The Proteus Cure Read online

  Ellen cast her eyes down.

  “If that’s not an error, Ellen, tell me what is.”

  The little woman lost some of her steam. But not all.

  “We’ve got so many safeguards in place, damn it. It couldn’t happen.”

  “But it did. I had to report it.”

  Ellen sighed. “I know that. I just wish we still had that sample.”

  Sheila knew that they followed the typical lab policy of discarding samples after five days unless instructed otherwise.

  “I labeled the second sample myself, handed it to your tech personally, to Jenny, and it showed a completely different result than the first one.”

  Ellen shook her head. “Weird shit going on down there lately.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well, that screw-up, for one.” She looked at Sheila sheepishly. “Jenny temporarily lost the sample you gave her.” Sheila felt herself redden with rage. Ellen reached for her arm. “But she found it of course. Obviously. Jenny said she’s sure she racked it but then it was nowhere to be found. Then there it was again, a few hours later, on the rack. I don’t understand it. I’ve got a tight staff, they’re dedicated …” She shrugged.

  “No system is foolproof.”

  “You don’t believe me.” She looked hurt. Not defensive, just hurt.

  The elevator doors opened and Sheila fairly leaped to escape.

  “Gotta go. Don’t worry. I’m sure it won’t happen again.”

  She meant that. Ellen was tops.

  So how come her department screwed up?

  PAUL

  Paul pulled up to Sheila’s house and smiled. Quaint. Not a word he used often, but it fit. Early New England. Light gray, weathered shingles, white shutters on all the windows. He imagined yellow tulips sprouting in the spring. The dormant lawn looked well tended. He figured Tethys mowed it for her. They gave their employees a lot of perks.

  Sheila stepped out of the house before he shut off his car. Too bad. He was hoping to see the inside, check out her bedroom. He laughed to himself. Maybe she was a little out of his league, but he could hope. Anyway, he had some big issues at hand.

  “Hi,” she said when she reached the car.

  “Hey. Did you eat yet?”

  “No, just coffee.” She opened her door and got in. “I thought maybe we could pick something along the way.”

  “No need. I’ve got two Starbucks real coffees, not the dessert kind for wimps, and two scones.”

  Sheila reached for the small brown bag. “You wouldn’t happen to have a maple scone in here …”

  Paul grinned. “Yep. Two of them. I went out on a limb, assuming everyone likes them as much as I do.”

  “Like? I love these. It’s the only kind I like enough to justify the calories. Thanks.”

  “It’s the only kind worth buying.” He winked and put the car in drive, balancing his own scone on his lap. “We should reach Manchester in about forty minutes if we don’t encounter much school-bus residua.”

  Sheila munched a bite of walnuts and maple icing.

  “That’s some vocabulary, Paul.”

  He grinned. “You sure this is okay with your boss?”

  “Absolutely. Made morning rounds and don’t have outpatients until two-o’clock. I normally catch up on my charts during this stretch, but they can wait.”

  “I really appreciate this.”

  She seemed flustered by his gratitude. “De nada.”

  He pointed. “So, cute little house you have there. Cozy.”

  She smiled. “I like it. Love it, really. All those years living in dorms or apartments makes you really appreciate having your own house.”

  “So this is your first?”

  “Uh-huh. Why?”

  Paul was surprised. He had started his grownup life so much younger. This was his fourth house if you counted that condo. And here was Sheila, only a little younger than he, never married, no kids, first house.

  Wait. Right before Coogan got hit …

  “Sorry to jump around but I just remembered the conversation we were having right before Coog’s accident. You were just about to explain your last name.”

  “Look, shouldn’t we first talk about what we’re going to say to this trustee?”

  She was stalling. He didn’t want to talk about his life either but hoped she’d reveal a little about herself.

  “We have plenty of time. Come on, tell me about you. It will get my mind off the paternity thing.”

  “All right. Maiden name was Donnelly. Both parents Irish. They died years ago. And I married a nice Japanese boy right out of college. Hideki Takamura. Everyone just called him Dek.”

