Come Home

by Lisa Scottoline

  Suddenly her phone started to ring, and she reached for her pocket and slid out her new BlackBerry. The screen showed KATIE FEEHAN, and Jill picked up. “Hi, girl.”

  “What happened with Nina?” Katie asked, nervous. “Are you okay? Why didn’t you call?”

  “I had to talk to a patient, and the rain was bad all the way home, so I stayed off the phone.” Jill was about to start the story about Nina when the boys started yelling on the other end of the line, at Katie’s house. “What’s going on over there?”

  “Fight Club at the Feehans’. The two little ones are overtired, and they both want to be on the computer at the same time. It’s not pretty.”

  “Uh-oh.” Jill remembered when her house was full of girls, fighting over eye makeup and borrowed sweaters. She never thought she’d miss those days, but she did.

  “God, these kids,” Katie moaned, exasperated. The background noise surged, and the boys yelled louder. “I’m trying to let them work it out themselves. How long does sibling rivalry last? Oh, right.”

  Jill smiled. “Katie, if it’s a bad time, I can call back.”

  “No, I’m dying to hear, and I got a Facebook message from Nina, saying to meet her at the Starbucks on 60 Weehawk Avenue at ten o’clock tomorrow. I’ll email it to you, so you have the address. Hold on, Jill. Boys, take turns!” Katie covered the receiver, muffling her voice. “Jamie, let him use it, then you can get back on. Log out. Log out right now, okay, honey?”

  “You have your hands full.”

  “Tell me about it. They use the same computer, so one has to log out before the other gets on, but Tommy isn’t being patient. Hold on a minute.” Katie covered the receiver again. “Tommy, give him a second. You know he’s not that good with the mouse yet.”

  Jill imagined the two tow-headed Feehan boys, pushing each other out of the way, in front of the kitchen computer. She knew the log-in, log-out system because they used it at work, for the Epic program. The docs and nurses shared the computers in the examining rooms, and each had his own user account, with a separate password. Jill’s was Megan0112, because January 12 was Megan’s birthday.

  “Hold on, Jill. Tommy, he’s logging out, right now. Tommy, he’s littler than you are!”

  Jill’s mind raced ahead. She didn’t know why she hadn’t thought of it, earlier. She had searched William’s laptop before, and it had been clean, suspiciously so. Back then, she’d thought he had only one identity, but now she knew he had another identity. She wondered if there was also a user account for Neil Straub, set up in the same laptop.

  “Okay, Jill, I’m back. Whew! I’d buy each kid a computer, but a week later, they’ll be obsolete. I mean the computers, not the kids.”

  “Let me ask you something.” Jill felt newly energized. “Do you have different user accounts in that computer, one for each boy?”

  “Yes, three for the kids, plus Mike and I each have an account. So we have five user accounts.”

  “In the same computer?”

  “Yes. Mike also has his own laptop for work, but I use the kitchen computer all the time, like for Facebook. You saw. It was logged in for my account, and it has all my settings.”

  Jill didn’t care about the settings. “When the computer reboots, does it show all the user names? And then you choose yours and log in as yourself?”

  “Yes, sure.”

  “Ours don’t do that, at work. The screen is blank, and we log in with a password.”

  “It depends on the software, I’m sure. The interface. They all work the same way, it’s just a question of what you’re shown on the screen at start-up.”

  “I see, so it’s just programmed differently.” Jill had rebooted William’s laptop when she got it home from Abby’s, but hadn’t seen any choices of user accounts. “Katie, who set up those user accounts for you?”

  “I did.”

  “You?”

  “Sure, it’s easy. I’m the administrator. Who better?”

  Jill smiled, with admiration. Never underestimate the power of a mother. “Let me ask you this. Could you hide those user accounts, do you think?”

  “You mean so they wouldn’t show up on the start-up screen? Sure, if I wanted to. I could probably set it to show only a few of the names, or just the boys.”

  “And if you can hide them, can you find them?”

  “Sure. Why?”

  “I’m thinking of William’s laptop. If he had a secret identity in life, couldn’t he also have one on his laptop?”

