Death Spiral (22 page)

I pop my knuckles, slowly and carefully, making sure each finger gets a proper crack as I search for the right words to explain my actions. “When Dr. Carlisle died I panicked,” I finally say. “I didn't want you to get hurt. I thought you'd be better off without me.”

I peek at Anj, at the look in her eyes I can't quite read, and brace myself for the possibility that my apology is too late.

Instead of slinging a comeback lecture about my behavior, she swallows and says, “I'm sorry, too.”

“You? No way. Why?”

“Yes me. Totally. I should've been more understanding. I mean you've been going through a really hard time with your mom and all. I should've told you about Dunc and Scotland. I should've—”

Jesse clears his throat. “Okay ladies. You're both sorry. How's that? There's no such thing as true altruism. But the Rat Catcher's still out there, so maybe we should get the show on the road and move on. What's next?”

“This,” I say, throwing my arms around both my friends. When I've sufficiently strangled them with my embrace, I cross the room to my bag, pull out the envelope Dr. Wydner gave me, and stare at the thing like it's Anthrax. “And this.”

“An envelope?” Anj asks. She sounds disappointed, like she wishes I'd pulled out something more exciting than an envelope from my bag—a gun or a ransom note maybe. “Who's it from?”

I quickly explain about the envelope, Dr. Wydner, and what happened at the clinic, pretty sure the story of murder and cover-up will be enough of a reality check for Anj to put the wishing aside and order me and my envelope out of her house. But no.

“Well? What are you waiting for?” she says. “You're not going to know what's in there by standing around and staring at the thing.”

“Okay, then. Here goes nothing.”

I rip through the padding and pull out a paper with a web address clipped to a pile of what must be twenty pages of Dr. Wydner's hand-scrawled notes. Some of the papers are torn, others folded. I start smoothing the pages, laying each one on Anj's bed.

Anj hovers behind me and watches. “What the heck are those?”

“I don't know. Some sort of medical records I think. Jesse, check it out.”

Jesse joins me beside the bed, but it's not one of the papers with the hand written notes he picks up—it's the one with the web address. He grabs Anj's laptop and starts clicking. Anj drags two pastel beanbags across the floor and slides onto the pink one. Jesse and I scrunch together on the baby blue one while his fingers fly across the keyboard.

The web address takes us to a site called
The Biotech Rumor Mill.
The home page opens to an archive of blogs, a bunch of news links, and a section called “Hot and Latest Rumors.” Jesse and I exchange glances as we read through various headlines of rumors in the biotech world.
Pfizer. Roche Diagnostics. Executive compensation.
Fascinating
stuff.

“Hang on,” Anj says, snatching the computer off Jesse's lap. “Didn't Jesse say your mom had something called idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis?”

“Yeah, why?”

She drags the cursor to the drop down menu of recent headlines we'd just been browsing and points.

“‘Funding for Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis Treatment Threatened,'” I read. “Weird. Dr. Monroe said there wasn't a cure for the disease. Click on that.”

Anj clicks, and a new page loads. She reads out loud. “‘PluraGen Biopharmaceutical CEO, Brian Millman, is pulling funding for Alveolix, a new treatment for a rare condition known as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. With the patent on PluraGen's chief moneymaker, the depression drug, Fiboral, expiring, Millman is cutting research and development on smaller, less profitable drugs manufactured by the company and getting ready to cut hundreds of positions. “Alveolix does not have a wide enough application,” Millman says, and therefore is not generating the revenue the company expected.'”

“Screw the sick people who need the drug,” Jesse grunts when Anj finishes reading. “If it's not pulling a profit, they can eat shit and die. And while we're at it, screw affordable health care because who needs that, and screw…”

Jesse rattles on about things that should be screwed, but I ignore his anticapitalist rant and turn back to Anj. “What else does it say?”

Anj adjusts herself in the beanbag and props the computer against her thighs. “‘Dr. Glass, lead researcher for Alveolix, declared bankruptcy after investing millions of dollars of his own and investors' money to develop the treatment.'” She closes the computer and looks from Jesse to me. “Who's Dr. Glass?”

I don't answer. Something dark and unsettling fights to make sense in my mind as I stare past Anj to a shelf of glass figurines above her desk. Dr. Glass. Head of the RNA 120 clinical trial. IPF researcher. He had a cure.
I push myself out of the beanbag and dart across the room to the papers strewn across the bed.

I've just picked up the first one when I hear an engine and a car pulls into the driveway. A minute later the front door opens and muffled voices drift up from the first floor. Heeled shoes click the wooden staircase, followed by the clomping of elephant's feet.

“Hi, Hon,” a woman calls. “We're home.”

“We won!” Chrissy shouts.

