The Lethal Helix

by Don Donaldson

  “It was something I couldn’t take on the plane with me.”

  “What?”

  “My Beretta.”

  “Isn’t that a . . .”

  “An automatic pistol.”

  “Now I am getting nervous . . . if you think we need to be armed.”

  “It’s just a precaution.”

  After finding the ad in the Dallas paper, Holly had called Susan to discuss what to do next. In that conversation, they’d come to realize they had very little to offer the Dallas police to get them involved, particularly since the new ad wasn’t worded exactly like the one in Memphis. Where in Memphis they had used the phrase “federally funded research project,” the Dallas ad said “major research project.” This not only removed the possibility of bringing fraud charges against them in Texas, but also created some doubt that they were the same people.

  So the two women decided to visit the clinic and see what they could learn. Holly had then called the number in the Dallas paper and passed herself off as a prospective donor, receiving a two o’clock appointment for the following Monday and instructions on how to find the clinic.

  From the airport, Holly and Susan took a shuttle to a National car rental office. A few minutes later they headed for their appointment with Susan behind the wheel of a Buick LaCrosse.

  “I saw that picture in your office of you with the shotgun. How is it you’re so familiar with guns?” Holly asked.

  “My mother and father were both hunters. It was just something I grew up with. And I was in the Israeli army. Not by choice, of course. Everybody has to serve.” Answering the question on Holly’s face, Susan added, “My maiden name is Kaplan. My husband, Walter, was kind of a problem for my parents at first, but they came around.”

  “Did you see any action in the army?”

  “They try not to put women in combat situations, but I chose the division that builds and maintains the kibbutzim, the settlements on the country’s borders. From time to time, we had Arab invasions and sometimes I had to defend myself.”

  “Did you ever shoot anyone?”

  “Like I said, I had to defend myself. So who are you, Holly?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Draw me a picture. What gets you riled?”

  Holly shrugged. “Rap music, humidity, people who spit on the sidewalk . . .” She thought a moment. “And men who mislead you.”

  “Sounds like someone’s shining knight fell off his horse.”

  “Big time.”

  “It’s a huge planet, Holly. They’re not all like that.”

  “Maybe you got the last good one.”

  “Walter was a find, true enough, but it’s dinosaurs that are extinct, not good men.”

  “What does Walter do for a living?”

  “He teaches paleontology at Southern Miss.”

  “Hence the dinosaur reference.”

  Susan smiled. “You’re on to me.”

  As they drove toward Plano, a Dallas suburb, Susan broached a new topic. “I’m sure we discussed this when you first left your eggs at the clinic, but we haven’t talked about it since you came for them. You do realize that the small number of your eggs we had to work with, and the fact that they’d been frozen, were significant obstacles to success.”

  “I know. But there was a chance and now . . .”

  “Do you remember that case a while back where, a year or so after these two women had given birth in the same hospital, it was discovered they had each been given the other’s child by mistake?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “What do you think they did?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Both women decided to keep the child they’d been given.”

  “. . . to avoid traumatizing the kids, I guess.”

  “And because both women loved the child they had.”

  “I don’t believe I could have done that.”

  “You may not know yourself as well as you think.”

  The clinic in Plano was in a modern, three-story, brick professional building with a parking lot landscaped with stunted pine trees. In fact, the whole city seemed unable to produce a tree of any size, probably because of too little rainfall, Holly concluded.

  They left the car in the parking lot and went inside, where they took the elevator to the second floor and located suite 206.

  Holly paused at the door and looked at Susan. “Ready?”

  “Let’s go.”

  The waiting room was small and not particularly well decorated, but it had the necessities: a half-dozen chairs, a couple of nondescript end tables bearing cheap lamps, and a rack on the wall offering multiple copies of People magazine. The only other person in the room was a young woman with straight brown hair and a gold ring in her left nostril. She nodded vaguely at their entrance and went back to her magazine.

  Holly and Susan crossed the room to the counter in the far wall, behind which they could see a nurse in white with her back to them. “Hello, I’m . . .” Holly paused. Jesus . . . what name had she used when she’d called? Then she remembered. “I’m Carol Lewis. I have an appointment.”

  The nurse turned and came to the counter. She had a pale pinched face that wasn’t flattered by her short blonde hair, which curled under on each side so it perched atop her head like a parchment scroll. She reached to her left and picked up a clipboard holding a form and a small pencil with no eraser. “Please fill this out and return it to me,” she said, handing it over.

  Behind Holly, Susan shifted her position to get a better look at the rest of the room beyond. All she saw was a desk, a computer workstation, a microwave, and a coffeemaker. Holly took the form to a chair and began work on it while Susan sat next to her, alertly watching and listening for anything that would be useful in proving that these were the people they were after.

  The form was mostly a standard medical history. Holly lied liberally as she worked through it.

