W is for Wasted

“Hi, I’m Kinsey,” I said. “And you’re Alice?”

She opened the storm door. “I am. Lolly’s mother and mine were sisters. Are those for her?”

“Oh, sorry,” I said, handing her the bouquet. I held out the candy box. “These are for her as well.”

She took both, saying, “Very nice. Won’t you come in?”

“Thanks. I really appreciate your letting me stop by.”

“Lolly’s in the backyard,” she said. “I’ll introduce you, but I should warn you, ten minutes from now she won’t remember who you are. She suffers dementia and she’s easily confused.”

I felt my heart sink, wishing she’d mentioned this on the phone. My optimism faded as I followed her through the house. I’d be asking Lolly about events that occurred some sixteen years before. It hadn’t seemed like such a stretch when I came up with the plan. Now I wondered if there was any point.

20

PETE WOLINSKY

July 1988, Three Months Earlier

On Saturday, Pete drove over to Santa Teresa Hospital and had a long chat with the medical librarians, doing what he thought of as due diligence. He explained that he was a freelance journalist, working on an article about Glucotace. He said another writer had passed along preliminary notes, but Pete couldn’t make heads nor tails of his handwriting, so he wasn’t sure how the term was used, only that he was expected to cover the subject, which would run as a two-part series.

These two women presided over thousands of medical texts and professional journals. They also had computer resources Pete couldn’t have accessed for love or money. Apparently, no one ever asked for assistance because they were soon falling all over themselves, getting him what he needed. They sat him down at a table and provided him with medical literature from which he made copious notes. He wasn’t entirely clear on some of the language or the medical terms—doctors had to fancy everything up with Latin—but the gist of it began to sink in as he read. Turned out Glucotace was an oral hypoglycemic medication, manufactured by a Swiss company called Paxton-Pfeiffer. The drug had been pulled off the market in 1969, after reports of users suffering serious and sometimes fatal side effects, among them blurred vision, anemia and other blood disorders, headaches, hepatic porphyria, stomach pain, nerve damage caused by excessive levels of porphyrin in the liver, hepatitis, hives, itching, skin rash, and skin eruptions. Pete shook his head. Last thing in the world a diabetic needed was another load of grief.

He moved on. Two recent abstracts suggested that the drug was going into Phase II clinical trials for off-label use in combination with certain first-generation sulphonylureas in the treatment of alcohol and nicotine addiction. One of the librarians returned to his table with additional information, providing him with an abstract of a proposal submitted to the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, which was part of the NIH, the National Institutes of Health. The randomized, double-blind study was intended to develop behavioral and drug-relapse prevention for individuals dependent on both nicotine and alcohol using a combination of Acamprosate, Naltrexone, and Glucotace.

According to the abstract: “The aim of this study is to compare the effect of cognitive therapy in adjunct of three different pharmacotherapies.”

The sponsor was Paxton-Pfeiffer in collaboration with the Santa Teresa Research Institute at the University of California Santa Teresa. The start date, September 1987. Estimated study completion date, September 1989. Estimated enrollment, 40. “This study is currently recruiting participants,” it said. Principal investigator: Linton Reed, M.D., Ph.D. Pete made a note of the eleven-digit clinical-trials government identifier number and then sat and thought about what he’d learned. The subject was still perplexing, but no longer opaque.

When he went back to the main desk and inquired about a Dr. Stupak, first name unknown, they rustled up a Viktor Stupak in an AMA publication that listed his graduation from medical school, his subsequent internship and residency, and various appointments, leading up to his current position as chief of Surgical Oncology, Arkansas Christian Cancer Center, which was affiliated with Arkansas Christian College in Conway, Arkansas.

Out of curiosity, he had them track down a photograph and bio of Linton Reed, which allowed him to trace his educational history as well. Reed had done his undergraduate work at Florida State. He remembered now that Willard had mentioned Florida State as the place where Linton and Mary Lee had met. After Florida State, Reed had been accepted at Duke, where he picked up his Ph.D. and M.D. in successive years. He then completed an internship and began his surgical residency at the very Arkansas Christian Cancer Center where Viktor Stupak, M.D., was currently ensconced. Linton Reed had been there a scant six months. After an unexplained gap, his career history picked up again when he was awarded a two-year fellowship by the National Science Foundation. Pete considered putting a call through to Dr. Stupak but didn’t think he’d have much luck. These medical types could be a close-mouthed lot.