“Well, you’re right,” Jack admitted with a short laugh at being so transparent. “I suppose I am getting engrossed. It’s hard not to. Aren’t you?”
“I’m interested,” Laurie said. “And I will be fascinated to learn the resolution, whatever it turns out to be. But I’m here to try to relax and recover. Getting drawn into a work-related conundrum doesn’t fill the bill for me. Besides, I’m totally convinced that Bob has already done what he was supposed to do.”
“What do you mean?”
“He told us that he’d already reported in writing the cases of dementia he’s seen to the state health authorities. It is now up to the state to investigate using epidemiologists who are specifically trained to do it. I will be fascinated to hear what they come up with, but I’m more than happy to leave the problem in their capable hands. In the meantime, I for one am going to make a distinct effort to enjoy this vacation mecca by spending time at the pool, taking a hike or two up to a waterfall, and encouraging myself to do daily Pilates with Carol Nielson. I also wouldn’t mind spending sometime in the Hiram library with that collection of old leather-bound nineteenth-century English novels. When I was in college they were my salvation.”
They rounded the final bend, and the house and lake came into view. There were no cars in sight and specifically no period Cadillac like the unique car Warren drove. Jack pulled the Cherokee up to the back of the house and stopped. He was relieved.
“Are you going to respond to what I just said?” Laurie asked.
“Okay, you’re right,” Jack admitted. “I do like challenges, and I’m definitely getting caught up in this current situation. I find it fascinating and disturbing in equal measure.”
“As if I couldn’t guess from our lunch today,” Laurie said with a laugh. “I’d be surprised if you weren’t, but I hope you don’t mind if I don’t quite share your enthusiasm.”
“Of course not,” Jack said. “And you’re right about Bob already doing what he is supposed to have done. But this prion stuff bothers me, probably partly because I don’t know as much about it as perhaps I should, and it’s just generally unnerving. But I think there’s more to this than meets the eye.”
“I’m not surprised,” Laurie said. “Indulge yourself! Meanwhile I’m going to put on my bathing suit and catch a few rays.” She opened the passenger side door, got out, and started heading into the house.
For a few minutes Jack watched her go before getting out of the car himself. He smiled as he followed her. He didn’t realize he was such an open book, although if anyone could read him, it was Laurie.
Once inside, Jack fixed himself an espresso using the high-end Italian machine in the butler’s pantry that looked more like a weapon system than a coffee maker. He then carried it along withhis laptop into the library. Sitting in one of the two massive leather couches that faced each other, he made himself comfortable while making sure he had a view out the back of the house. He wanted to be able to see Warren the moment he arrived.
What he had in mind while he waited was to googleprionsand spend some time refreshing his memory of what he knew about them, which wasn’t a whole lot, and then to try to read up on the latest research while knowing the revolutionary concept was still not carved in stone. He was aware that a few holdouts questioned the concept of an infectious protein, believing a virus had to be involved but just couldn’t as of yet be isolated. At the same time Jack personally accepted the basic tenets and recognized that the doctor who’d initially championed the prion concept, Dr. Stanley Prusiner, had already won the Nobel Prize for his efforts almost thirty years previously.
But before Jack turned on his computer, he put in a call to Dr. Christine Skinner, the OCME’s neuropathologist. As he was waiting for her to come on the line, Laurie stuck her head into the library.
“I’m heading out to the pool if you’re looking for me,” she announced.
Jack flashed her a thumbs-up and then pointed toward his phone. “I’m giving Christine a call at the OCME,” he said. “I’m going to let her know Kramer’s samples are on their way.”
Laurie returned the thumbs-up sign and then added with a wave: “Say hello from me.” She then disappeared.
As he waited, Jack drummed his fingers on the closed MacBook in his lap. In his mind’s eye he pictured Christine Skinner, a slight, dainty woman the likes of which he wouldn’t have expected to be a forensic pathologist back when he trained in the specialty. Backthen, and since its inception, it had been a male-dominated specialty. Times had certainly changed.
“Dr. Skinner here, can I help you?” a deep, commanding voice suddenly said. Jack was surprised. He’d never spoken with her on the phone and the voice didn’t match his mental image.
“Dr. Skinner,” Jack said, forging ahead. “It’s Jack Stapleton.”
“Dr. Stapleton, I’m surprised to hear from you,” Christine said. “Word has it that you and Dr. Montgomery are on a mini-vacation.”
“It’s Jack to you, Christine,” Jack corrected. “And yes, we are. But, as my wife just reminded me, forensic challenges find me.” After giving the hello from Laurie, Jack went on to give a short synopsis of the dementia problem. “Accordingly,” he continued, “some specimens from an autopsy we did this morning, including bodily fluids and brain samples, are on the way down to the OCME as we speak and should get there late this afternoon. There’s nothing that you need to do today as Dr. Fontworth is making arrangements for their arrival, but tomorrow we would like your input. We’d like to run an Alzheimer’s test for sure even though we expect it to be negative. On top of that, I wanted to ask you, is there any specific test for the presence of prions in body fluid?”
“Yes, there is a test available at the state lab,” Christine said. “It’s not your run-of-the-mill diagnostic test, but it is accurate. It has the strange name of RT-QuIC, which is quite a mouthful. But the test itself is quite sensitive and accurate, particularly with CJ disease.”
“Can you have that run that for us?”
“Yes, of course.”
“When can we expect to see some results?”
“That’s a problem,” Christine said. “It requires prolonged agitation, which is why it is called real-time quaking-induced conversiontest. It takes up to ninety hours to make sure any and all the infectious prions have been documented.”
“Good God!” Jack complained. “Ninety hours! That’s almost four days. Can’t you do better?”
“I wish I could,” Christine said, and she sounded sincere.
“I didn’t mean that personally,” Jack said. “Don’t mind me! I just find it frustrating when tests take forever, especially when I’m trying to solve a real problem in real time.”
