Murder Is Pathological

by P. M. Carlson

  “Mmm. What do you mean?” She still felt dreamy, deliciously sluggish.

  “Well, it wouldn’t really be fair. She’s really—I mean, I just couldn’t now. It’ll be bad enough when she’s back on her feet.”

  Monica sat up abruptly. “What’ll be bad enough?”

  “The divorce. I’ve got to see her through the first few months with the baby. That’s so hard on her.”

  “Les, what are you talking about?”

  He sat up too, puzzled. “I know we haven’t said anything, Monnie. But I thought it was understood. All this means something. Doesn’t it?”

  “It doesn’t mean you abandon your wife and kids!” She grabbed for her underclothes.

  “No, that’s what I’m saying. I’ll have to see them through the next ten or twelve months. By then she should be able to cope with it better.”

  “Oh, Les.” Doors were sliding closed with his words, leaving her alone all over again. “I didn’t want that. I didn’t want that at all.”

  “What do you mean? Hell, Monnie, I thought you cared! I thought you wanted this too!”

  “I liked it, Les. A lot. But God, I didn’t mean for you to think about divorcing her!’’

  “How can you say that, Monnie? We’re so good together!”

  “Yeah, but it must be good with Anita too.” She pulled on her shirt.

  “Yeah. Once it was. But now there’s so much pressure. I look at her and think how much we need money, how much I have to get ahead. And I can’t tell her, she just shrugs and says it’ll be all right. It’s rough, Monnie. And you’re so understanding and comfortable and full of fun.”

  “Les, for heaven’s sake, use your head for just thirty seconds! You’ll always have to support Anita and the kids, you know that! If the kids keep her from getting a job now, she’ll be much worse off with a new baby. Right? The pressure on you will be worse. And you know you’ll want to be with your kids!” She reached blindly for her jeans, grabbed his by mistake. As she tossed them back, upset, his billfold fell out. What a fumbling fool she was. She picked up the billfold to stuff back into his pocket.

  “Maybe,” Les said. “But I thought maybe I could get a lump sum settlement, and we could start fresh. It’s so hard, Monnie. All the pressure.”

  Monica was looking unbelievingly at the paper sticking out of the billfold. Those numbers were familiar.

  She said, “A lump sum from Brighton Pharmaceutical, maybe?”

  He stared at her a moment. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking; the warm eyes were opaque now. Finally he picked up his shirt, pulled a cigarette from the pack in the pocket, and lit it. “I was doing it for you. Not at the beginning, maybe, but now.”

  “If that’s true, Les, I’m sorry.” It occurred to her suddenly that maybe she shouldn’t have said anything about Brighton. She stumbled on, “It’s a misunderstanding. I had no idea this was more than a temporary thing for you.”

  “Monnie, you just don’t seem the type for temporary things. I can’t believe you didn’t mean it. I just can’t.”

  He was right, of course, she thought. She had meant it, in her fantasy. But it would be too cruel to tell him that her enthusiasm had been for another, vanished man. She said lamely, “Look, Les, I liked it. Really. But it’ll have to be over now. Okay? It’s gotten too complicated.”

  “I just can’t believe it.”

  She’d thought he was safe. Committed. Bonded, like her. She’d thought it went without saying that this was brief, casual, unimportant. God, how stupid she’d been. She unlatched the van door and said bitterly, “Just think of me as the office floozy,” and hurried away from him.

  XII

  She opened the door of the lab to hear Dr. Weisen’s surprised voice. “What do you mean, it won’t work? We don’t have to incinerate at night. Right now we’ve got more than a full load.”

  He and Gib were standing in the hall outside the grad office. Gib bobbed his dark head quickly and said apologetically, “No, sir. I tried to start it. It won’t work. It won’t go on.”

  “It won’t go on?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Oh, hell! Well, call the maintenance people.”

  “Yes, sir. I did. They wanted to come tomorrow, but I thought it would be better to have them here Friday.”

  “Quite right, quite right. Hell. Of all days to have it happen!” Distracted, angry, he suddenly realized the implications of what he had said. He asked Gib, “Do you think it was the vandal again? That prowler last night?”

