Mercy

by Daniel Palmer

“It’s Julie, I need to see you right away.”

  There was no hesitation. The buzzer sounded to let Julie inside.

  * * *

  LUCY HAD been in the middle of a game of chess with an opponent from Seoul, who was not very good at keeping control of the board’s center, when her intercom sounded. One look at Julie’s pale and drawn complexion implied trouble. Her friend’s battered face suggested trouble on a large scale. Julie’s breathing was so erratic she practically had to spit out the words.

  “Someone tried to kill us, Jordan and me, but we killed him, I mean Jordan did. Jordan’s in jail or he’s headed there, I don’t honestly know, and I need your help testing a tissue sample I took from a cadaver at Suburban West.”

  Lucy blinked several times and kept quiet as she took it all in. Then she said in a calm voice, “Well now, that’s quite the conversation starter. Tell me again, who did you kill?”

  “A security guard at Suburban West. He attacked us. But I don’t think he was real security, or if he was, he was there to kill us both.”

  “What on earth were you doing at West?”

  This puzzled Julie. “Allyson Brock.”

  “Who?”

  “The former CEO at West. She called me because of your note,” Julie said.

  Lucy tilted her head to the side. “My note?”

  “Did you send Allyson a note telling her to call us, that she could be of help with the tissue sample?”

  Now it was Lucy who looked puzzled. “I did no such thing.”

  Julie stared at Lucy with mouth agape.

  “We need to talk,” Julie said.

  Lucy led Julie over to a plush sofa in the center of a sparsely furnished and rather undecorated living room. She left only to pour them each a glass of Jameson. A few sips proved enough to calm Julie somewhat. Then it was Lucy who did the listening and Julie who did the talking.

  Afterwards, Julie asked, “Do you believe me?” She sounded nervous.

  “Why wouldn’t I?” Lucy said.

  Julie looked bewildered. “Well, because of Shirley Mitchell, of course.”

  Lucy waved her hand as though brushing the incident aside.

  “I go by logic and facts,” Lucy said. “With Shirley Mitchell there was evidence to counter the narrative you supplied. In this case, I have nothing to go on but your word. And I do trust you. Why would you lie?”

  “To convince you to test the tissue sample I took.”

  Lucy patted Julie’s leg. “If that were the case, I’d help you out of respect for your creativity.”

  Julie hefted the cooler she’d carried in. “I need to know what’s inside this sample. There is an allergy-causing antigen at work here and we need to find it. Whoever sent Allyson that note knows it, too. They just didn’t think we’d get out of there alive to test it.”

  Lucy considered all possibilities. Logic dictated that if she believed Julie about the attack at Suburban West, about it being a trap, she also had to believe Julie’s claims about Shirley Mitchell. Which meant someone must have replaced saline with heparin. In Lucy’s mind, she was left with only one option.

  “You may have been fired from White, but I wasn’t.” Lucy kept a deadpan expression.

  “So?”

  “So, to learn what’s in that tissue, you and I have to go to the lab.”

  CHAPTER 48

  Julie was in rough shape, so Lucy drove them to the hospital. On the way there, Julie tuned the radio to WBZ. A broadcaster reported breaking news of a homicide at Suburban West hospital. No names had been released, but the broadcaster said a suspect was currently in police custody.

  Lucy took it all in. “I’m sorry,” she said to Julie.

  “For what?”

  “For ever doubting you.”

  In transit, Julie used Lucy’s phone to call Allyson Brock. The conversation was tense, as expected. The snippets Lucy heard made it sound as if Allyson was more concerned for Allyson than anything else.

  Julie ended the call with a look of disgust. “Well, I don’t think she set us up,” Julie said, “but I don’t think she cares what happens to us, either. Her biggest worry was that she was going to get arrested. I told her to wait for the police to show up, which they will, and tell them she gave Jordan her badge as a favor. It will back up Jordan’s story.”

  “What’s the worst they can do to Allyson?” Lucy asked. “She’s already been fired from West.”

