Side Effects (1984)

by Palmer, Michael

  Redding read the Estronate material word by word, taking careful notes. By the time he had finished, he was absolutely certain that neither Wilhelm Becker nor the notebook containing his work on the hormone had perished in the Ravensbrück fire.

  A substance, harmless in every other way, that could render a woman sterile without her knowledge. Redding was staggered by the potential of such a drug. China, India, the African nations, the Arabs. What would governments be willing to pay for a secret that might selectively thin their populations and thereby solve so many of their economic and political woes? What would certain governments pay for a weapon which, if delivered properly, could decimate their enemies in a single generation without the violent loss of one life?

  Redding’s thoughts were soaring through the possibilities of Estronate 250 when, with a soft knock, Nunes entered the office, set a package on the desk, and retired to his observation room. For another hour, Redding sat alone, savoring his mint chip ice cream and deciding how he might best break the news to Dr. John Ferguson that their fifteen-year-old collaboration was about to take on a new dimension.

  “I love you, I miss you, and I don’t want to not live with you anymore.”

  Kate read Jared’s note again and then again, drawing strength and confidence from it each time. She had returned to her office following two distressing and frightening visits. One was to Ellen, who was, for the first time, receiving a transfusion of packed red blood cells. The second was to Norton Reese. If the connection between Metropolitan Hospital of Boston, the Ashburton Foundation, and Redding Pharmaceuticals was as intimate as Reese’s clumsy evasions were leading her to believe, she would need all the strength and confidence she could muster. Thank you, Jared, she thought. Thank you for pulling me out from under the biggest pressure of all.

  Her meeting with Reese had started off cordially enough. In fact, the man had seemed at times to be inappropriately jovial and at ease. Ever since their confrontation before the board of trustees over his diversion of budgeted pathology department funds to the cardiac surgical program, Reese had dealt with her with the gingerliness of an apprentice handling high explosives. Now, suddenly, he was all smiles. His congeniality lasted through several minutes of conversation about her department and Stan Willoughby’s recommendation that she succeed him as chief, and ended abruptly with mention of the Ashburton Foundation. Whatever fortes the man might have, Kate mused at that moment, they certainly did not include poker faces. His eyes narrowed fractionally, but enough to deepen the fleshy crow’s feet at their corners. His lips whitened, as did the tips of his fingers where they were touching one another.

  “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to open the Ashburton Foundation files to you,” he had said, his eyes struggling to maintain contact with hers and failing. “However, I shall be happy to answer what questions I can.”

  “Okay,” Kate said, shrugging. “My first question is why aren’t you at liberty to open the Ashburton Foundation files to me?”

  “It’s … it’s part of the agreement we signed when we accepted a grant from them.” It was bizarre. In a very literal sense, the man was squirming in his seat.

  “Well, suppose I wanted to apply for a grant for my department. How would I go about contacting them?”

  “I’ll have Gina give you the address on your way out. You can write them yourself.”

  “I already have a post office box number in Washington, DC. Is that it?”

  “Yes. I mean, probably.”

  “Well, suppose I wanted to visit their offices in person. Could you ask Gina to give me a street address as well?”

  Reese continued to fidget. “Look,” he said, “I’ll give you their mailing address and phone number. I’m sorry, but that’s all I can do. Why do you want to know about the Ashburton Foundation anyway?” he managed.

  “Mr. Reese,” Kate said calmly, “If I answer that question, will you open their files to me?”

  “Not without written permission from the Ashburton Foundation.”

  “Well then, it appears we’ve got a Mexican standoff, doesn’t it? I’ll tell you this much,” her voice grew cold. “Two women have died and a third may be dying. If I find out the Ashburton Foundation is connected in any way with what has happened to them, and you have kept significant information from me, I promise that I won’t rest until everyone who matters knows what you have done. Is that clear?” Her uncharacteristic anger had, she knew, been prodded by the sight of Ellen Sandler mutely watching the plastic bag dripping blood into her arm and by the knowledge that this was, in all likelihood, just the first of many transfusions to come.

