region. As he examines the events and the
connections begin to appear, Lachlan becomes entwined not only as an investigator but also a
potential victim.
The rolling hills of central New York State amidst a frigid winter, presents this backdrop for a
deadly battle between two adversaries that will stop at nothing to accomplish their goals.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 14, 2012
• ISBN: 9781479722884

Tom Dalton

Tom Dalton, a native of New York, has spent over three decades in public sector executive positions, both in city and state governments, while working with elected offi cials who determined local policy issues. He was the city manager of three cities: Oberlin, Ohio; Saginaw, Michigan and Little Rock, Arkansas. He then served two Arkansas Governors as the Director of the Arkansas Human Services Department. Most recently he has worked with assisting technologybased startup companies as they move through the commercialization process. His extensive travel and work internationally and within the United States has put him in the position of dealing with numerous public health and safety programs. He resides in Little Rock, Arkansas.

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THE SERFANATIN TRIAL

TOM DALTON

Copyright © 2012 by Tom Dalton.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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Contents

PART I

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

PART II

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIV

Chapter XV

Chapter XVI

Chapter XVII

Chapter XVIII

PART III

Chapter XIX

Chapter XX

Chapter XXI

Chapter XXII

Chapter XXIII

Chapter XXIV

Epilogue

The boy was suspended twenty-two feet above the ground; below him were birch saplings, rotted fallen trees, and thick underbrush of evergreen shrubs. The chosen outpost was a sugar maple near the base of a hill leading into the High Peaks area of the Adirondacks. The boy had established safe havens two years earlier when his tracking expeditions had begun to last more than a day. When he first began tracking, the boy never carried a weapon other than a medium-sized Nieto pocket knife and a small axe that could be affixed to his belt. A camera his mother had given him, one of many unused wedding gifts, had been sufficient. His primary goal was to see how close he could get to an animal being tracked before taking its picture. When he turned eleven and his maternal grandfather discovered the boy was staying in the wilderness for two or three nights at a time, the old man offered unsolicited advice. When you’re by yourself, boy, he said, you don’t carry a gun for what you are tracking, you carry something for what may be tracking you. A week later, the old man gave his grandson his twenty-year-old Winchester 94. Now, two years later as the boy sat atop his makeshift lookout more than three full body lengths above ground and more than twenty miles from his home, he tried to remember when he last hunted with only a camera and wondered why.

While the boy had used the rifle on occasions and could claim kills, simply trailing and watching animals is what he most craved. His insatiable desire to understand how animals lived and acted is what drove him. Coyote and moose were his initial favorites until he began to understand the crepuscular nature of bobcats, and for months after, the predawn and post-sunset hours of animal activities consumed his full attention.

A warm breezeless August morning, the boy lay motionless on the four wooden planks he had tied to two of the maple tree’s branches. Grass and crushed twigs that were wrapped in an old blanket were atop the planks to offer some degree of comfort to the safe haven. He had wakened two hours earlier when he first heard the sound of movement in the thicket below him. Thirty minutes had passed since he last heard any noise; he felt it was time to move. With the rifle strapped behind his back, the boy grabbed the larger of the two support limbs to his bed and swung himself clear of the wooden planks. He briefly hung above the forest bed and then dropped the remaining ten feet to the ground grabbing hold of a birch sapling to avoid falling into the thicket.

It took the young tracker a few minutes to find evident trail markings, and from what he could see, they were made by a black bear. His heart began to beat faster and he felt a rush of excitement, an exhilaration he had not experienced in months. To think that he had hovered only twenty feet above a black bear, it was an opportunity not before imagined. He waited another five minutes fortifying his resolve and then set out.

An hour into the hunt, the boy began to visualize the large arc path he had covered. As opposed to travelling true north into the higher lands, he was now following a more southeasterly path. He stood silently a few moments as a rush of dizziness overtook, followed by a crushing sensation in his chest. Feeling unable to continue, he sat down on a rotted tree stump to stop his head from spinning. He closed his eyes, dropped his head as he leaned forward, and then lost consciousness.