  “He could,” Katie answered, catching on. “If he has a secret user account as Neil Straub, I can tell you how to find it on his laptop.”

  “Really?”

  Katie snorted. “Did you forget, I’m the Queen of Farmville?”

  Half an hour later, Beef curled up on his bed, and Jill was sitting down at the kitchen island in front of William’s laptop, next to a cup of hot coffee and a print out of Katie’s instructions. She got busy, and after one more phone call to the Queen of Farmville, Jill was ready to reboot the laptop and see if William had a second user account, for Neil Straub.

  She turned off the computer, hit RESTART, and waited, and the screen came to life, first with the Microsoft logo, then a dizzying array of spinning numbers, like a slot machine. They finally stopped, the screensaver went black, and the screen read, PASSWORD.

  Jill felt a frisson of excitement, as well as fear. She remembered that all of William’s passwords were a combination of exotic cars and his birthday, because he always said he wanted an exotic for his birthday. His go-to shopping password was P9110701, for a Porsche 911 and his July 1 birthday, so she plugged that in. The message came up, PASSWORD INVALID. Jill knew he used JAGXKE0701 for their joint bank account, so she plugged that in, but the message came up, PASSWORD INVALID, again. Next she tried MB6000701, for the top-of-the-line Mercedes-Benz he coveted, but it came up PASSWORD INVALID, too.

  Then she remembered the exotic that he always called his holy grail, and what he’d always said about the car: I want to be buried in an Aston Martin DB9.

  Jill typed in AMDB90701 and hit ENTER. Instantly, the screen changed to the default screensaver, an idyllic sky and grassy hill, Microsoft heaven. Her heart beat faster as she moved the mouse, clicked, and read the screen:

  WELCOME, NEIL!

  Chapter Fifty

  Jill clicked on the list of William’s Microsoft Word files, and the first two were RESEARCH and NOTES, created the same date, September 9, three years ago. She clicked RESEARCH and almost fell off her chair. The file contained hundreds of files, each with a drug name, in alphabetical order: Abata, Akasin, Aormil, Aritil, Aresta, Aromytec, all the way to Zertax. She recognized many of the drugs, and they all treated different maladies: headaches, hypertension, gout, bipolar depression, skin cancer, psoriasis, nausea, aplastic anemia. There was no logical link between them that she could see.

  She clicked on the first file, for Abata, which she knew treated asthma in children. The subfile was a PDF of the drug circular, with prescribing information for physicians and a description: “Abata is a hydrochloride salt of quinapril, the ethyl ester of a non-sulfhydryl…” She looked through the rest of the Abata file. One subfile was labeled PRESS, and she clicked on it, revealing a list of newspapers and blogs, next to dates and links. She clicked on the first link and it opened to an article in The Oregonian, dated June 3, some eight years ago:

  Moise Yakowicz, 6, of Portland, almost died today at the Young Pioneers picnic, as a result of anaphylactic shock, which his parents claim was attributed to Abata. The drug, manufactured by Pharmcen …

  Jill thought a minute. Abata was made by Pharmcen, where Nina worked. She didn’t know if it was coincidence, but it didn’t feel like one. She navigated out of the article and clicked the next, which was from the Bucks County Courier Post, in Pennsylvania:

  Today was a tragic day for the family of Paulina Ma, 10, whose memorial service was held at Kaybock’s Funeral Home, in the driving rain. Ma died last week,
the result of anaphylactic shock that her mother claims was caused by Abata, a drug marketed by Pharmcen …

  Jill went to the next drug file, Akasin, and it followed the same pattern: the prescribing information for physicians, then articles about the drug and its side effects, from sources all over the Internet. She clicked the next three, for Aormil, Aritil, and Aresta, and discovered a common thread. All five drugs were manufactured by Pharmcen.

  She minimized the Word document, went to the web, and clicked BOOKMARKS. The list stretched the length of the screen, again, it was entirely drug names, starting with Abata. It looked as if William was making himself an expert in the adverse side effects of Pharmcen drugs, and she put that together with the fact that he was in a relationship with Nina, who worked in Pharmacovigilance at Pharmcen, a department that collected complaints about the adverse side effects of Pharmcen drugs.

