Ask Not For Whom The Panther Prowls (4 page)

Dr. Vazio of
the ESL department couldn't believe what he found. The discrepancy
between overseas results and the tests he gave his foreign students
when they took the ESL classes was beyond any statistically
reasonable possibility of being an accident. If it were only one or
two students, he could understand it. There were thirty of them,
supposedly fluent in English, but barely able to make themselves
understood. They were supposed to be GTA's, teaching undergraduates
in the next term. There was simply no way that they could perform
to expectation. He brought this to the attention of his chair and
was told to ignore it. It wasn't his problem. He made an
appointment with the Dean for tomorrow morning. As he exited the
elevator for his floor in the G-deck parking garage and headed
towards his car he felt a sharp sting but ignored it. The yellow
jackets were active this time of year and he assumed one had caught
him on his way to the car. He began to feel a little ill while
sitting in his car, but started it and backed out of his parking
spot. Swerving wildly he accelerated to the exit gate. He passed
out, jamming the accelerator pedal open. The car leaped through the
checkout gate, sending splinters flying and flew across Courtland
street. Crashing through the pedestrian barrier it fell down into
the parking lot on the ground level 30 feet bellow between the
Athletic Center and the ROTC building. The autopsy showed that he
died of a sudden heart attack, or as they labeled it spontaneous
idiopathic fibrillation. Spontaneous idiopathic fibrillation is a
fancy way of saying “heart attack, for unknown reasons.”

2

I stopped my chair's office to remind him that
he was invited to Laura and my engagement/wedding party on
Saturday. He was sitting with the department director of graduate
students. They said that they would be at the party, and then
asked, “Your student Tom, he's writing up isn't he?”

“
Should be,
especially if he expects to graduate at the end of
Summer.”

“
So you'll
be looking for another student then?”

If I stayed, that is, but I replied,
“Probably.”

“
Anything
against a foreign one?”

“
As long as
they're good. No.”

“
Take a look
at this one from China, named Shen Yi, he specifically asked to
work with you.”

They handed
me the student's file which had the standard mug shot, statement of
interests and glowing recommendations. I glanced at his GRE's and
TOEFL scores. “Why on earth would he want to come here, with scores
like these he could go to Harvard or Yale, maybe even
MIT?”

“
He doesn't
say, but he says he wants to work in your lab.”

“
That's
unusual.” I looked more carefully at the scores, his classes and
recommendations. “His verbal TOEFL is phenomenal. There are always
ways to fake the written ones, but faking the verbal test is a
little harder. It's like there was a ringer.”

“
I gave him
a phone interview myself. His English is very good. He said he's
been practicing with an American friend online.”

“
Want to bet
the friend lives in Atlanta? I wonder who she is. Well then, if he
wants to come here, send him an acceptance letter. He's certainly a
cut above the average.”

3

Class over, this time without any medical emergencies, I
was preparing to leave for Northside. In the absence of any real
evidence, I thought I would see if I could interview Jane. Either
heart disease had become infectious or there had to be some common
thread between the victims. Morrison called as I was headed to my
car.

“
Will?”

“
Yes.”

“
The medical examiner said his results were 'interesting'.
He couldn't check all the cases, but what he found was
unusual.”

“
What's that mean?”

“
Is there a drug problem at GSU?”

“
There's almost certainly some drug use, but it doesn't make
the newspaper.”

“
One was an overdose on Adderol.”

“
That happens at 'Tech
ⁱ
occasionally, I guess our classes are
getting harder so it's bound to happen here.”

“
Another looks like a potent mix of illegal drugs. Meth for
sure, maybe some others.”

“
Wouldn't surprise me,” with more than 30,000 students at
GSU there was bound to be an addict or two. “That's two. What about
the rest?”

“
He said most of the bodies had been released to the
families. When he very carefully went over the one he still had,
there was something that looked like a recent injection site,
maybe. It was just a pin prick.”

“
People inject Meth sometimes, don't they?”

“
Yes, but this wasn't on the body where there were traces of
Meth and the wound was much more superficial than he'd expect with
a Meth addict.”

“
So I guess there's nothing to go on.”

“
He said he's going to keep his eyes open. No clear evidence
of crime, but he wasn't happy that these were all normal deaths.
That's not bad.”

“
Not good, either.”

“
It's a start.”

4

Jane was sitting up in bed when I arrived. She had a
heart/breathing monitor still attached, but was no longer in the
ICU and was in a normal hospital room. I asked, “Do you mind if I
ask you some questions?”

She nodded, “Beats watching game show reruns and soap
operas.”

“
A few of the questions I want to ask have to do with drug
use. I won't tell your parents.”

“
There's nothing to tell. I have the odd beer with my
friends. That's all.”

“
You don't take anything to do better in school? Some
illicit Ritalin for example.”

“
Absolutely not. Besides, I had to take a drug test before I
could teach. I was clean. Why?”

“
Good, that eliminates one set of possible
leads.”

“
Leads?”

“
I'll fill you in after I've asked my questions, but I'm
trying to see if there is any common thread between the students
who've had 'heart attacks' lately.”

“
Sweet.”

“
Can you describe what happened the day you
collapsed?”

“
Well, I had class in the morning. Then lunch, and drove out
to my school. Nothing unusual.”

“
Really?”

“
There was that insect sting.”

“
Sting?”

