by Greg Iles
June Bug was an old mutt with cataracts that had lived with them for fifteen years. Judah had doted on her, right to the end.
“This is like when daddy used to drown the runts,” Judah said. “In the big washtub.”
Eldon put his arm around his brother’s massive shoulder and led him away from the primate cages. It was amazing that anyone had ever mistaken him for Judah’s biological brother. Intellectually, they inhabited two different dimensions; Eldon’s mind probably contained four times as many neurochemical connections as Judah’s. Yet his adoptive brother had proved quite useful over the years, and he would in future.
They were in the front now, with their little town of beagles, two walls of black, white, and brown fur glinting with plaintive eyes. It would take Judah most of the day to euthanize them all. Not that they would resist. One of the reasons beagles were used for medical research was that they were so docile and friendly. They would only look up with mild reproof while you stuck in needles and probes; they were living proof that the meek would not inherit the earth, at least in the animal word.
“How are you going to do it?” Judah asked. “The chimps, I mean?”
“I’m going to dart them with a barbiturate. After they’re fully unconscious, I’ll use potassium chloride. They won’t feel a thing, Brother.”
Judah was biting his lip so hard that Eldon feared he would draw blood. “Does it have to be fire?”
“We have to purify this place. Fire is what God used, so we shall, too.”
Judah closed his eyes for a while, but when he opened them, Eldon saw that he had accepted this as his lot. After all, Eldon had defied their father and lived, so he must be anointed by God.
“You must be out by five,” Eldon said gravely. “Do you understand?”
“Are you leaving?”
“I’ll be back to put the apes down. But I doubt you’ll be finished.”
“Okay. Where do I go when it’s done?”
“I’ll explain everything when I come back.”
“Okay.”
Eldon smiled, then walked back to the primate area. He had some reading to do; explosives were not his line. Still, he was confident in his abilities. What a production it would be. An explosion, then fire—fire hot enough to melt steel—and when the firefighters arrived, they would find something they had never before seen: a dozen panicked primates crazed by the flames. Eldon figured the animals would double the time it would take to get the blaze out, which was exactly what he wanted. So…he would dart the animals, just as he’d promised Judah. But there would be no injection of KCl. And as a last measure, he would unlock the cages, binding the doors with a couple of twists of wire, enough to persuade the primates that the doors were still locked, until a conflagration of biblical proportions ripped through the old bakery. It would be interesting to see which species smashed their cage doors open first once the panic hit, but it was not worth dying to find out.
He looked over at a locked closet to the right of the chimps’ cages. In it were four cylinders filled with acetylene. Three other closets in the old bakery held identical cylinders. By the time the fire department responded to the calls of neighbors, the building would be burning at three thousand degrees Celsius. The stench of burning beagles would be permeating the area, and crazed monkeys would be flying at anyone who approached what until recently had been their home. Eldon laughed quietly, so that Judah wouldn’t hear him. It would be a spectacle worthy of Hieronymus Bosch on LSD.
CHAPTER 41
Chris held the elevator door for a nurse pushing a woman in a wheelchair, then followed Alex onto the fifth floor of the University Medical Center.
“Have you met Dr. Pearson during your mother’s treatment?” he asked.
Alex shook her head. “Mom’s doctor is Walter Clarke.”
“You’re kidding. Clarke was a year ahead of me in med school. I thought he was still at Baylor.”
Alex shrugged.
They walked past the patient wards and down to the academic offices. Near the end of the hall was a door with a brass nameplate that read MATTHEW PEARSON, MD, CHIEF OF HEMATOLOGY.
Chris paused and said, “Not a word about the FBI, murder, or anything like that.”
“Because?”
“This is a hospital. One whiff of litigation or even liability, and we’ll be out the door. This is my world, okay? Just follow my lead.”
Alex rolled her eyes. “I can do that.”
He knocked at the door, then walked into the office. A red-haired woman with a retro beehive looked up from a stack of papers. “Can I help you?”
