“What do you mean quickly?”
“Without warning.”
“He’d had a cough and slight fever for a few days before it happened.”
Another fact that didn’t fit.
“The night he became paralyzed he was in his room playing. I walked in, and there he was, lying on the floor. And he hasn’t moved since.”
“Was he reading when it happened?”
“There were some books near him, but I don’t know what he was doing.”
“Around the time he got sick, do you remember someone sending you a book that played a little song at the end?”
“No, but my husband always brought in the mail.”
“And you don’t recall a book like that lying about.”
“It’s been four years.”
“I understand. Mrs. Klyce, I have to say that nothing you’ve told me fits the pattern of the way Latham worked.”
“I’m not finished. I couldn’t stand by and do nothing for my son. I had to get him some proper medical attention, so I put him in a facility in Nashville. My husband and I split up over the issue.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. He was an inconsiderate stupid ass. Anyway, about a year after we’d divorced I decided to move Gilbert here to the Brunswick Center. Of course, I had to live nearby to give him his physical therapy. You know, to keep his tendons from shortening, so when he’s better he’ll be able to walk.
“The day the movers came I found a letter that must have slipped behind the desk my ex used during our marriage. It probably fell out the back of one of the drawers. It was from a doctor at Vanderbilt offering to treat Gilbert free with some experimental therapy he’d developed. The date on it was a year old. My husband had known about it for a year, and the bastard never said anything.
“With all the confusion of moving, I didn’t have time to follow up on the letter that day. Besides, it was a Saturday. So the doctor wouldn’t have been in his office anyway. I planned to call him on Monday, but somehow I lost the letter. I was sure I put it in my bag, but when I looked for it, it wasn’t there. And I couldn’t remember the name of the doctor. I called Vanderbilt, but without his name they couldn’t help me. To this day I haven’t found that letter. But when I saw Latham’s name in the paper, I remembered. That’s who it was.”
“You’re sure.”
“Absolutely.”
Evelyn’s story explained why Gilbert had never been treated by Latham. With that issue resolved, Sarchi began to see how the other discordant aspects of Gilbert’s situation could be reconciled. In the beginning, when Latham was infecting kids and treating them free to gain a reputation with the HMOs, there didn’t have to be any New York connection with the kids he’d chosen because no one was waiting for their cells. And Gilbert’s fever before he’d become paralyzed could have been a coincidence. Pick a group of kids at random, and inevitably you’ll get one with a cold.
Deep down, Sarchi knew all this was probably just wishful thinking on her part, but if she could give Gilbert one chance in a thousand—or even one in a million at some level of recovery—why not try it?
SARCHI FILLED THE syringe with half a cc of the gene inactivating solution and inserted the needle into the injection port of Gilbert’s IV. Everything to this point had gone incredibly well. Though most everyone involved believed, for one reason or another, that this was going to be a waste of time, they’d agreed to help. Even Koesler had given his permission, provided that Gilbert’s mother signed the proper forms, which she did without hesitation.
Carl Lanza already had all the ingredients for the inactivating solution in his lab. At Sarchi’s request he’d made and tested the solution on a dozen rats without producing any ill effects even when he used ten times the dosage indicated on the sheet bearing the formula. She’d started putting all this together around ten o’clock. It was now a little past two. Four hours from inception to delivery—truly a remarkable achievement.
But would it work?
The room was crowded with people: Gilbert’s mother, Kate McDaniels, Mel Pierce, Carl Lanza, interns and residents, two nurses, and a cardiac team. Apart from Evelyn Klyce, there wasn’t much optimism in the room. So most of those present were there either to provide moral support or to lend assistance if anything went sour.
Her heart in her throat, Sarchi pushed the plunger and sent the solution into Gilbert’s blood. Except for the beep of his pulse oximeter, the room was silent. But the collective anxiety of the group was almost palpable.
One second . . . two seconds . . . three . . .
Gilbert lay there, still in fetal flexion, still pitiful. But his heartbeat remained steady and his breathing normal.
Ten seconds . . .
The elapsed time stretched to a minute, then two. As the interval lengthened, the tension in the room began to dissipate. At five minutes after injection, everyone looked visibly relaxed.
“What’s the earliest we could expect any result?” one of the interns asked Sarchi. Gilbert’s mother, too, waited for her answer.
The question was a tough one. In his second paper, Timmons had written that the inactivation solution restored function in mice several hours after injection. But people aren’t mice. Moreover, the charts of the kids Latham had treated mentioned nothing about any of this. So he must have recorded that information separately on sheets Pierce had yet to find.
