looked back, pointing a gun at her. There was no surprise or panic in his face, just a look of exhaustion, aggravation, defeat — the look of a man whose car had just blown a tire on his way to work. Harvey sighed heavily, closed the lab door behind him, and tried to smile.
“I haven’t had a chance to move him,” he said by way of explanation.
24
Susan Grey’s knees felt wobbly. She continued to stare at her name written in Bruce’s familiar scrawl.
“Look at the other side,” Jennifer said in a hollow voice.
Susan turned the envelope over:
She fell heavily onto the couch, her eyes still glued on the envelope. “Another suicide note?”
“I don’t know.”
“Mommy…”
“Come with me, Tommy,” Jennifer said, steering the child away. “Let’s go into the kitchen.”
Left alone, Susan flipped the envelope back over.
Her name was written by her dead husband in large block letters. The familiar penmanship raked across her heart. She could look at pictures of Bruce, listen to him talk on a cassette, even watch him on a videotape. But there was something so personal about handwriting, something so individual, so eerie, that she had to look away for a moment.
She pushed back her long brown hair and fumbled open the envelope. Several pages of plain white paper slipped out and fell to the floor. She reached down, picked them up, and unfolded them. As her eyes traveled down the lines of written text, they widened:
Dear Susan,
If you are reading this letter, it means that my suspicions were correct. For much of the past two weeks I was hoping that I was merely paranoid or even a full-fledged nutcase. I wanted to be everything but right. I even hesitate in sending you this letter because like it or not, I have put you in danger. Someone will kill to get their hands on this package. Someone has already killed twice (and now that I am dead, three times) because of what has been occurring in the clinic.
I wish I could give you some sound advice about what to do with the contents of this letter, but I can’t. I probably should have gone to the NIH or to the media and showed them what I had, but I was afraid of the results. I thought I could handle it on my own. Evidently, I was wrong. But if I had gone to the media and exposed the truth, I would have played into the hands of our enemies, the bigots who want to take away all AIDS financing. Now, it is your choice to make.
Where did it suddenly go wrong? I don’t know. When did I first become suspicious? That too is a tough question to answer. I think it was after the first murder, the murder of Scott Trian, but more likely, it was after Bill Whitherson was killed in a similar fashion. The timing of the murders seemed such a strange coincidence to me. Harvey and Eric did not see it that way. They feared that someone was targeting our cured patients. But I saw something else unusual — the recent deterioration of both Trian and Whitherson. We had all assumed that they were suffering from SR1 side effects, but what if that wasn’t so? Whatever was wrong with Scott and Bill had still been in its infancy, but what if it was somehow AIDS-related?
Now that they were both dead and buried, there was no way to check. I asked Harvey about the possibility, but he just shrugged it off, which was not like him. I tried to press the issue, but the more I did, the more hostile Harvey became. “Whose side are you on anyway?” he would ask. “If you think the cure isn’t working, go retest Krutzer, Leander, and Singer.”
I did. I was relieved to see that they were all still HIV negative. But then again, they had not been treated as long as Trian or Whitherson. That bothered me. I was going to confront Harvey again but decided against it. He was all worked up over the latest round of proposed budget cuts. The members of the medical budget committee were preparing to pounce upon us like so many vultures on a wounded animal. The competition for funds is incredible. We spend more time agonizing over budget cuts than on curing patients — a shame but that is reality.
I decided to sneak behind Harvey’s back and draw blood from Riccardo Martino (you will find his chart enclosed in the packet). Then I had his blood tested. When the results of his Western blot and ELISA came back, I wanted to scream. Martino was HIV positive. He had AIDS. I panicked and ran toward Harvey’s office to tell him the awful news. But something made me stop. Harvey’s blind dedication has always intimidated me, but for the first time I was actually afraid of him. Our funding was about to be cut off, and I knew Harvey would do anything to keep us operating. But how far had he gone?
I walked into his office calmly and asked him when he planned on testing Martino again. He informed me that a result should be ready tomorrrow. I, of course, did not sleep that night. When I awoke in the morning, I sprinted into the lab, checked Martino’s code number, and looked at the blood sample for myself. Imagine my surprise to find both the Western blot and ELISA test showed that Martino was HIV negative, not positive.
How could it be? Had one of the tests been wrong? Did SR1 work? Was it a permanent cure or merely a temporary one? And how did the murders of Scott Trian and Bill Whitherson fit in? Were the murders a plot to destroy the clinic? A terrible coincidence? Or was there something else going on?
On the other hand, I had tested Krutzer, Leander, and Singer myself, and they were all cured. There was no question about it. So what exactly was I afraid Harvey had done? Tampered with some patients and not others? That would make no sense. Besides, Winston O’Connor ran most of the tests. Sometimes Eric. Very rarely did Harvey do any lab work.
It took me a while, Susan, but eventually I figured out what he was up to. The proof of Harvey’s crimes is in this packet.
My plane is landing, so I will have to wrap this up now. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, I do not know what will happen once I land. For that reason I will save the long explanations and give you some specific instructions. Enclosed are my private journals on each patient. I picked up the blood samples from our storage house in Bangkok. As per the clinic’s rules, all tested specimens were packaged after each test by either Eric Blake or Winston O’Connor. You will notice that there are two blood samples for each patient, labeled A and B. Sample A was taken from the patient when he was admitted (hence HIV positive). Sample B was taken when he was cured (hence HIV negative). Have someone you can trust run DNA tests on the two blood samples. When they don’t match, it will become clear what has been done.
The plane is on the ground now. I do not know if Harvey is acting alone or with some help. I cannot imagine he slaughtered Trian and Whitherson on his own, so I assume he has accomplices. I am sure that he is on to me. So tonight I will hide someplace. Tomorrow morning I will confront him in the clinic, where I know there will be a lot of witnesses and I will be safe. Since you are reading this letter, I guess I screwed up someplace. Know that I love you, Susan, and I am sorry for all the pain I caused. Please let Tommy know that his father will always love him and somehow I will always be with him.
Good-bye, Susan,
Bruce
She did not move. She just sat for a very long time. There was no need to reread the note.
“Susan?”
She turned toward her sister. “Bruce mentioned a package.”
“I mailed it to Harvey yesterday. He thought it might be important.”
Susan sat up. “Does anyone else know about this?”
