Knockout Mouse Read online

  “And plant research,” Marion put in.

  “I don’t know anyone who wants to genetically program their child,” Jenny said.

  “Think about it,” said Chad. “If other people start designing their kids’ genes, are you going to let your kids be at a disadvantage?”

  Jenny wrinkled her nose. “A genetic arms race?”

  “And legs. And brains,” Chad said. “You don’t want to be left behind.”

  “I mean, your kids are your kids,” Jenny said. “You just want them to be happy.”

  “How happy are they going to be if they’re the shortest kid in the class? The ugliest? The dumbest?”

  “I’d rather be short than have short telomeres,” Sheila said. “And what you’re talking about is still more science fiction than science.”

  Marion’s pale eyes were fixed on Chad. “Is that your definition of happiness?” she demanded. “The boy with the most marbles?”

  “Darwin said it, right?” he answered. “Evolution doesn’t care who’s polite and picks up litter. It cares whose genes get passed along.”

  I considered asking him if he planned to pass the arrogance gene on to his children, but decided to stay out of it.

  “Evolution doesn’t care how we feel at all,” Sheila said. “In fact, maybe if we were built to be more naturally content, we’d be less inclined to reproduce. There must be some explanation for why it’s so hard for us to be happy in our lives.”

  This brought an uneasy silence. The table stared at Sheila as if she’d admitted an embarrassing hygiene problem. These go-getters weren’t about to admit any such weakness. Weakness made you—and your genes—an undesirable commodity.

  Sheila’s shoulders hunched. She wound a ringlet of hair around her finger, tighter and tighter, and looked down at her plate. The tangy voice I’d heard earlier had disappeared. I was amazed at how quickly her demeanor changed. She withdrew as I watched.

  The conversation veered back to the subject of where to raise one’s children, a hypothetical prospect for everyone there. Their faces were clear and unfurrowed. I didn’t pay much attention. I was watching Sheila. She didn’t look well. Her eyes were watery, her face was puffy, her neck red. She kept scratching the back of her hand.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “I’m fine,” she said, squeezing her temples. She attempted a smile. “Just allergies. Excuse me.”

  She disappeared into the bathroom. Other people moved into the living room. After helping Jenny clear the table and make coffee, I passed around a tray of coffee cups, while Jenny offered milk.

  I wedged myself into a corner and watched Jenny keep her contacts warm. She chatted with each person about everything and nothing. It came naturally to her, which was good, because her business depended on it.

  I wasn’t much of a mingler, and no one chose me as a networking target. After a while I went into the dining room, where Marion and Wes were cocooned in a private conversation.

  “Have you seen Sheila?” I asked. “She wasn’t feeling well.”

  “Sheila went home,” Marion said.

  “Was she all right?”

  “Should be. Just some overactive mast cells.”

  Wes found this funny. “That’s a relief. I thought she was crying because Fay said something to her. It was kind of weird. Fay was irate.”

  “When was this?”

  “Just as Sheila was leaving,” Wes said. “She and Fay were by the door to the closet. Marion was telling me about mutated fruit flies that had their eyes in their asses.” He laughed again.

  I walked through the kitchen and out a door that led to a small back porch. In between the branches of the eucalyptus trees, stars twinkled feebly in the Silicon Valley haze. I thought about the guests in the living room. Was I just getting old? Everyone in there was close to Jenny’s age, thirty. Only a handful of years separated me from them, but it felt like a chasm. Except for Sheila, they all seemed so sure of themselves, so entitled, so on the make. But then, I’d been out of step with the world around me for months. I wondered if I was beginning to fall out of step with Jenny, too.

  I closed the door and went back into the living room. It was almost eleven. Some people had left already, others were saying their goodbyes. A few were going back to work, I suspected, and others out to clubs. Bed sounded good to me, though. I was glad I wouldn’t be spending an hour on the freeway back to my flat in San Francisco.