Before I can scoop up the papers, someone's knocking. I try to catch Anj's eye, but she's already crossing the room. She flings open the door and a tall, thin woman with short, dark hair cut in a severe angle around her chin is standing there. A red-faced Chrissy, dressed in full basketball regalia, complete with an eighties' style sweatband, stands beaming at her side.

“Hi, Ma,” Anj says, bumping me out of the way with her hip as I make a clumsy attempt to gather whatever belongings I can reach, so I can bail before her mother can invite me to leave. “This is my friend, Faith, and this is Jesse.” While Jesse steps forward and offers his hand, I hover in the back of the room with Zig, the pound pup whose former life as a stray keeps him on guard against newcomers.

“I was just about to leave,” I mumble.

“No, she wasn't.” Anj shoots me a glance that says “shut-up-and-let-me-talk.” “We have a biology assignment that's due tomorrow. I'm so lame. I totally forgot to tell you about it. Sorry, Ma. It's going to be a really late night. I invited Faith to sleep over. Jesse's helping out, too. He'll be leaving in like an hour.” She snakes her arms around her mother's waist and gives her a girlish peck on the cheek. “How was the game?”

Chrissy pushes her mother out of the way and takes the spotlight. “We totally won. It was so rad! I scored fifteen points!”

Her mother smiles and pats Chrissy on the head. “She might not be tall, but she sure is aggressive.” She squeezes her munchkin basketball pro and smiles at me. “Well, you three had better get to work. I don't want you to stay up all night. It's nice to meet you, Faith.”

“Nice to meet you, too,” I say as she shuts the door.

Anj locks the door and checks the clock the second her mother leaves. Before I can process the fact I'm staying, she picks up a notebook from her desk and kicks off her slippers. “Okey dokey. Let's figure this thing out.”

I don't move. “Look, Anj, I really appreciate all you've done for me, but this is serious. Someone got killed tonight, okay? These aren't nice people. So I'll be going before the Rat Catcher finds me camped out in your family's home.”

Anj races back to the door and puts her arms out. “Yeah? Well for your information, we have a burglar alarm and all the doors
and
windows are armed. And for your double information, who's going to think to look for you here?” She gives me the death stare and then adds, “So if you try to leave, just remember, I know Judo.”

I sigh, but I can't help cracking a smile. “I knew there was a reason I liked you when we met.”

“Good. Enough fluff. Now, let's get to work.”

Twenty-two

We divide the papers into three piles, one for Jesse, one for Anj, one for me. No sooner do I sink onto the bed to study the first sheet than Jesse's voice stops me.

“There's something else in here,” he says, reaching into the envelope and handing me a wallet-size black-and-white photo of the Rat Catcher.

“Victor Navarro,” I say, turning over the picture and shuddering as I read the name written in red pen. “I wonder why Dr. Wydner has a picture of him?”

I don't have to say anything more. Mr. Search Engine's on it. Jesse sits at Anj's desk with the laptop and a few seconds later brings up an Internet article. “‘Whatever happened to the beast?'” he reads. “It's from the Philly
Inquirer
, five years ago.”

“The beast?” Anj asks. “I thought we were talking about the Rat Catcher.”

I shrug, feeling as confused as Anj looks.

“‘To many, Victor Navarro was known as the beast,'” Jesse begins reading, “‘a talented NCAA Division I basketball player set to put his hometown of Pottstown on the map. But there was another side to this talented college athlete, a troubled teen, often at odds with the law, who struggled with a history of drug abuse and violence.' Blah, blah, blah—skip to the good part.”

“The good part?” I say, getting up and punching Jesse in the arm. “No skipping.”

Jesse doesn't acknowledge the punch or lift his eyes from the screen. “You ever hear of Cliff Notes? We don't have all night. Listen to this: ‘Navarro stopped playing basketball and dropped out of school. So what went wrong?'”

“Seriously?” I ask. “What went wrong? That's the good part? He turned into a psychopathic drug dealer. That's what went wrong.”

“Nah,” Jesse says. “This is the good part: ‘Two DWIs and a charge of assault led to Navarro's arrest. That's when Dr. Steven Glass, a renowned scientist and Navarro's uncle, came to his aid. “I helped Victor get his life under control,” Dr. Glass explains. “I paid his bail and found him a job as an apprentice with a pest control company. Victor did so well, he eventually started his own business. We're family. We stick together. We watch each other's backs.” Navarro claims he owes his life and everything he has to his uncle.'”

“So the Rat Catcher's working for Glass!” I utter as my brain cells go manic, and the connections start to fire. He must've messed with my car brakes. Then he came to school, planted the pot, and called in the tip. But it wasn't because he's a drug dealer. It was to scare me off the clinical trial. He's doing his uncle's dirty work.”

“But why? What dirty work?” Anj asks.