When he awoke, he found that he had fallen off the stump and was lying on the ground. The boy knew he had been hungry as he had not eaten since noon the previous day. He reached into the leg pocket of his hiking pants and pulled out a small, half-eaten box of raisins, shoving the remaining amount into his mouth. Thinking he had only lost a few minutes from his fainting spell he looked at his watch. In fact, he had lost a full twenty minutes of tracking time. A sense of urgency set into the boy’s thinking. He had to compensate for the lost time; his movements would become more hurried than normal.

Over the years, the boy learned there is a rhythm and timing to tracking certain animals. It is the animal that sets the pace, and the tracker has to adjust his movements to that pace. The tracker not only must know the habits of the animal, but also must understand the overall environment in which the animal is moving. Patience and intuitive thinking are important attributes of a good tracker. The boy was now at a disadvantage. The bear was leading the boy into new unknown territory, and the lost interval of time was causing the tracker to force his pace.

Finally, two hours following the boy’s restarted efforts he was able to glimpse his target. It was a female black bear. He estimated her to be six foot when fully upright and around two hundred pounds. She was dark black with a brown muzzle, and a white patch adorned her chest. The bear was near a stream down a steep slope from the boy’s position and approximately one hundred yards away. Neither the bear nor the boy moved. Each was quiet, the bear slowly surveying her surroundings and the boy steadily watching the bear. Every two to three minutes as the bear would turn away, the boy would move slowly down the slope. After thirty minutes of this silent position shifting, the boy felt he was as close to the bear as he could get. He moved his hand slowly to his belt and opened the camera case. He took two pictures while calculating the distance to be fifty to sixty yards.

As the boy finally took his eyes off the bear and looked around the terrain an edgy feeling of discomfort arose within him. He was four hours into the hunt and only now did he realize that he had missed something major. He checked the position of the sun and then viewed his compass; the bear had brought him virtually full circle. Although he had come to this area from a different direction he began to recognize a few rocky outcrops, and as he rethought the route of the last four hours in his mind, he knew he was only a few hundred yards from his own tree outpost.

The bear began to move to her right, albeit slowly. The boy chose not to move, he was still hard at the task of studying the immediate surroundings trying to picture various settings from different angles. The boy, in an epiphany he was to remember the rest of his life, knew immediately what was at issue.

A loud noise sprang up from a thicket that was behind him and to his right. He knew at once the source of the noise; it was the shrill, screeching distress scream of black bear cubs. He turned to look while remaining as still as possible but saw nothing. As he turned back to his quarry, he saw that she had stopped her movement but she was now only thirty-five yards from him, having almost halved the distance between them. The situation was reversed. The boy was no longer the tracker, he had become the target.

What first began as a snarl turned slowly but eerily to a swelling, steady shriek causing the boy to freeze as the bear burst through the brush and started the incline ascent. The boy stood between her and the cubs.

By the time the bear had narrowed the distance to twenty yards, the boy had removed the rifle from his back and had it in his hands; at fifteen yards with the bear moving at her top speed the rifle was raised and the aim sure. At ten yards, the first bullet hit the bear in her chest. She jerked, dropped her head, but her upward momentum carried her forward. At five yards, the second shot hit her squarely atop her head and she fell no more than three feet from the boy’s feet.

The boy stood silently staring at the dead bear. The squealing behind him increased as three bear cubs came out from the brush. They ran to their downed mother and began nudging against and then smelling the lifeless carcass. The boy turned away. As he looked at his hands, he was struck by the fact that they were not shaking. He propped the rifle against his hip and held both hands outstretched in from of him. They remained motionless. Pausing briefly, he lifted his rifle and began walking away. He did not look back at the scene he had caused.

He scaled the steep hill another two hundred yards through heavily wooded forest before he reached an opening. There he saw a large rock outcropping that was covered with blue and red lichens. He sat on the algae and fungus growth and looked out at the hardwood trees below him while trying to assess his feeling of what had happened.

It was the elation of empowerment that he felt, not remorse.

PART I

Chapter I

"Entombed in darkness, aware of his presence but feeling nothing. Sounds of movement, then shades of gray clouds float closer, only to recede. The sense of dread grows stronger as does the awareness of what is coming.

The blackness turns to a dull, muted light and the shapeless clouds, though blurred, become recognizable faces. They have been seen many times before. No voices are heard as the eyes and mouths of the mysterious apparitions are grotesquely sewn shut.

Beneath, an untamed, heavily wooded forest appears ominously dark.

