[Kate Lange 01.0] Damaged

by Pamela Callow

  There were twelve sets of reports, two pages each. The first page of every report was the donor eligibility report, headed with the name BioMediSol. Kate had never heard of BioMediSol before, although it had a postal-box address in Halifax. From what the client had told John, BioMediSol was a tissue supplier or harvester, a company that literally removed the tissue from donors and sent it to TransTissue to process. They sent the tissue with a donor eligibility report and a blood sample.

  Establishing donor eligibility was the first stage in screening whether the tissue could be harvested for biomedical purposes. The report determined the donor’s medical status and cause of death. If the donor had a chronic disease, or had died of cancer or an infectious disease, then he or she would not be eligible to donate tissue.

  Kate skimmed the first donor eligibility report. The donor’s name was blacked out, but the rest of the information was intact: gender, age, preexisting medical conditions, risk factors, cause and date of death.

  She studied each of the twelve donor eligibility reports carefully. So far, so good. The donors had passed BioMediSol’s eligibility criteria with flying colors. None were too old, all had lived pretty healthy lives, none had died of diseases that would render their tissue useless.

  It ruled out BioMediSol as the cause of Brad Gallivant’s hep C. They’d done their end of the screening.

  She flipped to the second page of the reports. These were the blood-screening reports filled in by TransTissue. Their private lab tested each blood sample that accompanied the tissue for hepatitis B, hepatitis C, HIV and syphilis. The screening measured the antibodies or antigens in the blood for each virus. The count was recorded in a numeric value, referred to as a titer in the medical profession. For HIV, a positive result would be any titer over 1.0. So if a donor’s titer was 0.23, he would be HIV negative. The donor’s titers would need to be within the acceptable range for each of the four viruses in order for the tissue to be eligible for processing.

  Kate studied the blood-screening report for the first donor. None of the first donor’s titers was above the acceptable range. In fact, all were well below normal. Reassured, she examined the next. And the next. All fine.

  The fifth donor’s HIV titer startled her. It was 0.53—a higher value than the titers of the previous four donors, whose titers were in the low double digits. But still acceptable. She flipped to donor number six. Back to a low double-digit HIV titer. Same with donor number seven.

  When she reached the report for the eighth donor, she stopped. The donor’s HIV titer was 0.53. Just like donor number five.

  She checked the ninth donor. The HIV titer was also 0.53. Puzzled, she flipped through the remaining three reports. Those donors’ HIV titers were also 0.53.

  How could they all have the exact same titer, not off by even one one-hundredth?

  Her pulse accelerating, she compared the hepatitis B titers for each of the five donors. They were identical. So were the hepatitis C titers. And the syphilis titers.

  She stared in disbelief at the reports.

  How could five donors’ titers be exactly the same for four different viruses?

  They couldn’t.

  It wasn’t possible.

  She flipped through them again. She hadn’t misread them. Five donors had the exact same titers for all four viruses.

  Why hadn’t TransTissue noticed this?

  She picked up the phone to call Melinda Crouse. Then she put it down. It was time to visit TransTissue in person. Because if she was wondering about what the hell was going on over there, she had no doubt Morris MacNeil would be, too. Good thing he didn’t have the blood-screening reports yet.

  She glanced at her watch. It was 10:30 a.m.

  “I’ve got a couple of client meetings,” she told Liz. “I’ll be back at lunchtime.”

  TransTissue was located in a new building in an industrial park in Dartmouth, Halifax’s twin city. Kate drove over the bridge connecting the cities. The deep blue water of the Bedford Basin on the left side of the bridge gleamed today with the full promise of May sunshine. She headed onto the highway, taking the exit ramp to the industrial park.

  There was probably a very good explanation for the reports, but she couldn’t think of any as she sped through the endless intersections of the industrial park, looking for Blue Ridge Crescent. Something niggled at her.

