Dead Air (Sammy Greene Thriller) Read online

  As most of the group filed out, Conrad remained in the center of the room, irritated that his audience had been stolen from him by his hesitation.

  “Saved by the bell,” Bill Osborne whispered in his ear.

  Conrad turned to his friend and colleague. “Always the politician.”

  Though Conrad’s tone was obviously sarcastic, Osborne merely shrugged. In fact, he did affect a rather patrician air. His herringbone sports coat, impeccable blue button-down, pinpoint Oxford shirt, red silk tie, sleek black tassel loafers, and heavy silver ID bracelet were a fashion contrast to the threadbare tweed blazer, shiny corduroy trousers, and rubber-soled Rockports that Conrad wore.

  “We’re both too old to play the part of perpetual grad student,” Osborne said. “Personally, I want tenure.” He winked at Conrad. “Thought you did too.”

  Conrad ambled over to the couch and reached for his sherry glass, emptying it once again. “So did I.” He held the plaque to the lamplight, noting that under the inscription “Ellsford Award for Excellence in Teaching,” his name had been misspelled.

  “So why threaten to flunk our star forward?” Osborne asked.

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  “On the news. Campus radio, yesterday afternoon. Some female talk-show host.”

  “Wonderful,” Conrad snorted. “Truth is, if Bud Stanton doesn’t pass Monday’s midterm, no more basketball.”

  Osborne shook his head. “Death wish.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that if you don’t pass Stanton, EU can’t beat Duke. Which means otherwise generous alumni will think twice before writing their usual fat checks.”

  “Stanton doesn’t know a chromosome from a hole in the wall.”

  “And last semester he knew diddly about the superego.”

  “You passed him anyway?”

  “Don’t act naïve, Connie. Whether you know one bloody thing about psychology or genetics doesn’t matter in the least. What matters is how you play the game.”

  Conrad poured himself another drink. “And what if they ask you to take a fall?”

  Osborne frowned. “Meaning?”

  “To throw the g —” Conrad started to answer, then caught the unfriendly eye of Dean Jeffries who was heading toward them. “Call me tonight and I’ll explain,” he whispered.

  “Okay,” Osborne nodded. “I’m flying to New York tonight. My flight gets in at eight. I’ll call from the hotel.”

  “Dr. Jeffries!” Conrad recognized the high-pitched whine of Edwin Houk. The anemic junior history professor pulled the reluctant dean back to the middle of the room before he’d had an opportunity to reach Conrad. “Two of my students — our students — are up for a Rhodes. Quite an honor for us at Ellsford, wouldn’t you say?”

  Osborne turned back to Conrad with a barely concealed smirk. “Subtlety was never Houk’s strong suit.”

  “He’s a shoo-in for tenure.”

  “You could be, too. With your publications,” Osborne nodded at the plaque by Conrad’s glass, “and that.”

  “That.” Conrad took a large sip.

  Osborne’s tone reflected exasperation. “Come on, Connie. Have you thought about what’ll happen if you’re denied tenure here, too?”

  Conrad stared into his empty glass. “I suppose I’ll have to find another job.”

  “You’re not exactly a kid anymore.”

  Conrad tossed him an indignant look.

  “Anywhere you apply will need references. They’ll ask EU if you’re a team player.” He pointed to Dean Jeffries. “Speaking of which, we’d better do our bit to butter up the dean. Want to go save him from Houk?”

  Conrad waived the offer. “I can’t.”

  Osborne shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He turned back to his friend with one last warning. “Look, Connie, don’t be so self-righteous. You could end up committing academic suicide.”

  Student Health was just a few buildings away, but policy required paramedics to deliver the injured riot victims by ambulance — even those with minor injuries.

  “ID?” A nurse near the entrance accepted the plastic card. “Luther Abbott. Freshman.”

  “Have you been seen here before?”

  “Just for my shots.”

  “Good, then you’ve had your tetanus booster.” The nurse examined the back of his right hand.

  “Darn monkey practically bit my arm off.”

  The wound wasn’t deep, but there was a one-inch tear just below his wrist on the surface of his skin.

  “Look, it’s still bleeding!” Luther said. “I ought to sue the university!”

