Smart, But Dead (An Aggie Mundeen Mystery Book 3)

by Nancy G. West

  “Speak of the devil.”

  “Great. You can tell him your theory. Let’s pray that Dr. Carmody pulls through. If they have a class next Tuesday, I’ll see you then. Meanwhile, we can try to get back to normal so we can make sense of this gobbledygook about genes and telomeres.” She drove off.

  Eight

  My pulse quickened. It always did when I saw Sam. There were conflicting reasons for that. I’d fallen in love with him, but I knew that having lost his wife and daughter in a car crash, he was skittish about getting involved. After three years, he still struggled with their loss, but I could tell he was attracted to me. He simply couldn’t reconcile how he felt about me with his loyalty to his deceased loved ones.

  He followed me to my front door. My hand shook a little when I turned the key in the lock, but I didn’t think he saw it. I walked inside, remembering every detail of the few times he’d kissed me. We had a good chance, Sam and I, of getting together, if only life could proceed in the foreseeable future without destructive incidents or calamitous accidents. We seemed to have trouble with that.

  Seeing a man die made me realize how precarious life was. Sam and I should be free to love each other while we were young. He was forty-seven. Young enough. On the cusp of forty, I was determined not to let traumatic incidences from my past prevent me from loving him.

  He ambled behind me wearing his usual khaki shirt and pants. His oddly patterned tie would confuse even Rorschach. I couldn’t believe I’d begun looking forward to seeing which garish tie he selected. When he turned me around and clasped my arms, my stomach fluttered.

  “Aggie, I hear your professor fell out after class today.”

  “Word travels fast.” I longed to grab him and hold on.

  “The doctor at the hospital pronounced him dead. We’ll talk with the EMS crew, but I’d like to hear your take on what happened.”

  Meredith and I were right. Carmody was dead. My heart sank as I slid into the nearest chair. Reality set in. The professor I idealized for his knowledge was actually gone. Added to the shock of seeing my professor collapse, I feared that my hopes for a future with Sam had also crashed to the floor.

  I tried to describe what happened. “Dr. Carmody seemed confused when I talked to him before class last Tuesday. He remembered me, and then he didn’t. You may recall we had conflicts when I took his previous class.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I thought that was the reason he had trouble remembering me. But after he started lecturing, he grew disoriented. His research assistant, Dr. Eric Lager, had to take over class. Today, Carmody started strong, but he seemed to feel progressively worse. He made nonsensical statements that confused us. His voice rose louder and louder. He grew so excited that when I asked him a question, my voice was loud too.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “He turned purple and tried to answer me, but he couldn’t speak. Eric calmed him and sat him down, and I thought he’d be okay. Class ended, and we left. But we heard screams, raced back and found Carmody lying on the floor. He was so pale and still that I thought he was dead.”

  “The doctor said EMS thought he was dead when they got there.”

  “Meredith and I didn’t think they’d be able to help him.”

  “They couldn’t.”

  I decided to hint that Carmody’s death might not be accidental. “He seemed to be suffering from some awful condition. There are several scientists in class and others in the biology and chemistry departments. It’s possible somebody knows what was wrong with him.”

  “We’ll talk to his doctor and to scientists on campus. The ME’s autopsy will determine what killed him, but your classmates might also be helpful. Do you know any of them?”

  “Not really. They said their names, but I don’t know much more.” I looked at the floor.

  He took my shoulders, drew me upright and leaned close to my face. “What else, Aggie?”

  “A girl, Brandy Crystal, an assistant to Eric Lager in Carmody’s lab, said my shouting a question caused his collapse.”

  “I don’t believe that. Do you?”

  “Not really.”

  He kissed my forehead and wrapped me in a hug.

  I was so wrought up. I felt like a stone statue.

  He felt my tension and backed away. But he held on to one shoulder. “You’ve had a shock.” He rubbed his temple. “We see so many bodies in homicide.” He dropped his arm and went to sit on the couch.

  I’d tensed up before with Sam. Whenever he’d hold me or kiss me, the repulsive image of Lester and me from years earlier would appear inside my head, like a scene from a seedy movie, and I’d freeze. I was afraid trauma had stunted my sexual response—another secret about me that Sam didn’t know.

  He got back to business. “We’d better interview the other scientists.”

  With the list of names and phone numbers Carmody had passed around, I could contact the students pretty fast. My good sense struggled against my desire to be first to investigate why Carmody had died. Fortunately, good sense won. I picked up my notebook, walked to my copy machine and made a duplicate for Sam.

  “Here’s a list of my classmates’ phone numbers. If you don’t reach them, I’m sure registration can give you their addresses.” I hoped registration was as sluggish as usual. “If he didn’t have a stroke or heart attack,” I added, “one of them might know what was wrong.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If something else caused his death. Some substance.”

  “You mean if somebody killed him? Why would you think that?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just a thought. There’s probably all sorts of weird stuff in that lab, and he kept acting like he didn’t feel well. Maybe he accidentally inhaled something.”

  “I think you’ve been around me too long. Wasn’t he overweight and out of shape?”