“The half-life of the defective ion channels is very short—a matter of hours. But we don’t know how long it’ll take for the affected cells to resume their normal functions after the channels are gone.” Had Evelyn not been present, Sarchi might have added that even if Gilbert’s condition had been caused by Latham, the length of time Gilbert had been paralyzed could mean his cells would never be normal again.
Seeing that Gilbert had tolerated the injection with no ill effects, the group in his room dispersed. Though Sarchi wanted to remain, she was paged to the ER. “Mrs. Klyce, I’ve got to go. But I’ll be back when I can. You’re free to stay as long as you like.”
For the rest of the afternoon, Gilbert dominated Sarchi’s thoughts. Each time she returned to Gilbert’s room, she examined him carefully, looking for the slightest sign of improvement. But she saw nothing. And each time that she had to acknowledge his mother’s hopeful look with a shake of the head, it hurt so badly she began to feel reluctant to return.
Around ten p.m. she entered Gilbert’s room to find the intern and the junior resident on call at Gilbert’s side.
“Any change?” she asked.
“I’m not sure,” Allison Jeter, the junior resident, said. “But I believe his elbow flexion is starting to relax. See what you think.”
Sarchi went to Gilbert, took hold of his right arm, and tried to straighten it at the elbow. She’d almost decided she saw no improvement when something happened she’d never forget.
Gilbert slowly turned his head toward his mother standing on the other side of the bed and made a croaking noise that sounded for all the world like “momma.”
Sarchi was transfixed.
It was the first voluntary movement he’d ever made in her presence. And he could also apparently see. Whether he was never blind, or had somehow regained his sight, wasn’t clear, but whatever was going on was miraculous.
Recognizing this milestone for what it was, tears began to run down his mother’s cheeks. Equally overwhelmed with emotion, Sarchi’s eyes also filled with tears. Evelyn bent down and began smothering Gilbert’s face with kisses.
There was no way to know how far Gilbert was going to be able to travel the road back to health, and it was surely going to be a slow journey with many hours of physical therapy, but there was now reason for hope.
The nurse put her hand on Sarchi’s shoulder. “Good work, Doctor. This is the best thing I’ve seen since I�
�ve been here.”
Evelyn looked up from Gilbert, her face quivering. “Thank you. Thank you.” She left Gilbert’s side, ran to Sarchi, and hugged her. “I’ll never forget you for this . . . never.”
Feeling her pager vibrating, Sarchi gently pulled free from Evelyn’s embrace and checked the number. “I’ve got a patient in the ER,” she said. “But I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Not wanting to arrive at the ER teary-eyed, Sarchi wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. But as fast as she cleared the tears away, more came.
Waiting for the elevator, she finally got control of herself. But the feeling of elation remained. Never had she felt so much like a healer. She wanted to tell someone what had happened . . . anyone . . . a janitor . . . somebody. But it was after hours, and there was no one in the elevator when it arrived and no one in the hall when she stepped from it.
At times like this the hospital reminded her of Woods Hole, where, during her undergraduate days, she’d spent six weeks taking a course at the Marine Biology Institute. Sometimes at night the fog would roll in so heavily you could walk blocks without seeing anyone. Then you’d open the door to the Captain Kidd, the most happening place in town, and there the world was. The ER, the hospital’s Captain Kidd, was down the hall and around the corner, past the plastic sheeting marking the soon-to-be remodeled X-ray suite.
As she walked, she pictured once more that fantastic moment—Gilbert turning his head and actually speaking. “Momma”—she was sure that’s what he’d said. This is what it means to be a doctor.
Suddenly she felt something around her neck . . . pulled tight . . . choking her.
“You arrogant, meddling bitch,” a voice hissed behind her. “It’s all your fault.”
Sarchi was pulled backward into the construction area, which, except for the light from the hall, was dark.
“If it wasn’t for you, George would still be alive.”
George . . . Latham . . . Through her fear and the pressure building in her head, Sarchi realized this had to be the woman Veret was looking for. She tried to claw backward at the woman’s face, but found nothing.
“And you just had to send that redhead to Tropical Joe to see who I was—that was your fault, too.”
Though her own survival was at stake, Sarchi’s brain howled in fury at this stark confession that this was Sharon’s killer. With her head feeling as though it was going to burst, she pushed backward, driving the two of them across the room until they hit a wall of metal studs that buckled. Her assailant went to the floor, pulling Sarchi down on top of her.
“Just give up and die,” the woman strangling her said.
With her brain now screaming for air, Sarchi reached back, got the fingers of both hands in the woman’s hair, and pulled hard.
