The Lethal Helix

by Don Donaldson

  “Of course, Father. I’ll bring it to you in a few minutes.”

  Hormones, Lucius thought, opening the door to his study. Quite possibly the one aspect of God’s handiwork that had caused him the most trouble in his life, his own as a young priest and now those of his boys. He thought of Jesus’ plea when he was sorely afflicted with the burden God had placed on him: “Let this cup pass from me.” It was a plea Lucius had made frequently over the last year about the orphanage. But so far it was a prayer unanswered.

  The mail was sitting on his desk, already opened, with the envelopes clipped to the contents, exactly the way he wanted it. Once again, the mail reminded him of Mrs. Kirk, his previous secretary, who had done a beautiful job for him the first few years, then had an episode where her blood pressure went so high it caused tiny hemorrhages in her eyes. Her doctors got it under control, but she was never the same after that. Her work became riddled with mistakes and she developed a relentless disregard for his wish that after opening the mail, she not discard the envelopes. When he called this or any other of her errors to her attention, she cried. And he couldn’t fire her. She needed the job to put food on the table. So he simply lived with her mistakes, month after month, year after year. It was such a terrible situation that two weeks ago, when she’d had a major stroke, his first thought had been that she would no longer be able to work and he’d finally be rid of her. His reaction was a sin he had prayed daily about ever since, so that as he sat behind his desk and started on the mail, he was in a penitent mood.

  The first three items were orphanage bills. The fourth was a credit card solicitation addressed to Mr. Father Lucius Graham. But the next was something quite different; a crisp hundred-dollar bill clipped to a sheet of paper. On the paper there were just five words: In Memory of Henry Pennell.

  In the last few years, Lucius had received a number of new hundreds for the orphanage, always given in someone’s memory. After the third one arrived, he’d become curious about the sender. But of course, the envelope bearing the benefactor’s return address was never with the money and the note. He probably could have found it in Mrs. Kirk’s wastebasket as he had other envelopes he’d wanted, but he’d never given the issue that kind of priority. Now, the envelope was right here.

  He unclipped it and checked the upper left corner.

  No address. And the postmark was blurred, so he couldn’t read it.

  Looking at his neatly typed name, he was struck by the fact that his title, Father, was underlined.

  Underlined.

  The face of Billy Lynch, the only psychopath he’d ever had at the orphanage, popped into his head. Billy had arrived as a six year old after his missionary parents had been killed by bandits in South America. To all outward appearances he was a fine boy; polite and intelligent. But he had a dark side that caused him to do the most heinous things.

  Once, he piled all the clothing of another boy on the floor and set it afire. Another time, while an older boy was washing his hair in the shower and had his eyes closed, Billy had turned off the cold water so the boy was badly burned. And each time he was caught, he was so apologetic and sorry he would weep and offer to do anything to make up for what he’d done. The strange thing was that the psychologist they called in said he truly was sorry. It just didn’t stop him the next time.

  Billy ran away from the orphanage when he was twelve. And for the next eight years, Lucius had no idea if he was alive or dead. Then, one day a long letter arrived from Billy, describing in detail what a difficult time he’d had in the last eight years and thanking Lucius for all he had done for him. Three more letters had followed at about six-month intervals. Since this was well before Mrs. Kirk’s disdain for saving envelopes, Lucius had seen that each was postmarked from a different city and, like the first, bore no return address. More importantly, on the envelopes of all four letters, Billy had underlined Lucius’s title. Then the letters stopped.

  Billy Lynch. The hundred-dollar bills were from him.

  Suddenly, Lucius had a thought that chilled him down to his toes.

  He pulled out the drawer in his desk where he kept things that he didn’t want to throw away but weren’t important enough to file. He was sure that when the last hundred dollars had arrived just a few months ago, he’d kept the . . .

  There it was: In Memory of Chester Sorenson.

  Dread filling his heart, Lucius reached for the phone. He punched in the number of one of his boys who had made something of himself and waited for an answer.

  “Detective Clark, please . . . Hello, David. Lucius Graham . . . I’m fine. The boys? They’re keeping me on my toes. Say David, I have kind of an odd question for you. If I gave you two names, is there a way you could determine if they were murder victims anywhere in the country?”

  25

  “DOCTOR FISHER, YOU have a phone call from Doctor Richard Heflin.”

  “Tell him I’ll be right with him.” Heflin. What could he want? Holly wondered. Was he in Memphis? Or was he back there? As she remembered how she’d been stalked in Wisconsin, her heart quickened.

  “Is anything wrong, Doctor?” her patient asked.

  “That’s supposed to be my line,” Holly said brightly, trying to cover her feelings. “I’d like to see you again in one month. The nurse at the front will set a date for the labs. Then, a few days later, when I have the results, we’ll talk again.”

  Holly ushered her patient out of the examining room and pointed him in the right direction. Then she headed for her office and picked up the phone.

  How to answer? “Doctor Fisher” didn’t seem right. “Richard, this is Holly.”

