4. Gate Crashing.
Dr. Vazio of the ESL department couldn't believe what he found. The discrepancy between overseas results and the tests he gave his foreign students when they took the ESL classes was beyond any statistically reasonable possibility of being an accident. If it were only one or two students, he could understand it. There were thirty of them, supposedly fluent in English, but barely able to make themselves understood. They were supposed to be GTA's, teaching undergraduates in the next term. There was simply no way that they could perform to expectation. He brought this to the attention of his chair and was told to ignore it. It wasn't his problem. He made an appointment with the Dean for tomorrow morning. As he exited the elevator for his floor in the G-deck parking garage and headed towards his car he felt a sharp sting but ignored it. The yellow jackets were active this time of year and he assumed one had caught him on his way to the car. He began to feel a little ill while sitting in his car, but started it and backed out of his parking spot. Swerving wildly he accelerated to the exit gate. He passed out, jamming the accelerator pedal open. The car leaped through the checkout gate, sending splinters flying and flew across Courtland street. Crashing through the pedestrian barrier it fell down into the parking lot on the ground level 30 feet bellow between the Athletic Center and the ROTC building. The autopsy showed that he died of a sudden heart attack, or as they labeled it spontaneous idiopathic fibrillation. Spontaneous idiopathic fibrillation is a fancy way of saying “heart attack, for unknown reasons.”
2
I stopped my chair's office to remind him that he was invited to Laura and my engagement/wedding party on Saturday. He was sitting with the department director of graduate students. They said that they would be at the party, and then asked, “Your student Tom, he's writing up isn't he?”
“Should be, especially if he expects to graduate at the end of Summer.”
“So you'll be looking for another student then?”
If I stayed, that is, but I replied, “Probably.”
“Anything against a foreign one?”
“As long as they're good. No.”
“Take a look at this one from China, named Shen Yi, he specifically asked to work with you.”
They handed me the student's file which had the standard mug shot, statement of interests and glowing recommendations. I glanced at his GRE's and TOEFL scores. “Why on earth would he want to come here, with scores like these he could go to Harvard or Yale, maybe even MIT?”
“He doesn't say, but he says he wants to work in your lab.”
“That's unusual.” I looked more carefully at the scores, his classes and recommendations. “His verbal TOEFL is phenomenal. There are always ways to fake the written ones, but faking the verbal test is a little harder. It's like there was a ringer.”
“I gave him a phone interview myself. His English is very good. He said he's been practicing with an American friend online.”
“Want to bet the friend lives in Atlanta? I wonder who she is. Well then, if he wants to come here, send him an acceptance letter. He's certainly a cut above the average.”
3
Class over, this time without any medical emergencies, I was preparing to leave for Northside. In the absence of any real evidence, I thought I would see if I could interview Jane. Either heart disease had become infectious or there had to be some common thread between the victims. Morrison called as I was headed to my car.
“Will?”
“Yes.”
“The medical examiner said his results were 'interesting'. He couldn't check all the cases, but what he found was unusual.”
“What's that mean?”
“Is there a drug problem at GSU?”
“There's almost certainly some drug use, but it doesn't make the newspaper.”
“One was an overdose on Adderol.”
“That happens at 'Techi occasionally, I guess our classes are getting harder so it's bound to happen here.”
“Another looks like a potent mix of illegal drugs. Meth for sure, maybe some others.”
“Wouldn't surprise me,” with more than 30,000 students at GSU there was bound to be an addict or two. “That's two. What about the rest?”
“He said most of the bodies had been released to the families. When he very carefully went over the one he still had, there was something that looked like a recent injection site, maybe. It was just a pin prick.”
“People inject Meth sometimes, don't they?”
“Yes, but this wasn't on the body where there were traces of Meth and the wound was much more superficial than he'd expect with a Meth addict.”
“So I guess there's nothing to go on.”
“He said he's going to keep his eyes open. No clear evidence of crime, but he wasn't happy that these were all normal deaths. That's not bad.”
“Not good, either.”
“It's a start.”
4
Jane was sitting up in bed when I arrived. She had a heart/breathing monitor still attached, but was no longer in the ICU and was in a normal hospital room. I asked, “Do you mind if I ask you some questions?”
She nodded, “Beats watching game show reruns and soap operas.”
“A few of the questions I want to ask have to do with drug use. I won't tell your parents.”
“There's nothing to tell. I have the odd beer with my friends. That's all.”
“You don't take anything to do better in school? Some illicit Ritalin for example.”
“Absolutely not. Besides, I had to take a drug test before I could teach. I was clean. Why?”
“Good, that eliminates one set of possible leads.”
“Leads?”
“I'll fill you in after I've asked my questions, but I'm trying to see if there is any common thread between the students who've had 'heart attacks' lately.”
“Sweet.”
“Can you describe what happened the day you collapsed?”
