I took a brief look around the office. It was
academic nondescript except for the photos on the wall. There were
pictures of the statues on Easter Island, the Sydney opera house,
the Great Wall of China and Saint Peter’s in Red Square. Nice work
if you can get those sabbaticals and have the bucks to enjoy
them.
“What is your top priority?” I asked him.
“Well, right now it’s finding a cure for
sepsis using recombinant DNA. But I don’t think we’re going to find
it for a while. It’s very difficult. There are so many different
forms of…” He stopped in mid-sentence. “You must be thirsty.
Driving all the way from New York. My top priority right now is
buying you a beer. It’ll bring back those good old drunken
undergraduate days.”
I slung my arm around his shoulder. “Couldn’t
think of a better priority myself.”
We strolled across the campus in a time warp,
like medieval monks among the gothic buildings. Nothing had
changed. It was as if the sixties and the seventies and the
eighties and the nineties had never existed. The waves of time had
washed over the campus in never-ending echelons, erasing all
memories. All the agony of Viet Nam, the riots of the sixties, the
oil crisis of the seventies. All lost in the dim mists of history.
Lord Macaulay had said, “Nothing matters very much, and hardly
anything matters at all.” The kids, the buildings, the campus,
everything looked as peaceful as it did back then. Some boys were
playing Frisbee while another group tossed a football back and
forth.
We talked about buddies, marriages, divorces,
cancers, deaths and heartbreaks, a hell of a lot more cynical than
we were the last time we walked on the freshly-mown grass. The
buildings didn’t look any older than they did two or three
millennia ago.
Edelstein took me to the tavern we used to
frequent when we were undergraduates. It was a working-class bar
but it was too early in the afternoon for the usual patrons. Dim
and dank and smelling of brew, it hadn’t changed at all over the
years. Only the bartender had changed. He’d been old then. He was
positively ancient now. He looked like one of those villagers from
the Caucasus who live to be a hundred and twenty.
He recognized me and said with a glint in his
rheumy gray eyes, “You college boys…you all get older, but you all
come back. I remember you, sonny boy. You used to like your beer.”
His hands shook as he poured us a couple of Rolling Rocks.
“Still do, Pops,” I said. “Only now it’s the
non-alcoholic kind for me.”
He snorted. “What’s the point, sonny
boy?”
Edelstein led me to a booth in the back.
There was a man by himself at the next table, hunched over a shot
of whisky, and a boy and girl sitting across from us in a booth
holding hands. They were college kids and they were deep in
conversation about something to do with political correctness. The
boy was saying something about “censorship by the minority” and the
girl responded by saying something like “dead white males.” Then
the boy’s hand slipped under the table and started playing with the
girl’s crotch.
On the jukebox, Johnny Cash was singing a
song about falling into a burning ring of fire.
I turned back to Edelstein. “I understand
Insignia is about to get FDA approval on their new drug, this HBF
gene thing.”
He nodded but didn’t say anything.
“I assume this means a lot of pocket
change.”
He grunted. “You could say that.”
“I’m looking into a murder case. Two murder
cases. My ex-wife and her sister were both killed. You never met
Alicia but…”
“Yes, I did,” Edelstein said.
I blinked. “What?”
“I met Alicia.”
“When?” I felt like a bloody idiot.
“A couple of years ago. It was at a party my
partner, Chisolm, gave to celebrate some contract. Your ex
introduced herself. She told me she was a securities analyst. She
said she was thinking about covering biotech. She asked me for some
advice. I told her I’d be glad to help her anytime.”
He leaned forward and put his elbows on the
table. “About four months ago, she called and said she was
preparing a research report on Insignia and could I help her with
some evaluations. I told her I’d been out of the company for
several years but I’d call some people I knew there and put her in
touch with them.”
“Alicia never covered biotech,” I said.
