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Time of Death

Page 24

by Lucy Kerr


  Strange, then, that she would muddy the waters by sleeping with Hardy. I’d gotten the distinct impression that the only thing Ashley was truly passionate about was her work. Hell, she’d even brought her laptop to their latest “meeting”—hardly the sign of a torrid affair.

  I snatched up the picture again as Riley buckled into her booster seat.

  Who takes a briefcase to a hookup in a cheap motel? Both Ashley and Hardy looked as if they were heading into a meeting, not an afternoon between the sheets. None of the pictures showed them touching, not even a brush of hands, or looking into each other’s eyes. This was not the way illicit lovers acted. Thinking back, I’d never seen a hint of attraction between them at the hospital—Hardy had seemed almost paternalistic, and Ashley had seemed annoyed.

  This wasn’t a romantic meeting. It was all business. But why go to Piney Woods when Hardy had an office on the hospital grounds? They’d certainly held plenty of meetings in Strack’s office, too.

  Unless these meetings were secret.

  For a drug to pass FDA approval, it needs to show that it is both effective and safe. What if Cardiodyne wasn’t? What if it wasn’t effective, or worse . . . what if the side effects outweighed the benefits? All of that information would be revealed in the trial, scuttling Cardiodyne and Ashley’s career alongside it.

  Finally, horribly, it all clicked together.

  They hadn’t killed Clem to cover up an affair—they’d done it to cover up a problem with Cardiodyne. Their meetings were to falsify data.

  “Riley,” I said, throwing my car into gear and speeding down the highway, “Get my phone out of my backpack, please. Call the Sheriff’s Department.”

  Then I thought about Noah’s face in the parking lot and the calls he’d sent to voice mail.

  “Hold on,” I said as she scrabbled in my backpack. “Forget that.”

  Noah wasn’t going to listen to me unless I had tangible evidence. A clear connection between Clem’s death and the Cardiodyne trial.

  Drugs, I realized. It all came down to drugs. Pharmagen didn’t just make Cardiodyne. According to the pharmacist, they also made Thrombinase, the drug swapped for Clem’s true medication. Most big pharmaceutical companies made a generic version of vecuronium. What were the odds that they made Apracetim too?

  Easy enough to check with a quick Internet search. Once I had proof, I could go to Noah with my head held high.

  “Call Grandma,” I said. “Ask her if she’s at the store or at home.”

  Riley obeyed. “Store. She’s closing tonight.”

  “Fantastic. I need to use the computer at the store, so tell Grandma we’ll swing by. She can take you home, and I’ll close up. That should give you time to finish your math homework, shouldn’t it?”

  “I guess,” She relayed the message, looking less than thrilled at the prospect. I, on the other hand, had never been so eager to get to Stapleton and Sons in my life.

  * * *

  “Since when are you so happy to close?” my mother demanded.

  “You wanted me to help out more,” I said, setting my backpack next to the front register. “And aren’t you the one who said you weren’t used to being on your feet all day? Go home, hang out with Riley. She’s already eaten her weight in processed meats, so you won’t even need to feed her. You can have a nice, quiet night.”

  “I do need to finish my novel for book club,” she admitted as I helped her into her coat. She waggled her eyebrows. “It’s a spicy read this month.”

  I prayed she was talking about a cookbook. “Well, here’s your chance.”

  She gathered up her purse and took Riley by the hand. “Make sure to lock the windows this time, Francesca. And don’t let that cat in.”

  “I won’t.” I shooed her out the front door and locked it behind her. Through the plate glass window, I watched them head for home, the ever-present squad car trailing behind. At least Noah hadn’t been so angry he’d canceled our protection.

  The store was deserted. Wednesday nights were notoriously slow; in fact, we usually closed early. Despite the lack of sales, I was grateful for the quiet, the familiar creaks as the building settled, the whoosh of the furnace kicking on. The notoriety of Jimmy’s death had started to fade.

