The Love Potion Murders in the Museum of Man Read online

  Berthe Schanke, larger than life, no-fault or otherwise, her head perfectly shaven, in studded black jacket over a T-shirt lettered with some slogan about the patriarchy, rootled as usual in the donuts that had been provided. She remains the guiding force behind BITCH, a coalition of groups comprising what Izzy Landes has called “the complaining classes.”

  Izzy himself, academically respondent in bow tie, his nimbus of white hair swept dramatically back, took a plaudit from Father S.J. O’Gould, S.J., regarding the publication of his latest tome, The Evolution of Evolution, successor to The Nature of Nature and The Science of Science. And while not a best seller, it has been very well received in those quarters where it matters.

  Understatedly dignified in Roman collar, Father O’Gould, now best known for Wonderful Strife: Natural Selection and the Inevitability of Intelligence, took me aside before the meeting to offer me his sympathy regarding Elsbeth’s situation. He said he would like to drop by as a friend to see her. I thanked him and said I was sure Elsbeth would be delighted. I told him I looked forward to hearing him give the first Fessing Lecture.

  Corny Chard didn’t show up, of course, being down in the Amazon somewhere trying to document people eating other people. Standing in for Corny for the semester was John Murdleston, also a professor of anthropology and Curator of the Ethnocoprolite Collections in the MOM. He recently published an article, “Expressive Flatulence and Male Prerogative in an Evolutionary Context,” that created a small stir in those circles devoted to such things.

  Professor Randall Athol of the Divinity School arrived late and a little breathless. He apologized and voiced the hope he hadn’t missed much. Even he has published recently, something on the nature of divine fairness titled, I believe, When Good Things Happen to Bad People.

  Ariel Dearth, the Leona Von Beaut Professor of Situational Ethics and Litigation Development at the Law School, sat restlessly, as usual, looking around him as though for the press or for clients. He cranks out books pretty regularly, Sue Your Mother being his latest. I’m told there are cases now where children have sued their parents for wrongful birth, bad genes, and all that.

  We have a couple of newcomers, chief among them one Luraleena Doveen, a very fetching young woman of color from the President’s Office of Outreach. I think she may be the only one not in the toils of publishing something.

  A Professor J.J. McNull, who joined the committee last year, smiled on everyone. He strikes me as one of those academicians who, with a bottomless capacity for boredom, sit on committees trying to look sage and saying no. I’m not sure what he’s professor of. He glances around a lot, either smiling with approval or glowering with disapproval.

  Ms. Brattle opened with a short statement about “what appear to be dark happenings in the Museum of Man again leading to concerns about the administration of that institution.” A large woman with the self-obliviousness of a professional professional, so to speak, Ms. Brattle looked over her glasses at me in a manner meant to level blame. She spoke darkly of the need for “a very active subcommittee to monitor the day-to-day operations of the museum, especially the part dealing with the very sensitive area of genetic research.” She concluded by reminding us that, as Chair, she reports directly to President Twill himself.

  Remaining imperturbed, I responded that the museum’s Board of Governors was not likely to allow me to acquiesce in such a step even were I inclined to do so. I informed the committee that the museum is in strict compliance with the Animal Welfare Act and all other local, state, and federal regulations governing the research conducted at the lab. I told them that I was cooperating very closely with the Seaboard Police Department in their ongoing investigation into what had transpired the night that Professor Ossmann and Dr. Woodley died. I reminded them that what happened that night might very well have nothing to do with the lab or with their research there.

  Ms. Schanke, in the kind of non sequitur to which she is given, stood up and spoke as though reading from a prepared statement. Looking directly at me, she said, “I know that people like you, Mr. Ratour, think that people like me are perverts. But we all know that what’s going on in those labs is the real perversion. You people are perverting nature and you’re going to f*ck everything up. You pretend to be scientists, but all you’re really interested in is the bottom line and how much money you can make …” After several more minutes of this kind of diatribe, Ms. Schanke sat down and helped herself to a Chocolate Frosted.