  “Sorry to bother you in the middle of the day. Do you have a few minutes?”

  “Yes. Where are you?”

  “In Midland. How’s your head?”

  Surely he didn’t call just to ask her that. “No headaches, and I still remember everything I used to know.”

  “That’s good. Excuse the abrupt segue, but we’ve got a situation here where three people have died after eating meat from a sick cow that was picked up at the local dairy and mistakenly butchered for human consumption. I think this warrants a full investigation of the dairy by the health department, but they don’t agree. For some other reasons, I think the department might have been influenced to look the other way. I don’t fully understand why, and I was hoping you might be able to enlighten me.”

  Holly was thrilled to hear that Heflin knew some things about the dairy she didn’t. At the same time, she realized she had never spoken to him about her interest in it. “What makes you think I know anything?”

  “Otto Christianson, our sheriff here. You remember him. He talked to you in the hospital the night you were hurt.”

  “I remember.” How could she forget Otto? The only one in town who knew where she was staying, and she figured he’d either rifled her room himself, or had helped his friends find her.

  “Otto told me that the night you were hit by the truck, you had been in the Lucy II asking questions about the dairy.”

  Holly viewed the fact that Christianson knew about her conversation in the tavern as further evidence of his duplicity. She definitely hadn’t wanted to give up her investigation, and for days had been thinking it was time to pick it up again. But fear had caused her to do nothing. Now, with an ally at hand who lived in the town, she could help her cause without risk. “I do have a lot to tell you, but it’s an involved story. And I don’t have enough time at the moment to talk about it.”

  “This is a conversation we should have face to face anyway. If I can arrange to get a flight into Memphis tomorrow can we meet somewhere?”

  “I’m booked pretty heavily, so it might have to be after five.”

  “I’ll see what I can put together and give you a call later at home.”

  “Do you have the number?”
r />   Heflin recited the number he’d obtained from hospital records.

  “That’s it. I’ll expect your call.”

  HOLLY LEFT HER car in the upper outside level of the short-term parking area and headed for the terminal. It was three-eighteen and she was cutting it close. She’d cleared the latter part of her afternoon so she could pick Heflin up at the airport, but with each patient after one o’clock, she’d fallen a little further behind schedule.

  Inside the terminal she checked the TV monitors for the arrival gate and hurried that way. She spotted him a few minutes later and felt an unexpected flutter of pleasure that had nothing to do with the purpose of his visit.

  Picking her out of the crowd, he smiled and waved. Her memory of him was that he had a mane of dark hair that was graying at the temples and he wasn’t bad looking. Seeing him now, coming toward her in dark gray slacks and a light-gray V-neck sweater over a beige dress shirt, he registered much higher on her approval scale. She hadn’t remembered that his features were so finely drawn, masculine for sure, but making him look like a guy who would rather finesse his way around an obstacle than crush it.

  “Hi, have a good trip?”

  “You know the old saying: ‘any flight you can walk away from . . .’”

  Holly gestured at his briefcase. “Is that all you brought?”

  “I’m going back at seven-thirty tonight, so I don’t need much.”

  “First time in Memphis?” Holly said, starting for the exit.

  Richard fell in beside her. “I’ve gone through here a few times on trips elsewhere.”

  “With only four hours before you leave, you’ll hardly have been here this time.”

  Twenty minutes later, they were sitting across from each other at Holly’s kitchen table, each with their hands lightly wrapped around a cup of hot chocolate.

  “I’ve read the material you faxed to me last night,” Holly said, referring to the two reports Richard had drawn up for the Wisconsin health department. “Why do you think the health department is being influenced from outside?”

  Richard told her about the first animal experiments, the theft of the meat from the Johannsons’ home, and the obviously phony personnel who picked up the carcass at Buck Lundval’s. “It seems likely Zane Bruxton was behind all that. If so, it’s not unreasonable to believe he also got the health department to ignore the potential danger in the situation.”

  “He must have a financial interest in the dairy.”

  “That’s what we thought at first. But his pharmaceuticals company is making a fortune from a drug called Vasostasin. You’ve heard of it?”

  “Who hasn’t?”

  “With all he’s making from that, why get involved in a coverup for a business whose profits by comparison have to be minuscule?”

  “The dairy is apparently important to him in a way we don’t understand.”

  Richard’s face fell. “You said we. So you don’t have an answer either?”

  “I know some things. But I don’t see how they fit into the picture you’ve drawn.”

  “May I hear your story now?”

  Holly found it hard to begin, because it would reveal something to Heflin she’d rather he didn’t know: that she was not a whole woman, that she could never have a child of her own. But there was no way out of it, so she simply started. “When I was in medical school I was diagnosed with acute myelocytic leukemia.”

  Sympathy and horror fought for control of Richard’s face, precisely the emotions she didn’t want to incite. But she went on. Later, when she’d wound her way to her discovery that someone had been in her room at the Green and White Motel, she said, “That’s when I left town. You may think I overreacted, but after what had already happened to me, I couldn’t stay.”

