Chance of a Lifetime (Chances Are #1)

  I stand back almost to the opposite door as Jake knocks on Dr. Palmer's door. It takes a minute before the door opens a crack, the chain lock still in place. All I can see is a sliver of bronze skin and a brown eye. "Are you Detective Madigan?" she asks.

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "Where's your badge?"

  Jake reaches into his pocket for his identification. She studies this for a moment. The door closes. Before I can groan with disappointment, I hear the chain lock come off. The door opens to reveal a Hispanic woman in her late thirties. She wears a T-shirt and sweatpants and has her hair pulled back into a sloppy ponytail, which probably means she woke up not long before we arrived.

  I didn't feel anything at the sight of the biker in his tight shorts and I don't feel anything for Dr. Palmer either. At least not in that way. Instead I cringe with jealousy because even in this rumpled state, Dr. Palmer still looks better put together than me. Her eyes are clear and free of bruises and even though she's nervous, she still has an air of confidence as she shows Jake inside.

  "Who's this?" she asks when I step towards the door.

  "That is Stacey Chance. She's a civilian observer," Jake says. He lies so smoothly that even I would believe it. "Making sure we're in compliance with Federal laws and all that."

  "She looks a little young for that."

  "I just have a young face," I say. "It's hell when I go to the liquor store."

  Dr. Palmer stands aside so I can follow Jake into the apartment. The furniture is tasteful and not cheap, what there is of it. There's only a couch in the living room; Jake has to fetch a chair from the dining room table-which only has room for two-to sit on while us two ladies take the couch.

  The doctor brings her purse with her from the kitchen. She rummages inside to retrieve a pack of cigarettes. "You mind if I smoke?" she asks.

  "Only if you give me one," Jake says.

  "What about you?" the doctor asks me.

  "No thanks. Those things will kill you."

  "So will a lot of other things in this city," the doctor observes. "And much faster."

  "Like slitting your wrists?" Jake says.

  "Having someone slit them for you is more like it," Dr. Palmer says. She lights two cigarettes and then hands one to Jake. I lean back into the plush white back of the couch to avoid smoke in my face.

  "You don't think it was a suicide?"

  "Gita wouldn't commit suicide. Not when the drug was ready for human trials."

  "That would be the FY-1978 serum?"

  "You've done your homework."

  "It's part of the job." Jake gives me a look before he asks, "So what does that drug do?"

  "It's supposed to be an anti-aging drug. Like the next generation of Botox. But Gita had bigger plans for it. She envisioned it as a cure to degenerative diseases: Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, AIDS, and even cancer by letting us turn back the body's clock to a younger, healthier state. Like the Fountain of Youth in a syringe."

  "Sounds pretty ambitious."

  "Gita always was ambitious."

  "You think that's why someone killed her?"

  "Maybe. If it had worked, FY-1978 would have been a game changer for the health care industry. It would make dozens-maybe even hundreds-of drugs obsolete. And once Lennox got it patented, you'd have a lot of big drug companies hurting real bad."

  I could have fallen off the couch with shock at that point. I knew from the Tall Man that Lex wanted to sell the formula, but I hadn't imagined it could be that valuable. He could make hundreds of millions, maybe even a billion to a desperate company.

  "Sounds like plenty of motivation for someone to kill Dr. Nath," Jake says. "Any idea who it might be? Did she have any enemies?"

  "Not that I know of. She didn't have any friends either. All she did was work. She had the maintenance guys bring up a cot so she could sleep in there too. That's how dedicated she was."

  "Did you two get along?"

  Dr. Palmer shrugs. "About as well as anyone could get along with her. Like I said, she wasn't exactly a people person." The doctor blows out a cloud of smoke. "She wasn't mean or anything like that. She just didn't know how to relate to people."

  "So you wouldn't say she was very well liked by her staff?"

  She shrugs again. "Maybe we didn't like her, but we all respected the hell out of her. She was brilliant. FY-1978 was her baby. She did just about everything on it herself. Me and the others were mostly there to push a few buttons and help hold down the test subjects."

