Exhausting. Constant and exhausting.
Until he was left nodding, pitching in with the occasional “Uh-huh.”
But now, sitting here with Kelley, he realized that many of the things that engrossed Caryn might in fact have been damned interesting, even compelling. Certainly, the details surrounding the Dryden Socket were fascinating—and incredibly important—to him right now at this moment. But back when it had been a part of Caryn’s daily existence he had been tuned out, deaf to the songs that gave meaning to his wife’s life.
It had not all been her shutting him out, at least not at the beginning. He’d been equally complicit, perhaps more so, in the dissolution of their intimacy. The thought hit him, suddenly and unexpectedly, in a wave of regret and loss and brought him up short, his hand suddenly at his forehead as though pressing away a migraine.
“Stuart? Are you all right?”
He nodded at her. “I’m sorry. My mind just went out. Where were we?”
“Clotting,” Kelley said. “Hypercoagulability.”
“Sure,” Stuart said, “I was going to say that.”
“You’re teasing, but it’s a real thing. It’s what Caryn was trying to fix.”
“Could a layperson understand it if he wanted to explain it to his lawyer, for example?”
“I think so. You know that the basic problem Caryn set for herself was to find a plastic for the cup-side of the hip that didn’t degrade, right?”
“Generally, yes.”
“Okay, so she knows polymer chemistry inside out. She discovers this one particular type of high-density polyethylene—”
“Whoa, Kelley. We’re dumbing it down, okay?”
An impatient pout, then Kelley continued. “High-density polyethylene is dumbed down, I’m afraid. You don’t want to hear the technical name. Bottom line is she found a plastic that worked in animal trials. As you know.”
“What wasn’t working before?” Stuart asked.
“The basic problem? Some people, Caryn included, believed that the industry standard plastic was the proximate cause of even the one percent of blood clots. And even worse, over time the plastic elutes a chemical—”
“It does what?”
“Elutes. Produces. A chemical that dramatically increases coagulation in some people. It’s called ‘small particle disease’—there’s a layman’s term for you—and it’s often fatal.”
“And that’s what Caryn was trying to avoid?”
“Right. She thought, or hoped anyway, that she could drastically reduce that one percent clotting number, maybe down to one in a thousand cases, or less. So I think it’s important to understand that even if Mr. Furth was correct on the fatality number he gave you, and he’s not, the Dryden Socket at one percent failure was no improvement over what we’ve been doing for years. And in fact, Caryn was most of the way to convinced that it was worse.”
“How much worse?”
Kelley bit at her lower lip and took in a deep breath. “Maybe a lot. Maybe as much as five percent. Those are the preliminary figures from studies that aren’t completed yet. Five in a hundred deaths.”
“From the same thing? Small particle disease?”
“No. In fact, we’ve done several coagulation cascades and this is kind of the opposite, where we’re seeing the creation of multinucleated giant cells which, essentially, become osteoclasts that eat bone.”
“Eat bone? Not good, I’m guessing.”
“It is bad. It’s going to be much worse, though, if PII goes into full production.”
“But if they know this, why would they go ahead with it? I mean, they’ve got to realize that they’re looking at lawsuits forever. They’d be killing themselves.”
“Not if they could get the problem fixed soon enough. They could take orders, start some cash flow going, have the delay later in the process rather than sooner. Caryn was already working on it, narrowing down some other options…”
“Another plastic?”
“Right. And pretty sure she was on the right track. She told me she thought we had a good chance to solve the problem in two years, maybe less. But it’s a time and money game with PII. They’re evidently strapped pretty badly right now, and if there’s more delay before the FDA gives them a green light…”
“I know about that. At least I know that Caryn put up a lot of short-term money…” Stuart, struck with another insight, drummed his hands on the steering wheel. “Which would mean that at the time she did the mezzanine loan, she must have believed PII was going into production pretty soon, right? And was okay with it.”
“But she wasn’t okay with it. I know she wasn’t.” A silence settled in the cab. Finally Kelley said, “Look. She thought the money she gave them was to buy time for her research. That was her clear understanding. Except then she found out they weren’t reporting the negative studies and planned to go ahead anyway.”
“And when did she find that out?”
“I’m not sure exactly, but recently. Certainly by last week. She was down here, I think it was on Wednesday, and had evidently just gotten word from Mr. Furth that the FDA was days or weeks away from approval, and she was having a fit about it. She went into Mr. Blair’s office and he told her that the deaths had occurred after the study was completed and therefore they shouldn’t technically affect the FDA’s ruling, which was going to send PII stock through the roof. And meanwhile she should just keep up her work on the next generation.”
“How did she respond to that?”
“How do you think? She told him it was unconscionable and that if he went ahead, she was going to go to the newspapers. It was her name on the socket, and she wasn’t going to allow it to hurt people.”
“So what did Blair do?”
“He backed down a little, evidently. At least that’s what Caryn told me when she came back out to the lab. They were all going to have another meeting this week and see if they could all come to some decision that made everybody happy. But she wasn’t too optimistic.”
“And the meeting was supposed to be this week?”
“Probably today,” Kelley said. “She usually came down here to work on Wednesdays. Except of course now there won’t be—” She stopped abruptly as her eyes teared up. For a few seconds she fought the urge to cry. At last, swallowing, gathering her strength, she went on. “So you see why I felt I had to talk to you?”
