The Art of Forgetting (12 page)

              “I put him in a sealed plastic bag and brought him to Pathology in a shoe box. I filled out the requisition and they gave me a receipt. I didn’t speak to anyone.”

              “Someone from pathology must have told them,” Lloyd said. “What’s the name of the guy who does our autopsies?”

              “Kowalski. Dr. Stanley Kowalski.”

              Lloyd reached to pat Kaz on the back as a sign of conciliation but Kaz spun on him, grabbed his arm and twisted it pushing Lloyd’s face down against a cage. Lloyd was pinned. He knew Kaz was capable of snapping his arm like a pencil if he wanted to.

              “You could fire me for this,” Kaz said.

              “Why the hell would I fire you?” Lloyd managed to say.

              “But you could. You could fire me for this, right?”

              “I guess so,” Lloyd groaned.

              Kaz let go of him. “So am I fired?”

              Lloyd pulled on the cuffs of his sleeves. “Hell, no. I love you too much, you dumb Russian.”

              Kaz grasped Lloyd in a bear hug. “That’s all I needed to know.”

              “I swear if you kiss me, I
will
fire you.”

              Kaz released his embrace. “You can’t fool me, Lloyd Copeland. Deep down,” he tapped Lloyd’s chest with his finger, “you have a good heart.”

              Lloyd kneaded his shoulder as he walked into his office. Sometimes, the Russian’s mannerisms were too baffling to understand. But then, how could anyone fathom a former Soviet army grunt turned vegan, a self-proclaimed enemy of communism who volunteered at a community garden, a pony-tailed, tie-dye wearing hippy who looked down his classical nose at popular music, an animal activist who participated in animal research?

              Lloyd ambled into his office and took a seat behind his desk. He woke up his computer with a roll of the mouse and logged into the physician portal of the hospital’s intranet, clicked on the physician’s directory and typed in Kowalski. There were three entries. The middle one read, “Kowalski, Stanley, M.D. Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Pathology.”

              Lloyd picked up the handset of the telephone and dialed the five-digit extension. Almost immediately a voice said, “Kowalski.”

              “Dr. Kowalski, this is Lloyd Copeland… from neurology?”

              “Lloyd, how great to hear from you!”

              Lloyd was surprised by the gregarious tone. In the last three years the two men had spoken only a handful of times on the phone and met in person only once.

              “Listen,” Lloyd said, “I wanted to ask you about a specimen I sent you.”

              “Sure. You got the name and medical record number?”

              Lloyd hesitated. He only sent Kowalski animal specimens. Maybe he was asking for the requisition number on the receipt that was handed to Kaz. Or maybe Kowalski was confusing him with someone else.

              “I’m just joshing you, Lloyd,” Kowalski said in a roll of laughter. “The little patient is a mouse, no?”

              “Yeah. The reason I’m calling, I was wondering if you happened to mention to anyone that you received a specimen from my lab.”

              “I don’t understand. Are you asking me if I’ve ever mentioned to anyone that you send me specimens?”

              “I mean in the last week or so,” Lloyd said.

              “No. Why do you ask?”

              “Are you sure?”

              “I couldn’t have. I haven’t received any specimen from you in at least a month.”

              “Wait. You’re sure about that?”

              “Positive.”

              “Hmm. That’s strange.”

              “When was it sent?” asked Kowalski.

              “Last week.”

              “Well, let me be frank, Lloyd, we’re just buried in work here, and surgical specimens take precedence over the autopsy of a little mouse.”

              “Do me a favor,” Lloyd said.

              “What do you need?”

              “When you do the autopsy, don’t talk to anyone about it.”

              There was a moment of silence.

              “Okay, sure,” Kowalski said in an overdone conspiratorial tone.

              “It’s nothing really, but I’d appreciate it if you call me with the results before releasing your official report.”

              “I got your back. Don’t worry.”

              Lloyd gave Kowalski his cell phone number and hung up, hoping he wouldn’t regret the entire call. Just because Kowalski was a geek didn’t mean he was a fool and it certainly didn’t mean he could be trusted. He sat back in his chair and retrieved the lighter from his pocket. Who told the IRB about the dead mouse? And why?  Lloyd was getting the feeling that someone was far too interested in his research.

              Chapter 9

             
T
he next morning, Lloyd arrived at the hospital early and finished ward rounds by noon. He grabbed a sandwich from the deli cart then returned to his office to cosign the resident progress notes from the morning on his computer. Kaz brewed a pot of savory herbal tea sweetened with just a hint of honey making Lloyd wonder what kind of other herbs he might be growing in his organic community garden.

              Once he was done with his paperwork, he opened a new document and stared at the white screen on his monitor. Sometimes, less is more. That’s what he kept telling himself until he finally inserted the day’s date at the top of the document and began typing a one page addendum for the Institutional Review Board.

              It invoked a vague clerical oversight in the failure to report the death of an animal subject, brought about by the desire to review the official autopsy report before deciding if the event was pertinent to his application, but forgotten due to a simple mental lapse. He would volunteer no extraneous information which could be twisted and turned against him.

              He printed the document, slid it in the kind of crisp Manila envelope that always gave him paper cuts and headed for Dr. Lasko’s office. He intended to drop it off with his secretary but once he introduced himself she asked him to take a seat and wait. A minute later, Lasko stepped out of his office and invited Lloyd inside with a wave of his arm.

              “I brought the addendum,” Lloyd said as he sat on a low, stiff demi Lune chair with no armrests.

