Robin Cook

by Mortal Fear

  Jason turned and looked into the kitchen. Larry was bent over the kitchen sink, heaving. Jason’s first response was to help him, but he thought better of it. Instead, he went to the door to the hall and opened it, thankful for the fresh air. In a few minutes Larry stumbled past him.

  “Why don’t you go call the police,” Jason said, allowing the door to close behind him. The relative quiet was refreshing. His nausea abated.

  Thankful for something to do, Larry ran down the stairs. Jason leaned against the wall and tried not to think. He was trembling.

  Two policemen arrived in short order. They were young and turned several shades of green when they looked into the living room. But they set about sealing off the scene and carefully questioning Jason and Gratz. With care not to disturb anything else, they finally pulled the plug on the stereo. More police arrived, including plainclothes detectives. Jason suggested Detective Curran might be interested in the case and someone called him. A police photographer arrived and began snapping shot after shot of the devastated apartment. Then the Cambridge medical examiner arrived.

  Jason was waiting in the hall when Curran came lumbering toward Helene’s apartment.

  Seeing Jason, he paused only to shout, “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Jason held his tongue, and Curran turned to the policeman standing by the door. “Where’s the detective in charge?” he snapped, flashing his badge. The policeman jerked his thumb in the direction of the living room. Curran went in, leaving Jason in the hall.

  The press appeared with their usual tangle of cameras and spiral notebooks. They tried to enter Helene’s apartment, but the uniformed policeman at the door restrained them. That reduced them to interviewing anybody in the area, including Jason. Jason told them he knew nothing, and they eventually left him alone.

  After a while Curran reappeared. Even he looked a little green. He came over to Jason. He took a cigarette out of a crumpled pack and made a production out of finding a match. Finally, he looked at Jason.

  “Don’t tell me ‘I told you so,’” he said.

  “It wasn’t just a rape murder, was it?” Jason asked quietly.

  “That’s not for me to say. Sure, it was a rape. What makes you think it was more?”

  “The mutilation was done after death.”

  “Oh? Why do you say that, doctor?”

  “Lack of blood. If the women had been alive, there would have been a lot of bleeding.”

  “I’m impressed,” Curran said. “And while I hate to admit it, we don’t think it was your ordinary loony. There’s evidence I can’t discuss but it looks like a professional job. A small-caliber weapon was involved.”

  “Then you agree Helene’s death is tied to Hayes.”

  “Possibly,” Curran said. “They told me you discovered the bodies.”

  “With the help of the superintendent.”

  “What brought you over here, doctor?”

  Jason didn’t answer immediately. “I’m not sure,” he said finally. “As I told you, I had an uncomfortable feeling when Helene didn’t show up for work.”

  Curran scratched his head, letting his attention wander around the hallway. He took a long drag on his cigarette, letting the smoke out through his nose. There was a crowd of police, reporters, and curious tenants. Two gurneys were lined up against the wall, waiting to take the bodies away.

  “Maybe I won’t turn the case over to Vice,” Curran said at last. Then he wandered off.

  Jason approached the policeman standing guard at the door to Helene’s apartment. “I was wondering if I could go now.”

  “Hey, Rosati!” yelled the cop. The detective in charge, a thin, hollow-faced man with a shock of dark, unruly hair, appeared almost immediately.

  “He wants to leave,” said the cop, nodding at Jason.

  “We got your name and address?” Rosati asked.

  “Name, address, phone, social security, driver’s license—everything.”

  “I suppose it’s okay,” Rosati said. “We’ll be in touch.”

  Jason nodded, then walked down the hallway on shaky legs. When he emerged outside on Concord Avenue, he was surprised it had already gotten dark. The cold evening air was heavy with exhaust fumes. As one final slap in the face, Jason found a parking ticket under his windshield wiper. Irritated, he pulled it out, realizing he’d parked in a zone that required a Cambridge resident sticker.

