Bad Medicine (41 page)

"They's still time to get in," James said. "Just ask Dr. Frost."

Molly hopped off her stool and reached across to steal a dose pack of antacid. "My advice, James? Invest in computers."

James finished off the second Ding Dong and tossed two more dose packs at Molly for her trouble. "I can get out anytime," he told her. "I already made a sweet five thousand on that gain this week. Thanks for the warning, though."

By the time she reached the ER, Molly felt as if she'd been caught in an undertow. A couple of weeks ago she'd started with a simple question. Why would lawyers be dying at such a fast rate? Suddenly she was considering the notion that everybody but her was involved in this thing. She was beginning to feel like the guy who tried to take a swallow out of a spittoon.

She wanted to get back to the disk. She wanted the answers she was sure Peg Ryan had kept. There was just too big a discrepancy between what was showing up on those drug trials and what she'd read in Peg Ryan's journal. There was a question about why the trials had excluded any condition associated with aggression. And then there was the question of how the same people who ran those trials figured that this drug was going to be the Prozac of the twenty-first century if they wouldn't be able to give it to anybody who was violent.

Or did they plan on letting that information out?

Tomorrow she'd call the FDA. She'd call Rhett, and she'd call the FBI. But right now, she had to get home. She had to get away from this place.

Molly found Sasha rearranging the flow board for evening shift.

"Would you mind if I borrowed your portable?" she asked.

Sasha turned to consider her, eyes sharp. "You realize that you're going through more mood swings than a pregnant teenager?"

Molly did her best to straighten back up, as if she really felt well. "It's been an up-and-down couple of days," she said.

Sasha rested a hand on her hip. "Then you found something in the rest of that disk."

"I found out a lot of things. You wouldn't have thought to mention to me that you'd invested in this stuff, would you?"

Sasha was unconcerned. "And you tell me where all your investments are?"

Molly laughed. "I have no investments."

Just to the left of the flow hoard, the door to room eleven opened and Lance Frost stepped out. "I thought that was you I saw. Got a minute?"

Molly was still faced off with Sasha, who evidently didn't feel the need to react.

"What do you want, Lance?"

"Well," he said, rubbing again at that belly that strained every button on his faded madras shirt, "I just thought I'd let you know. You're running out of time if you want to get in on the deal of the century. You said you were interested, ya know."

"I know. Can I get back to you?"

"I guess. By the way, wasn't that Frank Patterson I saw you with last night?"

Molly answered before she considered. "Yeah."

She was already turning around when Lance hit her with the kicker. "Would you tell him to give me a call? The broker's waiting on his check."

Molly completely stopped breathing. "What?"

"His check. For more shares." Lance laughed, and Molly saw tiny shreds of lunch still caught in his teeth. "I'm telling you, this hospital's gonna own a majority share in Argon before this is all over. Not counting the lawyers, of course."

But Molly was once again caught on the pertinent question. "You know Frank Patterson?"

"Sure. From the MAC. Didn't he tell you?"

"Why's he investing with you?" Molly asked. "Doesn't a big shot like him have his own investment guys?"

"I guess. He said he just thought it would be easier to do this through me. Since I have the connections."

And since Frank was on the legal team. Molly's head felt as if it were going to explode. Why the hell would Frank lower himself to deal with Lance the Loser? Why would he hide that information from her?

"What are you getting out of all this?" she asked Lance.

"Part of the commission. Finder's fee, ya know?" Lance's eyes gleamed with the prospects. Molly just bet he was envisioning the future of medicine, where the drugs were tested and the stocks sold from the same window. His.

She had to get out of here.

"Sasha?"

Sasha dropped the wipe cloth and turned for her office. "Come on."

Ripping open the last of the dose packs and tossing the antacid back like a shot of rye, Molly followed, "It's the last time," she swore. "I don't want to know anything else ever as long as I live."

Sasha shot her a glance. "Promise?"

Molly's hand went up in the air. "I don't care if drug lords are selling crack from the back of the city ambulance in the driveway. I do my eight and go home."

"Probably not a bad idea." Unlocking the door, Sasha reached behind her desk and lifted out the computer. "And just so you know," she said. "I sold my investment an hour ago."

Molly took the computer from her colleague, who was watching her with a calm, untroubled expression. It occurred to Molly, then, that she wouldn't ever have been able to tell if Sasha were telling her a lie.

* * *

Three hours later, Molly came to the realization that Sasha wasn't the only one out there who could tell a straight-faced lie. Molly had thought she had such great instincts. Such savvy, after twenty years working with and around people. The truth seemed to be that she didn't know shit.

Just as she'd hoped, the Argon file was pure gold. The proof was all there that Argon execs knew perfectly well that something was wrong with their drug, and that they planned to do nothing about it. Well, not exactly nothing. They had evidently worked very hard to misdirect the truth. And Peg Ryan, the bright, hungry young capitalist who would have been much happier in the eighties when the words
hostile takeover
had still carried some cachet, had been all too eager to help.

