At that point, after what he told me, I’d like to say that I blew the whistle, but I didn’t. Instead, I took advantage of his knowledge so that our next one could have a chance at a normal life. Don’t judge me too harshly—when you want kids as badly as we did, you’re willing to do a lot of things you wouldn’t think of otherwise. Here’s the part even I can’t justify: Lydia doesn’t know, never did. We tricked her. Going to explain it to her tonight, hope she’ll find some way to forgive me.
Anyway, Dr. Updyke was right, Isaac was born disorder free. He’s been healthy for 8 yrs. Was ready to repeat the procedure with the child Lydia carries now, but as it turned out, we didn’t need to.
But then a few months ago, Isaac’s health started failing. Did a swab while he was sleeping, and he tested negative for WKS.
So what is it? What’s wrong with him? I don’t know! Dr. Updyke says not to worry, but I can’t help it.
A few weeks ago, I thought if I could get a look at the experiments that had gone wrong in the past, that I could maybe talk to the families or at least read the case notes and figure out some way to help my son. Dr. Updyke wouldn’t let me access those files, though, so I broke into the archives and tried to take them anyway. Big mistake. Not only was I caught and suspended, but the only information I was able to get were dates of the procedures, not names.
Once I was on suspension, I spent a lot of time studying the problem, first trying to trace our roots so I could know where the WKS had come from, and then trying to study the variations and mutations of the disorder. Lots of work but turned up nothing. Finally, last week I called Doug. Met him for lunch, told him the whole truth, asked if he could use his security clearance to get the info for me on those other patients.
When I got home tonight there were two messages from Doug on the phone, both pretty urgent. He said he had gotten the info I wanted, plus some I didn’t expect. I don’t know what he meant by that. His message said to meet at the new Wynn Industries building, but when I got there, he was dead, and then somebody tried to do me in as well. Don’t know who, never saw a face, took off running.
That’s where I am now. Anna, you know I can’t go to the authorities on this. They’re not going to listen to an ex-con, especially one previously convicted of involuntary manslaughter! They’re not going to take my word against a world-renowned scientist or the owner of the company or whoever killed Doug and tried to kill me. Afraid I may even be framed for his death.
All I know is that by stirring the pot in an attempt to save my son, it looks like the secret of Dr. Updyke’s work is getting out—and things are dangerous. Right now, because Isaac is the only living proof of Dr. Updyke’s illegal gene therapy, I have no choice but to take him and Lydia out of here and keep them safe until I can get real proof and make that whistle blow loud and clear.
If for some reason we don’t make it, you have to take it from here. Tell the authorities that we know there’s proof at Wynn headquarters because Doug found it and tried to bring it to me. He died for it, in fact. Tell them to exhume the bodies of the babies from the failed experiments, and all the proof they need will be there in their messed-up DNA.
Talk to Reed Thornton about it. This is what he does, hunts down the rule breakers like Dr. Updyke. Trust no one else but Reed!
Sorry to throw all this on you, Bobanna, but it’s life or death right now. Am using what you taught me to create a very confusing mess and buy time. When I get back to Dreiheit tonight, I’m going to take Lydia and Isaac and disappear.
Respond in kind, I’ll know where to look. Sorry for being so obscure, but I learned from the best. Be careful. Stay in touch you-know-how.
Bobby
There was a printer connected to the computer, so I printed out the entire thing, folded it, and put it in my purse. Before I walked away from the computer, however, I erased all of the browser history, including the hidden cache. That post really had been for my eyes only.
Though Bobby’s letter certainly fleshed things out, it still didn’t answer some of my most fundamental questions. Thinking about all we still didn’t know, I stood and was about to move to the elevator when the lobby doors whooshed open and Reed Thornton came walking in. With him was the man of the hour himself, Dr. Updyke.
Shrinking back as much as possible, I watched as the two men walked purposefully across the lobby and down a hallway. They talked as they went, and though I would have given anything to hear what they were saying, I didn’t know how I could get close enough without being seen.
Still, I had to know what they were doing and where they were going. As discreetly as possible, I tagged along behind, slipping around corners and hiding behind vending machines. When they went through a “Staff Only” door, I waited a beat and then went through it too, just in time to see them step into a room off to the right. Inching forward, I read the sign on the door they had gone through: Department of Neurogenetics, Diagnostic Laboratory.
Taking a chance, I looked in the window. The room was like a big lab, though it seemed to be empty except for the two of them. They were at the far end and were obviously discussing a piece of equipment, one that looked like a small, black copy machine connected to a computer workstation.
Watching the backs of both of their heads, I pushed lightly on the door. It opened without making a sound, so I slipped inside and easily moved behind a large metal cabinet. From there, I could hear what they were saying, and as long as no one else came walking into the room, I didn’t think they would ever realize I was there.
Pressing myself into the tight space, I listened carefully, though most of what they were saying was so technical that I didn’t understand it. From what I could tell, they had come in there to look at a specific piece of equipment similar to one Dr. Updyke was thinking about getting for the WIRE. He wanted to show Reed a few things about it, and it sounded as though the lab coordinator had given them permission to be there since they were coming to the hospital anyway to visit Bobby.