  Marion and Wes were the last guests to leave. Marion was not shy about giving him her card and planting a kiss on his mouth. As soon as I closed the door, Jenny and Fay commenced a review of who was there, how much funding this one’s venture was getting, how soon that one’s startup would crumble. The dinner party was judged to be a success. They were particularly pleased by the sparks flying between Wes and Marion.

  “I’m glad he latched on to Marion,” Fay said. “She’s much better for him than Sheila.”

  “What’s wrong with Sheila?” I asked.

  “She’s just kind of…flimsy.” Fay pursed her lips. “Flimsy and stubborn.”

  I was too tired to pursue it. Who cared what Fay, or Wes, or the rest, thought of Sheila? She was the most interesting person at the party, and the one I most hoped to see again.

  It wasn’t until the next morning that we learned she was dead.

  4

  When the phone rang, I was still in the bathrobe that Jenny kept for me. I was collecting stray wine glasses, coffee cups, and cracker bits hidden around her apartment from the night before. She was in a soft cotton nightie that ended just below her hips. I was enjoying the way her polished toe scratched her calf as she cradled the receiver.

  Then her face went pale. Her hand shook. Maybe a client was reporting some server meltdown.

  “Yes, she was here…No, no, we didn’t…” Her mouth gaped. “That’s impossible… But we knew…”

  I sat on a sofa. Jenny’s gaze was fixed in a line that ended at a point on the wall. “I guess so… Yes, I’ll be there in half an hour.”

  She stared at the phone for a good ten seconds before remembering to click it off. She didn’t look at me, but sat down mechanically. Her whole body was trembling. “Sheila’s dead. They found her in her car out on Page Mill Road last night.”

  I blurted the first word that came into my mind. “Suicide?”

  Jenny’s eyes filled with tears. “No, it was something else. Anaphylactic shock.” I put my arm around her and held her to my chest while she cried. “They said it was probably caused by a food allergy.”

  “Food?”

  “That’s what they said.” Suddenly Jenny straightened and flung the phone to the floor. Her fists clenched and her arms quivered. “Bill, that means it could have been something she ate here last night!”

  I took her to my shoulder and tried to soothe her. “I know she had hay fever. But did you know of any food allergies?”

  “Yes!” Jenny shrieked. “She was allergic to shellfish. Fay and I were so careful. We asked her about the salmon. Sheila said it was fine.”

  “Maybe they’re wrong about the cause of death. Who was it that called?”

  “It was the hospital. They want me to come and”—she broke into tears again—”confirm her identity. They called her parents in Massachusetts but got a machine. It said they’re out of the country. They found my number in her organizer. They know she was here last night.”

  I pictured Sheila lying on a gurney. Her black curls against the white sheet. Her olive skin, now waxen. Her wrist empty of the bracelet. Then I thought of Jenny having to look at her. “I’ll go with you to make the identification,” I offered. “Do you want me to do that?”

  “M-m-maybe,” she sobbed. She drew in a breath. “Thanks, Bill. I better get ready. They’re waiting for us.”

  She dragged the heel of her palm down her wet face and went to her room. I stared at the fingerprint-smudged wine glasses, dark with sediment, still on the coffee table. I remembered Sheila’s troubled
look after the meal, her retreat to the bathroom. Should I have realized what was happening? She seemed in control of her condition. She was a biologist and would have known how to handle it. Marion saw her, too, just before she left. If there was something seriously wrong, Marion would have spotted it.

  We drove to the county hospital in the Scout. The building was a well-funded postmodern arrangement of cubes, cylinders, trapezoids, and cantilevers. The lobby felt more like a corporate office than a hospital. On the one hand, I didn’t miss the aura of illness. On the other, it made me wonder what the bottom line was.

  The morgue was in the basement. Jenny walked to the elevator with her back straight and shoulders square, her flats clop-ping softly on the polished floor.

  At the entrance to the morgue was a small office. A man named Perkins said he was the one who’d talked to Jenny on the phone. I told him I’d be making the identification, then looked to Jenny. She nodded. The official took down my information and led me through double doors.

