Fertile Ground (33 page)

“It’s not his way.” Elana cut open a red pepper. “His brother-in-law lost his job six months ago and hasn’t found another one. His sister is pregnant, and one of the children—the youngest boy, I think—has cystic fibrosis. They don’t have good medical insurance, so Sam’s been taking care of those bills, too.”

“Sam is very special,” Lisa said softly.

She phoned him from the guest room. After four rings, she heard the answering machine click on and was relieved that she wouldn’t have to talk to him, but as soon as she said, “Sam, this is Lisa,” he interrupted.

“I was on my way out when I heard the phone,” he said. “I’m glad you called. I’m worried about you. Lisa. I phoned at least three times—I tried your place, too.”

“I was there for a while, straightening up. Then I went window-shopping. I needed to clear my head.” It was getting easier to lie, especially since she was talking into the receiver, not to his face.

“You’ll have plenty of time for that now, but you won’t have a paycheck. If you need a loan—”

“I’m fine. Thanks for offering, though.”

“How about joining me for dinner tonight? We can commiserate about our dismal futures.”

“Thanks, but I don’t think so, Sam.”

There was an uncomfortable silence. He said, “It’s because of yesterday. I’m rushing you, right?”

That wasn’t it at all, but she was happy to latch onto the reason he’d offered. “I’m confused about a lot of things.”

“I don’t blame you. And I’m sorry I made you uncomfortable. It won’t happen again. Friends?”

“Friends,” she said, and hoped that was true.

She hung up, then located the list of egg donors she’d printed out. On the third page she found the name she wanted. She dialed the phone number, and when a young woman answered. Lisa identified herself and asked to speak to Felicia Perry.

“I’m Felicia. How can I help you?”

Lisa heard curiosity and wariness in the woman’s voice. “We’re doing a follow-up on women who’ve donated eggs at our clinic during the past year. We want to know whether the experience was pleasant, and whether you had any comments.” “It was fine, I guess. I was happy to help couples who needed the eggs.”

“How did you feel after the surgery?”

“Actually, I was kind of weepy because of a dream I had, but the nurse explained that was because of the anesthesia.”

“What kind of dream?” Lisa asked, though she already knew. She felt as though a hand were twisting her insides. “I donated two weeks ago, so I remember this clearly. A man said that Hagar, Abraham’s handmaiden, didn’t abandon her child, and why was I abandoning mine? He said he was the voice of my babies, that my babies were crying and that I’d be punished.” Felicia expelled a breath. “I know it was just a dream, but it was creepy. I don’t know who Hagar is, or how she popped into my dream. Maybe it’s from some TV show I saw. Or from a Bible class when I was a kid.”

“Did you see what this man looked like?” Unconsciously she tightened her grip on the phone receiver.

“I couldn’t open my eyes. When I did, no one was there. That’s how I knew it was a dream. I hope I’ve been helpful,” she added.

“Very helpful.” Lisa thanked her and hung up, her heart hammering.

This couldn’t be coincidence—both Chelsea and Felicia Perry dreaming about Hagar, both of them being threatened with punishment for abandoning their “babies.” She was alarmed by what she’d heard, convinced that someone from the clinic had approached these

women in the recovery room and threatened them.

You’re going to be punished, he’d told them. Had he taken on the role of angry prophet, warning them that a divine being would demand retribution? Or had he taken on the role of avenger?

Chelsea had been murdered. Was Felicia in danger, too? Were other donors in danger? But if the man had been angry at Chelsea, why had he waited all these months to “punish” her?

“Because she didn’t heed his warning,” Lisa said aloud. Because he’d seen her at the clinic when she came to donate again.

Lisa had four pages of donor names. If this man had approached some of the other donors, maybe one of them remembered something that could help identify him.

She called the first donor on the list, but the woman wasn’t in. Neither were the next four donors she phoned. The sixth woman answered the phone. Lisa told her the same thing she’d told Felicia Perry, and asked her about her experience donating eggs.

“It was fine,” the woman said in a cheerful, game contestant’s voice. “Perfectly fine.”

“Did you have any aftereffects from the anesthesia?”

“Nope. I never do. Is that it? Because I’m on my way out.”

Lisa was disappointed, but of course this man wouldn’t have accosted every patient. She continued making calls and dialed numbers for five patients before she reached one who was at home.