  I took a deep breath and let out a sigh. “Yes. And he apparently had terrible allergies. He was always squirting spray up his nose.”

  “I better let you rest and get something to eat. You’ve had quite a day.”

  “Okay.” I wanted him to leave. If Dr. Carmody died of unnatural causes as I suspected, my student status could help me break open the investigation. When I tried to help Sam investigate, it drove him crazy. But I couldn’t help it. I was curious and believed wrongs should be made right. At least we had that much in common. If I could solve a crime, maybe he’d be less irritable about my help and consider me an equal. I sensed this was not the time to suggest I was the ideal person to assist him.

  “Aggie.”

  “Yes?”

  “Tell me you don’t intend to get involved in investigating Carmody’s death.”

  “I want to try and forget about it. I just want to learn about the science of aging.” My eyes filled and my feet started itching.

  “Stick with that plan. I like young, healthy women.”

  That was the last thing I wanted to hear.

  He winked, kissed my forehead and walked out the door.

  Nine

  Sam’s lingering kisses tingled like cinnamon gum. I wiped away a tear that unexpectedly slid down my face. I couldn’t even be honest with Sam. When would I stop letting my past sabotage me? I was my own worst enemy.

  The only way I knew to regain control and stop dwelling on my neurotic frozen responses was to use my left brain and immerse myself in studying. I plopped down at the computer.

  Carmody wasn’t the first obese middle-aged man to keel over from a stroke or heart attack. Why should I suspect somebody killed him? I entered his symptoms into my web crawler: shortness of breath, mental confusion (possibly from clogged arteries in his brain), obesity, occasional nasty disposition. Okay, the last one wasn’t a symptom. But it was stress-related, which contributed to strokes and hea
rt attacks. Surely he wasn’t careless enough to inadvertently ingest something in the lab. Did some substance in his home make him sick? Something in the cafeteria? School food was notoriously lousy. In the teacher’s lounge? Slipped into his Coke by a jealous colleague?

  A killer would have to have motive. Why would somebody want to kill Dr. Carmody? What if Carmody had learned to mutate the gene that set off a biological chain reaction to delay aging? He would have been a hero, maybe a Nobel Prize winner. Another scientist could learn how to mutate that particular gene and make it possible for everyone in the world to stay younger and healthier.

  But only if Dr. Carmody was out of the way.

  If I managed to interview the scientists from class before Sam did, I’d find out what each one thought Dr. Carmody was working on. Academic jealousy was a powerful motive. Especially with a world-changing breakthrough in sight and fame and fortune a breath away.

  Dr. Carmody had terrible allergies, but something else wrecked havoc with his system. Eric, Brandy, Penelope and the postdocs would be apt to know which lab chemicals were the most toxic.

  Sam once showed me how to use Netscape to use a reverse telephone directory. Using students’ names and phone numbers, I could find their addresses.

  I started with the postdoctoral students, found Stanley Bly on the contact sheet and clicked his phone number into the reverse directory. It showed his former address in Manhattan near Columbia University, and a current address at Garden Apartments, San Antonio, which were UHT’s on-campus apartments provided for adjunct or visiting professors. He was interested in telomeres and would know which chemicals were used to research them. I made a note to talk with Stanley Bly.

  The phone number for Phillip Delay listed a former address in Manhattan, but no subsequent or current address. That was strange. Was he just visiting, or staying with Bly or someone else for the semester? Where did he go after he lived in Manhattan, before he came to San Antonio? With their common interest in genetics, both men must have visited Dr. Carmody’s lab. Phillip Delay had said he was interested in APOE genes that scientists thought were related to Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Carmody had memory loss and confusion. Could he have had early-onset Alzheimer’s? I marked Delay’s name.

  Carmody’s family medical history would be important. I needed to talk with a family member, but I couldn’t do it right away. They’d be in shock.

  I typed “family diseases” into the browser to see what would come up and read about a single Venezuelan family numbering over three thousand. Every member inherited a defective gene from a common ancestor—the largest known concentration of the same disease in a single family. It took until 1993 for scientists to locate the offending gene on chromosome 4. Now tests were offered to people with a family history of degenerative Huntington’s disease. Symptoms of the disease sometimes manifested themselves later in life. Dr. Carmody must have had regular medical checkups, so doctors would have discovered this disease.

  I’d reached a dead end until I could interview people, so I decided to check my mail. There must be somebody I could help. Among the bills, one envelope was addressed to Dear Aggie. I tore it open.

  Dear Aggie,

  I’ll be forty-nine this year. I can’t imagine growing old and want to do everything I can to postpone it. I exercise and watch what I eat, but I read so much conflicting advice.

  Confused in Chicago

  Dear Confused,

  The advice is confusing because scientists are making discoveries daily. I just learned we have telomeres at the end of our chromosomes. Like plastic tips on shoelaces, they protect our genetic data. If our telomeres get too short, we age and die sooner. But if our cells grow unregulated, they can become cancerous. Scientists struggle to determine how to maintain telomeres at the right length. While short telomeres have been linked to aging, no one knows whether shorter telomeres are just a sign of aging—like gray hair—or if they actually contribute to aging.

