Murder Is Pathological

by P. M. Carlson

  “Even so, the results make it look like a minor possibility,” she said. “But those animals I saw were in bad shape. Terrible shape.” She was thinking of Mary, her brain increasingly useless from the tumor, but at least comfortable, at least not suffering from the systemic poisoning of renal failure. She added, “Kidney failure is no better than a tumor. Sometimes worse.”

  “Perhaps,” said Dr. Weisen. “But paramustine is a step forward all the same. I can work with its chemical relatives, and find one that has similar effects on tumors without the toxicity to the renal system. Or I can find a drug to combine with it that will prevent the damage without decreasing its potency.”

  She wasn’t sure exactly when she had realized that Dr. Weisen himself had substituted the rats. It was just a part of the whole understanding of the situation she had now. And yet she could not accept it. She was pleading now for the return of the unyieldingly ethical, perfectionist Dr. Weisen that she had idolized for years. “But the drug companies, Dr. Weisen. They’ll be testing on human tumor victims. Don’t you see?”

  “Monica, you’ve been one of the brightest students I’ve ever had. A good touch in surgery, a good grasp of both facts and theory, and amazing motivation and drive. You know that my statement to that effect would launch your career at any research center in the country.”

  “Yes, I—that’s why I wanted to work with you.”

  “You don’t want to throw that away.”

  Dazed, Monica looked down at her clasped hands. It was true. If his experiment failed, if people learned why it had failed, Dr. Weisen would not be the only person to suffer. She and Les and Tom, and even Barbara and Martin and Bill, would be tainted by the scandal too. But now he seemed to be offering her a choice. A bright and useful career, the one she had dreamed of and worked for, in exchange for her silence. Her guilty silence. Look, Ma.

  She protested, “But the experiments are completely compromised, Dr. Weisen. The logic depends on equivalent rats getting identical treatment except for one thing—one randomly chosen rat out of each pair gets your drug, the other gets a placebo.”

  “Are you teaching me experimental design?” he asked wearily.

  “And instead you’ve had lots of animals getting the drug, and you’ve selected the ones with the least damage. That’s not random at all. That’s not science!”

  “The rest of the logic is intact, Monica.” He was a little stung. “The substitutes are genetically correct, close relatives of the control group. They were treated with the same schedules, dosages, food, everything. The report is absolutely accurate about the treatment the rats received. I would never lie about that. And it’s absolutely clear that paramustine really does reduce tumor size.”

  “Yes, I know, Dr. Weisen. But—”

  “I’m working on problems of the brain, not of kidneys. I’ve found something that is truly useful, something that can free me from the problems of constant penny-pinching at this lab. Some of the animals were helped with no major adverse effects.”

  “But you claim seventy-five or eighty percent were! It’s more like ten percent!”

  “Twelve percent. But for that twelve percent, paramustine is a miracle.”

  “And for the other eighty-eight percent, it’s a death warrant! Better to depend on spontaneous remission! On chance!”

  “Come, Monica, more tests will be done. It won’t be marketed soon. And we may be able to solve the problems soon.”

  She did not want this responsibility. Why must she be the one to weigh his brilliance and future contributions against an abstract ideal of truth? To weigh her own hopes for a useful life against principles this very man had claimed to support? Why couldn’t he admit there was a problem? “Dr. Weisen,” she said desperately, “you don’t have to say exactly what happened. You could tell the companies there was an unforeseen problem with the analysis or something. Do it again right.”

  “Monica, Monica,” he sighed. “One thing I am known for is experimental exactness. No one would believe there was an unforeseen problem. Most especially, Les and Tom and Barbara and Martin would not believe it. They know things were done correctly. And doing it again would not solve the basic problem in any case.”

  “The basic problem. You mean that eighty-eight percent of the animals will die of renal failure.”

  “But they don’t die of the tumors.”

  “What difference does that make? You say you’re interested in the brain. But renal failure affects the brain eventually, doesn’t it? Decreased mental acuity. Convulsions. Muscle cramps, nausea, ulcers, stupor—God, I’m quoting from your own lectures, Dr. Weisen!”