“More,” the woman said. “I love it.”
Sarchi found an ear and twisted it. She then beat on the sides of the woman’s head with both fists, but the ligature around her neck remained tight.
With only a few seconds of life left to her and a light show beginning behind her eyes, Sarchi’s hands swept the darkness around her, looking for an object she could use as a weapon. Her hand hit something, but it was merely a piece of pipe insulation. Then her fingers encountered a tool—a drill.
Barely conscious, she got hold of the drill and with the last bit of strength left in her, aimed the butt at her assailant’s head, hoping she wouldn’t hit herself. There was an impact, then she lost consciousness.
“THAT’S DOCTOR SEMINOUX,” one of the security guards investigating the noise in the construction area said. “I don’t know who the other one is.”
“Are they dead?” the other guard asked.
Sarchi woke to the beam of a flashlight in her face. With effort, she rose to a sitting position and looked behind her at the still-unconscious woman in purple scrubs who’d tried to strangle her. Lee-Ann had been described as blonde, but this woman was a brunette. It took Sarchi a few seconds to figure out that she’d dyed her hair so she wouldn’t be recognized.
Sarchi’s head throbbed and her neck ached, but these were mere physical complaints that would pass. Of much greater significance was the phone call she would make to Claude Veret, telling him Sharon’s killer had been caught.
Sarchi would always carry emotional scars from her encounters with Latham, Jackie, and Lee-Ann, but the one comfort she could take into the future was that those three would never harm anyone again.
Now it was over.
(Please continue reading for more about Don Donaldson)
Acknowledgements
It’s often said that writing is a lonely business. But it can also be a stimulus to interact with wonderful, interesting people. That was certainly true for me as I gathered background information for this book. At the top of that list is Dr. Deborah Nelson, who patiently and with good humor spent hours teaching me enough pediatric medicine to portray Sarchi Seminoux in a convincing fashion. Whatever success I’ve achieved with that must also be credited to Dr. Ginger Coreil, who was a third-year resident in peds when I was following her around the hospital and generally making a nuisance of myself.
I’ve also drawn unmercifully on my colleagues in the department of Anatomy and Neurobiology for help. Dr. Eldon Geisert provided some extremely important plot suggestions as well as guidance on the needed molecular biology. Neuroanatomical and background information on Huntington’s disease came from Dr. Tony Reiner. Dr. Dennis Steindler, who actually coined the term, “brain marrow”, kindly allowed me to attribute that to one of my characters. Everything Sarchi and I know about caving we learned from Dr. Mel Park and the terrific book he let me borrow. Sarchi’s view of single-engine planes and the other tidbits of private aviation subculture came from conversations with Dr. Jim Evans and a short flight over Memphis with Jim at the controls.
I was mesmerized and greatly helped by watching Dr. Michael Muhlbauer remove an arachnoid cyst from the brain of a young girl. Medicine truly at its best. For answering all my pages as promptly as if I were a patient in trouble, for explaining some of the mysteries of neurosurgery, and for sharing the tribulations of a resident in that specialty, I’m indebted to Dr. Brannon Thomas.
A hearty thanks also to Brenda Canady, Sally Discenza, Maggie Aiken, and Pat Speck at the Memphis Sexual Assault Resource Center for taking me through the victim examination process and helping me understand what a sexual assault or the belief that one might have occurred does to a victim psychologically.
Important contributions were also made by Dr. Walter Manning, Dr. Kevin Merigian, Dr. Joan Chesney, Dr. Allen Wyler, Dr. Malinda Fitzgerald, Dr. Eldridge Johnson, Glenda and Elliot Henderson, Evalie Hill, Sarah Hull, Lynn Browder, and Detective Paul Sheffield.
For the many years of our marriage, my wife, June, has supported me spiritually in everything I’ve done. She’s also turned out to be a pretty good editor. This time, in addition to making me rewrite the usual number of scenes, she provided two suggestions that were absolutely first-rate. (And now that I’ve said so in print, she’ll have something to show me when, as she predicts, I eventually come to believe they were my ideas.)
Sincere apologies to anyone who should have been mentioned and wasn’t. Any factual errors in this book are, of course, my fault.
About Don Donaldson
Don holds a Ph.D. in human anatomy. In his professional career, he has taught microscopic anatomy to over 5,000 medical and dental students and published dozens of research papers on wound healing. He is also the author of seven published forensic mysteries and five medical thrillers. He lives in Memphis, Tennessee with his wife and two West Highland terriers.
r>
The Killing Harvest Page 32