There was no recurring concern for the older faces but only attention as to the children, three in all. ‘Oh, God, I’m sorry!’

Slowly, the clouded beings queue before him. He knows the order; first killed, first in line. It’s always Jose Sanchez.

His body begins to sink toward the woods below as the Colombian’s face comes closer. Suddenly, like a cannon shot, it plows into his body, forcefully expelling the air from his lungs.

‘Oh, please stop,’ he pleads as the second being is already approaching. He continues to fall…"

The phone rang loudly and Connor Lachlan sat straight up gasping, his shirt soaked from the sweat of fear.

That dream again.

Surveying the still, unlit bedroom he glanced down at the digital radio clock. It was 4:30. The phone was into its tenth ring by the time he picked it up.

Lachlan, Anderson here.

Major, Lachlan mumbled, trying to sound calm.

I need you in Syracuse this morning.

Lachlan’s head was only now beginning to clear.

What’s up? he asked.

Sheriff Bradley gave me a call late last night. He’s got a stiff and a coroner’s report he can’t make sense of—apparently a homeless guy. It could be nothing, then again, maybe not. I want you to check it out.

By the time Lachlan was fully awake and ready to complain about the early hour call for what sounded like a meaningless task, his superior officer had already hung up. Lachlan muttered a few words into the dead phone, replaced it in its cradle, and fell back onto the sweat dampened pillow.

He lay silently in the bed for the next hour until long, thin slits of the early February daylight pierced the darkness of his room. The heavy wave of despair that had enveloped him through the night began to subside. He long ago learned that the aching feeling of guilt comes primarily at night. What replaces it during the waking hours of dawn through dusk is the penitent state of contrition, the emptiness of simply staying alive.

He watched the narrow rays of the Monday morning light moving slowly up the bedroom wall. It was time to start again.

He rose from the bed, ambled awkwardly to the window, and pulled up the louvered blinds, instantly flooding the bedroom with early reddish light of the winter’s morning. Outside his Chenango County renovated farmhouse, leafless maple tree branches swayed violently in the bitter February winds. Winter was New York’s mean season, with February being the most vicious month.

Lachlan’s thick, slightly graying hair was matted in the back from his early morning sweats. He stood naked in front of the full-length bedroom mirror appraising his thirty-six-year-old body, running the palm of his right hand over his stomach searching for any early hint of mid-life flab. His five-foot-eleven frame was more toned than muscular following years of his disciplined training for local marathons. The winter weather had curtailed much of his winter workouts, and he worried about the impact on his aging torso.

He disdained going outside in this weather. But the call he had just received rendered that feeling irrelevant.

This would be his first assignment involving a death since his promotion to Lieutenant in the Bureau of Criminal Investigation of the New York State Police.

Now in his ninth year of law enforcement and his fifth with the non-uniformed investigation bureau, he was becoming slightly better adjusted to rebalancing his life following the separation from his wife, Jesse.

It was in their fifth year of marriage that she announced suddenly that she needed some time-off, an ill-defined period of time that was approaching three years. Only now was he comfortably settling into the routines of single parenthood and full-time police investigation.

Initially, Jesse moved to New York City to be nearer her parents who owned a restaurant in Brooklyn. But following a year and a half of living in various artist communities, first in the Bronx and then Brooklyn, she ultimately decided to return to Syracuse University to finish her final two years toward a degree in Art History. In a conciliatory move to help her, Lachlan sold their home in the town of Sidney and relocated to Norwich, in Chenango County, an act that made it easier for Gabby to be near both her parents.

The state police office in Sidney to which Connor Lachlan was assigned is one of the eleven separate troop offices that are located throughout New York. Nine are geographically sited to provide either support to the larger local police departments or primary investigation and patrol services to rural areas. Of the final two troop offices, one is dedicated solely to the five boroughs of New York City. The other coordinates the patrolling operations of the State Thruway.

Each of the nine regional offices is accountable for between five to eight separate counties. Aside from Delaware County where Sidney is located, Lachlan’s office provides state police support to the south central part of the state including Tompkins, Chenango, Otsego, Broome, and Cortland counties. The largest cities in the region are Binghamton, Ithaca, and Cortland.

Although the assignment just given by Major Anderson was technically outside Lachlan’s