The Lethal Helix

by Don Donaldson

  Grant shot to his feet. “Now that’s pretty nasty.”

  Holly crossed the room and snatched a framed photo of Grant accepting some swim medal off the wall, lifted it over her head, and impaled it on one of his trophies, sending glass everywhere. “No,” she said. “That’s nasty.”

  Fighting back tears, Holly returned to her own floor.

  “When’s the date?” Rena asked as Holly steamed past.

  “He’d rather travel,” Holly said, leaving the words trailing behind her.

  In her office, Holly grabbed her coat and headed back to the elevators, ignoring the receptionist, who tried to hand her a message. Feeling utterly betrayed by Grant and stupid for allowing that to happen, Holly claimed her car from the parking garage next to the medical arts building and pulled onto Madison Avenue.

  Last year in Memphis, the terrible summer heat had carried all the way into mid-October, irritating the inhabitants and making many of them, Holly included, wonder why they remained in a place where summer lingered so long. This year, in a turnaround that would help make the average temperature for October match the benign numbers put out by the weather service, the city had been experiencing record lows for the last two nights. With the temperature now hovering around thirty-four and a low of twenty-nine expected, it would only be a matter of hours before the light mist speckling Holly’s windshield would turn dangerous, a rotten day for aimless driving around.

  But that’s what Holly did, finding herself an hour later in Mississippi, forty miles down I-55. In truth, the trip hadn’t been worthless, for she’d made a decision. She didn’t need Grant to have a child. She didn’t need any man. Well, at least not one she’d ever have to look at. It was too late today to call the clinic, but first thing in the morning . . .

  “HELLO, THIS IS Doctor Holly Fisher. May I speak to Doctor Morrison please.”

  There was a moment of silence, and then the woman on the other end said, “Did you say Holly Fisher?” as if Holly were some kind of celebrity whose call was a big surprise.

  “That’s right.”

  “I’ll get the doctor.”

  Now that the moment was almost here, Holly felt apprehensive . . . not so much about her decision, but whether the whole thing would work. For most women, to conceive through the use of a sperm donor was a relatively simple matter; pick the donor, show up at the appropriate time of the month, and wait for results. If it doesn’t take, you try again.

  But with Holly it was different. Warned that the chemo she’d be given to kill her bone marrow would probably also destroy all the eggs in her ovaries, Holly had delayed treatment until Doctor Susan Morrison at Fertility Associates had induced her to super ovulate eleven mature eggs. For seven years those eggs had been sitting in liquid nitrogen at the clinic waiting for Holly . . . eleven tiny spheres, hardly big enough to see with the naked eye, let alone hold a woman’s future. And now their time had come.

  “This is Doctor Morrison.”

  “Hello, Doctor. Holly Fisher here. Seven years ago I had some of my eggs stored there while I underwent chemotherapy . . .”

  “Yes, Doctor Fisher. I remember that very clearly.”

  “I’d like to make an appointment to discuss plans for fertilizing those eggs and implanting them. I know it’s short notice, but I just decided to do this, and I’m free today. Could you possibly see me?”

  “Yes. I most definitely think we should get together at the earliest moment.”

  The clinic was two hundred miles away in Jackson, Mississippi, where Holly had been living when she was diagnosed. Since it was one of the best anywhere, she’d never considered moving her eggs to a Memphis clinic. But that meant . . . “It’ll take me about three and a half hours to make the drive.”

  “Would two o’clock work for you?”

  “Perfect. I’ll see you then.”

  It was only after hanging up that Holly reflected on the odd phrasing Morrison had used when she’d agreed to an appointment today. She’d actually seemed eager for them to meet, as if the clinic needed the business, which, considering its reputation, didn’t seem likely.

  Thinking that it was probably just her imagination, Holly turned her mind to the things she’d have to do before heading for Jackson.

  THE WAITING ROOM for Fertility Associates was more like a drawing room in someone’s home than a doctor’s office: a muted floral carpet, comfortable upholstered chairs, and Impressionist-style paintings of children at play in gardens bursting with flowers. The presence of six other women waiting for their appointments showed that business was in fact as good as Holly had believed.

  Holly stepped up to the receptionist, a pretty oliveskinned brunette behind a carved English desk, and gave her name. Hearing it, the girl inhaled sharply, then practically lunged for the phone. She announced Holly’s arrival in a breathless voice.

  What on earth is going on here?

  A nurse appeared in the doorway to the clinic area. “Doctor Fisher, please . . . come on back.”

  Holly followed the nurse to an unoccupied office with furnishings that continued the theme from the waiting room.

  The nurse waved Holly into a chair in front of a larger version of the desk out front. “Doctor Morrison will be with you very shortly,” the nurse said, leaving Holly alone.

  On the credenza behind Morrison’s desk was an assortment of pictures—a couple of kids, most likely her grandchildren; a young man wearing a graduation robe and mortarboard; a teenage girl in a prom dress; and one of Morrison herself in camouflage fatigues, a shotgun tucked under one armpit, the opposite hand holding up a fistful of limp ducks.