  “Of course you couldn’t.”

  “And the only person in town who knew where I was staying was Otto Christianson.”

  “You don’t think he was in your room?”

  “Or someone he tipped off.”

  “I know Otto pretty well. He’s a good man.”

  Thinking of her former boyfriend, Grant Ingram, Holly said, “People only reveal the sides of themselves they want us to see. The rest is hidden. You don’t really know Christianson.”

  “Holly, he told me that the day after you were run off the road, he went to the salvage yard where your car had been taken to find out why the seat belt had stopped working. And he found that it had been cut.”

  “Damn it. I should have figured that out myself. He never told me that.”

  “The point I’m trying to make here is that if Otto was in on what happened to you, why would he examine your car? He’d already be aware of what he’d find.”

  “How do you know he really looked at the car?”

  “I guess I don’t. But why would he tell me about your seat belt?”

  “I don’t know . . . maybe to divert suspicion from himself. Whatever the reason, I don’t trust him. I might even be making a mistake talking to you like this.”

  “Believe me, you’re not.”

  “Obviously I don’t think so either. But I can’t be certain. Nor can you vouch for Christianson. Given the facts, I think there’s reason to seriously doubt him. In any event, I don’t want you to tell him anything I’ve said.”

  “That might be difficult.”

  “You have to promise.”

  Reluctantly, Richard said, “If that’s what you want.”

  “Say it.”

  “I promise I won’t tell Otto anything you’ve told me.”

  “Or anything I may tell you in the future.”

  “You should have been a lawyer. Terms accepted.” Richard then shook his head. “But even with what you’ve said, I still don’t see the big picture. Your story does raise the ante though. I mean, they tried to kill you. What could be worth that? Oh oh.”

  “What?”

  “About three months ago, a dairy employee was found floating in a nearby pond. It’s not generally known, but the forensic findings showed that it was clearly murder.”

  “I heard about him from the two dairy workers I spoke to in the tavern,” Holly said. “Chester . . . somebody?”

  “Sorenson. I wouldn’t be surprised if his death was part of all this.”

  “The guys at the tavern seemed to think it might have been a suicide. How did you hear it was murder?”

  “I serve as the local coroner, something I should have considered before promising I wouldn’t tell Otto what you’ve said. He spread the word around town that it was either an accident or suicide because he thought it would make it easier for him to conduct an investigation if the killer believed they were in the clear. Everything you’ve told me is germane to that case. As coroner, how can I keep what you’ve told me to myself?”

  “You’re still assuming Christianson isn’t involved. If you’re wrong and you tell him what I said, you’ll just be putting yourself in danger. And you did promise.”

  Richard ran his fingers though his hair. “All this just gets better and better.”

  “And there’s more,” Holly said. “Something that bears on your concern that the herd may be harboring additional sick animals. Be right back.”

  Holly went to her study and got the pictures she’d taken of the dairy animals and those she’d downloaded from the Internet. Returning to the kitchen table, she spread out the twelve piles of photographs. “These are the thirty-six pictures I took of animals in the dairy’s herd. First, notice how different the pigmentation patterns are in the top picture on each pile.”

  Richard stood up so he could study the pictures. After a minute or so, he looked at Holly. “Okay . . .”

  “Now look through each stack separately.”

  Richard picked up the first pile and returned t
o his chair. When he’d seen all four pictures he said, “They’re very hard to tell apart.”

  “And it’s the same for the other groups. Each set is quite different from the others. But within a group, the patterns are as similar as those you’ve seen.”

  Richard looked at a second set, then Holly slid the stack of Internet pictures toward him. “Here are ninety-seven animals from other herds I found on the Internet. No two are as similar as the ones within a set from the Midland dairy. I talked to a bovine geneticist about it, and he thinks the animals within each group of my photos may be clones.”

  Richard immediately saw the health implications of this. “If that sick animal acquired its illness from a spontaneous conversion of normal prion protein to the abnormal form and other members of its clone are still in the herd, they’re likely to be making conversion-susceptible protein too. How convinced was the geneticist you talked to that the similar animals were clones?”

  “He hedged a little.”

  “If we knew with absolute certainty that they are clones, the health department would have to inspect the herd. There must be a test to prove animals are clones.”

  “We could call the geneticist and ask him.”

  “Let’s do it.”

  “Come on.” Holly led Richard to the second bedroom she used as a study. “Have a seat.”

  She found the phone number in her Rolodex and was soon waiting for someone to pick up.

  “Doctor Weichmann’s office.”

  “This is Doctor Fisher. May I speak to him please.”

  “I’m sorry, but he’s in a lab meeting.”

  Richard could see from the expression on Holly’s face that they weren’t going to get an answer right now.

  “May I tell him . . . Oh, wait a minute. Here he is now.”

  Holly nodded to Richard and hit the button for speakerphone. There was a short interval of silence, presumably while Weichmann went to his office. Then he was on the line.

  “Yes, Doctor Fisher. What can I do for you?”