Chapter 10 A Parker’s Dilemma
A Parker’s Dilemma
The next morning, a black Lexus SUV is parked in Dr. Deaver’s space, but what makes it even more of an affront is that the vehicle is so far over the white line, Margaret can’t fit her little truck into her assigned spot without intruding into the next parker’s domain, which, if others followed the same path, would create a domino effect of misaligned vehicles down the entire row.
The thought of all that disorder makes her shudder.
What would happen if everyone just parked wherever they wanted?
She leaves her truck in one of the remote lots instead and hurries to the lab, arriving slightly windblown but on time.
Such disrespect, she thinks of the renegade parker. She will make sure the offender is tossed out.
In the lab, she retrieves a dozen leaves from several plants in the grow room—silver cockscomb and Japanese kerria specifically—which have properties similar to those of the stinging bush’s leaves but are easier to work with.
She puts them in the freezer and readies the TissueLyser, which they will use to grind the specimens and prepare them for extractions.
Calvin hasn’t arrived.
When it’s time for her break, she heads for Purdy’s desk. The woman is dressed all in black as if she were Mary Todd Lincoln mourning the death of her poor assassinated husband. Margaret herself is wearing her dragonfly blouse. No need to broadcast your grief to the whole world.
Margaret explains the problem and hands Purdy a slip of paper with the offending car’s license plate number. Purdy blows out a small breath and consults her computer.
She has done nothing to declutter her desk.
“The car belongs to Dr. Blackstone,” she says after a few minutes of searching.
Dr. Levi Blackstone is what Dr. Deaver called a “one-hit wonder,” a biochemistry professor with a single discovery to his name, and a middling one at that.
Blackstone seemed to think he and Dr. Deaver were equals, although to Margaret’s mind, that was like equating a rare Egyptian vase with a kindergartener’s Play-Doh bowl.
Margaret heads back to the lab. Calvin, Zhang and Emily are all MIA.
Is there some meeting she has not been informed about?
At noon, she calls Officer Bianchi and leaves a message asking him to call her, then eats a quick lunch and gets to work.
Margaret has already begun the extractions when a disheveled-looking Calvin arrives at one fifteen p.m. He hasn’t shaved, one side of his hair is flattened while the other flares out from his head and his T-shirt is ripped.
He looks as if he’s been in a cage fight with a bobcat.
Margaret tells him he might as well go home.
He says he can’t afford to miss work, so she sends him off to water specimens in the grow room.
Two minutes after four p.m., which is when Blackstone’s office hours begin, Margaret taps on his door.
Blackstone is behind his desk, wearing a navy-blue turtleneck and rimless glasses. His cheeks are sunken, his nose prominent and he sports a goatee that, unfortunately, only heightens the gaunt look.
“Ms. Finch,” he says. “I’m glad you came. I wanted to tell you personally how sorry I am for your loss.”
Margaret might have accepted the condolences, except the sympathy doesn’t seem to reach Blackstone’s eyes.
Instead, Margaret spots in them a hint of cunning and self-satisfaction, which is reinforced by the too-obvious placement of a chessboard in a corner of his office, a bust of the Stoic philosopher Seneca on his bookshelf, and a framed diploma from Yale on the wall.
“Please sit,” he says.
Margaret continues to stand. She’s not here to chitchat.
“You may not have realized this,” she says, “but Professor Deaver’s parking spot has not been reassigned, which means we each need to park in our own spaces until that happens. Also, your car is stuck so far into my space I had to park in Remote Lot 3.”
“My bad,” Blackstone says.
Margaret dislikes that particular phrase for the way it sidesteps genuine remorse. Can no one say “I’m sorry” anymore?
“It’s more than your ‘bad,’ Professor Blackstone. It’s a sign of disrespect. Dr. Deaver is not even in the ground, and here you are taking his space.”
Blackstone gives a little shake of his head, gets up and closes the office door. There’s a suggestion of danger to his movements. Margaret spots a smear of white on the shoulder of his turtleneck. His shoes are worn at the heels.
He turns. “I don’t know who you think you are, but I don’t appreciate you coming in here to lecture me about disrespect and where I can park. I’m a senior faculty member and you’re a lab manager, in case you forgot.”
Margaret lifts her chin. “Even senior faculty need to obey the rules. Otherwise, chaos would reign.”