  The formaldehyde hit me like a punch. There were three empty gurneys and two with occupants.

  He lifted the corner of the sheet on the far gurney. “Is this Sheila Harros?”

  I hadn’t prepared myself for the moment. I felt instantly transported out of my body, as if floating, watching a film of myself. There she was, lips parted just a fraction, deep well under the collarbone. But inert, like some object, speechless, drained, stony, as if she could care less what we thought of her now.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Thank you.”

  We went back to the office. Jenny watched my face. I gave her a small nod and signed the form.

  “Thank you,” Perkins said again. “Now, we need instructions on removal of the remains. You should do everything you can to help us find her parents. Otherwise, we’ll have to send her to the county undertaker.”

  “Removal… of… the… remains…” Jenny repeated.

  “Yes. To a mortuary, or—”

  “We’re not the ones who should be doing this,” I said.

  “We tried her parents, as I mentioned,” the official replied. “We’ll keep trying them, of course. Do you know of any other family?”

  Jenny shook her head.

  “No? Well, you’re the closest party we have for the time being. There was a mention in her organizer of meeting a Karen yesterday afternoon, but no last name. You were probably the last to see her alive.”

  “What about her work?” I asked.

  “We called LifeScience Molecules before we talked to you. No one was available to come down.”

  “Not even Marion?”

  “I didn’t speak to anyone by that name. I’m terribly sorry. I know this is difficult. But we can only keep the corpse refrigerated for twenty-four hours.”

  Jenny straightened abruptly. “I’d like to talk to the doctor who saw her. I want to know what happened.”

  Perkins cocked his head. “I don’t think that’s possible.”

  “Look, our friend is dead,” I broke in. “The least you can do is let us speak to the doctor.”

  He uncocked his head, made a call, and then told us to go to the ER desk and ask for Dr. Curran.

  We stood and thanked him. “What about her car?” I asked.

  “The police have it,” he said, getting up to see us out.

  “Are they investigating her death?”

  “Not at the moment. The coroner has accepted Dr. Curran’s determination for the time being.”

  “There’ll be an autopsy, won’t there?”

  “If the coroner orders it or the family requests it.”

  “Because I don’t think a food allergy was the cause of her death,” I said. “At least not food she ate last night.”

  He gave a neutral shrug, then put out his hand. “Please let us know if you find a way to reach the parents. Or any next of kin.”

  The emergency room was on the first floor. We collapsed into some soft chairs and waited for the doctor to become available. Five minutes later he greeted us. Dr. Curran was young. He had short red hair with a curl or two on his forehead and wire frame glasses. We followed him into a small examining room to talk.

  “Sheila was brought in by ambulance,” he told us. “She was not breathing when the police found her. We tried everything. Oxygen, intubation, adrenaline, dopamine, IV Benadryl, CPR, you name it. It was just too late. She had no vital signs.”

  “So she died from—?” I asked.

  “Anaphylactic shock. A severe allergic reaction.”

  “And you’re sure about that?”

  “The skin welts, hypotension, angio-edema, and broncho-constriction were clear.”

  “Isn’t it just incredibly rare for this to happen?” Jenny asked.

  “The hospital gets several cases a year. Most of them aren’t fatal, but I wouldn’t call it rare. Usually it happens to children. I’m afraid your friend was just unlucky. I’m sorry.”

  Jenny gazed at his badge. “Are you a full doctor?”

  “I’m a third-year resident. The indications were not hard to spot.”

  “She knew she had allergies. She would have been prepared and taken an antihistamine or something,” I said.

  “An oral antihistamine wouldn’t do the job. But yes, she was prepared. She’d administered epinephrine with a device called an Epi-Pen. Unfortunately, the solution had gone bad.”

  “Gone bad how?”

  “We found the Epi-Pen in her bag. Traces of fluid in the injector were brown. It had probably been exposed to heat, which would have spoiled it.”

  “So who’s got the bag now? And the rest of her stuff?” Jenny asked.