  Paul watched her smile as she recalled what he could tell was a happy time.

  “We had our future all planned out. He’d get a job then I’d finish med school. I’d go into a residency, complete it, and then we’d have two little Amer-Asian children, a boy and a girl. Dek Jr., and Mary after my grandmother.”

  She paused, smiling. He wondered what else she was remembering.

  “We were right on track. I was completing a great residency at BU Medical Center. Dek worked for JCAHO, a government body that approves hospitals and nursing homes. He was gearing up for a promotion and was knee deep in an investigation. Some kind of conflict of interest. Not sure what, exactly, but Dek was excited. He said as soon as he sent in his report, he knew he’d get promoted. We were both thrilled. It was like things couldn’t get any better.”

  Paul smiled along with her. He was a little jealous. He remembered when he had felt that kind of boundless enthusiasm. When life couldn’t get any better. Lucky girl. Perfect life, compared to what he’d gone through.

  “And then it was all over. Dek was dead. I was working over at BU when I got the call. His motorcycle had skidded off the road and he was gone.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  He’d never dreamed she was a widow.

  She kept talking, as if she needed to keep going. “I was destroyed. I wasn’t raised in a very emotional home. My parents weren’t demonstrative or affectionate. You were always supposed to hold everything close to the breast. ‘Never let ’em see you cry,’ ” she said in a harsh Irish accent.

  Paul was stunned. He’d been raised that way too. He’d seen her as Snow White, Pollyanna. Perfect, sunny, and happy all the time. He’d envisioned her singing as she did house work. And now to hear all this …

  Maybe she wasn’t out of his league. Maybe she would understand his circumstances … accept him and his past. Even if the Kaplan trustee couldn’t help, this talk was making the drive worthwhile.

  “I was good about holding things in. Very good. Mum died of lung cancer and Da of heart disease a year apart. Damn chain-smoking. Thank you, Philip Morris. They made it to my graduation from medical school. They were so proud. At least they saw that. Then they were gone. I had to deal with their deaths and keep up with my residency, but I held it together.”

  He could see Sheila clenching her jaw, reliving the sadness.

  “I managed by clinging to Dek with everything I had. He was everything I had. Training and Dek. They were my life. When he died, it was too much. I fell apart. I looked fine, but inside I felt like I’d died too.”

  Paul swallowed hard. He knew exactly how that felt, to watch everything in your life fall apart, and then to try to go on. The world expected it.

  Easier said than done. If anyone knew that, Paul did.

  He reached over and touched her hand, squeezed it, gently. She squeezed back. Paul thanked God he didn’t drive a standard and could hold her hand as long as she’d let him.

  “Bill Gilchrist saved me. Head of the whole hospital and he interviewed me personally. He was the only one who understood what was wrong, but he hired me anyway. He gave me a lot of leeway those first few months. Really took me under his wing.”

  What chance did he have? A cable installer who reads books to terminal patients, writes unpublished novels, and lives on the Milltown bor
der in a tired colonial?

  She said, “Bill Gilchrist … I was so intimidated back then, and now … he’s just a regular person after all.”

  Sheila took a deep breath let it out. He could hear the whoosh, feel her grip relax. She took back her hand and wiped her eyes.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t believe I just dumped all that on you. I didn’t mean to. I just—you’re a good listener.”

  “Well, I’ve only seen you at work. I wondered about the rest of your life, your past mostly. Now I know.”

  “Now you know.” She nodded. “Okay, your turn. Let’s hear your past. Hope it’s sunnier than mine.”

  If only his were one tenth as sunny. But now was not the time.

  He saw the sign for Manchester.

  “Hey look, we’re here.”

  That was close.

  SHEILA

  Paul parked in front of a white shingled house that sported a navy blue wooden swinging sign. Gold letters read Alfred B. George, Attorney at Law.

  “Here’s the place. He’d better be more helpful than that idiot Kaplan.”

  Sheila grimaced. “We can only hope.”

  They walked up the wooden steps. Sheila noticed that all the houses on the street looked old but well preserved. Painted wooden shingles, white trim, shutters. A seaside Stepford village.