“Right. Rules.” A hard look comes into his eyes. “Aren’t there rules, too, about stealing somebody else’s idea? Aren’t there rules about giving credit where it is due?”
He takes a step closer. Margaret plants herself even more firmly. What is he talking about?
“Deaver would never admit it, but I’m the one who told him about his precious bush and how it might have interesting properties.
He agreed it was interesting but then said it would be hard to get samples and did I want another research failure, which would look bad the next time I applied for a grant, and so I dropped it.
Then I find out he took the idea for his own.
He was a liar and a cheat. Every one of his successes was built on someone else’s back, which includes mine. I even wonder about some of his data.”
Margaret feels as if she’s been struck. “Dr. Deaver would never cheat or lie, and his data is impeccable. He was the one who had the idea, not you. He told me himself.”
Margaret remembers the moment perfectly. Dr. Deaver had called her into his office and described reading an online article titled “The World’s Ten Most Painful Plants,” which listed the unique stinging bush.
His eyes shined with excitement. “I’ve been reading more, Margaret, and I think the chemical structure of the bush’s toxin might have implications for cancer treatment. If I’m right, it could stall or even stop tumor growth. This could be huge.”
Professor Deaver didn’t need to explain the power of plants to Margaret or how a plant’s defenses might also protect humans.
She’d already been infected by the allure of these living things whose genius lay in the way that, unable to move, they adapted to whatever was around them.
In harsh environments, for instance, they would space themselves to ration water and minerals.
In forests they would create networks to share important nutrients.
They sent out scents to draw in pollinators and created sophisticated weapons against predators.
Certain plants, for instance, could sense the compounds in a marauding caterpillar’s saliva, then send plumes of a chemical compound into the air to summon the caterpillar’s enemy, parasitic wasps, which then arrived to destroy the attackers.
How incredible was that?
Plants adapted, communicated and cooperated.
To Margaret’s mind, a human could learn a lot if they just paid attention to plants.
Which Margaret has done. Over the years, she has studied hundreds of plants so closely they now feel like friends.
Hello, wild hyacinth! Cheers, bush lupine! Greetings, gray pine!
The fact that some plants could also cure illness or alleviate symptoms in humans only made her appreciate them more. So far, Dr. Deaver’s hunch about the compound in the stinging bush’s sharp spines appears to be right.
Margaret draws herself up to her full height. She is eye to eye with Blackstone.
“I think you are the liar, Professor.”
“Careful there, missy,” Blackstone says.
“I am always careful,” she says, “and my name is Ms. Finch.”
Her insides shudder with outrage and nerves.
Blackstone’s voice hardens even more. “What I’m saying, Ms. Finch, is that you might want to rethink what you just said.
The dean has been talking to me about taking over the lab now that Deaver is gone.
He doesn’t want to lose out on the possibility of a Cameron Foundation grant and thinks I might be able to salvage this thing.
Plus, he thinks Deaver’s paper could put us on the map as far as cancer research goes.
And you know what I prize above everything else? ”
Blackstone doesn’t wait for an answer.
“It’s loyalty, Ms. Finch. Undermining the coach has no place on a team. It’s why we have so many losers in the game.”
Margaret knows the college’s hapless basketball program has not had a winning season in eight years, but what does that have to do with cancer research?
Blackstone raises a finger. “Sun Tzu said if you look on your soldiers as sons and they see you as a father, they will follow you to the death.”
Margaret appreciates conversations that go in one direction, not those that swerve like a toddler behind the wheel of a speeding car. Where is this headed?
“Anyone who questions me won’t last long in my lab,” Blackstone continues. “There are plenty of ways to get rid of people who aren’t team players.”
Margaret’s heart gives a painful thump.
The college may have a labyrinthine system for hiring and firing, but if a senior person wants you gone, you’re gone whether there is evidence of misconduct or not. She’s already learned that lesson.
But how can she leave a job she loves and one that involves such important work?
How could she start over at age fifty-four?
And, yet, how could she support a lie just to keep her job?
Research is based on honesty, on facts. Change your commitment to either of those things and you can’t call yourself a scientist.
Blackstone returns to his desk chair. “Maybe you suddenly remembered Deaver mentioning my name when he suggested his theory. Maybe you were confused about where the idea originated. It happens, you know.”
He turns to his computer screen and doesn’t even look at her as he says it.
“Think about it carefully, Ms. Finch. After all, I’d hate to have to look for a new research assistant.”