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Gabby burst into laughter. “We had you going, didn’t we?”
Martin snorted. “TJ, every time you come for dinner, you act like you enter a new dimension.”
I chuckled. “It is, okay? Like that spice, what is it?”
Gabby rolled her eyes. “Coriander? We get it at Whole Foods.”
“TJ, sit down and relax.” Martin crossed to the stove and began stirring a stew that bubbled in an orange cast-iron pot. I took a seat at a rustic farm table set with simple white plates, surrounded by four pine chairs.
“Here.” Gabby brought me a glass of water. “Are you up for meeting a client?”
“I’m fine.” I felt touched. “Don’t worry.”
Martin looked over. “We’re a family, TJ. We love you.”
“Thanks.” I sipped my water, hoping to dislodge the lump in my throat.
Chapter Eleven
Chuck Whitman arrived, and we shared a delicious meal and conversation that flowed freely. Chuck was seventy-six but in poor health. His hair was a sparse white, contrasting with his brown scalp, and his face was lined with deep wrinkles draping his mouth and his lips, which turned slightly down. Frail with a hunched posture, he had on a flannel shirt and baggy jeans. We cleared the table, then Martin went upstairs to his study, leaving Gabby to open her laptop and start our meeting.
“Chuck, I still remember when you called me about the case. It seems like yesterday, doesn’t it?”
Chuck smiled. “I’d say you put it together pretty quick.”
“Thanks.” Gabby tapped a few laptop keys. “Begin at the beginning, would you? I want to double-check my facts before I finalize the Complaint.”
Chuck nodded, sipping his coffee. “I guess around 1966, when I got sent to Holmesburg. I did two years for possession of marijuana.”
Damn.I shuddered at the harshness of the sentence. Now weed was practically legal in Pennsylvania. I felt a kinship with him, though I didn’t tell him that I had served time, too. He would have asked why,and I couldn’t begin to compare my bid in a suburban county jail with Holmesburg, one of Philadelphia County’s worst jails, notorious for overcrowding and bad conditions, especially in that era. It had since been shut down.
Chuck continued, “Anyway one day a doctor came, and he told me I was picked to be in a test for some kinda product they was working on.”
“And you don’t remember the doctor’s name, do you?”
“No.”
Gabby looked up from her laptop. “What makes you say it was a doctor?”
Chuck paused. “He had a white coat.”
“He wasn’t the prison doctor from the infirmary?”
“No.”
“And the coat said University of Pennsylvania, is that correct?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Gabby hit a key. “Did he tell you which product they were testing on you?”
“No, it was something with your skin is all. Everybody wanted to be in the tests.”
“And you earned three dollars per test?”
“Yes. The money was better than the other jobs you could get. You worked in the shoe shop, you earned fifteen cents a day.” Chuck scratched his head. “So many other guys were doing it, you could see in the shower, they had squares on the back. Patch test, we called them.”
“Like a skin-patch test,” Gabby said, tapping away.
