Sitting by Sunny’s side, hour after hour, watching her cling to life, he felt as if he were being forced to come to terms with years of error, years of living by the wrong principles. Memories of her early years brought feelings of painful tenderness. He saw her in the back garden playing on an old check blanket, saw her feeding at Carolyn’s breast, her blue eyes pressed shut against the light, remembered chubby hands pushed against his mouth as he lifted her from the baby-fragrant bed. He thought of what Conrad Allen had said—about his responsibility to his family—and stroking Sunny’s unwashed yellow hair, thought about what she deserved, thought about what he owed her.
In the midst of all this, it was difficult to have to deal with Helen, to look up out of the depths of his private world at someone who seemed to him barely more than a stranger. By now she had gotten to know Conrad Allen and several of the nursing staff, but that didn’t help. He pulled himself up into a more comfortable position.
Helen turned. Smiled.
“You’ve got a real gift of sleeping upright. Did you know that?”
For a moment he took in her pale face. There were dabs of shadow under her dark eyes. She looked exhausted.
“How long have you been here?” he asked.
She shrugged.
“Thirty minutes, maybe.” She let go of Sunny’s hand. “How’s she doing?”
There was no good answer to this. Ford looked down at the floor. He couldn’t bring himself to say that his daughter was probably dying, was already dead but for the machines. Helen touched him on the shoulder. Waited for him to look up.
“I spoke to Gloria. She said you didn’t go home last night.”
Gloria had finally prevailed upon Patou to be allowed to care for Sunny—another indication of Loulou’s changing attitude to the crisis. At four in the morning she had persuaded him to go lie down, but it had been no use. Being in the next room was just as bad as being on the other side of town. He had stared up at the ceiling for an hour or so and then gone back through to Sunny’s bedside.
“I didn’t want to leave her,” he said.
Helen gave a little exasperated sigh.
“Marcus, they’re doing all they can here. Exhausting yourself isn’t going to help Sunny.”
She took his hands in hers.
“Come on. Let’s go get some coffee.”
They walked out of the cafeteria into the harsh morning light. The media was now firmly established at the front of the building—they even had generators going out there—still covering the crisis, but they were denied access to the staff parking lot by the safety police. Ford and Helen leaned against Russell Haynes’s Lexus and sipped their coffee unharassed.
“I appreciate your coming by,” said Ford after a moment. Helen touched him lightly on the wrist.
“What are friends for?” she said.
“No, but it’s a long way for you to come. I hope it’s not screwing up your schedule.”
“Oh, forget the schedule, Marcus. I kind of make it up as I go along anyway. I do have a lunch, though. I’ve got to be over in Santa Monica by around twelve-thirty.”
She pushed at a piece of grit with her toe.
“In fact, I was hoping you’d drive me.”
“You didn’t bring your car?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t like bringing it down here. I worry it’ll end up dented like yours. I took a taxi.”
Ford shaded his eyes against the sun and took a long look at her face.
“Helen, is this something you cooked up with Gloria?”
She looked hurt for a moment.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, she’s been trying to get me to go home for the past two days. Now you turn up needing a ride.”
“Marcus, you have a suspicious mind. Did you know that?”
Ford dropped his hand, let the sun heat his face for a moment. They were probably right anyway. He had to ease up. Just a little.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay.”
The sun was behind them as they took the freeway back to West LA, light flaring in rear windows, pushing hard blocks of shadow ahead of the speeding traffic. Helen told him what the LA media were saying about the situation in the other hospitals.
“It’s like you said the other night. They’re focusing on the human-tragedy side of things. But the county health department has made a couple of statements about working in close consultation with the CDC.”
“They’re probably hoping it’s just going to blow over,” said Ford.
Suddenly he had a terrible pain in his head, as if he were trapped in a diver’s suit, sinking fast, the pressure building up behind his eyes. He moved his head around, flipped on KKGO, got the climax of something overblown and symphonic—flipped it off again.