  She made a wrong turn. She’d never been this far into the industrial park before. Blue Ridge Crescent was on the farthest side of the park, bordering a pine forest. She turned down the road. It was long and curving. Empty. A paved road surrounded by evergreens. Just when she was starting to wonder if she had the wrong address, she glimpsed a large, four-story building fronted with reflective pink-tinted glass windows. She drove toward it. As she got closer, she noticed a separate square building squatting behind its counterpart, two tall metal chimneys spouting grayish smoke into the sky. The smoke plumed lazily against the blue, then dissipated slowly through the upper reaches of the pines.

  She parked her car in the area marked Visitors’ Parking. Grabbing her briefcase, she walked into the main building’s foyer. It looked more like a hospital than an office, with pale blue and green furnishings set against spotlessly white walls. A set of framed posters were placed predominantly on the main wall, showing the range of TransTissue products. One caught her eye: NextGeneration Bone Filler. That was the product used in the plaintiffs’ knees. Even though she’d done extensive research on the use of bone fillers, it still blew her mind that cadaveric material was being used in so many medical procedures.

  Kate walked over to the security desk. The guard watched her approach. His eyes flickered over her. No bantering with this guy.

  “I’m here to see Melinda Crouse. In public relations.”

  He nodded, looked up the number and dialed. Kate waited, glad she hadn’t called ahead of time. She wanted an element of surprise.

  The guard spoke for a minute into the receiver, then hung up the phone. “She’ll be right out.” He handed Kate a visitor’s tag on a lanyard. “Please sign in.”

  She was disappointed to see she was signing a fresh page of the visitors’ log. She’d hoped to scan the list of visitors to see if Morris MacNeil had already “dropped by.”

  “Hi.” Melinda Crouse’s perky voice materialized at Kate’s shoulder. She turned around to see a young woman in her mid-twenties greeting her with a warm, if puzzled, smile.

  “Hi, Melinda.” Kate held out her hand. Melinda grasped it limply. “Sorry to drop in on you, but I received the information you sent me and had a couple of questions.”

  “Sure, no problem,” Melinda said, with a smile as perky as her voice. “We can talk over here.” She pointed at a small reception room just off the foyer.

  “Great.” Kate followed her, studying her from behind. She wore an off-the-rack tailored navy suit, with pointy-toed shoes that were worn at the heels. Her blond hair was carefully streaked and pulled off her face.

  The reception room looked like one of those rooms the hospital set aside for family members to pray or grieve. It had several comfortable armchairs in pale green velveteen, with an oak side table. A water cooler was tucked in the corner.

  Kate settled herself in one of the chairs and pulled out the reports from her briefcase.

  Melinda sat opposite her. “Did you get everything you needed?” she asked.

  Kate smiled. “Yes, thank you. I wanted to run through a couple of things with you. First of all, were there only six batches of NextGeneration tissue filler made on the same day as the plaintiffs’ batches?”

  Melinda nodded. “Yes. We traced the batch numbers for the knee filler to the donor records I sent you.”

  Kate held up a donor record. “Is there any chance the donor records were filled out by TransTissue instead of BioMediSol?”

  Melinda shook her head. “No. We require the tissue supplier to fill in the form.”

  “Who reviews these forms?”

  Melinda stra
ightened, a look of uncertainty on her face. “Um…it goes to the screening division. They check all that stuff and then the product is sent to processing.” She smoothed her skirt. “It’s all in the manuals I sent you.”

  “Great.” A movement in the foyer caught her eye. A brown-haired man with broad shoulders straining his suit turned the corner and was gone.

  “Is that where the processing division is?” Kate asked, pointing in the direction of the disappearing man.

  Melinda nodded. “Yes.”

  “I’ve always been curious about it. Do you think you could give me a tour?”

  Melinda smiled and jumped to her feet. Her relief at no longer having to answer questions was palpable. “Sure thing!”

  Kate shoved the reports into her bag and followed the young PR woman. They walked past the security guard and around the corner. Melinda swiped her security pass through the sensor, pulling open a set of white-painted metal doors.

