A Perilous Conception

by Larry Karp

  A lopsided grin flickered at the left corner of Iggy’s mouth. “So now you’re gonna ask me to help you get into that doc’s office so you can find the log book. Right?”

  “Sounds like you’re volunteering. But think about it first. So far, if any shit hits the fan, I can probably talk you into a safe corner, but do this, and you’re in as deep as I am.”

  “I don’t need to do no thinking. Tonight?”

  “You have anything else planned?”

  ***

  We played a couple hours of gin, then set off for the hospital. At that hour, no trouble finding a spot in the parking garage. I knew we couldn’t go through the lobby of the Puget Community Doctors’ Tower, then up the elevator to the twelfth floor, because even if the guard on duty didn’t stop us, he’d sure as hell notice us and remember us. He might watch the elevator and see where we got off; he might even come up and look around. But no one was going to think anything about two men, one carrying a doctor’s bag, the other, a little plastic bag, walking into the lobby of the busy Washington Public University Medical Center, and into an elevator. I only had to hope there was no guard watching the fifth-story skybridge connecting the hospital with the Doctors’ Tower offices. There wasn’t.

  Once in the Tower, we took the elevator to Twelve, then went into a men’s room and changed into the green scrub suits I’d liberated from the Surgical Unit dressing room after I’d left Sanford’s office. Now, Iggy and I could be two doctors, consulting about a case.

  At the door labeled in gold letters, Dr. Colin Sanford, Specialist In Women’s Health Care, Dr. Iggy opened his leather bag, took out a tool that looked like something a dentist might put into your mouth, worked it inside the lock, twisted it one way, then the other, then jiggled it. Nothing. I began to get nervous. The one point where it’d be tough to explain to a guard would be while we were picking the lock to an office.

  Iggy muttered, “Wait a minute,” then pulled a flashlight from the bag, directed the beam to the lock, and said, “Why’m I makin’ things difficult?” He shook the leather bag so the tools settled to one end, reached in, and came out with a ring of keys, sorted through them, selected one, slipped it into the lock, and turned it. The door opened.

  Iggy grinned. “After you, Doctor.”

  I took the flashlight, and led him through the waiting area, then back down the corridor to Sanford’s office. Once inside, I flipped the light switch and pointed at the two chairs opposite the desk. “Sit in one of those.”

  He gave me a funny look, but did as I said. I settled into Sanford’s chair, leaned back then straightened. “Tell me, ‘I sure wish I could take a look in that missing log book.’”

  He chuckled. “Okay. I’m gettin’ it. I sure wish I could take a look in that missing log book.”

  I flashed a glance leftward, just my eyes moving, then came back to Iggy. “Where’s the log?”

  We both stared at the fake-woodgrain metal file cabinet. “Start at the top?” Iggy asked.

  “What’re we waiting for?”

  The top drawer was all professional business records, nothing useful to me. The next drawer was crammed with personal material, some of which were banking records. In the folder labeled Vancouver Mutual Bank, I found a withdrawal slip for fifty-eight hundred dollars; in the First Bank of Emerald folder was a slip for forty-two hundred. Ten K, on the nose. I pulled the withdrawal slips from the folders. “Let’s make copies of these before we go.”

  While Iggy put the reports on the desk, I opened the third drawer. It was about half-full of charts, all from patients who’d told the doctor they were leaving his care. In each case, Sanford had written in great detail how he’d tried to convince the women that his experience and results with whatever was wrong with them were more than the equal of any doctor on earth. One patient with cancer had died a year after her defection, and Sanford’s note made it sound like he blamed himself for her death because he’d failed to keep her in his care. But none of the charts had anything to do with in vitro fertilization.

  The bottom drawer blew me away. It was full of newspapers and magazines, all having to do with horses and horse racing. Thoroughbred Times. Horseman and Fair World. Chicago Barn to Wire. At the Races. Hoosier Hoofprints. Getting Down. “Son of a bitch,” I growled.

  Iggy looked over my shoulder. “Huh?”