Dr. Updyke was describing some of the WIRE’s plans to Reed, rhapsodizing about the various ways that new equipment could enhance their work. The two men talked money for a while, the doctor saying that he could buy a new house with what some of the machines in this lab cost.
“They are worth it, though,” Reed replied, “especially when you compare what you’re saving in man-hours.”
“Oh, yeah. Remember the old days? What we had to go through for sequencing? This baby can handle almost four hundred samples at a time.”
“Impressive.”
“Then there was the amount of time spent disabling viruses,” the doctor said with a laugh. “Remember that?”
“Remember? Are you kidding? That’s mostly what I did the whole summer I worked for you.”
“That’s right. What were we using back then? Pox?”
“Primarily, yes. Cowpox.”
The doctor went on to talk about more ways technology had improved, but all I could think was cowpox?
That must have been what was on the person’s skin in the photo.
Cowpox.
So many questions were racing through my mind that I didn’t hear much of what they said next until Bobby’s name was mentioned. Perking up, I listened as the two men came walking closer, and it sounded as though they were now going upstairs to see him.
Considering what I knew—and didn’t know—about Dr. Updyke and the WIRE and Reed, there was simply no way these men were going to get anywhere near my brother, not if I could help it. I thought about pushing over the cabinet to block them, or running into the hall to shout for the police. Instead, before I could do either, the door suddenly swung open and a man in a white lab coat came into the room.
He smiled at the two men but then did a double take when he saw me hiding nearby. Before he could react, I had no choice but to step out from my hiding place. Grabbing the nearest thing I could find, a square metal box, I held it up in the air and told the man in the lab coat to go get security or I would throw t
he box on the floor. My hope was that it was a ten-thousand-dollar piece of equipment or something, and that he would be so startled and compliant that the situation would soon be under control.
Instead, he just looked at me as though I were crazy and said that if I wanted to throw his lunchbox on the floor, could he please take his soda out first?
Feeling my face flush, I set the box on the counter and asked him to please, please go get hospital security. With a glance from me to the other two men, he left.
“Anna, what are you doing?” Reed asked.
Instead of replying, I simply reached into my purse, unzipped the inner pocket, and pulled out the photo.
“This was in Kate Schumann’s medical file from 1997,” I said, holding it up so that they could both see. “Would one of you like to tell me what sort of genetic engineering you were involved with back then, and what cowpox had to do with it?”
Both men were quite startled. Reed held out a hand and I reluctantly gave him the photo, though I lied and said I had already made a bunch of copies and put them in a safe place. As he studied the picture, he explained that disabled viruses were often used in gene therapy, to help carry new genes into cells and then replicate.
“You’re saying that a person is intentionally injected with a virus?” I asked incredulously.
“A disabled virus,” Reed corrected.
“The virus in that picture doesn’t look too disabled to me,” I said.
Reed looked questioningly at Dr. Updyke, who merely pursed his lips and shook his head as if to say he wasn’t talking.
“What did you do to Isaac Jensen?” I demanded of the doctor, a surge of anger rising up inside of me. “Is he going to die? Was whatever you’re doing down at the WIRE worth killing Doug for and trying to kill Bobby for?”
“Whoa,” the doctor said, holding up both hands. “Nobody killed anybody here.”
“Stop lying! You’re out of control, doctor. You have to be stopped! What’s wrong with Isaac? Why did you kill Doug? Why was that photo in Kate Schumann’s file?”
I thought maybe if I kept questioning him around in circles, eventually he would break. Before I had that chance, however, the door burst open and a number of men came spilling in, each of them bearing guns pointed firmly at the doctor.
Somehow, I didn’t think they were mere hospital security.
As Dr. Updyke raised both hands into the air, the main gunman held up a badge and announced they were with the FBI. From the look on Updyke’s face, he was disdainful of the entire situation and quite irritated by all the fuss. That irritation seemed to fade into resignation, however, as he slowly seemed to understand that the jig was finally up.
“Oh, fine,” the doctor said, speaking directly to me. “Kate Schumann’s fetus had WKS, which I attempted to remedy in utero via gene therapy. Unfortunately, at some point during gestation, the disabled virus re-enabled itself. The infant carried to term but wasn’t viable at birth. That’s a photo of the baby. It was born dead, covered with pox.”
I gasped, realizing that the situation the night of the fire had been even more tragic than we’d thought. Not only had Lydia’s mother delivered her child stillborn, but the infant’s body had been horribly riddled with cowpox.
Now it was Reed’s turn to look angry.
“You really used the viruses we were disabling for human trials? Illegal human trials?”
“I was making progress. At least the genetic material didn’t integrate into the wrong place in the genome.”
“You mean like it did the time before,” Reed demanded, “when it landed on the tumor suppressor gene and induced a fatal tumor in a three-month-old baby?”
“Yes. That was unfortunate.”
While I was relieved to hear the doctor confess, I was more concerned about what was going on in the here and now.
“What did you do to Isaac?” I demanded.