  “Doctor Fisher . . . so good to see you.” Morrison came over and clasped Holly’s hand in both of her own, as if they were dear friends. Though Susan Morrison had to be nearly sixty, the years had not found their way into her eyes, which retained the glow of youth. But there was also something else in there . . . Still holding Holly’s hand, she said, “I hope it wasn’t wrong of me to ask you to make such a long drive, but . . .”

  While Holly wondered why Morrison was apologizing for arranging an appointment Holly had asked for, a terrible thought took shape. The odd things she’d been noticing in talking to Morrison and the receptionist . . . Maybe it was because . . .

  Oh my God.

  “I just didn’t feel right about saying this over the phone,” Morrison continued. “The eggs you left in our care . . . they’re gone.”

  2

  “WHAT DO YOU mean, gone?”

  Morrison released Holly’s hand and pulled the other visitor’s chair in the room around so it faced Holly. Morrison sat and folded her hands in her lap. Then, her eyes on the carpet, she began shaking her head. Finally, she looked at Holly. “In May of last year, a man who said he was your lawyer came here with your death certificate and a copy of your will, in which you gave instructions that in the event of your death, he was to take possession of the eggs we were holding for you and arrange for their disposal.”

  “And you gave them to him?”

  “I know. Looking back, it seems foolish, but at the time, well . . . I had no reason to question any of it. When you first came to us, you were gravely ill. So it all seemed reasonable . . . that you hadn’t made it.”

  Holly went limp in her chair. Her chin dropped to her chest. In the dark hours while battling back from the chemo and then later, fighting off the pneumonia that had settled in her lungs before her purged marrow could restart her immune system, she’d been sustained by the thought of those eleven eggs, safe from everything her doctors and her disease could do to her. She’d believed that one day she would claim those eggs and fulfill her destiny, not through adoption, not with another woman’s genes, but with her own, the mystical continuity of life unbroken. Her leukemia was not an inherited disease, so there was no reason to fear that she would transmit
a defective genome. There’d just be a son or daughter to carry on, to go forward. Now, all that had vanished.

  Suddenly, her demeanor changed. She straightened in her chair. Her fingers curled into fists. No . . . her eggs hadn’t vanished. They’d been taken . . . stolen in a brazen, cruel act. Her fingernails began to cut into the skin of her palms. And then she remembered . . .

  “What did this lawyer look like?”

  Morrison searched her mind. “He’s hard to describe, because he wasn’t distinctive in any way; mid-fifties, relatively short brown hair, average build, maybe a little on the heavy side, average height.”

  Holly shook her head. “No, that’s probably not the guy I’m thinking of. But I’ll bet the two work together.”

  “Then you know about all this?”

  “Maybe. Last year I was approached by a slightly built man with a neatly trimmed mustache and goatee, who was part of a research team doing an NIH-funded study on enzyme levels in human oocytes. He said they were trying to determine if certain physical traits in women could predict that their eggs contained high levels of several key enzymes associated with fertilization and implantation.”

  “I’ve never heard of any study like that.”

  “As he told it, this research group believed their work would ultimately help in the management of infertility. He said I possessed the traits they were looking for and offered me five thousand dollars to participate in the study.”

  “So they could induce you to super ovulate and collect some of your eggs.”

  “Exactly. Of course, because of the chemo I’d had, I couldn’t have accepted even if I’d wanted to, which I didn’t. To me, oocytes aren’t just cells to be played with and then discarded.” Anticipating a reaction to this last comment from Morrison, Holly quickly added, “I know. If everyone felt that way you might not possess the skills I wanted you to use on my behalf. Okay, so I’m a hypocrite.”

  “I don’t think that. You told this man about your medical history?”

  “Not in any great detail, but too much to be telling a stranger.”

  “Did you mention this clinic?”

  “The bastards must have figured it out . . . somehow learned I was living in Jackson when I was diagnosed, took a chance, and showed up here.”

  “That would explain why the lawyer took your eggs away in a small container of liquid nitrogen. I wondered about that at the time. If you’ll pardon my skepticism, I find it difficult to believe that any group funded by NIH would do something like this.”

  “Lots of money at stake. No results—end of grant. But I’ll tell you this, if they think they can meddle with me and destroy my future and nothing’s going to happen to them, they’re too stupid to have a grant. Considering how much time has elapsed, it’s probably futile to hope they haven’t used what they took yet. But I’m still going to track them down, and I don’t care how long it takes.”

  “I can’t help but feel responsible.”

  “Don’t. You were tricked.”

  “I take my responsibilities to my patients very seriously. And this situation makes me sick. I shouldn’t have just handed your eggs over without checking further. I’m embarrassed and angry. And I want to help find these people.”

  “I guess you don’t still have the lawyer’s card.”

  “I don’t think he gave me one.”

  “So where do we start?”

  “By going through a listing of all reproduction-related grants currently funded by NIH. I have the data at home, but as you saw when you came in, I’ve got a full schedule the rest of the afternoon, and it’ll take a while to go through it. How about I give you a call as soon as I’ve done that? And we’ll decide what to do next.”

