The Suspect

by John Lescroart

  “Except that there was a problem?”

  “Well, of course, when people die, you’ve got at the very least a perceptual problem.” Now Furth uncrossed his legs and came forward a bit in his chair, a smile that begged for understanding. “But the fact is, the deaths were only reported long after the study period, so they were outside the study’s parameters.”

  “But the people really did die, didn’t they? Weren’t there autopsies to find out why?”

  “In some cases, yes, but the results were inconclusive.”

  “Inconclusive how?”

  “In the way that blood clots can come from any number of sources. Not necessarily from complications of hip replacement surgery three to five years before.”

  “So these people, they died of blood clot complications.”

  “Basically, yes.”

  “How many of them?”

  “To date, we’ve had formal confirmation of six. But you have to remember that this is out of over six hundred surgeries. So it’s exactly in the ballpark of typical post-op clots, which is about one in a hundred. And remember that none of the patients were under sixty. The Dryden Socket wasn’t causing those deaths. It was most probably the surgeries themselves. Typical complications. Tragic, of course, but typical.”

  “And what did Caryn think about that?”

  Furth shrugged, turned his palms up, utterly forthcoming. “If you want the truth, I think she was just hypersensitive because it was her invention, with her name on it and everything. Once PII goes into full production, the numbers are going to be staggering. The profit numbers, I mean. She—both of you—were going to become very, very rich. I think the magnitude and reality of it made her nervous.”

  Stuart strongly doubted the truth of this. If anything, the opposite—that she would experience even a temporary setback in her pursuit of money—would be more likely to make her nervous. But there was nothing to be gained by voicing that opinion. Instead, he said, “So what was she calling you about?”

  “She wanted me to intervene with PII. She thought they could solve the problem in two years or so, once they got a clear understanding of what it was. Again, from the late reports. Some more autopsies, that sort of thing.”

  “She wanted to put production on hold.”

  Seeing that Stuart seemed to understand and accept the basic issue, Furth sat back more comfortably again. “Essentially, yes. Which—I think you must know—well, you know about Caryn’s mezzanine loan, of course?”

  “Sure. The broad strokes.”

  “Well, hers wasn’t the only one. And a delay of two years or more at this stage…I mean, some of the investors…” Another shrug. “I think you can see the problem.”

  “I think so.” Stuart clipped out the response and realized that he was struggling to keep the outrage from his voice. “Caryn was threatening to blow the whistle on what she’d come to believe was a faulty product, and if she succeeded it would cost some people maybe millions of dollars. Isn’t that about it?”

  “I don’t think she was quite to the point of blowing the whistle on anything. She just needed some hand-holding, the usual last-minute reassurance. She wanted to go forward as much as the next investor, I believe.”

  “She didn’t talk to you about trying to postpone PII’s production?”

  “Not with any specificity, no. There really was just too much riding on all this. In another couple of months, both of you would have been smiling all the way to the bank. I’m sure of it.”

  Stuart felt that if he sat more than another minute or two under Furth’s unyielding gaze with its unflappable geniality, he might be forced to come back inside the building with his gun and blow the guy away just on general principles. But there was one more avenue he needed to explore, if gently.

  “So, Fred, let me ask—has a homicide inspector named Juhle called you?”

  The change of topic didn’t scare Furth. In fact, it seemed to put him on firmer ground somehow. Matter-of-fact, he nodded. “Yesterday. He asked what I was doing Sunday night.”

  “Let me guess,” Stuart said. “Sleeping in bed.”

  “Eleven o’clock Sunday night, what would anybody be doing if you’ve got to be up at five thirty?”

  “Five thirty?”

  “Wall Street time. You’re in the markets, that’s when you’re up if you want to make the six-thirty bell. But you already knew what I’d told him?” A question.

  Stuart said, “I asked him if he was even looking for any other suspects—besides me—and he said he’d checked alibis with everybody on Caryn’s cell phone. Which included you.”