  I jump in to ask, "What's going to happen to the project now?"

  "There is no project now. Our notes are gone and Dr. Nath was the only one who could hope to replicate it. Too bad; we were making real progress with it."

  "What kind of progress?" Jake asks while I put a hand to my stomach; I feel sick again, though not from the period anymore. If Dr. Nath was the only one who knew how to make it and she's dead, who will find a way to cure me?

  "We tried it in mice then rats and then chimps. We had a ninety percent success rate."

  "Success?"

  The doctor pauses to take out a fresh cigarette and light it. "In those ninety percent of cases, the animals got younger. In our last case study, an elderly chimp reverted back to almost a pubescent state. The arthritis and dementia she had been suffering from were all gone. She was just as healthy and active as any young chimp."

  I think of the animals in their cages on the fifth floor. Some of those cages had had Dr. Nath's name on them. Her test subjects? The chimp that Bruiser killed might even have been the one Dr. Nath had experimented on.

  "Sounds impressive. But you didn't get to try it on humans?"

  "No. Dr. Nath was working on the sample. I was trying to find a volunteer. That's why I wasn't at the lab when it was robbed. I was here, going over records from local nursing homes. They're on the table if you want to look."

  "So you were here alone?" Jake asks while I get up and go over to the table. There's a pile of manila folders there just as Dr. Palmer said.

  "Yeah, that's right. Should I get a lawyer?"

  "I don't think that will be necessary. We have information suggesting organized crime was responsible for the break-in and probably Dr. Nath's death."

  As I go through the folders, I notice a pattern: all of the potential volunteers are women. Women in their sixties or seventies with degenerative conditions like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and arthritis. I clear my throat to get Jake and Dr. Palmer's attention. "Are these all the files? Didn't you have any male subjects?"

  "Not for this trial. The drug has to be specially tailored for an individual's physiology." When Jake and I both give her a blank look, she explains, "The drug utilizes a combination of hormone treatments, gene therapy, and stem cells to reverse the aging process. Some of that is unisex, but some of it-like the hormones-vary according to gender. So our first batch of FY-1978 was designed for female patients."

  Jake asks the obvious question before I can, "What if the drug were used on a male instead?"

  Dr. Palmer shrugs again. "Not sure. We never tried that, not even on the animals."

  Jake gets up and comes over to the table where I'm still standing. He puts an arm around my shoulder. "Dr. Palmer, meet your first human subject: Detective Steve Fischer."

  Chapter 18

  I wait for Dr. Palmer's reaction. Will she laugh us out of the apartment? Will she scream for help? Maybe like Jake she'll have no reaction at all.

  Her reaction is to get off the couch and walk over to us. She bends down a little to look me in the eye. I back away when she touches my hair. "You're saying you were a man?"

  "Until the night of the robbery," I say.

  "Huh." I'm glad when she takes a couple of steps back, though less glad when I notice her eyes going from my face down to between my legs. "Maybe you should give me the whole story."

  Jake and I take the couch this time while Dr. Palme
r sits on the dining room chair to study me as I tell her what happened. She smokes a couple more cigarettes while I tell her everything from the night of the robbery to this morning-I leave out my period. I can tell that like Jake she won't believe it.

  "You said the syringe was filled with something pink?" she asks when I finish.

  "Yes."

  She nods. "The serum is actually clear. Dr. Nath added the pink coloring so we'd know which batch it belonged to. The male version would have been blue."

  "So you believe me?"

  "Not by a long shot."

  "But-"

  "If you want to prove it, then we'll have to run some tests."

  "I have our boys in the lab comparing blood samples," Jake says. "So far they're a match. Her prints match Steve's too."

  "We'll need more than that. A full work-up on her. Do you mind if I call you that?"

  "It's fine," I say. "I'm getting used to it."

  "Since it's only been about thirty-six hours, the drug is probably still in your system. We should be able to find traces of it in the blood work."

  This gives me a queasier feeling than before. I remember what she said before about the chimp they used that drug on that had turned almost pubescent. "Does that mean it's still working? Could I get even younger?"

