“That’s exactly my thinking,” Abramhoff said.
“So where do we go from here?” Dr. Achampi asked.
“I have it all planned out,” Abramhoff explained. “We will pursue an executive order or permission signed by the governor. We will then isolate the worst of the worst in the maximum security section at Kankakee. We will probably need a minimum of two hundred subjects to make a scientific statement. We may also need heinous cases from our neighboring states, like that same Alexander Andalusia guy from Indiana, who, I can bet my life, will be positive for the HLA B66.”
“That nut, oh yah, I bet he is,” Achampi added.
“I need you, then, to get a list of all inmates at Kankakee. Select those with heinous crimes, and then randomly pick about two hundred to five hundred of them. In reciprocity, we will pay two hundred to five hundred medical students, and, if possible, residents, for age- and sex-matched cohorts.”
“Dr. Dickerson did not randomize her sample, I presume?” Achampi asked.
“No, she did not,” Abramhoff said. “That’s why her findings are anecdotal. Ours will grace the cover of The Journal of the American Medical Association.”
“I would probably need some extra—” Achampi said.
“Whatever extra money you need,” Abramhoff interrupted, seeming to read his mind, “Sabrina will handle the expenses. Also use as many staff members from the research fellowship as you need.”
The buzzing of the phone briefly distracted them from the conversation.
A few moments later, Sabrina knocked at the door. “Come in,” yelled Abramhoff.
“Dr. Dickerson from San Diego,” Sabrina whispered.
“Anything else?” Abramhoff asked, looking at Achampi.
“Not that I can think of,” Achampi said.
“Can you then report back to me, say … Thursday or Friday?”
“That would be fine, sir.”
Dr. Achampi left through the side conference room door, and Abramhoff went straight to his office and closed the door behind him.
2
“HELLO, REGINA,” ABRAMHOFF GREETED.
“How are you, David?”
“I’m fine. To what do I owe this call?”
“I was just calling to see whether you have any new leads.”
“As a matter of fact, I just finished a conference with my assistant, Dr. Achampi. We’re going to conduct a scientific research study using your theory.”
“How are you going to do that?”
“The governor has already signed on to our project, so we will use his executive decree and conduct a full-scale research study with a random comparative population.”
“What random comparative population will you use?”
“We’ll use paid medical students and willing residents, of course.”
“That’s easy enough,” agreed Dickerson.
“I think you probably need to expand your sample population, and match them with students also.”
“Yes, I can certainly expand my inmate population, but what population size are you planning to work with?”
“I told my associate to gather data from two hundred to five hundred.”
“Oh, that’s going to be a difficult number for me. I’m only working through our local police department and the San Diego Correctional Facility. My highest-ranking supporter is the chief of police.”
“Well, gather as much as you can, and compare them to the student populations.”
“Okay, I’ll try that,” agreed Dickerson.
Although she felt as if she was expected to say good-bye at this point, Dr. Dickerson instead asked, “By the way, are you a religious person?”
Dr. Abramhoff was taken aback a little bit and surprised by this question, because nobody had ever asked him before about his religious beliefs. In fact, religious conversation hardly ever came up during any of his academic discussions.
“I am, why?”
“Do you go to church?”
“Often enough,” Abramhoff added.
“You should read the Bible more often. I find it educational.”
“I will remember that,” answered Dr. Abramhoff skeptically. “Call me as soon as you have something, and I will do the same.”
Dr. Abramhoff wondered why she had brought religion into the conversation. What was that all about?
* * *
For the next couple of months, there were several telephone conversations between Abramhoff and Dickerson. Dr. Dickerson was able to solicit more help from the warden through the persuasive powers of the San Diego Chief of Police. They were able to add about two hundred more hard-core prisoners on death row for testing. Dr. Abramhoff, for his part, banked over five hundred inmates from the states of Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin.
“How did you get the medical students to sign an informed consent form?” Abramhoff asked.
“What I have been telling them here is that we have a new genetic marker that might predict criminal behaviors, and that it has not been a major problem. You know what will be the ultimate dilemma, especially when the test results are tabulated—what will happen if and when some of the medical students or residents test positive?”
“Now that’s an intriguing question,” Abramhoff agreed. “We can always invoke the privacy act, especially in view of the new HIPAA regulations.”
“Always the politician,” Dickerson responded. “But seriously, what shall we do with the positives in the comparative population?”
“I really don’t know, but they will not be able to know either unless they sue,” Abramhoff stated matter-of-factly.
“Let’s, for the moment, suppose they do just that.”
Sensing a very serious concern in Dickerson’s tone of voice, Abramhoff skillfully suggested, “Then I think we need to engage the state attorney general’s office earlier rather than later.”
“I think that’s a good idea.”
3
ABRAMHOFF SPENT THE ENTIRE evening and into the wee hours of the night poring over and pondering the analytical data given to him from the statistics department of the medical school.
Having convinced himself of the results, he called Dr. Achampi to join him in his office. It was about 9:17 P.M.