  “The morgue. It’ll be handed over to the family.”

  Jenny lowered her eyes. I saw her brace herself for the next question. “And what—what do you think caused Sheila’s allergic reaction?”

  The doctor adjusted his glasses. “We inspected the body for insect bites. There were none. We found a card telling us she had no drug allergies. Her tongue and gut were swollen. She’d vomited. That indicates a substance she ingested.”

  “Like food.”

  “That’s the likely pathway. We’d have to do some more tests to nail it down. For my money, it was something she had for dinner last night. The reaction comes on quickly.”

  Jenny’s face melted into tears.

  “I’m sorry about your friend,” Curran said, momentarily lowering his eyes. “But I’m afraid I have other patients waiting.”

  He turned, then hesitated. “You can call me,” he said to Jenny as he scribbled his number on a small pad. He tore off the sheet and handed it to me. “If either of you have more questions.”

  5

  “It was me, Bill. Something from my kitchen killed Sheila.”

  Jenny was sunk into her couch, arms folded in a tight knot. I had not expected her to face the issue so directly, and I welcomed it. To me, the need to respond was clear. That moment in the morgue, gazing down at Sheila’s corpse, had frozen in me. It required some kind of action or explanation to thaw it. A life in motion had stopped abruptly. Whatever moaning I’d done about my own life being in a state of suspension now sounded trivial.

  I remembered our last bit of dinner conversation, how Sheila hung her head under the gaze of the guests. How she pressed her fingers to her temples as the allergic reaction came on. She was starting to feel the constriction in her throat. Her body was coiling for an overwhelming, self-strangling counterattack on some seemingly harmless bite of food. She excused herself to the bathroom, hoping the symptoms would pass, then rushed to her car, where perhaps she had left the Epi-Pen. Maybe she’d realized the epinephrine had gone bad and was racing home for more.

  And the rest of us oblivious all the while. If only we hadn’t been so clumsy, so self-absorbed…

  It was this idea—the fear of her own negligence—that Jenny focused on. I told her that whatever caused the reaction couldn’t have been something she cooked last night. Jenny knew Sheila was
allergic to shellfish and had specifically checked with her to make sure the entire menu was safe.

  The phone rang. It was Fay. Jenny told her the news. Fay said she’d be right over.

  When Fay arrived, she and Jenny threw their arms around each other. After some tearful commiseration, they sat down in the living room to review what might have gone wrong at the dinner party. I went into Jenny’s room, where the computer was. I wanted to learn more about anaphylaxis on the Internet.

  “Listen to this,” I called a few minutes later, moving to the doorway. “Apparently just a few particles can cause an attack. On an airplane, people with the allergy can get sick just from other passengers opening their peanut bags. Diners with fish allergies can have problems from residue left over in restaurant woks.”

  “That’s right, blame the Chinese,” Fay said in her melodic voice, then smiled. She was an unusual combination of playful and intimidating, ambitious and coy.

  Jenny bit her thumb. “Maybe I had shellfish here this week. Wait, no—I’m sure I didn’t. I ate out every night. Anyway, a little residue couldn’t kill her, could it?”

  “Who knows?” Fay said. “She was so sensitive. She had those small bones. Simon said she was sick for an entire vacation once because a shred of crab got into her omelet.”

  “But she lived,” Jenny said.

  “Wait a minute—Simon?” I asked. He was Fay’s boyfriend.

  “Sheila used to date Simon,” Fay explained. “Poor Sheila. She was actually convinced he wanted to get back together with her.”

  “Is that what you were arguing about last night?”

  Fay stretched her neck and rolled her shoulders. “I was just trying to help her move on with her life. Simon sent her a few letters while he’s on his trip to Australia. She took them the wrong way. He’s English, he was trying to be polite.”

  Fay spread her fingers and regarded her nails, a deep shade of blue. “Jenny, you know what we should do? Tear apart your kitchen from top to bottom. We’ll find out for sure what’s in there. You’ll be able to stop worrying about it.”