Death Spiral

by Janie Chodosh

  In my mind I finish it for him: Kill me. Like they killed my mother. Kill me. Like they killed Melinda. Kill me. Like they killed Dr. Carisle and Dr. Wydner. I’m sure of it now. Their deaths were all murders.

  The question isn’t just why anymore, but who’s next?

  I touch my forehead to the cool of the glass and look out the window. Buildings warp and bend through my tears. Cars speed by like missiles, their headlights staining the night. We pass a sign that says Thank you for visiting Philadelphia.

  “The city of brotherly love,” I snort, then turn and slam my fist into the door. I’m about to take another swing, but Jesse reaches across the seat and grabs my arm.

  “You’re the bravest person I know,” he says. “And the stupidest, too.”

  I drop a trembling hand into my lap. “Yeah? Well, I’m just glad there’s someone stupider than me. How the hell did you find me?”

  By some miraculous brain-to-brain osmosis, Jesse understands my clumsy attempt at gratitude for saving my life, and a trace of a smile passes across his lips. “When you took that phone call in the auditorium I knew it wasn’t about the cat. You’re a terrible liar. Like the child she never had? Give me a break. I knew something was wrong, so I followed you. The whole FBI could’ve been on your ass and you wouldn’t have noticed.” His smile disappears. The muscles in his forearm flex as he grips the wheel tighter. “I waited outside the clinic, behind a dumpster in the alley. Everything seemed okay at first. But when I saw the Rat Catcher go inside I got nervous. And then I heard the gun go off. I didn’t think. The door was still open. There was glass everywhere. Someone was dead and…” He coughs and shakes his head. “They say you can lift a car if you have enough adrenaline. Compared to that, pushing a file cabinet onto a guy was easy.” The explanation must spark his nervous system back into action because his fingers start to tremble again, and he’s back to checking the rearview mirror. “What happened in there?”

  I tell him about the call from Dr. Monroe earlier today, about genetic IPF and how my mom didn’t have the mutation two years ago, but had it before she died. I tell him how I left messages for both Dr. Glass and Dr. Wydner to tell them what I’d found out, and how Dr. Wydner called me and told me to meet him at the clinic.

  “He died to save me, Jesse,” I whisper. “He was protecting me.”

  Jesse slows as he curves off the interstate. I hadn’t been paying attention to where we were going, but the star-filled sky, unblemished by millions of lights, tells me we’ve left the city. I look out the window and see a fat bulldog dressed in a tartan sweater trot down the sidewalk and lift his leg on a hedge. His faithful owner, bundled against the weather, trails along behind. Station wagons and SUV’s decorate the driveways of the big houses with the landscaped yards that even in winter look pretty. It’s as if there’s a protective membrane around this neighborhood that keeps outside shit at a distance, and we’ve just punctured that membrane and dragged in that outside shit with us like dog crap on the bottom of our shoes.

  Jesse pulls up in front of a sprawling white house set back from the street. I’ve never been to this house, but I know exactly where we are: Hazel is parked in the driveway.

  “No way,” I say. “No friggin’ way.”

  “Come, on, Faith. It’ll be fine.”

  I slide down in my seat and pick at a crust of dried blood on my upper lip. “Even if Anj and I were talking, which by the way we’re not, I’m not dragging her into this. And come to think of it, I’d rather not get you killed either, so why don’t you just go home and drop me off at some motel or something until I figure out what’s in this envelope.”

  Jesse doesn’t flinch. He fixes me with his blue eyes and says, “Nice try, but you’re not getting rid of me, so forget it.”

  “Well, it’s not like she’d let me in, anyway,” I mutter, pushing a limp strand of hair off my face.

  “Wrong. You know what your problem is?”

  “I’m too scared to get close to anyone?” I say, thinking back to my conversation with Anj the other day.

  “No. You underestimate your friends.”

  Jesse rests his elbow on the steering wheel. From his very long pause I get the feeling I’m not going to like what’s coming next. “Duncan told me what happened between you and Anj.”

  “And?”

  “And I went to her after I saw you in the auditorium. We had a talk.”

  “A talk?”

