Mutation Page 5

  Staring up at Victor from his desk blotter was the telephone number for Jonathan Marronetti, Gephardt’s attorney. Resigned, Victor dialed the number and got the lawyer on the phone. The man had a distinctive New York accent that grated on Victor’s nerves.

  “Got good news for you people,” Jonathan said.

  “We can use some,” Victor said.

  “My client, Mr. Gephardt, is willing to return all the funds that mysteriously ended up in his checking account, plus interest. This is not to imply guilt; he just wants the matter to be closed.”

  “I will discuss the offer with our attorneys,” Victor said.

  “Wait, there’s more,” Jonathan said. “In return for transferring these funds, my client wants to be reinstated, and he wants all further harassment ceased, including any current investigation of his affairs.”

  “That’s out of the question,” Victor said. “Mr. Gephardt can hardly expect reinstatement without our completing the investigation.”

  “Well,” Jonathan said, pausing, “I suppose I can reason with my client and talk him out of the reinstatement proviso.”

  “I’m afraid that wouldn’t make much difference,” Victor said.

  “Listen, we’re trying to be reasonable.”

  “The investigation will proceed as scheduled,” Victor said.

  “I’m sure there is some way—” Jonathan began.

  “I’m sorry,” Victor interrupted. “When we have all the facts, we can talk again.”

  “If you’re not willing to be reasonable,” Jonathan said, “I’ll be forced to take action you may regret. You are hardly in a position to play holier than thou.”

  “Good-bye, Mr. Marronetti,” Victor said, slamming down the phone.

  Slumping back in his chair, Victor buzzed Colleen and told her to send in the Carver woman. Even though he was familiar with the case, he opened up her folder. She’d been a problem practically from the first day on the job. She had been undependable, with frequent absences. The folder contained five letters from various people complaining about her poor performance.

  Victor looked up. Sharon Carver came into the room wearing a skin-tight mini with a silk top. She oozed into the chair opposite Victor, showing a lot of leg.

  “Thank you for seeing me,” she whispered.

  Victor glanced at the Polaroid shot in her file. She’d been dressed in baggy jeans and a flannel shirt.

  “What can I do for you?” Victor asked, looking her directly in the eye.

  “I’m sure you could do a lot of things,” Sharon said coyly. “But what I’m most interested in right now is having my job back. I want to be rehired.”

  “That’s not possible,” Victor said.

  “I believe it is,” Sharon persisted.

  “Miss Carver,” Victor began, “I must remind you that you were fired for failing to perform your job.”

  “How come the man I was with when we were caught in the stockroom wasn’t fired?” Sharon asked, uncrossing her legs and leaning forward defiantly. “Answer me that!”

  “Your amorous activities on your last day were not the sole basis for your termination,” Victor explained. “If that had been the only problem, you would not have been fired. And the man you mentioned had never neglected his responsibilities. Even on the day in question he was on his official break. You were not. At any rate, what is done is done. I’m confident you will find employment elsewhere, so if you will excuse me . . .” Victor rose from his seat and motioned toward the door.

  Sharon Carver did not move. She looked up at Victor with cold eyes. “If you refuse to give me my job back I’ll serve you with a sex-discrimination suit that will make your head spin. I’ll make you suffer.”

  “You’re already doing a pretty good job,” Victor said. “Now if you’ll excuse me.”

  Like a cat about to attack, Sharon rose slowly from the chair, glaring at Victor out of the corner of her eye. “You’ve not seen the last of me!” she spat.

  Victor waited until the door closed before buzzing Colleen to tell her that he was heading over to his lab and that she shouldn’t call him for anybody less than the Pope.

  “Too late,” said Colleen. “Dr. Hurst is in the waiting room. He wants to see you and he’s quite upset.”

  William Hurst was the acting chief of the Department of Medical Oncology. He, too, was the subject of a newly ordered investigation. But contrary to Gephardt’s, Hurst’s involved possible research fraud, a growing menace in the scientific world. “Send him in,” Victor said reluctantly. There was no place to hide.