Molly sat down at her kitchen table with a cup of Sam's tea and read through each and every note that delineated the complicity of Peg's law firm—Frank's law firm—in the defrauding of Argon Pharmaceutical's clients. Most of the file read like a standard reflection of one person's work on a case. Communications, official correspondence, legal briefs. But salted away among perfectly obtuse legalese, Molly found the seeds of the truth.

And then, at the bottom of the file, the coup de grace. Peg had evidently copied what looked like ongoing E-mail communications between Argon and Marsdale, et al, real "60 Minutes" stuff that would have had Molly laughing if it weren't her own disaster she was watching unfold.

There were notes about damage control:

N.B. to Randy. Not distancing self enough from possible problems. Create intermediary positions to handle flak, so company's name and capital remain intact.

There were notes about acceptable risks:
in light of possible worldwide sale in billions, can easily assume cost of $10 to 20 million settlement. Remember to find ship's captain to go down with product just in case. Arnman apprised.

Arnman was the family name of the major stockholders in Argon Industries.

There were references to various players not only in the pharmaceutical company, but the law firm. References to earlier drug trials at major university hospitals that had produced questionable results, and questions about how to proceed with the next stage of trials so that the problems were not repeated. Bulletins from the company on how they planned to promote the drug, where their weak spots were in the corporate defense, and predictions of problems. Molly could have summed up the entire transaction in the one note:

Marsdale, et al: We know what the risks are at our end. We pay you to minimize any fallout from defective product. R. A.

And then, close to the end, the first hint of trouble from the Shitkicker's Club:

Check allegation by Ryan that suicide of three friends connected to product.

Only half a page later, the communications stopped with one final cryptic message:
Have received question regarding problems with him. Will have to

No more.

Problems with whom? Molly wondered. In reference to what? And what was it they were planning on doing?

Molly scrutinized the entire file to make sure there wasn't a misplaced bit anywhere. She checked the Veldux files and the files in other cases that were contained on the disk, just in case the notes might have ended up somewhere else.

Nothing.

Molly leaned back in her chair, trying to decide how she felt.

Well, she had half an answer, anyway. Not exactly why Transcend was a problem, but at least the proof that the drug company knew. She had the link that finally connected all five lawyer suicides, and she had information on a deliberate conspiracy to endanger human lives for a profit.

Well, she thought dismally. There was certainly nothing new under the sun.

Molly sat there in her kitchen trying to figure out what to do next. Magnum was curled up at her feet and the wind was tuning up for a late evening storm. Without even realizing it, Molly reached over and poured herself another slug of vodka.

She should call Frank and demand to know what his connection was with Lance. She should get up and hide the disk somewhere no one would find it until she could get help from somebody.

Somebody who? Rhett was working homicide, and he was still busy with that little girl. The FBI was hip deep in surveillance equipment out behind city hall. The Medical Examiner's Office had already had its questions answered. Method of death, various. Manner, suicide. Cases closed, just as Winnie had asked.

Molly decided to put them all off. She wanted to read the rest of the disk. That meant Joey's file. With another dollop of vodka in her cup to assist her, she called up the file and walked in. And immediately wished she hadn't.

It was where Peg had hidden the real gold. The real tragedy. The real farce. Molly read over the notes Peg had hidden away for some reason and knew that the young lawyer had exacted her revenge after all. She read the last note, a special note about where the real proof was, where Peg had stashed one special piece of evidence that would cause the most damage, and she knew the case was made. Molly could go to anybody in the country with this and shut down Argon Pharmaceutical tomorrow. The day after, she could shut down Marsdale, Beacon, Fletcher, and Richards, and the day after that deal a fairly mortal blow to Grace Hospital.

Molly looked at the last line of Peg Ryan's notes and wanted to cry. It was the name of the person Argon had picked to be their fall guy. She should have suspected. She should have at least wondered. But she hadn't. It had been easier that way. It had been safer.

It was the same reason, she thought, that she'd forgotten the most important part of her van ride. Not the two white guys, one large and one medium. Not the type or color of the vehicle. The smell.

Molly remembered it now. She remembered thinking about that smell as she'd lain in the back, bound and gagged. Thinking that it was familiar.

She could place it now. She could almost smell it. And once she remembered it, she realized who the third man had been. She knew how everything had been done to her and why. She knew, finally, what the stakes really were.

In the morning she'd probably tell somebody. Tonight, she didn't have the energy for it. So she drank instead. She closed up the computer, hid the evidence, and sat back down to drink some more. She drank until the bottle was gone, and then when she got up to find another one, stumbled against the table and upended her purse. For a minute she just stared at it as its contents skittered and rolled across the floor. She was going to have to clean it up. Later. Right now she had more important things to do.

Molly kicked everything to the side and bent back to the cabinet, which offered her a choice of four more full bottles. She chose vodka and proceeded to half finish that one, too, because what she'd found on that computer disk was the last thing she'd ever wanted to see.

She sat alone in her empty house and she drank. They came for her an hour later.

Chapter 20