  I’d gotten it backward. Jimmy wasn’t the partner or the mastermind. Jimmy was a patsy. Hardy and Ashley had killed Clem, then encouraged Jimmy to file the lawsuit as a way to divert attention. No doubt Jimmy had reacted with his typical overconfidence—shooting his mouth off, assuming he had power when he was only a pawn. Rather than risk him spoiling everything, or asking for more money, they’d killed him and tried to frame me.

  I made quick work of locking up and closing out the registers. The rest of the tasks—restocking the shelves, sweeping the floors—could wait.

  Settling in at the computer, I pulled up Pharmagen’s website, clicking the tab labeled “Our Products.” Cardiodyne was listed as “coming soon,” and the product page was filled with links explaining how huge the market for this type of drug was, how the company would leapfrog its competitors and make record profits.

  Not if the drug didn’t work. Not if it endangered the very people it was promising to save.

  I clicked around the website, and just as I’d thought, Apracetim was one of the first Pharmagen products listed. Thrombinase and vecuronium were there too. Ashley would have had access to all of it.

  No wonder I’d found no sign of Clem’s newfound wealth, no pharmacy receipts. The drugs themselves had been the payment. Ashley had diverted samples of CJ’s medication each month in exchange for Clem’s silence.

  I hit print, and on the bottom shelf the printer whirred to life, spitting out page after page of black-and-white, irrefutable proof. Crouching to gather the pages, I murmured, “Gotcha.”

  The store seemed to hold its breath in response, utterly still and silent, as if acknowledging the moment. All my searching, all my questions, all my doubt and fear . . . it was over. All that was left was to tell Noah, and then I could go home.

  I could go back to Chicago, just like he’d told me, and go back to my old life, which . . . I hadn’t thought about in what felt like days. It had slipped away like water, replaced by Riley and Rowan and the rest of my family, maddening and mine and more important than I’d realized.

  Something deep within the store creaked, breaking the silence and my introspection. I shook off the sudden melancholy and headed up to the front register, where I’d tossed my backpack and my phone.

  They’d vanished.

  I’d put them on the counter. I distinctly remembered setting them on the counter when I was talking to my mom. I’d tucked the night’s deposit into my bag, ready to deliver to the bank. Then I’d gone back to the computer, leaving the bag—and the phone—in plain sight on the front counter.

  They were gone.

  A shadow moved, at the very edge of my peripheral vision. I whirled, my shoulder exploded, and I crashed, face-first, into the floor.

  “Gotcha,” trilled Ashley.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  For a killer, Ashley Ritter looked remarkably well put-together. I, for example, would have worn something comfortable if I was going to spend the evening indulging murderous impulses. But Ashley looked as tightly wound as usual, from her flat-ironed hair to her glossy manicure to her boxy, all-business suit. The only thing out of place was the pry bar she’d hit me with and the glint of madness in her eyes.

  “You,” I gasped, twisting to face her. “You killed Clem. And Jimmy.”

  “I did.” She gave a what-can-you-do shrug.

  “We changed the locks. How’d you get in?” It wasn’t the question I meant to ask, but shock had scattered my concentration.

  “I know. I was here earlier, with your mom. Your basement, by the way, is disgusting.”

  I scrambled backward, my shoulder throbbing. If I hadn’t twisted away, the blow probably would have shattered my scapula. As it was, my entire shoulder blade felt like it was on f
ire. Blinking away tears of pain, I rasped, “Where’s Hardy? Is he down there, too?”

  “Alexander? No, he didn’t come tonight. Thanks, by the way, for making such a scene this afternoon. You convinced the police and the hospital administration that you’re an absolute lunatic.”

  I struggled to my feet and snatched a rubber mallet from the nearby shelf, brandishing it with my good arm.

  She inched toward me, continuing, “Alexander doesn’t have the nerve—or the brains—to handle this situation. You know surgeons. They like to keep their hands clean.”

  “He’s still an accessory to murder.” My nose was dripping, the coppery taste of blood filling my mouth.

  “There you go underestimating me again,” she said. “He’s only an accessory if I get caught.”

  “You’re already caught,” I said. “I told the police about the phone records, and it’s going to lead right back to you.”

