Ask Not For Whom The Panther Prowls (5 page)

“
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 neural 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.

“
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?”

“
On the way
back from my honeymoon.” I introduced him to Laura and Danny. He
joked with Laura, “You have to watch this one, keep him busy and
out of the lab so I have a chance to publish first.” They laughed.
He then turned to me and said, “One thing, though, Will, would you
tell the TOEFL-tutoring team at GSU how well they are
doing?”

“
How well
they are doing?”

“
Yes, our
students have been using your service and it's made a huge
difference for them. It's been well worth the money.”

“
Money, I
suppose they charge, how much?” If it was enough I could always
have the more literate of my students supplement their stipends
with a few hours work.

“
Depends,
can be as much as $10,000 a student. If they need a lot of help
that is.”

“
Wow. I had
no idea it was so profitable.” Something told me the university
didn't either.

“
It really
works too. One of my students, Xa Shen, could barely read English,
but after two months, he scored well enough for MIT.”

I was
speechless. It sounded too good to be true.

“
There's my
bag! Say 'hi' to Dr. Lee for me.”

2

I first
noticed the Bengali contingent when we were transferring in Miami.
International travel to the US goes through customs at the first
airport where you land. There was some number, more than I could
quickly count, of excited young women in matching brightly colored
saris, chatting away over in the foreign passport line. I didn't
think much of it at the time as Danny was asking where there was a
bathroom and I wanted to make sure that we reentered the good ol'
USA successfully.

It wasn't
until we met again at the baggage claim at Hartsfield Jackson
airport in Atlanta that they impinged more seriously on my
consciousness. I chatted to one, who looked barely 16 and knew some
variety of English, while we were waiting for the bags to arrive
from the bowels of the airport.

“
So is this
a girl scouts or youth group outing?”

“
No, we have
jobs, in the US.”

“
Oh,
where?”

“
Atlanta,
maids. So exciting.”

A rather muscular man came over and interrupted
us. He very brusquely told the woman “Don't talk to anyone.” and
then warned me, “This is none of your business. Nosy people who ask
questions tend to lose their noses.”

“
I was just
being sociable, welcoming them to Atlanta.”

“
Don't.”

“
Fine. Suit
yourself.”

“
I mean it.
Stay away from this.”

After picking up our bags I told Laura about out
conversation. “Sounds like you've run into one of the human
trafficking rings.”

“
Trafficking
rings?”

She pulled up a photo on her cell. “Did the man
look like this?”

“
Yes, that's
him.”

“
Can't prove
it yet, but those poor girls don't have a clue what they're in
for.”

“
Damn. They
seemed nice enough. They seemed just like a bunch of excited
freshmen eager for their first classes.”

“
INS is on
it.”

“
Good.” I
had other problems to pursue, and the Feds could look after that
one.

3

The next day
I caught up with my student Tom and found out how the class was
going. The physics teaching was fine. Unfortunately the rest
wasn't. “We're down to 48 students now, and not another
dropout.”

“
Damn. Did
he survive?”

“
She
collapsed about halfway through the class. Might make it, at least
she was alive when the EMT's left. Our friend Steve helped with the
CPR.”

“
I'm glad
someone was there.”

“
Yeah, he
said it was much nicer with a pretty girl than the CPR
dummy.”

“
Let's not
go there, shall we. Who was it?”

“
Tamika
Harris.”

“
Which one
was she?”

“
She was the
young black woman who always sat up in the front, the middle of the
row.”

“
Damn, one
of the better student's wasn't she?”

“
Do you know
where she went?”

“
Dunno,
probably Grady.”

“
When was
this?”

“
A week ago,
just after you left.”

“
Has anybody
tried to contact her or her parents?”

Not
surprisingly, no one from GSU had tried to find them. I opened up
'gosolar', the web-based grade tool we used, and found her record.
There was a picture, her student e-mail address and little else. I
sent her an email, in the hope that maybe someone was reading
them.

A few
minutes later, my office phone rang. It was her parents.

Grady hospital, being only a few blocks away
from campus, was an easy walk. I found Tamika and her family in her
hospital room.

I was
greeted enthusiastically, “Dr. Sharpe, we're so glad you could
visit. Tamika was enjoying your class.”

“
All part of
the GSU service.” It wasn't, but this made for a nice story. “How
is she doing?”

Her father
answered, “As well as can be expected.” He paused, awkwardly, then
continued, “Dr. Sharpe, we've heard that you're not just a physics
professor, are you?”

My reputation preceded me. “No, I have 'other
interests'.”

“
One of
those is a private investigator, isn't it?”

“
Yes.”

“
I want to
know who did this to my baby.”

“
I'm working
on it. It would help if I could ask your 'baby' a few
questions.”

“
Sure.”

“
Tamika, do
you feel up to answering my questions?”

“
Yes.”

“
What
happened?”

“
I collapsed
in class. Then woke up here.”

“
No, I
should be more specific. What can you remember from the day it
happened. Was there anything unusual?”

“
Oh, there
was that scratch.”

“
Scratch?”

“
Someone
scratched me as I was coming into Classroom South. It was a big
crowd, so I don't remember who.”

“
Can I
see?”

She pointed to her arm, and there, still faintly
visible was a mark. “Do you think that had anything to do with
it?”

“
Well,
maybe. You didn't, by any chance know Jane Phillips or Sam
Green?”

“
Sam, wasn't
he the one who collapsed in class too?”

“
Yes.”

“
He was
another tutor in the ESL program, I think Jane was too.”

“
Were you a
tutor, then?”

“
Oh yes.”
She confirmed that we had a common thread between at least a few of
the cases.