  “That’s what I said. The most they can do is revoke her access privileges. Anyway, she’s going to try and figure out who the security guard was, when he was hired, who hired him, that sort of thing. Allyson still has the loyalty of the employees at West. She’ll get info. The guard told us it was his first day on the job, but I don’t know if that’s true or not.”

  “If it is true,” Lucy said, “you realize that whoever pushed through his hire, or called in a favor, is probably the person who wanted you dead.”

  They arrived at White a little after nine. It was dark, chilly enough for Lucy to lend Julie a warm jacket, which she wore in place of the bloodstained lab coat. And it was quiet. Everyone was with family, except for the sick and their caretakers.

  Lucy parked in a rear lot reserved for staff and she and Julie made it to the lab without incident. A police officer, evidently unaware that Julie had been fired from White, waved as the two docs walked by. Jordan must have kept Julie’s name out of his conversations with the police. That would buy them some time.

  The lab was empty, as expected for a holiday evening, and Lucy took her time getting the equipment set up. She enjoyed this part of the job so much that for a moment Lucy forgot where the sample had come from, and how it had come to her.

  “The test is called an immunohistochemistry,” Lucy explained. “It’s a process we use to detect antigens, things like proteins, in tissue cells. We use this type of staining widely in the diagnosis of abnormal cells. Here we’ll be looking for a concentration of mast cells. I’ll be using immunophenotyping to understand the various proteins expressed in the cells.”

  “Lucy, no offense, but I don’t think I care how you do it,” Julie said. “I just want to know what’s in that tissue.”

  “No offense taken,” Lucy said with a shrug.

  Others might have been put off by Julie’s candor, but Lucy appreciated it. No reason to explain something to someone not interested.

  Julie used a website accessed from one of the lab’s computers to listen to news reports about Suburban West, while Lucy went about her work. She was not an expert in allergies by any stretch, though she knew sneezing and runny noses were symptoms. The reaction itself took place in the genes, and got expressed through the immune system. The process Lucy was using would allow her to identify the antibody in the tissue sample so she could reverse-engineer it into the corresponding allergy-causing antigen.

  Gowned and gloved, Lucy prepared a sample by fixing the tissue in formaldehyde, and then embedded it in paraffin to maintain the natural shape. She used a machine called a microtome to section the tissue to five millimeters, a thickness required for the test. The slides she coated with a gelatin adhesive. The sections were dried in the oven.

  “Staining and immunodetection is up next,” Lucy said after the initial tasks were done. Her voice was almost joyful; she so loved this work.

  Julie was on the computer, no longer glancing at news sites about the murder, but instead researching causes of hives.

  “What else did these patients have in common besides hives?” Julie asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Lucy said, snapping off one set of gloves in exchange for another.

  “Sam, Donald Colchester, Tommy Grasso, Albert Cunningham. There’s a thread we’re missing.”

  “They’re all men,” Lucy said.

  “More than that, I would think.”

  “They were all in the hospital,” Lucy said. “Some were sicker than others.”

  “Were they?” Julie sounded a bit animated. “Was Donald Colchester with his
advanced-stage ALS really worse off than Sam? Or what about Tommy Grasso and his chronic COPD, and Albert Cunningham, suffering from the same? Each was living a marginal existence, including Sam.”

  “I see your point.”

  Julie fell silent, but some thoughts had begun to percolate.

  Lucy returned to her work. Detecting the target antigen with antibodies was a complex, multistep process. When the samples were ready, Lucy applied an alcian blue dye and began to examine the mast cells under a microscope, looking for antibody-antigen interaction. Anything stained purple meant presence of an epitope—an antigen recognized by the immune system.

  Lucy saw something, all right, and it surprised her greatly.

  “Julie,” she said. “Do me a favor and run a search for meat allergy.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “A meat allergy,” Lucy repeated, her eyes glued to the microscope lens. The slide showed evidence of an antibody binding to a sugar carbohydrate found in beef, lamb, and pork called alpha-gal.

  Julie clicked a few websites. “There’s an article here about alpha-gal.”