  They exchanged home, cell, and pager numbers, and Holly left to make the long drive back to Memphis. Stopping only for gas and a visit to the restroom in a nearby McDonald’s, she reached the Memphis city limits a little after six o’clock, angrier than when she’d left Jackson. By then it had occurred to her that as slow as the government works, if this research grant they were looking for was a relatively new one, it might not appear in Susan Morrison’s database. Needing to do something herself to find the creatures who had so thoroughly loused up her life, she did not go home, but drove instead to the public library, where she had to cruise the lot three times before finding a parking space.

  It didn’t seem likely that the man who’d tried to enlist her in the study had come to Memphis just to court her. More likely he was here on a general recruiting trip and had just seen her by accident, which in turn meant that they might have tried to find other donors through an ad in the personals section of the paper.

  Inside, the library was overrun with kids . . . standing at all the computers, occupying all the chairs at every table, filling the place with youthful energy that made Holly feel her loss even more keenly than before.

  The children did not have much interest in the microfilm records of past newspapers, so after Holly obtained the files for March, April, and May of the previous year, she had no trouble finding a viewer.

  About forty-five minutes into her search, she found the ad in the April twelfth edition:

  EARN UP TO $5,000

  Women wanted to participate in federally funded research project. If you are healthy and between the ages of 18 and 35 and are willing to provide scientists with a small number of eggs from your ovaries, call . . .

  Continuing her search, she spot-checked later dates and learned that the ad had run about a month. Harvesting eggs was something you couldn’t do in a motel room. They would have needed a significant amount of equipment, which meant they had either set up a temporary clinic or made arrangements with a local medical practice to use theirs.

  Holly made a copy of the ad and returned the files. When she reached the lobby, she found a quiet corner, got out her cell phone and punched in the number from the ad. After two rings, a recorded message informed her that the number was no longer in service.

  Finished at the library, she returned to her car. As she pulled onto Peabody and headed toward the river, she saw an aged West Highland terrier plodding along the sidewalk. The dog stopped and looked back, apparently waiting for its owner, an old man moving at a glacial pace, to catch up. Driving on, Holly wondered what would happen to the dog if the old man died. Would it find a good home for its remaining years? Or would there be no one to care for it? Holly had long wanted a dog, but until she could be sure her leukemia wouldn’t return, she hadn’t felt it would be right to buy one. Just another example of how, even though she was still alive, her disease had robbed her of life.

  By now, her blood sugar had fallen to a level that could not be ignored, so before going home, she stopped by the Bayou Bar and Grill for some red beans and rice.

  Holly lived in a multi-story apartment building where, except for the time when three monkeys got loose from the nearby zoo and took up residence for two days on the building’s balconies, life was uneventful, even for those who were not sure they had much of it left. During the drive to Jackson earlier in the day, she had thought that with a child, she would need more room, perhaps a small house in one of the historical neighborhoods. But with her hopes stolen, it now seemed likely she would remain where she was.

  As she opened the door to her apartment, she heard the phone. Dashing to catch it, she found herself hoping it was Grant.

  “Holly, this is Susan Morrison. I didn’t find any listing for that research study. It’s possible though that it just hasn’t made it into the records yet. Tomorrow I’ll call a friend at NIH and ask about it.”

  “An hour ago I thought I had a lead here,” Holly said. “For a month last year, around the time I was approached, the Memphis paper ran a classified ad trying to recruit egg donors for a federally funded research project.”

  “That has to be them,” S
usan said.

  “I called the number listed, hoping it would turn out to be a clinic they’d tapped into for its equipment, but the phone’s been disconnected.”

  “It’s possible the paper still has a record of who took out the ad. The phone company too. I don’t think they install phones without knowing who they’re dealing with, even if they paid in advance.”

  “Those are great ideas,” Holly said. “I’ll look into them.”

  “So I guess this group we’re looking for just set up their own temporary operation.”

  “That had to be a lot of trouble.”

  “Expensive too,” Susan said.

  “What kind of scientists would do what they did to me?”

  “Maybe we’ll find out tomorrow.”

  “You’ll let me know as soon as you learn anything?”

  “I’ll give it top priority. And Holly . . . I want to apologize again for not being more careful.”

  3

  THE NEXT MORNING, when she had a couple of free minutes, Holly called the classified desk at the newspaper. The clerk who answered thought they probably had a name on file for whoever had taken out the ad, but it sounded like a court order would be needed to get it. Same with the phone company. With patients waiting, she didn’t have the time to ponder her next step, but it seemed clear that whatever crime had occurred had taken place in Mississippi, not Tennessee. That alone would surely complicate any effort to force the paper and phone company to release their records.

  At ten forty-five, while Holly was with an AIDS patient she was treating for anemia, there was a knock on the examining room door. “Come in.”

  It was Debra Demetrius, the receptionist. “You’ve got a phone call from a Doctor Susan Morrison . . .”

  “I’ll take it in my office.”

  Holly excused herself and went quickly to the phone. “Hi, Susan. What have you learned?”