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

by Nancy G. West

  She nodded.

  I leaned forward and clasped my hands expectantly at the sheer excitement of scientific inquiry. “I’m so eager to learn about new discoveries about disease and aging. What did Dr. Carmody find the most interesting?”

  The expression in her eyes warmed. “There is so much being discovered about how genes interact to affect disease and point to signposts of aging…and how genes can change and make cells grow uncontrolled...”

  “And can lead to cancer?”

  “Yes. Eighty-five percent of human cancers are telomerase positive.”

  “Telomerase. The enzyme that lengthens telomeres and protects the chromosomes in our DNA?”

  “Yes. Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn is an amazing scientist working with telomerase. Her research sparked a whole field of inquiry into the possibility that telomerase could be reactivated to treat age-related diseases like blindness, cardiovascular disease and neurodegenerative diseases, and perhaps even be deactivated to treat cancer.”

  Her excitement was contagious. “Aren’t some researchers focusing on the connection of Alzheimer’s to specific genes? I think they’re called APOE genes.”

  She stiffened. Her neck stretched longer than Olive Oyl’s. Her head bobbled.

  Her long neck, held erect and properly adorned, would make her appear regal and chic. It saddened me that she hadn’t used her attributes to their best advantage. Her defensive attitude made her imposing but not elegant.

  “Dr. Carmody,” she stated, “did not have Alzheimer’s.”

  “I didn’t mean to imply that he did…just that scientists are investigating possible genetic causes for the disease. I thought he might have been interested in that.”

  “He might have been.” A cloud seemed to descend over her. She sank under its weight, causing her blue cotton shirtdress to form a wrinkle over her flat bosom.

  “If you were Carmody’s student,” I said, “you must have come to UHT after he arrived.”

  “I was actually here before he came. He left Boston to do postdoctoral research at Columbia.”

  I remembered the two postdoctoral students in my class had studied at Columbia before one of them dropped off the radar.

  “I stayed in Boston to finish my dissertation,” she said. “That took a while. Then I came here.” She resurrected the geometrically folded tissue, puffed twice and refolded it in her lap.

  “Completing your dissertation must have required tremendous focus and dedication. I commend you for earning your doctorate. And then to become a department chair so soon after obtaining your degree. It must have been a thrill to be called to this university.”

  Her chin rose proudly, but her eyes remained sad. “A thrill. Yes.”

  “Had Dr. Carmody been ill for a long time? Do you know why he died so suddenly?”

  “He wasn’t ill, so far I knew. He was overweight and subject to the usual stress that can strain a person’s heart.” An icy chill settled in her eyes.

  It was time to defend myself. “I’ve heard that some people think my shouting caused Dr. Carmody to have a heart attack. But he was quite excited. He was actually shouting himself. He’d appeared ill and confused earlier while conducting class. I would hate to think I contributed to his demise, but I really don’t think I was the cause.”

  “No. I suppose not.”

  I exhaled. I was accused, but not yet indicted.

  “Lately,” she said, “he seemed easily upset. It probably wasn’t your fault. I encouraged him to get in shape, but…” She shrugged and sighed.

  “His family must be in shock. Do they live here?”

  She nodded. “His younger brother, Claude, is a financial advisor.”

  “Does he have other family?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  We grew still with the realization sinking in that Dr. Carmody was gone. Forever.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. My eyes misted. “If you don’t mind I’ll grab one of those tissues.”

  As I reached across the corner of her desk to pluck a tissue from the box, she recoiled backward as if to avoid human touch. The photograph behind the box pictured her and Dr. Carmody. He had no paunch. The hair on the top of his head hadn’t slid backwards toward his neck. His huge nose and nostrils did suggest future prominent nose hairs. He was fairly nice-looking. I could understand why she might have worshiped him as her mentor.

  Dr. Bigsby looked slim and hopeful in the picture, precursor to the graceful, accomplished lady she could become. I sniffed and reached for a second tissue, eyeballing the photo. The young Dr. Carmody looked somewhat like my classmate, Phillip Delay.