“Are you okay?”
“I just need to get some sleep.”
Helen rubbed gently at the nape of his neck.
“There’s something else, isn’t there? Something you’re not telling me.”
Once again she was inside his head.
“I think I know what’s happening,” said Ford.
Helen removed her hand.
“Pardon me?”
“I think I know how these bugs are developing resistance.”
And he told her his idea about the streptococcus. Told her about Allen bringing him the records of the infected.
Helen said nothing for a moment. Then she reached forward and turned up the airconditioning. “So these reports … they all showed—”
“From the data I was able to get hold of, you would have to say there’s a correlation,” said Ford. “It’s hardly a statistical sample, but—”
“How long have you…?”
“A couple of days.”
“So … I don’t understand. Why didn’t you say something?”
Ford nodded. He had asked himself the same question.
“What difference would it make?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, assuming I’m right. Assuming there is some kind of link. What difference will it make? I mean, one way or the other.”
“I can’t believe you’re saying this.”
He frowned.
“In a way, neither can I. A week ago and I would probably have gone straight to Patou or the county health department. But with all this … with Sunny … I realized that what I had to do was to stick close to my daughter for a change. To be there for her.”
He looked at Helen’s face. She was staring straight ahead.
“I mean what was I going to do? I wasn’t going to go to Patou, anyway. Nobody in the Willowbrook is going to enter into a serious discussion with me about this idea. I’m suspended, for Christ’s sake. Even Conrad had a hard time accepting what I had to say.”
“He said that?”
“I could see he had his doubts. The only way this thing is going to be tested is in a laboratory. So who do I go to? I’m not going to run myself into the ground trying to get somebody at the health department or the CDC to listen. It could take weeks, and I … Sunny doesn’t have weeks.”
“But you have to tell somebody. I mean even if you’re wrong. It might be important.”
Ford sighed.
“Look, I told Conrad.”
“No, I mean somebody who has the time and the knowledge to make something of it.”
“Well, there is Professor Novak. He’s the only person who seems to share my point of view on these things. But the way I see it, there’s not much anybody can do even if I am right. We’re just going to have to roll with it.”
“But you are going to tell him? You are going to talk to him.”
Ford nodded.
“Sure. We have an appointment. I’ll tell him. He’ll probably just give me some sound reason why this is all bullshit, anyway. And I … well, there are things he said to me.”
“What things?”
“He said he had information for me, research. He said if I used it in the right way, i
t might be very helpful to me. He said it could be helpful for both of us, in fact.”
“Helpful? What did he mean? Help you with the Willowbrook inquiry?”
Ford considered this for a moment.
“I don’t know. Maybe that’s all it was. But I suppose I was hoping he meant something … I don’t know—bigger.”
“Bigger?”
“I mean, maybe he knew something about what was happening in LA. Maybe the work he did at Helical, the research he’s done since, could throw light on the resistance problem. Maybe he’s found an answer. Maybe…”
Helen pushed back into her seat.
“Oh, Marcus,” she said softly.
“What?”
He turned to look at her.
“What?”
“I can … look, I can see where you’re going with this. And I understand … but—”
“Helen.”
“You think somehow … You think somehow Novak will be able to help … with Sunny.”
Ford looked back at the freeway. He had pushed the Buick dangerously close to the back of a trailer. He eased off the gas. Breathed for a moment.
“Does that seem so crazy to you?”
Helen brushed the hair away from her forehead.
“I don’t know,” she said. “In your position maybe I’d feel the same.”
Ford gave an emphatic nod.
“Damn right you would. I’ve got to hope for … I’ve got to feel I can do something. Otherwise…”
“I understand.”
For a while they drove in silence. Ford got onto the 405, where the traffic slowed to a crawl. The airconditioning was freezing his hands to the wheel. He switched it off.
“Both of you?” said Helen.
“Pardon me?”
