Miracle Creek(6)
“The defendant was supposed to be inside with her son. But she wasn’t. She told everyone she was sick. Headache, congestion, the works. She asked Kitt, the mother of another patient, to watch Henry while she rested. She took wine she’d packed to the creek nearby. She smoked a cigarette of the same type and brand that started the fire, using the same type and brand of matches that started the fire.”
Abe looked at the jurors. “All of what I just told you is undisputed.”
Abe closed his mouth and paused for emphasis. “Un-dis-pu-ted,” he said, enunciating it like four separate words. “The defendant here”—he pointed that index finger again at her—“admits all this, that she intentionally stayed outside, faking an illness, and when her son and friend were being incinerated inside, she was sipping wine, smoking using the same match and cigarette used to set the blast, and listening to Beyoncé on her iPod.”
* * *
MATT KNEW WHY he was the first witness. Abe had explained the need for an overview. “Hyperbarics, oxygen this and that, it’s complicated. You’re a doctor, you can help everyone understand. Plus, you were there. You’re perfect.” Perfect or not, Matt resented the hell out of having to speak first, to set the scene. He knew what Abe thought, that this submarine healing business was kooky and he wanted to say, Look, here’s a normal American, a real M.D. from a real medical school, and he did this, so it can’t be that crazy.
“Place your left hand on the Bible and raise your right hand,” the bailiff said. Matt placed his right hand on the Bible, raised his left hand, and looked square into the bailiff’s eyes. Let him think he was a dumbfuck who didn’t know right from left. Better that than showcasing his freaky hand, see everyone flinch and flit their eyes around like birds above a dump site, unsure where to land.
Abe started easy. Where Matt was from (Bethesda, Maryland), college (Tufts), medical school (Georgetown), residency (same), fellowships (same), board certification (radiology), hospital credentials (Fairfax). “Now, I have to ask the first question I had when I heard about the explosion. What is Miracle Submarine, and why do you need a submarine in the middle of Virginia, nowhere near the ocean?” Several jurors smiled, as if in relief that others also wondered this.
Matt stretched his lips into a smile. “It’s not a real submarine. Just designed like one, with portholes and a sealed hatch and steel walls. It’s actually a medical device, a chamber for hyperbaric oxygen therapy. H-B-O-T, pronounced ‘aitch-bot’ for short.”
“Tell us how it works, Dr. Thompson.”
“You’re sealed in, the air pressurizes 1.5 to 3 times normal atmospheric pressure, and you breathe in one hundred percent oxygen. The high pressure causes the oxygen to be dissolved at greater levels in your blood, fluids, and tissue. Damaged cells need oxygen to heal, so this deep penetration of extra oxygen can result in faster healing and regrowth. Many hospitals offer HBOT.”
“Miracle Submarine isn’t a hospital chamber. Is that different?”
Matt thought of sterile hospital chambers attended by technicians in scrubs, then the Yoos’ rusted chamber lying crooked in an old barn. “Not really. Hospitals usually use clear tubes for one person to lie in. Miracle Submarine is bigger, so four patients plus their caregivers can go in together, making it much less expensive. Also, private centers are open to treating off-label conditions that hospitals wouldn’t.”
“What kind of conditions?”
“A big variety. Autism, cerebral palsy, infertility, Crohn’s, neuropathies.” Matt thought he heard tittering from the back at the condition he’d tried to hide in the middle of the list—infertility. Or perhaps it was the memory of his own laughter the first time Janine suggested HBOT after the sperm analysis.
“Thank you, Dr. Thompson. Now, you became Miracle Submarine’s first patient. Can you tell us about that?”
Boy, could he. He could go on at length about it, how Janine staged it perfectly, inviting him to dinner at her parents’ house without one word about the Yoos or HBOT or, worst of all, Matt’s expected “contribution.” A fucking ambush.
“I met Pak at my in-laws’ house last year,” Matt said to Abe. “They’re family friends; my father-in-law and Pak’s father are from the same Korean village. Anyway, I learned that Pak was starting an HBOT business, and my father-in-law was investing in that.” They’d all been sitting around the dinner table, and the Yoos had hurried to stand when Matt walked in, as if he were royalty. Pak looked nervous, the sharp angles of his face accentuated by his tight smile, and when he gripped Matt’s hand for a handshake, his knuckles bulged into jagged peaks. Young, his wife, had bowed slightly, eyes downcast. Mary, their sixteen-year-old, was a copy of her mother, with eyes that looked too big for her delicate face, but she’d smiled easily, mischievously, as if she knew a secret and couldn’t wait to see his reaction when he found out, which, of course, was exactly what was about to happen.
As soon as Matt sat down, Pak said, “Do you know HBOT?” Those words were like the cue for a well-rehearsed performance. Everyone converged around Matt, leaning in conspiratorially, and spoke in turns without pause. Matt’s father-in-law said how popular this was with his Asian acupuncture clients; Japan and Korea had wellness centers with infrared saunas and HBOT. Matt’s mother-in-law said Pak had years of HBOT experience in Seoul. Janine said recent research showed HBOT to be a promising treatment for numerous chronic diseases, did he know?