              “That’s fine, that’s fine,” Lasko said as stepped behind the heavy mahogany desk and sat in a plush, caramel-colored leather chair that would have been suitable for the oval office. The arrangement of office furnishings seemed to have been designed with the sole purpose to maximize the discomfort of visitors and magnify the authority of its holder. Lasko flipped a page on a black appointment book on his desk. “The Institutional Review Board is scheduled to meet again tomorrow afternoon. Can you make it?”

              “Sure,” Lloyd said, wondering if they’d planned to meet without him.

              “Very well, then. Four o’clock tomorrow, so we can put the matter to rest,” Lasko said with no emotion.

              Lloyd left the office feeling utterly puzzled. He found it impossible to read the man. And what about the addendum? Lasko hadn’t bothered to read it, acted as if it didn’t matter at all. Lloyd was still replaying the conversation in his mind the next day when he stepped into the dean’s library to meet the IRB for the second time.

              Lloyd immediately sensed that something was wrong. There was a strain in Erin’s countenance. Again, she didn’t look up at him as Lloyd took his seat across the table from Lasko. There was a stiffness in her shoulders as she sat and traced a yellow highlighter in horizontal swaths across the lines of a document in a seemingly perfunctory way. Aside from Uncle Marty, Dr. Sengupta, of all people, was the only one to manage to make eye contact with Lloyd.

              “We’ve reviewed the addendum you’ve kindly submitted,” Lasko said picking up a sheet of paper and waving it in the air before setting it aside and burying it under a file.

              Lloyd cleared his throat. “As you can see, it was all just a simple misunderstanding.” He was about to say more but he saw Erin look up at him and shake her head ever so slightly before looking back down at the papers in front of her.

              “You may see it that way,” Lasko said, “but in light of the new information we’ve received, I’m afraid the committee is unable to concur with that sentiment.”

              “What new information?” Lloyd asked.

              Lasko turned to face Erin, stuck his chin out at her and widened his eyes.

              Erin picked up the paper in front of her and said in a wispy voice, “We’ve received the autopsy report on the mouse that died after your treatment.”

             
Fuck Kowalski!  I told him to call me first
, Lloyd thought.

              “How is that possible if I haven’t even received it?” Lloyd asked.

              “The department of Pathology has been quite accommodating with the board’s investigation,” Lasko said.

              “Wait a second,” Lloyd said. “When did this turn into an investigation?”

              Lasko held up his palm and closed his eyes. “Forgive me. That was a poor choice of words. Dr. Kennedy, can you read the report, please?”

              Erin looked at the paper in her hands for a moment. She handed it to Bender and asked him, “Would you mind?”

              “Not at all,” Bender said with his trademark comforting smile. He slipped a pair of reading glasses on and said, “It’s a rather concise report.” He read aloud, “Brain sections show global spongiform changes with neuronal loss and the formation of amyloid plaques. Other organs reveal no significant pathologic abnormalities. Final diagnosis:  spongiform encephalitis consistent with prion disease.”

              Bender handed the report back to Erin and removed his reading glasses. There was a tomb-like silence that sent a chill through Lloyd: the silence of finality.

              “That can’t be right,” Lloyd said.

              “You can read it for yourself,” Lasko said. “I’ll make sure my secretary e-mails you a copy.”

              “Look,” Lloyd said. “You’re making a terrible mistake.”

              “This is precisely what we were worried about,” Mrs. Devine said. “Thank God you didn’t inject any humans with this poison.”

              Lloyd got to his feet and paced in a circle, rubbing the nape of his neck with one hand, the other hand resting on his hip. This couldn’t be happening. It was impossible. He had checked the lot number of the prion that Wolfgang received. It was the same one he had injected in half a dozen other mice that had shown no ill effects. Nothing made sense anymore. Lloyd’s head was swimming with disconnected facts, empty data points that refused to come together in a meaningful way.

              “There must be a confounding variable,” he finally said.

              “A confounding variable that causes spongiform encephalopathy?” Lasko said with a smirk. “And what might that be?”

              “It doesn’t matter,” Lloyd said. “I have a letter from the FDA giving me the green light to proceed with phase one trials on human subjects.”

              “But you don’t have the university’s approval so there shall be no human trials,” Lasko said, raising his voice.

              Lloyd shrugged his shoulders. “There are dozens of medical centers all around the country that would approve my research in a heartbeat. There’s nothing to keep me here.”

              “Are you threatening to leave?” asked Lasko.

              “He’s saying no such thing,” Bender said.

              “You’re welcome to chance your fortunes elsewhere, Dr. Copeland, but understand that the prion formulation you’ve been using is university property to which we hold the patent. So, you see, you may leave, but the prions stay.”

              Lloyd knew Lasko was right. He slumped back in his chair. His feeble bluff had been called and quickly exposed. If he could only make sense out of what had happened.

              “Look, maybe there’s a problem with that specific lot. If I run some more experiments I can isolate the problem,” Lloyd said.

              “You will do no such thing,” Lasko barked.

              “Excuse me?” Lloyd said.

              “You’re handling extremely dangerous biological materials on a hospital campus,” Lasko said. “The risk is too great.”

              “What risk?” Lloyd said.

              “Now listen carefully, you shall carry out no more experiments until the matter can be audited by an expert independent panel.”

              “The Institutional Review Board has not authority–”

              “This is no longer an issue for the IRB, in fact, once this meeting is adjourned, this committee will be dissolved,” Lasko said. “The matter is now under the purview of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. Our university will not tolerate any form of animal cruelty.”