  “Do I look stupid, Frankie? Whoever was calling Jimmy Madigan used one of those prepaid phones you can pick up everywhere. Kind of like this one.” She pulled a cheap little phone out of her pocket and held it up. “Hard to prove who owns it. It could be yours, for all anyone knows.”

  She slipped it back in her pocket. “We’re a month away from turning in our final Cardiodyne report to the FDA, and I am not letting anything—or anyone—interfere with that.”

  “You’re falsifying data, aren’t you? Does the Cardiodyne not work, or are the side effects too severe?”

  She shrugged, took a lazy swipe at me with the crowbar, smiling when I jumped backward. “A little of both. The drug works—it improves the cardiac cells’ response to electrical impulses—but for a small number of patients, it also kicks the immune system into overdrive. Their antibodies attack their own organs.”

  “They die.”

  “Everybody dies,” she said. “They were terminal patients when they entered the study.”

  “That doesn’t mean they signed up to be killed.”

  “We’re not killing them,” she protested. “We can’t definitively tie the rejection to the Cardiodyne. For the rest of the patients, it really did make a difference.”

  “Sure, until their liver stops working. Or their kidneys shut down. You have no idea if you’re helping these people or harming them. But you don’t care, do you? As long as you get your approval, and . . . what? Stock options? A corner office?”

  “Among other things.”

  “Hardy signed off on this?”

  “Alexander Hardy is desperate to be out of this pathetic little town. So am I. So are you, from everything I’ve heard. Cardiodyne is our ticket.”

  “What about Strack?”

  She snorted. “Please. Walter has no idea—he’s too worried about finding a buyer. Why do you think we had to meet away from the hospital? Everyone at Stillwater Gen knows everyone’s business, and we needed to keep this quiet.”

  I glanced around, trying to figure out an escape route. The front door was closer, but it was locked—by the time I got it open, Ashley would be on me. She was blocking the back door. The basement was a dead end. But if I could get to the apartment staircase, I could lock her out. I might have enough time to climb through the window.

  The stairs, then.

  I began to edge toward the next aisle, but she was following me too closely.

  “Why kill Clem?” I asked. “He didn’t want money—just meds for his grandson, and you had access to as much Apracetim as you wanted. He didn’t even realize what you and Hardy were really up to, did he? He thought you were having an affair.”

  “I tried to tell you it wasn’t like that.” Her expression twisted for a brief moment before smoothing out again. “Everyone assumes I worked my way up through Pharmagen on my back.”

  “You killed him because you were insulted?” No. She’d killed Clem because she was insane. Actually insane, and now she’d fixated on me.

  “He would have gotten greedy. Everyone does. I swapped out his medication—it was easy enough to get his address, since it was on his application for the drug trial. I went out to the cabin before our last meeting—I knew he’d be waiting at the diner, so there was no chance he’d spot me. Then all I had to do was wait for him to have that heart attack.”

  “He made it to the hospital,” I pointed out.

  “I know. I was hoping he’d just die, but he made it in, and Alexander put in the stent. That’s when he should have killed him,” she added, shaking her head in dismay. “But he lost his nerve. Once he called me, I knew I’d need to handle it myself, like everything else.”

  “By injecting him with vecuronium. You left him,” I said, thinking about Laura, calculating how many seconds her father had suffered. “You let him suffocate to death alone?”

  “I stayed as long as I could.” She smiled then, and the faint trace of madness I’d glimpsed earlier shone bright and unfettered. “I wanted him to know who had the power.”

  I pressed my fist to my stomach, trying to quell my growing nausea.

  “Anyway,” she said cheerily, taking another swing at me, talking all the while. “We figured that would be the end of it. Heart attack, oh-so-tragic, these things happen. Alexander even tried to tell the daughter there was nothing to be done—he had a guilty conscience. But when you asked him for the chart, he realized that might not be the end of it. I found Jimmy and told him to sue; and Alex went to Strack right away and complained about your interference.”

