W Is for Wasted

it?”
    “Either one.”
    “I don’t think Dr. Reed’s responsible in the same way a drunk driver’s responsible in a hit-and-run fatality. All he was doing was protecting his own interests. Terrence Dace was collateral damage.”
    “You know he stole three medical charts. His own, Charles Farmer’s, and Sebastian Glenn’s,” I said.
    “I wasn’t aware of it, but good for him. Sebastian Glenn was the first death. Linton thought it was a fluke.”
    “But it wasn’t.”
    “One is a fluke. Three is a pattern.”
    “Did they have something in common? A condition or a disease that put them at risk?”
    “It’s possible they had health issues. Prediabetic or undiagnosed diabetes. Heart problems. I really have no idea. Most patients did fine on Glucotace. I had no access to the medical clinic where they were seen. I worked in the same lab with Linton, but not on the clinical trials he ran.”
    “You told Owen Pensky that Dr. Reed shredded something. I’m not sure what it was. I only heard your half of the conversation.”
    “Raw data. The printout was sitting on his desk. I caught a glimpse of the graph he’d done, which was a duplicate of one he’d used in an earlier trial. How stupid is that? You’d think if he was going to cheat, he’d be more imaginative.”
    “So he was, what, misrepresenting his results?”
    “It’s called trimming. If any values were too far out of line, he made
adjustments
.”
    “Did you report it to anyone above him in the chain of command?”
    “I couldn’t see the point. The director of the grants program is the one who hired him in the first place. He thinks Linton is a star, especially since he’s bringing money in.”
    “Actually, I talked to Dr. Reed yesterday.”
    “And how did he strike you? Is he a buffoon?”
    “No.”
    “Did he sweat? Did his hands shake? Did he hesitate?”
    “Once. At the end of our conversation.”
    “Well, trust me. He was either doing it for effect or trying to figure out an angle before he opened his mouth.”
    “When we shook hands at the end of the interview, his were like ice.”
    Her brows went up. “What the hell did you say to him?”
    “I was asking questions about Dace. I thought he was being candid. He didn’t seem tense or guarded. I know he was bullshitting on one point, but it was minor and I didn’t want to press.”
    She laughed. “That’s our boy. Mr. Slick. I’m surprised you picked up on it.”
    “There has to be a way to shut him down.”
    “Don’t look at me.”
    “Who better?”
    “Not to sound too cynical, but what makes you think anyone would listen to me? I’m the one he jilted. That’s according to the rumor he’s been spreading around. The first day I showed up for work, word was already out. His claim was we had an affair as undergraduates. That much was true. The way he tells it, I was needy and neurotic. I was jealous of his success, so he broke off the relationship. Now if I say anything at all derogatory, it looks like sour grapes. A woman scorned.”
    “What’s the real story?”
    “I broke up with him. He cribbed a paper. He stole my work. That’s the kind of guy he is. He diddled with the title, added five coauthors, two of whom I swear to god he made up out of whole cloth. Then he sent it off to a scientific journal. When it appeared months later, I confronted him. Big mistake. You know how many papers I have to my name? Six. He’s probably had fifty published in this year alone. That should be another little clue to the higher-ups. With that many, how does he have time to do his work?”
    “Why did you apply for the job?”
    “I screwed up. Big time. I knew it was his lab, but I’d forgotten how crazy he is.”
    “But he’s a bright guy. Why’s he doing this?”
    “Why does he do anything? Because he’s high ego and he’s a narcissist. Dangerous combination. He’s not a man who deals well with stress. Something happened in Arkansas a few years ago. I don’t have all the details, but a patient died and the error was traced to him. He couldn’t face it. He suffered a total nervous breakdown and had to be carted off to the funny farm.”
    “It didn’t affect his career?”
    “Not his career; his residency. Check his CV and you’ll see the gap. That’s when he moved from surgical oncology to research.”
    “And if it happens again?”
    “I hope I’m not around. This turns sour on him, then what? You want my best guess? He’ll have a computer crash and lose