Her name was Bonnie York, and she’d had the same “dream.”

“Did you tell a nurse about it?” Lisa asked.

“No. I felt silly and uncomfortable.” A shy laugh. “I’ve thought about it, and I realized I must have had ambivalent feelings about donating the eggs—that’s why the dream. I don’t think I’d do it again.”

“Can you describe the man in your dream?”

“No. At one point I opened my eyes and saw a man wearing a surgical mask. I thought he was real, but of course he wasn’t. In my dream, I

was confusing this man with a doctor. That’s why he was wearing a mask. But I’m not sure what that means. Why would a doctor be warning me not to donate eggs?”

Lisa thought about that after she hung up. She phoned Barone and left another message. “Please tell him it’s urgent,” she said to the receptionist and gave the Presslers’ phone number.

She would have liked to get some fresh air, to clear her head, but she didn’t want to miss the detective’s call. She had an urge to phone Sam, but she didn’t know if she could trust him. The thought filled her with sadness.

She hadn’t done her exercises in days. Lying on the floor doing stomach curls, she thought about the masked man accosting donors in the recovery room and wondered whether this was what Chelsea had told Dr. Melman, what he’d refused to share with Lisa. But that didn’t make sense; the fact that Chelsea had had an upsetting dream was hardly confidential. And why had she been depressed about it nine months later?

Lisa still hadn’t figured out what the files had to reveal—she knew something was there. It might be connected to this unidentified man who’d accosted Chelsea and the others. It might be totally separate.

She looked again at the statistics for women under thirty-five: a forty-six percent pregnancy rate. Amazing. Of the thirty-seven patients in this age group, only nine were in her “donor problem” subgroup. She decided to examine the files of the other twenty-eight women.

Three of them had recently undergone corrective surgery. Four were taking oral fertility drugs. Five had completed one IVF cycle. Thirteen of the twenty-eight were pregnant.

Skimming the medical profiles and histories, she found nothing unusual but noticed that more than one patient had been referred by the same physician—Dr. Jerome Nestle. She’d seen the name on other referrals. It wasn’t uncommon to have one doctor refer several patients, but she was certain she’d heard his name in a different context.

“Jerome Nestle,” she said aloud.

She put aside the twenty-eight files and returned to her original group of “donor problem” files, but the name was teasing her memory. She phoned the clinic and spoke to Selena—Edmond had asked her to stay in the office and field all questions—but the office manager knew Nestle only as a referring physician.

“Is it important?” she asked.

“I have no idea. Just fishing.”

Sam might know, but Lisa didn’t want to ask him. Or Ted. It was three forty-five. She considered asking Edmond and phoned him at home on the chance that he was there. When she’d spoken to him at the clinic, after the police had left, he’d been angry, depressed. She doubted that his mood had improved.

Georgia answered the phone. “Edmond’s not here, dear,” she told Lisa. “I’ll have him phone you as soon as I hear from him. This has been a terrible day, just terrible—although I don’t have to tell you that. Is there something I can help you with?”

“Do you know a Dr. Jerome Nestle? He’s an OH-GYN, and he sounds familiar.”

“He should—he’s a partner in the clinic and one of Edmond’s friends.”

Lisa frowned. “Really? I’ve never met him.”

“Well, he’s a silent partner. You would have met him at the engagement party we gave for you and Matthew.” She sighed. “But he and Helen, his wife, were out of town at the time. Cancun, I think. Do you still want me to have Edmond call you?”

That was where Lisa had seen his name—on the list of investors attached to the prospectus Matthew had shown her. “No, that’s all right. You don’t even have to mention that I called. Thanks again, Georgia.”

She sat on the bed and reexamined the files, setting aside the ones that listed Nestle as the referring physician. There were four: one patient had just started an IVF cycle;

three had recently completed IVF. All three were pregnant.

Three for three. Great odds.

Maybe too great.

She called the first woman and tried not to sound nervous when she identified herself and asked for Nancy Bartholomew.

“I’m Nancy Bartholomew,” the woman said, her voice guarded. “Why are you calling?”

“Actually, I was looking at your file and was pleased to see that you conceived on the first IVF cycle.”

“Larry and I couldn’t believe it.” Mrs. Bartholomew’s tone had lost its edge. “We’d been trying for over a year and were getting discouraged. Then Dr. Nestle suggested the clinic, and here I am, pregnant.”