  “Don’t worry. The drug companies will check those problems. Your overly bright friend designed statistics that made the possibility clear to future researchers. If she’d done the old, less accurate tests, I might not have run out of healthy rats. Wouldn’t have had to destroy two whole studies. But for you, Monica, the issue is simple. Do you want a career, or not?”

  “Yes. Yes, of course l do, Dr. Weisen. But—” He was going to force her to choose. He would not come around, would not relinquish his prize just because it was the best thing to do. And really, was it the best thing? He was right: the drug companies had the necessary information to watch out for renal failure in their tests. It wouldn’t be the first time that side effects had surfaced late in the development of a drug. He’d hurt the company, true, but not human patients, right? And if Monica reported him, it would delay her own career seriously, leave Ted without the home she longed to give him, set back Les and Barbara and Tom and the others as well. And it would end Dr. Weisen’s career, a career already full of genuine contributions. His enormous, real talent and insight would be wasted. For what? For a chimerical ideal, an abstraction. Truth. Science. Morals.

  She could let things be. She could tell Maggie there was nothing special about the rats, and help Dr. Weisen dispose of them. Then Dr. Weisen could go on, perhaps solve the difficulty with paramustine as he suggested. And her friends could go on, and she could go on.

  Dr. Weisen said, “I believe you have a relative with a brain injury. A husband?”

  “How did you know?”

  “One of your letters of recommendation mentioned it. It was a useful thing to know. I find experience of that sort increases commitment in my students. I wondered if perhaps I could help the young man.”

  “Oh, Dr. Weisen, could you?” In a rush, the improbable dream came back. All her frenzy after Ted’s injury, looking for information about the best surgeons, the best specialists. The crushing discovery that the best had already been tried. And then the determination to make her own contribution to the field that was not yet able to save him. By the time she had become Weisen’s student, she had known that nothing more could be done for Ted. And yet the obstinate hope would not die.

  “I could look at scans,” he said. “I could call my friend Dr. Morgan. The best.”

  “Yes.”

  Why hadn’t he offered sooner?

  She knew why. Because in fact nothing more could be done. He was using every means he could to get her to keep his secret. Even her love for Ted.

  Ted, who had always defended the abstract ideal of scientific truth against her claims that helping people had to come first.

  And was the ideal really so abstract? Dr. Weisen had already caused a hundred or so additional rats to suffer from brain tumors and renal failure. He was proposing to let additional animals suffer. And if the drug company hired him, perhaps even people. And it was not because of inadequate knowledge, as in so many medical failures. It was because he was creating falsehood for his own gain. In addition to the pointless suffering of animals and the false hope given to human patients and those who loved them, it would set back the development of genuine remedies by putting researchers on the wrong track. How many additional studies would be run, and rerun? How many animals would suffer and die in vain, how many hours of scientists’ lives would be wasted, how many human patients might risk
their lives, before people reluctantly accepted the conclusion Dr. Weisen could report right now?

  She could not do it. She could not betray science. A goddamn abstract ideal that had goddamn real repercussions. And between the image of the smooth launching of her career and the image of old Mary suffering from renal failure, the choice was clear. Ted was right, and she was right too. She raised sad dark eyes to Dr. Weisen and said calmly, “No, Dr. Weisen. I can’t support scientific falsehood. Not even for you.”

  “I’m sorry, Monica.” He sighed, a weary sigh. He had seen it coming. “I suppose you’d like to see Maggie?”

  Monica was startled at the abrupt change of subject. “Maggie? Where is she?”

  “In here.” He unlatched the door of the decompression chamber. She looked at it, and at him, disbelief growing. What had he been doing at those controls? Was her friend really in there? Why? She ran the few steps to the door, wrenched it the rest of the way open, and stared into the little chamber. And for a second her attention was focused on her friend’s limp body, and on another body, Rick’s. Then she became aware of a cold pressure against her back, and of Dr. Weisen’s cold voice.

