Читать книгу Wicked Weeds - Pedro Cabiya - Страница 16
ОглавлениеTranscription of the interrogation of Doctor Isadore X. Bellamy Pierre-Louis, conducted by Detectives Jaime Almánzar Soto and Reynolds Rivera Sagardí.
RRS: Good morning, Doctor.
IB: Good morning.
RRS: Come in.
JAS: Please, have a seat.
IB: Thank you.
JAS: Can I get you anything? Coffee? Iced tea?
IB: Iced tea, if you’d be so kind.
JAB: Coming right up.
[Detective Almánzar Soto leaves the interrogation room.]
RRS: I’d like to take advantage of this opportunity to thank you for your cooperation and for the courtesy you extended us over the telephone.
IB: Of course. No need to thank me.
RRS: We know this is a difficult moment for you. Unfortunately, in order to prosecute the individual in custody we must gather all the evidence as soon as possible, all the statements—to be brief, everything we can gather with regard to the case—and turn it over to the public prosecutor’s office so that they can move forward with the legal process. What I’m trying to tell you, Doctor, is that, at the end of the day, our job is the most thankless part of the entire legal machinery.
IB: I understand.
RRS: I hope so. Unfortunately, we didn’t have much luck with Miss Álvarez.
IB: Yes, I know. She’s . . . like that. Please forgive her.
RRS: If you cooperate with us, perhaps I will.
[Detective Almánzar Soto returns to the interrogation room.]
JAS: Here you are.
IB: Thank you.
JAS: Very well, Doctor, as we already told you over the telephone, you are here to give us your testimony with regard to the events that occurred yesterday, the 24th of March, 2009, on the corner of Arzobispo Márquez and Paseo de los Próceres, where Mr. . . .
IB: Yes, please, I know why I’m here.
JAS: Forgive me. Only a formality.
RRS: State your name for the record.
IB: Isadore Bellamy.
RRS: Your full name, if you’ll be so kind.
IB: Isadore Xylène Bellamy Pierre-Louis.
RRS: And your nationality?
IB: I don’t see what my nationality has to do with this, Detective.
RRS: [laughing] And here I’d held out hope that you’d be more cooperative. No need to be defensive, Doctor.
IB: My passport, Detective, is the same as yours. And if you purport to be a competent police officer who does his work thoroughly, you should already know that. But perhaps that’s not what you really want to know, but rather my parents’ birth-place, since mine, as you well know, is the same as yours. And if that’s truly what you want to know, my answer remains the same: I don’t see what that has to do with the investigation.
JAS: Very well. Of course, forgive us. Let’s change the subject, shall we? Tell us, in what capacity did you know the victim?
IB: He was my boss. We were friends.
RRS: Friends?
IB: Friends.
JAS: Can you describe the type of work you did together, you and your boss?
IB: We worked for the Research and Development Division of Eli Lilly. He is . . . He was the executive vice president. I’m the lab manager. Our work consisted of proposing new lines of research for the creation of commercial compounds.
RRS: And what does that mean in plain English?
IB: If I were to put it in language so simple that even the most moronic could understand, I’d say that we were in charge of inventing new medications.
JAS: Who made these proposals? You?
IB: Sometimes. Others came to us from outside advisors. The vice president himself made most of them. To move forward with them required the approval of the board of directors, on which he also sat.
RRS: Quite a privileged position.
IB: I suppose so.
JAS: And were they approved?
IB: Almost always. Almost all of them.
JAS: What kind of medications were they?
IB: Stimulants, monoamine inhibitors, antidepressants—the kind of drugs taken by patients who are bipolar, schizophrenic.
RRS: Those kinds of drugs already exist. You have stated that your job was to invent new medications.
IB: It’s true that medications that control the symptoms of these psychiatric conditions do already exist. In our line of research, we were looking to formulate compounds that cure these and other conditions and syndromes.
JAS: We understand that the victim worked in the lab although he had an office on the executive floor.
IB: The victim was a scientist of the highest caliber. He always spent the first part of his morning in the office: he took care of his administrative duties, putting the bureaucratic matters of the division in order. After lunch he’d put on his lab coat and work in the lab with us until six p.m.
RRS: You worked together? What I mean is, on the same projects?
IB: We helped each other, but everyone had a different project.
JAS: Him too?
IB: Yes. We never found out exactly what it was. It was a . . . secret project, so to speak. He accepted the help we offered only reluctantly. Once I managed to read his notes and glimpse his drawing of molecular models. Right away I knew that his research revolved around emotions.
JAS: How did you know?
IB: It was obvious.
RRS: Why?
IB: Because of his notes and the molecular models.
[laughter]
IB: The compound he was trying to stabilize was intended to adhere to the dendrites of the cerebral amygdala and restore the polarity of the axoplasm. The intercellular space is positive; the interior of the cell, negative. The greater the difference in electrical charge between the two, the greater the available voltage will be to create synapses. . . . I thought you didn’t appreciate scientific pretension, Detective.
RRS: And you’re not mistaken. Could you, in language so simple that even the most moronic of us could understand, tell us what the effect of this secret formula was?
IB: To electrify that part of the brain where the conscious self is manifest—like a defibrillator.
[laughter]
IB: You find it funny.
RRS: Forgive us, Doctor, it’s just that, in our experience, the people who have need of a medication like that tend to look for a simpler method to electrify their brains. A slippery bathtub and a toaster or a hairdryer does the trick.
IB: Detectives, if you’ve had enough biochemistry for one day, I’ll be going now. I have a lot to do and I still don’t see how this line of interrogation could help the prosecutor lock up a confessed murderer.
JAS: Please, Doctor, don’t go. Trust us. Everything serves a purpose. I promise that we’ll pick up the pace. Tell us, Doctor, what was your boss like, personally speaking?
IB: Reserved. Extremely introverted. A control freak, perhaps, and obsessive—but what scientist isn’t?
RRS: How did he treat his employees?
IB: With courtesy and respect. He was one of the politest, most well-mannered men I’ve ever known in my entire life.