  Had Doctors Carmody and Bigsby been teacher and protégé? Fellow scientists? Friends? Lovers?

  That last thought threw me into a coughing fit. I used the Kleenex tissue to cover my mouth. She appeared appalled that I might be contaminating her office. I tried to stop coughing and backed toward the door.

  “I’m so sorry about Dr. Carmody. Thank you for seeing me.” I backpedaled through the door and bumped into her late-arriving, pasty-faced office assistant. I waved an apology to them both and escaped.

  Pushing my beloved Wagoneer, Albatross, to the speed limit, I sailed home, trying to erase the nasty image that kept popping into my head of Kermit Carmody and Hortense Bigsby, naked.

  The column I planned to write would require my complete concentration. It might be the last one I’d write for awhile if I got preoccupied investigating Dr. Carmody’s death. I couldn’t shake the belief that his death wasn’t accidental. My plan was to shake the undergrowth for suspects and see who popped out.

  I slipped into my garage, jumped out of Albatross and charged through the door in the garage that led to my kitchen. To lift my spirits, I smeared peanut butter on an overripe banana. Plopped in front of my computer, I combed through a few scientific articles, squished the delectable mixture around my mouth and started making an outline.

  In my next “Stay Young with Aggie” column, I’d extol Dr. Carmody’s professional virtues, emphasize the importance of his research and stress the magnitude of his loss to the scientific community. After doing a tad more research, I’d drop a few hints: Had Carmody been close to isolating a gene or discovering a genetic pathway that could greatly extend human life? Had he unearthed a breakthrough to cure a disease? Had he combined his research with someone else to explain genetic interactions?

  After polishing the column on Friday, I’d take it to my editor at the paper. I’d secure his promise that it would appear in Monday morning’s edition. My classmates would have time to read it before Tuesday’s class, assuming there was a class. I planned to study their reactions.

  When I thought I had enough meat in the article to entice UHT’s biological wizards, I started to write.

  I submitted my column on schedule to the San Antonio Flash-News editor.

  Twelve

  First thing Monday morning, I swooped the newspaper from my porch, raced inside and tore through the sections. “Stay Young with Aggie” was in the Health and Beauty section, not far from the obituaries. Dr. Carmody was eloquently featured in both. I’d included his name in my column title to catch people’s eye: Renowned Professor Dr. Kermit Carmody Unexpectedly Dies.

  His obituary stated his funeral was scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. His colleagues and my classmates would have plenty of time to absorb information from the newspaper about their beloved professor before his funeral. One university announcement took me by surprise. To honor Dr. Kermit Carmody’s memory, classes would not meet Monday and Tuesday. The university would hold a private memorial gathering for university faculty and students in the auditorium of the main building Tuesday morning at ten a.m. Only guests with student or faculty IDs or affiliated researchers would be admitted. The general public was not invited.

  What an o
pportunity. This private event would give me a chance to talk with students in my class, scientists from UHT’s biology and chemistry departments and researchers who’d communicated with Dr. Carmody. I read over my newspaper article to make sure I’d included the salient points:

  1. Carmody was working on telomeres, whose length coincided with longevity, and with telomerase, the enzyme that increased telomere length.

  2. He was interested in how the daf-2 gene affected the expression of other genes that sped up or slowed “downstream” genes that appeared to be earmarks for aging.

  3. He was interested in investigating APOE genes that appeared related to Alzheimer’s disease.

  I threw this in because of Dr. Bigsby’s emphatic reaction, and because scientists thought APOE genes were implicated in twenty to twenty-five percent of Alzheimer’s cases.

  I didn’t pretend to comprehend all the genetic information I tossed out, but scientists would understand it, and they’d wonder how much I knew. If one of them killed Carmody because they planned to claim credit for his ideas, that person would find my article quite interesting, and be compelled to find out what I knew. I could hardly wait for Tuesday’s gathering.