  “So now you’re asking me?” The question didn’t seem to bother him, or maybe Fred Furth was so programmed for affability in his career that like Marie Antoinette he wouldn’t show any anger or resentment even if he were facing his executioner.

  “I mean no offense,” Stuart said, adopting the tone, “but somebody must be lying about where they were if they killed Caryn, and I intend to find out who that was.”

  “Well.” Again, palms up, unfeigned innocence. “It wasn’t me. I’d say you could ask my wife or any of my three kids, but I’d really prefer you didn’t see the need to do that. But because my heart goes out to you, it really does, I’ll tell you more than the inspector asked. I barbecued a chicken on my new rotisserie. It was great, rosemary and lemon. Outstanding. And had half a bottle of wine—you know Chalk Hill Chardonnay? Awesome stuff. Then put the kids down by seven thirty—the oldest is six, so bedtime’s always early. And I was sawing logs myself by nine. So no, I didn’t kill Caryn. Besides which, I thought she was a great person. Smart, interesting, fun.”

  Stuart nodded, and suddenly found himself unable to speak. Evidently his wife had remained smart, interesting and fun to some people right up until the time she’d been killed. Covering his emotional lapse with a sip of coffee, Stuart put his mug down and got to his feet. “One more thing, if you don’t mind? Did any of the other investors know she was working to get this postponement on going into full production?”

  “Not that I know of. Not through me, certainly. Someone may have gotten some wind of it out of PII directly, but even that would have been unusual.”

  “Well.” A chagrined look on his face, Stuart held out a hand. “Thanks for your time. Sorry for the questions.”

  “No problem,” Furth said. “I wish I could have been more help.”

  The cab of Stuart’s truck baked at close to one hundred degrees out in the lot. Opening both doors for cross-ventilation, he checked behind the front seat on the passenger side where he’d stashed his duffel bag and saw that it was where and how he’d left it and then, on second thought, brought it out and reached down to the bottom where he’d thrown in his little-used first generation cell phone. Going to stand in the shade of an olive tree while the cab aired out, he punched in his daughter’s number.

  “Hey, Dad. Where are you?”

  “How did you know it was me?”

  “You’re kidding, right? You’re in my address book. You call, your name comes up.”

  “Where?”

  “On the window? In front? Hello? But let’s play another game. Where are you?”

  “Palo Alto. Talking to some people Mom did business with.”

  “What about?”

  “What she was doing with them. If maybe it made somebody mad at her.”

  “Shouldn’t the cops be doing that?”

  “They’re not, though. And I’ve decided I’m not going to get arrested, so it’s up to me.”

  “What do you mean, you’re not going to get arrested?”

  “I mean pretty much the standard meaning. I’m not going to jail.”

  “Yeah, but…Dad, I don’t think it’s like they ask your opinion.”

  “No, I know. Which is why I wanted to call you and tell you how you could reach me if you need to. You’ve got my cell number?”

  “Didn’t we just do this? It’s in my phone. How else would it know it was you ca
lling?”

  “Right. Yeah. Of course. But my point is that you can reach me anytime, but don’t tell anybody you know where I am.”

  “Anybody? What about your lawyer?”

  “No. I’ll contact her if I need to.”

  “What about Debra?”

  “You can tell Debra, but I don’t really want to talk to her.”

  “Why not? She’s being nice to me.”

  “I know that. She’s a fine person, and I’m glad she’s letting you stay with her, but I just can’t talk to her right now, okay? And I promise I’ll do what I need to for the funeral. But for now, I’ve got to do some things and maybe stay out of sight.”

  “But what if…I mean, if they say you’re under arrest, they can just come and get you.”

  “If they can find me, which is why I don’t want you telling anybody about my number.”

  “But they might shoot you. Don’t they do that, for like resisting arrest?”

  “Nobody’s going to shoot me, Kym. I’m just laying low, okay?”

  “I don’t like it. I really don’t like it, Daddy.”

  “Well…”

  “What if they do shoot you, then what? First Mom, and then…I mean, what am I supposed to do if…” This, Stuart knew, was classic Kym beginning her downward spiral, and it was only going to get worse if he didn’t stand firm.