“I hope so,” Chris said in his most genteel Southern accent. “I’m Dr. Chris Shepard from Natchez. I happen to be up here visiting a friend”—he nodded at Alex—“and I was hoping to talk to Dr. Pearson about a cluster of cancer cases back home.”
The secretary smiled, but the smile looked forced. “Do you have an appointment, Dr….?”
“Shepard. I’m afraid not. But I was talking to Dr. Peter Connolly up at Sloan-Kettering, and he spoke very highly of Dr. Pearson. Pete seemed to think I would have a good chance of speaking with him on short notice.”
At the mention of Connolly’s name, the woman’s face brightened instantly. “You know Dr. Connolly?”
“I studied under him when I went to school here.”
“Oh, I see.” She stood up and, coming around her desk, offered her hand. “I’m Joan. Dr. Pearson is busy right now, but let me just slip in there and see if he can’t get away for a minute.”
When the woman disappeared into the inner office, Alex whispered, “Aren’t you something.”
The door opened, and a smartly dressed man in his midforties walked out with his hand extended toward Chris. “Dr. Shepard?”
“Yes, sir,” said Chris, taking the hand and squeezing firmly. “Glad to meet you at last.”
“You, too. I see your name on a lot of charts that pass through here. You send a lot of referral business our way. We appreciate it.”
“Not as much as I used to, I’m afraid, now that we have Dr. Mercier in Natchez.”
“Well, that’s a good thing for your city.” Dr. Pearson grinned. “Hey, you don’t have a hidden camera on you, do you?”
So, even Matt Pearson had heard about Chris’s documentary on residents’ work hours. “No, my days as a director are over. I’m part of the establishment now.”
While the glad-handing and listing of mutual acquaintances progressed, Chris sized up the chief of hematology. Despite his coming from Stanford, Pearson seemed to be cut from the same cloth Chris had gotten to know so well during his years at UMC: a smart, clean-cut WASP who’d made a 4.0 at Ole Miss or Millsaps, then left the state for a med school with a more prestigious pedigree and returned home covered with laurels. Chris was a little surprised: in a rigorous specialty such as hematology, he’d expected a foreigner.
“Joan said something about a cancer cluster?” Pearson prompted.
“Right. But I’ve forgotten my manners.” Chris turned toward Alex. “This is Alexandra Morse. Her mother is here in your department right now. Ovarian cancer.”
An appropriately somber look came over Pearson’s face. “I’m familiar with the case. I’m sorry we have to meet under these circumstances, Ms. Morse.”
“Thank you,” Alex said in an accent so thick that Chris could have sworn she’d never left Mississippi. “All the doctors and nurses have been wonderful.”
“Is your mother part of this cancer cluster?”
“No,” Chris said. “Alex is just a friend. As for the cluster, I don’t have statistical backing yet, but we’ve had several similar cases in Natchez this past year, and it’s really starting to worry me.”
“What type of cancer?” asked Dr. Pearson.
“Different kinds, but all blood cancers. Leukemias, lymphomas, and a myeloma.”
Dr. Pearson nodded with genuine interest. “I’m surprised we haven’t picked this up ourselves. We’ve taken over the
state tumor registry, you know. Have these patients passed through here?”
“Some. Dr. Mercier has treated several, and some of the others have gone to M. D. Anderson, Dana-Farber, like that.”
“Right, of course.”
“The thing is,” said Chris, “some local doctors have wondered if there might be an environmental factor linking these cancers.”
More concerned nodding from Pearson. “That’s certainly possible. It’s a very complex subject, of course. Controversial, too.”
“I’ve also wondered,” Chris went on, “if there might be some other etiological link between the cases.”
“Such as?”
“Well, I’ve been doing a lot of reading in my frustration, and I’ve come across a few interesting possibilities. Radiation is one. We’ve got two nuclear plants in near proximity, and two of these patients work at one. The others don’t, though. Two of the patients have had chemo for previous cancers, though. I’ve also been intrigued by the role of oncogenic viruses in cancer.”
