On Off Read Online Free PDF
Author: Colleen McCullough
could impale yourself on! Tch! I run the epilepsy clinics at the Holloman Hospital, several other hospitals, and I’m in charge of the Holloman Hospital EEG unit attached to the epilepsy clinic. I don’t concern myself with ordinary EEGs, you understand. There is another unit for Frank Watson and his neurological and neurosurgical minions. What I’m interested in are spikes, not delta waves.”
“Uh-huh,” said Carmine, whose eyes had begun to glaze halfway through this semi-diatribe. “So you definitely don’t ever dispose of dead animals?”
“Never!”
Forbes’s technician, a nice girl named Betty, confirmed this. “His work here concerns the level of anticonvulsant medications in the bloodstream,” she explained in words Carmine had a hope of understanding. “Most doctors overmedicate because they don’t keep track of drug levels in the bloodstream in long-term disorders like epilepsy. He’s also the one the pharmaceutical companies ask to try new drugs out. And he has an uncanny instinct for what a particular patient needs.” Betty smiled. “He’s weird, really. Art, not science.”
And how, Carmine wondered as he went in search of Dr. Maurice Finch, do I get out of being buried under medical gobbledygook?
But Dr. Finch wasn’t the man to bury anyone under medical gobbledygook. His research, he said briefly, concerned movement of things called sodium and potassium ions through the wall of the nerve cell during an epileptic seizure.
“I work with cats,” he said, “on a long-term basis. Once their electrodes and perfusion cannulae are implanted in their brains — under general anesthesia — they suffer no trauma at all. In fact, they look forward to their experimental sessions.”
A gentle soul, was Carmine’s verdict. That did not put Finch out of the murder stakes, of course; some brutal killers seemed the gentlest of souls when you met them. At fifty-one he was older than most of the researchers, so the Prof had said; research was a young man’s game, apparently. A devout Jew, he and his wife, Catherine, lived on a chicken farm; Catherine bred for the kosher table. Her chickens kept her busy, Finch explained, as they had never managed to have any children.
“Then you don’t live in Holloman?” he asked.
“Just within the county line, Lieutenant. We have twenty acres. Not all chickens! I’m an ardent cultivator of vegetables and flowers. I have an apple orchard and several glasshouses too.”
“Do you bring your dead animals downstairs, Dr. Finch, or does your technician — Patricia? — do that?”
“Sometimes I do it, sometimes Patty does,” Finch said, his wide grey eyes looking at Carmine without guilt or unease. “Mind you, my kind of work means I don’t do a lot of sacrificing. When I finish with a pussycat, I take the electrodes and cannulae out, castrate him, and try to give him to someone as a pet. I don’t harm him, you see. However, a cat may develop a brain infection and die, or simply die of natural causes. Then they go downstairs to the refrigerator. Mostly I take them — they’re heavy.”
“How often does a dead cat happen, Doctor?”
“It’s hard to say. Once a month, maybe only every six months.”
“I see you take good care of them.”
“One cat,” said Dr. Finch patiently, “represents an investment of at least twenty thousand dollars. He has to come with papers that satisfy the various authorities, including the A.S.P.C.A. and the Humane Society. Then there is the cost of his upkeep, which has to be first-class or he doesn’t survive. I need healthy cats. Therefore a death is unwelcome, not to say exasperating.”
Carmine moved on to the third researcher, Dr. Nur Chandra.
Who took his breath away. Chandra’s features were cast in a patrician mold, his lashes were so long and thick that they seemed false, his brows were finely arched and his skin the color of old ivory. His wavy black hair was cut short, in keeping with his European
“Uh-huh,” said Carmine, whose eyes had begun to glaze halfway through this semi-diatribe. “So you definitely don’t ever dispose of dead animals?”
“Never!”
Forbes’s technician, a nice girl named Betty, confirmed this. “His work here concerns the level of anticonvulsant medications in the bloodstream,” she explained in words Carmine had a hope of understanding. “Most doctors overmedicate because they don’t keep track of drug levels in the bloodstream in long-term disorders like epilepsy. He’s also the one the pharmaceutical companies ask to try new drugs out. And he has an uncanny instinct for what a particular patient needs.” Betty smiled. “He’s weird, really. Art, not science.”
And how, Carmine wondered as he went in search of Dr. Maurice Finch, do I get out of being buried under medical gobbledygook?
But Dr. Finch wasn’t the man to bury anyone under medical gobbledygook. His research, he said briefly, concerned movement of things called sodium and potassium ions through the wall of the nerve cell during an epileptic seizure.
“I work with cats,” he said, “on a long-term basis. Once their electrodes and perfusion cannulae are implanted in their brains — under general anesthesia — they suffer no trauma at all. In fact, they look forward to their experimental sessions.”
A gentle soul, was Carmine’s verdict. That did not put Finch out of the murder stakes, of course; some brutal killers seemed the gentlest of souls when you met them. At fifty-one he was older than most of the researchers, so the Prof had said; research was a young man’s game, apparently. A devout Jew, he and his wife, Catherine, lived on a chicken farm; Catherine bred for the kosher table. Her chickens kept her busy, Finch explained, as they had never managed to have any children.
“Then you don’t live in Holloman?” he asked.
“Just within the county line, Lieutenant. We have twenty acres. Not all chickens! I’m an ardent cultivator of vegetables and flowers. I have an apple orchard and several glasshouses too.”
“Do you bring your dead animals downstairs, Dr. Finch, or does your technician — Patricia? — do that?”
“Sometimes I do it, sometimes Patty does,” Finch said, his wide grey eyes looking at Carmine without guilt or unease. “Mind you, my kind of work means I don’t do a lot of sacrificing. When I finish with a pussycat, I take the electrodes and cannulae out, castrate him, and try to give him to someone as a pet. I don’t harm him, you see. However, a cat may develop a brain infection and die, or simply die of natural causes. Then they go downstairs to the refrigerator. Mostly I take them — they’re heavy.”
“How often does a dead cat happen, Doctor?”
“It’s hard to say. Once a month, maybe only every six months.”
“I see you take good care of them.”
“One cat,” said Dr. Finch patiently, “represents an investment of at least twenty thousand dollars. He has to come with papers that satisfy the various authorities, including the A.S.P.C.A. and the Humane Society. Then there is the cost of his upkeep, which has to be first-class or he doesn’t survive. I need healthy cats. Therefore a death is unwelcome, not to say exasperating.”
Carmine moved on to the third researcher, Dr. Nur Chandra.
Who took his breath away. Chandra’s features were cast in a patrician mold, his lashes were so long and thick that they seemed false, his brows were finely arched and his skin the color of old ivory. His wavy black hair was cut short, in keeping with his European
Similar Books
The Sword of the Banshee
Amanda Hughes
Where Lilacs Still Bloom
Jane Kirkpatrick
Angelic Pathways
Chantel Lysette
The Christmas Cookie Chronicles: Carrie
Lori Wilde
Striking Distance
Pamela Clare
Second Chance
Jane Green
Cloudburst
V.C. Andrews
Another Day
David Levithan
An Untamed Heart
Lauraine Snelling