Cited to Death (9 page)

Monday June 4

Pete left around 5:00 the next morning. During a break in the action, we’d had a discussion about just exactly what it was we thought we were doing by sleeping together. I’d voted for a best-friends-with-benefits relationship. Pete wanted more but was willing to try it my way for now. He didn’t understand why I didn’t want to date. I tried to explain that if we dated, then the potential was there to break up. If we weren’t dating, we couldn’t break up. It made sense to me at the time. Pete had just shaken his head, but he’d agreed.

I’d slept better than I had in weeks. When I woke up, the sun was coming up, and the birds were singing. I tried to decide whether I regretted last night. In the sense that I didn't want to lead Pete on, yes. But I’d explained myself to him, so I didn’t think I was giving him any false hope.

But if Pete regretted it, then I regretted that.

But physically? I didn't regret it at all. After four years, I'd forgotten how good it was to be with him.

From the standpoint of my asthma, I was feeling better, although not yet back to normal. My peak flow was only back up to 86%. The air quality in the city was still not great. I decided to leave for work early, to beat the traffic and avoid as much auto exhaust as possible, and go for a swim. The North Pool on campus opened for recreational swimming at 6:00 am. I was there by 6:30.

There were a limited number of people who regularly swam this early in the morning, and I knew them all. I waved hello to a couple of familiar faces as I walked onto the pool deck, then got into the water. I swam for 45 minutes, long enough for a good workout, then climbed out and retrieved my towel. As I did, I saw a face that I didn’t recognize. An attractive woman, a few years older than me, shaking her hair out of her swim cap. She saw me looking at her and smiled. “Hi.”

“Hi. Sorry if I was staring. It’s just that I haven’t seen you here before.”

She laughed. “Yeah, this is a little early for me. I’m usually here on my lunch hour. But today I have a lunch meeting, so…” She tipped her head and regarded me, looking at me like…was she
flirting
with me?

Time to go. I turned for the men’s showers. “Cool. Nice to…um…” We hadn’t met, so I couldn’t say nice to meet you. “Hope you enjoyed it.”

She raised her chin, flipped her hair back and her towel over her shoulder, and gave me a little smirk. “Oh, I did.” She sauntered off.

Good grief.

In spite of two hot showers, I was still feeling a little short of breath. When I got to the office, I took a puff from my rescue inhaler. Usually the dusty library smell didn't bother me, but today it was. My airways were hypersensitive to everything right now.

I had forgotten until I opened the door to my office that I didn’t have a computer. Damn. I needed to get my head back in the game. I hadn’t heard back from Detective Blake yet. I moved my keyboard and mouse to the side, opened my laptop, and got to work.

The first thing I did was to email Dr. Oliver. I told him that I would like to take him up on his offer of more information about his research, and I wondered if I could arrange a tour of his lab. I also mentioned that I had a friend who was interested in giving to a foundation that funded stem cell research and asked if I could bring said friend along.

He answered very quickly. Yes, he'd be happy to give me a tour of the lab, and yes, by all means, bring my friend. Would Wednesday morning at 9:00 work?

I sent Pete a quick text. "Stem cell lab Wed 9 am. Oliver says fine to bring you. OK?"

He answered quickly. "Fine. Will pick u up 8:30."

I rolled my eyes at Pete’s text-speak spelling, then turned back to the computer and answered Dr. Oliver. "9:00 is fine; we'll see you then. Thank you."

Then I turned to my real work.

About an hour later, IT Andy was at my door.

“Hey, Dr. B. Sorry for the delay. I finally got free to work on your computer.”

I’d forgotten to tell IT that I’d turned the computer over to the police. “Oh, hey. Actually, I turned my PC tower over to the UCLA police, the computer crimes guy, on Friday afternoon.”

Andy looked shocked. “You did? Why?”

“Because some other weird things have been happening to me, and I thought the hacks to my computer might be related to that. If the cops can figure out who’s been messing with my computer, they may be able to find out who’s behind the other attacks.”

Andy paled. “Attacks? What attacks?”

“My tires got slashed the other day, and someone tried to break into my apartment Saturday night.”

“Wow.” Andy looked worried. “Well, I guess that’s cool, but I’m gonna have to tell my boss about it.”

“Yeah, that’s fine. The detective will probably contact him anyway.”

“Okay…well, I’ll have to bring you a new tower. It might take a couple of days. We don’t have that many to go around with the budget cuts.”

“Sure, that’s fine. I can improvise until you can bring me a new one.”

Andy agreed and left. The rest of the morning was uneventful, and I was getting ready to eat lunch when I saw an email from Karen Lewis.

Jamie - here is your Welsh language article. Have fun translating. -Karen

I opened the article. It was six pages long, and had several tables. I copied the article, opened Google Translate, and pasted the article into it. The translation popped up in the second window. I moved the translation into a Word document. It looked to be just as scrambled as the citation had been. Great. The unscrambling would take forever.

I saved the Word doc to Dropbox. Then, it occurred to me to change all my passwords to every app and site where I had an account, making them as complicated as I could. Until I knew what was going on, I wanted to make it as difficult as possible for anyone who might be looking for anything by or about me. I also changed the password on my laptop. Just in case.

