Spur of the Moment

by David Linzee

  The offer from Adams U Med School had been a godsend. He would have jumped at much worse jobs. His parents saw it as a move up from the paper. No more consorting with cops, crooks, and politicians. Now he would be the colleague of doctors and professors.

  He hit a snag in the press release that interrupted his reverie. Two quotes in a row called Sturm und Drang a “dedicated” researcher. Could he change one of them to “deeply committed?” No, then he’d have to get the quote re-approved and there wasn’t time. He would have to move the second quote to another paragraph.

  “Pete?”

  Diane was in the doorway. “Annie and I are going to lunch. Sure you can’t join us?”

  “Sorry.”

  She hesitated. “I remembered something. I mean, if you’re really curious about Chase, you could ask Marian in fundraising.”

  “Marian?”

  “Yes, she handled the Blixes. You know, when they endowed the chair.”

  Sturm und Drang had been the Chaim and Hadassah Blix Professor of Molecular Microbiology. He thanked her and she went away. Peter reached for his directory to look up Marian’s extension. Then he thought he’d just go to her office. Then he thought not.

  Why should he bother to find out why Chase was glad Sturm und Drang was dead? There could be many reasons. Peter was glad she was dead himself. Writing the obit, he’d been delighted he would never have to submit anything else for her approval. His press releases had usually “missed an opportunity” to fully sing her praises, as she used to say in complaining emails to Roger and Diane, with copies to him. Then there was the time he had set her up with the medical reporter of the New Yorker. She had given him a full hour of her valuable time and he had only included two brief quotes in his story. Peter’s fault, obviously. Or the time an envious colleague had criticized her in a letter to Science and Peter had failed to find out about it before publication and notify her so she could threaten to sue. It was actually a good thing that her complaints were so unreasonable; Roger and Diane had always told him not to worry, while they sent groveling responses to Sturm und Drang. No doubt she could be just as disagreeable with the other professors. It didn’t matter why Chase had disliked her.

  Unless he had killed her.

  He hadn’t, though. It was the sleazy fundraiser. From the media accounts, the cops seemed to be building a solid case against him.

  Anyway, doctors didn’t kill people. Not on purpose, anyway. But if he fed his curiosity by going to see Marian, it might grow. Then he’d keep digging, and sooner or later it would come to the attention of his superiors. Diane had just quoted Roger to him: “Our job is to make good news about the med school.” It would not be good news if one professor had murdered another.

  Like most reporters—former reporters—Peter was quick to imagine disaster. If Roger found out what he was doing, he’d order Diane to fire him. Poor Diane would be in tears. And then what? The long drive back to Edwardsville. Correction, the long train ride, because his car would be repossessed.

  He shook his head to dispel catastrophe. Come on, focus! All he had to do was solve the problem of the repetitious “dedicateds” and he could send the obit to Roger and never have to read it again. But first he took Ransome Chase’s message, the “wicked witch” one, crumpled it up tight, and threw it in the trash can.

  Chapter 19

  The general director’s office took up one corner of the Calvocoressi building. Sun poured into the broad windows, illuminating the fronds of plants and the intricate hues of the Persian carpet, but at midday did not reach far into the air-conditioned depths of the vast room. Bert was perching on the edge of a sofa, hands clasped between his thighs. Bryson sat in an armchair, turned at an angle, giving Bert the choice of whether to look him in the eye or not. Congreve was standing, leaning his back against the door as if he was afraid the reporters might break through the roadblock of Bryson’s security detail on the stairs.

  “I am going down to talk to them,” Bert was saying. “The truth has to come out.”

  “Why?” asked Bryson, in a neutral tone.

  “Because it’s the truth.”

  “Then tell me.”

  “Don Radleigh had been sniffing around Helen for months. ‘Cultivating a donor,’ I guess they call it. Calls. Emails. Half the parties we went to, we’d bump into this gigolo for the arts with his Masterpiece Theatre accent, wanting to kiss my wife on both cheeks.