  “Uh-huh.” She tried to sound noncommittal. The last thing she wanted was involvement in some legal action. Bad enough she had to sign the incident report.

  “Will I need stitches?”

  “Animal bites like this are never closed. Too much chance for infection to spread,” she explained. “You’ll probably need antibiotics, though.” She instructed the paramedics to put the gurney in the treatment room. Then she told her assistant to start irrigating the wound with normal saline under pressure. “Doctor’ll be with you in a minute.” She handed the youth a clipboard. “Fill out this questionnaire in the meantime. Dr. Palmer requires it for his patients.”

  4:30 P.M.

  Upset by the faculty meeting, Conrad sought solitude and sanctuary in his tiny office. He stared vacantly through the window, its stained glass filtering early evening light onto his cluttered desk. Multicolored leaves from restless maples, oaks, and elms, shades of scarlet and maroon, blending with crimson and amber blanketed the meadow beyond the genetics building. Fall had stayed longer than usual this year, but there was a frail quality to this magnificent quilt, its brilliance all too transient. In a few weeks the covers would be a sterile white.

  Laughter and shouts from students on the walk, calling out plans for midterm cram sessions jolted Conrad back to his world. He reached in his drawer for his pipe. If only midterms were the hardest thing faced in life. If only life could freeze at those halcyon days.

  “Sorry I’m late.”

  The voice sounded familiar. Conrad looked up. Standing in the doorway was a young woman with short, curly copper-colored hair surrounding a heart shaped freckled face. Not quite five feet tall, in a bulky green wool sweater over black tights and mid-calf black leather boots, she appeared almost elfin. Only the heavy New York accent shattered the image of puckish innocence.

  “Excuse me?” She always sat in the back, didn’t she?

  “I know you said office hours were over by four, but, um, I got tied up,” Sammy repressed a chuckle. “Anyway, I’m glad you’re still here.”

  His tone was sardonic. “One of the few. It’s Friday afternoon.” He pointed to a ratty chair across from him. “Have a seat, Ms., um?”

  “Greene. Sammy. I’m taking your Bio one-o-one this semester.”

  “Ah, yes.” Conrad eased himself back in his chair with a polite smile. “What can I do for you, Samantha?” The sherry was diffusing through to his shaking hand as he raised it to light his pipe.

  “It’s Sammy — not short for Samantha. My parents were looking for something different.”

  “Sadly, I’m not the first Barton in my family.” Conrad said. “Did you bring your textbook?”

  “Nope, just this.” Sammy grabbed a mini-notebook and tape recorder from her purse, and placed them on the desk.

  Conrad’s eyes narrowed. “You with the Eagle? They can’t get one story straight.”

  “No, I’m here about the Ellsford Teaching Award.” Sammy smiled at the professor. “Well deserved, for sure.”

  His reddened eyes traveled to the plaque he’d placed on the windowsill. The edges were already tarnished, he noted without surprise. He shifted in his chair. “Okay. What do you want to know?”

  “Well, let’s see.” She flipped open the notebook. “You’ve been here — ?”

  “Six years.” Conrad chewed on his pipe.
r />   “Like some of our undergrads,” Sammy said. With so many required courses filled, it often took more than four years to graduate.

  Conrad’s eyes sought out a four-color brochure among a stack of papers on his desk. He pulled it from the pile and showed it to her. Recruiter’s Guide to Ellsford.

  “Yeah, I’ve seen it.”

  Conrad squinted to read one of the pitches. “ ‘Teaching is the mission of Ellsford University’. Sounds good,” he said, his voice filled with disdain. “But once your checks clear, teaching is no longer a priority.” He bit the end of his pipe. “No, what really counts here is something more quantitative.”

  “Such as?”

  “Articles, papers, books, for a start. There are forty thousand separate journals in the sciences alone; new articles are turned out every two minutes. That’s almost three thousand every twenty-four hours.” His laugh was bitter. “More and more people writing more and more articles that fewer and fewer read. And I’m not even going to talk about the trees.”

  “We have three Nobel laureates on this campus. Surely their research is important.”

