Big Sick Heart: A Detectives Seagate and Miner Mystery

by Mike Markel

  “Excellent,” I said. “Now we don’t have to tip off her department that we’re looking at her.”

  “Yeah, these faculty sites are great. It’s like Facebook for Ph.D.s. How about we go back to headquarters and let me paw around for a little bit? I bet we can figure some stuff out. And you can see if there’s anything we can learn about the James Weston thing.”

  “Sounds good,” I said, as Ryan packed up his computer and we headed to headquarters.

  Back at our desks, I told Ryan to check out Lakshmi Kumaraswamy. I decided to hang back a little on the James Weston case. I figured if I asked the chief if he got anything from the Maui detectives, all I’d accomplish was tip him off that I was thinking the two murders might be related, which would make him work harder on sending me off to investigate a dead end.

  I picked up the phone and dialed Larry Klein, the prosector. “Hey, Larry, Karen Seagate. I need five minutes,” I said.

  “Sure,” he said, “go ahead.”

  “Could we talk out at the fountain near your building?”

  “Yeah, that’s fine,” he said. “In a half hour?”

  “A half hour,” I said.

  I got there early. I didn’t want to keep him waiting. “Thanks a lot, Larry,” I said to him. “Sorry to pull you out of your office.”

  Lawrence Klein was a small, busy man about my age. The deep wrinkles on his forehead rode like waves on his owlish black plastic eyeglasses, the thick lenses magnifying his dark brown eyes. I’d known him eight years, since he’d come to Rawlings as a self-proclaimed Philadelphia Jew lawyer just out of Penn. Maybe he saw me as another outsider trying to fit in. We shared a disdain for the chief, who he called Boss Hogg.

  “What’s going on, Karen?”

  “I wanted to find out what we know about the James Weston case, see if it’s got anything to do with the Hagerty case.”

  “You don’t want to go through Boss Hogg?”

  “Not if I don’t have to.”

  “Don’t blame you,” Klein said. “The Maui cops are going to arrest the doper who was on the boat.”

  “They’ve got the forensics?”

  “Apparently,” he said. “The harness on the parasail was cut, and the marks match the pattern on the doper’s knife. The threads in the knife handle match the harness, so they’re pretty confident the case will work.”

  “Can they prove Dolores Weston paid the doper to do it?”

  “I don’t think so, at least not yet.”

  “So they’re gonna sweat the kid while they keep investigating?”

  “Yeah,” Klein said. “I think the strategy is to pressure him to think a little more deeply about helping them make the case. If he helps them, he walks on the drug possession and they cut him some slack on the conspiracy. If he doesn’t, he’s on the hook for murder one. At least that’s how they’re going to go at him.”

  “What do they think their case is?”

  “At this point, I think it’s circumstantial. The kid used to work on the property at the Weston place here in Rawlings. All of a sudden, he’s on a plane to work on their Maui place, with a wad of cash in his pocket. He just shows up at the dock one day, saying Mrs. Weston wants him to help out on the boat. The Hawaiian guys who run the boat didn’t even get a heads up.”

  “And the Hawaiian guys check out?” I said.

  “That’s what I’m getting.”

  “So the Maui detectives aren’t ready to arrest Dolores Weston.”

  “That’s right. They don’t have a motive yet. Unless the kid can give them something better than he’s given them so far, they can’t move. They’d love to get her, of course.”

  “Because she’s a rich white woman?”

  “That’s part of it. There’s a lot of bad feelings about rich whites who drive up property values on the islands, but I think they want to be able to show that none of the native boys were involved in killing him.”

  “To make it all all-Haole murder?”

  “Exactly,” Klein said.

  “So, just between you and me, did she do it?”

  “Not sure. I don’t see her having him killed for something obvious, like he’s fooling around.”

  “Montana’s a community-property state,” I said, “so she could divorce him and walk away with well over one point five billion, right?”