  “You killed someone and decided to ruin my career as a diversionary tactic?” The anger pulsing through me dulled the pain.

  “Better yours than mine,” she said. “You didn’t do yourself any favors yelling at Strack, or that ER doctor. I wanted to know how much you’d figured out, so I left my purse behind. It gave me an excuse to run into you.”

  That day in the cafeteria, when I’d been on the phone with Laura. I’d thought I was being so clever, returning her purse, but she’d set me up. “You heard me ask Laura about her dad’s medication.”

  She nodded. “I needed to switch his meds back, but you beat me to the cabin. After you left, I went inside, but you’d already taken the pills.”

  “What about Jimmy?” I said, backing down the paint aisle.

  “Jimmy was greedy.” She kept pace with me, pry bar swinging loosely in her hand. “We knew the hospital had a ceiling—an amount they’d be willing to settle for. Any more, and they’d take their chances in court—which would mean a full investigation. I was very clear with Jimmy that he couldn’t ask for a larger settlement, but once you started asking questions, he wouldn’t listen. I told him you wanted in on the deal, and he agreed to meet us at the store to talk it over.”

  “And then you stabbed him with a chisel.”

  “That was a nice touch, wasn’t it?”

  Nice was not the word I would use. “Why make it look like self-defense? We figured out pretty quickly that you staged it.”

  “Because it made you look like you were trying to cover it up. I didn’t realize you and the cop were an item.”

  “We’re not,” I said quickly.

  “I know that now,” she replied. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  “Really? There was a point in time where you thought any of this was a good idea? From where I’m standing, every single move you’ve made has been a bad one.”

  “Only because you’re still standing,” she said with an eerie calm.

  With her free hand, she withdrew a syringe from her suit jacket.

  “Vecuronium?” My heart stuttered. “Ashley, don’t be stupid. I’m thirty-four. They’re not going to believe this was natural.”

  “Everyone knows you’ve been under a lot of stress—the investigation, the broken engagement, the high-pressure job. You’ve publicly accused a well-respected doctor of murder and had another falling out with your high school sweetheart. The guilt of killing Clem Jensen finally pushed you over the edge. Poetic, that you’d use the same drug—and in the same plac
e you killed Jimmy Madigan.”

  “You have lost it.” I’d talked down plenty of mentally ill patients before, and I used the same no-nonsense tone now. “I’m bleeding all over the floor. You’ve wrecked my shoulder. Suicides don’t have defensive wounds, you idiot.”

  “Not a problem,” she said. “We won’t leave a body for them to examine.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She tapped the shelf with the syringe, ran it lightly along the cans of turpentine and paint thinner and mineral spirits. “Look at that. Highly flammable, highly flammable, highly flammable. Seems silly to keep all this in a wooden building. What aisle do you keep the matches in?”

  She’d do it. There was no talking her down. She’d burn the store to the ground and me along with it, whether she got away with it or not.

  I bolted, pulling over floor displays as I raced for the stairs. I made it to the second step, but before I could close the door behind me, she was there, reaching out for me. I slammed the solid-oak door, pinning her arm. She screamed, pain and frustration mingling together.

  I slammed the door again and clambered up the stairs, but she caught my ankle and yanked, sending me tumbling back into her. I landed on my side, felt a muscle in my back tear, and saw lights like tiny fireworks float across my vision.

  Cursing and spitting, Ashley leaped on top of me, syringe still clutched in her hand. The pry bar had fallen, and she reached back for it while I struggled to get away, pulling her hair, digging my knee into her stomach.

  I’d seen countless fights in the ER; rarely did a night pass without an argument turning physical. I’d been attacked by patients, too, but there’d always been security on hand, ready to intervene. Never had I been so alone and so desperate and so . . . furious.

  It was the fury that finally made me snap. I gave her a vicious kick, freeing myself just as her hand closed around the pry bar. Gasping, I ran for the supply room, weaving around pallets of lumber and racks of copper pipe, heading for the fire alarm on the far wall. Seconds before I reached it, she tackled me from behind. We both went sprawling on the floor.

 

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