Edelstein took off his glasses and closed his
eyes. “Interesting,” he said. He rubbed the bridge of his nose with
his thumb and forefinger. “She said she’d already spoken to
Chisolm, so I told her to call a fellow named Eric Hobley who was
in charge of the clinical trials. After she did, Eric called and
said he wanted to meet me.” He opened his eyes and looked straight
at me. “It was a very disturbing meeting.”
I stopped him. “Did this meeting have
anything to do with the FDA approval?”
He nodded. “Do you have any idea how much it
costs to bring a new drug to market?”
“I can guess,” I said.
“More than your guess. It can be in the
neighborhood of a hundred million bucks.”
“Pretty high rent neighborhood.”
He leaned back in the booth and took a
swallow of beer. So did I, except I finished mine.
“I don’t want to say too much because I don’t
have all the facts, but I’m going to put you in contact with
Hobley. He’ll be able to fill in the details.”
“Will they get FDA approval for the
drug?”
“Probably,” he said. He drained what was left
of his beer. “That’s what troubles me.”
Eric Hobley looked just like I thought he
would. He was a thin wiry guy, about five-six, with a high-pitched
voice and a shock of brown hair over his forehead. His eyes were
dark and deep-set and constantly moving. The only sartorial feature
I hadn’t predicted was the bow tie he wore with a starched white
shirt.
“Alan Edelstein said you were a man of
confidence,” he said.
It was a familiar expression in Spanish, I’d
never heard it used in English before.
“Honestly, I’m a little concerned and I don’t
know what to do.” He chewed on his thumbnail. His nails were all
bitten to the quick. It was tough to see what there was left to
chew on.
I got up and went to the outer office. The
glass partition hadn’t been replaced yet and I could see his bald
spot through the opening.
“Want some coffee?” I asked him.
“Sure,” he said. “With milk and sugar,
please.”
I went back to my desk and handed him a cup
of black coffee. “You’ll have to take it black. I don’t have any
milk or sugar.”
He made a face but took a sip anyway.
I sat down, rolled my chair back and put my
feet up on the desk.
He took a few more sips, made a few more
faces, but didn’t say anything.
Finally I said, “What are you concerned
about?”
He started to work on his other thumb. “I
don’t want to get into any trouble, but I’m in a very difficult
position.”
He stopped talking and sat there as if
waiting for a revelation.
I said to him, “Tell me about it.”
He swallowed hard and said, “All right. You
know the kind of work I do. I’m a technician. I work on the
clinical trials at Insignia.” He took another sip and it was
evident he wasn’t enjoying the coffee. “I’ve never had any trouble
before in my life.”
He looked like he’d never even had an overdue
video rental.
“Well, we’re about to get FDA approval on a
new blood product that we manufacture through genetic
engineering.”
“Yes,” I said.
“And I’m in charge of compiling the clinical
trials.”
This guy seemed to have a real problem
getting to the point.
“So?”
His eyes kept darting around the room. He
opened his mouth and then shut it. He didn’t say anything for
almost a minute.
“So what’s the problem? The mice started
fucking the cats?”
“No, no, no.” He shook his head vigorously.
“You don’t understand. The clinical trials were conducted on
volunteers. That is, human volunteers, you see?”
“I kinda guessed that.”
“Well, anyway, I believe…no, I know that the
trials were not valid and reliable. The study design was flawed
and, to make matters worse, the data were doctored.”
“How do you know this?”
Up to this point, he hadn’t looked me in the
eye once. But now he did. For the briefest split-second.
“Mr. Chisolm had all the technicians use just
one kind of blue Bic ball-point pen. All the records were kept with
this one specific kind of pen. And I personally witnessed Mr.
Chisolm change the results on several occasions. I was familiar
with the parameters of the study and the control group and I know
for a fact that the data and the results are different. What I
don’t know is whether the changes were material enough to get us
the approval.”
“How significant are the changes?”
He brushed back his forelock with his hand
and moved to the edge of his chair. “Well, you see, the clinicals
are supposed to show that the drug is safe and efficacious. We have
a problem in both areas. There have been unfortunate side effects
and even three fatalities. Now, that’s still within acceptable
limits but it appears that the fatalities were ascribed to other
causes rather than to the drug.”