  “It’s loaded, Monica. I’m sorry. But you must see that I cannot allow you to spread this idea you have.”

  She realized then that the conversation with him, the supposed choice, had been a ruse. Like his offer to help Ted. He had talked to her only because she had unwittingly stood between him and the gun. Even if she had agreed to help him, she would have been killed soon. Like Norman, she thought. Like Rick and Maggie. Without hope, she asked, “Are they dead?”

  “Hydrocyanic acid fumes. It’s quick and humane, as you know. Go on in, now, you’ve been a good student. I owe you a painless death.”

  “Go in?” She was numb, could feel nothing but the gun.

  “Against the far wall. Now sit down.” The gun was still trained on her. She thought suddenly, what about Ted’s writing? Dr. Weisen continued, “At the end of the chain near Rick’s head there should be a collar. Pull it out and buckle it around your ankles.”

  She tugged. He said sharply, “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s caught. There’s a little bag on it.”

  Swiftly, he came in next to her, pressed the gun against her temple, and pulled up a little mesh bag of pellets with his left hand. He looked at it, unbelieving, then turned quickly to stare up into the corner above Maggie’s head, where a little bowl sat on a shelf. As he gazed, shocked, the gun against her head wavered for an instant. And in that instant Rick’s dead fist was smacking up against Dr Weisen’s hand, knocking the gun away, and Maggie’s lifeless form was springing up to tackle Dr. Weisen around the knees. In a quick purposeful flurry, so coordinated as to seem almost choreographed, they pressed Weisen against the wall where Maggie had been and buckled him down against it in her place. Rick kicked the gun out the door. The little bag of pellets still sat innocently at Monica’s feet.

  Maggie was leaning over her, saying something.

  “What?” said Monica. Fear and relief were washing through her. My God, she thought, I almost agreed to support him. I almost threw away my purpose in life. And Ted’s.

  Maggie said, “Are you okay?”

  “Yes. I’m okay. It was close, but I’m okay.” Monica stood up. “What about you?”

  “I’ll live too.”

  “How did you—I mean, you were dead!” They moved out of the chamber into the hall.

  Maggie nodded and jerked a thumb at Rick. “He unbuckled my feet with his teeth, and I stood on my head and pushed the bag of pellets out of the way of the acid with my foot. Awkward, but it worked.”

  “Yoga, the Way to Long Life,” said Rick solemnly.

  Maggie grinned at him and continued. “He sawed through his wrist bond, and while you were talking out here he got himself loose and took the pellets away. Then he unbuckled me. But we didn’t know what Weisen might be up to next. We couldn’t hear much through the door. So we lay back down, and just held still when he brought you in. Didn’t want to get his trigger finger too excited.”

  “Yeah.” Monica looked back at Dr. Weisen, and felt suddenly shaky.

  “I think it’s time to call the police,” said Maggie. But she was stripping off the coveralls and down to her underwear.

  “What are you doing?” asked Monica, puzzled.

  “Damn it, Maggie, that’s an acid burn!” Rick had dropped to a squat to inspect her leg. The left one, already bandaged at the thigh, now sported an angry blistered burn along the calf.

  “I bumped the bowl a little going up,” Maggie explained. “Hurts like hell.”

  “Monica, call the police.” Rick was suddenly commanding, not deferential at all, not even Southern. “I’ll take care of your roommate.” He picked Maggie up and set her on the counter with her feet in the sink, and turned on the water to rinse the ugly red burn.

  Monica closed the chamber door on Dr. Weisen and latched it carefully before going out to the main hall to call the police. It took a few minutes to explain things, though she tried to simplify, but finally all was clear. She went back to the hall outside the decompression chamber.

  “They say they’ll be right—” she began as she opened the door, and then stopped in blank surprise.

  Her proud, independent, fresh-bandaged roommate, in a lusty and joyous clinch worthy of Lady Chatterley, was enthusiastically embracing the janitor.