  “That’s right,” Klein said. “So she’d have to be extremely pissed off at him. Hiring a kid to do it shows some real premeditation, so it’s not a crime of passion. Either he’s diddling one of her daughters or he’s trying to wreck her political career or something like that. Whatever it is she thinks he was doing, I bet it would humiliate her big time. But what it was? You’re the detective, you tell me,” he said, smiling.

  “Yeah, I’ll go detect it,” I said.

  “And when you do—if it’s a crime in this county, you give me a call, okay?”

  “You bet, Larry,” I said. “Thanks for the conversation.”

  “Always a pleasure, Karen. Keep in touch.”

  Back at headquarters, I hung my coat up and walked over to Ryan’s desk. “Something’s wrong here,” he said.

  “What is it?” I said.

  “Well, Carol Freeman says Lakshmi’s a superstar, right? How come there’s not a whole bunch of articles?”

  “She doesn’t list the articles?” I pulled my chair over next to his.

  “No, that’s not it. She’s got them listed. But there’s only one or two articles a year since her PhD four years ago. And look at what they are.” He pointed to the screen. “A couple of little articles in a journal on science education about working with students on senior projects, an op-ed thing about science education in the school system, stuff like that. I’m not seeing this woman doing anything of interest to Henley Pharmaceuticals.”

  “So why did the university give her a job—”

  “Two jobs, according to Carol,” Ryan said.

  “That’s right,” I said. “Her and her husband.”

  “I don’t get it,” Ryan said. “She was doing real science up to that point. There’s a good fifteen articles—one from her undergrad years, all the rest from her MS years. We’re missing something here.”

  “Maybe we just don’t how to read these damn things. Hold on a second,” I said. “Let me give Carol a quick call. She’ll know what we’re doing wrong.” I dialed Carol and hit Speaker. “Hey, it’s Karen,” I said. “Sorry to bother you again, Carol. We’re looking at the CV of Lakshmi Something in Biology, and she sure isn’t looking like the superstar you said she is. She doesn’t have any good research articles in the last four years. What are we doing wrong?”

  “Let me think,” Carol said. “If it isn’t articles, then it’s grant applications. Check that section of the vita. Look for dollar signs and numbers with a lot of zeroes. The only thing I can think of is she’s working on something really juicy and it isn’t ready for publication yet, you know, like a book.”

  I said, “Wouldn’t an up-and-comer like Lakshmi work on articles first, saving the book for a little later?”

  “Yeah, you’re right. Did she ever write articles?”

  “There were a whole bunch before she got her PhD four years ago.”

  Carol said, “Did she have another academic job before she came here?”

  “No, she’s listed as a post-doctoral researcher at Princeton.”

  “I got it,” Carol said, excited. “If she was at Princeton, she was working for Henley. They’re just up the road. They must have grabbed her based on her dissertation.”

  “How do we get our hands on her dissertation?” I said.

  “There’s something called Dissertation Abstracts International. You can probably buy it online. Bet anything that dissertation has something to do with stem-cell research, and Henley grabbed her then.”

  “I owe you, Carol. Thanks a million.”

  “Anytime, Karen.”

  Ryan was already onto the Dissertation Abstracts International site, d
ownloading a copy of the dissertation. “It has to do with research on using GDNF to foster regeneration of dopamine-producing cells for Parkinson’s disease research.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Give me a second,” he said, reading the introduction. “Okay, GDNF is glial derived neurotropic factor. It’s some kind of protein.” He read another few moments. “She worked on putting it into the part of a mouse brain to stimulate the growth of dopamine, which is the chemical that’s missing in Parkinson’s. Just give me another minute.”

  “Take your time.” I wheeled my chair back to my desk and sat down.

  “When you get Parkinson’s, your brain isn’t producing a chemical called dopamine. She was working on putting this protein called GDNF into the part of the brain that produces dopamine. The mice she was working on had reduced symptoms of the disease. In other words, the cells that make dopamine started working better.”

  “So how is that of interest to Henley?”