  “Yeah, I was worried, so I told her about the phone call and the cat and my suspicion that you were about to do something stupid and dangerous and that I was going to find you.”

  He opens the door and swings his feet to the ground before I can sock him in the face. Saving my life is one thing, interfering in my personal affairs another entirely.

  “She told me to bring you to her house the second I found you. Where else are we going to go? You won’t go the police. The Rat Catcher will never find us here, Faith.”

  I’m about to give Jesse a piece of my mind and tell him there is no “we” or “us” in this, but just then Anj comes barreling out of the house in slippers and pink flannel two-piece pajamas. She pushes Jesse out of the way, grabs my arm, and pulls me over the center console and out the driver’s side door. At first I think she’s going to beat the crap out of me and I try to protect my face with my arms, but then my nose is smashed against her chest, her arms are choking the life out of me, and I’m thinking the Rat Catcher couldn’t kill me, but Anj’s hug will.

  “You’re such a dumb ass,” she blurts before I can say anything. “You look awful. Get inside right now. My parents are at Chrissy’s basketball game, and I want you in my room and cleaned up by the time they get back. And then you can tell me why your lip is bleeding, your shirt is torn, and you look like someone just tried to kill you.” She gasps when she says this, takes her hands off my shoulders, and covers her mouth. “Oh. My. God! Someone did try to kill you, didn’t they?”

  Anj leads us up the driveway. I must be too tired to protest because I follow her into the house, up the stairs, and down the hall to her bedroom. Her room is a page from the Pottery Barn catalogue, complete with a matching bedspread-pillow-curtain combo and a droopy-eared mutt lazing at the foot of her bed like he’s been planted there for a photo shoot. I linger in the hall not wanting to stain such tidy perfection with my filth.

  “Well, what are you waiting for? You’re a mess.” Anj yanks me into the room, then turns back to Jesse. “Wait there,” she orders and slams the door on his face. The dog leaps off the bed and squeezes underneath Anj’s desk. Anj scurries across the room and kneels beside him. “This is Zig,” she tells me.

  “Nice to meet you, Zig,” I mutter, reaching out a hand for the dog to sniff. Zig just moves further back against the wall as if trying to disappear altogether. “You and me both, dude,” I whisper.

  “Don’t feel bad. He’s from the pound. You know how rescue dogs can be.” She gets up and points to a door on the far end of the room. “Bathroom’s in there. Use all the hot water you want.”

  “Look Anj,” I say without moving.

  “Don’t ‘Look Anj’ me. You stink. Go get clean.”

  I sigh and follow her orders. No use arguing, and truth is I don’t want to.

  Anj must single handedly keep the local beauty and bath store in business. The rim of the tub is lined with about five hundred skincare products. I take my time under the hot water as I try to cleanse the evil from my naked body. When I’ve rubbed myself pink and raw, I step out of the shower and wrap myself in a fluffy monogrammed towel. Anj hands me a Haverford High track team sweat suit to wear, even though, like me, she’s never been on an athletic team in her life. When I’m done dressing, she invites Jesse back into the room.

  Jesse tumbles through the door and rushes over to me. “You okay?”

  I nod. “You?”

  “Like rock.”<
br />
  “Really?”

  “No, but I can fake it until I feel it.” He shoves his hands in his pockets and narrows his eyes as if daring me to contradict him.

  Anj and Jesse stand there after that, watching me. I’m guessing it’s an explanation they want, especially Anj who’s still in the dark about what happened tonight. I’m about to give the details of what went down at the clinic, but I realize it’s not an explanation I owe. It’s an apology.

  This part isn’t destiny. There’s no mutation that makes it impossible to say sorry.

  “So,” I say, biting my lip and digging my toes into the carpet. “I could go into the really long, really boring explanation about how my mom started slamming heroin when I was a kid, and how that left me pretty fucked up, but we don’t have all night, so I’m going to cut to the chase.” I take the breath Marta always nagged me about and let the oxygen carry the words to my lips. “I’m really sorry about ditching you guys. I’m sorry about not answering your calls and about lying and blowing you off.”

  I pop my knuckles, slowly and carefully, making sure each finger gets a proper crack as I search for the right words to explain my actions. “When Dr. Carlisle died I panicked,” I finally say. “I didn’t want you to get hurt. I thought you’d be better off without me.”

