Nondisclosure: A Medical Thriller

Kristy gave me a big smile when I got back to my office. I was grateful. It was nice to feel like someone was happy to see me. Her desk was covered with notebooks and spreadsheets, which I guessed must be a source of good news.

“You look busy but happy,” I said. “Still hunting for the missing twenty thousand?”

“Yep. And I think we’re getting there. Ed’s been a big help.”

“Ed Carlson. You know, the college financial guy.”

I raised an eyebrow. “The same Carlson who acted like such a jerk at our meeting with the dean?”

“You wouldn’t know it, but yes, the same guy. I traced the deficit to a shortfall in our travel reimbursement from research accounting, but I couldn’t figure out what went wrong. So I went to him and admitted defeat. At first, he acted like I was a moron and went back through all my numbers himself. But when he hit the same blank wall as I had, he started to get interested.”

“Hold on, you mean it’s not some kind of simple mistake in the books?”

“Not on my end anyway. And once Ed was convinced of that, he dug in and wanted to help figure it out.” She smiled. “We’re buds now.”

I wished I could say the same about Karen and me, but I wasn’t so sure at the moment.

“Congratulations, I guess accounting makes strange friends.” Although given Kristy’s sexual orientation, not bedfellows. Which was where I had to admit that I hoped Karen and I were heading.

I mentally slapped myself to refocus. “So what’s going on?”

“It’s a discrepancy in our travel budget and reimbursements from central research accounting. Basically, I gave out more money in travel funds to our faculty than I got back from central.”

“I’m not sure I follow. How could that happen?” I had to admit that I didn’t know how the process of travel reimbursements worked. It was one of those bureaucratic details I avoided worrying about. That’s what administrators like Kristy were for.

She looked at me with a faint smile. “You don’t even know how the process works, do you?”

“Actually, no. It’s one of those things I’m happy to leave to you.”

“Okay, here’s a crash course. You know that our faculty members travel to attend all sorts of conferences and meetings. Their trips usually wind up being covered by grant funds, but it can often take several months before those expenses get paid. So I give out advances from department funds first and then send people’s receipts on to the research accounting office for approval and processing. Then the department gets paid back from research accounting when the money eventually comes in from whoever is paying for the trip.”

“Seems simple enough. What’s the problem?”

“Last year I apparently gave out twenty thousand more than I got back from central. Nineteen thousand, four hundred and fifty-two, to be exact.”

“Can’t you just check the travel advances you gave out versus central accounting’s records?”

“That’s the way it should work. And why Ed thought I was an idiot when I couldn’t reconcile it. But their records match mine, except the actual money we received falls short.”

“I don’t get it. You mean there were bills that went to central, and they didn’t actually pay the money back to us?”

“That’s what it looks like. But I can’t figure out what requests those were, and research accounting won’t tell me. At first, they insisted the problem was in my records. Then Ed pushed them, and someone higher up finally said that some of our reimbursements were being delayed because of a random audit, but he wasn’t at liberty to provide any details. That got Ed really mad, so he had Dean Houghton send them a memo, and he thinks that’ll get them to tell us what’s going on. And hopefully give us our money.”

I rolled my eyes. “What a nuisance. Mysterious random audits, like the IRS or something. Oh well, at least you’ve got the dean’s office on our side now.”

I proceeded into my office. No wonder I couldn’t keep my mind on science. As if Steve Upton wasn’t enough, now it looked like the department budget was entangled in some kind of bureaucratic bookkeeping mess.

And then there was Karen. Had I blown it with her?

I checked my email. At least there were no new crises. But there was an interesting one from my student Laurie.

I’ve got some more nice data with a new compound from Josh. Even better than before! Are you going to be around so I can show you? I’d like to plan out what we should do next with this.

I smiled to myself. Good for her. And a chance to escape from fretting about Karen and think about science for a bit. I responded that I’d be right over and headed back out the door.

Laurie was working at one of the cell culture hoods when I got to the lab. The hood was a six-foot-long cabinet with a glass sash separating Laurie from the cultures she manipulated inside it. She was wearing purple latex gloves and a lab coat to protect the sterile cell cultures from the bacteria and yeast on her skin.

“Here I am,” I said.

She looked up with a smile. “Great. Thanks so much for coming over. Just give me a minute, and I’ll show you the good news.”

She continued adding fresh culture medium to a dozen dishes on a metal tray in the hood. When she finished, she stood up and transferred the tray to a nearby incubator. Then she removed another tray containing six dishes. “We can look at these. They’re from my newest experiment and really make the point.”

I followed her over to a microscope on the lab bench in the rear of the room. We both sat down, and she put a dish under the scope. “Start with these,” she said. “Untreated normal cells.”

The dish was filled with healthy cells, triangle-shaped, with nice, round nuclei in their centers. “Okay, these look nice,” I said.

“Now look at these. Normal cells after a low dose of X-rays.”

She put a new dish under the microscope, and I scanned it. Most of the cells were healthy, but some were now dark and shriveled up. Dead cells.

“All right. Maybe ten percent dead.”

“And now these are normal cells treated with Josh’s drug and then x-rayed.”

I looked again. “About the same as X-rays alone.”

She smiled. “Right. Now for the good part. Start with these—untreated cancer cells.”

