by Ross Pennie
“Myrtle’s nephew. He works for the current prime minister. Says the office is afraid of the tidbits I might reveal about the old guard. Afraid my insights will reflect badly on the current generation.” Betty pulled her bedsheet up to her collarbones. A moment went by. She looked exhausted. Then she rallied slightly and smiled. “Once I get out of this sickbed, the gang at the PMO will have to put away their champagne.”
“Betty, please,” Art said, squeezing her hand, “don’t talk like that. You’ve always been beloved.”
“Except when I poisoned my prime minister.”
“You what?” said Hamish.
“Gave him salmonella,” Betty said. “By accident, of course. But they never again let me contribute to the office potluck.”
Art’s face was full of concern. “How were you supposed to know home-grown sprouts, or whatever they were, could make anyone sick, let alone a prime minister.”
“Was he hospitalized?” Hamish asked.
“No, no,” she said. “Just a few days of the runs. And antibiotics, if I remember correctly. But when the health unit in Ottawa discovered it was my alfalfa sprouts that poisoned the PM, I was persona non grata in the lunchroom for a long time, I’ll tell you. But the boss was very good about it. When I retired, he named it the Betty McKenzie Lunchroom and had a plaque placed on the door.”
“Makes you a culinary legend, I would say,” Zol said.
“But it’s got Myrtle’s nephew worked up,” Betty said. “He’s not sure he wants his aunt living in the same residence as Lunchroom Betty. Told Myrtle I must be somehow responsible for the diarrhea around here.” She turned to Zol. “Between you and me, I wouldn’t be surprised if he called you from the PMO and threw his weight around. Just ignore him. He’s a not a very big fish.”
She gave Art a demure flash of her eyes, then turned a more determined gaze on Hamish. “So tell me, why did I get so sick and take so long to get better?”
Hamish and Zol exchanged glances.
Hamish clasped his gloved palms together. The gloves were contaminated with the invisible veneer of pathogens that coated everything in Betty’s room. He scratched his nose and cheek against his gown-covered shoulder. “You had two pathogens — two germs — at the same time. C diff and listeria. We had trouble . . . well, let’s just say we had to find them both, then treat both of them to make you better.”
If she’d sensed any evasion, she didn’t show it. In the PMO, she’d had years of practice keeping her observations and judgments to herself. Of course, she could voice them later, to anyone, any time it suited her. To the RCMP, perhaps, if they came calling again.
CHAPTER 29
Half an hour later, Zol led the way into Camelot’s reading room on the top floor of the turret. The room’s best feature was its heavy oak door, which he planned to shut as soon as Hamish, Natasha, and the available Camelot Irregulars got settled. It was past tea time, which meant they wouldn’t be disturbed.
The first thing he noticed, besides the room’s small size and overwhelming clutter, was the musty odour of stale coffee, old carpet, and heavy drapes. A dusty-rose loveseat and a striped armchair sat in front of the windows. Paperbacks spilled out of the curved bookshelves that gave the room its name. Two hardback chairs piled with dog-eared magazines crowded a small wooden table, on which were balanced two insulated carafes, a sugar bowl, a pitcher of milk, and a plate of stale-looking doughnuts. No sandwiches today. The place looked like an afterthought, somewhere to stash faded chintz, mismatching stripes, discarded newspapers, three garage-sale lamps, and, it seemed, past-their-prime snacks.
“Don’t sit on that,” Phyllis told Natasha, who was sweeping crumbs from the armchair’s frayed cushion. “Its unruly springs poke into one’s . . .” Phyllis tightened her lips and continued in a stage whisper: “Puga pyga.”
“Where would you like to sit, Miss Wedderspoon?” asked Natasha, struggling to keep a straight face.
“I seldom come here. It’s not sanitary. I’m not squeamish about bats, but I do draw the line at their droppings underfoot while I’m taking my tea. For some reason, they congregate here. But certainly not for the fine prose on offer.” Phyllis flicked her hand at the bookcase. “Just look at those potboilers. Tainted. Grinder. Darwin’s Nightmare. None of it proper literature.” She tugged at her cardigan, checked the floor for bat droppings, and strode to the loveseat. “I obtain my reading material from the public library. The Terryberry branch is a splendid resource. What’s more, the parking and Internet are free.”