  Suddenly, the door to the clinic opened, and a young woman who looked too normal to be selling her eggs came out, walked quickly through the waiting room without looking at anyone, and left. A few seconds later, the door opened again, and the nurse called for Nan Shivers, the girl with the ring in her nose. When Holly finished the form, she put it on the counter and returned to her chair.

  Now the chase got dull as she and Susan waited to be seen. Fifteen minutes passed like a funeral procession, and then Nan Shivers came out looking no different than when she went in. She hadn’t been gone long enough for them to have collected any of her eggs, so this must have been either a reconnoitering visit, or she was in some stage of preparing for her collection. She, too, left without comment.

  There was another short wait, presumably while Holly’s form was reviewed, and then she was called to the back.

  “Hope it’s okay for my friend to come too,” she said to the nurse. “You know, for moral support.”

  “That’s for the doctor to decide.”

  Holly and Susan followed her past a room with an examining table and other medical equipment, to an office, where they were met by a reasonably attractive older woman with her dark hair pulled severely back from her face in a bun.

  She extended her hand. “Hello Carol. I’m Doctor Sartain. It’s nice to meet you.”

  Holly shook the woman’s hand then introduced Susan. “This is my friend . . .” Having not made up a name for Susan and failing to see how it could do any harm, Holly just used her real name. “I’d like for her to hear about this too, if you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all.”

  When everyone was seated, Doctor Sartain said, “Carol, from the information you’ve provided, it appears that you’re an ideal candidate for our program. But I’m curious. Why have you come to us?”

  Though surpris
ed by the question, Holly could see only one reason. “The money.”

  “So you have no problem with this?”

  “Exactly what will you be doing with my eggs? You won’t be creating embryos with them, will you?”

  “I can assure you the eggs will never be fertilized.”

  “Then I have no problems.”

  “But you should realize that once you commit to the program, there will be a fair amount of inconvenience. We’ll have to draw blood numerous times, and there will be a significant number of hormone injections to stimulate your ovaries to yield more than the single egg they normally produce each month. As the time for collection draws near, you’ll have to come in a couple of times for ultrasound examinations of your ovaries so we can closely monitor how they are responding. On the day of collection, you’ll be given some medication through an intravenous line to make you drowsy. The entire collection procedure will only take about thirty minutes, but you’ll need someone to drive you home.”

  As Dr. Sartain outlined their procedures for Holly, Susan noted that there were no medical degrees on the wall.

  “Think you can handle all that?” Sartain asked.

  “I’m sure I can. Where will the study using my eggs be conducted?”

  “We prefer our donors not know that.”

  “Why?”

  “For the same reason adoption agencies maintain anonymity between the birth mother and the people with whom the child is placed.”

  “This hardly seems like a similar circumstance.”

  “Certainly there are significant differences, but the board that oversees our work believes in the policy and insists we observe it.”

  “So the research won’t be done in Dallas. You’re just a collection agency.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “And you travel from city to city?”

  Though Susan wanted very much to know the answers to the questions Holly was asking, she was becoming uncomfortable at how they might sound to Sartain.

  “Forgive me for saying so, but I think we’re drifting a bit from the purpose of this meeting,” Sartain said. “Do you have any other questions involving your participation?”

  Holly thought a moment. Then, to appear legit, asked, “If I decide to participate, when would I begin?”

  “As soon as possible.”

  “I guess that’s it then. I will need a little time to think it over.”

  Sartain got an odd look on her face. “Don’t you want to know about the money?”

  Holly threw her hands up in a “dumb me” gesture. “How could I have forgotten that?”

  “We pay two thousand dollars just for signing up. Then, for each egg we collect, you get another five hundred, up to a total of five thousand. If you complete our entire protocol, and for some reason we obtain no eggs, you still get the two thousand. But you must complete the protocol. How does that sound?”

  “It seems fair.”

  Sartain rose out of her chair. “Then we’ll wait to hear your decision.”

  On the way out, Susan glanced into the room with the computer workstation and saw the nurse conferring with a man in a gray suit. Neither of them looked at Susan, but when Holly passed, the man turned his head in her direction.

  In the hall, Holly let out a held breath. “Whew. I’m glad that’s over. But I don’t think we learned much.”

  “On the contrary,” Susan said. “Did you notice the man talking to the nurse as we left?”

  “I saw him. So?”

  “He’s the lawyer who took your eggs.”

  6

  HOLLY REACHED FOR the door to the waiting room, intending to go back and confront the man Susan had seen.

  “Hold on,” Susan said. “I don’t think we ought to reveal ourselves to them yet. Let’s go down to that little refreshment stand in the lobby, get a cup of coffee, and think this through.”

  Somewhat reluctantly, Holly nodded. “Okay.”

  Downstairs, Susan bought two Colombian mocha lattes and they took them to one of the small tables nearby.

  “You were right to stop me up there,” Holly said. “I was just so mad I wanted to get my hands on him. But we should probably just go to police headquarters, wherever that is, and tell them everything.”