  There’s a lot more to learn, but take heart. Scientists are moving at warp speed.

  More later,

  Aggie

  I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that the renowned scientist who knew the most about aging, Dr. Kermit Carmody, wasn’t moving at all.

  Just as I emailed my letter to Confused to the San Antonio Flash-News, Sam called.

  “I just talked to the doctor who pronounced Dr. Carmody dead.”

  “Okay.” I closed my eyes.

  “There’s more, Aggie. I talked with Dr. Bigsby, the biology department chair. She heard from students you were shouting questions in class that might have contributed to Carmody having a stroke or heart attack.”

  “Unbelievable.”

  “I know you didn’t cause his death, but that’s the rumor floating around. I thought you should know. You need to keep a low profile in class.”

  I started thinking.

  “Aggie? Did you hear what I said?”

  “Yes. Of course. I should keep a low profile. Good idea.”

  While Sam changed the subject to another case he’d be working over the weekend, I decided my first interview should be with Dr. Hortense Bigsby. As department chair, if she believed I contributed to Carmody’s death, she could have me dismissed from the university. I had to see her to defend myself.

  “Don’t work too hard, Sam. And don’t worry. I’ll be mouse quiet in class next week.”

  Ten

  I hung up and padded to the kitchen for peanut butter, grape jelly and low-fat milk. Before taking the first bite, I dialed UHT. “Biology department, please. Dr. Bigsby’s office.”

  I made an appointment through her secretary and carried the feast to my kitchen table. PB & J helped me order my thoughts. For once I was glad Aunt Novena had been a cardiac nurse who studied out loud all the time. I learned a lot from her. I scribbled on a tablet.

  1. Carmody was obese, but he’d been that way for years. Why did he have a stroke or heart attack now? His erratic ability to think and remember suggested a brain impairment more than a heart disorder.

  2. His symptoms came and went as though some substance in his system sporadically caused reactions. Which made me think his death was induced.

  3. His behavior was symptomatic of many malfunctions. Maybe I should just wait for the ME’s autopsy report.

  I was not good at waiting. I thought Carmody was murdered. He was about to make a breakthrough and it got him killed.

  Maybe somebody had managed to shorten the telomeres protecting his chromosomes.

  To rest my brain, I watched TV sitcoms. Before bed, I returned to the computer to scan through links Carmody had provided. When I talked with Dr. Hortense Bigsby, I hoped to sound reasonably knowledgeable.

  Eleven

  I arrived at Dr. Bigsby’s office at eight a.m. Friday morning, bleary-eyed from studying late Thursday night. Her secretary had specified the early hour, yet she hadn’t arrived. I wondered if her boss would chastise her. I crossed the reception area and knocked on the door to Dr. Bigsby’s office.

  She uttered a weak “Yes?”

  When I peeked in, I had the sensation of viewing a statue seated behind a desk.

  Light from a small window gleamed on chrome-like strips of hair that looked like spokes restraining her bun. She looked both elegant and miserable, like royalty trained to contain her emotions. Her red-rimmed eyes were expressionless.

  “Thank you for seeing me,” I stammered. “I came to offer my condolences on our loss of Dr. Carmody. This was my second class with the professor.”

  “Our loss. Yes.” She took a deep breath and blinked, one of two daily blinks she probably allowed herself. She might be in shock from losing her colleague.

  “Have you worked with him a long time?”

  “Yes. A long time. I was his student back in Boston.” She reached toward
a tissue box on a cabinet to the left of her desk. Her ring finger was bare. Behind the tissue box, I noticed a lone photograph.

  “You were Dr. Carmody’s student. How interesting. And now, as chair of the biology department, you were his boss.”

  “Ironic, isn’t it?” She blew her nose, a single honk on the tissue before she folded it into squares. “Kermit could never be department chair. He hated administrative duties and paperwork. With him, research was everything. He had no time for anything else.” She placed the tissue in her lap. “I was never into research; I fast-tracked toward a teaching career. Never married or had children.”

  At what point had she made that decision? I’d learned how hard it was to be without love.

  “I guess I’ll never have children either,” I said, trying to make light of our shared situation. “At least we won’t be worried about passing genes for Huntington’s disease or Duchenne muscular dystrophy or cystic fibrosis to our children.”

  She gave me a calculating look. Was I really unconcerned about not having a family? Did I understand the genetics of these diseases or was I merely parroting something I’d read? She gazed into space and sighed, as if concluding that finding the answer wasn’t worth the effort.

  “They made me chair of the department,” she said, “so I could ride herd on the aggressive, inquisitive types climbing the ladder.”

  Which one of those types could have killed Dr. Carmody?

  She raised her chin and looked into space. “My job can be tedious, but it’s important to keep the department functioning properly.”

  “Isn’t that common among scientists?” I asked. “Not liking paperwork? As department chair, you can corral their efforts and make sure they stay on track and get their grant reports and renewals submitted on time. That’s a valuable contribution.”