  "Probably not. There's no way to be sure without getting a peek inside you. I do some consulting work for St. Vincent's; they'll let us use their equipment."

  "When?"

  "Just as soon as we can get over there," she says. "And after I throw on some clothes. You got room in your car for me?"

  "Stacey can squeeze into the back," Jake says.

  ***

  Of everything I've experienced so far, perhaps the strangest moment is to be naked in front of a relative stranger. It's of slight comfort that Dr. Palmer is covered as much as a woman in Saudi Arabia. "Do you think I'm contagious?" I ask and think of Jake's house with my blood all over the sheets and floor. Tess has probably come into contact with a fair amount of it; could my blood give her a dose of the FY-1978, make her years younger?

  "I don't know what you are," she says. "Hop up on the table and we'll find out."

  The table is so cold that I cry out. "Why can't I wear one of those paper gowns at least?"

  "I want to get a look at everything. Saves time this way."

  I never asked Debbie about any of her gynecological appointments; I'm sure they aren't like this. Dr. Palmer turns on a tape recorder on a tray. Then she starts to look over my entire body; she pays special attention to my most sensitive parts. She actually uses a magnifying glass to study my breasts. "I don't usually let someone do that until the second date," I joke.

  "These are perfectly formed. No abnormalities that I can see."

  "Thanks."

  Even with most of her face covered, I can still see the annoyance in her eyes. "This is being recorded, so could you pipe down until we're finished?"

  "Sure."

  The doctor rewinds the tape. She presses a button. "Patient's name is Stacey Chance. Caucasian female, roughly eighteen years old."

  "Twenty-one," I interrupt.

  "Eighteen-and that's pushing it."

  And just like that I'm three years younger. I can't drink legally, but at least I can still buy cigarettes, vote, or play the lottery, not that any of those hold much interest for me.

  "Patient weighs 49.89 kilos. Height: 1.67 meters. No irregularities or deformities visible except for a bruise around the right eye. Patient says that occurred after the incident at Lennox Pharmaceuticals.

  "Patient's breasts are fully formed. Areola and nipples are consistent with those of a normal female. No scars or other evidence of surgery performed."

  "You think I did this to myself?"

  "Shut. Up," Dr. Palmer hisses. As revenge she goes down to the end of the table to stare at my private parts. "Put your feet in the stirrups, please."

  "Do you have to do that?"

  She turns the recorder off again. "Is there something you don't want me to see?"

  "No. It might be a little messy though," I say. I tell her about what happened this morning, when I woke up to my first period.

  She turns the recorder back on. "Special note: patient reports menstruating began this morning. This began with abdominal cramping, followed by heavy bleeding and nausea." The doctor goes over to the garbage can. With her plastic gloves she fishes through the trash until she finds my stained maxi pad. "Feminine undergarment supports patient's claims. Will have to have bloodstains analyzed to make sure they match samples taken from the patient."

  Like Jake and I do at crime scenes, she stuffs the maxi pad into a little baggie so she can preserve it for later. So far Dr. Palmer seems thorough enough that I'd want her on any of my crime scenes. Maybe Jake should ask her to take a peek at Dr. Nath's lab to search for anything we might have missed.

  Now we get down to the most awkward part of the exam. After she snaps on a fresh pair of gloves, Dr. Palmer brushes a hand against my pubic hair. I squeal for a moment as she yanks one out. "Patient has fully-developed pubic hair." She gets out the magnifying glass again to study between my legs. "Labia appear normal."

  What comes next is even less pleasant. Dr. Palmer wheels over what looks like a computer with a console and flat screen. She holds up what looks like an electric toothbrush, except it's got a cord to connect it to the computer. "This is an ultrasound transducer," she says. "To verify you really are a woman, I need to insert this into your vagina. That way we can make sure everything is where it's supposed to be."

  "Can't you do that from the outside?"

  "I'm afraid not. It is a pretty common procedure. There's really no risk of anything bad happening to you." The doctor gives me a hard stare. "Unless there's something you don't want me to see in there?"