  XVI

  The detectives had a lot of questions. After a while the University Counsel came and had a lot of questions too. They all had to make statements, and it was almost dawn before they could leave. Maggie and Rick—no, it was Nick; Monica couldn’t get used to Maggie’s surprising friend—left together, and Monica took a brief nap on Rick’s cot so she could finish early with Moore’s rats and hurry on to the nursing home. As she was leaving, Barbara arrived.

  “My God,” said Barbara when Monica had sketched what had happened. Then she said, “Moore can be my new thesis adviser.” Then she said, “Mention my name too, okay? I let you look at the kidneys.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Monica, honey, the only thing better than being a black female Ph.D. right now is being a black female Ph.D. heroine. God, what a stroke! We can ride this publicity into any lab in the country!”

  But Monica’s real goal had still been the nursing home. Now, as the sky darkened outside, she realized that she had been watching Ted for hours. At first, he had not understood, had watched his hand form the letters one by one. But Monica urged him, “Don’t look, Ted. Think the word, and write it. Close your eyes. Think it.” And finally he managed. “Brain,” he wrote. “Brain,” read Monica.

  Astonished, he stared at the letters. “Brain,” she said again. He looked at her, thought a moment, and his fingers moved. “Monica,” she read.

  He said, “They know. My, not arms. Fingers.”

  “Yes. Your fingers know.”

  After that he would not be budged. He wrote word after word, and began to tear the paper into small bits, writing and saving words in a careful pile. Then he began something new. A fresh sheet of paper before him, he read his notes laboriously, letter by letter, straining to fix them in his tangled mind, and then effortlessly and joyously writing out short phrases. The lines were a little jumbled because he couldn’t look as he wrote, but his energy did not flag. Monica just watched now, fascinated, and when the nurses came to take him to dinner she waved them away. Finally, very late, he shyly handed her the paper. She was astonished. It held sentences. A whole paragraph, oddly scribbled but coherent.

  “Ever since my injury I have wondered what use I am now. sometimes I think that dying is better, in a way I died But now I hope I can contribute something, with the writing I can describe the effects of my injury. it is hard because words escape me the words come and go in my mind and I cannot control them but now if I know one is right I write it and save it. Then I try to make sentences then when I am pretty sure it makes sense I copy th
e sentence, maybe scientists like Monica can use my report to understand more about brain injuries maybe I can do something for science after all.” And at the very bottom, a little exuberant tag: “look ma no brain.”

  Later, she could cry. She managed to produce a sort of smile and put her arm around him, and said, “Okay, Ted, it’s a deal!”

  Together they might yet understand the secrets of the universe.

  Zelle had long since gone to sleep on the Seville’s shag carpet, and the Fats Waller tape had long since come to its twinkling close. Lying spent and contented at Nick’s side, Maggie trailed a drowsy fingertip along his arm and yawned. “Nick?”

  “Mmm?”

  She sounded dubious. “Monica says all this is mostly cortical.”

  “Sure.” He kissed her nose. “So does Shakespeare.”

  “Really?”

  “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind.”

  “Well, can’t argue with two authorities like that.” She yawned again, nuzzled his chest, and slept.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  P.M. Carlson taught psychology and statistics at Cornell University before deciding that mystery writing was more fun. She has published twelve mystery novels and over a dozen short stories. Her novels have been nominated for an Edgar Award, a Macavity Award, and twice for Anthony Awards. Two short stories were finalists for Agatha Awards. She edited the Mystery Writers Annual for Mystery Writers of America for several years, and served as president of Sisters in Crime.

  Books by P.M. Carlson:

  Audition for Murder: Maggie Ryan, 1967 (1985)

  Murder Is Academic: Maggie Ryan, 1968 (1985)

  Murder Is Pathological: Maggie Ryan, 1969 (1986)

  Murder Unrenovated: Maggie Ryan, 1972 (1988)

  Rehearsal for Murder: Maggie Ryan, 1973 (1988)

  Murder in the Dog Days: Maggie Ryan, 1975 (1991)

  Murder Misread: Maggie Ryan, 1977 (1990)