Darkest Fear

features. Everything pointed down — her nose, her chin, her eyebrows. Sort of harsh.

'You're staring,' she said.

'I don't mean to.'

She pointed to her forehead. 'You were maybe expecting a dot?'

'Er, no.'

'Very good, then let's get to it, shall we?'

'Okay.'

'Mrs. Downing wants me to tell you whatever you want to know.'

'I appreciate your taking the time.'

'Are you a private investigator?' she asked.

'More like a family friend.'

'Did you play basketball with Greg Downing?'

Myron was always surprised by the memory of the public. After all these years, people could still recall his big games, his big shots, sometimes with more clarity than Myron could. 'You're a fan?'

'Nope,' she said. 'Can't stand sports actually.'

'So how did you—'

'Just a deduction. You're tall and about the right age and you said you were a family friend. So…' She shrugged.

'Nice deduction.'

'It's what we do here when you think about it. Deduce. Some diagnoses are easy. Others must be deduced from the evidence. You ever read Sherlock Holmes?'

'Sure.'

'Sherlock said that you should never theorize before you have facts — because then you twist facts to suit theories rather than twisting theories to suit facts. If you see a misdiagnosis, nine times out of ten they ignored Sherlock's axiom.'

'Did that happen with Jeremy Downing?'

'As a matter of fact,' she said, 'it did.'

Somewhere down the hall, a machine started beeping. The sound hit the nerves like a police taser.

'So his first doctor screwed up?'

'I won't get into that. But Fanconi anemia isn't common. And because it looks like other things, it's often misdiagnosed.'

'So tell me about Jeremy.'

'What's to tell? He has it. Fanconi anemia, that is. In simple terms, his bone marrow is corrupted.'

'Corrupted?'

'In layman's term, it's shit. It makes him susceptible to a host of infections and even cancers. It commonly turns into AML.' She saw the puzzled look on his face and added, 'That's acute myelogenous leukemia.'

'But you can cure him?'

' 'Cure' is an optimistic word,' she said. 'But with a bone marrow transplant and treatments with a new flu- darabine compound, yes, I believe his prognosis is excellent.'

'Fluda-what?'

'Not important. We need a bone marrow donor that matches Jeremy. That's what counts here.'

'And you don't have one.'

Dr. Singh shifted on the mattress. 'That's correct.'

Myron felt the resistance. He decided to back off, test another flank. 'Could you take me through the transplant process?'

'Step by step?'

'If it's not too much trouble.'

She shrugged. 'First step: find a donor.'

'How do you go about that?'

'You try family members, of course. Siblings have the best chance of matching. Then parents. Then people of similar background.'

'When you say people of similar background—'

'Blacks with blacks, Jews with Jews, Latino descent with Latino descent. You'll see that quite often in marrow drives. If the patient is, for example, a Hasidic Jew, the donation drives will take place within their shuls. Mixed blood is usually the hardest to match.'

'And Jeremy's blood or whatever you need to match — it's fairly rare?'

'Yes.'

Emily and Greg were both of Irish descent. Myron's family came from the usual potpourri of old Russia and Poland and even a little Palestine thrown in. Mixed blood. He thought about the paternity implications.

'So after you exhausted the family, how do you search for the match?'

'You go to the national registry.'

'Where are they located?'

'In Washington. You listed?'

Myron nodded.

'They keep computer records there. We search for a preliminary match in their banks.'

'Okay, now assuming you find a match in the computer—'

'A preliminary match,' she corrected. 'The local center calls the potential donor and asks them to come in. They run a battery of tests. But the odds of matching are still fairly slim.'

Myron could see that Karen Singh was relaxing, comfortable with the familiar subject matter, which was exactly what he wanted. Interrogations are a funny thing. Sometimes you go for the full frontal attack, and sometimes you sidle up, friendly-like, and sneak in the back. Win put it simpler: Sometimes you get more ants with honey, but you should always pack a can of Raid.

'Let's suppose you find a full-fledged donor,' Myron said. 'What then?'

'The center acquires the donor's permission.'

'When you say 'center,' do you mean the national registry in Washington?'

'No, I mean the local center. Do you have your donor card in your wallet?'

'Yes.'

'Let me see it.'

Myron took out his wallet, flipped through about a dozen supermarket discount cards, three video club memberships, a couple of those buy-a-hundred-coffees-get-ten-cents-off-the-hundredth coupon, that sort of thing. He found the donor card and handed it to her.

'See here,' she said, pointing to the back. 'Your local center is in East Orange, New Jersey.'

'So if I was a preliminary match, the East Orange center would call me?'

'Yes.'

'And if I ended up being a full match?'

'You'd sign some papers and donate marrow.'

'Is that like donating blood?'

Karen Singh handed the card back to him and shifted again. 'Harvesting bone marrow is a more invasive procedure.'

Invasive. Every profession has its own buzzwords. 'How so?'

'For one thing, you have to be put under.'

'Anesthesia?'

'Yes.'

'And then what do they do?'

'A doctor sticks a needle through the bone and sucks the marrow out with a syringe.'

Myron said, 'Eeuw.'

'As I just explained, you're not awake during the procedure.'

'Still,' Myron said, 'it sounds much more complicated than giving blood.'

'It is,' she said. 'But the procedure is safe and relatively painless.'