  “Not sure yet. I’m going to have to read this a little more to try to figure that out. Wait a second. I’ve got an idea.” He scrolled to the bibliography. “Let me see the authors she lists in her bibliography.” He scanned the six pages of the bibliography. “There’s these three names show up over and over: John K. Yee, Lars Swendt, Jerome Westerberg.”

  “You gonna Google them?”

  “I’m already there,” he said. “John Yee, Henley Pharmaceuticals. Lars Swendt, Henley Pharmaceuticals. Jerome Westerberg, Henley Pharmaceuticals. That’s it.”

  “Okay, great. We think she was working on GDNF research related to Parkinson’s with scientists from Henley. How does that link up with her job at Central Montana and Henley Pharmaceuticals maybe coming to Rawlings?”

  “Let me ask someone at BYU,” Ryan said. He hit the keys a few times, then punched in a phone number.

  “Lanahan.”

  “Professor Lanahan, this is Detective Ryan Miner, from Rawlings, Montana.”

  “Ryan Miner. We had a Ryan Miner here eight or ten years ago. Wide receiver.”

  “That’s me. Class of ’03.”

  “And what’d you say? You’re a detective?”

  “That’s right, professor. A detective in Montana. I was hoping I could pick your brain for a minute.”

  “For an alum and a detective, you bet. What’s up?”

  “We’re working on a case we think might be linked to stem cells.”

  “That murder?”

  “Yes. I’m calling because of your expertise in cell biology. We’re looking at a university biologist up here who we think might be working on GDNF implantation for Parkinson’s research. You know what I’m talking about?”

  “Yes, I do. Go on,” the professor said.

  “Any link between that subject and Henley Pharmaceuticals in New Jersey?”

  “Who are the people at Henley?”

  “I’m looking at John K. Yee, Lars Swendt, and Jerome Westerberg.”

  “Yeah, I’m familiar with their work.”

  “What are they doing these days?”

  “They’re working on modalities for getting GDNF targeted to the right cells in the part of the brain where the dopamine-producing cells are dying.”

  “What’s the problem they’re working on?” Ryan said.

  “There’s a number of technical problems. One is getting the GDNF across the blood-brain barrier. That has to do with the brain cells having a barrier to keep out large substances. It’s a protective measure to block large viruses so the brain doesn’t get infected all the time.

  “Another is to get the new cell growth to integrate correctly with the existing neural network. Then there’s the vector problem. Currently, the GDNF rides on deactivated viruses, but that’s inherently risky. Plus, the host-resistance problem. The stem cells are foreign organisms.”

  “Any other problems?”

  “There’s the risk of cancer. That’s the one I think those guys are working on. We know how to put the GDNF anywhere we want it and turn it on. The problem is we don’t know how to regulate it. If it starts growing in the correct part of the brain but doesn’t turn off, it’s a cancer and it can kill the host.”

  “And how does this relate to stem-cell research?”

  “Those three guys are working on growing stem cells programmed to become dopamine-producers that self-regulate.”

  “How do you do that?” Ryan said.

  “Well, you’ve got a couple of options. Either you engineer the cells so they can sense when there are enough other cells of the same sort doing the job they’re supposed to do. That’s the way it works in a normal organism. You don’t just keep producing billions of blood cells. You produce only enough to do the job and replace the ones that die naturally. Or you engineer the cells to be receptive to an external signal. You send in a substance that’s like a key. When the key fits in the lock, it turns off the cell.

  “Sounds like pretty high-level stuff.”

  “It’s the highest-level research going on in the world: it’s neurology, molecular biology, chemistry, even physics, all rolled up into the most complicated mystery we’ve ever tried to unravel. I tell you, Ryan, I am so glad to be able to witness this in my lifetime. I try not to get carried away, but when I read what these guys are up to, it’s like they’re getting closer and closer to discovering the nature of life itself.”

  “Are you worried about the ethics of it?”