  “That’s possible, sir.”

  “Hell!”

  Monica said, “It doesn’t make any real difference, though, does it? Because you have the organs from the last set. They can’t stop you now.”

  Dr. Weisen looked at her, but it was a moment before her words seemed to register. “Yes. Yes, of course, that’s true, Monica. We have what we need. It’s just damned annoying.”

  “We’ll manage, sir,” said Gib.

  “Right. We’ll muddle through,” said Dr. Weisen. “Just refrigerate the bags for now, Gib.” He sighed and went into his office. His carefully cut white hair needed combing, a sure sign of pressure.

  Monica went back to her own desk and sat for a moment with her head in her hands. She felt overloaded with confusing problems, with a variety of feelings jostling for her attention. The old love and despair for Ted were there, leavened now with hope that learning to write whole words might open another door for him. The old determination to become the best brain researcher possible was there, but almost lost in a tangle of worry and apprehension about the situation at the lab.

  There was Les. She liked him, damn it. She felt stupid for not realizing that he might take it seriously. Maggie was right—some people didn’t bond as well as others. And Monica felt guilty for not making her position clear. And what should she do about his traitorous work for Brighton? Just now she had found herself unable to tell Dr. Weisen about it. Why? In the abstract, Les’s action was an unforgivable violation of his privileged relationship with Weisen. But in real life, Les was her friend, a desperately overburdened man. A man she had unwittingly used, and hurt. She couldn’t hurt him again. And the damage from the spying was done and couldn’t be undone now—Brighton had the information. Also, there was Les’s struggling family, who could use the—

  Come on, Monica, she scolded herself. Those noble sentiments aren’t everything. There’s more. She admitted unhappily to herself that she didn’t want to interfere because if it did hinder Dr. Weisen’s sale, then she might be able to continue her program with him.

  Monica examined this fact long and hard. She knew that she herself could never betray Dr. Weisen. But she found now that she could allow Les to do it. Okay, yes, she felt guilty for her inaction, but not guilty enough to tell anyone. She was just not very loyal to abstractions, like Truth, or Science, or Fair Play. People fighting for abstractions in Viet Nam had left her with a very real broken remnant of a husband. There was nothing abstract about Ted’s condition now. So why should she interfere with Les’s activities? They might hurt some sort of general principles, but they’d benefit Les’s family and, less directly, Ted. If the damage to Weisen couldn’t be undone, why should she go out of her way to help destroy her own plans, agonizingly laid and paid for?

  Look, Ma, no morals.

  Ted would never have let it pass. In the old days Monica was always the one who took the side of particular human needs. Ted believed in science, in searching for truth, in fair play. He would not have stood by while Les’s spying continued.

  But, Ted, sometimes both answers are wrong.

  She wouldn’t interfere. Let Les confess.

  Or maybe she should tell Maggie. Ask her what to do.

  Maggie. Damn.

  What was she up to? Monica was bewildered by her mercurial friend. Monday afternoon, Maggie had insulted her, wrenched the revelations about Ted from her, then given her the free, warm support Monica craved. But Tuesday night—God, that was just y
esterday!—Maggie had hit her with three insane things. First had been the mutilated rats. How had Maggie gotten them, if she hadn’t killed them herself? Barbara? Dr. Weisen? Rick? None of them seemed likely to give them to Maggie. But no one else had been there. Except the killer. There was also the copy of the dosage schedule—Les’s work, Monica knew now. Clearly Maggie had been prowling around the lab secretly. A fact made even clearer by her knowledge of Monica’s meetings with Les. And clearer yet by the third thing, the bullet last night. Why had she been prowling? Why secretly? What possible reason could she have?

  In her loneliness, was Monica allowing her hunger for friendship to blind her to obvious guilt?

  She thought about her friend for a moment as objectively as she could: Maggie’s commitment to science, her spirited defense of the ideal statistical method even against Dr. Weisen’s skepticism. Her quick mind, piecing together facts about Monica’s relationship to Ted, to Les, to her work. Her friendships with Norman, with her roommates. Her honest and forward-looking sympathy for Ted.