“I don't know, but we have three piles of papers from Dr. Wydner, and I'm guessing the answer's in there somewhere.” I dart to the bed, the chemical cocktail of my brain turning me into a Wonder Woman taskmaster, and grab my pile. “Let's get busy.”

I've just turned over the first paper when Jesse interrupts me for the second time.

“I think you'd better check out this one yourself,” he tells me.

I take the paper he hands me and angle it toward the light. There's a picture of my mother, her skin pockmarked and pale, her blue eyes bloodshot, clipped to a page that says
Patient #A1.

“‘Female. Caucasian,'” I read, my energetic supercharge slamming to a halt. “‘Thirty-seven years of age. Extensive background of heroin abuse. Treatment history: August 1st RNA 120 first dose.'” I reach for the lighter, but of course it's not there.

“Is this what you're looking for?” Jesse asks, pulling the Zippo from my pile of clothes crumpled on the floor and bringing it to me.

I take the lighter and nod. I try to continue reading, but my voice cracks and I can't go on.

“Here, let me.” Anj pries the paper from my hand. “‘August 8th RNA 120 second treatment. August 15th RNA 120 third treatment.'” She reads a bunch of dates listing Mom's treatment history with RNA 120, and then says, “‘September 12th PL44 first treatment.'”

“PL44? What's that?” I grab the paper again and scan the notes about Mom's vitals, her physical and mental condition at the time of each treatment—nowhere does it explain what PL44 is. “‘September 19th PL44 second treatment,'” I read. “‘Results of drug test indicate patient is no longer using heroin.'”

Tears prick my eyes. I see her smile, hear the words again: I'm clean. It's going to be okay. I clear my throat and continue. “‘September 26th PL44 third treatment. October 3rd PL44 fourth treatment, appearance of facial scabs and lesions. Wheezing. Patient appears distressed. Complains of chest pains upon breathing.'”

I glance up at Jesse. He's stopped fidgeting with the other papers in his pile, and his eyes encourage me to keep reading. “‘October 10th patient misses treatment. October 17th patient comes for treatment with a man identified as Victor Navarro. Patient appears agitated and frightened.'” I stop reading and drop the paper to my lap. “October seventeenth—that's the day Mom died. The day the Rat Catcher came to our apartment and we first saw each other. He told her she had a debt to pay.…I thought it was about money or drugs, but…” I don't finish the thought.

Jesse finishes it for me. “But maybe the debt had something to do with the clinical trial. Like maybe Glass wanted to make sure your mom didn't miss another treatment, so he had Mr. Douchebag bring her in himself.”

“So why would Mr. Douchebag or the Rat Catcher or the beast or whatever you call him, do that?” Anj asks.

Jesse holds up another paper he's pulled from his pile. “Maybe it has to do with this.”

I curl a pillow against my chest. “What is it?”

“Your mother's registration for the trial. Check it out.”

I take the document and look at Mom's signature written at the bottom of the page in her bubbly cursive. “Okay, and?”

“Read the last line.”

I skim the rows of small print details, details you'd need about five years to understand, and read the last clause. “‘Patient agrees not to miss any appointments in their course of treatment.'”

Anj looks at Jesse. “So you think the debt he was talking about was because Faith's mother missed a treatment?”

“Could be, right?” Jesse says, lifting his eyebrows. “I mean it makes sense. The notes say she skipped a week.”

“But what difference would that make?” Anj asks, looking from Jesse to me.

“Dr. Monroe said RNA 120 had to be given weekly to work,” I say, remembering my first conversation with the professor. “Glass probably wanted to make sure everyone followed the right protocol, so he didn't mess up his data.” Even as I say this I feel certain it's not the truth. Dr. Wydner's notes say Mom appeared agitated and frightened the day she died. She didn't want to get the treatment. Navarro made her go. She knew something; like that the drug was making her sick—or worse.

“Let's see what else Doc gave you,” Jesse says. “Maybe there's something about Melinda.”

We search our stacks until Jesse holds up a picture of Melinda clipped to another page of notes. “Bingo! ‘Patient #A2. Female. Hispanic. Twenty-six years of age. August 1st RNA 120, first treatment.'” He skips the descriptive details about her condition and focuses on the treatment history. “‘August 8th RNA 120, second treatment.' It's the same as your mother's,” he says, peering at me. “Whatever that PL44 thing is, Melinda was getting it, too, but she didn't start getting it until November.”

Top-forty sing-along pop drifts in from down the hall, but I don't mind the boy band's auto-tuned crooning about true love. The music is a floatation vest. It keeps me from drowning in the murky waters of clinical trials, hired thugs, and my mother's death.

“Check this out,” Jesse goes on, ignoring the music while Anj scowls at the door. “It says Melinda missed a treatment on November 28th, and on November 30th, a Saturday, Glass called Wydner into the clinic and ordered him to give Melinda her treatment. Victor Navarro accompanied her. ‘Patient seemed agitated and at first refused treatment. After a conversation with Navarro, patient consented.'” Jesse puts down the paper and we look at each other.