The drive from Lakefront Towers, where Achampi rented a one-bedroom apartment condo, to the university was short, but the traffic on Lake Shore Drive did not help matters any. It only added time for Achampi to contemplate the possible scenarios that would have precipitated Abramhoff to make this urgent late-night call. Perhaps the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the CDC, finally approved the multimillion-dollar grants.
But that would come in the mail, and everyone would have known about it during the day. Perhaps representatives from Pfizer had called late to give Abramhoff a heads-up on the approval of his grant request—because if they had not approved it, Abramhoff most certainly would not have called. That was not Abramhoff’s style. He was too vain to accept defeat, and on top of that, he wouldn’t broadcast bad news late in the evening.
Dr. Abramhoff’s face looked joyous. He was sitting in his office flipping over what appeared to be a printed report.
“Good evening, sir,” Achampi said.
“Hi, Ashutt,” responded Abramhoff, calling Dr. Achampi by his first name. “We have good news.” Achampi was already anticipating some kind of good news from Abramhoff. “This is the preliminary analysis of the data from the statistics department on the numbers collected from Kankakee as compared to our medical students and staff residents.”
“Oh,” Dr. Achampi said, who had anticipated otherwise.
“Here.” Abramhoff handed the entire report over to Achampi.
Achampi studied the report intently, and then declared, “That’s amazing. ninety-three percent of the death row inmates we tested were positive, while less than two percent of our staff tested positive. According to them, that’s nearly ninety-nine percent sensitivity and specificity with a confidence interval of almost ninety
-nine percent.”
Abramhoff sat there speechless, face glowing.
“That’s unbelievable,” Achampi said.
“Few, if any, scientific studies have yielded such positive findings,” Abramhoff agreed.
“That goes to the core proof that HLA B66 is the marker for hard-core criminals,” Achampi added.
“Yes, and what else?” Abramhoff urged, ever the instructor.
“This kind of, through the back door, lends credence to the theory of predestination,” ventured Dr. Achampi.
“No! I don’t subscribe to the theory that this is a backdoor entrance,” Abramhoff argued, his right index finger vigorously pointing at the document. “This is through the front door.
“This, directly, is our front door for the basic concept of predestination. Look, it proves that heinous criminals are preprogrammed, or destined, for their criminality. The question, therefore, is what other preprogrammed behaviors exist on the HLA antigen that have not yet been discovered? The way I see it, when all the positions are finally discovered on the HLA antigen, we may be able to determine who is destined to succeed in life, and who is destined for failure, and in theory determine who is destined to commit crimes. We might even be able to determine who is destined to be the president of the United States.”
“A little too science fiction, don’t you think?” Achampi said, calming the conversation back to reality as he sensed Abramhoff’s euphoria
“Yeah it is, but who would have thought in a million years that we would be able to quantify, and in the process determine, the link that connects all criminal elements together?”
“You mean, heinous criminals, mostly on death row,” Dr. Achampi clarified.
“Yes, for now, but with further testing I am convinced the research will eventually be extended to all criminals.”
“That will require a lot of testing.”
“Yes, but now, with this result, you watch.”
* * *
“Our results are phenomenal!” Abramhoff said during an early-morning telephone call to Dickerson.
“Which results?” Dickerson asked, as she signed a document placed in front of her by her secretary.
“The percentage of positive HLA we discovered on our death-row inmates.”
“I told you in Orlando about my preliminary findings.”
“The statistics are overwhelming,” Dr. Abramhoff said, opening the blinds to peer at the traffic streaming along Lake Shore Drive. “I received the statistical analysis yesterday, and our results were close to ninety-two percent.”
“That actually reconfirmed what I already observed.” Dickerson motioned to the secretary to hold off on the second document. “I actually was able to add an extra 472 death row inmates to our data and, needless to say, the analysis remained the same.”
“So you think that we are onto something?” Abramhoff could hardly contain himself.
Dickerson smiled because she realized that her research finally had a collaborator. “Yes, and I believe this is just a beginning.” Dickerson motioned to the secretary to give her five more minutes. “So what’s next?”
“The news media, don’t you think?”
“I thought we would collaborate and publish our findings first, before any media exposure.”
“Yes, in a standard debatable study, such as a sixty-percent positive finding.” Abramhoff finally sat down. “But with this magnitude of positive findings, we can do both simultaneously.”
“But what would come of it?” asked Dickerson, who had expressed her aversion to releasing this to the news media previously.
“Two things.” Abramhoff sensed Dickerson’s lack of enthusiasm. “One, we will launch the study into national awareness, and two, and this is the most important thing, we will be able to garner any amount of money we ask for.”
He might be right, but I hate to politicize this, Dickerson thought.
“One question that needs answering, however, is what to make of the less-than-two-percent positive finding in the student population,” she again queried.
“Listen, we will make that question the core of our national agenda, the finding that one to two percent of the population, who are normal in behavior, will yet ultimately test positive on the HLA,” Abramhoff said.