Dr. Pearson looked skeptical. “That seems pretty far-fetched, given what you’ve told me.”
Chris felt for the man. On one level, Chris was playing a type that Pearson would like to avoid: the loquacious country doctor come to town with a bunch of wild scientific theories. On the other hand, Chris could be a dream come true: a country doctor with a handful of reportable cases that would splash Pearson’s name through the top medical journals.
“What I was hoping,” Chris concluded, “was that you could put me in touch with faculty members who specialize in those areas, particularly carcinogenic poisons and oncogenic viruses.”
“I see,” said Dr. Pearson.
“Pete Connolly gave me a couple of names. Yours, of course. But he also mentioned a virologist named Ajit Chandrekasar.”
“Ajit is no longer here.”
“I see. He also mentioned an Eldon Tarver?”
Pearson nodded. “Dr. Tarver is still with us. He’s done some great work since Dr. Connolly left. He’d probably be glad to talk to you, too. With sufficient notice, of course.”
Chris let his disappointment show.
“We have some terrific people on staff,” Pearson said, “both in oncology and hematology. For the environmental toxins, you’d have to go a long way to beat Dr. Parminder. For radiation, I’d suggest Dr. Colbert. Oncogenic viruses are a little tougher. Most of the virologists I know are working on AIDS. Dr. Tarver might actually be your best bet.”
“Do you have anybody doing gene therapy?” Chris asked.
“Yes, but I’m not sure I see the relevance.”
“Don’t they use viruses to deliver modified genes to the cell?”
“That’s true,” conceded Pearson. “But they use very simple viruses as a rule. Adenoviruses, for example. Not oncogenic viruses, or retroviruses, which are a whole other thing, as I’m sure you know.”
“I understand the mechanics of RNA viruses. Reverse transcriptase and all that. I assumed that researchers doing that kind of work would probably have the answers to any questions I might ask about viruses.”
“Well, I’m happy to try to set this up, but I seriously doubt whether any of these specialists would be free today.”
Chris looked downcast. “So…Dr. Parminder for the environmental stuff. Colbert for radiation, and Dr. Tarver for the viral stuff?”
Dr. Pearson rubbed his chin. “Eldon is currently developing his own nucleic acid amplification assay. He probably knows as much about retroviruses as any virologist I ever met.”
“But you don’t think I could talk to either one of them today?”
“I doubt it. It would certainly have to be later in the day. Why don’t you give me your phone number, and I’ll call you after I’ve spoken to them.”
Chris gave Pearson his cell number. “I appreciate you taking the time to see us, Doctor. I’m going to tell Pete Connolly how helpful you’ve been.”
“Never too busy for a colleague,” said Pearson, offering his hand again. “Connolly’s doing fantastic work up at Sloan-Kettering. Of course, they have all the resources in the world. An embarrassment of riches.”
Chris nodded, smiled at Joan, then escorted Alex through the door.
As soon as the door shut behind them, Alex veered to the right, toward another row of doors.
“What are you doing?” Chris whispered.
“Finding the guys he talked about. Here’s Parminder right here. That wasn’t so hard.” She tested the knob. “Locked.”
Chris followed as she moved from door to door, but then his bowels spasmed. He doubled over, trying to keep from defecating in his pants.
“Chris?” she gasped, running back to him. “What is it?”
“I’ve got to get to a bathroom.”
She grabbed his arm and pulled him back the way they had come. “There’s a men’s room by the elevators.”
He struggled to duck-walk and keep his sphincter clenched at the same time. He made a note to look up the contraindications of the antiviral agents he was taking the next time he got near a computer. After a seeming eternity, the door to the men’s room appeared. Alex crashed right through and helped him into one of the stalls.
“Okay, get out,” he gasped.
“Are you all right?”
“Get out!”
He tried to hold it, but he was already going before she left the room.