Natasha covered her mouth and nodded politely, her eyes crinkling. She lifted the stack of magazines from one of the hardback chairs. As she sat down, Hamish did the same, and Art completed the circle with his scooter.
Zol closed the door and took a deep breath. He and his puga-whatever would have to take their chances with the prehistoric armchair. “Thank you for coming.”
“It’s about time we had a powwow,” said Phyllis. “No one tells us anything.”
“Now, now,” Art cautioned. “We met two days ago. Zol was kind enough to have us to his office. Remember?”
“Of course I remember,” Phyllis snapped. She pulled at a disobedient pleat in her kilt. “But surely, a few occasiones graves have turned up in the past forty-eight hours. Come now, you must have at least one significant development to report.”
Hamish turned to Zol and raised his eyebrows, his wide eyes replaying their heated conversation of a few minutes earlier. Hamish had insisted they bring Art and Phyllis into their confidence, tell them about Horvat’s bogus meds. Zol had said no, it was too early. A tongue might slip and send Horvat covering his tracks. But Hamish — hangover gone, the police reasonably hopeful about the Saab, his passions revived — was adamant. He insisted that Art, Phyllis, and the others laid up with repeated episodes of diarrhea in the past few weeks had every right to know they’d been fed counterfeit medication. And, Hamish reckoned, Art and Phyllis might have noticed something crucial to proving Horvat’s culpability. Zol had finally agreed, but only if they didn’t include Myrtle. The last thing he needed was the Prime Minister’s Office updated, via Myrtle’s nephew, on the latest commotions at Camelot Lodge.
At Zol’s nod, Hamish finished a long draft from his water bottle, screwed on the cap, then explained how he’d found the empty capsules.
For a moment, even Phyllis was dumbstruck. She and Art would have been less stunned if they’d been told Betty had spent the morning skydiving.
Fire lit Art’s face, the patches of rosacea on his cheeks glowing more crimson than ever. “Outrageous,” he sputtered.
“And sorry, Art, that’s not all,” Hamish said. “It looks like your Zytopril — your blood pressure pills — are counterfeits, too.”
“You mean poisonous?” Art said.
“Heavens, no,” Zol said. “Counterfeit in the sense that the tablets may be perfectly good but come from an unlicensed supplier. At a bargain price.”
“No point in mincing words, Dr. Szabo,” Phyllis said, her face more stern than anxious. “You mean pirated. Pure and simple.”
Hamish pulled the ballpoint from his shirt pocket and clicked it anxiously. “There’s no telling what’s in those pills. They could contain the genuine drug. Or they could be completely fake, with no active agent, just filler. How’s your blood pressure been lately, Art?”
“Hell . . . I don’t know,” Art said. “It’s been ages since Dr. Jamieson checked it.”
“Did the nurse take it last time you were in bed with the runs?” Hamish asked.
Art shrugged. “I suppose. Didn’t mention it was a problem.”
“Well, I’ll take it as soon as we’re finished here.”
“Pirating is big business,” Phyllis said. “The Internet is rife with deceivers. How many other dubious medications is Horvat purveying?”
“So far, there are only two that we know about,” Zol said.
Phyllis scowled and voiced a skeptical tsk.
“We have a
n independent pharmacist working with us,” Hamish countered. “A man we can trust. He’s checking all the meds Horvat’s been dispensing at the Lodge.”
“I don’t think there can be anything fake about the arthritis meds,” Natasha said. “There’s a strong link between listeria infection and both Xanucox and Durimab, which means they must be biologically active.”
Phyllis pulled the pencil from behind her ear and waved it at Art. “I warned you before, it’s not natural to take so many medications.” She straightened her back and fussed with her kilt, then pressed her lips together and held Art with her brown-eyed glare. That look must have bolted countless teenagers to their seats until they could decline murus muri and puella puellae to her satisfaction. “All I ever take is a baby aspirin. Eighty-one milligrams.”
“But you haven’t been cursed with arthritis,” Art said, pointing to his legs. “Nor neuropathy.”