“November 30th,” I say. “That's almost two weeks ago. The day we saw him at Melinda's.”

“Yep, looks like Melinda had a treatment debt to pay, too.”

I pick up the grainy, black-and-white shot of Navarro again. As the song ends and a new one that sounds mostly the same begins, I drift back to the day Mom died.

“The night when I found Mom dead, I ran out for help,” I say, battling a new round of tears. “Navarro must've been hanging around waiting for his chance. He must've seen the paramedics leave, slipped into our apartment, and planted the heroin to cover Glass' tracks. Glass counted on the police to see the heroin, and see her, and let their stereotypical little minds do the rest. Well, it worked. The case was closed before it was ever opened.”

The story fuels my rage. I jump to my feet and start to pace, stomp is more like it, although it's hard to actually stomp on a carpet that feels like a pillow.

“Wait a minute,” Anj says as I stomp past her. “Didn't you say there was a fund for dependents?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Then I don't get it. I mean at first the clinical trial people didn't think your mom had a kid, but before you said the Rat Catcher found out about you the day your mom died. He would've told Glass about you. So why didn't Glass tell you about the money then?”

“Because there is no money,” I say, stopping in front of the bay window and turning to the bed where Anj is propped against a set of pink pillows. “There is no fund. They made that up to buy me off. Don't you see? Glass is covering up something about the drug. The day you and I went to the clinic, Glass was coming into Dr. Wydner's office when I left. Wydner must've told Glass who I was, so Glass got his thug-drop-out-loser nephew to get me to stop asking questions. But just in case Navarro couldn't intimidate me, Glass invented this bullshit fund to buy me off and get me to shut up.”

“But how do you know the fund was bullshit?” Anj insists. “Maybe it was real.”

“There's one way to find out.” Jesse's back on the computer in half a second. He links again to the PluraGen website and brings up a section called Compensation to Human Research Subjects in Clinical Trials.

We read every clause, every situation that could possibly involve compensation: Medical Care for Physical Illness or Injury, Out-of-Pocket Expenses, Compensation for Time and Effort. Nowhere does the website mention a compensation fund for dependents.

Jesse gives a long, slow whistle and a look of amazement crosses his face. “Looks like Faith's right. The compensation fund for dependents is a scam. We'll give you money if you keep your mouth shut. Man, the Kennedy assassination conspiracy doesn't have anything on this.”

I go to the bed and grab another paper with a new patient's treatment history. This one has something called PL45 listed in the notes. “Okay, look, there's still a ton to figure out. We have to go through all this stuff if we're going to understand what's going on. And we can't read through every single page together. That'll take too long. We have to sort through our own piles. Look for patterns and write them down. Can you guys handle it?” I glance at the silver wall clock hanging above Anj's desk. “It's pretty late. This could take a while.”

“Hel-lo,” Anj says. “It's called caffeine. I'll be right back.” She slips off the bed and leaves her room, returning a few minutes later holding three cans of Spyke. “350 milligrams of good ol' caffeine for your all-night research pleasure. Ma's secret stash. My parents will totally kill me if they find out. I'm not supposed to touch this stuff.”

I grab a can and pop the tab—caffeine and sugar, the legal drugs. It's the first thing I've tried to swallow since the clinic. It hurts, but I force down the liquid. In about a minute my head is zinging. “Here's the deal,” I say as the magic potion bubbles through my veins. “Obviously, not everyone was getting the same treatment. So, we look at the treatments each person was getting and write down what happened to them. We'll compile everyone's notes when we're done.”

Anj bounds to her desk and brings us each a spiral notebook and pen then sets off on another mission to the kitchen for snacks. For the next few hours, we munch on Cool Ranch Doritos and Lucky Charms as we pour over medical records and make our notes. It's midnight when finally we've gone through all the papers. Anj hands me her notes and collapses on the bed.

“Just closing my eyes for one teeny sec,” she says, yawning.

Jesse slides next to me and plays secretary, handing me notes, but soon his eyes droop shut and he's crashed out, snoring next to Anj.

I sit with my back pressed against the wall, my feet stretched in front of me, the papers on my lap. The house is silent now. No music or television or voices drifting in from down the hall. Just me and the notes and a story to piece together. I study the notes, organizing the information into a table, so we can try to decipher what it all means. I've just finished the last column when Jesse opens his eyes and bolts up.

“Okay, man, I'm ready. Where do we start?”

“It's all done, Sleeping Beauty. Check it out.”

I hand Jesse the papers and give Anj a gentle tap. She sits up, yawns, and looks over Jesse's shoulder. We huddle as we study the data.