Okay, I said to myself as I slipped off my shoes and shoved them into my purse.
I started down the slope, back into the underground service tunnel. I was walking quickly but cautiously in my stocking feet, trying to make as little noise as possible.
I heard the first sound as I came around the curve. It was a metallic clanking noise, as if someone were trying to open a locked door by yanking on it. The clanking was off in the distance, somewhere back near the second loading dock area.
Silence for a moment. Then more clanking, this time just a little closer.
It had to be him. I remembered all those locked doors near the second loading dock. He must have first searched for me in the north end of the service tunnel and was now working his way back.
I spun around. The entrance gate was no longer visible. I turned back at the faint sound of boots on concrete. I concentrated, trying to reconstruct the layout in my mind. He was crossing the loading dock, still out of view around the next bend. We weren’t more than fifty yards apart. Soon he’d be coming down those stairs and heading north toward me. My eyes darted around the tunnel. One of the storm culvert hatches was a few feet in front of me.
I heard him coming down the stairs. In just moments he would round the curve.
I knelt by the hatch, grabbed the locking mechanism, and yanked counterclockwise. It didn’t budge. I yanked again as hard as I could, grunting from the effort. Nothing.
I stood up, gasping, and started to back up along the wall. The footsteps were approaching. I turned and ran south toward the next storm culvert hatch.
This one turned.
I spun the wheel as fast as I could for several rotations. The locking mechanism clicked and the hatch swung free on its hinge, opening out from the wall like a small door.
The footsteps were closer.
Without even looking, I scooted feet first through the opening into a corrugated metal tube and turned to close the hatch. There was a handle on the inner side of the hatch, but no locking mechanism. The best I could do was pull it closed. When I let go of the handle, it opened slightly, creating a gap of a couple inches. I tried again to pull it shut, with the same result.
Forget the hatch, I told myself. Just move!
It was pitch-black inside the tube. I could hear the noise of moving water below me. It sounded like a creek. I reached forward in the dark and found the edge of the tube. I turned and crawled backward, blind, to the edge of the tube. I lowered myself slowly, feetfirst. My stocking feet touched the slanted side of the culvert. It was slick and oily. I could hear scurrying, scrabbling noises beneath me.
Rats, I told myself with a shudder.
I kept lowering myself until my arms were fully extended and I was hanging from the edge of the tube by my fingers. My feet were in the water now. It was icy cold. I could hear his footsteps. They were practically even with the hatch. I took a deep breath and let go.
I slid down the greasy side of the culvert and into the water, banging my wrists hard against the concrete as I struggled to regain my balance. The water came up to my thighs. Fortunately, the bottom of the culvert was flat, which enabled me to stand.
The metal hatch banged open above me. I took a quick breath and ducked under the water. Using my hands, I pulled myself forward down the culvert, trying to keep my body submerged as I moved along.
I scuttled along underwater with my eyes closed tight, bumping into glass bottles and tree branches and other junk scattered along the bottom. I was literally blind and deaf in the icy water. I kept flinching at the thought of a knife or a bullet ripping into my backside. When my lungs were about to explode, I carefully raised my head, quickly exhaled and inhaled, and ducked under water again.
I got about ten feet further before I banged into a large object. I tried moving right, and then left. It was too big to get around under water. Slowly, I lifted my head and turned to stare back in the direction I had come. It was too dark to see a thing. I turned toward the object that had blocked my path. Feeling around it, I realized it was a metal shopping cart on its side, slick with algae.
I raised my head to look beyond the cart. I could see light in the distance. The storm culvert emerged from beneath the shopping center about fifty yards further down. I was almost there.
Using my hands for balance, I climbed around the shopping cart. There was a sudden explosion behind me and I spun around just as something zinged off the concrete to my left. A second of silence, then the panicked squeals of hundreds of rats. There was a quick flash of light, then another roar of gunfire, followed by a splash in the water in front of me.
He was shooting at me from the edge of the tube above the culvert.
My last shred of control vaporized. Hysterical, I turned and started running and splashing and stumbling through the water toward the opening ahead. He fired again, this time high and wide. I tripped over a heavy object and fell forward into the water. As I struggled to my feet, he fired, missing again. I staggered on, sobbing for air, as I got closer to the opening.
Gasping, I emerged from the culvert into a swampy area behind the mall below the parking area. I scrambled up the gravel embankment and onto the dry grass. A chain-link fence separated me from the parking lot. Exhausted and soaking wet, I lurched toward the fence and grabbed the chain links for support. I glanced back toward the culvert, half expecting him to emerge with a fresh round of ammunition.
Don’t stop now, I told myself.
Totally fatigued, I looked up. The fence was about seven feet tall. I looked down at my bare feet. Where were my shoes? Reaching for my purse, I realized it was gone. It must have fallen off in the storm culvert.
I looked up at the fence again.
You can do it, Rachel.
The fence seemed as tall as Mount Everest.
Just do it, goddammit.
I reached up, grasped hold of the chain links, and started up the fence. As I swung my second leg over the top of the fence, I saw the flashing red light of a police car as it pulled onto the grass near the fence.