  “Three among dozens of second- and third-rate hackers who will never come up with an important finding. Yet they fight for grants to fund mediocre work to produce yet another worthless paper. Quantity, not quality. Publish or perish. The overwhelming function of research is to get books and articles you wrote on your résumé for promotion and tenure.”

  “You’re up for tenure this year, aren’t you?”

  “I’m up for it. Now we’ll have to see what the Tenure Committee thinks.” Puffing on his pipe, he studied the chipped plaster on the ceiling and ruminated. “Ah, tenure. The ultimate protection from accountability. Freedom to —” He stopped himself, turned back to her and chuckled, “to be incompetent.”

  “You sound so cynical.”

  “Cynical? No, just realistic. The system is skewed to reward research. The best teacher in the world is known only in the perimeter of his campus; a mediocre researcher is known around the world.” Conrad shivered, trying to ward off a wave of vertigo. “Open your eyes. And I mean wide open. Disguised in the garb of academic excellence is a community of malcontents and thieves.”

  She smiled at him. “I’ve got to hand it to you. You’ve got chutzpah. “

  His mind wasn’t working clearly anymore. “Meaning?”

  “Yiddish word. Nerve. Like cojones,” she explained.

  “I know that. I mean, what are you referring to?”

  “Not kissing ass like the rest of the junior faculty.” Sammy’s bright eyes bore into his. “Bud Stanton.”

  Her intelligent features blended into a reddish blur. Conrad dropped his gaze to his hands clenched in his lap. The sherry wouldn’t loosen its grip. “You work for the campus radio station?”

  Sammy nodded at her tape recorder, “Yeah, I host a talk show.”

  Conrad tried to control his rising anger. Tight lipped, his voice was icy, “Yes, well, it’s late, Ms. — Sammy and, as you can see, I’m in my cups just now. Perhaps we should reschedule.” He rose unsteadily, clutching the edge of his desk for support.

  “Well, the award should help get you tenure,” Sammy ventured.

  Conrad eyed her coldly. “The Ellsford Teaching Award is hardly a prize to cherish.”

  “Sorry?”

  Conrad moved toward the door with measured steps, careening like a moth toward extinction. Halfway there, he turned back to Sammy with a pained smile. “Everybody knows it’s the kiss of death.” With that he stumbled from the office, slamming the door behind him.

  “Another one? Christ, that makes two in two months.”

  “Don’t worry. Nobody suspects a thing. Suicide among college students isn’t so rare. Even here at EU. Four or five manage to do it each year. Not to mention the hundreds who think about it.”

  “What about the autopsy?“

  They both knew that in cases of unexpected death, the law required an official medical examiner’s report.

  “Everything’s been taken care of. Just like last time. You’ll get the specimens you need tonight. The official report will be in the coroner’s computer system by Monday. Cause of death — suicide.”

  “And the body?”

  “On its way back to the grieving family tomorrow. Along with the Student Health Service records that his general practitioner requested.”

  “You’re not serious?”

  “Relax. They’ve already been doctored.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “Sorry.”

  “What does the chart show?”

  “We’re covered. Long history of depression. Grades down, girlfriend left him. That sort of thing.”

  “You sure like to live dangerously.”

  “Trust me. No one’ll figure this as anything more than a crop of crazy kids.” A pause. “So what’s the problem?”

  “I don’t know. These side effects. If we’re producing some kind of dementia, maybe we should suspend our work for a while, find out why.”

  “Let me remind you just how much is at stake here.”

  “If I can make a few adjustments. Recheck the original data. Maybe we stopped the animal studies too soon.”

  “You said yourself that even if the vaccine worked perfectly in monkeys, you couldn’t be sure it’d work in humans.”

  “I know, but —”

  “No buts, doctor. Any hint of a problem and the FDA will cancel our Phase III trials for good. Not to mention the scandal when the Human Subjects Committee finds out what you’re up to. Besides, you’re assuming the problem is yours. Maybe college life was too stressful for these kids and they checked out on their own. You’d have stopped the most important work since Salk for no reason.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Come on. Think of this as a temporary setback. Two bad outcomes, twenty successes. Pretty good stats, I’d say. And by this time next year you’ll have enough proof that this vaccine works to beat your French competitor to the marketplace. You and I, my dear doctor, will be richer than we’ve ever dreamed.”

