"I'm the general manager."
She raised her eyebrows, but he did not look up from the keyboard. Why was her inquiry being dealt with by such a senior person? she wondered, and a sense of unease crept into her mood like a wisp of smoke.
He frowned. "That's odd. The computer says we have no record of either name."
Jeannie's unease gelled. I'm about to be lied to, she thought. The prospect of a solution to the puzzle receded into the far distance again. A sense of anticlimax washed over her and depressed her.
He spun his screen around so that she could see it. "Do I have the correct spellings?"
"Yes."
"When do you think these patients attended the clinic?"
"Approximately twenty-three years ago."
He looked at her. "Oh, dear," he said, and he blinked hard.
"Then I'm afraid you've made a wasted journey."
"Why?"
"We don't keep records from that far back. It's our corporate document management strategy."
Jeannie narrowed her eyes at him. "You throw away old records?"
"We shred the cards, yes, after twenty years, unless of course the patient has been readmitted, in which case the record is transferred to the computer."
It was a sickening disappointment and a waste of precious hours that she needed to prepare her defense for tomorrow. She said bitterly: "How strange that Mr. Ringwood didn't tell me this when I talked to him last night."
"He really should have. Perhaps you didn't mention the dates."
"I'm quite sure I told him the two women were treated here twenty-three years ago." Jeannie remembered adding a year to Steve's age to get the right period,
"Then it's hard to understand."
Somehow Jeannie was not completely surprised at the way this had turned out. Dick Minsky, with his exaggerated friendliness and nervous blink, was the caricature of a man with a guilty conscience.
He turned his screen back to its original position. Seeming regretful, he said: "I'm afraid there's no more I can do for you."
"Could we talk to Mr. Ringwood, and ask him why he didn't tell me about the cards being shredded?"
"I'm afraid Peter's off sick today."
"What a remarkable coincidence."
He tried to look offended, but the result was a parody. "I hope you're not implying that we're trying to keep something from you."
"Why would I think that?"
"I have no idea." He stood up. "And now, I'm afraid, I've run out of time."
Jeannie got up and preceded him to the door. He followed her down the stairs to the lobby. "Good day to you," he said stiffly.
"Good-bye," she said.
Outside the door she hesitated. She felt combative. She was tempted to do something provocative, to show them they could not manipulate her totally. She decided to snoop around a bit.
The parking lot was full of doctors' cars, late-model Cadillacs and BMWs. She strolled around one side of the building. A black man with a white beard was sweeping up litter with a noisy blower. There was nothing remarkable or even interesting there. She came up against a blank wall and retraced her steps.
Through the glass door at the front she saw Dick Minsky, still in the lobby, talking to the chirpy secretary. He watched anxiously as Jeannie walked by.
Circling the building in the other direction, she came to the garbage dump. Three men wearing heavyweight gloves were loading trash onto a truck. This was stupid, Jeannie decided. She was acting like the detective in a hard-boiled mystery. She was about to turn back when something struck her. The men were lifting huge brown plastic sacks of trash effortlessly, as if they weighed very little. What would a clinic be throwing away that was bulky but light?
Shredded paper?
She heard Dick Minsky's voice. He sounded scared. "Would you please leave now, Dr. Ferrami?"
She turned. He was coming around the corner of the building, accompanied by a man in the police-style uniform used by security guards.
She walked quickly to a stack of sacks.
Dick Minsky shouted: "Hey!"
The garbagemen stared at her, but she ignored them. She ripped a hole in one sack, reached inside, and pulled out a handful of the contents.
She was holding a sheaf of strips of thin brown card. When she looked closely at the strips she could see they had been written on, some in pen and some with a typewriter. These were shredded hospital record cards.
There could be only one reason why so many sacks were being taken away today.
They had destroyed their records this morning--only hours after she had called.
She dropped the shreds on the ground and walked away. One of the garbagemen shouted at her indignantly, but she ignored him.
Now there was no doubt.
She stood in front of Dick Minsky, hands on hips. He had been lying to her, and that was why he was a nervous wreck. "You've got a shameful secret here, haven't you?" she yelled. "Something you're trying to hide by destroying these records?"
He was completely terrified. "Of course not," he managed. "And, by the way, the suggestion is offensive."
"Of course it is," she said. Her temper got the better of her. She pointed at him with the rolled-up Genetico brochure she was still carrying. "But this investigation is very important to me, and you'd better believe that anyone who lies to me about it is going to be fucked over, but good, before I'm finished."
"Please leave," he said.
The security guard took her by the left elbow.
"I'm leaving," she said. "No need to hold me."
He did not release her. "This way, please," he said.
He was a middle-aged man with gray hair and a pot belly. In this mood Jeannie was not going to be mauled by him. With her right hand she grasped the arm he was holding her with. The muscles of his upper arm were flabby. "Let go, please," she said, and she squeezed. Her hands were strong and her grip was more powerful than most men's. The guard tried to retain his grasp on her elbow but the pain was too much for him, and after a moment he released her. "Thank you," she said.
She walked away.