“Thank God,” I said as I pushed off the fence and collapsed on the ground.
Chapter Eighteen
“What the hell is going on in St. Louis?” Flo asked.
I gave a weary groan. “Crazy, huh?” I cradled the phone against my shoulder as I reached for my coffee mug.
“I just talked to Benny. It’s totally outrageous. Have they caught him?”
“Not yet.”
“What do the police say?”
“They’re working on several different scenarios.”
“What are they?”
“One: a rapist. Two: a stalker. Three: a serial killer. Four: none of the above.”
“Great,” she said contemptuously. “In other words, they have no idea. Are they city cops?”
“No, suburban.”
“Even better,” she snorted. “I covered that beat in Detroit for a year. Your typical suburban cop couldn’t find his own asshole with a map.”
“Benny probably has more details. He met me at the police station last night and asked most of the questions. I was kind of woozy.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“Flo, Benny was a doll. He refused to let me go home alone. He spent the night on the couch. Don’t tell anyone, though. He said it’ll ruin his image. Actually, you’re going to ruin his image.”
“Me?”
“The last time he fell for someone his own age was in kindergarten.”
“It’s a little early for either one of us to be falling for the other.”
“He said he’s going to visit you in D.C.”
“I’m not holding my breath.”
“I think he really likes you.”
“We’ll see.”
“Do you like him?” I asked.
“He’s okay,” she said without a
lot of conviction.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“I like him and all. It’s just that he’s…I don’t know.”
“He’s what?”
“Well, overly polite.”
“Benny?” I asked incredulously. “Overly polite?”
“He’s considerate and all, but almost too much so. From what you told me about him, the last person I expected was Mr. Goody Two-Shoes.”
“Oh, my God, Flo. He’s not like that at all. I’ve never seen him like that. He must have been nervous. In reality, Benny’s incredibly obnoxious. I promise. He’s one of the crudest people I’ve ever met. Once you get to know him, you’ll see that he can be vulgar beyond belief. Trust me on this, Flo. You’ve got to give him another chance.”
“We’ll see. But enough about me. How do you feel?”
“Sore.”
“Did you catch a cold from all that water?”
“No, and I’m not complaining, believe me. I’m glad to be alive. In fact, I’m going into the office in about a half hour. It’ll get my mind off all this.”
“Not a bad idea. Listen, Benny called me yesterday afternoon. He had some questions from you about the FDA.”
“Oh, right. What did you find?”
“Plenty about process, nothing about specifics.”
“What do you mean?”
“According to Benny, you want to see the FDA files on Chemitex Bioproducts and Armstrong Bioproducts, right?”
“Right.”
“Forget it.”
“Really?”
“Really. I was on the phone for over an hour this morning with an attorney in the general counsel’s office. There are two relevant FDA filings for each drug. The first is the Investigational New Drug Application. Known for short as—”
“—the IND,” I said.
“Right. That’s what you file when you’re ready to start testing your drug on humans. Among other things, the IND describes in detail how you are going to do each of the three phases of human testing.”
“Three?”
“That’s what the guy told me. You start with phase one clinical trials. That’s where you test the drug for side effects, usually on thirty or forty healthy volunteers. Then you move to the phase two clinicals. That’s where you test it on people who have the target ailment. If it passes phase two, you move to the phase three trials and test the drug on a few thousand patients over a couple year period. If the drug passes all three phases, you’re ready to file—”
“—a New Drug Application,” I said.
“Yep. But that one wouldn’t be as helpful to you. Apparently, the NDAs are humongous—hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pages of documents, most of them highly technical.”
“So how do I get a hold of an IND?”
“You don’t,” Flo said.
“Why not?”
“The FDA won’t let you see them. They treat the IND as a trade secret of the applicant.”
“What about an FOIA request?” I asked. The Freedom of Information Act is a federal law that requires various governmental entities to turn over gobs of information if requested to do so by a member of the public.
“Nope,” Flo said. “INDs are specifically exempted from FOIA. Same with the NDAs.”
“Rats,” I said glumly. “No way Chemitex will let me see them voluntarily. Sherman Ross said he made some inquiries for me, but I’m not optimistic.”
“There’s another possible route,” Flo said, “but it’s a long shot.”
“It’s probably my only shot. Tell me.”
“I asked the guy to describe a typical IND.”
“And?”
“They all start off with the FDA Form 1571.”
“Which is?”
“A two-page, fill-in-the-blanks federal form.”
“Okay.”
“But the rest of the IND is usually one volume of text and test data, and that’s the key.”
“What’s the key?”
“The length. I asked the lawyer pointblank: do the drug companies ever have their applications professionally printed?”
“And?”
“Not often these days, he told me, but it was more common back before most companies had sophisticated in-house word processing capabilities.”
I smiled. “You’re a genius, Flo.”
“I admit it, counseler.”
“I’ll start working the phones as soon as I get to the office.”
“Call me if you score a direct hit.”