  “Come on, let’s go meet this guy.”

  Alfred B. George had an appropriate name. Seeing him, Sheila guessed he’d been a nerdy know-it-all kid who’d remained that way when he grew up. Skinny and balding, he wore a light blue button-down shirt with a plain navy blue tie, and spoke in a whine.

  “Have a seat please. Hmm, let’s not waste any time. You called about Kaplan Biologicals?” He looked at his watch and tapped his pen on his desk. Mont Blanc. Tap-tap-tap. “Is that correct?”

  “Yes.” Sheila saw he was in a hurry. “We want to know who bought the assets.”

  “Lee T. Swann.”

  “Who?”

  Alfred B. George pointed to a piece of paper.

  “Right here. Lee T. Swann. He bought all the assets. That’s what you wanted to know, that’s what I got for you. If you want a list of all the creditors who didn’t get paid, I can get you that. But you specifically asked for the name of the party who purchased the assets of Kaplan Biologicals.”

  Sheila and Paul looked at each other.

  “Yes,” Paul said. “That’s all we need. What was his name again?”

  “Lee T. Swann. Two N’s. Want his address?”

  Paul scribbled down the name and poised his pen. “Yes, please.”

  “160 Milk Street, Suite two-five-seven, Boston 02109.” Alfred B. George rose. “Will that be all? I hate to rush but I’ve got clients waiting.”

  Sheila could see Paul’s face redden and concluded that one of his anger triggers had been pulled.

  “That’s all, Mister George,” she said. “Thank you so much for your time.” She hoped he noted the sarcasm.

  “My time, yes,” he said as Paul and Sheila rose. “My time will cost one hundred dollars.”

  Paul scowled. “One hundred—? We were here only five minutes.”

  “I bill at two hundred an hour. It took me nearly a half hour to research this and see you.” He looked at his watch. “Twenty-seven minutes exactly. That rounds to half an hour.”

  “That’s fine, Mister George.” Sheila pulled out a check. “I’ll pay it. Thank you for the information.”

  “Sheila, you can’t pay. This is my problem.”

  “I may yet get a paper out of this. Consider it a research expense.”

  She slipped the lawyer the check and they left.

  “That was quick and painless,” Sheila said. “Now what?”

  “Now we go visit Mister Swann and ask him what the hell is going on. I’m happy to see where he’s located.”

  “Why is that?”

  “There’s this great sub shop near there. It’s not a classy place by any means but you’ve got to try it. After we see Swann, we’ll grab three subs. I’ll bring one home for Coog.”

  “I usually try to eat healthy but if it’s such a special place, I suppose I can bend.”

  “You won’t be sorry.”

  “Do they have eggplant parm subs?”

  He grinned. “I should have known you’d ask that. It’s amazing how alike we are. Of course they have eggplant parm. It’s the only one worth getting.”

  As they got back into Paul’s Explorer, Sheila looked over at him. He was cute in an L.L. Bean-ad kind of way. Not dashing like Bill. Not GQ. But solid. A man with substance.

  “Okay,” she said. “Your turn to talk about yourself.” Seeing his hands tighten on the wheel, she added, “I don’t mean the big heart-wrenching events, just some little things. Where you went to school or what you wanted to be when you grew up. That kind of stuff.”

  “Okay. That I can do.”

  Good. The combination of the sugar, caffeine, and his promise to divulge some of his past stirred up a strange feeling. She felt like a teenage girl who suddenly discovers that she likes her best friend as more than a friend, likes him “that way.”

  “I always wanted to be a teacher,” he said. “A high school English teacher. Not a very high aspiration, some might say, but I couldn’t imagine anything more rewarding than talking about books all day, and teaching kids about them. Books can bring the world to your doorstep, you know?”

  Sheila nodded tentatively. She’d learned almost everything she knew from textbooks but sensed he meant literature.