“He said if you used this information, whatever it is, in the right way, it would be helpful to both of you?”
“That’s right.”
“And he didn’t say how or why.”
“No, but I’m hoping he will.”
Helen’s tired face was framed momentarily in the doorway. She reached across the passenger seat and stroked the thickly growing stubble on Ford’s chin.
“Try to get some rest,” she said simply.
“You too,” said Ford, but she had already closed the door.
He watched her walk across the lawn and up to the building where Stern housed its sales and marketing operation, 11111 Santa Monica Boulevard. It was all steel and glass—more like an investment bank than a pharmaceutical company. He started the engine and then pulled round on Sepulveda to head back east.
It had been three days since he had slept for more than a couple of hours, and the thought of stretching out on his bed was, to say the least, appealing. He would sleep until six and then drive back to the Willowbrook.
Turning into Kirkside Road, he braced himself for the barrage of cameras. The media had eased off a little since the beginning of the staph outbreak. Now that there were cases all over town, they had other people to hound. But a few stragglers still remained, hopeful of hearing some bad news about the inquiry or the state of Sunny’s health.
When he saw the black-and-white parked at the bottom of the drive, his first thought was that some neighbor must have called to complain about the reporters blocking the road. But, getting out of his car, he was confronted by two officers identifying themselves as Sergeant Duane Ruddock and Deputy Samuel Dorsey. They were from Homicide. And he was the one they wanted to talk to.
Rather than have their conversation broadcast on the Channel 4 News, Ford invited them into the house. They went into the kitchen, Dorsey, the younger of the two, appearing to check everything out from behind a pair of spooky reflector shades. Ford offered them iced tea, which they refused. It was Ruddock who spoke first.
“We’re real sorry to bother you at this time, Dr. Ford, but we were hoping you might be able to help us with a case we’re working.”
“Surely,” said Ford. “If I can. It’s not a murder, I hope.” He covered a nervous smile with his hand.
Dorsey took off his sunglasses and fixed Ford with a cool, speculative stare.
“Wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t,” he said.
Ford had a momentary vision of Raymond Denny stretched out on the operating table minus his left leg. Could this be related to that?
“But who…?”
Ruddock squeezed into the breakfast nook, and Ford found himself sitting down.
They were quiet for a moment, Ruddock giving him the same blank look of scrutiny. Ford felt as if he were some kind of specimen in a glass case. A fly had gotten in through a window screen and was buzzing back and forth in the heavy air. Eventually Ruddock spoke.
“Dr. Ford,” he said, bringing his meaty hands together on top of a dog-eared notebook, “what is your relationship with Professor Charles Novak?”
Ford swallowed hard. The pain was back behind his eyes. It was new to him. Unfamiliar. Like a sudden increase in pressure. He was diving again. Going down.
“My…” he had to cough—clear his throat. “We only met … Is he dead?”
Again Ruddock stared. Ford looked across to Dorsey, who had remained standing. The shades were back on.
“I’m afraid so,” said Ruddock. “We found him up at his house in Topanga Canyon yesterday evening, wearing a rope.”
“Wearing a…?”
“Hanged. He was hanging up at the top of the house. Dr. Ford?”
Ford was on his feet. He walked across to the sink and turned on the cold tap.
“We don’t think he hanged himself,” said Dorsey. “We think somebody strangled him, then put him up on the beam to make it look like he hanged himself. But in fact, he didn’t.”
“Hanged himself,” said Ford. His head was pounding. He put a tumbler under the flow of cold water, watched it fill and overflow onto his hand. Dorsey and Ruddock exchanged a look.
“No,” said Ruddock, “didn’t hang himself. It wasn’t suicide; it was murder. Ligature strangulation.”
Ford looked at him.
“Professor Novak—”
“He was strangled with a rope, Dr. Ford. Then he was put up on the beam like a hanged man. There was even a note written on his computer. ‘Time to end it.’ You know the kind of thing.”
“Jesus. Jesus Christ.”