“The in vitro procedure done to Isaac Jensen was one hundred percent successful,” the doctor announced haughtily. “I have been telling Bobby for weeks that his son’s problems are medically predictable and not progressive. He just wouldn’t believe me.”
“That’s because the child has obvious complications,” Reed said.
“Those complications are a necessary evil, a side effect of protecting the germline. Say what you will, at least I acted responsibly.”
I looked from the doctor to Reed.
“What’s the germline?” I asked.
Reed explained that it had to do with subsequent generations of genetically modified people. According to him, that was the biggest unknown in genetic tampering, how genes that were altered now might manifest themselves in future generations.
“How can you say that you acted responsibly?” I demanded of the doctor.
“I inserted an extra chromosome along the X axis. Isaac is XXY.”
Reed’s eyes narrowed as he glared at the doctor.
“Klinefelter’s?” he whispered incredulously. “You gave that child Klinefelter’s syndrome on purpose?”
“Most men with Klinefelter’s grow up perfectly normal and never even know they have it. In many cases, symptoms can be mild or even nonexistent,” Dr. Updyke said.
“What’s Klinefelter’s?” I asked, my heart in my throat.
“It’s is a chromosomal disorder that can cause difficulty with speech, reading, and writing,” Reed explained. “Dr. Updyke is correct in saying that Isaac won’t degenerate into a worse state, but he will always have to live with the hurdles he is dealing with now.”
“But why?” I demanded, looking from Reed to Dr. Updyke. “Why give someone a disorder that would do that to him?”
“To make sure he’ll be sterile,” Reed said sadly, shaking his head. “Men with Klinefelter’s syndrome usually can’t have children. This way, Isaac won’t pass on his altered genes to the next generation.”
The doctor nodded, a noble smirk on his face. I simply stared at him in shock. This man was nothing less than a monster.
“What gives you the right to play God this way?” I whispered.
“I have dueled with the double helix and won,” Dr. Updyke replied. “For all intents and purposes, my dear, I am God.”
FORTY-TWO
After meeting with the FBI, Dr. Updyke confessed to having conducted illegal genetic modification on three different patients: the infant who lived for three months but then died of a tumor, Kate Schumann’s stillborn baby, and Isaac Jensen. He refused to confess to the murder of Doug Brown or the attempted murder of Bobby Jensen, but I felt sure the FBI would get that out of him eventually as well.
By the time they led him away in handcuffs, I still hadn’t had the nerve to ask about the file I had found with my name on it. I simply couldn’t bring it up in front of so many people. I hoped to deal with it soon more privately, beyond Reed’s listening ears.
As for Reed, I was astounded to see that the remaining members of the FBI were treating him like a hero, patting his back and shaking his hand and saying it looked like a job well done. I started to object, to tell them about the stocks, but when I did, they just laughed.
“So this is her, huh?” one of the men asked Reed. “The one you were talking about?”
“Yep. Can’t you tell by the obstinate posture? The suspicious glare? The judgmental scowl? This is her all right, and if you don’t mind, Lieutenant, we’d like a moment alone.”
With a wink, the man slipped from the lab. As the door shut behind him, Reed began pacing in anger.
“Honestly, Anna, I don’t know what to do with you. Stocks? You thought I was a murderer because I bought stock in Wynn Industries?”
“I didn’t go that far with it. I just told the police—”
“Yeah, the police! Did it ever cross your mind to come to me and ask me about things first? I would have gladly explained. But no! You had to jump to all sorts of horrible conclusions. I was dumbfounded when they told me. I thought we knew each other. I thought we—” He stopped short an
d simply looked at me.
“You thought we what?”
“Nothing. It doesn’t matter. The case is wrapping up nicely now. The FBI has it under control. You don’t need to play detective anymore.”
It was my turn to be appalled.
“ ‘Play detective?’ You think I was playing when I found my brother? When I went back to the very place where the police missed him, only I found him?”
Reed shook his head.
“That’s not what I meant. I just—” Again, he stopped short, looked at me sharply, and folded his arms across his chest. “Fine. You want to know about the stocks? I’ll tell you. I started buying stock in Wynn Industries two months ago as part of a joint investigation between my office and the FBI. We knew that becoming a large minority stockholder would give me access to the things we needed to see from the inside. Yes, I own stock there—but as part of this investigation. Don’t believe me? Fine.”
Before I could say whether I did or not, Reed opened the door and waved his buddy back in. From the look on the man’s face, I could tell he was trying to suppress a smile as he verified what Reed had just told me, assuring me that the entire transaction was on the up and up.
“Why are you trying so hard not to smile?” I asked the man. “This is funny to you?”
“No, ma’am,” he said, allowing the grin to break out in full force. “We’ve just never seen Dr. Thornton get quite so…worked up…over a woman before. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you hurt his feelings.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant. That will be all,” Reed said, nearly pushing him back out of the room. As the door swung closed again, I realized that what the guy had said was true. By doubting Reed’s integrity, I had hurt his feelings.
“Reed, please don’t be angry. This is what I do. I’m a skip tracer. I have to think the worst of people sometimes. That’s how I’m able to dig out the truth.”
Shadows of Lancaster County Page 29