  Reese checked his watch in a manner that was as inappropriate as it was unsubtle. It was as if he had left a message to be called at precisely nine-twelve and was wondering why the phone hadn’t rung.

  “Mr. Reese?”

  The administrator shifted his gaze back to her. His face was pinched and gray with anger—no, she realized, it was something deeper than anger. Hatred? Did the poor man actually hate her?

  “You really think you’re something, don’t you,” he rasped in a strained, muddy voice.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Who made you the crusader? Do you think that just because you have an MD degree and all that old family money you can ride all over people?”

  “What? Mr. Reese, I nev—”

  “Well, let me tell you something. You don’t intimidate me like you do some around here. No, sir, not one bit. So you just ride off on that high horse of yours and let me and the department heads—the official department heads—worry about grants and foundations and such.”

  Kate watched as the man sat there, panting from the exertion of his outburst. For five seconds, ten, her green eyes fixed on him. Then she rose from her chair and left, unwilling to dignify Reese’s eruption with a response.

  Now, alone in her office, Kate sat, trying to crystallize her thoughts and doodling a calligraphic montage of the words “Reese” and “Asshole.” After finishing four versions of each, she began adding “Ashburton” and “Paquette.” First there was the bribery of Ian Toole, an act which seemed to her equivalent to shooting a chipmunk with an elephant gun. She would have been quite satisfied with an admission by Redding Pharmaceuticals that they had somehow allowed a batch of their generic vitamins to become contaminated and would gladly recall and replace them. Their illogically excessive response had to have been born out of either arrogance or fear. But fear of what? “Omnicenter” made its first appearance in the montage.

  The Ashburton Foundation had endowed an entire ob-gyn department and subsidized a massive, modern women’s health center. Philanthropic acts? Perhaps, she thought. But both of her calls to the foundation had gone unanswered by Dr. Thompson, the director, and her efforts, though modest, had failed to come up with an address for the place. Then there was Reese’s refusal to discuss the organization that had been, at least in part, responsible for the resurgence of his hospital. At that moment, almost subconsciously, she began adding another name to the paper. Again and again she wrote it, first in the calligraphic forms she knew, then in several she made up on the spot. “Horner.” Somehow the cantankerous, eccentric computer genius was involved in what was going on. The notion fit too well, made too much sense. But how? There really was only one person who could help her find out. Another minute of speculation, and she called William Zimmermann.

  Fifteen minutes later, she was on her way through the tunnel to the Omnicenter when Tom Engleson entered from the cutoff to the surgical building.

  “Hi,” she said, searching his face for a clue as to how he was handling the abortive end to their evening together.

  “H’lo,” his voice was flat.

  She slowed, but continued walking. “Going to the Omnicenter?”

  Tom nodded. “I have a clinic in twenty minutes.”

  “You all right?”

  “Yeah, sure. Great.”

  “Tom, I—”

  “Look, Kate, it�
�s my problem, not yours.”

  “Dr. Engleson, you weren’t exactly alone on the couch last night,” she whispered, glancing about to ensure that none of the tunnel traffic was too close. “I feel awful about giving out such mixed messages. But you are an incredibly comfortable and understanding man. With all the trouble at the hospital I’m afraid I just allowed myself to hide out in your arms. It was wrong and unfair—more so because I really care very much for you. I’m sorry, Tom.”

  They reached the stairwell leading up to the Omnicenter.

  “Wait,” Tom said. “Please.” He guided her to a small alcove opposite the staircase.

  “You know, considering the nature of the Metro grapevine, we’ll probably be an item by …” Two nurses chattered past them and up the stairs. “Hell,” she said, following them with her eyes, “we most likely are already.”

  “Do you really mean that, about caring for me?”