Hamish grabbed at his belt and pulled his chiming cellphone from its holster. He flipped it open. “Hamish Wakefield here . . . Hi Ellen . . . You do? We’re discussing them right now . . . And? . . . That was fast . . . What’s it called, again? . . . Oh . . . Atlanta? Impressive . . . Every one, eh? Wow! . . . Correct, I looked after him . . . That can’t be right, Ellen. There has to be a mix-up, a glitch in your new method . . . Oh. Yes, of course, your controls . . . Sorry, I understand. I didn’t mean it the way it . . . You do have to admit, this is a surprise. I mean, totally unexpected . . . Yes, I’ll share this with the folks at the health unit. They’ll be amazed.”
Hamish said goodbye, closed his phone, and put it away. Oblivious to the four expectant faces aimed at him, he uncapped his water bottle and sipped delicately. Then dabbed his lips with a tissue and stared into space.
“Hamish!” Zol said, “You’re killing us. What’s so amazing?”
“That was Ellen,” Hamish said finally. He turned to Art and Phyllis. “She’s the chief tech in the diagnostic microbiology lab at Caledonian University Medical Centre.”
“We gathered that much,” Zol said. He thrust his hands into his pockets, but he’d left home without his loonies. Damn.
“Ellen finished fingerprinting the listeria isolates,” Hamish continued.
“Pulse-field gels on all of them?” Natasha said. “That’s a lot of work. How’d she do it so fast?”
“She didn’t,” Hamish said. “She used a new technique. MLVA. Got the primers from Atlanta, the CDC. Overnight courier.”
The epidemiological whiz kids at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control always had some new wonder toy from the world of molecular genetics. “ML-what?” Zol asked.
“Let’s just say it uses DNA amplification technology to examine fragments of a bacterium’s genetic code. Much faster than running pulse-field gels, and the results are reproducible from lab to lab.”
Hamish explained that such reproducibility was a breakthrough. Different labs could compare their strains from a distance, without testing all the strains in the same lab at the same time.
“You mean they can make the comparison with a simple phone call, a fax, or a file from the Web?” Zol asked.
“That’s right,” Hamish said. “MLVA is turning the pulse-field method into a dinosaur.”
“In plain language?” Phyllis tsked.
Natasha glanced at Zol before explaining. “It’s a way of fingerprinting the listeria found in the dozens of stools submitted from Camelot’s residents with diarrhea. A way of telling whether the bacteria are identical, like twins. Or close relatives, like sisters or cousins. Or come from different families altogether.”
Phyllis nodded and smiled. She liked Natasha’s explanation.
“Out with it, Dr. Wakefield,” Art said. “Tell us what’s the surprise.”
“Ellen tested every listeria recovered from Camelot residents over the past two months — from stools, blood, and cerebrospinal fluid. And she examined listeria from a bunch of other patients with no links to Camelot — those were her controls.” Hamish stopped and looked from face to face, making sure his audience was with him.
“And?” Zol said, struggling to keep the exasperation out of his voice.
“The Camelot isolates all belong to a well-known strain, serovar 4b. It’s the most aggressive listeria, so there’s no surprise there. Then she did the genetic fingerprinting with MLVA. All the Camelot listerias came out identical, but completely different from the other patients she tested except one.”
“No genetic variations within the Camelot cohort?” Natasha said.
“None.”
“A huge set of twins?” Art said proudly, clearly pleased at his grasp of a complex situation.
“Exactly,” Hamish said.
Natasha opened her notebook. “The first Camelot isolate was obtained from a stool sample submitted on January eleventh. The most recent would be Earl Crabtree’s, grown from his blood culture taken two days ago. Does that sound right, Dr. Wakefield?”
“Correct.”
Natasha looked up from her notepad, the wheels turning furiously. “That’s a span of sixty-seven days.” She paused again, her pen suspended in the air. She looked at Zol for reassurance, as if she needed his permission to voice her opinion.
“What are you thinking, Natasha?” Zol said.
“This has to be a point source,” she said, her confidence growing. “And one that’s sustained over a period of more than two months.”
“Again, in plain language?” Phyllis said. “Is one to suppose that a point source is a single object that’s contaminated with the bacteria in question?”
“Exactly,” Zol said.