  Although Dr. Carmody’s death was a terrible tragedy, and one the university would not easily recover from, I felt strangely optimistic. Because of my column and my association with Dr. Carmody, I might be in a unique position to flush out his killer. Maybe that would make up, in a minuscule way, for my eager questions he frequently found so disturbing.

  Dr. Carmody’s death, sad as it was, at least purged me from continuous mental angst about whether he would oust me from class and expel me from the university. Dr. Eric Lager would probably teach us. As Carmody’s lab director, he likely knew almost as much as Carmody did. Despite my suspicions that a colleague might have stolen Dr. Carmody’s secrets, I hoped his discoveries had not been lost.

  Thirteen

  Tuesday would be a busy day. I was vaguely apprehensive about what might happen after the memorial services, so I decided to stock up on groceries…something healthy. Whole Foods had just moved to Alamo Quarry Market. Excited about shopping for natural foods in the new facility, I donned a new t-shirt, jeans and sandals, hopped into Albatross and motored to The Quarry.

  I stepped inside the store and grabbed a basket. The fresh smell was bound to clear my mind of worry and grief. Beautiful organic fruits caught my eye. I selected a combination fruit bowl and a fourteen-ounce carton of vegan fruit dip. Gazing at the tropical fruits from New Zealand, Mexico, Hawaii, Columbia and the Dominican Republic would probably give me travel dreams.

  Scanning the aisles, I spied Penelope Farquhar tossing loose organic vegetables into a basket.

  “Hey. Fancy meeting you here.”

  She gave me a semi-friendly look.

  “Wasn’t what happened to Dr. Carmody terrible?”

  “Yes, terrible.” She nodded.

  “I see you like fresh vegetables,” I said.

  “That’s what Dr. Dean Ornish says we should eat. Have you read his books?” She pivoted toward the tomatoes.

  “I read the one showing that eating a diet with only ten percent fat can reverse heart disease. It’s amazing.”

  She grabbed a red lump that looked like a cross between a beet and a potato somebody had dug up, tossed it in her basket and moved toward a bin labeled “Budock root. Japan.” Foot-long stalks with three-quarter-inch diameters looked like brown bamboo. They’d make great play swords for children, except they were almost five dollars a stalk. She grabbed two.

  Despite craving crunchy peanut butter, I headed for the greens and chose four kinds: red organic lettuce, arugula, butter lettuce and baby spinach. I’d read that eating greens daily could slash the risk of Type II diabetes and heart attack, protect against cancer and increase brain power. Tossing the salad with walnuts and olive oil boosted the absorption of nutrients. Why not try it? I’d ask Sam over and fix him veggie dinners before he got too old.

  I ambled back toward Penelope. Since I’d run into her, I decided she’d be the subject of my first investigative interview.

  “You’ve probably read most of Dr. Ornish’s books,” I said.

  “I have his complete library. Want to see it? I live just over there.” She pointed toward the Meridian Apartments on Basse Road.

  “Sure.”

  My car followed hers into the gated complex. The barrier clanked closed behind us, securing us in a gloomy drive-in patio compound surrounded by high-rise apartments. We took the elevator to her third-floor unit and went in. I had the sensation of entering a sacred library of vintage books. Tall built-in bookshelves of dark wood surrounded the room. A brown leather sofa and chairs in the center circled a mahogany library table and a single straight-backed chair. Closed shutters over the only window protected the volumes and made the room even darker.

  She pointed to a shelf. “There’s the book you were talking about, Dr. Dean Ornish’s Program for Reversing Heart Disease. After his patients spent only a year on his treatment program of eating a diet with ten percent fat, the narrowing of their coronary arteries decreased. Their coronary atherosclerosis was actually reversed. It was a landmark discovery. Patients who followed Ornish’s regimen had fewer cardiac events than those who followed standard medical advice. Cheaper and safer therapies against cardiovascular disease could replace or eliminate coronary artery bypass surgery, angioplasty, and stents.”