  “That’s it,” Lucy said. “Summarize for me, please.”

  “It talks about a tick bite causing an unusual reaction to meat,” Julie said.

  “Go on.”

  Lucy had not looked up because her microscope was revealing a fascinating world, one of profound vastness constrained to a tiny slice of human tissue.

  “The allergy produces a hivelike rash,” Julie noted with some excitement. “In some people it can cause an anaphylactic reaction. Why do you want to know this? Did Albert Cunningham have an alpha-gal allergy?”

  “Read on,” Lucy said.

  “It says the allergy is only found in people bitten by the lone star tick, which is mostly in the southeast, though it’s been appearing farther and farther north, especially Long Island.”

  Lucy was listening intently while looking at her slide.

  “People bitten by the ticks develop antibodies against the alpha-gal sugar,” Julie said. “But it’s a delayed reaction, sometimes up to eight hours after ingesting meat, so they aren’t always aware of the connection between a case of hives and the meat they ate.”

  This inspired Lucy to abandon her microscope and come over to Julie, who did not look away from the computer screen.

  “The symptoms of the allergy range from the minor, like itching, to the more major, like hives and even anaphylaxis with weakness, swelling of the throat and tongue, and difficulty breathing.”

  “No fatal heart attacks like Kounis syndrome?” Lucy asked.

  Julie entered a keyword search into a medical database using the terms “Kounis syndrome” and “alpha-gal.” There was plenty of information about allergic reactions resulting in myocardial infarction, but nothing specifically linking Kounis syndrome to alpha-gal. And yet according to the antibodies in the stain, Albert Cunningham had suffered an alpha-gal allergic reaction. But an alpha-gal allergy alone did not trigger a heart attack, so Lucy wondered if another agent played a role in the event, a combination of alpha-gal and something else.

  Julie read on. “This is interesting,” she said.

  Lucy leaned in closer.

  “The cancer drug cetuximab produced a similar reaction in people who were later found to be alpha-gal allergic. Some people being treated with cetuximab showed severe hypersensitivity reactions. Doctors found these drug reactions were localized mostly to the southeastern United States. Researchers were able to link allergies to cetuximab to patients who were bitten by the lone star tick.”

  “So for those patients, receiving a dose of cetuximab was like ingesting red meat.”

  “Exactly,” Julie said. “Was Albert Cunningham ever given cetuximab?”

  “I can test the tissue to see.”

  “I wonder what would happen to someone who was made alpha-gal allergic by a tick bite and then given a large dose of cetuximab?”

  Lucy looked thoughtful. “It would be like ingesting pounds and pounds of meat,” she said, “but in a concentrated form. The body would become overwhelmed trying to fight off the allergy.”

  “Overwhelmed to the point the heart suffers a massive allergic coronary?”

  A heavy pall settled over the lab.

  “Let me test for the drug.”

  Julie was smart to have taken the sample from the liver. It was the best tissue for use in postmortem toxicology, because it was where the body metabolized most drugs and toxicants. The process of testing was complex and required every bit of Lucy’s expertise. But a specific toxicology screen could detect cetuximab. The drug was so unusual it would never have been picked up on a typical tox screen.

  It took a couple of hours. Julie spoke with Trevor and Paul on the lab phone, but told them nothing of her ordeal. When the results came back, Lucy was shocked, but not entirely surprised.

  Albert Cunningham’s tissue showed a huge quantity of the cancer drug, far greater a dose than would ever have been prescribed.

  “Did Albert have head or neck cancer?” Julie asked, referring to the two most common cancers the drug treated.

  Lucy had access to the Suburban West medical records system as a result of the merger. She made a quick scan of Albert’s record.

  “No. He did not have cancer.”

  Julie gasped. “Then Albert was murdered. He was somehow made alpha-gal allergic and dosed with a high quantity of cetuximab to induce a fatal allergy-triggered heart attack.”

  “You know what this means, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, it means Sam was murdered too.”

