The Death Row Complex (23 page)

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.

“Hello,” 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 Saturday 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 passed 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 doorknob 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 dashing 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 doorknob 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 god, 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 hell 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 damn 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 identities 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.