Death of a Cure

by Steven H Jackson

  “I’ve seen only the directory of the files. It’s research stuff and won’t be an easy read. I want to study it in the morning. Whatever it is, Ron was concerned enough about it to keep a secret backup copy hidden with a friend. A friend who didn’t even know what she was hiding. I emailed a copy of everything to myself.”

  She thought about this for a moment, looked at me, gave me a knowing look, and nodded. She no doubt had come to the same conclusion about the importance of the find that I had earlier. Having a smart partner saves a lot of conversation. After a moment, she turned to more immediate concerns.

  “Thomas, are you hungry?”

  “Actually, I am. I didn’t get to eat much of my entree before you dragged me off to the dance floor.”

  “Poor baby. Such a terrible experience. Go change — I will forage.”

  While I changed out of the tux and into gym shorts and T-shirt, silently hoping that the tux would never see the light of day again, she found some cold cuts in the fridge and a chilled bottle of white wine. As I slid onto the kitchen counter stool, I begged off on the grape juice and opted for ice water. We talked some more about April and how Ron would have taken her on as a project an opportunity to make a small improvement in humankind would have been important to him. We finished our impromptu snack and cleaned up.

  “You take the bed, I’ll sleep on the couch,” I said. “I think there is another set of sheets in the hall closet. I’ll help you make up the bed; then we can get some sleep.”

  “Would you not be more comfortable in Ron’s room?” she asked carefully.

  “I’m not ready for that yet.”

  “Thomas, then do not be silly. A couch is not a good bed. We are adults and I promise not to bite. Come with me.”

  She took my hand and led me to my room, or rather, her room. She lived up to her word and never bit me, not even once.

  NIGHTMARES, BOTTLENECKS, MOTIVES

  I was falling. I had the familiar sensation that everyone who has ever driven over a short, steep hill in a car knows all too well. That feeling when your stomach climbs up in your body as you experience zero Gs and become temporarily weightless. I was falling face up, my back headed to the ground. I was going to die. I was going to die just like Ron. I hit the ground expecting total blackness, death instantaneous, no time for pain.

  The collision with the ground didn’t kill me, but it did wake me up.

  As my eyes adjusted to the very early morning light, I was able to see my surroundings. I was on the floor next to the bed looking at the ceiling. The bedside and the end table projecting above me like furniture skyscrapers — a miniature commuter’s perspective. My back hurt a little from hitting the hardwood floor after falling from all of twenty-eight inches. Marilena’s face, framed in disheveled, dark hair, suddenly appeared above me changing the surreal nature of the scene and bringing me back to reality. She briefly studied me and smiled, “That is one way to get out of bed. But next time, would you mind leaving me at least one blanket or maybe the sheet?”

  I looked toward my feet, and I saw that I was ensnared by bedding, having taken it all with me on my unplanned trip to the floor. I can’t remember the last time I fell out of a bed. I can’t remember ever falling out of a bed. What could have caused me to fall out of bed? I looked up again and, just maybe, I was looking at the reason.

  The night before, as we had climbed into bed Marilena reassured me again that we were adults and colleagues and that she trusted me and I trusted her and that we were working and that it was OK and that the bed would let me sleep and the couch would not and…and…and…

  However, after she pulled the sheets and covers up, she reached over and took my arm, pulling me onto my side facing her. Without letting go, she rolled away from me ending up on her side and then backed up against me. She kept my arm around her, pushed back against me one more time, mumbled something about being cold, made a funny purring sound, and within moments she was asleep. I’m glad one of us found it so easy to sleep.

  Finally, I drifted off, girl hair in my face and her perfume too close. I think that through the night I had backed away a little every time either of us moved only to have her move against me again. By morning, there had been no more bed left and my last, unconscious retreat had ended in an un-lover’s leap.

  As I pulled the blanket and sheets off, I discovered another embarrassment. I had awakened in an aroused state that was made obvious, and not just to me, but by the tent pole that had erected itself in my shorts. Not an unusual occurrence for a guy in the morning, especially given the close proximity of a beautiful woman pressed against him all night.

  She laughed and said, “I’m pleased to see that all of you is up!”

  I quickly sat up. That turned out to be a mistake as even though it helped me hide the undisciplined member, it brought me face to face with Marilena. She kissed me quickly without warning, rolled out of bed, stepped over me, and said as she walked away, “I’ll check on April.” She started for the closed bedroom door. From my position on the floor looking up at her as she walked away, I could see that panties were not a part of the Marine Corps T-shirt ensemble. I had been awake for only two minutes, and I had already experienced all the sensory overload I could take for an entire day. I really needed to talk to her before I lost control. Today — I needed to talk to her today. The view, however, had been exceptional. I wondered what I would say.

  I pulled on some long pants and headed for the kitchen. Marilena and April followed me in. I poured orange juice for all.

  “You were right, Tom. I do feel a little more bruised than I did last night,” April said to me.

  “Sorry again.”

  “Don’t be. We’ll do better next time we meet.” Both ladies laughed. The odds against me were not improving.