Lisa could tell that the woman was smiling. “You were Dr. Nestle’s patient for some time?”

“For years. He’s wonderful. When Larry and I decided we wanted to start a family a little over a year ago. Dr. Nestle gave me a thorough exam and a Pap smear, to make sure everything was ‘baby-ready,” as he put it.”

“What kind of birth control were you using until then?”

‘ The sponge. I have a history of migraines, so the pill was out. And I didn’t want an IUD. Anyway, two months later I went back to him, because my periods were longer and heavier and I was having mid-cycle staining.”

“Did he do any tests to see what was wrong?”

“No. He wasn’t alarmed—he said this happens often to women once they’re in their thirties.”

Lisa frowned. She’d never heard that it happened “often.”

“He did give me oral fertility pills after some diagnostic tests, to help me get pregnant.”

“Clomid?”

“No. I don’t know the name, but unlike Clomid, these pills don’t increase the odds of having multiple births. Dr. Nestle keeps a supply in his office, so I never needed a prescription.”

Lisa was puzzled. What kind of fertility pill didn’t increase the odds of multiple births? And why was Nestle dispensing them from his office?

“A year later, when I still hadn’t conceived, he gave me another exam and referred us to the clinic. I phoned

him the minute I found out I was pregnant. He was so excited.”

“So when did the staining and the other symptoms stop?”

“Actually, right around the time of that second exam.”

“Before or after the exam?” Alarm bells were going off in Lisa’s head. She held her breath. “Mmm … after. Because when I went to the clinic the following month, I no longer had the problem. Of course, I mentioned it to the nurse who took my history.”

“And you had a Pap smear during this second exam, too?”

“Yes. I don’t understand why you’re asking all these questions.” The wariness was back in her voice.

“Just medical curiosity.” She forced herself to laugh. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to make you anxious. Did you—”

“I’m sorry. I really have to go.”

Lisa heard the dial tone. She hung up, pensive, and phoned the second of Nestle’s patients, Nedda Flom. She was friendlier than Nancy Bartholomew, less reluctant to talk to Lisa, even though she’d heard the news about the clinic.

“I’ve had the best care at the clinic. I don’t believe for a moment that embryos have been switched.” Her voice dropped. “I feel terrible about Dr. Gordon. You’re his fiancee, aren’t you? My heart goes out to you.”

“Thank you,” she said quietly. She paused. “You must be excited about the pregnancy.”

“Delirious.” The woman laughed. “Honestly, I was beginning to think it wouldn’t happen.”

A little over a year ago, she told Lisa, she and her husband decided they wanted to have a baby. She went to Nestle, who gave her an exam and told her she was in excellent shape.

“Did he give you a Pap smear, too?”

“Uh-huh. Not what I was used to. I had cramping, something I’ve never had with a Pap smear. Nestle said that’s because he took tissue from a little higher up than normal. Sadist.” She laughed again. “I had a little spotting afterward, too.”

“What kind of birth control were you using before?”

“A diaphragm. I don’t like iUDs or pills.”

Subsequent to the exam, she’d had the same problems Nancy Bartholomew had described. The symptoms didn’t disappear until a year later, after she had another Pap smear. Nestle gave her oral fertility drugs, which he dispensed from his office.

“Do you have any of those pills left? I’m curious to see what they are.” That was an understatement.

“I do. God knows why I kept them, since they didn’t help me get pregnant.” She laughed again. “But why don’t you call Dr. Nestle and ask him?”

Lisa thought quickly. “This is awkward, but Dr. Nestle and I had a disagreement, and I’m not comfortable contacting him.”

“I understand. Dr. Nestle’s okay, but he can be stubborn. To tell you the truth, my husband and I were planning to go to a different clinic, but Nestle practically strong-armed us into going to yours.”

Lisa wasn’t surprised. “Can I stop by and pick up the pills?”

“Sure, why not?” She gave Lisa an address in Beverlywood, not far from the Presslers. “I’m going to the market. I’ll leave the pills in an envelope at the side door, okay?”

“More than okay. Thanks so much. Good luck with the baby.” “Thank you. I hope everything is cleared up about the clinic. If you patch things up with Dr. Nestle and see him before I do, give him my regards.”