She felt better. She had been right to think there was a clue in this clinic. Their efforts to keep her from learning anything were the best possible confirmation that they had a guilty secret. The solution to the mystery was connected with this place. But where did that get her?
She went to her car but did not get in. It was two-thirty and she had had no lunch. She was too excited to eat much, but she needed a cup of coffee. Across the street was a cafe next to a gospel hall. It looked cheap and clean. She crossed the road and went inside.
Her threat to Dick Minsky had been empty; there was nothing she could do to harm him. She had achieved nothing by getting mad at him. In fact she had tipped her hand, making it clear that she knew she was being lied to. Now they were on their guard.
The cafe was quiet but for a few students finishing lunch. She ordered coffee and a salad. While she was waiting, she opened the brochure she had picked up in the lobby of the clinic. She read:
The Aventine Clinic was founded in 1972 by Genetico Inc., as a pioneering center for research and development of human in vitro fertilization--the creation of what the newspapers call "test-tube babies."
And suddenly it was all clear.
34
JANE EDELSBOROUGH WAS A WIDOW IN HER EARLY FIFTIES. A statuesque but untidy woman, she normally dressed in loose ethnic clothes and sandals. She had a commanding intellect, but no one would have guessed it to look at her. Berrington found such people baffling. If you were clever, he thought, why disguise yourself as an idiot by dressing badly? Yet universities were full of such people--in fact, he was exceptional in taking care over his appearance.
Today he was looking especially natty in a navy linen jacket and matching vest with lightweight houndstooth-check pants.
He inspected his image in the mirror behind the door before leaving his office on his way to see Jane.
He headed for t
he Student Union. Faculty rarely ate there--Berrington had never entered the place--but Jane had gone there for a late lunch, according to the chatty secretary in physics.
The lobby of the union was full of kids in shorts standing in line to get money out of the bank teller machines. He stepped into the cafeteria and looked around. She was in a far corner, reading a journal and eating French fries with her fingers.
The place was a food court, such as Berrington had seen in airports and shopping malls, with a Pizza Hut, an ice-cream counter, and a Burger King, as well as a regular cafeteria. Berrington picked up a tray and went into the cafeteria section. Inside a glass-fronted case were a few tired sandwiches and some doleful cakes. He shuddered; in normal circumstances he would drive to the next state rather than eat here.
This was going to be difficult. Jane was not his kind of woman. That made it even more likely that she would lean the wrong way at the discipline hearing. He had to make a friend of her in a short time. It would call for all his powers of charm.
He bought a piece of cheesecake and a cup of coffee and carried them to Jane's table. He felt jittery, but he forced himself to look and sound relaxed. "Jane," he said. "This is a pleasant surprise. May I join you?"
"Sure," she said amiably, putting her journal aside. She took off her glasses, revealing deep brown eyes with wrinkles of amusement at the corners, but she looked a mess: her long gray hair was tied in some kind of colorless rag and she wore a shapeless gray green blouse with sweat marks at the armpits. "I don't think I've ever seen you in here," she said.
"I've never been here. But at our age it's important not to get set in our ways--don't you agree?"
"I'm younger than you," she said mildly. "Although I guess no one would think so."
"Sure they would." He took a bite of his cheesecake. The base was as tough as cardboard and the filling tasted like lemon-flavored shaving cream. He swallowed with an effort. "What do you think of Jack Budgen's proposed biophysics library?'
"Is that why you came to see me?"
"I didn't come here to see you, I came to try the food, and I wish I hadn't. It's awful. How can you eat here?"
She dug a spoon into some kind of dessert. "I don't notice what I eat, Berry, I think about my particle accelerator. Tell me about the new library."
Berrington had been like her, obsessed by work, once upon a time. He had never allowed himself to look like a hobo on account of it, but nevertheless as a young scientist he had lived for the thrill of discovery. However, his life had taken a different direction. His books were popularizations of other people's work; he had not written an original paper in fifteen or twenty years. For a moment he wondered whether he might have been happier if he had made a different choice. Slovenly Jane, eating cheap food while she ruminated over problems in nuclear physics, had an air of calm and contentment that Berrington had never known.
And he was not managing to charm her. She was too wise. Perhaps he should flatter her intellectually. "I just think you should have a bigger input. You're the senior physicist on campus, one of the most distinguished scientists JFU has--you ought to be involved in this library."
"Is it even going to happen?"
"I think Genetico is going to finance it."
"Well, that's a piece of good news. But what's your interest?"
"Thirty years ago I made my name when I started asking which human characteristics are inherited and which are learned. Because of my work, and the work of others like me, we now know that a human being's genetic inheritance is more important than his upbringing and environment in determining a whole range of psychological traits."
"Nature, not nurture."
"Exactly. I proved that a human being is his DNA. The young generation is interested in how this process works. What is the mechanism by which a combination of chemicals gives me blue eyes and another combination gives you eyes which are a deep, dark shade of brown, almost chocolate colored, I guess."
"Berry!" she said with a wry smile. "If I were a thirty-year-old secretary with perky breasts I might imagine you were flirting with me."
That was better, he thought. She had softened at last. "Perky?" he said, grinning. He deliberately looked at her bust, then back up at her face. "I believe you're as perky as you feel."