“Well, I had class in the morning. Then lunch, and drove out to my school. Nothing unusual.”
“Really?”
“There was that insect sting.”
“Sting?”
“I was out watching the children on the playground when a wasp or bee stung me. It just flew into me, stung me and I brushed it off. It was a bit odd, there was a sort of 'pop' noise at the time.”
“Ever been allergic to bees?”
“No.”
“Can I see where it stung you?”
She bared her arm, but there wasn't much to see. There was possibly a small mark where she pointed. If there had been a wound, it was well-healed. That line of questioning wasn't going anywhere. So I tried another, “The other thing I need to do is look for a common social thread between you and the other possible victims.”
“Grilling me about my private life?”
“Not really, you just have to tell me if you know the person I mention.” I started with the boys from my class. “Sam Green or Steve Jordan?”
“I knew Sam, we both worked tutoring jobs for the online ESL service. He was a nice guy, for a Freshman.”
“Steve?”
“No. I don't think so.”
None of the other names I knew about were familiar. Before I left I asked her how she was doing, Danny wanted to know when his favorite teacher would return. She replied, “Pretty well, it's funny though, parts of me are still numb or don't work right. It's like I'm a robot and my wiring is wrong.”
5
I tried talking to the ESL lab to see if they would let me see the list of students who worked for them. They said there was this little issue of student privacy involved. This was a little odd, since the freedom of information act makes everything spent or done at GSU a matter of public recordii. So I asked again, and received the same answer, this time a little more forcibly. If I showed up with a police detective, a warrant and the down of an unhatched pterodactyl they'd let me know. Otherwise, would I please go and do something anatomically impossible to myself.
6
Laura and I threw and engagement/wedding party, partially to celebrate our coming nuptials, and also to introduce our disparate friends to each other. It also meant that we could skip out right after the ceremony to have a honeymoon without a lot of fuss. I'd suggested we go somewhere safe, say Somalia or Columbia, but Laura insisted that the northern beaches of Jamaica would be best. In retrospect, she was correct, I don't think she'd look good in a burka.
The party started well enough, given the mix of professors, the occasional scared-looking graduate student, detectives and lawyers. Most of our difficulty was making sure that the mixture didn't self-segregate into knots of people who knew each other talking about things they mutually knew. It was in this spirit that I introduced one of the chemists, Isabelle Carling to a knot of detectives containing my friend Alvin Morrison. They were discussing shop, the status of the local drug trade, and I figured her interests in synthetic organic chemistry would fit right in.
One of the detectives was saying, “There's a new source of Meth in south side.”
“Really,” Dr. Carling observed, “How interesting.”
“It is,” he continued, “It's much cleaner than the usual stuff. Most of these Meth cooks produce a mixture of products that is not very pure.”
“What do you expect? It's hard to do a clean synthesis.”
“This stuff, it's clean, almost as if they used a real chemist to make it rather than cooking it up in some shack in the woods.”
Isabelle dropped her glass. “I'm sorry. Didn't mean to do that.”
While I was mopping up the mess I overheard a bit more. The detective was continuing to expostulate, “It's called 'blue panther' for some reason. Couldn't have anything to do with State could it?”
“No, no.” Isabelle quickly replied, “We have strict controls on our chemicals. It would be impossible to set up a drug lab at GSU.”
I wandered off to dump the debris and rinse my rags, by the time I returned the conversation was over. I also noticed Isabelle had made her excuses and left.
5. Fame is Fleeting.
Dr. John Roger's work on micro-encapsulating drugs made the Signal, which was a bit of a shame, because he wasn't there to enjoy the glory, such as it was. His body was, but it was a bit of a toss up whether he comprehended anything said around him. He was found in his office, shaking and dribbling, and rushed to the emergency room. A week later he was moved from Grady to long-term care.
My student Tom and I met with Dr. Cleo and his group to see if our spectral sensors could be combined with their work biological chemistry. It could be useful to detect small concentrations of unusual molecules and possibly aid in the remote automated diagnosis of diseases. It would be nice to screen for the next outbreak of SARS or influenza automatically in an airport before many people were ill from the next pandemic. After an hour or so of scientific discussion our talk inevitably turned to Dr. Rogers.
“Pity about him, going like that.”
“True, he could be a real douche-bag at times, but no one deserves what happened to him.”
“What did happen to him?”
“We think it was a stroke, there isn't much else that fits.”
“Damn, I guess none of us are getting any younger. Any word of when they'll start the job search for his replacement?”
“It's already started, they're trying to find another micro-encapsulation guy.”
“Really?”
“Yes, his patents could be very lucrative. Could fund the department for years. He was working on time delay dosing. Imagine taking one pill a month instead of every few hours.”
“Why would that be important?” Not being a biochemist, this seemed a little excessive.
“Things like antibiotic resistance. If the patient skips pills or only takes them when they feel sick then the bugs get resistant quickly.”