  Hurst came through the door as if he planned to assault Victor, and rushed up to the desk. “I just heard that you ordered an independent lab to verify the results on the last paper I published in the journal.”

  “I don’t think that’s surprising in light of the article in Friday’s Boston Globe,” Victor said. He wondered what he’d do if this maniac came around behind the desk.

  “Damn the Boston Globe!” Hurst shouted. “They based that cockamamie story on the remarks of one disgruntled lab tech. You don’t believe it, do you?”

  “My beliefs are immaterial at this point,” Victor said. “The Globe reported that data in your paper were deliberately falsified. That kind of allegation can be detrimental to you and Chimera. We have to nip such a rumor before it gets out of hand. I don’t understand your anger.”

  “Well then, I’ll explain,” Hurst snapped. “I expected support from you, not suspicion. The mere ordering of a verification of my work is tantamount to ascribing guilt. Besides, some insignificant graphite statistics can sneak into any collaborative paper. Even Isaac Newton himself was later known to have improved some planetary observations. I want that verification request canceled.”

  “Look, I’m sorry you’re upset,” Victor said. “But Isaac Newton notwithstanding, there is no relativity when it comes to research ethics. The public’s confidence in research—”

  “I didn’t come in here to get a lecture!” Hurst yelled. “I tell you I want that investigation stopped.”

  “You make yourself very clear,” Victor said. “But the fact remains that if there is no fraud, you have nothing to fear and everything to gain.”

  “Are you telling me that you will not cancel the verification?”

  “That’s what I’m telling you,” Victor said. He’d had enough of trying to appease this man’s ego.

  “I’m shocked by your lack of academic loyalty,” Hurst said finally. “Now I know why Ronald feels as he does.”

  “Dr. Beekman advocates the same ethics of research as I do,” said Victor, finally letting his anger show. “Good-bye, Dr. Hurst. This conversation is over.”

  “Let me tell you something, Frank,” said Hurst, leaning over the desk. “If you persist in dragging my name through the mud, I’ll do the same to you. Do you hear me? I know you’re not the ‘white knight’ scientific savior you pretend to be.”

  “I’m afraid I’ve never published falsified data,” Victor said sarcastically.

  “The point is,” Hurst said, “you’re not the white knight you want us to believe.”

  “Get out of my office.”

  “Gladly,” Hurst said. He walked to the door, opened it and said: “Just remember what I’ve told you. You’re not immune!” Then he slammed the door behind him with such force that Victor’s medical school diploma tilted on its hanger.

  Victor sat at his desk for a few moments, trying to regain a sense of emotional equilibrium. He’d certainly had enough threats for one day. He wondered what Hurst was referring to when he said that Victor was not a “white knight.” What a circus!

  Pushing back his chair, Victor got up and pulled on his white lab coat. He opened the door, expecting to lean out and tell Colleen he was heading over to the lab. Instead he practically bumped into her as she was on her way in to see him.

  “Dr. William Hobbs is here and he’s an emotional wreck,” Colleen said quickly.

  Victor tried to see around
Colleen. He spotted a man sitting in the chair next to her desk, hunched over, holding his head.

  “What’s the problem?” Victor whispered.

  “Something about his son,” Colleen said. “I think something has happened to the boy and he wants to take some time off.”

  Victor felt perspiration appear in the palms of his hands and a constriction in his throat. “Send him in,” he managed.

  He couldn’t help but feel a twinge of empathy, having gone through the same extraordinary measures to get a child himself. The thought that something might now be wrong with the Hobbs boy revived all of his apprehensions concerning VJ.

  “Maurice . . .” Hobbs began, but he had to stop while he choked back tears. “My boy was about to turn three. You never met him. He was such a joy. The center of our life. He was a genius.”

  “What happened?” Victor asked, almost afraid to hear.

  “He died!” Hobbs said with sudden anger breaking through his sadness.

  Victor swallowed hard. His throat was as dry as sandpaper. “An accident?” he asked.

