The Lethal Helix

by Don Donaldson

  He spent a few minutes in Ronnie and Skye’s bedroom, but found nothing to take. He didn’t bother with Dennis’s bedroom.

  He then went to the basement, which was accessed through a door in the kitchen. Beside a workbench littered with tools, he saw a set of plastic shelves bearing some canned goods, a container of Peter’s Plant Food, another of Miracle-Gro, and a dozen cans of latex paint with colors he’d seen upstairs, dried on the sides. Nothing to get excited about.

  A few years earlier there had been a much-publicized epidemic involving infants in one particular area of Pittsburgh—or some other city, Richard couldn’t remember exactly where—in which the kids were coming to the hospital with lung hemorrhages. An epidemiology questionnaire of the affected households had revealed that all had experienced a recent water leak. Subsequent investigation had discovered that the water-soaked area was supporting the growth of a rare fungus that was shedding spores into the basement. The spores were then getting into the heating system and being blown all over the house. Because their lungs were more susceptible to the toxin in the spores than adults’ were, only infants were being affected.

  With this on his mind, Richard asked Dennis to bring him the flashlight he’d seen plugged into a receptacle by the back door in the sunroom.

  When Dennis returned, Richard inspected all the dark corners for fungal growth, but everything was clean and dry.

  From the basement, Richard went to the small barn replica in the backyard, where Ronnie kept his lawn equipment. As he expected, there was nothing suspicious there.

  “Okay, Dennis. I’m finished. I’ll just go back in the house and get the things I’m taking and leave you alone.”

  “What do you think made Ronnie and Skye sick?”

  “That’s still a mystery.”

  As he backed out of the Johannsons’ driveway, Richard’s hopes, faint as they were, centered on the gelatin capsules with the brown powder.

  10

  “HI KATIE, ARE you having a good time?”

  Richard Heflin’s daughter was visiting his parents in Arizona. As he spoke to her on the phone, the nearly perpetual frown he’d carried around with him since the death of Ronnie and Skye lifted.

  “What have you been doing? . . . That does sound like fun. Wish I was with you. You’ve only been gone a week, but it feels like a month. I’ll really be glad when you get back. I love you . . . Okay, baby. See you soon.”

  Richard listened until he heard the disconnect, then hung up, the frown back even before the receiver hit the cradle. He picked up the plastic bag containing the items he’d removed from the Johannson home yesterday and left his office. On his way out, he stopped at the desk where Connie Persky, his one full-time employee, was working on the billing.

  “I’m off to Madison. I’ll be back by four to see Mrs. Branson.”

  “And make sure you’re on time. I don’t want to be sitting here while she stares holes in me because you’re late.”

  Connie was a name that belonged on a sweet young thing who always deferred to authority—everything Persky was not. Connies weren’t supposed to have a sharp tongue and an unwillingness to tolerate anything remotely slipshod. But Richard considered himself lucky to have this one, especially since he could pay her only a fraction of her real worth.

  “Since when would being stared at bother you?” Richard said, entering into the banter that had become customary between them.

  “Actually, it wouldn’t, but you’ve got to be kept in line somehow. And if I have to stretch the truth a little to do it, it’s a burden I’m willing to bear. Four o’clock now.”

  Based on pictures of Synthroid pills in the PDR, the yellow tablets Richard had taken from the Johannsons’ bathroom appeared to be just what their label said they were. When Richard had spoken to the forensic office in Madison about analyzing those and the other things he’d picked up in the Johannsons’ home, he’d been told that without the report from the neuropathologist, who would be looking at the couple’s brains, the analysis would be premature and would be using the tox lab not as a diagnostic instrument but a fishing pole.

  Unwilling to wait for the remaining path report, Richard was on his way now to the University of Wisconsin campus, where Michael Knox, an old friend in the medical school pharmacology department, had agreed to analyze the four items. He could have mailed them, but Madison was only thirty-five miles away, and Richard had wanted for some time to not only visit Michael, but see the campus, which, sitting on the shore of Lake Mendota, was reportedly one of the prettiest in the country.

  Forty-five minutes later, Richard eased his car off Langdon Street into a small parking lot at the side of the UW student union. He got out, fed a couple of coins into the meter, and took a reconnoitering look around.

  Straight ahead, across Langdon, there was a sparsely populated grassy commons backed by a Gothic church. On a narrow gravel strip between the street and the sidewalk on that side, an open-air entrepreneur presided over a couple of folding tables piled high with clothing. Judging by the amount of business he was conducting, he’d soon need to find a new line of work. Turning to look in the opposite direction, Richard caught a glimpse of the blue-white waters of Lake Mendota just beyond a small stand of trees on the other side of a low cement wall. Wanting a better look at the lake and not feeling up to jumping the wall, he walked around to the front of the union and went inside. He followed his instincts through the Rathskeller, a large, dark-paneled dining room full of empty tables, and went out onto a sprawling patio filled with brightly colored metal tables and chairs.