  “Tom, I love my husband very much. We’ve had some trouble getting our lives back in sync since the election, but my feelings for him haven’t changed. Still, you’re very special to me. Believe me, if my home situation, my marriage, were any different, we would have been lovers last night.”

  “Yeah?” The muscles in his face relaxed, and some measure of energy returned to his voice.

  “Yes,” she said. Tom Engleson might have been nine years Jared’s junior, but they still had much in common, including, it now appeared, the need for strong reassurance about such things.

  “I said it last night, and I’ll say it again. Jared is a very lucky man.” Acceptance had replaced the strain in Tom’s voice.

  “I know,” Kate said. “Tom, seriously, thank you for not making it any harder for me. Between the wretched business with Bobby Geary, the disappearance of my chemist, and some incredible crap from Norton Reese, I feel like I need all the friends—all the help—I can get.” She glanced at her watch. “Say, do you have a few minutes?”

  “Sure, why?”

  “I’m going to see Bill Zimmermann to discuss the Ashburton Foundation. I’d love to have you come along if you can.”

  “Rocket Bill? I do have a little time if you think he wouldn’t mind.”

  “Hardly,” Kate said. “He knows how much help you’ve been to me through all this. Okay?”

  During the four-flight climb, Tom reviewed for her the protocols for patient care in the Omnicenter. On arrival, both new and returning patients met with a specially trained female intake worker, who blackened in the appropriate spaces in a detailed computer-readable history sheet. Medications, menstrual history, new complaints, and side effects of any treatment were carefully recorded. The worker then slid the history sheet into a computer terminal on her desk, and in thirty seconds or less, instructions as to where the patient was to go next would appear on the screen along with, if necessary, what laboratory tests were to be ordered.

  “Do you feel the system is a bit impersonal?” Kate asked.

  “You’re a patient here. Do you?”

  “No, not really, I guess,” she said. “I can remember when a visit to the gynecologist consisted of sitting for an hour in a ten-foot-square waiting room with a dozen other women, having my name called out, stripping in a tiny examining room, and finally having the doctor rush in, thumbing through my chart for my name, and then as often as not telling me to put my heels in the stirrups before he even asked why I was there.”

  “See,” Tom laughed, “no system is perfect. But seriously, the one here is damn good. It frees me up to do a careful exam and to answer as many questions as my patients have.”

  The system might be great, Kate thought, but something, somewhere inside it, was rotten. Something was killing people.

  Large, colored numbers marked each floor. The 3, filling half a wall at the third-floor landing, was an iridescent orange. Kate reached for the handle of the door to the corridor, but then stopped, turned to Tom, and kissed him gently on the cheek.

  “Thank you for last night, my friend,” she said.

  Tom accepted the kiss and then squeezed her hand and smiled. “If you need anything at all, and I can do it or get it, you’ve got it,” he said.

  William Zimmermann greeted Kate warmly and Tom with some surprise. It was clear from his expression and manner that he was concerned about anything that might affect the reputation of the Omnicenter, including involvement of one of the Ashburton Service senior residents.

  Kate sought immediately to reassure him. “Bill, as you know, Dr. Engleson’s been an enormous help to me in sorting all this out. He knows, as do I, the importance of absolute discretion in discussing these matters with anyone.”

  “You’ve spoken to no one at all about this?” Zimmermann asked Tom.

  “No, sir. Only K … only Dr. Bennett.”

  “Good. Well, sit down, sit down both of you.”

  “I’ll try not to take up too much of your time,” Kate began, “but I want to keep you abreast of what has been happening since we talked yesterday.”

  “You were concerned about the Ashburton Foundation.”

  “Exactly. You know how upset I was with Redding Pharmaceuticals after they bribed my chemist. Well—”

  Zimmermann stopped her with a raised hand. “Kate, please,” he said, with an edge of irritation she had never heard before. “I told you how I felt about the situation with the chemist. I believe that you believe, but no more than that.” He turned to Tom. “Do you have any personal knowledge of this chemist, Toole?”