  Retreating into thought, Susan lightly cradled her coffee with one hand while the fingers of the other tapped on the side. Then she said, “Our only real piece of evidence connecting them to what happened is that guy. If he should disappear . . . Oh-oh.” Susan looked down and supported her forehead with her hand, shielding her face. “There he is, about twenty feet behind you. He knows me so I can’t watch where he goes.”

  “He’s heading for the front door,” Holly said, following his progress with her head turned slightly his way. “Okay, he’s outside.”

  Susan shot to her feet, turned, and went after him. “C’mon. We don’t want to lose him.”

  When the two women stepped from the building, the lawyer was about fifteen yards ahead on their left, entering the first parking bay in the lot.

  “He’s going to his car,” Susan said. “Stay with him. Get his license number if you can. I’ll pick up our car and come back for you.”

  Susan set out at an angle toward the far side of the lot.

  Needing to get closer to the man, Holly picked up the pace.

  About halfway down the parking bay, he went to a tan car and got in. Positioning herself at the rear of a vehicle six cars away, Holly pretended to search her bag for her keys. When the man backed out, she got a clear look at his Texas plates.

  Just as he disappeared around the cars at the far end of the bay, Susan pulled up beside her.

  “You get the number?” she asked as Holly got in.

  Holly recited the number and Susan gave chase.

  At the highway, he turned toward Dallas. Susan could have entered the highway right behind him, but instead let a few other cars get between them.

  “Just because he has Texas plates doesn’t mean he lives here,” Holly observed. “That could be a rental car.”

  “All the more reason for us not to lose him.”

  For several miles they encountered no problems. Then, as they approached a large intersection, the tan car slowed and its right turn signal came on. Instead of turning onto the intersecting street, the lawyer went into the Exxon station on the corner, where he pulled up on the near side of the cashier’s building.

  Thinking quickly, Susan went past the station, made a right at the corner, and entered the station from an access on that side, where the lawyer couldn’t see them. Intending to park next to the air hose, which would give them a clear view of the tan car when it left, she made a wide loop and came back hard against the curb on the outside of the pump island.

  On the opposite side of the station, the lawyer had found that both 87-octane pumps were out of order. If he’d chosen to reach the island on the other side of the station by going around behind the store, everything probably would have been fine. Instead, cell phone to his ear, he circled to the front and came at the other pumps so that he passed Susan and Holly with barely two feet between his car and theirs.

  When the lawyer saw Susan, it was obvious he recognized her. Then he looked at Holly. Hitting the accelerator, he shot past them and fishtailed out of sight around the cashier’s building.

  The two women knew that the only route out of the station from the rear was back onto the highway in the original direction he was going. But at the light he would have several options. Susan put their car in gear and waited for him to reappear.

  He did so a few seconds later, speeding toward the intersection, where the light was against him.

  Holly saw it coming as if in slow motion . . . another car approaching the intersection at a high rate of speed from th
e right. She winced, and her hand went to her mouth. The oncoming vehicle hit the tan car on the side, dead center, filling the air with a sickening cacophony of contorting metal and breaking glass. With the force of the impact, the driver’s door flew open and the lawyer’s body was thrown into the air. Still as if in slow motion, Holly saw the body tilt in the air and hit the pavement head first.

  Moved by the horror of what she’d seen, Holly had no thoughts that he’d received the punishment he deserved for what he’d done to her. There was only her racing heart and the image of the frightening damage such a fall can inflict. Then objectivity set in. She was a doctor and there were people who needed her. She and Susan left their car and headed for the crash simultaneously.

  “I’ll check the lawyer,” Susan said as they ran. “You see about the driver of the other car.”

  Holly’s assignment turned out to be a redhead in her twenties. The deployment of her airbag had saved her life, but she was dazed and confused.

  “What happened?” she moaned. “I can’t remember . . .”

  The engine of the car had been pushed backward, but it didn’t appear that her legs were injured. The right sleeve of her blouse was soaked with blood, though.

  “Everything’s going to be fine,” Holly said. “You just sit here and try to relax.”

  Holly ran around to the other side of the car, wrenched the door open, and climbed in. In better position now, Holly could see what was obviously arterial blood welling up rhythmically through the fabric of the woman’s sleeve. Trying not to think about the possibility that the woman’s blood was carrying HIV, Holly took hold of the redhead’s upper arm and slid her fingers along the inside surface, searching for the brachial artery.

  There. Feeling a strong pulse, Holly pressed hard, expecting that this would shut off the blood flow. But it kept coming, undiminished. She adjusted her grip and tried again. And still it came. Holly couldn’t press any harder, and she was certain she was on the brachial artery. Of course, if the bleed was being fed from an anomalous vessel, it wouldn’t matter how hard she pressed. Whatever the reason, if the woman continued losing blood at this rate, she’d soon go into shock.