  “One story can change someone’s whole life. You see a kid who’s ready to commit suicide and then she reads The Diary of Anne Frank, and all of sudden her life isn’t so bad. Saved. Look at Romeo and Juliet. Do you have any idea how many times that story has been retold in different ways?”

  Sheila nodded. “Perhaps too many.”

  He looked at her and smiled. “Yeah. Perhaps. But I’ve always loved books. I guess I wanted to share that. When I was little, books were my best friends. I was a lonely kid but I had my books, my storytellers, each one of the authors reaching out to tell me something about life. That was how I felt.

  “My father was in the military. We’d move as soon as I’d hook up with new friends, or at least that’s how it seemed. I have a little brother who had no problem with moving all the time. He thought it was an adventure. I hated it. I was a shy little kid.”

  Sheila laughed. “It’s so funny to hear you say that. I would never have pegged you as shy. You seem more a rough-and-tumble type. The way you attacked the guy in the Hummer and punched that car the other day, you strike me more as more of a Heathcliff than a Walter Mitty. And before you give me credit for reading Wuthering Heights, I didn’t. I saw the movie.”

  “Heathcliff was a sensitive guy too. He simply hid it by being tough.” Paul gave a short, harsh laugh. “Like me. Been there, done that. You talked about your parents making you hold in your emotions. How do you think it was to be raised by a Marine? Anger was acceptable, sadness was not. Weakness too was verboten. The only thing Dad encouraged was fighting. Creep. But I had my books. They were my hidden indulgence and he was none the wiser.”

  “He encouraged fighting? Did he hit you?”

  “Of course he hit me. He figured if he batted me around enough it would make me tough. Got news for you, if a kid is crying and you hit him, it makes him cry more.”

  “Didn’t your mother stop him?”

  “She was raised by a Marine herself and married Dear Old Dad when she was young. Went along with everything he did. She was soft with me when he wasn’t around but would never publicly defy him. Bob, my brother, he ate it up. He was just like Dad. Creep junior. He rarely got hit.”

  Paul stopped talking and stared in his rearview mirror. It seemed he was recalling a bad memory that he wanted to keep to himself.

  “Look in your sideview mirror. Don’t turn around, just look. See that silver Honda a few cars back?”

  Sheila looked. �
��I guess so. I see silver. I can’t tell the make.”

  “It’s a Honda Accord. I think it’s following us. It got on the highway when we did. I swear it’s been behind us since Manchester.”

  Normally she would have laughed, said he was being paranoid. But now …

  She scrunched down in her seat. “Who’s driving it?”

  “Can’t tell. Too far away and the windows are shaded. Let’s slow down and see what happens.” Paul slowed to fifty and eased into the right lane. The Honda slowed as well. Finally Paul pulled onto the shoulder.

  “What are you doing?” she cried. “Don’t stop! What if he wants to kill us?”

  “If he wanted us dead, we’d be dead already. This guy is fishing, trying to see where we’re going, what we’re doing, what we know.”

  Sheila and Paul sat and watched the Honda cruise past them. Her stomach churned the maple scone.

  “Now what?”

  Paul hit the gas and they started moving again.

  “Now he’s in front where we can watch him. If he really was following us, and I’m not being paranoid, he’ll stay just in front. He can track us from there.”

  “How do we know it’s not someone who’s just going to Boston like half the other people on this road?”

  “I’m not taking any chances.”

  Paul swerved the wheel and abruptly took the next exit. As they went into the turn Sheila saw the Honda’s brake lights go on. He was watching them.

  Paul shot her a glance. “Believe me now?”

  Sheila nodded. “I wish I didn’t.”

  “It’s okay, we’ll go the back roads. He’ll never find us.”

  Sheila stuck her fingertip in her mouth and started chewing on the nail. There was a time to kick bad habits and this wasn’t it.

  Paul took her hand and eased it away from her mouth.

  “You’re not in this alone. I’m here. Don’t worry.”

  She looked at him, his image blurred from tears. “Thank you.”

  For a few minutes they rode in silence, Sheila focusing all her attention on the rearview. The Honda was nowhere in sight, but that didn’t lessen her fear.