Mary O’Connor was at her desk in the Langmere, mindlessly flipping through the pages of a journal, unable to get her mind off the Pam Weller mess. She was growing more and more uncomfortable with the role she found herself playing. Not that she had any choice about it, but the responsibility of repeating Pam’s experiments weighed on her. On top of chairing her tenure committee, O’Connor now had to supervise the work of Pam’s postdocs. Holly was cooperative and appeared to welcome her efforts, but George was standoffish and viewed her with suspicion. It was aggravating and was taking more of her time than she wanted to spend on someone else’s problems. At least the new appointment as Associate Director of Research made it worthwhile. Fortunately, the experiments appeared to be proceeding on course. The results should start coming in within the next few days and one way or another, this would all be over and done with.

She sighed and put the journal aside. May as well go listen to this afternoon’s seminar. The speaker was an assistant professor from Yale whom she didn’t know but had heard was good. Maybe that and a cup of coffee would keep her awake.

She got as far as her office door when the phone rang and she turned back to pick it up, wondering if this was yet another call from either Pam or DeSilva asking about progress. Both of them were bugging her almost daily. But instead the call was from Eric Prescott.

“Mary, I’m afraid there’s something unpleasant I have to talk to you about. Do you have a few minutes?”

Great. More problems. “Sure, what’s up?”

“I’m worried about Pam Weller. I know you’re a mentor to her, so I hope I can speak freely to you about this. I don’t want to do anything to cause more trouble for her.”

O’Connor knew that she couldn’t keep anything back from DeSilva, given her role in all this. But she said, “Of course, I wouldn’t do anything that’s not in Pam’s best interest.”

“I don’t know if you’ve heard any of this,” Prescott said, “but there are rumors flying all over the place that Pam’s work on aneurinide can’t be reproduced. It seems like at least a dozen labs have tried it by now, all with negative results.”

This was getting worse and worse. “I’ve heard there are problems reproducing her work. But really, no one has been able to confirm it?”

“I’m afraid that’s right. That’s why I’m worried.”

“Well, Pam says the problems are just due to technical difficulties with the cell culture system.”

“Maybe,” Prescott said. “But other labs also have the system working, not just Pam’s. And some labs, including mine, are starting to see results coming in from mouse experiments. It’s early yet, but we’re not seeing any effect of aneurinide in those experiments either. Nor is anyone else.”

“I see,” O’Connor said slowly. “But you know Pam and how careful she is. I can’t believe her results aren’t right. What do you think can be going on?”

“I don’t know. I can’t imagine how this can be happening either. But I have to tell you, people are starting to say that the paper must be faked.”

Prescott’s words seemed to echo through the room. Could Pam’s paper really be a gigantic fake?

“Eric, you can’t mean fraud! Why would Pam do that? What could she possibly gain? Even if she got tenure before it was discovered, she’d eventually be exposed and her career destroyed.”

“I don’t have the answer to that either. But you know as well as I do there have been a number of big-time fraud cases in recent years. It’s hard to imagine how any of them thought they could get away with it. But for reasons of their own, they went ahead anyway.”

O’Connor trembled at the thought of finding herself in the middle of a major scandal. My career could depend on how I handle this. She had to distance herself from Pam and make sure she was viewed as an independent third party.

“I know, I suppose we have to consider the possibility. Look, I’ll tell you confidentially that DeSilva has already taken it upon himself to resolve this. He’s asked me to set up an independent repeat of her experiments. Pam’s postdocs are doing the work, so there won’t be any technical problems. But I’m the only one who knows which of the samples they’re testing is actually aneurinide. One way or another, we’ll get a definitive answer.”

“Excellent. I’m delighted to hear that.” Prescott sounded enthusiastic. “With you on top of this, it’ll get straightened out. I know you want it to succeed for Pam’s sake, but everyone also knows that you’re totally fair and objective. So once you have the data, whichever way it turns out, there’ll be an end to these destructive rumors.”

“Thanks, I appreciate your support. And yes, I’ll make sure we get to the bottom of this.”

“The whole field will be in your debt, Mary. This is much more important than any one scientist. We’re talking about what could be a treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, for God’s sake. If it’s right, we have to know it. But if it’s not and Pam’s paper really is fraud, then we have to deal with that as quickly as possible. How soon will you get your results?”

“I think it should only be a few more days. Since we’ve talked about this, I’ll let you know what happens. And thanks again for your confidence in me.”

“DeSilva couldn’t have picked anyone better for the job. I just hope it all turns out right.”