  Jill sensed she was getting close to the bottom of his scheme. Drug manufacturers had a legal duty to collect complaints about the adverse reactions of their drugs and report them to the FDA if the reactions were serious, life-threatening, or unexpected. The complaints could come from anybody, most came from doctors. Pembey Family probably over-reported because of Sheryl and her lawsuit phobia, and Jill’s old pediatric group was more typical, in that they didn’t report as often. They couldn’t always be sure if the drug had caused the adverse reaction, and it took time to fill out the paperwork, even electronically.

  Jill logged out of the Internet and back to START, looking for an email server. She spotted the email account and opened to the Inbox, only to discover the oddest emails ever. The list of senders and recipients were all the same: Neil Straub, and the subject lines were all drug names. It was easy to see what was happening; William had been emailing himself about various drugs. Jill scanned the dates the emails were received, and the email stopped the day before William died, on Monday, and she opened it.

  The subject line was Memoril, and she knew she’d heard about that drug somewhere, then she remembered. It had been in the waiting room at work, when she’d run into Elaine Fitzmartin and her mother, Mary.

  We’re fine, thanks. Much better now that Mom’s on Memoril.

  Jill figured that Memoril was an Alzheimer’s drug, and she opened the email, which read in its entirety:

  2, tot 4

  Jill wasn’t sure what it meant. She clicked the previous email, also with the subject line Memoril, and it read:

  total 4 or 5, will check

  Jill went to the earlier email, also with Memoril in the subject line:

  1 more

  Jill went to the previous email and the one before that, and they were all only numbers, as if William were counting. She went back further and found one that read:

  One more. E worried

  Jill didn’t get the “E.” It sounded like an initial, and she made a mental note, then closed the email and checked the times and dates that William had sent them to himself. Some were two days apart, some three. Then she realized something. Not one was sent on a weekend.

  He always had to answer his email.

  Jill put it together. The timing of the email must have corresponded to William’s meetings with Nina. He must have been getting information from her about the number of complaints coming in on Memoril, then emailing the count to himself, so he kept track. He’d told Nina that he was answering his email, but really he’d been emailing himself.

  Jill took a gulp of cold coffee and tried to understand why. If she assumed that William was counting Memoril complaints, she had to ask, how could that benefit him, or pay off? Then it hit her. Jill played a hunch, went back to the folders, and scanned the list. STOCK INFORMATION, read one folder, and she clicked. The file opened into another long list of folders labeled ANNUAL REPORTS, FINANCIALS, STOCK CHARTS, DIVIDENDS, SPLIT HISTORY, SEC FILINGS, CEO/CFO CERTIFICATIONS, ACQUISITIONS, and so on.

  She clicked through one, then the next, confirming her suspicion. It was information about Pharmcen stock, only. Pharmcen was publicly traded, and if William knew which of their drugs had the most complaints, he could predict which, if any, would be recalled. Drugs got recalled, or safety letters issued, more often than the public realized, and it could easily affect the manufacturer’s stock price, especially in today’s volatile market. Even a minor recall, a Class III, would affect stock price, and a Class I recall could send stock prices plummeting.

  Jill felt her heartbeat quicken. If William knew that a major drug was about to be recalled, he could make money by selling Pharmcen’s stock short, betting against its value. It would explain how he could afford his homes, cars, and double life, and it was just what he had done with her, except on a bigger scale.

  She navigated back on the Internet to confirm her theory, but William hadn’t bookmarked any stock-trading sites like etrade.com, schwab.com, or tdameritrade.com. It shot her theory. She looked elsewhere in the computer, for some sort of trading files, but the omission was obvious. William had inside information but wasn’t trading on it, which made no sense, especially for a man like him.

  Jill felt stumped. She navigated out of PROGRAMS to the START menu, to see what other programs William had. The only one she hadn’t seen yet was Excel, for financial spreadsheets. She clicked, and the program opened to a list of spreadsheets, dating from three years ago. She clicked on the first one, and it blossomed into a sheet that showed dollar amounts, in large chunks: $20,000 on June 6, $20,000 on June 22, and another $20,000 on June 29.