  "No, it's not that," I say, my eyes focused on the transducer. It's hard to believe she plans to stick that thing inside of me. I remember when my old doctor gave me a prostate exam; this will be like that times a thousand. But if I don't do it, then she'll think I'm faking. "Go ahead."

  "This shouldn't hurt at all," she says. "It might just be a little cold." She motions to the computer screen. "You can see what I'm doing on that."

  "Great," I mumble. I close my eyes as she inserts the transducer inside of me. She's right that it doesn't really hurt; it's more like when I had to put a suppository up my rear for a nasty case of hemorrhoids.

  About a minute goes by. There's a bunch of white and black noise on the computer screen. I remember when Debbie's obstetrician showed us an ultrasound of Madison. Despite my keen detection skills, I couldn't see a baby amongst all that chaos.

  This time there's no baby to find. Dr. Palmer taps the screen with one finger. "There's your left ovary," she says. "Looks perfectly healthy."

  "An ovary? So you mean I can have babies?"

  "As many as you want," she says. "There's your uterus. No little Staceys in it right now."

  "That's a relief," I say, and put a hand to my stomach. "So I guess I really am a woman, huh?"

  "You are a woman. There's no denying that," she says as she pulls the transducer out of me. While she cleans my juices off of it, she adds, "It doesn't prove the rest of your story."

  "How do we do that?"

  She holds up a metal tray; on it is a very nasty-looking syringe and a half-dozen clear containers. "We'll start by taking some blood. If the drug is still in your system we should be able to see it."

  "Are you going to leave a little blood in me?" I can see her smile beneath her mask. "What?"

  "I remember why I like working with animals better than humans. They complain a lot less."

  "Gee, thanks."

  "Close your eyes and it'll be over soon enough."

  I do as she suggests; I close my eyes and turn my head towards the door. I've never liked needles, especially needles that suck out my blood
like little vampires. Still, if that's the only way to convince Dr. Palmer I'm telling the truth, then I'll let her take my last drop of blood.

  A couple minutes go by before the doctor says, "All finished. I'd give you a lollypop if I had one."

  "So now what do we do?"

  "You can get dressed. Then we'll go upstairs for an MRI and some X-rays."

  "Lucky me," I grumble.

  Chapter 19

  The rest of the exam is easy enough. For most of it I lie on a table; I occasionally move as they take pictures of the inside of my body. By the time I've changed out of my paper hospital gown, used the bathroom, and drank a bottle of Gatorade from the vending machine, Dr. Palmer has the X-rays back.

  "That was some fast work," I say.

  "Just had to lean on them a little. Helps when I can say it's for a police investigation."

  We stand in a little room lit with blue-white light for the X-rays. She puts one against the lights. I see a ribcage and spine-my ribcage and spine. There must be something wrong with the film, because there are a lot of lines on the film that look almost like spider webs. "That isn't how it's supposed to look, is it?"

  "No, there shouldn't be any of those squiggly lines. Not for a normal person."

  "Meaning what?"

  "The serum contains low dose radioactive isotopes-"

  "It's radioactive?" Saying the word brings to mind monster movies I saw as a kid that featured giant ants, lizards, or turtles. Maybe before long I'll grow to fifty-feet-tall and rampage through the city.

  "About as much as the average carrot from the grocery store. I said it's a low dose. Not enough to do any damage, but enough to show up on an X-ray."

  I'm not a scientist by any stretch, but even I can put the pieces together. "So that means there is some FY-1978 in me yet?"

  "That's the best possible answer. Not the only one. We'll have to wait until we get the blood work back to know for sure."

  "But still, you know I'm telling the truth now. I wasn't born like this and I didn't have any sex change surgeries either."

  Dr. Palmer nods and then turns to me. "I think you are telling the truth. And that scares the hell out of me. No drug should be able to work that kind of change, not in the amount of time you described. It should take days or even weeks if at all. Our test subjects in the lab took ninety-six hours on average to show signs of a change."