Will Kilmer was parked at the base of the AmSouth Bank Tower when Thora Shepard climbed out of her silver Mercedes and stormed into the lobby of the office building. Her arrival stunned him. Kilmer was only parked here because the operative tailing Rusk had reported that his target had reversed direction ten miles south of town and headed back toward Jackson. Since that operative had reported other cars tailing Rusk, Will had driven here to take over the surveillance.
The couple he had watching Thora Shepard in Greenwood had broken off contact when they saw her checking out of the Alluvian Hotel. They, like Will, had assumed that Thora and her girlfriend would be driving straight back to Natchez. But now here she was, storming into Andrew Rusk’s office building with no girlfriend in sight. Where had she dumped Laura Canning? Will considered getting out and going up to the sixteenth floor, but what would that accomplish? He couldn’t get inside Rusk’s office. On the other hand, Rusk wasn’t there himself.
Will got out of his Ford Explorer and hurried across the street. He told the doorman that he was going up to the AmSouth offices on the second floor, then got into the elevator and punched 2 and 16. As soon as the doors opened on 16, he heard a woman yelling at near full volume:
“I called here all last night, and I’ve spoken to you at least five times this morning! I’ve paid your boss one hell of a lot of money, and I’m going to talk to him one way or another.”
Will stepped out of the elevator and peered through a wide door that led to an ultramodern reception area. Thora Shepard was standing with her back to him, facing an attractive blonde in her thirties, who was clearly struggling to maintain some semblance of professionalism.
“Mrs. Shepard,” said the receptionist, “I’ve told you repeatedly that Mr. Rusk is out of town. I’ve tried to reach him by cell phone, but I haven’t been able to. As soon as I do reach him, I will relay your message and the urgency of your situation. I promise you that.”
Thora stood with her hands on her hips, looking as if she meant to stand in that spot all day if that was what it took to see Andrew Rusk. It struck Will then that for the first time he was seeing her dressed like a normal person. No designer outfit. No fancy hairdo. Just tight blue jeans and an even tighter white T-shirt. Thora was clearly giving the receptionist the hairy eyeball, but the blonde behind the desk was giving as good as she got. Without warning, Thora whirled and marched back toward the elevator.
“You going down, ma’am?” Will asked.
“You’re damn right,” Thora snapped.
As the elevator whooshed toward the lobby, Thora cursed steadily under
her breath. In the closeness of the car, Will saw that her neck was blotchy with red spots, the way his wife looked when she was about to explode in a fit of temper. There were dark circles under both eyes. Will needed to talk to Alex in a hurry. Something had gone down last night, and they needed to know what it was.
When the elevator opened, Thora did not march out to the street. She walked aimlessly around the lobby like the survivor of a car crash. Will had seen a lot of desperate people during his years as a cop, and all his instincts told him this lady was about to snap.
He took out his cell phone and speed-dialed Alex. Her phone kicked him straight to voice mail. He jammed the phone back into his pocket and sat down on a padded bench. For five weeks, he had been helping his best friend’s daughter, out of a bottomless sense of obligation. He had worked a lot of dead-end cases over the years, and about ten days ago he had decided this was one of them. But now adrenaline was flushing through his system the way it always did when a case started to break. For a brief moment, he thought of young Grace Morse, who would never see her son graduate high school. For an even briefer moment, he thought of the daughter he himself had lost all those years ago. When he got up to follow Thora out to the street, all the aches and pains of age were gone. He felt younger than he had in years. Wherever this crazy woman led him, Will would follow.
Alex was standing outside the hospital men’s room when the elevator door opened and the bearded man with the birthmark that she’d met yesterday stepped out. He walked down the hall without glancing up, his eyes on a file in his hand. But then he turned, looked back at Alex, and said, “Hello, again.”
“Hello,” Alex called.
The bearded man smiled, then walked down the corridor and turned toward the academic offices. Alex hesitated, then followed. As she rounded the final corner, she saw his white-coated back disappear into an office. The brass plate on the door said ELDON TARVER, MD.
She hurried back to the men’s room, but she saw no sign of Chris in the hall. She cracked open the bathroom door and called his name.