The Memory Artists - Jeffrey Moore [143]
That same month, with regard to the so-called “date-rape video” shot at the Experimental Psychology Laboratory, Dr. Vorta was charged with administering a noxious substance to commit an indictable offence. But not with rape or sexual assault, as there was no evidence to support either charge. At a disciplinary hearing of the Collège des médecins du Québec, Dr. Vorta denied any involvement, but could not explain away the DNA evidence linking him to the crime. At a pre-trial criminal hearing, he was found not guilty by reason of insanity, and was committed to the Philippe Pinel Institute in February of 2004.
A subsequent investigation by the Association des neurologues du Québec absolved him. Norval Blaquière, who had shot the video with a hidden camera for his “private investigation” of Dr. Vorta, demonstrated that the two individuals in lab coats, one wearing Vorta’s coat, were actually Drs. Charles Ravenscroft and Isabelle Rhéaume. Their voices, in a barely audible exchange involving the words “excess” and “palace of wisdom,” were identified by Noel Burun.
A preliminary hearing revealed that the couple was attempting to avenge “past injustices”—including Dr. Ravenscroft’s dismissal—by planting false evidence. Before driving Samira Darwish to the police and then home, they evidently decided—impulsively, and at the husband’s instigation—to take her to Dr. Vorta’s lab to plant incriminating DNA evidence and microscopic fibres. As their attorney pointed out, however, the couple did not administer the date-rape drug (the offender has yet to be found), and they did rescue Samira from a potentially more serious crime. In a plea bargain, they each received 18 months of probation, a $5,000 fine and 150 hours of community service at two assisted-living facilities on the island of Montreal.
Stella Burun, who was destined for one of these facilities, made a full recovery and has returned to the classroom, teaching history at a Montreal Cégep. She is currently dating a younger colleague in the department who has been in love with her for years: a widower with a ten-year-old daughter. The couple plan to get married in Aberdeen, Scotland in the summer of 2006.
JJ Yelle’s retreat into boyhood ended when he met his ex-girlfriend at Montreal’s Greek Independence Day Parade. An ageing prostitute, she had just come out of detox—“as if waking up from a nightmare after hibernating in hell,” he remarked in an audio interview. They lived together for nine months but did not marry. After JJ helped her get back on her feet, financially and emotionally, she decided to go back to her biker boyfriend. Which did not unduly upset JJ, because he was then free to propose to Sancha Ribeiro, the Bath Lady. The couple now live on a hothouse farm in northern Vermont, where they are experimenting with a genetically modified hybrid of skunk cabbage and Oriental sassafras, a healthy replacement for tobacco. Projected income in 2006, including patent earnings and seed money from R.J. Reynolds: $6.2 million. JJ is currently negotiating to purchase Mount Royal Cemetery.
Norval Blaquière never got to Z, never got beyond S. Nor did he get beyond the first round of Tip of Your Tongue. After completing his twenty-six Sunday school classes at the university chapel, and releasing his “exposé” on Dr. Vorta, Norval was hospitalised in early 2004 for short-term memory loss and brain-tumour-like symptoms, thought to be the result of ingesting experimental psychotropic drugs over an extended period—among them methaqualone (which produces excessive dreaming and amnesia), chloral hydrate and Vortagon, an applicationless drug suspected of triggering Alzheimer’s disease. Norval’s memory lapses were first noted by Noel Burun in a journal entry from October 24, 2003:
“What the Christ are you talking about?” said Norval. And I could see by the look in his eye—I’d seen the same in my mother’s—that he really couldn’t remember. “What alphabet?”
After checking himself out of the Hôpital Hôtel-Dieu in the