  “I waved a copy of the Daily Racing Form in his face. “The bastard really does bet on horses.”

  “So what? So do a lot of people.”

  “A lot of people haven’t just tried to make me believe they took ten grand out of the bank to bet on a horse.” I started to laugh. “I’ve never seen anything like this guy.”

  I tossed the newspaper back in the drawer, kicked it shut, then checked my watch. “Christ, we’ve been here an hour and a half.” I looked back to Sanford’s chair. “This is where his eyes went. If that log’s not in this cabinet, how about under it?”

  “That’d sure put it outa the way.”

  I leaned against the cabinet. “Take the flashlight and get down there. I’ll tip the cabinet back.”

  Iggy stretched full-length on the floor, turned on the light. “Okay, Mr. B. Just make real sure you don’t drop that thing, okay? Else I ain’t gonna be opening locks for you or anybody else for a while.”

  Lord, it was heavy. I leaned into it. From somewhere near my feet, I heard, “Well, hey, hey. Lookit what we got here.”

  I set the cabinet down, then grabbed the eight-and-a-half-by-eleven-inch book Iggy held up to me. Gray fabric cover with red trim. As I lifted it, two loose pages fluttered to the carpet. Iggy snatched them up, and slapped them into my free hand. “Something?”

  “Oh, yes, something. Chart records, Joyce Kennett.” I scanned the pages. “It’s about how she left his care, went to the U, and then he called her back to offer her ‘a new infertility technique.’ Right after that, there’s an office visit, where he tells her and her husband about this new technique, and then comes a record of the procedure here in the office that got Ms. Kennett pregnant.”

  I dropped the pages onto the desk, on top of the bank statements, picked up the gray book, and settled into Sanford’s chair. “Let’s see here…”

  The log started with a short note saying these were experiments to establish the conditions under which human oocytes could be reliably fertilized in vitro, then the embryos cultured successfully to where they could be implanted in a uterus. Even with my book smarts from my library time, I had to skip over a lot of stuff. I had no idea how compulsive a lab scientist needs to be. The procedure for every egg Dr. Hearn tried to fertilize and culture was put down in excruciating detail.

  The forty-first patient was JK. Sanford had retrieved five mature oocytes, and fertilization was successful in three of them, but there was, in fact, a little hitch. Good old compulsive Dr. Hearn. She documented that she’d dropped Mr. K’s initial sperm sample, but received a second one promptly, and processed it for fertilization. By August 9, 1976, the embryos looked normal, and then came the entry I’d been waiting for. “Aug. 9, 3:45pm. Embryos taken in incubator to Dr. Sanford’s office, examined microscopically. All appeared normal. All three embryos loaded into catheter with attached 1 c.c. syringe, and injected by Dr. Sanford into Patient JK’s uterus.”

  Iggy, who’d been reading over my shoulder, whispered, “Holy catfish. There it is.”

  “In black and white. Hearn dropped the sperm sample, got a second one, and went on to fertilize Ms. Kennett’s eggs. But before Mr. Kennett shot Hearn, the new supervisor heard him yell, ‘What do you mean, second sample?’ And it was right around the time of the lab accident that Sanford threw Rapp, the janitor, out of the lab men’s room.”

  Iggy looked queasy. “Hey, one thing for a guy to get cozy with somebody else’s wife, but this is Rosemary’s Baby stuff. What did Doc Sanford have to say when you a
sked him why he threw the janitor out of the can?”

  “He didn’t say anything because I didn’t tell him I knew. The janitor’s story is a little powder I’ve been keeping dry, but that’s about to change. If Alma Wanego really did get the goods on Sanford, he’d have had every reason to get her out of the way, and for that matter, so would’ve Hearn. She’d gambled everything on this, money, reputation, her job, her whole future. I didn’t learn much from her mother right after the murder, but I think I’ll go talk to her again in the morning.”

  Iggy started to scoop up the log, the chart pages, and the bank records. “I can put ‘em in my bag.”

  “No.” I held out my hand.

  “What, you’re gonna leave ‘em here?”

