After the Fall (26 page)

“My father is a medical scientist and my mother stays home,” Addie said. Jake recognized the note of pride that had crept into her voice when she talked of her father.

“Yeah? What kind of a scientist?” Finley persisted.

Where was he going with this? What did it matter what Addie's father did for a living?

“A microbiologist,” Addie said.

“Now, isn't that interesting. You don't know where they're keeping that anthrax shit over there, do you? The UN's tearing
the country apart, trying to find that poison. Your old man's in the middle of all that?” Finley shot a look at his partner. “Booker, remember that briefing we got from the CDC? You think we might have stumbled into a State Department matter?”

“No way,” Booker said. “She said her dad's a scientist, that doesn't make him a terrorist, Fin.”

“He's very ill,” Addie protested.

“Doubt the State Department cares much about his health,” Finley remarked. To Addie, he said, “Give me your father's contact information at the institution where he works—or worked if he's too sick now. Can't be too careful. Your country is a mess. Can't believe the way they treat women. I just read the other day that if you're caught in adultery, you get stoned. You get caught filching something, you get your hand chopped off. Somebody doesn't like you, somehow you disappear.”

“Quite the speech, Fin. Now, if you're done, let's get back to the murder of Karolee Harter,” Booker said. “Mr. Harter, you are a person of interest in the murder of your wife, a more interesting one than before. Your affair with Dr. Abdul makes it much more interesting.”

Booker then turned his attention to Addie. Asked her again about the phone call she'd made to the Harters' house.

“I told the truth,” she said. “I called to inquire about Immunone. I needed to know. I had never, ever called Jake's home before.”

“Why then?” Booker asked. Jake congratulated himself for getting rid of his answering machine. “Why the night his wife was murdered?”

“At the request of a friend who was interested. I told you that before.” Addie's mysterious friend from Iraq. Who was this guy, and why is he interfering in Addie's life now?

Finley flipped through his notes. “Yes, Badur Hammadi. Your alleged alibi, Dr. Abdul. We've tried to find him. No success. No response at the Dearborn number you gave us. We need his work contact information. One of the reasons we came
tonight.” Finley actually grinned. “Besides wanting to extend our congratulations on your engagement, of course.”

Jake remained quiet as Addie got up, walked across the room to a desk, and picked up a black address book. From it she read a phone number which she said would connect to Chase Manhattan Bank, the Cadieux Harper branch in Detroit.

“You still claim he'll alibi you for the night of Karolee Harter's murder?” Booker asked.

“Yes,” Addie said, sounding a bit more composed.

Composed, Jake thought, until she realized the implication. The small address book fell to the floor, and her body started shaking so violently that Jake was afraid she might be having a convulsion. With tears flooding her cheeks, she managed to whisper, “
Me?
You think
I
killed Jake's wife?”

Jake jumped to his feet, flung his arms around Addie, and tried to ease her back into the chair. “I think you've terrorized her enough,” he said, turning to face the two detectives, still sitting on the sofa.

“Maybe so,” said Booker. “Dr. Abdul, would you give us some privacy, please, so we can talk to Mr. Harter—your fiancé—alone? We'll let ourselves out when we're finished. Perhaps we'll speak to you again. A lot depends on finding this Hammadi, and on what he has to say about your whereabouts the night of the murder.”

Addie leaned against Jake as he helped her out of the chair and into the bedroom, waiting as she settled on the bed. “Don't worry, Addie,” he promised. “This is just routine police work. Please, don't worry.” A flicker of reassurance seemed to cross her tearful face. He gave her hand a quick squeeze, then returned to the two detectives in Addie's living room.

The interrogation that followed lasted two hours. A minute-by-minute accounting of his time on Wednesday, February 19th, the night Karolee met her fate. And then a repeat. And then a third round. Had he fucked up? He didn't think so. The timeline held. He'd rehearsed it so many times.
How he'd left the FDA, how his car broke down, found out it was a broken belt; all corroborated by the Good Samaritan, Frank Barker, whom the detectives obviously had interviewed. Jake's time at the garage was well documented. There could be no doubt he did not kill his wife. Funny, Jake thought, even I'm beginning to believe I couldn't have done it.

The detectives, in Jake's opinion, didn't look encouraged. As they left, Finley said, “Do not leave the area. We're not finished, Mr. Harter. Giving misleading information in a murder investigation is a felony.”

“On a happier note,” Booker couldn't seem to resist a smirk, “congratulations again on your engagement to such a beautiful and exotic young woman.”

W
EDNESDAY
, M
ARCH
4

Laura had flown with two pilots and an attractive steward young enough to be her son. Thank goodness for his help unloading a dozen boxes of heavy documents. Maybe she'd transported more than she needed, but why not? She had the whole plane to herself, may as well take advantage of it. The Keystone Gulfstream landed at the private plane terminal at Philadelphia International Airport at 1:15 a.m.

Eileen Donovan, Laura's efficient longtime secretary, had met her at Tampa City around six that evening. She had each of Laura's file requests selected, ready for her approval, and packaged for travel. Laura hoped her new Keystone secretary would adjust to the workload once Laura got up and running in the job.