  No. It was not just loneliness. Monica was right about her friend. Maggie was collecting information about the troubles at the lab, clearly. But she would not betray her friends, and she would not betray science. And she’d promised to go to the police Friday. Monica decided to trust her busy friend for a little longer. Meanwhile, there was a lot of work to do.

  She stood up from her desk resolutely, went through the shower locks, and entered the microscope room. “I’ve got an hour,” she announced. “Anyone need some time off?”

  Les did not look up from the microscope where he was again checking the hearts. But Barbara went off gratefully to look at her thesis animals while Monica spent an hour inspecting kidneys. Barbara had been right about those pale kidneys; a few slides, perhaps ten percent, showed distinct signs of inflammation. Some of these rats had received long, heavy doses of paramustine; maybe, after this extended tryout, they had finally found a side effect. Not that anyone would worry much; monitor the patient, and if a problem began to develop, switch to another drug.

  “More fun than the last batch,” she said when Barbara returned.

  “Yeah. I’m finally getting to check off a few different boxes,” Barbara agreed.

  Late in the afternoon, Maggie limped into the lab to collect the last set of observations so that she could run the analyses and get the results to the visiting representatives the next day. Everyone was finished except for Les, who was very slow this afternoon, Monica noticed guiltily. He had not spoken to her at all. She left him still working in the grad office and joined Maggie in the hall to wait for him to finish his summary sheets.

  “How’re you feeling?”

  “Fine. Ready to pull an all-nighter with Weisen’s data.”

  Rick emerged from the fire doors that led to the animal quarters, saw them, and hurried toward them, his brown eyes questioning. “Hello, Miz Ryan. How are you?”

  “Fine, Rick. Thanks.”

  “Miz Bauer said you were in the infirmary.”

  “Yes. Stupidly fell on a spike and lost a lot of blood. They bandaged me up and pumped me up again with saline solution. Good as new now.”

  “Not quite,” said Monica warningly.

  “Well,” said Maggie with spirit, “I never considered my red cell count or my graceful gait to be the essential me.”

  “No, ma’am.” Rick’s expressive Southern voice was warm with laughter and relief. Looked like Maggie had made another friend among the janitors.

  Just then Les came up, thrust the figures into Maggie’s hand, and said, “Here you go.” He left without looking at Monica.

  “Okay.” Maggie waved at them and hobbled away, in a hurry to get to the computer room. Monica realized that she’d have to wait to ask her advice about Les and Brighton.

  After all the worry of the past month, the visit by the pharmaceutical company representatives the next day was almost an anticlimax. Dr. Weisen gave them a quick tour of the lab while Monica and the other students stood smiling mechanical smiles at them. They inspected the experimental rooms, the breeding colony, the instruments, the various scientific safeguards, some of the slides. Maggie, hiding her limp well and looking very professional in a gray tweed suit, explained the statistics briefly and lucidly. Then the representatives all disappeared into Dr. Weisen’s office for an hour and a half.

  When at last they emerged, Dr. Weisen walked them to their sleek official cars, then came back into the lab and beamed at his assembled students.

  “Well,” asked Barbara, “is it over? Are you now rich as well as famous?”

  He laughed, his merry twinkle quite restored. “No, not quite over. They must negotiate the exact offer with their lawyers and put it in writing, and so forth. But I have good reason to believe that the offers will be quite favorable.”

  “Hurray!”

  “And I want to thank you all very much for your help. This has been a very difficult situation. We should all congratulate ourselves for a job well done. We’ve defeated a vicious vandal. We’ve done some important science. And we’ve made a contribution to the well-being of many, many afflicted human beings.”

  They all applauded and cheered; but Monica sensed that in their applause, as in hers, there was a hollowness, as befitted those about to be orphaned.

  “Well, Gib, you’re happy today,” observed Nick that evening, looking up from his mopping.