  “Not that I really want to. But I don’t want Sanford to find them missing before I have him dead to rights. Also, better if Sanford’s lawyer can’t claim I got my hands on them illegally. Once I have everything nailed down, I’ll bring my boy in, and get a warrant to search his home and office.”

  Iggy looked doubtful. “What if he gets nervous and shit-cans them?”

  “He won’t. Without this stuff, he’ll never get credit for that IVF baby. Let’s go make some copies. Sanford’s got a Xerox machine back in a little room behind the reception desk. I’m sure he’d want his guests to feel welcome to use his facilities.”

  ***

  Turned out the doctor wasn’t so accommodating. The copy machine wouldn’t start. I checked the plug; it was connected. Then I noticed the little key slot on the front of the machine. “They must turn the thing off at night, damn. Is this something you can crack?”

  Iggy scratched at his head. “I ain’t never had a call on one…lemme go get my bag.” But before he’d taken two steps, we heard, “Hey. Anybody here?”

  I looked at Iggy, did a quick mental calculation, then pulled open a door to the right of the copy machine. Coat closet. I slipped the chart pages under my arm, slammed the log book into Iggy’s hands, motioned him inside the closet, shut the door behind him, and walked out of the workroom. Across the desk, a skinny guy in a blue Security uniform gave me the fish eye. He had to be on the shady side of sixty, stooped, and unarmed. I could’ve had him down and out in nothing flat, but that wasn’t the way to go. I flashed him a grin. What’s up?”

  He pointed at the light fixture above his head. “Just checking. There ain’t usually lights on this time of night, and my last time through, it was dark in here. You a doctor?”

  I nodded. “Dr. Colin Sanford. My office. I’ve got a patient in labor, and I need to copy some pages from her chart to take over there.” I waved Sanford’s notes toward him.

  He wasn’t convinced. “Can you show me some ID?”

  Was I glad I’d thought of the scrubs. I ran my hands up and down the front of my green suit. “My wallet’s in my locker, over on the Labor Floor.”

  “Yeah…yeah…” He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

  If he decided to call the Labor Floor to check me out, I’d have to get rough with him, but I really didn’t want to do that, especially with Iggy’s prints and mine all over the office. I pictured Sanford, talking to me that afternoon, then tried to put the same snotty arrogance onto my face and into my voice. “Listen,” I said. “I’m glad you’re doing your job, but I have to do mine, too. I’ve got a patient in labor, she’s pretty sick, and if she doesn’t get taken care of, she and her baby could both die. Now, are you going to let me finish what I came here to do, or do I need to ignore you, and then file a complaint?”

  Just what the doctor ordered. “Yeah, okay, go on,” he muttered. “Sorry to bother you, Doctor.”

  As he went out into the hall, I walked back to the workroom, opened the closet door, put my finger to my lips. Then I tiptoed out to the reception desk, and checked the waiting room, to be sure the guard hadn’t sneaked in again and crouched behind a chair. All clear. I ran back to the copy room, where Iggy was wiping a handkerchief over his face. “Whew. Damn hot in there.”

  “It wasn’t much cooler where I was. Listen, we better not stay here long enough for that guard to find out Dr. Sanford doesn’t have a patient in labor. Guess we’ll have to take the originals after all, and hope Sanford doesn’t decide to peek under the cabinet.”

  We hustled down the hall to Sanford’s office, where I dropped the chart pages, bank records, and log into Iggy’s bag. “I’ll go out and scope the hall,” I said. “You get changed, then go back the way we came in. Take the elevator to five, turn right, across to the Washington Pub Building, then take that elevator to the lobby, and go straight out to the car. I’ll meet you there. Don’t forget to bring my clothes.”

  “Got it.”

  ***

  All the way down the hall, I looked left and right, making sure every door was closed tight, and no eyes were peeping out from behind blinds in any of the windows. But I saw nothing, and once in the elevator, I was home free. No problem going through the hospital lobby, and outside. I was just another doctor, too busy and important to change out of my scrubs before I went off to my car in the parking garage.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Baumgartner

  Next morning, I detoured from the direct route to Mrs. Hearn’s, and drove out to Sunset Bluff. When Ms. Kennett opened the door, the baby cradled in her left arm, she did not look pleased to see me. “You again?”