  April promised to stay in touch and everyone exchanged contact info. She dressed and left, a big hug for Marilena and a quick, little one for me.

  *

  I showered and shortened the whiskers quickly before digging into the data. Marilena had been busy making up the beds and putting things away. She followed me with her turn in the bathroom and took her time knowing that I needed to do some reading.

  The data on the USB drive told the story of a collaborative research project to find the cure. The theories and discoveries were carefully documented, and significant progress had been made. Irrespective of my current attitude about Caroline Yvonne Little, Ph.D., M.D., she was smart enough to be Ron’s equal partner. The recent section, the one that was probably the data that Little was missing, contained six files including the one entitled: “CID Genesis: Out of Africa.” The other files described Ron’s identification of the gene responsible for CID and his proof. A drug therapy to modify this gene was suggested.

  I opened the “Out of Africa” files that included a written thesis and a presentation to explain the theory to a high-level audience; just enough science to provide credibility, yet still easy on the laymen while not being patronizing. Reading the thesis, I was intrigued by Ron’s theory and his explanation of the genetic testing. He had convinced himself that he was right. Although not my specialty, this was pretty amazing stuff, and apparently he had kept it to himself, very atypical for my brother — my brother the team player. What could have caused him to be so secretive?

  The thesis started out by summarizing what geneticists refer to as the “Out of Africa” model of human evolution. Evolutionary theorists and geneticists tell us that we evolved into hominids from predecessor primates in a specific region in eastern Africa. We then speciated, that evolutionary process by which all new biological species are formed, and moved out across the globe over many millennia becoming various Homo sapien varieties with interesting names like heidelbergensis and neanderthalensis. And although all of the world’s people share the same genus, specie, and are all a variety of the contemporary Homo sapien, we don’t look much alike having further evolved into races identified with geographical location.

  Ho
w did this happen? If we all started in Africa sharing the same DNA, why don’t we all look like indigenous Africans? Where did white people, Asians, and Latinos come from? Even within Africa, different peoples look strikingly different, and Caucasians can easily be identified as to their country of familial origin. What happened in our racial evolutionary development that caused groups of people to favor each other in ways dissimilar to other groups?

  The answer lies in a bottleneck.

  Prior to the Lake Toba volcanic eruption in Malaysia approximately 71,000 years ago, the Homo sapien population had moved out across the world in a slow and methodical manner. Most movement was very limited in distance, maybe just up the coast or down the valley. Grab some more land to hunt and gather on. Fish the coast around the next point. This is not a lightning pace of migration; however, given hundreds of thousands of years, such a dispersion rate can still cover a lot of turf.

  Geneticists studying various forms of animal life have given a name to any event causing a population reduction by at least 50%. They call it a genetic bottleneck. In the case of the human population, it is a Human Bottleneck. Often, whatever event, climatological, astronomical, or otherwise affects one species, will affect many others as the environment undergoes a sudden and radical change. Several human bottlenecks occurred between 2 million and 70,000 years ago, but we know of only one that we can document with any degree of precision. It occurred about 60,000 to 70,000 years ago. For the purposes of our discussion into the latent cause of CID, let’s call it the Toba Bottleneck.

  There has never been an event that impacted humans like Toba. When Toba erupted and killed off over 99.5% of the human population, large gaps were created in the physical distribution of people, leaving isolated, small groups. It would not take many generations for these pockets of humans to forget their distant neighbors or even know that they had counterparts in other parts of the world. There has not been a genetic human bottleneck since the Toba Bottleneck, disproving the existence of a single breeding pair, Adam and Eve, circa 6,000 years ago. Also during the time of, and for many years after a bottleneck, evolutionary process changes from its normal path of slow and moderate adaptation and selection into something very different.

  Genetic bottlenecks cause variations between these isolated groups but not within them. If indeed we are all “Out of Africa,” we look different because these small, isolated groups genetically “drifted” after the bottleneck. Genetic drift is an effect that causes some biological traits to become more common or more rare over successive generations. The drift might fully remove or make universal within the group this biological trait. Genetic drift has been studied in certain animal groups in modern times. The bison was reduced in number to less than 750 in 1890. By the year 2000, it had recovered to over 360,000, allowing scientists to observe the emergence of dominant biological traits and the disappearance of others. The cheetah has been hunted to near extinction. So much so that the current population supports such a limited gene pool and so little diversity that skin grafts from one cheetah will not be rejected by any other cheetah. Beneficial traits such as this will occur within small groups in just a few generations.

  Coupled with drift is “founder effect.” When a new population is established by just a few individuals, the population carries only a small fraction of the original population’s genetic diversity. If by chance the seed members of the isolated group contain a statistically improbable number of red-headed people, red hair will become far more prevalent in the new population.