  “You bet I am. But as a scientist, this is without question the most exciting thing that’s ever been done. The way I look at it, Ryan, if I’m lucky enough to live to see today’s researchers crack this, what we’re all going to see … I can barely talk about it. What we’re all going to see is God Himself.”

  “I never thought about it that way.”

  “It’s absolutely incredible.”

  Ryan said, “So the practical implications are pretty important, right? If they can figure out how to deliver the GDNF the right way and get it to integrate successfully, that could be the key to beating Parkinson’s?”

  “That’s what we think right now.”

  “Can it be used against anything else?”

  “The devil’s in the details, you know, but if we can figure out the mechanism, there’s going to be a tremendous synergistic effect. One by one, we’ll adapt to all the other neurological diseases.”

  “You’re talking about MS, Lou Gehrig’s, Alzheimer’s?”

  “And meningitis and severed spinal cords.”

  Ryan said, “So if Henley Pharmaceuticals can patent a delivery system and a self-regulatory system, they’ll make some money, right?”

  “They’ll be measuring it in billions, plus a shelf full of Nobel prizes, too. It will dwarf every other advance in the history of medicine.”

  “Wow. Could this explain why this researcher we’re looking at doesn’t have a lot of research articles the last few years?”

  “This is one of the big ethical issues in science today. It’s a tremendous conflict of interest. Science relies of peer-review publication, so other scientists can verify that the work is legitimate and build on it. But science today is so expensive it can’t be done by independent scientists or even by most universities without external funding. And since the potential profits of a breakthrough technology or drug are so great, the big pharmaceuticals are always looking to buy the next great researcher. If he’s being financed by a pharma, they’re not going to let him tip off other researchers until they can get the patents to protect their investment.”

  “Professor, this has been great. You’ve helped me an awful lot. I want to thank you.”

  “No problem, Detective. Say, do you remember that catch against Oregon in ’01?”

  “You mean the slant out that went for 38 yards and a TD and gave us the game?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “No, I don’t seem to remember that one,” Ryan said, smiling.

  The professor laughed. “Good talking to you, Ryan. You call me back if
you want to talk about stem cells—or football.”

  “Will do, professor. Go, Cougars.” He hung up.

  “That catch was a big deal?” I said.

  “Well, not like curing disease, but it was a big deal if you follow Cougar football,” he said.

  “How ’bout that?”

  “Yeah, we’re lucky BYU’s big cell-biology researcher is a football fan.”

  “All right, so we’ve got a faculty member in town we want to talk to.”

  “And a state representative.”

  “Good work, Ryan.”

  * * *

  The local news made a big deal of the arrest of the doper for killing James Weston. They said they didn’t know his motive. They didn’t float any link to Dolores Weston. I wasn’t real happy about not being able to figure out whether Dolores Weston iced her husband—and whether it had anything to do with the Hagerty murder. But the pieces would come together when they were ready to, not when I wanted them to.

  I pulled myself off the couch and walked into the kitchen, took the Jack Daniel’s down off the shelf. On the counter sat an orange-juice glass that looked reasonably clean. I poured myself a couple of inches and went back into the living room to sit down.

  The fight with Ryan earlier in the day had drained all my energy. He was a good guy, and he hadn’t deserved that shitstorm. Good thing about him, though: he was willing to let me talk to him about it, get it out in the open, and resolve it. I had it under control.

  I carried the drink over to the desk in the corner of the living room and booted my laptop. This seemed like the perfect time to get myself a terrific deal on some penny stock, pick up that ten million dollars from the African king for helping him transfer his huge estate to the U.S., or increase my manhood at least two full inches, guaranteed.

  Instead, what I got was an automated e-mail from Tommy’s vice principal, Mr. Wilhelm, informing me that Tommy’s truancy had reached a rate that not only threatened his learning but also raised the possibility he would not be able to progress to the next grade along with the rest of his classmates. Would I please contact Mr. Wilhelm first thing Monday morning to set up an appointment, along with Tommy’s father, Bruce Seagate, to come to school to discuss this matter?