Art dipped his chin to the tea table beside him, his eyes hooded with guilt. “And you think our illicit salami sandwiches are the culprits?”
“Are the sandwiches always salami?” Natasha asked.
“Oh, no,” Art explained. “Salami is just my favourite. We’ll have it for a week, then not see anything but turkey for a while. Then bologna turns up. Then nothing but tuna or egg salad for a few days. Come to think of it, we’ve had a lot of that soya stuff lately. It may look like bologna, but one bite and I can tell it didn’t come from anything with legs.”
Zol remembered the outbreak of listeria at the Royal Hamilton Hotel last fall — traced to cheese made from unpasteurized milk. “Was there cheese in the sandwiches?” he asked.
“Occasionally,” Art said.
Natasha dashed a few notes into her scribbler, then paused before asking, “Do all the residents eat the sandwiches from this room?”
“Hard to say,” Art said. “It’s a casual arrangement. You bring your own mug, help yourself to tea or coffee, grab a sandwich, then take it back to your room. As you can see, there’s not much space to sit.”
“Some of us never come up here,” Phyllis said. “Maude, Myrtle, and I make our own tea. And we don’t snack between meals.”
“As I remember, Miss Wedderspoon, the three of you haven’t had any diarrhea,” Natasha said.
Phyllis crossed her arms. “Certainly not. Mea non culpa.”
Natasha dipped into her briefcase and pulled out a folder. She riffled through it until she found what she was looking for and turned to Phyllis. “In the medication survey, the three of you put down hardly any medicines. You take your baby aspirin, Maude takes only vitamins, and Myrtle takes Zytopril, acetaminophen, and a sleeping pill.”
“She didn’t listen to me about those sleeping pills, and now she’s addicted.”
“None of you have bad arthritis?” Natasha asked.
“We exercise together. Regularly. Walk the circuit in Lime Ridge Mall from nine to nine-thirty, three mornings a week.”
Zol pictured Art’s best friend Earl, fighting for his life at Caledonian Medical Centre. He touched Art’s arm. “When would be the last time Earl ate one of the sandwiches from this room?”
“He’s fussy. Only eats corned beef. We haven’t seen it around here for a month, maybe longer. He wouldn’t touch the salami or the fake bologna t
hey’ve been serving lately.”
“I don’t think our source can be the sandwiches,” Zol said. He eyed the tea things on the table. His mouth was parched. He had half a mind to drink the milk right out of the pitcher. Only half a mind.
“Let me tell you about your sandwiches,” Zol continued. “They’ve been coming to you from all over the place. Colleen followed them here from the Royal Hamilton Hotel, the Convention Centre, Four Corners Fine Foods, and Delia’s Donuts in Ancaster.” He explained about Waste Not and its roster of volunteer drivers who recycled food to the needy by shuttling leftovers from hotels, restaurants, and caterers. He told them how Gus brought a tray or two of sandwiches back to Camelot Lodge at the end of each run.
“Recycled sandwiches! I ask you,” Phyllis said. “What will Gloria and Gus do next to save a few pennies at our expense? I knew there was a reason I never took tea in this room.”
“That explains the bread,” Art said. “Dry as toast until you slather it with mustard.”
“But what’s your bacterial genetic whoozits got to do with Gus’s misappropriated sandwiches?” Phyllis said.
“There are hundreds of clones of listeria,” Hamish said. “Each has a unique genetic fingerprint. It’s impossible that one clone, with a single fingerprint, could contaminate so many different sandwiches obtained from diverse sources over a two-month period.”
“If the sandwiches were the source,” Zol said, “Ellen’s new test would have detected a variety of listeria fingerprints among the Camelot samples. But she found only one.”
“And the five cases from that outbreak at the Royal Hamilton last fall don’t match the Camelot ones. Ellen was clear about that,” Hamish said.
“That lets the Royal Hamilton’s cheese supplier off the hook,” Zol said.
The room fell quiet as Art and Phyllis tried to puzzle out the science, and Natasha studied her notes. Hamish looked like he was chewing on something Ellen had told him. Whatever it was, it had him puzzled. Zol wondered where to go from here. He shifted on the armchair, away from that spring poking him in the ass.
“Tell me about the mustard, Mr. Greenwood,” Natasha said.
