Cited to Death (12 page)

Wednesday June 6

The next morning, Pete and I tiptoed around each other politely. We didn’t talk about anything from last night. We did figure out an approach to our visit with Dr. Oliver; Pete would claim to be looking for a fertility lab to fund. I told him he’d better dress rich.

He blanched. “I don’t have anything rich.”

“Well, just wear your best suit, then. Or you could go with the tweedy academic look…”

He went with tweedy academic.

Fertility Research was on the third floor of a medical office building a block from Cedars. We parked close to the building this time. Pete turned off the engine and looked at me before we got out of the car. "You still think this is a good idea."

"Yeah, I do. We won't be here long or ask any questions that will give anything away. It will just give me a glimpse into the atmosphere here; maybe we can tell if something seems off. And remember, you're supposed to be interested in investing, so you should do most of the talking."

"Yes. I've got it." He shook his head and opened his door. "Let's get this over with."

We rode the elevator up, following Dr. Oliver's directions, and turned right. Fertility Research had the southwest quadrant of the building. The first door on the left was the receptionist's office. I knocked and stuck my head in. "Hi. Dr. Brodie and Dr. Ferguson, here to see Dr. Oliver?"

"Hello, Dr. Brodie. Come right in." The receptionist was a grandmotherly looking lady in a blouse and a jumper with a cat embroidered on it. Her name plate said Marjorie Ellison. She gave us a sunny smile. "Would you like some coffee? Tea?"

We declined. Marjorie said, "Well, let me know if you change your minds." She lifted her phone and pushed a button. "Dr. Oliver, your visitors are here." She waited a minute, then said, "Yes, sir," and hung up. "He'll be right with you."

Pete was looking at some brochures that were on a side table. "May I have one of these?"

"Oh, yes, help yourself."

Pete picked up a couple of brochures and started reading. I smiled at Marjorie. She smiled back. It was very smiley in here.

Dr. Oliver appeared in just a couple of minutes. "Dr. Brodie! So good to see you again!" He shook my hand vigorously. I introduced Pete, and they shook hands also. Dr. Oliver regarded Pete with interest bordering on avarice. "Dr. Ferguson, it’s a pleasure. I understand from Dr. Brodie that you’re looking for a worthy cause in which to invest."

"Yes. I've come into some money that I need to give to charity for tax purposes. I'm sure you understand." Pete was playing the part of rich guy flawlessly. "I have a personal interest in fertility research, and I'm looking at different organizations, looking for a place that I'm comfortable with giving to."

"Of course. I understand completely. We'd love to be the beneficiary of your generosity. Allow me to make a good impression on you." Oliver chuckled; Pete chuckled with him. Wow, he was really good at this.

"Come with me, and let me show you our lab. It's our pride and joy." We said goodbye to Marjorie and headed down the hallway.

The lab took up the entire right side of the hallway. There was a door at the front of the room and one at the back. We walked in to a brightly lit, mostly white space. It was about what I expected: several rows of lab benches with whirring, blinking machines and a few people standing at them in white coats.

One of the people looked up at our entry and walked toward us. Smiling, of course. Then she saw me, and her jaw dropped in recognition at exactly the same moment as mine. It was the flirting woman from the pool. She was wearing jeans and a turtleneck under her long, white lab coat. Her streaked blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She recovered first. “
Hey
. You’re the early morning swimmer.”

I wasn’t recovering from my shock very quickly. “Yeah…um…” I held my hand out. “Jamie Brodie.”

She took my hand and held it warmly. “Alana Wray. Isn’t this a coincidence!” She seemed delighted.

No. Fucking.
Way
.

Dr. Oliver looked intrigued; Pete looked confused. Oliver asked, “Have you met before?”

Dr. Wray let go of my hand and put her hands on her hips, tilting her head the same way she had the other day.
Still flirting?
“We have, very briefly, at the UCLA pool Monday morning. Remember, Tristan, we had that lunch meeting with the board, and I had to swim in the morning? This lovely young man welcomed me to the morning swim.”

Oliver rubbed his hands together. “Well! How serendipitous!”

Not exactly the word I would have used. But I wasn’t sure what word I
would
use. Where was Clinton when you needed him?

Pete and Dr. Wray introduced themselves and shook hands. Wray beamed at both of us. “Welcome, both of you! We don’t get many visitors.”

"Thank you for letting us interrupt your day." Pete had recovered, but his expression was guarded.

"Oh, no problem. You're not interrupting." She turned to Oliver. "Tristan, would you like me to show them around?"

I was watching Oliver, mostly so I didn’t have to look at Wray or Pete. Oliver seemed a bit uncomfortable with the idea of Wray giving us the tour. "No, thank you, I'll take care of it." It was subtle, but his attitude hinted at being patronizing. Hmm.

It didn't seem to bother Dr. Wray much. She shrugged and smiled at me, as if to say
what are you gonna do
? "Sure, no problem. Let me know if you have any questions." She went back to the station she'd left when we came in.

