“You doctors are all the same,” Shirley complained, taking a sip. “You make everything sound complicated.”
“It is complicated,” Jason said, sitting back down. “Molecular genetics concerns the fundamental basis of life. Research in this area is scary, not just because scientists might accidentally create a new and deadly bacterium or virus. It is just as scary if it goes right, because we are playing with life itself. Hayes’s tragedy was not that he failed; the problem was that he succeeded.”
“What did he discover?”
“In a moment,” Jason said, taking a long drink of beer and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Let me put the story another way. We all reach puberty at about the same time, and if disease or accident doesn’t intervene, we all age and die in about the same life-span.”
Shirley nodded.
“Okay,” Jason said, leaning toward her. “This happens because our bodies are genetically programmed to follow an internal timetable. As we develop, different genes are turned on while others are turned off. This is what fascinated Hayes. He had been studying the ways humoral signals from the brain control growth and sexual maturation. By isolating one after another of these humoral proteins, he discovered what they did to peripheral tissues. He was hoping to find out what caused cells to either start dividing or stop dividing.”
“That much I do understand,” Shirley said. “It’s one of the reasons we hired him. We hoped he’d make a breakthrough in cancer treatment.”
“Now let me digress a moment,” Jason said. “There was another researcher by the name of Denckla, who was experimenting on ways to retard the aging process. He took out the pituitary glands of rats, and after replacing the necessary hormones, found that the rats had an increased life-span.”
Jason stopped and looked expectantly at Shirley.
“Am I supposed to say something?” she asked.
“Doesn’t Denckla’s experiment suggest something to you?”
“Why don’t you just tell me.”
“Denckla deduced that not only does the pituitary secrete the hormones for growth and puberty, but it also secretes the hormone for aging. Denckla called it the death hormone.”
Shirley laughed nervously. “That sounds cheerful.”
“Well, I believe that while Hayes was researching growth factors, he stumbled onto Denckla’s postulated death hormone,” Jason said. “That was what he meant by an ironic discovery. While looking for growth stimulators, he finds a hormone that causes rapid aging and death.”
“What would happen if this hormone were given to someone?” Shirley asked.
“If it were given in isolation, probably not much. The subject might experience some symptoms of aging, but the hormone would probably be metabolized and its effect limited. But Hayes wasn’t studying the hormone in isolation. He realized that in the same way the secretion of the sex and growth hormone is triggered, there had to be a releasing factor for the death hormone. He was immediately drawn to the life cycle of salmon, which die within hours of spawning. I believe he collected salmon heads and isolated the death hormone’s releasing factor from the brains. This was the free-lance work I think he did at Gene, Inc. Once he had isolated the releasing factor, he had Helene reproduce it in quantity by recombinant DNA techniques at his GHP lab.”
“Why would Hayes want to produce it?”
“I believe he hoped to develop a monoclonal antibody that would prevent the secretion of the death hormone and halt the aging process.” All at once Jason realized what Hayes meant about his discovery becoming a beauty aid. It would preserve youthful good looks, like Carol’s.
“What would happen if the releasing factor were given to someone?”
“It would turn on the death gene, releasing the aging hormone just the way it is in salmon — with pretty much the same results. The subject would age and die in three or four weeks. And nobody would know why. And this brings me to the worst thing of all. I believe someone obtained the artificially created hormone Helene was producing at our lab and started giving it to our patients. Whoever it is must be insane — but that’s what I think has been happening. Hayes caught on — probably when he visited his son — and was given the aging factor himself. If he hadn’t died that night, I think he’d have been killed some other way.” Jason shuddered.
“How did you find out?” Shirley whispered.
“I followed Hayes’s experimental trail. When Helene was murdered I guessed that Hayes had been telling the truth both about his discovery and the fact that someone wanted him dead.”
“But Helene was raped by an unknown intruder.”
“Sure. But only to mislead the police as to the motive for her murder. I always felt she knew more than she was telling about Hayes’s work. When I learned that she’d been having an affair with him, I was sure.”
“But who would want to kill our patients?” Shirley asked desperately.
“A sociopath. The same kind of nut who puts cyanide in Tylenol. Tonight at the clinic I had the computer print out survival curves and death curves. The results were incredible. There’s been a significant increase in the death rate at GHP for patients over fifty who are chronically ill or who have high-risk lifestyles.” Suddenly Jason stopped. “Damn!”
“What’s the matter?” Shirley asked, looking about nervously, as if the danger were just around the corner.
“I forgot something. I printed the curves month by month — I didn’t look at them doctor by doctor.”
“You think a physician’s behind this?” Shirley asked incredulously.
“Must be. A doctor-or maybe a nurse. The releasing factor would be a polypeptide protein. It would have to be injected. If it was administered orally, the gastric juices would degrade it.”
“Oh, my God.” Shirley dropped her head into her hands. “And I thought we had troubles before.” She took a breath and looked up. “Isn’t there a chance you could be wrong, Jason? Maybe the computer made a mistake. God knows, data processing breaks down often enough….”
Jason put his hand on her shoulder. He knew that her hard-won empire was about to come crashing down. “I’m not wrong,” he said gently. “I also did something else tonight. I saw Hayes’s son at Hartford.”
“And…?”
“It’s a horror. All the kids on his ward must have been given the releasing factor. Apparently it acts more slowly on prepubescent subjects, so the boys are still alive. There must be some kind of hormonal competition with growth hormone. But they all look one hundred years old.”
Shirley shuddered.
“That’s why I wanted to know the name of the current medical director.”
“You think Peterson’s responsible?”
“He’d have to be a prime suspect.”
“Maybe we should go to the clinic and double-check the computer. We could even rerun your survival curves by doctor.”
Before Jason could answer, the door buzzer shattered the silence and made them both jump. Jason got to his feet, his heart pounding.
Shirley dropped her drink on the table. “Who could that be?”
“I don’t know.” Jason had told Carol not to leave her apartment, and Curran would have called before coming over.
“What should we do?” Shirley asked urgently.
“I’m going downstairs and have a look.”
“Is that such a good idea?”
“Got a better one?”
Shirley shook her head. “Just don’t open the door.”
“What do you think I am — crazy? Oh — and one thing I didn’t tell you. Someone tried to kill me.”
“No! Where?”
“In a remote country inn east of Seattle.”
He unlocked his apartment door. “Maybe you’d better not go down,” Shirley said hurriedly.