  I let the silence at her outburst gather and provide its own rebuttal.

  Attorney Dearth bestirred himself. “What Berthe’s trying to say —”

  Ms. Schanke, standing again, interrupted him. “I’m not trying to say anything. I have said what I wanted to say.”

  In what appeared to be an attempt to strike a moderating note, Professor Athol opined how “the research into the secrets of life needs a spiritual dimension.”

  “Yeah, until they find the God gene, and then they’ll find a way to market that as well,” Ms. Schanke rejoined with some bitterness.

  Izzy perked up at that. “Well, judging from what’s out there, there must be lots of different God genes. I mean a Methodist God gene, a Catholic God gene, a couple of Jewish God genes, one for the Reformed and one for the Orthodox. And think about the Hindus …”

  Professor Murdleston, who is hard of hearing, asked, “A Methodist gene?”

  “Well, not a Methodist gene per se …”

  “I think Randy is trying to say something important here,” Mr. Dearth put in.

  And in rare agreement with the attorney, Father O’Gould, the lilt of his native Cork still in his speech, said, “If we are nothing more than our genes, then what are we?”

  No one seemed to know.

  Mr. Dearth wondered aloud what two people were doing in the lab alone at night.

  Izzy asked the learned counsel if he was suggesting there ought to have been chaperones.

  “No, I am wondering where the security guard was.”

  I informed the committee that there were, as usual, two guards on duty in the Genetics Lab building itself, one making rounds, “who can’t be in all places at all times,” and one watching an array of monitors.

  “You mean to say there was no video monitor set up in the lab where this tragedy occurred?” Dearth asked me in his best withering courtroom manner.

  “There was a monitor,” I replied, “until several of the researchers, led by Professor Ossmann, took the matter to the American Civil Liberties Union and forced us to remove it on the grounds it was an invasion of privacy.”

  Mr. Dearth subsided.

  Izzy waxed philosophical at that point. He noted that we are increasingly taking over our own evolutionary destiny; that, vide his latest publication, evolution itself is evolving. Once Crick and Watson let the genie out of the bottle, well, there was no putting it back in.

  I agreed. I pointed out that before long we will be raising pigs with genetically altered hearts that can be transplanted into human beings.

  Ms. Berthe declared that for most corporate types the genetic modifications wouldn’t be necessary.

  Thad Pilty weighed in at that moment, saying that “transgenic swine are already old hat.” In an attempt to lighten the mood, he added, “Before long, theoretically, anyway, you’ll be able to grow yourself a second sex organ.”

  Not everyone laughed.

  Izzy chortled. “I think it’s quite enough to manage one.”

  “Tell me about it,” said Ms. Doveen, trying not to giggle.

  Ms. Brattle brought us back to the frowning level by recalling the attempts of Dr. S.X. Gottling to produce a new “perfect” human genotype at the lab using chimps as experimental models.

  Professor McNull scowled his approval of her disapproval.

  The question, Professor Athol stated somewhat pretentiously, “is not what is to become of us, but what are we to become?”

  “I see lots of room for improvement,” Izzy said.

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sp; Ms. Doveen inquired very sensibly if it might be possible for someone to be concocting a potent aphrodisiac in the lab without the knowledge of management.

  I told her such a thing was possible but not very probable given the protocols in place for developing and testing such a drug before it would be allowed on the market.

  “But you don’t know for certain?” Professor Athol spoke in an accusatory tone.

  “That’s true,” I said, “any more than you would know for certain whether one of your deans was downloading pornography into the hard drive of his office computer.”

  Ariel Dearth revived from an uncharacteristic somnambulence. “But if such a drug were under development in the lab, it would be in your interest to cover it up, wouldn’t it?”

  “I resent your insinuation,” I replied. “And what possible motive could we have for covering up that or any other research?”

  Mr. Dearth smiled. “What I mean, Mr. de Ratour, is that should you be experimenting with anything like a powerful aphrodisiac, then the museum could be liable for wrongful deaths.”