  I peek at Anj, at the look in her eyes I can’t quite read, and brace myself for the possibility that my apology is too late.

  Instead of slinging a comeback lecture about my behavior, she swallows and says, “I’m sorry, too.”

  “You? No way. Why?”

  “Yes me. Totally. I should’ve been more understanding. I mean you’ve been going through a really hard time with your mom and all. I should’ve told you about Dunc and Scotland. I should’ve—”

  Jesse clears his throat. “Okay ladies. You’re both sorry. How’s that? There’s no such thing as true altruism. But the Rat Catcher’s still out there, so maybe we should get the show on the road and move on. What’s next?”

  “This,” I say, throwing my arms around both my friends. When I’ve sufficiently strangled them with my embrace, I cross the room to my bag, pull out the envelope Dr. Wydner gave me, and stare at the thing like it’s Anthrax. “And this.”

  “An envelope?” Anj asks. She sounds disappointed, like she wishes I’d pulled out something more exciting than an envelope from my bag—a gun or a ransom note maybe. “Who’s it from?”

  I quickly explain about the envelope, Dr. Wydner, and what happened at the clinic, pretty sure the story of murder and cover-up will be enough of a reality check for Anj to put the wishing aside and order me and my envelope out of her house. But no.

  “Well? What are you waiting for?” she says. “You’re not going to know what’s in there by standing around and staring at the thing.”

  “Okay, then. Here goes nothing.”

  I rip through the padding and pull out a paper with a web address clipped to a pile of what must be twenty pages of Dr. Wydner’s hand-scrawled notes. Some of the papers are torn, others folded. I start smoothing the pages, laying each one on Anj’s bed.

  Anj hovers behind me and watches. “What the heck are those?”

  “I don’t know. Some sort of medical records I think. Jesse, check it out.”

  Jesse joins me beside the bed, but it’s not one of the papers with the hand written notes he picks up—it’s the one with the web address. He grabs Anj’s laptop and starts clicking. Anj drags two pastel beanbags across the floor and slides onto the pink one. Jesse and I scrunch together on the baby blue one while his fingers fly across the keyboard.

  The web address takes us to a site called The Biotech Rumor Mill. The home page opens to an archive of blogs, a bunch of news links, and a section called “Hot and Latest Rumors.” Jesse and I exchange glances as we read through various headlines of rumors in the biotech world. Pfizer. Roche Diagnostics. Executive compensation. Fascinating stuff.

  “Hang on,” Anj says, snatching the computer off Jesse’s lap. “Didn’t Jesse say your mom had something called idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  She drags the cursor to the drop down menu of recent headlines we’d just been browsing and points.

  “‘Funding for Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis Treatment Threatened,’” I read. “Weird. Dr. Monroe said there wasn’t a cure for the disease. Click on that.”

  Anj clicks, and a new page loads. She reads out loud. “‘PluraGen Biopharmaceutical CEO, Brian Millman, is pulling funding for Alveolix, a new treatment for a rare condition known as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. With the patent on PluraGen’s chief moneymaker, the depression drug, Fiboral, expiring, Millman is cutting research and development on smaller, less profitable drugs manufactured by the company and getting ready to cut hundreds of positions. “Alveolix does not have a wide enough application,” Millman says, and therefore is not generating the revenue the company expected.’”

  “Screw the sick people who need the drug,” Jesse grunts when Anj finishes reading. “If it’s not pulling a profit, they can eat shit and die. And while we’re at it, screw affordable health care because who needs that, and screw…”

  Jesse rattles on about things that should be screwed, but I ignore his anticapitalist rant and turn back to Anj. “What else does it say?”

  Anj adjusts herself in the beanbag and props the computer against her thighs. “‘Dr. Glass, lead researcher for Alveolix, declared bankruptcy after investing millions of dollars of his own and investors’ money to develop the treatment.’” She closes the computer and looks from Jesse to me. “Who’s Dr. Glass?”