“
I was out watching the children on the playground when a
wasp or bee stung me. It just flew into me, stung me and I brushed
it off. It was a bit odd, there was a sort of 'pop' noise at the
time.”

“
Ever been allergic to bees?”

“
No.”

“
Can I see where it stung you?”

She bared her arm, but there wasn't much to see. There was
possibly a small mark where she pointed. If there had been a wound,
it was well-healed. That line of questioning wasn't going anywhere.
So I tried another, “The other thing I need to do is look for a
common social thread between you and the other possible
victims.”

“
Grilling me about my private life?”

“
Not really, you just have to tell me if you know the person
I mention.” I started with the boys from my class. “Sam Green or
Steve Jordan?”

“
I knew Sam, we both worked tutoring jobs for the online ESL
service. He was a nice guy, for a Freshman.”

“
Steve?”

“
No. I don't think so.”

None of the other names I knew about were familiar. Before
I left I asked her how she was doing, Danny wanted to know when his
favorite teacher would return. She replied, “Pretty well, it's
funny though, parts of me are still numb or don't work right. It's
like I'm a robot and my wiring is wrong.”

5

I tried talking to the ESL lab to see if they would let me
see the list of students who worked for them. They said there was
this little issue of student privacy involved. This was a little
odd, since the freedom of information act makes everything spent or
done at GSU a matter of public record
ⁱⁱ
. So I asked again, and received the
same answer, this time a little more forcibly. If I showed up with
a police detective, a warrant and the down of an unhatched
pterodactyl they'd let me know. Otherwise, would I please go and do
something anatomically impossible to myself.

I gave Arthur a call. He asked me, “When are
you going to get back on a case that pays?” Then he agreed to see
what he could find out via informal channels. “I've helped a couple
of people in personnel, they should return the favor.” I didn't ask
any questions and he volunteered no further information.

6

Laura and I
threw and engagement/wedding party, partially to celebrate our
coming nuptials, and also to introduce our disparate friends to
each other. It also meant that we could skip out right after the
ceremony to have a honeymoon without a lot of fuss. I'd suggested
we go somewhere safe, say Somalia or Columbia, but Laura insisted
that the northern beaches of Jamaica would be best. In retrospect,
she was correct, I don't think she'd look good in a
burka.

The party
started well enough, given the mix of professors, the occasional
scared-looking graduate student, detectives and lawyers. Most of
our difficulty was making sure that the mixture didn't
self-segregate into knots of people who knew each other talking
about things they mutually knew. It was in this spirit that I
introduced one of the chemists, Isabelle Carling to a knot of
detectives containing my friend Alvin Morrison. They were
discussing shop, the status of the local drug trade, and I figured
her interests in synthetic organic chemistry would fit right
in.

One of the
detectives was saying, “There's a new source of Meth in south
side.”

“
Really,”
Dr. Carling observed, “How interesting.”

“
It is,” he
continued, “It's much cleaner than the usual stuff. Most of these
Meth cooks produce a mixture of products that is not very
pure.”

“
What do you
expect? It's hard to do a clean synthesis.”

“
This stuff,
it's clean, almost as if they used a real chemist to make it rather
than cooking it up in some shack in the woods.”

Isabelle dropped her glass. “I'm sorry. Didn't
mean to do that.”

While I was mopping up the mess I overheard a
bit more. The detective was continuing to expostulate, “It's called
'blue panther' for some reason. Couldn't have anything to do with
State could it?”

“
No, no.”
Isabelle quickly replied, “We have strict controls on our
chemicals. It would be impossible to set up a drug lab at
GSU.”

I wandered
off to dump the debris and rinse my rags, by the time I returned
the conversation was over. I also noticed Isabelle had made her
excuses and left.

Dr. John
Roger's work on micro-encapsulating drugs made the Signal, which
was a bit of a shame, because he wasn't there to enjoy the glory,
such as it was. His body was, but it was a bit of a toss up whether
he comprehended anything said around him. He was found in his
office, shaking and dribbling, and rushed to the emergency room. A
week later he was moved from Grady to long-term care.

My student
Tom and I met with Dr. Cleo and his group to see if our spectral
sensors could be combined with their work biological chemistry. It
could be useful to detect small concentrations of unusual molecules
and possibly aid in the remote automated diagnosis of diseases. It
would be nice to screen for the next outbreak of SARS or influenza
automatically in an airport before many people were ill from the
next pandemic. After an hour or so of scientific discussion our
talk inevitably turned to Dr. Rogers.

“
Pity about
him, going like that.”

“
True, he
could be a real douche-bag at times, but no one deserves what
happened to him.”

“
What did
happen to him?”

“
We think it
was a stroke, there isn't much else that fits.”

“
Damn, I
guess none of us are getting any younger. Any word of when they'll
start the job search for his replacement?”

“
It's
already started, they're trying to find another micro-encapsulation
guy.”

“
Really?”

“
Yes, his
patents could be very lucrative. Could fund the department for
years. He was working on time delay dosing. Imagine taking one pill
a month instead of every few hours.”

“
Why would
that be important?” Not being a biochemist, this seemed a little
excessive.

“
Things like
antibiotic resistance. If the patient skips pills or only takes
them when they feel sick then the bugs get resistant
quickly.”

“
Oh. Had he
any luck?”

“
Yes, he
could slow things down for a day or so.”

“
Things like
toxins?”