She laughed, but he could tell she was pleased. At last he was getting somewhere with her. Then she said: "I have to go."
Damn. He could not keep control of this interaction. He had to get her attention in a hurry. He stood up to leave with her. "There will probably be a committee to oversee the creation of the new library," he said as they walked out of the cafeteria. "I'd like your opinion on who should be on it."
"Gosh, I'll need to think about that. Right now I have to give a lecture on antimatter."
Goddamn it, I'm losing her, Berrington thought.
Then she said: "Can we talk again?"
Berrington grasped at a straw. "How about over dinner?"
She looked startled. "All right," she said after a moment.
"Tonight?"
A bemused look came over her face. "Why not?"
That would give him another chance, at least. Relieved, he said: "I'll pick you up at eight."
"Okay." She gave him her address and he made a note in a pocket pad.
"What kind of food do you like?" he said. "Oh, don't answer that, I remember, you think about your particle accelerator." They emerged into the hot sun. He squeezed her arm lightly. "See you tonight."
"Berry," she said, "you're not after something, are you?"
He winked at her. "What have you got?"
She laughed and walked away.
35
TEST-TUBE BABIES. IN VITRO FERTILIZATION. THAT WAS THE link. Jeannie saw it all.
Charlotte Pinker and Lorraine Logan had both been treated for subfertility at the Aventine Clinic. The clinic had pioneered in vitro fertilization: the process by which sperm from the father and an egg from the mother are brought together in the laboratory, and the resulting embryo is then implanted in the woman's womb.
Identical twins occur when an embryo splits in half, in the womb, and becomes two individuals. That might have happened in the test tube. Then the twins from the test tube could have been implanted in two different women. That was how identical twins could be born to two unrelated mothers. Bingo.
The waitress brought Jeannie's salad, but she was too excited to eat it.
Test-tube babies were no more than a theory in the early seventies, she was sure. But Genetico had obviously been years ahead in its research.
Both Lorraine and Charlotte said they had been given hormone therapy. It seemed the clinic had lied to them about their treatment
That was bad enough, but as Jeannie thought through the implications she realized something worse. The embryo that split might have been the biological child of Lorraine and Charles, or of Charlotte and the Major--but not both. One of them had been implanted with another couple's child.
Jeannie's heart filled with horror and loathing as she realized they could both have been given the babies of total strangers.
She wondered why Genetico had deceived its patients in this appalling way. The technique was untried: perhaps they needed human guinea pigs. Maybe they had applied for permission and had been refused. Or they could have had some other reason for secrecy.
Whatever their motive for lying to the women, Jeannie now understood why her investigation scared Genetico so badly. Impregnating a woman with an alien embryo, without her knowledge, was about as unethical as could be imagined. It was no wonder they were desperate to cover it up. If Lorraine Logan ever found out what had been done to her, there would be hell to pay.
She took a sip of coffee. The drive to Philadelphia had not been wasted after all. She did not yet have all the answers, but she had solved the central puzzle. It was deeply satisfying.
Looking up, she was astonished to see Steve walk in.
She blinked and stared. He was wearing khakis and a blue b
utton-down, and as he came in he closed the door behind him with his heel.
She smiled broadly and stood up to greet him. "Steve!" she said delightedly. Remembering her resolution, she threw her arms around him and kissed him on the lips. He smelled different today, less tobacco and more spice. He hugged her to him and kissed her back. She heard the voice of an older woman saying, "My God, I remember when I felt like that," and several people laughed.
She released him. "Sit here. Do you want something to eat? Share my salad. What are you doing here? I can't believe it. You must have followed me. No, no, you knew the name of the clinic and you decided to meet me."
"I just felt like talking to you." He smoothed his eyebrows with the tip of his index finger. Something about the action bothered her--Who else have I seen do that?--but she pushed it to the back of her mind.
"You go in for big surprises."
Suddenly he seemed edgy. "I do?"
"You like to show up unexpectedly, don't you?"
"I guess so."
She smiled at him. "You're a little strange today. What's on your mind?"
"Listen, you got me all hot and bothered," he said. "Can we get out of here?"
"Sure." She put a five-dollar bill on the table and stood up.
"Where's your car?" she said as they stepped outside.
"Let's take yours."
They got into the red Mercedes. She fastened her seat belt, but he did not. As soon as she pulled away he edged close to her on the bench seat, lifted her hair, and started kissing her neck. She liked it, but she felt embarrassed, and she said: "I think we may be a little too old to do this in a car."
"Okay," he said. He stopped and turned to face forward, but he left his arm draped around her shoulders. She was heading east on Chestnut. As they came to the bridge he said: "Take the expressway--there's something I want to show you." Following the signs, she turned right onto Schuylkill Avenue and pulled up at a stoplight.
The hand over her shoulder dropped lower and he started fondling her breast. She felt her nipple stiffen in response to his touch, but all the same she felt uncomfortable. It was strangely like being felt up on a subway train. She said: "Steve, I like you, but you're going a little too fast for me."
He made no reply, but his fingers found her nipple and pinched it hard.