Ford drank thirstily, spilling water down his shirtfront.
“Dr. Ford, can you tell me how you knew Professor Novak?” Ruddock asked again.
“We met at a conference a few weeks ago. He was interested in a paper I wrote.”
“Have you seen him since then? Been up at the house, maybe?”
“This is just…”
He couldn’t take it in. What did it all mean? He tried to recall every scrap of conversation he’d ever had with Novak, everything Helen had ever told him. His mind was racing, but he couldn’t make sense of what he was being told. It had to be random. Some nutcase breaking in and then … But why fake a suicide?
“Dr. Ford?”
“Hey!”
Ford turned to look at Dorsey. He had raised his voice. Shouted at him as if he were some kind of hoodlum. Ford splashed water onto his face and reached for a hand towel.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry … I … I actually hardly know the guy, hardly knew the guy, but I was supposed to be meeting him tonight.”
“Why?” It was Ruddock now. Still sitting at the table. “What were you meeting him for?”
Ford frowned. They were treating him like a suspect.
“It was something … a technical matter. It’s difficult to … I don’t think you’d be interested.”
Ruddock’s eyelids came down just a little, so that the light went out of his eyes.
“We’re just looking for a little help here, Dr. Ford,” he said, letting a little cold steel come into his voice in a scary, practiced way.
Ford looked down at the yellow hand towel.
“Well, it had to do with what is happening a
t the Willowbrook. I don’t know if you’ve been following all—”
“The Denny thing?” It was Dorsey now. “The officer whose leg you cut off?”
Ford felt his face grow hot.
“No,” he said, his voice barely audible. “No, it had nothing to do with that.”
“So what did it have to do with, Dr. Ford?”
Ford stared at his reflection in Dorsey’s shades. He’d had about enough now.
“Plasmid transference. Jumping genes.”
Dorsey smiled, took the shades off. It didn’t make him look any more friendly.
“That’s interesting,” he said. “What does it mean?”
“Microbiology,” said Ford. “Medicine. I am a doctor, in case you hadn’t heard.”
Ruddock gave his partner a tight, irritable look and took over the questioning again.
“Just prior to his death Professor Novak had been making a lot of improvements to his home security,” he said. “Have you any idea why that was?”
“Of course not,” said Ford. “I hardly knew him. We talked biology. I never went near his home.”
Ruddock wrote something down in his book.
“Just so that we’re clear about this, Dr. Ford, can you tell us where you were yesterday evening?”
He was a suspect.
“I was at the Willowbrook hospital with my daughter. She’s very sick. I’ve been there for the past three days.”
Ruddock nodded, wrote a little more.
“Okay, at the hospital. Got it.”
He put the notebook away and slowly pushed himself up from the table.
“We can check that out easily enough,” said Dorsey. “In the meantime, we’ll need your prints. Just so we can exclude any prints you might have left at the house.”
“I already told you,” said Ford, “I’ve never been there.”
Dorsey’s mouth pushed into a hook. It was his cynical cop’s smile. His lightless eyes held Ford for a moment.
“Yeah, that’s right,” he said. “You did say that.”
3
“I don’t understand it, Marcus. They’re certain it wasn’t suicide? They actually said that?”
Ford pulled open the refrigerator door and stood staring into it, trying to remember what it was he was looking for, trying just to concentrate on the next thing he had to do. He’d called Helen again and again, but she had been tied up in meetings all afternoon. He couldn’t rest. He had to try and make sense of what was happening, to understand why every time he thought things couldn’t get worse, they did get worse. How every avenue of hope was blocked off before he could reach it. He felt suffocated, encircled. He needed to know he was not alone. The truth was, he needed her. At last she had arrived, looking almost as tired as he did, still in her work clothes. He felt bad about having resented her presence at the Willowbrook. She was only trying to help, to support him in his hour of need. And here she was again. The very least he could do was give her a drink.
OMEGA Page 21