Free Hungry Ghosts by Peggy Blair Page A

Alzheimer’s?”
    â€œDr. Kesler? No. She’s an expert in envirogenomics.”
    â€œEnvirogenomics?”
    â€œThe effects of the environment on genes.”
    Jones thought for a moment. “Is there someone I can speak to about her research?”

    Dr. Martin Strasser took the call. “I’m sorry to hear about your mother’s symptoms,” he said. “I’m afraid your husband’s right; it doesn’t sound like Parkinson’s. I’ve been doing research into Alzheimer’s for years. It’s a terrible, devastating illness. But it doesn’t usually affect Aboriginal people. We think there may be a protective effect of a gene or genes in the Native American population that the rest of us don’t have.”
    â€œMy mother isn’t Aboriginal, Dr. Strasser.”
    â€œOh, I’m sorry. I thought she was. That’s the focus of Dr. Kesler’s work. Indigenous populations.”
    â€œI’m confused,” said Jones. “If that’s the case, why test my mother?”
    â€œI have no idea,” said Strasser. “I know that she’s looking into the environmental components of a number of cluster illnesses in that area, but I’m not completely familiar with the details of her research. Maybe she was testing non-Aboriginal people as a control population. But I’m afraid you’d have to ask her that yourself.” There was an undertone to his words. Celia Jones got the sense that Dr. Kesler wasn’t particularly well liked.
    â€œOkay. Well, thanks for your time, Dr. Strasser. Oh, before I letyou go . . .” Jones lowered her voice so her mother wouldn’t overhear. “Are there any new treatments for Alzheimer’s? Anything that can reverse it, or at least slow it down?”
    â€œNot yet, I’m afraid. Although there is some new research in the United States that’s quite exciting. There’s a drug that balances the transport of heavy metals across cell membranes. It seems to reverse the effects of Alzheimer’s in mice within days. I’m hopeful the manufacturers can get it to market eventually. And of course, that it will work as well in people as it does in rodents.”
    â€œThere’s nothing we can do, then, if that’s what she has?”
    â€œWe find that social interaction helps. Computer games, painting. Even jigsaw puzzles. And exercise. Some studies suggest that caffeine can delay the onset of symptoms. Make sure she drinks lots of tea and coffee.”
    â€œBelieve me,” said Jones, frowning, “she’s trying.”

16
    Inspector Ramirez remembered the first crime scene all too well. Prima Verrier’s skeletonized remains had been discovered almost exactly a year earlier. Her killer left her body in the woods beside the Avenida San Francisco, north of the nearly abandoned Parque Lenin, not far from its Chinese-built amusement park.
    The late Detective Rodriguez Sanchez was dispatched to the wrong address. He wasn’t remotely amused when Patrol mistakenly delivered him to Lennon Park downtown. A bronze statue of the dead Beatle sat on a wooden park bench even though John Lennon had never visited Cuba. A distressed security guard kept replacing and removing the statue’s wire eyeglasses, insisting he knew nothing about a woman’s body. Sanchez, of course, being Sanchez, didn’t believe him. Luckily, by the time the error was discovered, the man wasn’t badly injured.
    Señora Verrier was only twenty-three when she was murdered. She was studying to be an engineer at the University of Havana andworked as a prostitute to help feed her family. She’d gone out after class to meet a client and never came home. Her body was found by a cyclist riding a heavy Chinese-made bicycle, as he looked for a shortcut through the woods.
    Ramirez had stood beside Apiro, horrified, while Detective Sanchez searched the tall grass for