  “And then early this month came the big push. He asks for a meeting. He says now is our chance to contribute, as if it’s what we’ve been waiting for.” He looked at Congreve. “You were desperate, weren’t you?”

  Congreve avoided his eye and spoke to Bryson. “Our music director has made some mistakes. The other production this season is a world premiere, Catch-22. It has been more expensive than he anticipated. Then our production partner on Carmen dropped out. I won’t deny that we were facing a cash-flow problem.”

  “Go on, Bert,” said Bryson.

  “Don found out we’d never seen Carmen. That should’ve discouraged him, but no. He’s delighted to tell us that by sheer luck, the Lyric Opera is putting on Carmen this weekend. Won’t we allow him to take us to see it?”

  “Where is the Lyric Opera?”

  “Chicago.”

  There was no change in Bryson’s expression. But his left leg was crossed over his right knee, and the foot was rotating slowly. It stopped. He said, “When was this? The date you went to Chicago?”

  “May fifteenth. But we didn’t go. Helen and I spent several days discussing the question of why we should travel three-hundred miles to spend a boring evening, when we were not going to give a third of a million dollars to an opera company anyway. The discussion did not end until Helen said she was leaving for the airport and I said I was not.”

  Congreve straightened up. “Don and Helen went to Chicago alone?”

  Bert smiled humorlessly at Bryson. “The first he’s heard of it. Right. He’s planning to tell the media it was all Don’s idea.”

  “What was Don’s idea?”

  “Seducing my wife to get three hundred thirty thousand dollars from her.”

  “No,” said Congreve “I don’t know what he’s talking about, Mr. Bryson. Don said the first time they, uh, had relations was at the Five Gables Inn on May eighteenth. After Helen made her gift. There was no connection between the affair and the gift.”

  Bert looked at him. “You admit to that because you have no choice. I can prove they were at the Five Gables Inn on May eighteenth.”

  “What about Chicago?” asked Bryson, in the same neutral tone. “Can you prove that?”

  “I can’t prove that they had sex, no. But from the way she acted when she got back …. I’m her husband. I’m not wrong about this.”

  “I’m not questioning you, Bert,” said Bryson. “Okay. You’re going down to tell the reporters all this. What do you think is going to happen next?”

  “You actually want me to suppress what happened in Chicago.”

  “I do. Absolutely. What’s to be gained? Radleigh has been arrested and charged. The St. Louis Opera had no idea what he was up to in Chicago. Why punish them?”

  “This is a murder investigation. The truth has to come out.”

  “I’m not asking you to suppress evidence. You have none. Just a suspicion. Which you are under no obligation to share with the police, let alone the media.”

  “The cops or the media will find the evidence if I steer them toward Chicago.”

  “Oh, Bert. Do you really want to turn on the TV and see some reporter interrogating some maid about the state of the bed sheets in Helen’s hotel room?”

  “There’s nothing you can tell me about the media. I’m already getting worked over. They were waiting for me outside the police station yesterday morning. It’s only hours since I found my wife’s body. I’ve had no sleep. And here’s this guy saying I’ve got to get my version of events out. Because in the court of public opinion—he actually said that
, ‘the court of public opinion’—I’m the prime suspect. Because I’m the poor husband of a rich wife.”

  “The reporter said that?” Bryson shook his head with disgust and sympathy.

  “All he had to do was look at the Adams U website. There she is, the Chaim and Hadassah Blix Professor. And there I am, instructor of philosophy. Everybody knows that means they pay me shit and I’ll never get promoted.”

  “Helen felt very badly about that.”

  Bert’s brow furrowed with surprise. “What?”

  “About how you had to give up a tenure track position at Indiana when she moved to Adams. She told me she should have pushed Adams harder to give you a job equal to the one you were giving up. But she was inexperienced and over-eager. I hope you don’t mind her confiding in me, Bert, but we were friends, and she felt terribly guilty about that. I remember she said, when you’re on the way up you do things you’re not proud of. You’re only thinking about making it to the top. You think once you get there, then you’ll be able to make everything right. But you find out you can’t turn back the clock.”