  “Sweetie, sweetie, sweetie. Hold up. Whoa. We’ll be in touch all the time, you and me. I’m not going to confront any policemen, I promise. If they find me, I’ll go along. But I really, really want to avoid that. I’m not going to let anybody kill me. Cops or anybody else.”

  “You know what you tell me whenever I say anything like that?”

  “No. What?”

  “Famous last words.”

  It took him the better part of five minutes to end that conversation on anything less than a disastrously negative note, but he kept at it until his daughter was at least giving lip service to respecting his decision. In the course of the talk, though, he asked her if she’d tried to reach him at their house earlier in the day and she’d told him no. Debra hadn’t tried to call him either.

  He’d been sure it was a woman’s voice on the answering machine when he’d been packing, so it must have been Gina. Which meant there may have been a development. He considered it for a few seconds, and decided it probably wouldn’t be profitable to talk to her in person, plus he was all argued out with his daughter, so he called his own home number to get the message Gina must have left.

  But it wasn’t Gina.

  “Hello, this is Kelley Gray Rusnak from PII calling for Stuart. Stuart, I don’t know if you remember me, but I was Caryn’s lab assistant down here. You and I met a couple of times. I see what they’re saying in the papers about you and Caryn, but you know I’ve read all your books and I just don’t believe you’re the kind of person who could hurt someone, especially Caryn. And I don’t know, maybe you’re already in jail, but I haven’t heard that on the news yet and I probably would have, so I thought I’d try to reach you at your home number. I think maybe there’s something you should know about that’s been going on here, that Caryn was kind of worried about…”

  NINETEEN

  THE PII CORPORATE OFFICES AND LABORATORIES were located in the industrial flats, pocked by low-rise development, near the San Francisco airport. Kelley Rusnak seemed relieved to hear back from Stuart, but didn’t want to talk about it on the telephone. Stuart convinced her to take some time off and meet him in half an hour at the Hungry Hunter, a steak house just off the freeway in San Bruno, perhaps ten minutes from where she worked.

  The cab of the truck had cooled to mere lava, but Stuart barely noticed. Kicking himself for not having answered the phone in his house, when Kelley’s information, whatever it was, might have done him some good in his discussions with Fred Furth or even Juhle, he was obviously speeding as he flew past a Palo Alto city police car waiting at the front of a line at a red light on El Camino. Slamming on his brakes, then jamming down a couple of gears, his eyes were glued to the rearview as the cop turned in behind him and lit up his red flashers.

  A murder suspect driving a vehicle with a stolen license plate, carrying a loaded gun in the cab, Stuart put on his blinker and began to pull over. But the patrol car swung left around him. As it passed, the officer in the passenger seat wagged a finger at Stuart, but evidently they’d gotten a call to some event that trumped his traffic stop. Raising his own hand, acknowledging the warning with a wary smile, Stuart continued on the El Camino for another block before turning off the main thoroughfare into a side street—any side street. With his stomach churning and his head gone light with the close call, he wound his way through a neighborhood of mostly brand-new mansions, to the freeway entrance.

  He was at the Hungry Hunter parking lot fifteen minutes later. It was past lunchtime now, and still an hour or more before happy hour was to begin, so there was no problem with parking. Stuart was rolling up his driver’s side window when a knock on the other window almost made him jump. When he’d gotten Kelley’s message, and even when he’d talked to her and set up this meeting, he hadn’t been completely sure which of Caryn’s lab colleagues Kelley was. But now, reaching over and unlocking the door, he recognized her right away.

  She was an inch on either side of five feet tall, probably in her mid-thirties, with shoulder-length black hair and a faintly cherubic face, unadorned by makeup of any kind, even lipstick. “Do you mind if we just talk out here in your cab?” Although she’d already climbed in and closed the door behind her. Turning to face him, she let out an anxious breath, tried a mostly unsuccessful smile and said, “Hi.”

