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synthesize and correspondingly more profitable drugs.
Derivatives of MCPP or MPPP. Being averse to fishing, or more
correctly being the bait while somebody else fished, she dared not
disobey.
    2
    Morrison
called me as I was on my way to another lecture of 'Poetic
Physics'. He was excited with by the news.
    “ Will, I
think we found your poisoner.”
    “ Hey that's
great. Who?”
    “ Dr.
Isabelle Carling, from chemistry. She was running a tidy little
drug lab in addition to her research. Helped to pay the
bills.”
    “ I supposed
it's easier than getting funded by NSF.”
    What had
happened was simple. One of the bi-products of a botched synthesis
for MPPP is MPTP. MPTP kills part of the brain and induces a form
of Parkinson's disease. When several participants suddenly came
down with the shakes at an 'Exploration of Altered Consciousness'
party, it hadn't taken long to trace back the supply to the
unfortunate Dr. Carling. It seems, in order to enhance the
experience of these new journeys of discovery, she had engaged in a
little free-lance dealing on the side.
    Dr. Carling
had connections. The 'Explorations of Altered Consciousness'
parties had been held in a mansion in Buckhead. There isn't
anything like real old fashioned Rockefeller-style 'old money' in
Atlanta, but 'new money' talks just as loudly and she'd been bailed
out by the time Morrison and I could arrive. It was cash, and not a
bail bond so she could be anywhere. She wouldn't have had to talk
to us, but she might have. Now we'd just have to track her down
ourselves. With luck we'd find her before the drug gang did.
Otherwise, she wouldn't be in any shape to answer questions. The
gang had already found the janitor. Let's just say GSU had a new
vacancy in the maintenance staff and there was already a mess for
him to start cleaning.
    3
    I called
Arthur that evening and he reined me in.
    “ Will, what
did the medical examiner say about the students? Was Meth
involved?”
    “ No.”
    “ Let the
police handle this one. They're paid to do it, you're
not.”
    “ But?”
    “ Until
there's some evidence she was involved, this chemist is a
distraction.”
    He was
right, damn it. Unless something turned up to connect her with the
real poisonings, she wasn't of any interest to us.
    Nonetheless,
I still felt I should ask a few questions. Not many, but I started
by looking at pub-med. During my office hours, when I was sure I
wouldn't be disturbed, I started digging from the machine in my
office. Her work was in organic synthesis, which was largely a
closed book to me. I'd taken organic chemistry in college, but that
was too many years ago. The synthetic targets were interesting,
various neural channels. I was surprised she was having difficulty
with grants since all of her work was directed towards obvious drug
targets.
    Just for the
heck of it, I passed the channels through pub-med and found they
were not your garden variety target for depression or whatnot. LSD
and PCP interacted with the same channels. So it was possible she
was working, not just on drug design, but designer drugs. I thought
Morrison might want to know. He'd pass it on to the proper
people.
    4
    I called my erstwhile clients, the Phillips. The
first thing they said after picking up the phone was “Any
progress?”
    “ Maybe. Is
Jane around? I have a couple of questions to ask her.”
    There was a bit of confused noise, and then she
came on the phone. Her father was listening in the background.
    “ Jane, a
couple questions.”
    “ Sure.”
    “ First, how
did the ESL tutoring work? What did you do.”
    “ That was
easy. We were given a bunch of numbers to type in for connections.
Then we'd see the student and talk to him.”
    “ What were
the numbers like?”
    “ I don't
remember completely, well there was one I used a lot more than the
others. It went A7.AA.8F.F0, and connected me to someone in China.
He was sort of sweet.” I thought I could hear her father's teeth
grind in the background,