  It took much longer for him to return to GHP than it had taken to drive to Helene’s apartment. The traffic on Storrow Drive was backed up exiting at Fenway, so it was about seven-thirty P.M. when he finally parked and entered the building. Going up to his office, he found a large computer printout on his desk listing all the GHP patients who had received executive physicals in the last year, along with a notation of the patient’s current physical status. The secretaries did a great job, Jason thought, putting the printout in his briefcase.

  He went up to the floor for inpatient rounds. One of the nurses gave him the results of Madaline Krammer’s arteriogram. All the coronary vessels showed significant, diffuse, nonfocal encroachment. When the results were compared with a similar study done six months previously, it showed significant deterioration. Harry Sarnoff, the consulting cardiologist, did not feel she was a candidate for surgery, and with her current low levels of both cholesterol and fatty acids, had little to suggest with regard to her management. To be one hundred percent certain, Jason ordered a cardiac surgery consult, then went in to see her.

  As usual, Madaline was in the best of moods, minimizing her symptoms. Jason told her that he’d asked a surgeon to take a look at her, and promised to stop by the next day. He had the awful sense that the woman was not going to be around much longer. When he checked her ankles for edema, Jason noted some excoriations.

  “Have you been scratching yourself?” he asked.

  “A little,” Madaline admitted, grasping the sheet and pulling it up as if she were embarrassed.

  “Are your ankles itchy?”

  “I think it’s the heat in here. It’s very dry, you know.”

  Jason didn’t know. In fact, the air-conditioning system of the hospital kept the humidity at a constant, normal level.

  With a horrible sense of déjà vu, Jason went back to the nurses’ station and ordered a dermatology consult as well as a chemistry screen that included some forty automated tests. There had to be something he was missing.

  The rest of rounds was equally depressing. It seemed all his patients were in decline. When he left the hospital he decided to take a run out to Shirley’s. He felt like talking and she’d certainly made it clear she enjoyed seeing him. He also felt he should break the news of Helene’s murder before she heard it from the press. He knew it was going to devastate her.

  It took about twenty minutes before he pulled into her cobblestone driveway. He was pleased to see lights on.

  “Jason! What a pleasant surprise,” Shirley said, answering the bell. She was dressed in a red leotard with black tights and a white headband. “I was just on my way to aerobics.”

  “I should have called.”

  “Nonsense,” Shirley said, grabbing his hand and pulling him inside. “I’m always looking for an excuse not to exercise.” She led him into the kitchen, where a mountain of reports and memoranda covered the table. Jason was reminded of what an enormous amount of work went into running an organization like GHP. As always, he was impressed by Shirley’s skills.

  After she brought him a drink, Jason asked if she’d heard the news.

  “I don’t know,” Shirley said, pulling off her headband and shaking out her thick hair. “News about what?”

  “Helene Brennquivist,” Jason said. He let his voice trail off.

  “Is this news I’m going to like?” Shirley asked, picking up her drink.

  “I hardly think so,” Jason said. “She and her roommate were murdered.”

  Shirley dropped her drink on the couch and then mechanically occupied herself cleaning up the
mess. “What happened?” she asked after a long silence.

  “It was a rape murder. At least ostensibly.” He felt ill as he recalled the scene.

  “How awful,” Shirley said, clutching her hand to her chest.

  “It was gruesome,” agreed Jason.

  “It’s every woman’s worst nightmare. When did it happen?”

  “They seem to think it happened last night.”

  Shirley stared off into the middle distance. “I’d better phone Bob Walthrow. This is only going to add to our PR woes.”

  Shirley heaved herself to her feet and walked shakily to the phone. Jason could hear the emotion in her voice as she explained what had happened.

  “I don’t envy you your job,” he said when she hung up. He could see her eyes were bright with unshed tears.

  “I feel the same about yours,” she said. “Every time I see you after a patient dies, I’m glad I didn’t go into medicine myself.”