  “Hi. How are you doing?”

  “I’m a little nervous, to tell you the truth.”

  “What about? Coming to see me?”

  “Not just that, but that, too, yes. Driving over here, I even thought somebody might have been following me. They passed by and went on the freeway, but still…”

  “Why would somebody be following you?”

  “No reason, really. And they probably weren’t. But things have been so weird lately, and then with Caryn…I’m so sorry about her. She was really…really special. I still can’t believe it.”

  “I’m having some troubles with that myself.” Stuart turned and looked around behind them, out over the parking lot. “Well, Kelley, we seem to be the only ones out here. If you want, we could go someplace else, or just drive. Whatever you want.”

  She shook her head. “No. I’m sure this is all right. I’m just being paranoid.” A quick smile. “Which of course doesn’t mean that they’re not after me.”

  “Who would be after you?”

  “Well…I guess whoever might have been after Caryn.”

  “We’re talking concerns about the Dryden Socket, right?”

  She nodded.

  Stuart took a beat, then rolled his window down again and rested his hands on the bottom of the steering wheel. “Just before I called you, I was visiting with Frederick Furth down in Palo Alto,” he said. “You know him?”

  “By name, sure. He was Caryn’s go-to guy for the money stuff.”

  “Right. He told me that Caryn was just having some last-minute jitters, that’s all. It was nothing serious. You don’t agree with that?”

  “Not even a little bit. That’s just not true. She was going to try to stop them from going into full production if she could. At least that’s what she told me last week.”

  “But why, Kelley? Furth told me about the problems that didn’t make it into the clinical studies, okay, but—”

  “Those weren’t ‘problems,’ Stuart. They were deaths.”

  “Right. Furth acknowledged that. He wasn’t trying to hide anything that I could see. He said you’re always going to get a certain percentage of deaths in any major surgeries like these from various complications. Post-op clots. That kind of thing.”

  “Right. A certain percentage. Did he happen to tell you what that percentage
was?”

  “He said about one in a hundred. Which is what’s coming back from these clinical trials. I think he said they’ve had six deaths in six hundred surgeries, something like that, which is right in the pocket for this kind of surgery in general.”

  She was looking at him in disbelief. “He told you one in a hundred? He’s off by a factor of five.”

  “How could that be? I mean, all this stuff is published, isn’t it? It’s public record.”

  “Right. And so far—so far—it’s true they’ve had those six confirmed deaths that have been in the first published studies, the ones that came in just a little too late. I suppose you’ve heard about that since that’s what all the fuss has been about. The late reports. Except what Mr. Furth left out is that these aren’t the only studies reporting fatalities. They’re just the only ones that have been vetted and published so far.”

  “And Caryn knew about others?”

  “Of course. She’s the inventor. She wanted to see the earliest drafts. Which evidently they tried to keep from her too. And pretty successfully.”

  “Who did?”

  “Furth. The money people. And of course Bill Blair. Our CEO? Once we pulled through the first round of clinical trials, they were all gung ho for full production, but Caryn had gotten some calls from docs she knew that had had problems. She even had a couple of her own patients show some disturbing signs. And it worried her.”

  Some of these details rang with a distant familiarity in Stuart’s mind. He was sure that Caryn had mentioned some of this to him back when she was first starting to test her new socket, her concerns about every aspect of the product. But he hadn’t paid very close attention.

  Caryn was all about problems and their solutions. She was the original girl who cried wolf—everything was a crisis, a problem, a challenge. Their daughter wouldn’t eat dinner one night and Caryn would harangue his ear off about how Kym was borderline anorexic or bulimic. If a patient had a rough night’s sleep after surgery—and almost all of them did—Caryn would worry it to death. Until finally Stuart, feeling it was out of self-defense, just finally shut her off. He couldn’t listen to any more “what ifs.” She’d talk and talk, one critical topic—money, the state of health care, polymer chemistry, her patients, Kymberly—flowing seamlessly into the next, and each one fraught with danger, possible failure, alternatives to consider.