“Oh. Had he any luck?”
“Yes, he could slow things down for a day or so.”
“Things like toxins?”
“Don't know about that, but at the last faculty meeting he joked about a super-LSD that could make a trip last for three weeks.”
2
I finally decided to check up on Dr. John Craft. Arthur did a quick criminal background check and he was clean or at least as clean as a public database would show. I spent a few hours on pub-med reading on his research. It was mostly about the transmission of neural impulses in invertebrates with the occasional foray into behavioral speculations. In other words, he seemed as normal as any other neurobiologist.
I gave him a call and we agreed to meet.
“So Will? What's this about? You're not planning on joining the Neurobiology Institute are you?”
“No such luck.” I showed him my license and card from Argus. “It's my other professional responsibility. I need to ask you about poisons.”
“Why me?”
“I was told to ask your advisor, Dr. Martin Shelby. Unfortunately he was not available.”
“Yeah right. I spoke at his funeral. What the fuck are you about Will?”
“Seriously, I'm trying to understand why the student teacher in my stepson's kindergarten was almost killed with something that looked like a heart attack.”
“That all?”
“There was another in 'Physics for Poets', one of his best friends helped with the CPR. It didn't work that time.”
“Sounds like you have a good reason. How can I help?”
“Is there something that can give an otherwise healthy young man a heart attack?”
“Lots of things. Can you be a bit more specific?”
“It would have to be unnoticeable, and with a delay of a few hours.”
“Heart attack, no. Something that looks like one, there is a whole family of related toxins. Channel blockers from shellfish, red algae really. Saxitoxin is the most common. There are several other derivatives that can be used.”
“Saxitoxin?”
“Small molecule, it only takes a half milligram to kill a human, less if you directly inject it, then it takes maybe fifty micrograms. The CIA used it for suicide devices. It would only take a scratch and you would stop breathing. Gary Powers had some, didn't use it.”
“How easy is it to get?”
“Aldrich catalog carries it, but it's a restricted chemical. You need a special license. I have some because it's a great way to modify nerve responses.”
“Really?”
“Didn't you know? That's why Martin was so interested in toxins. The interesting ones block different parts of the nervous system. There isn't a neurobiologist worth his salt who doesn't have his little box of poisons.”
“Damn. I suppose you keep good track of them?”
“You bet. I have a log book and the chemical safety office requires that we keep records with them too. Don't want to lose any students because we're sloppy.”
He showed me his log. He was right, every time some toxin was used, it was signed for. The dates and the amounts used were all there. There didn't seem to be any discrepancy. That was until he said, “That's odd.”
“What?”
“I thought we ordered 20 mg last year.”
“20 mg?”
“More than enough for our needs. Trouble is we only received ten. I'll have to ask my lab tech what happened.”
“Is that bad?”
“It's not cheap, and the sale is restricted.”
He found his lab manager, and she reminded him that they had given half of the order to Dr. Roger's group. It's in the chemstar database.
“That's right. He was going to develop some slow-release and time delayed preparations, so we could try some less invasive approaches to measuring n
eural activity. We were hoping to find a way to study how channel blockers affected behavior. The panel at NIH even thought it was a good idea, though we needed some more preliminary results to be funded.”
“You wouldn't know, by any chance, if that material is accounted for?”
“No, Dr. Roger's lab manager should know.”
With the PI on extended medical leave, Dr. Roger's lab was sort of on extended life support. The graduate students and postdoc's pursued their research while looking of new supervisors and preparing their resumes. We wandered over, via the complicated maze of corridors that connected the science annex with the natural sciences building. What we found was chaos. The EMT's were leaving, and they were carrying a body on a stretcher.
I turned to Craft, “Looks like another one has been stung.”
He whitened in shock, “Who?”
We asked, it was Dr. Roger's lab manager. He'd been found slumped over at his desk by a student. She was in the corner, nearly in hysterics, despite being calmed by her friends. Dr. Craft walked over, saw that there was little he could do, so he called the campus mental health line. She was going to need counseling.
6. Flaws in the Hood.
“To have and to hold, say I do”
“I do”
“You may kiss the bride.”
We'd done it. For better or worse Laura and I were going to give married life another try. Though this time it was with each other, which could only be an improvement over our past choices. With the service over, it was off to Jamaica for a honeymoon. Despite having Danny in tow we had fun. My cell didn't work, I stayed unplugged from the Internet, and nothing happened. Well at least nothing I would tell you about.
Eventually something did happen. On the way back to Atlanta, transferring through Miami, we ran into an old acquaintance on his way to a scientific meeting. Dr. Qieng Li, in the physics department at Bejing University was both a friend and a rival in the world of sensor physics. “So Will,” he began as we waited for our bags, “What brings you to Miami?”
Ask Not For Whom The Panther Prowls Page 3