We were busy at reference, but it was starting to let up some. Clinton barely had to wait when he arrived at 1:30.

“Hi, Clinton.”

“The word for the day is
velleity
.” He bowed and walked away.

Liz looked the word up. “Willpower in its weakest form. That would be me with ice cream.”

That would be me with Pete
, I thought.

I was settling back in to my office after my reference shift when Harley Buhrman showed up.

Harley was a throwback to the days of traveling encyclopedia salesmen. He was in his sixties, pear-shaped, with a dyed combover, a cheap suit, and scuffed loafers. He had an ingratiating manner and wore far too much cologne. Drakkar Noir cologne.

Oh,
shit
. I should have met him outside.

I jumped to my feet. Harley started to step into my office. “Dr. Brodie, good afternoon! I brought…”

I didn't hear the rest. Harley was drenched in Drakkar Noir, as usual, and it was attacking my airways. I grabbed my inhaler from my desk drawer and waved Harley back. "Get out! Get out! You can't…” I had to stop and try to take a breath. I took a puff from the inhaler, with no relief. That inhaler was empty now. I tossed it on my desk.

"Harley! Get out! NOW!" I shoved him out the door and almost ran down the stairs to the circulation desk. It was getting much harder to breathe, and my chest hurt. I grabbed the top of the circulation desk to steady myself. Liz had stopped there and was staring at me.

"Are you okay?"

"No!" I had to stop. I only had breath enough for one word at a time. "Asthma..." breathe... "call..." breathe...

But Liz was already dialing the campus emergency number. I leaned on the counter and concentrated on breathing.
Slow down, don't panic, slow down
... But it wasn't working.

Dr. Loomis appeared. "Jamie! What on earth..."

"He's having an asthma attack. I called the paramedics." Liz moved over so I could see her face. "Is there any other medicine in your office? Is there anything else we can do?"

I pointed at Harley, who had overcome the shock of being shoved and was nearing the desk. "Keep..." breathe... "him..." breathe... "away..." breathe... "from me." Breathe. "Cologne."

"Oh my God." It occurred to me that I’d never heard Dr. Loomis say that. "Mr. Buhrman, please leave the premises.”

Harley was sputtering. “But…but…I didn’t know…”

"Dr. Brodie has a warning sign posted on his door. I can’t imagine how you missed it." Dr. Loomis took Harley by the arm and nearly dragged him to the door. "Get out of the building and stay out. Do not come back today. Do not come back at all unless you clear it through me personally. Liz, please retrieve Mr. Buhrman’s briefcase."

Harley was still sputtering. “Now, wait just a minute…”

Dr. Loomis lost her cool a little. If I’d been well enough, this scene would have been entertaining. "Mr. Burhman, I will have no more of this. Are you going to leave now, or should I have security remove you?" She opened the door for Harley, who stumbled out of it. "I want to see you heading for the parking structure. NOW."

She closed that door, and opened another for the paramedics. I was gasping for breath, but the attack seemed to have slowed in its progression. I wasn't going to pass out this time. The paramedics got me hooked to oxygen and the monitors and strapped me onto the stretcher.

Dr. Loomis was in full charge mode. "Liz, please, take Dr. Brodie's briefcase and jacket from his office and accompany him to the emergency room. Please report back as soon as possible." She turned to me and patted me on the arm. Somewhere, in the still-oxygenated part of my brain, I was shocked again. "Do what the doctors tell you. Take as much time as you need. I don't want to see you back here until you are well."

I nodded weakly. "Yes..." breathe... "ma'am." She nodded, and turned to the paramedics. "Off you go, gentlemen."

Off we went. It only took a few minutes to get to the UCLA Medical Center ER, at the south end of campus. The paramedics rolled me back to a cubicle, and the nurse clipped a pulse oximeter to my finger. I scooted my butt over to the ER bed, and a nurse and one of the paramedics helped me get my shirt off over the IVs the paramedics had started. A very young guy in a short white coat that was way too clean stepped around the curtain. "Mr. Brodie? Dr. Waverly. How are you feeling?"

Oh, hell, no
. I glared, and pointed at him. "Intern."

"Uh, yeah." The intern looked nonplussed. "So - what happened?"

The nurse brought the bed's head up to a nearly 90 degree position and propped pillows behind me, then patted them. I leaned back, and she slipped a mask over my face. Oxygen, and something moist. No medication in it yet. I glared at the intern again. "Cologne." Breathe. "Asthma." Breathe. "Boom."

"Okay." Dr. Intern was writing. "So you had previously been diagnosed with asthma?"

I made an exasperated sound and looked at the nurse beseechingly. She laughed. "Dr. Waverly, why don't you see if Dr. Suzuki is available?"

"Right." Waverly gave me a dirty look and left. I snorted. The nurse chuckled. "Yeah, he thinks he's all that. He'll learn."

"Not..." breathe... "on me."

The nurse grinned. "Nope, not on you. Here comes the real doctor."

I’d seen Dr. Suzuki before and was glad to see him now. Suzuki walked in, carrying my chart.

"Jamie! What happened to you?"

"Cologne." Breathe. "A lot of it."