  Bert was gazing intently at Bryson. He waited after Bryson stopped speaking, as if hoping he would say more. Finally he murmured, “She never said that to me.”

  “You were angry and she couldn’t handle it.”

  “She couldn’t be bothered talking to me when there were plenty of people waiting to kiss her ass.”

  “You’re right. I’d just add that they all wanted something from her in return for the ass-kissing. When you’re responsible for something that’s terribly important to millions of people, like Helen’s vaccine, it’s overwhelming. There isn’t enough room in your mind for everything you have to think about. You’ll find out.”

  “What?”

  Bryson smiled. “It hasn’t had time to sink in, has it? You have inherited responsibility for the vaccine. Along with me, of course. That’s what I meant downstairs when I said we were partners.”

  From Bert’s expression, this was a new thought to him, and a mindboggling one. “I know shit about biomedical science.”

  “Shit is exactly what I know about it. Don’t worry, we’ll have expert advice. But the big decisions will be ours. You are now an important man. My condolences.”

  “Condolences?”

  “People treat us like gods. Meaning they don’t permit us any mistakes. I hope you’ll someday find it possible to forgive the mistake Helen made back at Indiana.”

  Bert was silent. He was visibly thinking hard. Bryson left him to it for a full minute. Then he resumed, in a different tone. “All right. We have a pack of reporters down there. There are several subjects we can talk about to them that will be useful to us in what we have to do. Chicago is not one of them. Are we agreed?”

  Bert nodded slowly.

  Bryson turned and beckoned Congreve to join them. “We need a reason for us to be here. Any ideas?”

  Chapter 20

  In the lobby of the Calvocoressi Building, Congreve, Bert, and Bryson were standing halfway down the steps, so that they could address the crowd of journalists, which had swelled while they were upstairs and now filled the room. Congreve had the floor. He was announcing that Keith Bryson would match the Helen and Bertrand Stromberg-Brand gift to SLO. He said that he was proud and happy, and no one looking at his face, alight from high forehead to sagging jowls, would have questioned the statement.

  Then Bert said that his wife would have been glad that her partner in science was her partner in giving, too. He spoke brokenly and softly, his eyes downcast, because he couldn’t remember the lines Bryson had fed him a few minutes ago. But that was all right, because finally he was acting the part of a bereaved widower with the dignity that had eluded him up to now.

  Bryson himself made no speech. Congreve opened the floor to questions. The first ones were pointed, even hostile: a SLO employee was in jail, charged with the murder of Helen Stromberg-Brand. Yesterday Bert had given an interview in which he revealed their affair and made harsh comments about the opera company. What had happened to change his mind?

  This time Bert remembered exactly what he had been told to say: yesterday he had been in shock. Angry. Looking for someone to blame. He’d hardly known what he was saying. Now he wanted his wife’s last wishes to be carried out.

  Some of the reporters, guessing that they were not getting the whole story, pressed harder. Bert simply repeated his answers, and attention shifted to Congreve. His noble brow furrowing with disapproval, he said that in the days after Helen had finalized her gift, she and Don Radleigh had spent a lot of time together. In the excitement surrounding production of what was now her opera, they had begun a relationship. On Radleigh’s part this was not just a personal failing but a lapse of professional ethics. He had been suspended without pay. Of his guilt or innocence of the murder, Congreve would only say that he could not comment on an open case and that he and his employees were cooperating fully with the police.

  A man in the front row, bald, fat, and poorly dressed—obviously from the print media—looked up from his notebook and asked, “Mr. Bryson, what are you doing here?”

  Bryson stepped forward. A ripple of excitement ran through the media people. The Stromberg-Brand murder had been a big story up to now, but only a local story. Keith Bryson’s appearance made it national. The television reporters were thinking that their stories might appear on the network evening news. Famous anchorpersons in New York who had never even known their names would be chatting with them like colleagues while the nation watched. Their professional futures, their move up to Dallas or Atlanta, hinged on the questions they would ask in the next few minutes.