  CHAPTER 49

  The Nashua Street Jail was a big brick building housing more than seven hundred pretrial detainees, Jordan among them. Jordan maintained a calm, measured demeanor as he spoke to Julie on the other side of the glass partition. He massaged his fingers repeatedly, while swiveling on his metal stool, but these were the only outward signs of his nervousness. The wound to his temple had been sutured, and the area protected by a bandage.

  Julie’s heart ached for him. Seeing him here, dressed in prison orange, fueled her resolve to get him out. As Jordan had predicted, the presiding judge denied bail at Jordan’s arraignment. They had led Jordan out of the courtroom in handcuffs with his mother and sisters crying, and Julie looking on dolefully.

  Julie had not yet been linked to the murdered security guard. She planned to keep it that way until the time was right for her to come forward.

  Jordan had been confined to a cell for two days, but reassured Julie he was doing just fine. The guards were treating him well. He was familiar with the routine and joked about how it was like riding a bicycle.

  “Word I heard is the guy who tried to kill us was an ex-cop turned PI named Lincoln Cole,” Jordan said.

  “I heard the same on the news,” Julie said.

  “What you didn’t hear is that Dominick ID’d Cole as the guy who paid him to scare you.”

  “Scare me? We both know that wasn’t the plan.”

  “He still isn’t owning up to what he was really going to do.”

  “You believe him about Cole?”

  “Sure as heck, yes I do.”

  Julie concurred.

  “Who hired Cole to be a guard?” Jordan asked.

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Julie said. “I’m waiting for a call from Allyson. When I get it, I’m going to see Detectives Spence and Capshaw. Then I’m taking down whoever murdered Sam. That’s a promise.”

  Jordan gave Julie a sideways glance. “You know who it is, don’t you?”

  “Let’s just say I have my strong suspicions.”

  “How did they do it? The Kounis syndrome, how was it induced?”

  Julie knew this conversation was being recorded. If her visits to Brandon Stahl had taught her anything, it was that the less she said the better.

  “Let’s just say you’re not going to be in here for long,” Julie answered.

  A guard whistled. It was her time to go.
On the way out, Julie stopped to retrieve her personal items from the locker. She saw a missed call followed by a text from Allyson. This was a new phone, but Julie had Trevor look it over to be safe.

  Her son had lived up to Jordan’s expectations. With help from Google, he had found a program called TrueSpy installed on her previous phone and learned about what it could do. Julie told Trevor it was a practical joke, and never to do such a thing to somebody else. It was unclear if he believed her.

  She read Allyson’s text.

  Julie had thought she knew who got Cole that security job.

  And she was right.

  CHAPTER 50

  Detectives Spence and Capshaw kept their brows furrowed throughout most of Julie’s story, but she believed they would come around to her side eventually. They were crammed into an interview room with one-way glass and not enough heat. For this meeting, Julie had chosen a business suit from Lord & Taylor and the detectives both wore jackets and ties, making this a nicely dressed ensemble to discuss the dirty business of murder.

  The conversation was being recorded, as the detectives made abundantly clear on several occasions. Also made clear was Julie’s right to have an attorney present. However, she came alone, against Paul’s wishes and those of Lucy, who had wanted to attend. A lawyer would get in the way, and Julie worried Lucy might confound the detectives with her science. She had one chance at this pitch, and it had to be a strike.

  The detectives were cordial, much more so than when they came to chat about Shirley Mitchell. This time Julie had come to them, so perhaps they saw no need to apply pressure. They wanted answers as much as anyone. Julie had just finished giving them part of the story, including her involvement with Lincoln Cole’s death.

  Spence said, “We could charge you for that, you know? Probably a number of other felonies in addition to murder.”

  Capshaw agreed. “Like crimes against the dead.”

  “What I did was get a tissue sample proving a murder took place. I think the district attorney will go easy on me.”

  “Maybe,” Spence said.

  “It’s a chance I’m willing to take, but I like my odds. And as for Lincoln Cole, Jordan killed a man who had come there to kill us, who attacked us first. Cole had two extra guns on him. Let me ask you, who did those guns belong to?”