Before leaving for the office, I took out the second of the two documents that Karen Harmon had typed from the tapes Bruce Rosenthal had dictated during his review of the Chemitex R&D files. It was the document with the baffling series of questions on Primax and Guillain-Barré” and the hitherto cryptic “Phase Two Trials.” I glanced at Bruce’s questions:
Primax? Where?
Cross-referenced materials not there—Filing glitch?—Need to locate—Need to ask
What’s going on with Guillain B?
Where are Primax files???—must find
Be sure to look for LGB—Sounds like typical G-B syndrome
Cross-reference to Phase Two Trial?—Need to check date—Phase Two Trial?—Nof possible!?
Thanks to Flo, I had a good idea what “Phase Two Trial” probably meant, at least generically. How it related to whatever had agitated (and probably killed) Bruce was still a mystery.
***
Jacki was at lunch when I got to the office. I flipped through my phone messages and glanced at the mail. Nothing that couldn’t wait.
I took out the Yellow Pages and flipped to the heading for Printers. I was expecting six or seven listings. Instead, there were nine pages of listings. But as I went down the columns, name by name, I saw that I could eliminate many that were obviously geared toward the walk-in trade and ordinary customers looking for a wedding invitation, stationery, or business cards. A major pharmaceutical company was not likely to have a formal FDA filing handled by Sir Speedy Prints or Tommy’s Print & Copy Corner. But even after eliminating the obvious ones, I still had more than fifty companies to call. With a deep breath, I lifted the receiver, checked the listing and punched in the number for Ace Printing Company.
I was up to Chesterfield Graphics Corp. when Jacki returned from lunch. She was surprised to see me and came rushing into my office.
“Oh, Rachel, how are you feeling?”
“Much better.”
“You should have stayed home for a day. You need your rest after that dreadful night.”
“I’m okay, Jacki. Really I am.”
She crossed her beefy arms and frowned with concern. “Maybe, but I’m still going to send you home early.”
I smiled. “Yes, ma’am. In fact, you can help me get out of here early.” I handed her the Yellow Pages. “I’ve been calling printers, and this is as far as I got.” I pointed to Chesterfield Graphics. “I need to find which of these companies has ever printed FDA filings for either Chemitex Bioproducts or its predecessor, Armstrong Bioproducts. So far, I’m zero for eight.”
She lifted the Yellow Pages and frowned at the listings. “I’ll start right in.”
“Use a little indirection. A pointed question might put them off. I told the ones I called that a client of mine in the pharmaceutical business needed to have an Investigational New Drug Application printed. I asked whether they had ever done one before. So far, no one has.”
She was taking notes. “An Investigational New Drug Application?”
I nodded. “If you find one who’s done it before, ask them for references of pharmaceutical companies that they’ve done work for. If they don’t mention Chemitex or Armstrong on their own at that point, you can ask them.”
Jacki finished taking notes and nodded. “I’ll st
art now.”
“Thanks.”
She paused at the door and turned to face me. “Rachel, did you happen to come back here last night before you went to the mall?”
“No. Why?”
She looked perplexed. “I always turn off my computer at the end of the day. I would have sworn it was off last night when I locked up. Yours, too. But they were both on when I got here this morning. Odd, isn’t it?”
I nodded uncertainly. “Maybe you forgot. I usually turn mine off when I leave, but I honestly can’t remember whether I did yesterday.”
“Maybe, but I know I looked in your office before I locked up. I could swear your computer was off, too.” She paused. “And another thing.”
“What?”
“I was catching up on my filing this morning. Were you in the file drawers yesterday?”
I felt an icy finger on my spine. “I don’t think so.”
“Hmmm,” she said with a puzzled frown. Although her personal life was in disarray, Jacki was a stickler for order at the office, especially in the file drawers. I realized early on in our relationship that I should let her do all of the filing.
“What?” I asked.
“Things are out of order,” she said. “I thought you might have gone into the drawers yesterday looking for some document and forgot to put things back in the right place.” She heaved a sigh. “Oh, well, it’s probably the darn hormones again. I woke up at two in the morning with my nipples on fire.” She left my office shaking her head and returned to her desk.
I sat there motionless, absorbing the clear import of what Jacki had noticed. I carefully surveyed the top of my desk, looking for something askew. I couldn’t tell for sure. There were always piles of documents on my desk. There happened to be four of them this morning. As far as I could remember, there were four when I left yesterday afternoon. Whenever Jacki was the last to leave at night or the first to arrive in the morning, she would neatly square each pile. All four piles were neatly squared. I couldn’t remember for sure what had been in each pile, and thus I couldn’t tell whether any of them had been disturbed or rearranged. The same was true of the drawers of my desk and credenza. Jacki maintained all the really important files in her filing cabinet. The few files in my credenza were a real hodgepodge of documents—my TWA Frequent Flyer materials, the documents from my house closing, sets of local rules from the various federal district courts in Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas, a miscellaneous collection of photocopies of judicial decisions that I had at one time or another thought worth saving, copies of some of the briefs I had filed over the years. Nothing essential, nothing I had looked at recently, and thus nothing I could say for sure had been disturbed or rearranged since yesterday afternoon.
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