  “I’m Doctor Stromberg-Brand’s partner in Ezylon, the company that’s developing her vaccine. I’m involved in many endeavors, as you know, but I regard this as one of the most important.”

  “Do you mean one of the most potentially profitable?” called out a young man from the back.

  “If all of us at Ezylon do our jobs well and the vaccine reaches the market, there will be large profits.” Bryson always handled money questions forthrightly. Reporters could be as snide as they wanted; he knew that being a successful businessman did him no harm with the public.

  A woman started to ask a question, but Bryson cut her off with a hand gesture; he hadn’t finished his answer. He took a deep breath. Dame Judi Dench had once said that she wished she had Bryson’s gift for timing a pause. The room grew quiet.

  “The other reason I’m here,” he went on, “is the double standard.”

  Now the room was silent except for the squeaks of still photographer’s shoes as they maneuvered to get a better angle and the clicks of their shutters.

  “A great scientist has died in scandalous circumstances. For the moment, the scandal is all that matters. Ordinarily, time would redress the balance. The scandal would fade and the person’s achievements would be recognized. So, if Helen Stromberg-Brand was a man, I would not be worried. Unfortunately, the old double standard is still operating. This sad incident at the end of her life could do permanent damage to Helen’s reputation. Could outweigh the contributions she has made to medicine. Even the good her discovery is going to do for millions of people.”

  During his speech the silence had given away to shiftings and murmurings and sighs among the media people. Some thought Bryson was trying to write their stories for them. Others had no trouble picking up the implied criticism of themselves. A minority—the women—thought he had a good point.

  The instant he finished, a man in the middle of the pack shouted a question: “Mr. Bryson, we know you’re gonna make a lot of money from this drug. But do you really think Stromberg-Brand deserves a place among the immortals? I mean, it’s not like she cured cancer. Just urinary tract infections. You can’t say she’s going to save millions of lives. Only that she’ll prevent millions of trips to the bathroom.”

  Bryson left another pause. He did not smile, but he looked pleased with the question. There was an
other stir among the reporters. The women were whispering to each other that obviously the questioner had never had a UTI.

  “The short answer is yes, she deserves a place among the immortals. The long answer is not too long. So bear with me.”

  Bryson slipped both hands into the pockets of his jeans. His elbows jutted. He gazed at the ceiling for a moment before beginning to speak. It was an attitude familiar to all who had watched his TED talks. On the screen even more than in life, it suggested modesty and candor.

  “Here’s the story of a UTI. The bacteria want to start a colony in the bladder. But the body washes them out with urine. So the bacteria have developed barbs. Picture them as movie commandos, bad guys in black, with grappling hooks. They embed them in the bladder lining. The body responds by sloughing off the outer layer of the lining. Most bacteria go, but some survive by swinging their hooks and clinging to the next layer. The infection seems to clear up, but the bacteria multiply and the person suffers. And so it goes. Or did for millennia. Until Helen intervened on the body’s side.

  “What she did was very difficult to pull off, but easy to describe. She taught the body’s security guards how to spread glop over the bacteria’s barbs. The grappling hooks won’t stick, the bacteria can’t hang on, and the patient happily pisses them away.”

  No one laughed outright, but there was a murmur of appreciation among the journalists.

  “Helen taught the body how to solve a problem it hadn’t been able to figure out on its own, over millions of years of evolution. You take her pill, and you never have to worry about UTIs again. At present, UTIs are treated with antibiotics, the best-known of which is marketed as Sūthene. They’re unsatisfactory, but at least they keep the infection from spreading. But as you know, these days more and more bacteria are becoming resistant to antibiotics. If that happens with UTIs, people will die. Perhaps we should wait to develop Helen’s drug … if we want to impress you, sir.”

  He was looking straight at the man who had asked the question, his eyebrows raised. Now there were a few chuckles. Congreve brushed a lock of silver hair from his forehead and smiled.