Oliver walked us toward the back of the room. "Here's where the process starts." He pointed out a couple of machines and talked vaguely about what they did, and specifically about how much they had cost. Pete made encouraging sounds; I looked around. We walked around the end of the last lab bench. "And here's one of our associates. Dr. Ben Goldstein. Ben, these gentlemen from UCLA have expressed an interest in our work."

Ben saw me, and his mouth dropped open. Lots of that going around today
.
He shut it quickly, but he was ashen.

He was not pleased to see us.

Interesting.

Oliver kept going, and we walked past Ben, then stopped at the bench behind him. I could still see him from this angle. Oliver was talking about the machines, and Pete was responding, carrying most of the conversation. I was trying to spend my time looking around as much as possible. Ben was still at his work station, but he was following us with his eyes. Dr. Wray was up at the front of the lab, talking to a couple of the other workers. I wondered if there were other physicians working here or if the rest of the people were lab techs.

I was studying the mechanism of a centrifuge when I heard Pete ask, "Are you treating any patients yet?"

Dr. Oliver looked very uncomfortable. "Not just yet. We're not quite to that stage. We're still working on our procedure for in vivo testing. We have some way to go before we get there."

Jeez. How many different ways were there to say no?

Dr. Wray must have overheard; she walked back to our area. "As you can imagine, it's a very big step. Our procedure is the first in what has to be a series of successful steps before we're ready to fertilize one of the ova that we've created." She smiled at us. "We're putting the finishing touches on the perfection of our procedure. We should be ready to move ahead to the next step within the next six months."

"Ah." Pete nodded sagely. "That sounds very encouraging."

He and Wray continued to chat a bit; Oliver continued to look uncomfortable. I got the impression that he really might not know much about what was going on in his own lab. Interesting.

Ben was still glowering off to the side, although he'd stopped watching us so closely.

Dr. Wray went back to her work. Dr. Oliver turned back to us. "Well, gentlemen, that's our grand tour. Is there anything else I can show you?"

He hadn't actually shown us much of anything. I now knew how much one of his machines would cost, but I didn’t know anything more about his procedures than I’d learned from reading his article.

"No, thank you. This was very helpful. I understand much more now about what you're doing." Pete shook his hand.

I reached out as well. "Thank you for your time. We really appreciate it."

Dr. Oliver beamed as he showed us to the door. He certainly seemed relieved to be done with our questioning. "No trouble at all, gentlemen. No trouble at all. If you have any more questions, Dr. Ferguson, please contact me." He gave Pete one of his cards. It was printed on top-grade paper stock. "I look forward to hearing from you."

Dr. Wray waved as we left. Ben didn't move from his stool.

We didn't say anything to each other until we were into the car. Pete locked the doors and started the engine, then looked at me. “What the
fuck
? You’d
met
her?”

“I had no idea who she was on Monday. We didn’t exchange names. She said she usually swam at lunch, and she gave the same reason to Oliver today that she’d given to me on Monday.” I shrugged. “How could that be a setup?”

Pete looked out the windshield, shaking his head. “I don’t know. But I don’t like coincidences.”

“I know, I don’t either. But there aren’t that many public pools in West LA; maybe she lives nearby and she really
does
swim at lunch on a regular basis.”

“Maybe.” Pete shook his head again. "I have to think about that for a while. What did you think of the tour?"

"I think Oliver talked a lot and didn't say very much. And he looked very uncomfortable when you started asking about treating patients."

"Yeah, he did." Pete pulled out of the parking lot and pointed the Jeep in the direction of UCLA. "He may have thought that I wouldn't have been as eager to give money if they weren't ready to produce any tangible results. Tangible results being babies."

"Maybe. I also thought that Ben Goldstein was really unhappy to see us."

"Oh, yeah. Very unhappy. The only one that was cool with it, and the most forthcoming, was Dr. Wray."

"Yeah. She also seemed to be the one who really knows what’s going on in the lab."

"That's probably how they divide up the work. Oliver takes care of the fundraising and Wray takes care of the lab."

"Mmm hmm." I thought for a minute. "I wonder what Goldstein's role is? He didn't move from his workstation while we were there, but it didn't seem like Oliver or Wray expected him to."

Pete shrugged. "He seemed to me to be just another employee."

"Yeah, maybe. He's the link to Dan, though. I'm not comfortable with that."

"Me either."

My follow up appointment with my primary care doctor was at 11:00. Pete pulled up to the entrance to the medical plaza at 10:30. “How about I meet you for dinner?”

“I have class tonight, my final class meeting. It starts at 5:30.”

“Okay, then say 4:00? That’ll give us plenty of time to get something on campus.”

“Okay. Sounds good.” I gave Pete a smile. “Thanks for all this. I really appreciate it.”

“Don’t mention it. I’ll see you at four.” Pete drove off in plenty of time to get to his 11:15 class.

In Dr. Weikal’s office, I checked email on my laptop while I waited. I got called back to the exam room about fifteen minutes after my scheduled appointment. Dr. Weikal came in almost immediately. He asked me how I was feeling, ran my lung function tests, listened to my chest. He pronounced me nicely improved from Monday and told me to keep taking the medications and taking steamy showers and staying away from irritants. He had me schedule another appointment for a week from today, when I would have been off the steroid pills for a couple of days.