“I’ll give you a call in a day or so,” Jason said.
Another death. Except for one young woman with hepatitis, he was beginning to think the only way his patients could leave the hospital was feetfirst. He wondered if he should fly directly back to Boston. Yet Roger was right. There was nothing he could do, and he might as well see the Hayes business through, even though he wasn’t very optimistic.
Two hours later Carol knocked at the door and came in, her hair still wet from the shower. “Top of the morning,” she said in her cheerful voice. Jason ordered fresh coffee.
“Guess we’re lucky,” he said, pointing out at the bright sunlight.
“Don’t be so sure. The weather around here can change mighty quickly.”
While Carol breakfasted, Jason had another cup of coffee.
“Hope I didn’t talk your ear off last night,” Carol said.
“Don’t be silly. I’m sorry I fell asleep.”
“What about you, doctor?” Carol asked, putting jam on a croissant. “You haven’t told me much about yourself.” She didn’t mention that Hayes had told her a good deal about him.
“Not much to tell.”
Carol raised her eyebrows. When she saw his smile, she laughed. “For a second I thought you were serious.”
Jason told. Carol about his boyhood in Los Angeles, his education at Berkeley and Harvard Medical School, and his residency at Massachusetts General. Without meaning to, he found himself describing Danielle and the awful November night when she’d been killed. No one had ever drawn him out the way Carol did, not even Patrick, the psychiatrist he’d seen after Danielle’s death. Jason even heard himself describing his current depression over his increased patient mortality and then Roger’s s news that morning about Marge Todd’s death.
“I’m flattered that you’ve told me this,” Carol said sincerely. She hadn’t expected such openness and trust. “You’ve had a lot of emotional pain.”
“Life can be like that,” Jason said with a sigh. “I don’t know why I’ve bored you with all this.”
“It hasn’t been boring,” Carol said. “I think you’ve made an extraordinary adjustment. I think it was difficult yet very positive that you changed your work and living environment.
“Do you?” Jason asked. He hadn’t remembered saying that. He hadn’t expected to be so personal with Carol, but now that he’d done so, he felt better.
Enjoying their time together, it wasn’t until ten-thirty that they emerged from their respective rooms dressed for the day. Jason asked the bellman to bring their car to the front entrance, and they took the elevator down to the lobby. True to Carol’s prediction, when they emerged from the hotel the sky had darkened and a steady rain was falling.
With the help of an Avis map and Carol’s memory, they drove out to the University of Washington’s Medical School. Carol pointed out the research building Hayes had visited. They went in the front entrance and were immediately challenged by a uniformed security man. They had no University of Washington identity badges.
“I’m a doctor from Boston,” Jason said, removing his wallet to show his ID.
“Hey, man, I don’t care where you’re from. No badge, no entry. Simple as that. If you want to come in here, you have to go to Central Administration.”
Seeing it was fruitless to argue, they went to Central Administration. En route, Jason asked how Hayes had handled security.
“He called his friend beforehand,” Carol said. “The man met us in the parking lot.”
The woman at Central Administration was friendly and accommodating, and even showed Carol a faculty book to see if she could pick out Hayes’s friend. But faces weren’t enough, and Carol couldn’t identify him. Instead, armed with security badges, they returned to the research building.
Carol led Jason up to the fifth floor. The corridor was crowded with spare equipment, and the walls were in need of fresh paint. There was a pungent chemical smell, akin to formaldehyde.
“Here’s the lab,” Carol said, stopping by an open doorway. The names to the left of the door were Duncan Sechler, MD, PhD; and Rhett Shannon, MD, PhD. The department was, as Jason might have guessed, molecular genetics.
“Which name?” Jason asked.
“I don’t know,” Carol said, going up to a young technician and asking if either of the doctors was in.
“Both. They’re in the animal room.” He pointed over his shoulder, then turned as Carol walked by so he could catch the view from the rear. Jason was surprised by his blatancy.
The door to the animal room had a large glass panel. Inside were two men in white coats drawing blood from a monkey.
“It was the tall one with the gray hair,” Carol said, pointing. Jason moved closer to the window. The man Carol indicated was handsome and athletic appearing, of approximately Jason’s age. His hair was a uniform silver color that gave him a particularly distinguished look. The other man, in contrast, was almost bald. What hair he had was combed over the top of his head in a vain attempt to cover the thinning spot.
“Will he remember you?”
“Possibly. We only met for a moment before I went off to the Psychology Department.”
They waited until the doctors finished their task and emerged from the animal room. The tall gray-haired man was carrying the vial of blood.
“Excuse me,” Jason said. “Could I possibly have a moment of your time?”
The man glanced at Jason’s badge. “Are you a drug rep?”
“Heavens, no.” Jason smiled. “I’m Dr. Jason Howard and this is Miss Carol Donner.”
“What can I do for you?”
“I’ll see you in a minute, Duncan,” interrupted the balding man.
“Okay,” Duncan said. “I’ll run the blood immediately.” Then, turning to Jason, he said, “Sorry.”
“Quite all right. I wanted to talk to you about an old acquaintance.”
“Oh?”
“Alvin Hayes. Do you remember him visiting you here?”
“Sure,” Duncan said, turning to Carol. “And weren’t you with him?”
Carol nodded. “You have a good memory.”
“I was shocked to hear he’d died. What a loss.”
“Carol said Hayes came to ask you something important,” Jason said. “Could you tell me what it was about?”
Duncan looked upset, glancing nervously around at the technicians.
“I’m not sure I want to talk about it.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Was it business or a personal matter?”
“Maybe you’d better come into my office.”
Jason had trouble containing his excitement. It finally sounded as if he’d stumbled onto something significant.
After entering the office, Duncan closed the door. There were two metal-backed chairs. Removing stacks of journals, he motioned for Jason and Carol to sit.
“To answer your question,” he said, “Hayes came to see me for personal reasons, not business.”
“We’ve come three thousand miles just to talk with you,” Jason said. He wasn’t going to give up so easily, but it wasn’t sounding encouraging.
“If you’d called, I could have saved you the trip.” Some of Duncan’s friendliness had disappeared from his voice.
“Maybe I should tell you why we are so interested,” Jason said. He explained the mystery of Hayes’s possible discovery and his own futile attempts to figure out what it might have been.
“You think Hayes came to me for help in his research?” Duncan asked.
“That’s what I’d hoped.”
Duncan gave a short, unpleasant laugh. He looked at Jason out of the corner of his eye. “You wouldn’t be a narc, would you?”
Jason was confused.
“All right, I’ll tell you what Hayes wanted. A place to buy marijuana. He said he was terrified to fly with the stuff and couldn’t bring any with him. As a favor, I set him up with a kid on campus.”