  Jill’s eyes opened wide. Somebody was paying William for something, and it had to be inside information about Pharmcen drugs, and which were potential recalls. He wasn’t trading on the information himself, but he must have been selling it to someone who did, and Jill bet that man was Joe Zeptien.

  She sat back, amazed. She had figured out his plan, and all of it was contained in his laptop, hidden in his secret identity, behind his stupid little password, AMDB90701. Then a thought struck her, like an epiphany. Her own passwords were about Megan and Megan’s birthday, like Megan 0112, or Megan and her old nicknames, like Miggy0112, or Megan and Beef, MGBF0112. Jill’s passwords were about what she loved the most, and that’s why she’d remember them the easiest; they were what came first to her mind, at all times. Jill guessed that lots of mothers, and fathers, were the same way, and a password could speak volumes about a person, like a modern-day key to the soul.

  Jill blinked, eyeing the screen. William’s passwords were about himself and cars, not Abby, Victoria, or anyone else he loved, because deep in his soul, he didn’t really love anyone. So it wasn’t that he didn’t love Jill, it was that he simply wasn’t capable of love. It simply wasn’t in the man. She had wanted to know what he was really up to, and the answer had been before her all along. It was right in front of her face now, on his laptop.

  Money. He had wanted money, not for what it bought, but for what it said about him, as a man. It was as simple as that, because the wish itself was nothing, as substantial as an electronic transaction. Money was nothing but a construct ultimately, a collection of paper and ink, printed at will, no longer backed by anything, and signifying nothing. We all agree that money has value because we all agree that money has value, and William was the same way. Inside, he felt valueless. And so, he was.

  And suddenly, as soon as Jill thought about him that way, she understood William a little better. She wasn’t as angry at him, or as hurt. She just felt sorry for him, going through his life, so hollow, so empty, feeling absolutely worthless. Oddly, the fact that he was dead now was beside the point. He was dead to her, beginning right this minute. It had taken Jill a long time to heal, but she had done it, finally.

  Physician, heal thyself.

  Jill smiled at the revelation, then set up a plan. She’d work all night to get this information together, and she’d meet with Nina tomorrow to fill in the details, tell her what was going on, and answer her questions. Then Jill would turn it all over to the police, and they could decide whethe
r to talk to Nina, find Joe Zeptien, or figure out if William had been murdered, why, and by whom. Something must have gone wrong with William’s scheme, and the police would figure it out. Jill had figured out what she wanted to know.

  The truth about William.

  It was awful, but it had set her free.

  Chapter Fifty-one

  The next morning, Jill waited for Nina at the Starbucks, dressed in her sweater, jeans, and loafers uniform, feeling surprisingly fresh after an all-nighter spent going through William’s laptop. Her theory about William’s scheme had proved correct, and now she had the financial details. He’d had had two big paydays with Deferral and Riparin, equaling about $1 million over the last three years, and he’d also been paid another $500,000 for a stream of smaller insider tips. Memoril looked as if it was going to be his biggest score of all, and he’d already been paid $1.1 million for information about it. Jill had with her a manila folder that contained printed emails and spreadsheets, in case Nina needed convincing.

  She checked her watch. It was 10:15 A.M. Nina was running a little late, although Pharmcen’s sprawling complex in Parkertowne was just down the street, a series of brown brick buildings with a campus that boasted a man-made pond, a walking track, and an employee parking lot surrounded by manicured hedges. Jill had never been to central New Jersey before, but she could see the appeal, with lovely horse farms still managing to coexist with strip malls and corporate centers.

  Jill checked her email for Rahul’s bloodwork, but it wasn’t in yet. She sipped her coffee, which was strong and hot, and looked around. The baristas worked quickly behind the counters, amid the squishy noises of espresso machines, and a long line of customers stood waiting to order, business people wearing laminated corporate IDs, young girls in black yoga pants, and moms with strollers, negotiating around kiosks with breakable logo mugs.