  “The original bad penny. I’ve uncovered some new information, and I need to talk to you. I won’t take long, I promise.”

  She led me into the living room, where she lowered herself into a rocker. “Nice, quiet baby,” I said.

  She rolled her eyes. “You should’ve been here last night. He didn’t stop howling. My mother said she was sure it was colic, that I’d done the exact same thing. She took him about two o’clock.” Ms. Kennett pointed toward the back of the house. “Now she’s taking a nap.”

  “She must be a big help,” I said.

  “Well, yeah. But she has to leave the day after tomorrow.”

  “I guess that’s not going to make it any easier.”

  “There’s no choice. My father hasn’t been well.” She pushed hair back out of her eyes, settled the baby, then sat up straight. “Okay, Mr. Baumgartner, you didn’t come here to make small talk. You said you have some new information?”

  “That’s right. Ms. Kennett, I’ve got firm evidence now that there was in fact an accident in the lab during your procedure. Your husband’s sperm sample was dropped, and he supposedly gave a second one.”

  She was shaking her head before I’d finished. “No one ever said anything to me about needing a second sample.”

  “Your husband didn’t mention it? Or Dr. Sanford?”

  Through tight lips. “Isn’t ‘No one ever said anything to me’ clear?”

  “Clear enough. You’ve told me the procedure Dr. Sanford and Dr. Hearn performed on you was an insemination with treated sperm. Is that right?”

  “Mr. Baumgartner, what are you driving at? First, you want me to practically sign in blood that I never heard anything about a second sperm sample, and now you ask me about something we’ve been through several times. What else could that procedure have been?”

  “In vitro fertilization. Is your son the first IVF baby in the world?”

  She pulled the baby in closer to her. “You are irritating me to my limit.”

  “I’m sorry to do that, but I still need you to answer me.”

  “No. He’s not an IVF baby. Is that clear enough for you?”

  “Clear, yes. Truthful, I’m less sure. I still think you’re holding a medical bombshell there, and if you are, I can’t help wondering why you and Dr. Sanford haven’t already gone public.”

  “Maybe because there’s nothing to go public about. Is it even remotely possible you could be wrong?
Or doesn’t that ever happen?”

  I felt bad. I really did. But now was the time to push. If she didn’t crack, she might at least pressure Sanford out of his cave. “Yes, it happens. But this time, it’s not possible. I can prove there was a second sperm sample, and that Dr. Sanford performed an in vitro fertilization procedure on you. And the murder, suicide, and unexplained disappearance I’m looking into all seem to be tied right in with what you and Dr. Sanford were up to.”

  The words were barely out when Ms. Kennett hauled herself out of the rocker, set the baby onto the sofa, slid a pillow between him and the edge, and jabbed a finger into my face. “What we were ‘up to?’ You slimeball, I don’t care if you’re a cop or a prosecutor or Jesus Christ. We were ‘up to’ getting a baby for me, we didn’t do anything illegal, and I’ve got every right to the privacy of my medical condition.” She wheeled around to redirect her finger toward the door. “Now get yourself and your questions out of my house. I’m through talking to you. If you bother me again, I’m going to call my lawyer.”

  I got up, took a step toward the door, then turned around. “It really would be a shame, after all you’ve been through, for somebody to scoop you and Dr. Sanford. The first IVF baby’s going to get all the press. No one’s going to give a thought to Number Two.”

  As I hit the front porch, the door slammed behind me, and I heard a lock turn. I felt like a jerk. Who was the guy that said a policeman’s lot is not a happy one?

  Chapter Twenty

  Sanford

  The instant I saw Barbara’s face around the corner of the exam-room door, I knew I had trouble. She motioned me to come out. I inclined my head toward Mrs. Wadlin, lying on the table, gripping Ruth Ellen’s hand, then held up an index finger to Barbara, wait a minute. She shook her head, no.