  Kate walked through them. The doors fell closed behind her. There was a hum in the air, almost visibly shirring the fluorescent lights overhead.

  “We can’t go to the part where they make NextGen, because you need to be suited up and stuff,” Melinda said. “But I can show you how they make some of the pure bone products.”

  “All right.” She was disappointed. She wanted to watch how the filler was made, see if there was a weak link in the chain that Morris would undoubtedly hammer at. “Can I come back and see it?”

  “Um…you need to get approval from the CEO. It’s a restricted area.” Melinda gave Kate an apologetic smile.

  Kate frowned. “Why?”

  “Oh, because of the sanitation protocol. You know, everything has to be kept germfree and all that.” Melinda paused in front of a large window, which overlooked a room that looked like a laboratory. “Here’s the FADAL.”

  “The what?” Kate stared at her. It sounded like she said, “The fuh doll.”

  Melinda smiled and pointed to an eight-foot-tall rectangular machine with a long steel table running through the middle. A large drill was mounted over the table. “The technician uses CAD software to program the FADAL, so the bone is precision cut.”

  As Melinda spoke, a woman in a white lab coat lined up a bone on the steel table. She ignored Kate and Melinda staring through the window. After punching some buttons on the machine, she lowered the drill. White dust floated around her masked face. When the dust cleared, Kate saw that the bone had been cut into even dowels.

  “I presume the bone has already been screened for disease?” Kate asked.

  Melinda nodded. “Yes. We take the blood sample that’s sent with the tissue and test it. Once it’s cleared, the tissue is cleaned off the bone, and then it’s sent here for processing.”

  “What are the bone dowels used for?”

  “These ones will be used for lumbar fusion.”

  At Kate’s questioning look, Melinda added, “It’s a common spinal surgery. We also make dowels that are used for ACL surgery to aid in graft-to-bone healing.”

  The technician placed the dowels in a container.

  “What happens after the product is made from the bone?” Kate asked.

  Melinda smiled proudly. “All of our products go into our debug system afterward.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s like a big washing machine. It cleans the bone really well and it comes out free of germs. Some of the products are freeze-dried after that. Then they are ready for shipping.” She glanced at Kate. “We label each product with the batch number so we can trace it to the donor or donors.”

  “Can the debug system get rid of HIV or hepatitis?”

  Melinda nodded. “I think so. But it’s not really an issue because we screen the blood for it before we process the tissue. And the broker screens the donors to make sure they don’t have the disease before they harvest tissue from them.” She smiled brightly. “So that’s the tour. Any more questions?” She turned and began walking back to the foyer.

  Kate heard footsteps behind her. She glanced over her shoulder. It was the broad-shouldered man.

  “Just one,” she said to Melinda. “But I think we should finish our discussion in the conference room—”

  “If I may,” the man behind Kate interjected.

  He stepped next to Kate, studying her with shrewd brown eyes. Melinda threw him a flustered look. “Oh, Mr. Duggan, I didn’t see you—”

  Kate met the CEO’s gaze. He was youngish, in his forties, with football-player features that had aged well.

  “It’s quite all right, Melinda.” Mr. Duggan gave her a brief smile.

  Kate held out her hand. “Mr. Duggan, I’m Kate Lange.”

  He took her hand in his. His handshake was firm and warm. “Ms. Lange, I’ve heard a lot about you.” He smiled. His teeth were even and white. “You come highly recommended. I understand you are helping John mount a watertight defense for us.”

  Kate smiled. “I hope so. I wanted to see the bone filler processing facility.”

  He nodded. “We’ll try to arrange that. Now, what was the question you had for Melinda? Perhaps I can answer it for you.”

  “I received the donor reports for the plaintiffs’ knee fillers. Five of the donors have the exact same serology results. Same titers. I’m wondering how that is possible.”

  He could not hide his shock, although he tried. “The exact same?”