  Although neither Shirley nor Jason was particularly hungry, they made a quick spaghetti dinner. Shirley tried to talk Jason into staying the night, but though he had found comfort being with her, helping him to endure the horror of Helene’s death, he knew he couldn’t stay. He had to be home for Carol’s call. Pleading a load of unfinished work, he drove back to his apartment.

  After a late jog and a shower, Jason sat down with the printouts of all patients who’d had GHP physicals in the last year. Feet on his desk, he went over the list carefully, noting that the number of physicals had been divided evenly among all the internists. Since the list had been printed in alphabetical order rather than chronologically, it took some time for Jason to realize that the poor predictive results were much more common in the last six months than in the beginning of the year. In fact, without graphing the material, it appeared that there had been a marked increase in unexpected deaths over the last few months.

  Taking a pencil, Jason began writing down the unit numbers of the recent deaths. He was shocked by the number. Then he called the main operator at GHP and asked to be connected to Records. When he had one of the night secretaries on the line, he gave the list of unit numbers and asked if the outpatient charts could be pulled and put on his desk. The secretary told him there would be no problem at all.

  Putting the computer printout back into his briefcase, Jason took down his Williams’ Textbook of Endocrinology and turned to the chapters on growth hormone. Like so many other subjects, the more he read, the less he knew. Growth hormone and its relation to growth and sexual maturation were enormously complicated. So complicated, in fact, that he fell asleep, the heavy textbook pressing against his abdomen.

  The phone shocked him awake—so abruptly that he knocked the book to the floor. He snatched up the receiver, expecting his service. It took another moment before he realized the caller was Carol Donner. Jason looked at the time—eleven minutes to three.

  “I hope you weren’t asleep,” Carol said.

  “No, no!” Jason lied. His legs were stiff from being propped up on the desk. “I’ve been waiting for your call. Where are you?”

  “I’m at home,” Carol said.

  “Can I come get that package?”

  “It’s not here,” Carol said. “To avoid problems, I gave it to a friend who works with me. Her name is Melody Andrews. She lives at 69 Revere Street on Beacon Hill.” Carol gave him Melody’s phone number. “She’s expecting a call and should just be getting home. Let me know what you think of the material, and if there’s any trouble, here’s my number”—which she recited.

  “Thanks,” said Jason, writing everything down. He was surprised how disappointed he felt not to be seeing her.

  “Take care,” Carol said, hanging up.

  Jason remained at his desk, still trying to fully wake up. As he did so, he realized he hadn’t mentioned Helene’s death to Carol. Well, that might be a good excuse to call Carol back, he reflected as he dialed her friend’s number.

  Melody Andrews answered her phone with a strong South Boston accent. She told Jason that she had the package, and he was welcome to come over and get it. She said she’d be up for another half hour or so.

  Jason put on a sweater and down vest, left the house, walked down Pinckney Street, along West Cedar, and up Revere. Melody’s building was on the left. He rang her bell, and she appeared at the door in pin curls. Jason didn’t think anyone still used those things. Her face was tired and drawn.

  Jason introduced himself. Melody merely nodded and handed over a parcel wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. It weighed about ten pounds. When Jason thanked her she just shrugged and said, “Sure.”

  Returning home, Jason pulled off his vest and sweater. Eagerly eyeing the package, he got scissors from the kitchen and cut the string. Then he carried the package into the den and placed it on his desk. Inside he found two ledgers filled with handwritten instructions, diagrams, and experimental data. One of the books had Property of Gene, Inc. printed on the cover; the other merely the word Notebook. In addition there was a large manila envelope filled with correspondence.