  Hobbs shook his head. “They don’t know exactly what happened. It started with a seizure. When we got him to the Children’s Hospital, they decided he had edema of the brain: brain swelling. There was nothing they could do. He never regained consciousness. Then his heart stopped.”

  A heavy silence hung over the office. Finally, Hobbs said, “I’d like to take some time off.”

  “Of course,” said Victor.

  Hobbs slowly got up and went out.

  Victor sat staring after him for a good ten minutes. For once the last place in the world he wanted to go was the lab.

  4

  Later Monday Morning

  THE small alarm on Marsha’s desk went off, signaling the end of the fifty-minute session with Jasper Lewis, an angry fifteen-year-old boy with a smudge of whiskers along his chin line. He was slouched in the chair opposite Marsha’s, acting bored. The fact of the matter was that the kid was heading for real trouble.

  “What we haven’t discussed yet is your hospitalization,” Marsha said. She had the boy’s file open on her lap.

  Jasper hooked a thumb over his shoulder toward Marsha’s desk. “I thought that bell means the session is over.”

  “It means it is almost over,” Marsha said. “How do you feel about your three months in the hospital now that you are back home?” Marsha’s impression was that the boy had benefited from the hospital’s structured environment, but she wanted to learn his opinion.

  “It was okay,” Jasper said.

  “Just okay?” asked Marsha encouragingly. It was so tough to draw this boy out.

  “It was like fine,” Jasper said, shrugging. “You know, no big deal.”

  Obviously it was going to take a bit more effort to extract the boy’s opinion, and Marsha made a note of reminder to herself in the margin of the boy’s file. She’d start the next session with that issue. Marsha closed the file and made eye contact with Jasper. “It’s been good to see you,” Marsha said. “See you next week.”

  “Sure,” Jasper said, avoiding Marsha’s eyes as he got up and awkwardly left the room.

  Marsha went back to her desk to dictate her notes. Flipping open the chart, she looked at her preadmission summary. Jasper had had a conduct disorder since early childhood. Once he hit age eighteen, the diagnosis would change to an antisocial personality disorder. On top of that, he also had what appeared to Marsha as a schizoid personality disorder.

  Reviewing the salient features of the boy’s history, Marsha noted the frequent lying, the fights at school, the record of truancy, the vindictive behavior and fantasies. Her eye stopped at the statement: cannot experience affection or show emotion. She suddenly pictured VJ pulling away from her embrace, looking at her coldly, his blue eyes frigid as mountain lakes. She forced her eyes back down on the chart. Chooses solitary activities, does not desire close relationships, has no close friends.

  Marsha’s pulse quickened. Was she reading a summary of her own son? With trepidation, she reread the review of Jasper’s personality. There were a number of uncomfortable correlations. She was happy when her train of thought was interrupted by her nurse and secretary, Jean Colbert, a prim and proper New Englander with auburn hair. As she looked up, her eye caught a sentence that she had underlined in red: Jasper was essentially reared by an aunt, since his mother worked two jobs to support the family.

  “You ready for your next patient?” Jean asked.

  Marsha took a deep breath. “Remember those articles I saved on day care and its psychological effects?” she asked.

  “Sure do,” Jean said. “I filed them in the storage room.”

  “How about pulling them for me,” Marsha said, trying to mask her concern.

  “Sure,” Jean said. She paused, then asked: “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Marsha said, picking up the next chart. As she scanned her recent notes, twelve-year-old Nancy Traverse slunk into the room and tried to disappear into one of the chairs. She pulled her head low into her shoulders like a turtle.

  Marsha moved over to the therapy area, taking the seat opposite Nancy. She tried to remember where the girl had left off at the previous visit, describing her forays into sex.

  The session began and dragged on. Marsha tried to concentrate, but fears for VJ floated at the back of her mind along with guilt for having worked when he had been little. Not that he’d ever minded when she’d left. But as Marsha well knew, that in itself could be a symptom of psychopathology.