Laura had asked for the file for each of the patients who had died while participating in the Immunone study. She'd provided these documents to the FDA in advance of the FDA advisory meeting, having also reviewed them in advance in teleconference with the two key FDA reviewers, Doctors Ridley and Hayes. During the call, Hayes seemed to be tracking the data carefully, asking questions, clarifying. On the other hand, Ridley, the more senior of the two, sounded bored and uninterested.

Didn't matter now. Jake Harter, who, as project manager, was supposed to make sure the medical reviewers had all relevant
data at their fingertips, now said the FDA didn't have the records. Harter either was incompetent or a liar.

Well, Laura did have it. In duplicate, it turned out. While in Tampa, she'd had a call from her staff. They'd located, organized, and packed up the documents on their end too. Protocol be damned, tomorrow, Keystone Pharma, led by Laura, would hand carry the data into the agency. Infuriated by her conversation earlier that day with Harter, Laura had requested a meeting with the deputy director of the FDA himself—Dr. Sid Casey. In less than eight hours, FDA management would be shown the proof of Jake Harter's blunder.

Exhausted though she was, Laura couldn't stop thinking about Lonnie Greenwood. How much did he know about that summer night in 1967 when she'd pulled the trigger that shattered Johnny Diggs' brain? One of Johnny's friends, Ray—aka Snake—Rogers, had figured it out, and successfully blackmailed her to keep him from going to the police. But Snake was dead, and she had dared to believe her secret had died with him. Until Lonnie Greenwood had called her office in Tampa, claiming he was a friend of the Diggs/Jones family, insinuating he knew something she'd rather no one else knew—but did he? Why had he waited twenty-five years? Would he be satisfied once Laura arranged a lung transplant for his son with cystic fibrosis?

If so, that was a motive she could understand. She would do anything for her children. And, she would do everything in her power to help young Johnny Greenwood. She'd already secured the transplant board's commitment to push him to the top of the list for a coveted lung transplant. She had procured his medical records, assessed him an appropriate transplant recipient, and arranged for Ed Plant to do the surgery. Her recent notoriety as the lead investigator in the studies leading to the approval of Immunone, and the generous donation of Paul Parnell to Tampa City Hospital, as well as her vice presidency at Keystone Pharma, put her in the ideal position to meet Lonnie Greenwood's demands, but would Greenwood stop there?

Laura tried to shut off that part of her brain when her limo dropped her off at Tim's—soon to be their—apartment at one forty-five. Tim was still awake, reading in bed. As she undressed, careful not to disrupt the layers of gauze wrapped around her right hand and forearm, he suggested a glass of wine or a cup of tea.

“Too tired, but thanks. You don't know how wonderful you are to come home to.”

“All those wasted years.” Tim put aside his book. “You look beat, babe. Just join me in here and be comfortable.”

“Won't be for long,” Laura said, reaching to set the alarm. “Leaving for DC at six o'clock.”

“Success in Tampa?” Tim asked.

“Yes. I have what I need to debunk this ‘can't find the data' crap.”

“Remind me never to cross you, my dearest.” Tim pulled up the covers on her side of the bed. “How's the arm?”

“Not much better. No worse.” Laura snuggled up next to Tim and was asleep in an instant.

Tim must have been up by four o'clock. By the time Laura's alarm went off, she could smell the coffee. Tim, proving himself as husband material, she realized with a smile. Only two-and-a-half hours of sleep, but Laura felt a surge of energy for her day of vindication. She had what the FDA needed for their Immunone final approval, and damn the agency's stonewalling or blundering, she wasn't sure which. How could losing reports be anything but incompetence? And the way Jake Harter had carried on, you'd think his mission was to block approval of the drug. But why? Immunone would help so many patients who needed organ transplants, was much more effective than anything out there, and had fewer side effects. So what was his game? Could he have invested money in a competitive pharmaceutical company? Always a possibility, but the FDA did have conflict of interest laws.

As Laura taped a plastic bag over the wrappings on her injured hand and lower arm, she marveled at how quickly she'd jumped
into the big pharma fires. She'd taken on the threat to Keystone's most promising drug, no holds barred. She'd asked no one's permission—or even advice—about her decision to ring up the top echelon on the drug side of the FDA and demand to be heard.

When she'd announced her plan to Louis Sigmund, her regulatory VP turned seven shades of white, but he'd simply said, “As you wish.”

Her staff would support her, at least for a while. She was in that honeymoon phase of employment, when they gave your rope enough slack to get the job done or let you hang yourself trying.

Tim wore a tattered bathrobe as he served Laura scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and coffee at the kitchen counter. “You look too good for two hours' sleep,” he said, sliding into the hightop chair beside her.

“Wish I could do something with my hair,” she said.

Tim ran a hand though her hair, fluffing the blond curls that fell to about even with her collar. “Most women would die for your hair, my dearest.” Laura noticed a shadow cross Tim's face. “And your hand? You will have time for your therapy, right?”

“I hope so.” Laura really didn't hope so. Those sessions were painful beyond belief. Necessary, she knew, but brutal.

“You coming home after your meeting or going in to Keystone?”

“Not sure. Depends on this dog and pony show, how long it runs. Hope I don't get thrown out. I'm going over a lot of heads. And, I've been warned that ignoring protocol often backfires, but who can stand on etiquette when the FDA pulls such an outrageous stunt?”