  “Yes. Do you think it’s possible that BioMediSol might have sent you the same blood sample for five of the donors?”

  Melinda gasped. Bob Duggan threw her an irritated look, then turned to Kate. “I shall look into it. This is extremely unusual. I can assure you that our screening director reviews every serology report prior to the tissue being processed. Perhaps there has been a paperwork error…”

  “I hope so.” She held his gaze. “This kind of error can have very unpleasant consequences for TransTissue, not to mention the patients that receive the allograft.”

  She hadn’t meant to sound so sanctimonious, but his obvious shock had sent her anxiety about the defense skyrocketing.

  Bob Duggan frowned. “I am well aware of that, Ms. Lange.” He walked her to the front door. “Please return those reports by courier today.” He pulled the door open for her. “I’ll have someone contact you about touring the NextGen processing area.”

  “Thank you.” She left the building, mulling over Bob Duggan’s reaction to her discovery. He’d been as horrified as she was.

  Damn.

  Hopefully, Bob Duggan would review the reports and find a reasonable explanation for the identical serology results.

  Otherwise, they were screwed.

  She glanced in her rearview mirror as she drove down Blue Ridge Crescent. The noonday sun turned TransTissue’s pink-tinted windows into a fiery shield, blinding her view of Bob Duggan. The hair on the back of her neck prickled. She may not be able to see him, but she felt his eyes on her.

  Chapter 33

  Kate placed the phone down. It was 2:48 p.m. She’d managed to reach a friend of hers from her waitressing days who now worked in a pathology lab. Her friend had confirmed, as Kate had guessed, that it was nearly impossible for five people to have the exact same viral screening results.

  TransTissue’s paper trail was fatally flawed.

  The case had fallen apart in front of her eyes.

  She dialed John Lyons’ number. He answered on the first ring. “Can I talk to you for a minute about the TransTissue file?” she asked, her heart pounding.

  “Yes, in fact, I was going to call you about it.” His voice was cool, preoccupied. Disquiet edged along Kate’s nerves. “Come on up.”

  She gathered the TransTissue file and walked quickly to John’s office. “Hi, John.” She made sure her voice sounded confident despite the time bomb she had tucked under her arm.

  He gave her a small smile. “Sit down, please, Kate.”

  She sank into a Queen Anne chair facing his desk, balancing the TransTissue file
on her knee. “What’s up?” Something was. Instead of the usual warmth she had grown to expect from her mentor, his gaze was perturbed.

  “I had a call from Bob Duggan,” he said. He watched her closely.

  She kept her gaze steady. “I met him this morning.”

  “What were you doing at TransTissue?” His tone wasn’t accusing, but it contained enough of an edge to put her on the defensive.

  “Checking out a few facts. Before Morris does,” she added pointedly.

  “Bob told me that you had all kinds of reports sent to you, and then questioned the veracity of them.”

  “I had asked for the donor blood-screening reports for the batches of knee filler products made the same day as the plaintiffs’.”

  His gaze didn’t soften.

  Alarm bells went off in Kate’s head.

  “I did it so that I could be sure there hadn’t been some slip in the manufacturing chain that would negate our defense.”

  He steepled his fingers. “But you accused them of falsifying the reports.”

  Falsifying reports? Her mind raced back to her conversation with Melinda, then with Bob Duggan. She’d asked both of them if they knew why five of the reports were identical. There had been no accusations. She straightened. “John, I didn’t accuse them of falsifying reports. But there is a problem—”

  “I know.” His tone was flat. “Bob told me that the PR gal had made a photocopying error and sent you five copies of the same serology report.”

  “Did he, now.” Her fingers tightened their grip on the file. “That’s not what he told me. He asked me to send the reports back to him so he could investigate the matter. I just sent them.” Why was Bob Duggan trying to make her look bad? “Look.” She handed the photocopy she’d made of the reports to John. “See how these titers are identical?”

  John picked up the reports and flipped through the top five. He placed them carefully back on his desk.