  If Dr. Carmody had followed Dr. Ornish’s regimen, would he still be alive?

  “Dr. Ornish came out with Eat More, Weigh Less in 1993,” she said.

  That sounded like a great plan. “I need to read that one.”

  She pointed up to a third book. “Everyday Cooking with Dr. Dean Ornish came out in 1996 and includes a hundred and fifty recipes. The New York Times called it ‘the most useful, accessible and inspirational cookbook yet.’”

  “Wow. I see you have shelf space reserved on either side of his books.” They were bracketed with expensive bookends, like a shrine.

  “He’ll be writing more books. I’ll buy every one.”

  I glanced around the other shelves. I saw minimal fiction titles, a few history titles and a lot of books on biology. She stared reverently at Ornish’s books.

  “I ordered a pre-publication copy of his book coming out next year,” I said. Love and Survival. The subtitle was The Scientific Basis for the Healing Power of Intimacy. I hoped it would help me improve my relationship with Sam, but I didn’t mention it.

  She didn’t comment. I got the distinct impression that whatever I’d read or planned to read, she would claim to know more about the subject. I looked closer at other shelves and saw several books on living longer and extending lifespan.

  “I remember you studied cellular biology,” I said. “Do you read a lot about genetics?”

  “Books I’ve read by Ornish and others suggest that only about thirty-five percent of individual differences in longevity are inherited. That leaves two-thirds of our longevity, and probably our health, dependent on how we eat, sleep, handle stress, and exercise.”

  “That’s really something,” I said. She was clearly mesmerized by Ornish.

  “Some scientists,” she said, “think environmental influences cause genes to respond in various ways—that a person’s lifestyle can actually change his genetics. Dr. Ornish leans toward that view. If lifestyle changes can affect coronary arteries, why couldn’t they affect genes associated with disease and aging?”

  I nodded.

  It seemed like somewhat of a leap, yet possible.

  “So Dr. Ornish is not at all interested in the genetics of aging?” I began to wonder why she’d signed up for Dr. Carmody’s class.

  “Ornish agrees that short telomeres in humans are emerging as risk markers for disease and premature cancer deaths,” sh
e said. “He’s seeking funding for a study to see whether lifestyle changes alone will increase telomere length.”

  “By changing your diet and exercise, you could make your telomeres grow longer?”

  “Yes,” she said. She seemed to have already decided the outcome of Dr. Ornish’s study. Maybe she’d written articles supporting his viewpoints. If Dr. Carmody disagreed with Dr. Ornish’s approach, had she viewed Dr. Carmody’s research as a threat to her self-esteem and career? I decided to prod her a little.

  “Didn’t Dr. Carmody say that shortening telomeres, which speed aging, can be counteracted by the enzyme telomerase? But that too much telomerase can cause cancer?”

  “Yes, he did. But Dr. Ornish thinks improved nutrition and lifestyle could increase telomerase activity, protect our immune system and combat cancer. He wants to involve other scientists in his pilot study.”

  Totally focused on Dr. Ornish, she could be opposed to the thrust of Dr. Carmody’s research. She might even want to discredit him.

  “Looks like I’ll have to keep up with Dr. Ornish. I guess you believe Dr. Carmody couldn’t hope to extend lifespan and improve people’s health,” I said, “just by mutating genes in the lab. By the way, have you been to the lab?”

  She skirted the question.

  “Carmody probably knew more than anyone else on the planet about the genetic components of longevity,” she said, “and how to alter genes in a lab. But I believe lifestyle has a major effect on health and longevity. Some scientists think we have nutrient-sensing systems that respond to diet and physical activity.” She sighed. I thought she was getting bored with having to explain things to me.

  “Another big factor in health and longevity is emotional stress,” she said pointedly, throwing me a hostile look.