  5:15 P.M.

  Through Conrad’s office window, Sammy watched the professor stagger across the meadow. She had no idea what she’d said to upset him. She shook her head. Damn. Monday’s show down the tubes. Maybe she ought to switch to Larry’s greenhouse story.

  “Jesus, there you are. I’ve been looking all over.”

  Sammy spun around to face Reed Wyndham. Not handsome in the classic sense, Reed was good looking in his own way. Deep violet eyes, a well-formed mouth, strong jawline, and thick waves of sandy hair all added to his appeal. Definitely an attractive guy, Sammy thought — even in his rumpled hospital whites.

  Now his eyes were red-rimmed from fatigue and pulsating with obvious annoyance. “Is it too much to ask that you meet me when and where we’d arranged? Thank goodness I found Larry still at the station. He told me where you might be.”

  “Look, I got caught up on a story.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “What do you mean ‘what does that mean?’ ”

  “You’re telling me you’ve got a hot story, so I can’t count on you?”

  “I would have called.”

  His lips registered doubt. After eight months of dating, they both knew that keeping schedules was not one of Sammy’s strong suits.

  Sammy’s jaw tightened. Why couldn’t Reed understand the drive she felt to be a journalist. She was just as ambitious as he was. “You have your work. I have mine, doctor.”

  Her passion softened his irritation. “Doctor-in-training,” he corrected. “I’ve still got seven months of med school to go.” He held out his arms in surrender. “I’m sorry. I’ve been on call for twelve hours straight. I’m totally beat.”

  “Then go home and go to bed.” Still peeved, she pulled back from his embrace.

  “I was hoping you’d join me.”

  Sammy had turned to focus on the Ellsford Teaching Award abandon
ed on the windowsill.

  “Earth to Greene!”

  “Huh?”

  “I’m offering you a full apology and my body.”

  “Oh, sure,” she said, distracted, “but not tonight.” With one backward glance at the plaque, she slid through his outstretched arms, allowing him only a quick peck on the cheek. “Rain check, okay? I really have some work to do.”

  Before he could protest, Sammy sped out the door, leaving a confused Reed alone in Conrad’s office, shaking his head.

  Sammy cajoled a stack pass from an old boyfriend working the night desk at the Virginia Ellsford Barrington Library. She clambered up the narrow staircase to a dark, dusty corner of the fifth floor. Scanning the overstuffed bookshelves, she finally located the loosely bound newspapers piled in mounds on the floor. The topmost issues of the Ellsford Eagle dated from the 1920s and ’30’s. She glared at the stacks, then closed her eyes, conjuring up an image of Bubbe Rose chiding and lecturing her teenage charge. Never give up.

  Sammy smiled, acknowledging the vision of the wise old woman. Yes, Grandma, your counsel has gotten me this far. But you know, it means I’m going to be here the whole farkakte night.

  9:30 P.M.

  “Thanks for coming at this late hour, Reed.”

  “No problem, sir.”

  Fiftyish, tall, graying hair with pale gray eyes to match, Dr. Marcus Palmer was chief of immunology and Reed’s preceptor for his last quarter of medical school. Reed had been lucky to land this rotation with one of the top professors at EU Medical, luckier still that the man who was known for his aloof manner had taken him under his wing, encouraging him to apply for a prestigious residency at Mass. General. So even if Reed had objected to jumping out of a warm bed, he’d never let on.

  Palmer flashed a plastic badge to the armed guard seated in front of a large U-shaped bank of TV monitors. “Dr. Wyndham is with me.”

  The guard merely nodded.

  It was only the second time Reed had been inside the Nitshi Research Institute, a modern four-story glass-and-steel structure planted imposingly on a hillside just at the north edge of the Ellsford campus. He recalled the controversy three years earlier when Nitshi Corporation, the Japanese drug conglomerate, had funded the construction. Protesters were concerned that the university might be forging an unholy alliance with an aggressive international pharmaceutical corporation eager to establish a stronghold in the United States.