  It was a languid day and soft breezes from the lake rattled the autumn-tinted leaves in the patio’s maples, sending little fluttering cascades of yellow drifting onto the tables, gathering those already on the ground at one moment, scattering them the next. Hoping to quell, if just for a few minutes, the profound sense of loneliness he felt even on his best days, Richard had wanted to find a crowd of students, hear the music of their conversation, sit among them. But the patio was not even half full. Most of the kids who should have been there were apparently blown by the wind to some hidden venue. And those that were present were subdued, murmuring to each other in muted tones. The whole scene felt like a poorly attended wake for the passing of summer. So, instead of having his spirits lifted, they sank, and he saw once again the Johannsons’ twin coffins. Not needing this, he left.

  Outside the union, after consulting the campus map Michael had faxed to him, Richard set off toward an ornate old red-brick building a hundred yards away that dominated the end of Langdon Street like a Russian czar holding court. His route to pharmacology took him past the red czar and up a steep hill. By the time he reached the top, he was breathing hard. He’d noticed a scenic overlook on the map, so instead of turning on the street Michael had marked as the shortest route to his lab, Richard kept walking on Observatory Drive.

  He was rewarded a few minutes later by a spectacular view of the lake, wide and blue, framed in the foreground by a strip of forest set afire with fall colors, the opposite shore visible only as a hazy smudge. Here and there, the white triangles of boats with full sails aloft scudded over the water. As he watched the sailboats, each of them seemed to carry away a portion of the depression he’d felt earlier, so that a few minutes later, when he turned and started back the way he’d come, he felt much better.

  He soon found himself walking behind a young couple holding hands. The guy was wearing a green pullover, loose-fit jeans that were six inches too long, and a white baseball cap. She was in baggy denim overalls that failed to hide a lithe and graceful figure. Seeing that couple pulled Richard’s mind into the past.

  HE’D FIRST NOTICED Diane on a tennis court at the University of Virginia, swinging earnestly at the ball as it came to her, usually returning it poorly, sometimes dubbing it off the wood circling the strings. But where most women at that skill leve
l looked awkward, Diane’s every move was so purely feminine it took Richard’s breath away. Her long tanned legs, the curve of her back, her ponytail flipping in the sun. She was magnificent.

  Richard took his eyes off her only long enough to note with satisfaction that her partner was another woman. Beyond this, nothing about the other person made any impression on him. He’d stood motionless, watching the game for nearly ten minutes, when Diane hit the ball so badly it cleared the fence around the court and sailed over his head. Without hesitation, he lit out after the ball like a trained beagle. When he finally got his hands on it, he threw it back onto the court and waved with far too much enthusiasm when Diane called out her thanks in a sweet voice that made his legs weak.

  When the game ended, he made sure he was standing near the only way out.

  “You’ve been watching us a long time,” Diane said as she passed. “Should I be worried?”

  “No . . . I’m Richard Heflin. I’m . . . okay. I mean I’m not dangerous or anything. I’m a freshman medical student.”

  Dimly, Richard heard her tennis partner say, “Diane, I’ll see you later.”

  “Your name is Diane?”

  She stopped walking and turned to face him. With her standing so close, looking only at him, it felt to Richard as if the sun had been behind clouds all his life and had just come out at that moment.

  Ignoring his attempt to learn her full name, she said, “Richard, you stood there for quite a while. Tell me . . . what do you think of my ability as a tennis player?” Then she waited, her large green eyes unwavering, holding him in her power.

  “I . . . ah . . . I think . . .” Richard’s mind thrashed around, paralyzed by her proximity. Answer her. To his horror, he heard himself blurt out, “You’re pretty bad.”

  To Richard’s amazement, she laughed, a soft and musical sound that reminded him of the wind chimes in his parents’ backyard.

  “I don’t know how you do on your med school exams,” she said, “but you’ve just passed this one with a perfect score.” She offered her hand. “Diane Landry. I’m in the school of social work. I hear that medical students make rotten boyfriends because they don’t have much free time. Is that true?”

  “It’s a fact they work us pretty hard, but I’d rather spend ten minutes listening to Mozart than two hours with a garage band.”

  “Ego check,” Diane said. “Yeah, it’s intact.”

  “I didn’t mean . . .”

  “It’s okay. You’ve made your point. Now what?”

  “Have dinner with me Friday night. I’ll make it. We’ll have Cornish game hen with mushroom stuffing, wild rice pilaf, asparagus with hollandaise and for dessert, the best chocolate mousse you ever tasted.”

  “You can do that?”

  “My father is the chef at the Watergate hotel in D.C.”

  Her flawless brow furrowed. “How were you able to come up with that menu so quickly? Am I just another in a long line of women you’ve done this for?”

  Richard wanted to lie, but having done so well with the truth earlier, he said, “Actually, the line is rather short.”

  Her face brightened. “Well, okay then. Just so you’ve had some practice. I don’t want to waste my time on a novice. What time and where?”

  That night, instead of studying like he should have, Richard went out and bought a suit he couldn’t afford. Friday, he cut Gross Anatomy and Cell Biology to get everything ready for that night.