  The first letters Jason read were from Gene, Inc., demanding that Hayes live up to his contractual agreements and return the Somatomedin protocol and the recombinant E. coli strain of bacteria that he’d illegally removed from their laboratory. As Jason continued reading, it was apparent that Hayes had a significant difference of opinion concerning the ownership of the procedure and the strain, and that he was in the process of patenting the same. Jason also found a number of letters from an attorney by the name of Samuel Schwartz. Half of them involved the application for the patent on the Somatomedin-producing E. coli and the rest dealt with the formation of a corporation. It seemed that Alvin Hayes owned fifty-one percent of the stock, while his children shared the other forty-nine percent along with Samuel Schwartz.

  So much for the correspondence, Jason thought. He returned the letters to the manila envelope. Next he took up the ledger books. The one that had “Gene, Inc.” on the cover seemed to be the protocol referred to in the correspondence. As Jason flipped through it, he realized that it detailed the creation of the recombinant strain of bacteria to produce Somatomedin. From his reading, he knew that Somatomedins were growth factors produced by the liver cells in response to the presence of growth hormone.

  Putting the first book aside, Jason picked up the second. The experiments outlined were incomplete, but they concerned the production of a monoclonal antibody to a specific protein. The protein was not named, but Jason found a diagram of its amino-acid sequence. Most of the material was beyond his comprehension, but it was clear from the crossing out of large sections and the scribbling in the margins that the work was not progressing well and that at the time of the last entry, Hayes had obviously not created the antibody he’d desired.

  Stretching, Jason got up from his desk. He was disappointed. He had hoped the package from Carol would offer a clearer picture of Hayes’s breakthrough, but except for the documentation of the controversy between Hayes and Gene, Inc., Jason knew little more than he had before opening the package. He did have the protocol for producing the Somatomedin E. coli strain, but that hardly seemed a major discovery, and all the other lab book outlined was failure.

  Exhausted, Jason turned out the lights and went to bed. It had been a long, terrible day.

  11.

  Nightmares involving gross permutations of the terrible scene in Helene’s apartment drove Jason out of bed before the sun paled the eastern sky. He put on coffee and as he waited for it to filter through his machine, he picked up his paper and read about the double murder. There was nothing new. As he’d expected, the emphasis was on the rape. Putting the Gene, Inc., ledger in his briefcase, Jason started out for the hospital.

  At least there was no traffic at that early hour as he drove to the GHP, and he had his choice of parking places. Even the surgeons who usually arrived at such an uncivilized hour were not there yet.

  When he arrived at GHP, he went directly to his of
fice. As he’d requested, his desk was piled with charts. He took off his jacket and began to go through them. Keeping in mind these were patients who had died within a month of getting a fairly clean bill of health from doctors who’d completed the most extensive physicals GHP had to offer, Jason searched for commonalities. Nothing caught his eye. He compared EKGs and the levels of cholesterol, fatty acids, immunoglobulins, and blood counts. No common group of compounds, elements, or enzymes varied from the normal in any predictable pattern. The only shared trait was most of the patients’ deaths occurred within a month of having the physical. More upsetting, Jason noticed, was that in the last three months the number of deaths increased dramatically.

  Reading the twenty-sixth chart, one correlation suddenly occurred to Jason. Although the patients did not share physical symptoms, their charts showed a predominance of high-risk social habits. They were overweight, smoked heavily, used drugs, drank too much, and failed to exercise, or combined any and all of these unhealthy practices; they were men and women who were eventually destined to have severe medical problems. The shocking fact was that they deteriorated so quickly. And why the sudden upswing in deaths? People weren’t indulging in vices more than they were a year ago. Maybe it was a kind of statistical equalizing: they’d been lucky and now the numbers were catching up to them. But that didn’t make a whole lot of sense, for there seemed to be too many deaths. Jason was not an experienced statistician, so he decided to ask a better mathematician than he was to look at the numbers.

  When he knew he wouldn’t be waking the patients, Jason left his office and made rounds. Nothing had changed. Back in his office and before he saw the first scheduled patient, he called Pathology and inquired about the dead animals from Hayes’s lab, and waited several minutes while the technician looked for the report.

  “Here it is,” the woman said. “They all died of strychnine poisoning.”