“Would that be enough to stop approval?” I
asked.
“Not in and of itself. But it raises serious
questions and would require additional testing. And that, of
course, would cost more money.”
“Is that serious?”
He nodded. “You bet it is. We’re at the end
of the line. Our venture capitalists have said they’re going to
pull the plug. They told us they’ve sunk in too much money already
and they weren’t going to invest any more. This was our last
chance.”
“Would it be a problem if you didn’t get the
approval now?”
He looked at me as if I’d asked, would it be
a problem if the sun didn’t rise tomorrow.
“It would mean the end of the company and all
the years we’d put into it.” He fidgeted in his seat and cast his
eyes down.
I took my feet off the desk and sat up. “OK.
What can I do?”
“I can’t in good conscience let a flawed drug
onto the market without verifiable clinicals. Too many people’s
lives are at risk.”
“Go on,” I said.
“Honestly I’m afraid to do anything myself.
I’m not a brave person. But I believe in doing the correct thing.
You can see I’m in a terrible dilemma. I want to blow the whistle
but…”
I finished his sentence. “You’re scared? You
want me to do it for you?”
He nodded wordlessly.
“OK,” I said. “Your fairy godmother just
granted your wish. But first I’m going to ask you some questions.
And I need some sharp answers.”
He sighed with relief. “I’ll tell you
whatever I can.”
“Did you know a woman named Alicia
Rogan?”
“Yes. She called me a few months ago. Early
April, I think it was. Said she was doing some research on Insignia
and could I assist her. At first, I thought this could be the
answer. She would be the conduit for me to get the clinicals out to
the proper authorities. I gave her copies of as much of the flawed
documentation as I could. But that’s where it ended.”
This was starting to smell most foul. “What
do you mean?” I asked.
Hobley spread his hands helplessly. “She
didn’t do anything with the information.”
That’s what you think, buddy boy. This
amateur was playing a game and he didn’t even know what game he was
playing or how high the stakes were.
“I never could reach her after that. She
never returned my calls. It was as if she used me and then
discarded me. I was terribly discouraged after that.”
“Did you notice any changes in Chisolm after
you gave Alicia the documents?”
He shook his head. “Nothing special that I
could point to …except maybe…he became even more intense than
before…more determined.”
“More determined to do what?”
“To get the FDA approval.”
I sat back. So Alicia had been a busy beaver.
Jergens wasn’t the only one she’d been blackmailing.
“What do you think she did with the copies
you gave her?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Beats me. As far as I know, she
never wrote that research report.”
You bet your sweet ass, buddy boy. She was
getting a lot more mileage out of those papers than just a fat Wall
Street paycheck.
I took my feet off the desk and leaned
forward in my chair. “Here’s what I want you to do,” I said. “Is
there a back entrance to the place where you keep the
clinicals?”
He looked at me again briefly. “Yes, there
is. The files are kept in a room next to the lab.”
“Can you leave that door unlocked?”
“Yes.”
“Is there an alarm?” I said.
He nodded. “Yes, but I can turn it off.”
“Good. Now how do I get over the fence?”
He thought for a minute. “There’s a gate on
the north side. No one ever uses it, though. I think I can leave it
unlatched for you.”
I got up. “Outstanding, Eric. We’re going to
be excellent partners in crime.”
Hobley was as good as his word. The north
gate was left unlocked. I pushed on it and it swung open with a
little effort and a loud squeak. The noise was almost as loud as
the chorus of the crickets. Fortunately, their chirping would have
drowned out any sound quieter than a freight train chugging up a
forty-five degree grade.
Before I headed for the buildings I broke the
catch of the lock with the butt of my gun to make it look like a
forced entry. There was no use pointing an incriminating finger any
more than necessary. Nobody could tell who was going to catch the
flak for this unorthodox entry. Chisolm was going to be pissing in
his pants when he learned about this surgical removal.