  Gib stopped whistling and paused at the glass entry doors. “Yeah, we’re all happy today,” he agreed. “I mean, it has its sad side too. None of us want Dr. Weisen to leave. But he really deserves this success, and everyone really came through for him. He thinks the offers will be very good.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “Yeah. He’s worked hard for it. Many long years. And this takes the pressure off us.”

  “The pressure?”

  “Oh, I may be wrong. But it seems to me that the vandalism was connected to this project. Maybe a drug company spy, maybe something else. Don’t you think so?”

  “Could be. Dr. Weisen must think so. He let Murph go.”

  Gib stepped back into the hall. “You sure you won’t stay on after next week?”

  “No.” Nick made Rick’s voice regretful. “It’s been a real good place to work. But I promised my brother I’d be there.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Will you have trouble getting someone?”

  “Oh, not really. I’ve been interviewing people, and there are already four or five possibilities that I’m going to ask Dr. Weisen to look over next week. But Norman was a pretty bright guy, and you’ve caught on quick too. It may take a while to train up someone else.”

  “Well, if I can help somehow this next week, let me know.”

  “Okay. And listen, if you need a reference or something when you get to Chicago, just give my name.”

  “Thanks, I will.” Nick watched him leave through the glass doors. A friendly little man. He’d had a lot worse bosses in his day.

  Gib was leaving late today. Most of his work had been completed very early, because of the visiting representatives. The stainless steel counters had never gleamed so, the animal rooms had never smelled so fresh, the windows had never sparkled so much. He had hovered, as they all had, waiting for Dr. Weisen’s report. Afterward he’d still had the daily logs to complete. Dr. Weisen and his students had all gone to have a beer in celebration, but Gib had declined the invitation to go along. Nick feared that the students might be back soon to finish more work that night, since they all claimed to be far behind in their own projects, and now that he had the building temporarily to himself, he thought he’d better move fast.

  All day, quietly, he had been looking for dead rats. If he and Maggie were right about the incinerator use, and were right that the extra use came when other animals were scheduled for disposal, then there was a good chance that, somewhere, extra carcasses were stored waiting for the incinerator to be fixed tomorrow. Of course, the extra animals might yet be
alive; he had had no chance yet to check the old lab. And even if they had been killed, they might have been disposed of in some other way.

  But he had inspected all the trash bins carefully, and had even combed through the nearby woods. Nothing had turned up.

  Now he checked swiftly through the new lab, in the few places he had not been able to look carefully while people were around. The shower lockers, the gas chamber, the isolation rooms, the storage areas were all empty. He checked the cagewashers and autoclave too, but nothing was there. The only carcasses in this building were the ones from Dr. Weisen’s experiment that Gib had placed in the big refrigerator yesterday.

  He had taken Dr. Weisen’s keys again during the happy confusion that had followed the announcement of the favorable decision. Now, flashlight clipped to his belt, he wandered outside. But his careful imitation of a man enjoying a clear summer evening was wasted; the grounds seemed to be deserted. He unlocked the door to the old lab and stepped into the dark hall.

  Everything was silent here too. He paused for a moment, listening intently, then moved through the blackness to the door of the rat room. It opened quietly to his key, but although he switched on the flashlight to confirm it, he knew already that the room was empty. Deserted, clean cages were piled on the racks at one end of the room. Except for them, there was no trace now of the teeming colony of little animals he had seen here before.

  Where, then? He went back out into the hall and thought a moment. What could someone do with that many rat carcasses? Keep them away from the busy, populated new lab, to begin with. Also keep them away from areas that Gib or Dr. Weisen might stumble across if they came over here to the old lab to fetch bedding or supplies. The trash bins here? Possibly. But Gib might notice that the amount of trash in this theoretically empty lab had increased suddenly. Nick was not surprised to find no signs of the carcasses in the bins by the service door. As he straightened up from investigating them, his eye fell on the furnace room door. That was a possibility. He unlocked it, and there among the cages and Venetian blinds were numerous plastic bags. He flicked the light inside. Most were soiled bedding, but three were not. Piled in a white furry tangle, the mysterious extra rats sprawled in undignified death.