Read Online Taji's Syndrome by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro - Free Book Online Page B

suggested. “Who says that it has to be toxic wastes, anyway?”
    “What else fits the ticket so well?” she asked. “The only thing we haven’t found so far—thank God—are incidents in infants and young children. Four of the victims so far have been teenagers.”
    “Have you thought about drugs? Especially the designer drugs?” He asked this with a faint, deprecatory smile, since the pervasive drug problem seemed to him far more obvious than toxic wastes.
    “No trace of them in the blood.”
    “How can you know, if the blood chemistry changes?”
    Gross pursued. “If you haven’t any gauge other than that?”
    Sylvia stared at Gross before she answered. “It’s what we have to go on, and right now . . . Look, one of the patients did test positive for drugs, but that doesn’t mean that drugs are the only explanation. We would have found traces in the others. They aren’t that hard to identify.”
    “Unless one of the designer drugs is at fault. Have you considered that?” Gross rocked back on his heels.
    “It’s being checked out, but so far there’s no indication that they’re a factor.” She sighed. “Will you help me out? I don’t want to have more deaths if I can help it.”
    “Everyone dies,” said Gross, more cynically than philosophically.
    “Agreed, but—”
    “Sure, why not? If I see anything suspicious, or if there are indications of toxic contamination of some kind I’ll let you know. How’s that?” He looked at the door. “And I have to get back to work.”
    “Of course. Thank you for giving me so much of your time,” Sylvia said with automatic courtesy.
    “Pleasure,” said Gross, shaking her hand.
    As she drove back through the rain, cursing the flooded streets and trying to keep from skidding in turns, Sylvia fought down her irrational desire to go back to the Immigration Station and remonstrate with Gross—his inadequacy as a physician, his conduct as a person, his total lack of manners—though she knew it would be useless. Instead she went over the cases of the puzzling condition she was investigating. Dead so far: Marilee Grey, aged sixteen; Jeanine Hatley, aged fourteen; Benton Smith, aged thirty-one; Paul Clancy, aged fourteen; Samuel Lincoln, aged fifteen; Elaine Bradley, aged twenty-seven; and Dwight Tracy, aged sixty-two. Ill so far: Isabeau Cuante, aged (about) forty-six or -seven; Lorraine Gomez, aged sixteen.
    It was so disheartening that Sylvia almost missed her turn to the Public Health and Environmental Services building on Escondido, in the new complex built after the ’93 quake.
    “How’d it go?” asked her superior, Doctor Michael Wren, as Sylvia pulled off her coat and shook it.
    “Don’t ask.” She ran her hand through her hair and shook out the drops from it.
    “Problems?” Mike sat down, pulling up one of the two chairs so that he could face her over the corner of her desk.
    “That man ought to be taken out and . . . and . . .”—she gave an unexpected smile—“and subjected to a lecture on manners from my Great-Aunt Lucy!”
    Mike grinned, his large, white teeth appearing to be even larger against the blackness of his skin. “Sounds like a fate I wouldn’t wish on anyone.”
    “Well, I sure as hell wouldn’t,” said Sylvia, settling down a bit. “I told him what we were looking for. That was after Rosenblum had his secretary ask me to leave a copy of the printouts so that he could look at them when he had time.”
    “Sounds like you’ve had a great afternoon,” said Mike. “I don’t blame you for being testy.”
    “Thanks. Oh, I think Steinmetz might get a fire lit under him if you’d give him a call and warn him that Environmental Services might have a mess on their hands. You know how good he is at covering his ass.” She looked at the primrose message memos stacked in the center of her desk. “Three from hospitals?”
    “It looks like we’ve got another two cases at least. All in the same general area with the