Nice healthy cells, although different from the normal ones. I could tell they were cancerous because they were rounder and had odd-shaped nuclei. I gave the dish back to her, and she gave me a new one. “Now cancer cells after X-irradiation.”

“Like the normal cells, about ten percent dead,” I said.

She gave me the last dish. “And now the winner. Cancer cells after irradiation and Josh’s new drug.”

I looked again and did a double take. This culture was almost completely filled with dead cells. “Wow, this is at least eighty percent killing! Amazing. Even better than what you showed me before.”

She grinned ear to ear. “I knew you’d like it. This new compound Josh made really works!”

“It sure does,” I said. “An increase like this in killing cancer cells without an effect on normal cells could be a big deal in radiation treatment. You’re right. We should plan out what to put together for a paper on this.”

“Hang on a minute.” She bent down and pulled a paper bag out of the bottom drawer of the lab bench. “Here, this is for you to celebrate.”

I opened the bag and pulled out a bottle of my favorite single malt. I laughed. “Why thank you. But how’d you know what to get? This is the scotch that I always drink.”

“Don’t you remember the Christmas skit? The whole department knows your favorite scotch.”

I rolled my eyes. “Ah yes, I remember.”

It had been a holiday skit where the students had done mock news reporter interviews with three or four faculty members, including me. They’d asked what I did when I got home after a hard day. I told them I had a glass of scotch. Then they asked what I did after a good day, and I said a glass of scotch. And so forth. I didn’t remember telling them my favorite brand, but I guess I had. So it seemed that my drinking habits were public record in the department. How nice.

“Well, that’s kind of embarrassing,” I said. “But thank you. I’ll enjoy this tonight. What will you do to celebrate?”

“Oh, don’t worry. I’ll make sure Seth takes me out for a nice dinner.” She gave a little wink. “But seriously, do you think we should talk with Josh and Professor Upton? I’d like to plan out the rest of the experiments. One of the questions is whether we should test more compounds. Josh says he could synthesize other derivatives to see if we can get one that works even better. Or should we publish what we have first and then make more derivatives for a second paper?”

I considered for a minute. I wasn’t sure I wanted to get more involved with Upton, given his status as the prime suspect. And Karen’s concerns. But Laurie was right. We needed to talk with them to decide how to proceed. And I wasn’t going to let Karen’s unfair accusation that my judgment was compromised interfere with Laurie’s progress. I was perfectly capable of keeping the science separate from the assault case.

“Yes, we should meet with them,” I agreed. “Can you set something up?”

She smiled. “I thought you’d say that. Josh and Professor Upton are both upstairs now, expecting that we may come up. I’ll send Josh a text that we’re on our way.”

Laurie grabbed her notebook, and we took the stairs up to the eighth floor. Upton was in his office, sitting at his conference table with a lanky young man that I recognized as Josh. While Laurie and I took the remaining two seats at the table, Josh turned on a PowerPoint projector that was hooked up to his laptop. Then he went over to Upton’s whiteboard and began to review the relevant features of the drugs he’d synthesized.

The first drug that Laurie had gotten results with had a double-ring structure with twelve carbons. Josh explained that he’d modified this by adding chlorines to several different positions. Laurie had so far tested three of these and one, with a chlorine added to carbon number 10, was the compound that had given the remarkable results she showed me today. Testing of the others was in progress, and Josh suggested that he could make derivatives with several other chemical groups added instead of chlorine. Maybe the new compound could be made even better.

Laurie also wanted to test the compounds on several different types of cancer cells to determine the generality of their action. In addition, she thought it would be a good idea to see whether Josh’s drugs made cancer cells more sensitive to anticancer drugs, like they did to irradiation. If so, they could play an important role in chemotherapy as well as radiation treatment.

Upton and I exchanged glances and nods of approval. These kids were good. The two of them had obviously thought this through, as if they were seasoned investigators. We had little to add except encouragement and congratulations on a job well done. This was one of the biggest rewards that came from being a thesis advisor for a graduate student—watching students become independent enough to develop their own research plans. I basked in Laurie’s progress, and judging from Upton’s encouragement, he was feeling the same about Josh.

When Laurie and Josh excused themselves to go down to the lab and work out some experimental details that didn’t need our input, I asked Upton how Emily was doing.

“Surprisingly well,” he said. “She seems like her normal self, working hard in the lab and interacting with me and the rest of the group just like always. She’s been to someone in student health that your detective colleague recommended, and she says that seems really helpful. How about on your end? Are you making any progress in figuring out what happened?”

I wasn’t about to touch that one. Certainly not to fill Upton in on our progress. “Working on it, but not there yet.”

I’d been struck by Upton’s focus on the science and obvious pride in Josh earlier. And he certainly seemed straightforward and supportive in talking about Emily. If he was Emily’s assailant and worried about our investigation, it was an impressive act. Or he was innocent and not thinking about it. My mind was still open on his involvement, but this meeting made it still harder for me to picture him as a pervert.

I started to leave the office, but he got up and walked me to the elevator. When it stopped on our floor, he offered his hand and said, “Thanks for what looks like a good collaboration.” We were shaking hands when the elevator door opened, and Mike Singer stood there, looking at us.

I got into the elevator and exchanged brief greetings with Singer before he returned to talking to the woman beside him. When he did, I politely faced the front of the car and let them continue their conversation without interruption. But I could feel his eyes boring into my back as the elevator descended.