  Diane appeared at his door at precisely seven o’clock, wearing an elegant black dress and heels, a single strand of pearls setting off her tanned skin.

  “You look terrific,” Richard said.

  “So do you.” As she came in, Diane handed him a package wrapped in glossy white paper. “Something for the chef.”

  “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “Open it.”

  Richard tore at the paper, shredding it. Inside was a white box that contained a green apron with white lettering across the front that said, “It isn’t the size of the ladle, it’s how you use it.”

  Richard felt himself blush. “Thanks. It’s great.”

  Dinner went perfectly; the hens were done, the asparagus was tender, and there were no iron soldiers in the rice. After dessert, they sat on the sofa and talked easily about their favorite teachers, their interests, and what they hoped to achieve in life. All the while, in the back of Richard’s mind was that phrase, “It’s not the size of the ladle, it’s how you use it.” Why had she chosen that particular apron? Did she expect him to try to get her in bed?

  He got the answer a little after nine o’clock when Diane said, “I love it that you wore a suit tonight. It says you viewed this as an important event. And that’s a rare thing in this country. In most restaurants, if you’re wearing a shirt and shoes, that’s good enough. Jeans are okay everywhere. So when is anything special? I love the holidays. You should see my apartment at Christmas. I’m like Clark Griswold in that National Lampoon movie. I’ve got this fake fireplace I set up and I have open house . . . eggnog, cheese balls, the works.”

  “You don’t go home for Christmas?”

  She shrugged. “Don’t really have one other than what I make for myself. My parents aren’t together, and they’re too busy trying to figure out their own lives to worry about mine.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What I’m trying to say here, Richard, is that I put a lot of stock in ritual and symbolic gestures that give life a rhythm and create some peaks to go with the valleys. So don’t misunderstand the message on that apron, because I view sex as one of the peaks. I think we’re on to something here. So if you feel the same way let’s give it a chance and see what happens. Interested?”

  Hugely relieved to know where he stood, Richard said, “Let the games begin. But please, not tennis.”

  They kissed with her still laughing and he filled his lungs with her sweet breath.

  Richard had been only a fair student, cruising along at a high C average in most of his classes. But then he began studying with Diane in either her apartment or his. She didn’t quiz him or anything; they just worked quietly together on their own classes, or she would copyedit a manuscript for the New York publisher she worked for part-time. Somehow having her near sharpened Richard’s mind and gave him a sense of purpose he hadn’t had before, so that by the end of the year, he was a solid B student in everything, though he was actually spending less time studying than before. It was as if he had been born with some parts missing and had been competing at a disadvantage his whole life. But now, Diane filled the gaps.

  As for sex, Richard decided to let her lead the way, not that he had any other choice. One night, two months and three days after they’d met, when he showed up at her apartment to study, he’d barely put his book bag down when, with a strange look in her eye, Diane said, “Come here, Richard. I want you to hear something.”

  She led him into her bedroom, where in the dim light from a lamp hanging on the tail of a crouching bronze cat, he saw that the covers on the bed had been carefully laid back. Diane turned on a small tape player on her dressing table, and Richard soon heard the sound of distant thunder. This was followed a few seconds later by the stutter of raindrops hitting the ground. As the tape built to a downpour, she moved into his arms, pulled his head down, and whispered in his ear. “Make love to me.”

  Entwined, they moved to the bed where they held a kiss until Richard’s head was spinning. Then they were naked and he was pressed along the length of her, her skin hot against him.

  When it was over, Diane left the bed and changed the tape to crickets chirping. Then she turned on a projector in the corner that flooded the ceiling with constellations. She returned to bed and threaded herself around him, while overhead the heavens slowly passed in review.

  Though they made love several times
a week after that, Richard never heard the rain tape or saw the star show again. Once, when he asked for their return, Diane said, “There’s an old Greek saying that you can never step into the same stream twice. And even if we could, I wouldn’t want to.”

  FOR A LONG time Richard had never fully comprehended what she’d meant about stepping into the same stream twice. Now, with her gone, their first night together remained bright and sharp in his memory, clearer than anything that had ever happened to him. And he understood. Her love of creating special moments in life had given him indelible recollections of their life together that would be with him as long as he lived. And she had given him Katie.

  In Katie, he still had a part of his wife. Today, for the first time since her death, he believed that his future might be worth visiting. And, as he stepped into the medical sciences building, he was now confident that he would find the Johannsons’ killer.

  11

  HENRY PENNELL TOYED with his food, keeping an eye on the four Italians who staffed the special projects section. There were three men and a woman. He thought one of the men was named Ernesto. He’d never heard names for the other two. The woman was Donata Marchetti. He knew that for sure because she was the one he’d settled on, partly because she held a degree in microbiology and partly because he was afraid of the men.

  He’d seen the four practically every day in the company cafeteria, where they never joined any other group, but always sat together. A few times, when he’d passed close enough to hear their conversation, it was always in Italian. The special projects section was the division that produced Vasostasin, and those four were responsible for producing the parent protein and for coupling the sugars to it.