  Izzy gave a snorting “ha!” Then he said, “And what rich postmortem pickings there would be for you, Ariel, and the members of your … profession.”

  It was Father O’Gould who stepped in to point out that we were meeting to offer advice to the Genetics Lab, if it were needed, and not to indulge in accusations based on speculation.

  I thought at that point the meeting might be over or move on to something else, perhaps whether the university’s health coverage should pay for sex-change operations and that sort of thing. Instead, Professor Athol brought up Bert and the chimp’s participation in the development of ReLease, and, with that, the ethical issues surrounding the use of animals in medical experiments.

  Father O’Gould, I noticed, leaned forward, evincing a close interest in what I had to say. “Well, first,” I began, “we subscribe, as I’ve noted, to all the provisions of the Animal Welfare Act. Additionally, we take every measure possible to assure the comfort both physically and psychologically where the latter applies of the organism in any experiment.”

  Father O’Gould nodded. “The question is one of stewardship. We need always balance the mercy due our fellow creature with the mercy due our fellow man …”

  “And woman,” Ms. Brattle interjected.

  Ms. Schanke, visibly agitated, burst forth: “What you’re both really saying in fancy language is that it’s all right for us so-called human beings to torture other animals, even those that share ninety-eight percent of our DNA, so that booze-swilling men don’t have to suffer hangovers …”

  “Even sinners deserve mercy,” Father O’Gould said gently.

  “… and so that big price-gouging companies like Pyramed can make billions in profit …”

  “We don’t torture animals,” I replied coolly.

  “I think inducing fellow creatures to drink alcohol to excess could be called torture,” said Ms. Brattle, the expert on blame.

  “What did you give him to drink?” asked Izzy.

  “Vodka in orange juice.”

  “And you don’t call that torture?” Ms. Schanke demanded.

  Ms. Doveen, an unexpected ally, turned to Ms. Schanke and asked, “How do you know? Maybe he liked getting high. I mean all they do is sit around all day like prisoners.”

  “Well,” I said, correcting her gently, “we do have an exercise yard where they spend considerable time together.”

  “How do you keep them from breeding?” Professor Athol asked.

  “The females are fixed,” I replied, without thinking. “With the exception of one or two that are on special medication.”

  “You spayed them?” Ms. Schanke asked with outraged incredulity.

  “Yes.”

  “Without their permission?”

  I shook my head, wondering what Alice in Wonderland realm I had stumbled into.

  “Why didn’t you fix the males instead?” Ms. Brattle joined in, sensing blood.

  “We followed the recommendations of a respected consultant.”

  “A man, no doubt,” said Ms. Schanke.

  I ignored her and said something to the effect that the committee might be interested to learn that the museum had had in place for some time a deacquisition program regarding the chimps.

  Which opened me up for another round of abuse led by Ms. Schanke. “Right, right. Now that the lab is finished torturing the poor beasts, you’re going to get rid of them.”

  I explained in detail how we were placing and repatriating the chimps in the most humane way possible. What I could not admit to before the committee right then is the fact that I have profound misgivings myself about any kind of experimentation on animals, however humble their rank on the evolutionary ladder. I am privately very embarrassed by what happened to Bert during the trials for ReLease. Indeed the treatment of our animals is one area in the Genetics Lab where I am stickler for protocol.

  The fact is that under Elsbeth’s gentle suasion, I have become far more sensitive to the rights and sufferings of our fellow creatures. We regularly have several “vegetarian” days a week now. But right then was not the time for a soul-baring confession.

  As though sensing my thoughts, Father O’Gould held forth that the time had come in the moral evolution of our species to consider the possibility of moving beyond the use of animals for our food and fiber needs.