  After Hobbs left, Victor tried to busy himself with correspondence, partly to avoid the lab, partly to take his mind off the terrible news that Hobbs had told him. But his thoughts soon drifted back to the circumstances of the boy’s death. Edema of the brain, meaning acute brain swelling, had been the immediate cause. But what could have been the cause of the edema? He wished Hobbs had been able to give him more details. It was the lack of a specific diagnosis that fed Victor’s fears.

  “Damn!” Victor yelled as he slammed his open palm on the top of his desk. He stood up abruptly and stared out the window. He had a good view of the clock tower from his office. The hands had been frozen in the distant past at quarter past two.

  “I should have known better!” Victor said to himself, pounding his right fist into his left palm with enough strength to make them both tingle. The Hobbs child’s death brought back all the concern Victor had had for VJ—concern he had finally put to rest. While Marsha fretted over the boy’s psychological state, Victor’s worries had more to do with the boy’s physical being. When VJ’s IQ dropped, then stabilized at what was still an exceptional level, Victor had felt terror. It had taken years for him to overcome his fear and relax. But the Hobbs boy’s sudden death raised his fears again. Victor was particularly concerned since the parallels between VJ and the Hobbs boy did not stop with their conception. Victor understood that, like VJ, the Hobbs boy was something of a child prodigy. Victor had been keeping surreptitious tabs on the child’s progress. He was curious to see if the boy would suffer as precipitous a drop in IQ as VJ had. But now, Victor only wanted to learn the circumstances of the child’s tragic death.

  Victor went to his computer terminal and cleared the screen. He called up his personal file on Baby Hobbs. He wasn’t looking for anything in particular, he just thought that if he scanned the data, some explanation for the child’s death might occur to him. The screen stayed dark past the usual access time. Confused, Victor hit the Execute button again. Answering him, the word SEARCHING blinked in the screen’s lower-right-hand corner. Then, to Victor’s surprise, the computer told him there was no such file.

  “What the devil?” Victor said. Thinking he might have made an entry error, Victor tried again, typing BABY-HOBBS very deliberately. He pressed Execute and after a pause during which the computer searched all its storage banks, he got the exact same response: NO FILE FOUND.

  Victor turned off the computer, wondering what could have happene
d to the information. It was true that he hadn’t accessed it for some time, but that shouldn’t have made a difference. Drumming his fingers on the desk in front of the keyboard, Victor thought for a moment, then accessed the computer again. This time he typed in the words BABY- MURRAY.

  There was the same pause as with the Hobbs file and ultimately the same response appeared: NO FILE FOUND.

  The door to the office opened and Victor twisted around. Colleen was standing in the doorway. “This is not a day for fathers,” she said, gripping the edge of the door. “You have a phone call from a Mr. Murray from accounting. Apparently his baby isn’t doing well either and he’s crying too.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Victor blurted. The timing was so coincidental.

  “Trust me,” Colleen said. “Line two.”

  Dazed, Victor turned to his phone. The light was blinking insistently, each flash causing a ringing sensation in Victor’s head. This couldn’t be happening, not after everything had gone so well for so long. He had to force himself to pick up the receiver.

  “I’m sorry to bother you,” Murray managed, “but you’ve been so understanding when we were trying to get a baby. I thought you’d want to know. We brought Mark to the Children’s Hospital and he is dying. The doctors tell me there is nothing they can do.”

  “What happened?” Victor asked, barely able to speak.

  “Nobody seems to know,” Horace said. “It started with a headache.”

  “He didn’t hit his head or anything?” Victor questioned.

  “Not that we know of,” Horace said.

  “Would you mind if I came over?” Victor asked.

  A half hour later, Victor was parking his car in the garage opposite the hospital. He went inside and stopped at the information desk. The receptionist told him Mark Murray was in the surgical intensive-care unit, and gave him directions to the waiting room. Victor found Horace and Colette distraught with worry and lack of sleep. Horace got to his feet when he saw Victor.

  “Any change?” Victor asked hopefully.

  Horace shook his head. “He’s on a respirator now.”