  I don’t answer. Something dark and unsettling fights to make sense in my mind as I stare past Anj to a shelf of glass figurines above her desk. Dr. Glass. Head of the RNA 120 clinical trial. IPF researcher. He had a cure. I push myself out of the beanbag and dart across the room to the papers strewn across the bed.

  I’ve just picked up the first one when I hear an engine and a car pulls into the driveway. A minute later the front door opens and muffled voices drift up from the first floor. Heeled shoes click the wooden staircase, followed by the clomping of elephant’s feet.

  “Hi, Hon,” a woman calls. “We’re home.”

  “We won!” Chrissy shouts.

  Before I can scoop up the papers, someone’s knocking. I try to catch Anj’s eye, but she’s already crossing the room. She flings open the door and a tall, thin woman with short, dark hair cut in a severe angle around her chin is standing there. A red-faced Chrissy, dressed in full basketball regalia, complete with an eighties’ style sweatband, stands beaming at her side.

  “Hi, Ma,” Anj says, bumping me out of the way with her hip as I make a clumsy attempt to gather whatever belongings I can reach, so I can bail before her mother can invite me to leave. “This is my friend, Faith, and this is Jesse.” While Jesse steps forward and offers his hand, I hover in the back of the room with Zig, the pound pup whose former life as a stray keeps him on guard against newcomers.

  “I was just about to leave,” I mumble.

  “No, she wasn’t.” Anj shoots me a glance that says “shut-up-and-let-me-talk.” “We have a biology assignment that’s due tomorrow. I’m so lame. I totally forgot to tell you about it. Sorry, Ma. It’s going to be a really late night. I invited Faith to sleep over. Jesse’s helping out, too. He’ll be leaving in like an hour.” She snakes her arms around her mother’s waist and gives her a girlish peck on the cheek. “How was the game?”

  Chrissy pushes her mother out of the way and takes the spotlight. “We totally won. It was so rad! I scored fifteen points!”

  Her mother smiles and pats Chrissy on the head. “She might not be tall, but she sure is aggressive.” She squeezes her munchkin basketball pro and smiles at me. “Well, you three had better get to work. I don’t want you to stay up all night. It’s nice to meet you, Faith.” />
  “Nice to meet you, too,” I say as she shuts the door.

  Anj locks the door and checks the clock the second her mother leaves. Before I can process the fact I’m staying, she picks up a notebook from her desk and kicks off her slippers. “Okey dokey. Let’s figure this thing out.”

  I don’t move. “Look, Anj, I really appreciate all you’ve done for me, but this is serious. Someone got killed tonight, okay? These aren’t nice people. So I’ll be going before the Rat Catcher finds me camped out in your family’s home.”

  Anj races back to the door and puts her arms out. “Yeah? Well for your information, we have a burglar alarm and all the doors and windows are armed. And for your double information, who’s going to think to look for you here?” She gives me the death stare and then adds, “So if you try to leave, just remember, I know Judo.”

  I sigh, but I can’t help cracking a smile. “I knew there was a reason I liked you when we met.”

  “Good. Enough fluff. Now, let’s get to work.”

  Twenty-two

  We divide the papers into three piles, one for Jesse, one for Anj, one for me. No sooner do I sink onto the bed to study the first sheet than Jesse’s voice stops me.

  “There’s something else in here,” he says, reaching into the envelope and handing me a wallet-size black-and-white photo of the Rat Catcher.

  “Victor Navarro,” I say, turning over the picture and shuddering as I read the name written in red pen. “I wonder why Dr. Wydner has a picture of him?”

  I don’t have to say anything more. Mr. Search Engine’s on it. Jesse sits at Anj’s desk with the laptop and a few seconds later brings up an Internet article. “‘Whatever happened to the beast?’” he reads. “It’s from the Philly Inquirer, five years ago.”

  “The beast?” Anj asks. “I thought we were talking about the Rat Catcher.”

  I shrug, feeling as confused as Anj looks.

  “‘To many, Victor Navarro was known as the beast,’” Jesse begins reading, “‘a talented NCAA Division I basketball player set to put his hometown of Pottstown on the map. But there was another side to this talented college athlete, a troubled teen, often at odds with the law, who struggled with a history of drug abuse and violence.’ Blah, blah, blah—skip to the good part.”