  Tom thought for a moment and then shook his head. “No, not really.”

  “All right, then,” Zimmermann said. “Substantiated facts.”

  Kate took a breath, nodded, and settled herself down by smoothing out a pleat in her charcoal gray skirt. “Sorry, Bill. Okay, here’s a substantiated fact.” She passed a telephone number across to him. “It’s the number of the Ashburton Foundation in Washington, DC. At one time, maybe seven or eight years ago, the foundation was located in Darlington, Kentucky, the same town as Redding Pharmaceuticals. I tried calling them yesterday, several times, but all I got was a stammering receptionist who promised I would hear from a Dr. James Thompson, the director, as soon as he returned to the office. I never heard. Then this morning, I went to see Norton Reese and asked to see the Ashburton Foundation files. You would have thought I asked to read his diary. He refused and then exploded at me.”

  “Did he give any reason for refusing?” Tom asked.

  Kate shook her head. “Not really. He seemed frightened of me. Scared stiff.”

  “Kate,” Zimmermann asked, fingering the paper she had given him, “just what is it you’re driving at?” The edge was still in his voice.

  Even before she spoke, she sensed her theory would not sit well with the Omnicenter director. Still, there was no way to back off. “Well, I think Redding Pharmaceuticals may be investing money in hospitals—or at least this hospital—and using the Ashburton Foundation as some kind of front, sort of a middle man.”

  Zimmermann’s pale eyes widened. “That’s absurd,” he said, “absolutely absurd. What would they have to gain?”

  “I’m not certain. I have an idea, but I’m not certain. Furthermore, I think Norton Reese knows the truth.”

  “Well?”

  Substantiated facts. Suddenly, Kate wished she had taken more time, prepared herself more thoughtfully. Then she remembered Ellen. Time was, she felt certain, running out for her friend. With that reality, nothing else really mattered. She girded herself for whatever Zimmermann’s response was to be and pushed on.

  “I don’t think the anthranilic acid in my vitamins was an accidental contaminant,” she said, forcing a levelness into her voice though she was shaking inside. “I think it was being tested on me, and probably on others as well; not tested to see whether or not it worked, because I didn’t have any symptoms, but rather for adverse reactions, for side effects, if you will.”

  Zimmermann was incredulous. “Dr. Bennett, if such a thing were going on i
n the Omnicenter, in my facility, don’t you think I would know about it?”

  “Not really,” Kate said. “It was starting to come together for me, but Tom’s description of how the intake process works made it all fit. It’s Carl Horner, downstairs. Horner and his Monkeys. You and the other docs here just go on prescribing his medications and then recording his data for him. There’s no reason you have to know anything, as long as the computers know.”

  “And you think the Ashburton Foundation is bankrolling his work?” Kate nodded. “This is getting out of control.” He turned to Tom. “Do you follow what she is saying?” Reluctantly, Tom nodded. “And do you believe it?”

  “I … I don’t know what to believe.”

  “Well, I think it’s time I checked on some of these things for myself,” Zimmermann said, snatching up the telephone and setting the Ashburton number on his desk. “Dr. William Zimmermann, access number three-oh-eight-three,” he told the operator, as Kate looked on excitedly, “I’d like a Watts line, please.”

  Only a few more minutes, Kate told herself. Only a few more minutes, a few words from the confused, stammering receptionist, and Zimmermann would at least realize that something was not right at the Ashburton Foundation. For the moment, that would be enough. Measured against the fiascoes surrounding Bobby Geary and Ian Toole, the planting of even a small seed of doubt in the man’s mind would be a major victory.

  “Yes, good morning,” she heard Zimmermann say. “I am Dr. William Zimmermann, from Boston. I should like to speak with the director.… Yes, exactly. Dr. Thompson.” Kate turned to Tom and gave him a conspiratorial smile. Suddenly, she realized that Zimmermann was waving to get her attention and pointing to the extension phone on the conference table. She came on the line just as did Dr. James Thompson.