“I see where you are going with that. You think that there might be a trigger mechanism on the HLA B66-positive folks.”
“Exactly,” concurred Abramhoff, right hand clenched in delight that Dickerson had finally agreed. “Take the case of that British physician who killed twenty-three of his widowed patients over a span of fifteen years. He was, after all, a perfectly normal and respected doctor in the community until he was caught.”
Dickerson wondered about that. There were, after all, other cases just like Abramhoff mentioned. Also her research had suffered immensely because of inadequate funding from the university. National exposure would invariably pump in the necessary money she needed to take her research to the next level. Her conscience, however, still bothered her about labeling any individual’s criminal intent, even before they commit any crime. With more funding and further testing, there might be a way to avert that.
“So what media outlet should we use?” asked Dickerson, finally consenting to the media exposure, even though she had never faced the media before.
“I have always been biased toward the CBS station in Chicago. I know the general manager. I can contact him, and he can give us an exclusive interview, or we can call a general news conference in Chicago or San Diego and invite all the news outlets.”
“I prefer the second option, but how do we get all to attend?”
“Don’t worry about that; here we have a public relations department that will arrange all that. Believe me, when they beckon, all the news outlets, including the print media, will be there.”
“That’s interesting,” Dickerson said, fascinated.
“For publication, which journal would you prefer?” Abramhoff asked.
“I have always liked The Journal of the American Medical Association.”
“That’s fair enough.”
They finally agreed to have the news conference in Chicago in two weeks, on Wednesday, at 2:00 P.M. central time, noon pacific time.
Dickerson would fly to Chicago the weekend prior to the news conference. Sabrina would arrange for all her flights and also a hotel stay at the Hyatt.
Monday and Tuesday would be spent coordinating and going over data from both campuses for eventual publication, and also in preparation for the press conference.
4
WAKING UP EARLY SATURDAY mornings had always been difficult for Marion Moheri. Somehow, in the back of his mind, he realized that he really did not have to get up this early in the morning, especially on Saturdays, but with Mr. Moheri’s schedule at Johnston’s Chemicals, his internal alarm always woke him up every day at 5:30 A.M. This early April Saturday morning was rather pleasant.
A bobolink, a small songbird, perched on the birch tree overlooking the bedroom window, was chirping away a tune that sounded like the instrumental version of “Amazing Grace.”
Marion lay there on the bed, eyes wide open.
Susan was snoring away on the other side of the bed. Susan Moheri always snored. Closer to dawn, her snoring would degenerate into such a deep, multi-nasal melody that, once Marion woke up, it was practically impossible for him to go back to sleep. Each night, he made every effort to be in bed asleep prior to Susan; otherwise, he needed a glass of gin mixed with few drops of tonic water to fall asleep deeply enough to not be disturbed by Susan’s early-night monotonous grunts.
Most times that Marion had done that, he had awakened the next morning with a slight hangover.
Entering the bathroom, Marion turned on the lights. He brushed his teeth and gargled with mouthwash. After his shower, he dressed in his weekend business-casual attire, kissed sleeping Susan good-bye, and headed to the office.
Today, he was meeting with Tina Coffee, an assista
nt research fellow from the cosmetics department. They were collaborating on a new Johnston’s product for easy removal of nail polish. The huge chemical plant in Whiting, Indiana, just south of downtown Chicago, had been one of the biggest employers in Whiting and the neighboring towns.
“Good morning, Tina,” Dr. Moheri said, as he entered the laboratory. He was surprised to find that Tina had arrived before he had.
“Good morning, Professor,” Tina said, calling Moheri by his common title among the workers at the lab.
“Too early for you, huh?” Moheri asked.
“As a matter of fact, yes,” Tina said. “I was like, ‘I don’t know how you do this time after time.’”
“I call it my pituitary alarm,” Dr. Moheri replied. “An internal brain alarm that rings at exactly five thirty a.m.”
“I wish I had one of those, but then again, I didn’t graduate summa cum laude from Indiana University.”
“It takes years to develop, and sometimes you have to pay a heavy price for that,” responded Dr. Moheri, without elaborating.
“So what do you think?” Tina asked, sitting down at the corner of a laboratory table; it held several reagents, three Bunsen burners, and four computer terminals.
“About what?” Dr. Moheri asked, smiling, while settling down at the desk overlooking the main laboratory, catty-corner to where Tina was sitting.
“About the new product, silly.” Tina smiled, crossing her legs.
“I think that if we have a better testing method or material to evaluate how effective it will work on humans, we have a shot at it.”
“What are you suggesting? You know the last test we did on the rabbit nail nearly took out all the hairs in the poor animal’s paws.”
“Yes, but after further refinement, the subsequent test on the tongue depressor was flawless.”
“Tongue depressors are made of wood … hello?”
“Yes, I know.” Moheri shook his head in disbelief. “But there are no indications that what happened to the rabbit would occur in humans. After all, humans, especially women, don’t have hairs on their hands—or feet, for that matter.”
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