  Near the end of the meeting Ms. Brattle announced that early next week there would be an executive session of the Subcommittee on Appropriateness regarding a very sensitive case that had arisen between two employees in Sigmund Library, which serves the Psychology Department. The subcommittee, on which I serve — another gesture of goodwill — investigates and arbitrates on sensitive issues dealing with ethnic, gender, dietary, class, language, olfactory, and sexual orientation conflicts arising among students, faculty, and members of the administration.

  The meeting concluded in a muddle of inaction, good intentions, and declarative excess, the way most such meetings end. I simply stopped trying to explain anything. The pall of impending grief that I had held at bay all afternoon descended like a bleak cloud. How trivial everything before me seemed, how like shadows on a stage that had come and would go, leaving no trace. My dear, precious Elsbeth is under sentence of death.

  Well, I must call it a day. Or a night. I must go home now and help, as much as I can, Elsbeth into that other, endless night that awaits us all.

  8

  I am upstairs in my study again. The night is cold, dark, and silent. I am not only staggered with a sadness beyond description, but I am in thrall to new and disturbing thoughts and feelings that I had never expected to contend with.

  This afternoon I went out to our sophisticated little airport — it handles smaller passenger jets with alacrity — to pick up Diantha, Elsbeth’s daughter. The dear girl could scarcely keep from weeping when she saw me, falling into my arms, clinging to me, her wet face buried in my neck. I was glad to be of comfort and cared not one whit for the stares of passersby. I tried to reassure her as we waited for her luggage — three huge pieces — to come up the conveyer belt as though from Hades and start its clockwise stagger around the oval track of interleaved metal plates. I can tell from my prose that I am already equivocating.

  To witness Diantha’s shock and pity at seeing her mother in such evident decline opened afresh my own wound. I stood with my eyes damp as mother and daughter embraced and cried and then, not so strangely, started to laugh, as though life, deep down, even at its tragic worst, is comic, the joke of a whimsical creator.

  They spoke for hours, it seemed. I served as bartender, cook, waiter, and sommelier, uncorking one, then two bottles of a plangent Graves that Izzy recommended. It went brilliantly with the seafood lasagna that Elsbeth taught me how to make. (The touch of fennel and rosemary is the secret.) We all got a little tipsy, but I think it helped Elsbeth and Diantha heal any lingering rift between them. They both turned to me on occasion during t
he course of the evening, each time with something akin to surprise and not a little pleasure in their faces. I like to think they found my presence comforting. It was a great relief not to act as referee, an office I reluctantly undertook during their last meeting and which had earned me, I sensed, Diantha’s antipathy.

  Now I have the strange, unnerving feeling that a whole new aura has entered the house. In an uncanny way, it’s as though Elsbeth’s replacement has shown up, a kind of premature reincarnation. Not that I know Diantha that well. She did come to the wedding, but her visit was brief.

  We had a chance, doing the dishes together, to chat. “Your mom tells me you’re in show business,” I said by way of an invitation to her to tell me about herself.

  She shrugged. “I’ve done some acting. Some modeling. I have an agent. I’ve had gigs and a zillion near misses for the big time. But that’s not really what I do.”

  “What do you do?” I asked, noticing that she stacked the dishwasher exactly the way her mother does.

  “I have this knack for sorting out programming problems that confuse people with a lot more smarts than I ever had. It’s a kind of idiot savant flair. Even the high-end providers keep making the same mistakes.” She laughed at herself. “They pay me lots of money and it leaves me enough time to screw up the rest of my life.”

  “I’m sure you underestimate yourself.” I rinsed off Elsbeth’s dish, noticing that she had eaten very little.

  “Yeah, so I’m told. It’s better than having other people do it for you. Mom says you’re working on another murder.”

  “We’re not sure they’re murders.”

  “She says it’s juicy stuff. Two people fu … did themselves to death.”

  “Yes. It seems there was … intercourse of some violence.” In speaking I attempted to maintain the tone of objectivity, however spurious, that allows one to talk of prurient matters without the appearance of indulging in the prurience.

  Diantha laughed one of her mother’s laughs, a bright, mischievous hiccup. “It sounds like a great way to go.”