  In many ways, these effects are highly valuable to any population trying to recover from a catastrophic reduction in numbers. Many of the results of founder effect and drift help the group in evolutionary terms quickly adapt to whatever change they have confronted. Should a mating pair have a biological adaptation allowing better resistance to the recently occurring colder temperatures, this will be passed down to their children. Resistance to disease, ability to eat new and maybe the only plentiful foodstuffs, and many other biological adaptations can quickly evolve. Some side effects of founder effect and drift that may serve no known purpose can change the appearance of one group from that of another. Within the group, skin color may adapt to the lack of sunlight while in another group melanin content may climb as a result of generational exposure to solar radiation.

  Unfortunately, this change machine may also bring the unwanted. In one group in Eastern Europe, founder effect caused a genetic mutation responsible for CID. CID lies dormant in the species for thousands of years until a triggering event occurred setting it free. In Ron’s thesis he refers to this triggering event as “The Year Without Summer.” One of the other files had a name that referenced this. Ron’s work, after identifying the gene and the time of its original mutation, led to the research he was doing on drug therapy to correct the mutation.

  *

  Marilena walked into the den. I had just finished the thesis and was staring at the wall, looking at helicopters and considering what I had read.

  “What have you learned, Thomas?” Her demeanor again serious.

  “Ron believed that he had discovered the cause of CID, its genetic location in the human genome, and had postulated a specific drug therapy to correct the genetic mutation.”

  “Are you telling me that he had discovered the cure?” she asked, her words reflecting her amazement at the momentous nature of the finding.

  “Yes. Or at least he got close enough that a cure would have been very probable in the near future.”

  “Why did this discovery motivate someone to kill him?” she asked.

  She was ahead of me; I hadn’t gotten there yet. I was still thinking about the science, the genetic mutation, 70,000 year-old volcanoes, and the ramifications of this discovery for people with CID. She was already looking for a connection between this discovery and a yet-to-be-discovered murderer’s motivation. She was, as expected, on the right track. Motive had to be tied to his discovery. I knew of nothing else in his life that was this big, or this new, that might have upset some interpersonal relationship to the point of murder.

  “Let’s look at your suspect list again,” she said.

  I got it from the table next to the PC. She had made notes all over the list. She had drawn arrows next to a group of names.

  “To begin with,” she said, “I think we should focus on Ron’s colleagues and, at least for the time being, ignore the employees of other companies in the building. Also, I think we should limit our working list to people near his position and not spend too much time on administrative staff. If we are looking for a motive, it will be professional jealousy, or greed, or some interaction with his peers — not a slighted mailroom worker or a chance event perpetrated by a stranger.”

  I looked at the list that had started with over a hundred names and let my eyes settle on the names she had marked. Fitting her criteria, the following people had been extracted from the original eleven highlighted in red and were identified by building security as having been in the society offices when Ron went out the window:

  Omar Sayyaf

  Jonathan Treece

  Margaret Townsend

  Woodrow Standish

  Sylvia Canfield

  Mark Wilson

  and, catching me by surprise, highlighted in yellow,

  Caroline Little.

  A FAILURE, A SUSPECT

  Seeing Caroline Little’s name on the list was a surprise, and I blamed myself for the oversight. It made me painfully aware of something that I should not have missed, something that Marilena would not have missed. When Little introduced herself to me on the phone, I did not connect her name to any that I had seen intermingled with all the others, and it had no meaning to me the first time I saw it on O’Dale’s list. Her reference had not earned a place in my memory. More damning was that during our phone call she had not told me that she had been at the CID offices the day that Ron died, only that he had told her about the update. My assumption was that it had been a phone conversa
tion, given her Boston location and that her attempt to access the update had been via the Internet.

  Seeing the look on my face, Marilena asked, “Is there something wrong?”

  “I didn’t get to tell you last night, but Caroline Little called me when you were getting April settled into the guest room.”

  “What did you speak about?”

  “She called me from a Boston number and was a pain in the ass. She all but ordered me to find Ron’s research data and give it to her. As much as I would like to find out that Margaret Townsend or Sylvia Canfield had killed Ron, I think that Little is ahead of them on points — she actually had a motive and neglected to tell me that she was at his office on the day he died.”

  “You think that she killed your brother so that she could take full credit for curing CID?” Marilena asked.

  “It’s currently my favorite hypothesis,” I answered. “Winning the Nobel Prize alone beats sharing it.”

  “Then we need to find facts to support your favorite hypothesis. Can we meet with Dr. Little?”

  “I’ve already set it up. We are going to Boston after our stop at the CID Society and will meet with her later this afternoon.”

  “You work fast. Well, at some things,” she answered with a crooked smile.

  “She’s the only one I’ve met who had a motive. I want to get to her now. But first, Alison Montgomery invited me to a senior management meeting today. I want us to go there together.”

  She looked thoughtful for a moment and then said, “I think that we should continue to consider the others on the list. I also think that it is time to start applying some pressure. We may get a helpful reaction if the guilty party is among them.”

  I smiled, “I like that idea. Pressure. I’m good at pressure.”

  “Thomas, just a little pressure now. We will add to it later. If the killer is not Dr. Little and is one of the people here at the CID Society, we need that person to be a little nervous. Anxious people make mistakes while they attempt to keep control over a situation beginning to unravel.”