TWENTY
ASSISTANT DISTRICT ATTORNEY GERRY ABRAMS SHOWED up uninvited at Devin Juhle’s desk in Homicide at a little after four, when Juhle had just gotten himself arranged to write up an incredibly depressing witness interview he’d had with a despondent mother in a case he was following up on after he’d left Stuart Gorman’s house. Abrams breezed by the lockers across from him, knocking on the top of one of them to announce his arrival. When Juhle looked up, he started right in, the soul of enthusiastic good cheer. “I must say you look a bit peaked, my good man. I’ve been thinking about Gorman, and I predict it’ll cheer you right up.”
Juhle threw his pen down on the desk, relieved after all at the respite. He pushed himself back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “You know who I’ve been thinking about, Ger? Fidel fucking Rayas, that’s who. Wondering why we’ve got to waste time and money on a trial for the son of a bitch.”
“Because, my son, as I’m sure you know and appreciate, he’s innocent in the eyes of the law until proven guilty. Who is he?”
“Christina Hidalgo’s boyfriend. Also, p.s., the killer of her son, age five months.”
“Shook him, did he?”
Juhle nodded. “Maybe a bit more than that. Although he’s on his way to convincing Christina that it wasn’t his fault, at least enough that she won’t testify to it. He didn’t really shake him. He just picked the kid up, trying to quiet it down, and then he just stopped breathing. Maybe because his skull got cracked. Somehow. Falling off his bed, maybe.”
Abrams closed the gap between himself and Juhle’s desk and plunked himself on a
corner of it. “Tell her if it wasn’t him, the only person that leaves is her. That ought to bring her right around.”
Drawing a deep breath, fully disgusted, Juhle let out a string of matter-of-fact profanity. “I want to just shoot him right now,” he concluded. “I swear to God, I do.”
Abrams nodded. “I couldn’t agree more, Dev. Really. The saddest thing about life here in San Francisco is there’s no chance getting a death penalty. Maybe you could arrest him and accidentally slam into a telephone pole while you’re driving him downtown. Guys like Fidel, I bet they’re too macho to use their seat belts. You’re going fast enough, he’s toast.”
Juhle perked up, straightened in his chair. “You know what, Ger? That’s not a bad idea. Cost of a car against a murder trial, the city wins big time. I could get a medal.” Juhle took a breath, seemed to shake the evil thoughts off his body, changed the subject. “So what were you thinking about Gorman? I thought yesterday we didn’t have any evidence? You get something I don’t know about?”
“No. But I watched the news last night.”
“The fox?”
“His wife’s sister. You saw her, then?”
“She was hard to miss. Va-voom, huh?”
“At least. But you put her in the mix, suddenly we might be at a tipping point.”
“Is she in the mix? Were they together?”
Abrams fairly beamed. “Why I love television. Noon news, just breaking. Her ex-husband says they went up to his cabin—that cabin again—for nearly a week. Alone together.”
Juhle whistled, impressed. “But wait,” he said. “There’s been another development beyond that, not saying it’s going to un-tip you, but you need to hear about it.”
“What’s that?” Abrams listened while Juhle explained about the TSNK e-mails. When the story was over, he said, “He’s going pro-active, that’s all. Trying to give us something else, get us off him.”
“That’s how I read it too,” Juhle said, “but it was a pretty good press. His lawyer and her investigator.”
“Who’s the lawyer?”
“Gina Roake.”
Abrams brightened. “Roake. I don’t recall her ever doing a homicide before. I should ask around. If she hasn’t, it’s something else to consider. The call on whether or not to bring him in is close enough. If he’s got a first-timer defending him, odds on us go up. Maybe only slightly, but with everything else that might be enough.”
“So what were you thinking about that brought you down here?”
“What we actually had.” Suddenly the assistant district attorney was on his feet, pacing between Juhle’s desk and the lockers. “Look, we’ve been going on about the lack of physical evidence, and there’s no doubt that’s a problem. The question is whether it’s insurmountable. With this woman, finally—the sister-in-law—I’m starting to believe maybe it isn’t.”
“I’m listening.”
“Okay, you’re a jury. You hear about Gorman leaving the lakes at two o’clock in the morning. Squirrelly right off the bat, no? He takes way too long to show up at Rancho Cordova. And by the way, I did check and there were no traffic problems. Any way you cut it, there’s lost time in there. It makes more sense that he drove up from the city after the murder. Then he’s got a neighbor—and not just any neighbor, someone who’s going to be a hostile witness for us and his daughter’s friend—who puts him and his car at the house. He’s doing CPR on a corpse in full rigor when the first squad arrives. Then there’s the money. And finally, now, the other woman. This thing sings like Pavarotti.”
“You’re preaching to the choir, Gerry. But you’re the DA. You’ve got to make the call.”
Abrams’ eyes flicked at the ceiling, came back to Juhle. “We don’t do something, he’s gonna walk. Are you expecting more from the morgue or the lab?”
“Nope. We could always get surprised, but…”
Abrams crossed back to the lockers one more time, his finger tattooing the echoing metal, trying to make up his mind.
Just at that moment, the telephone on the desk rang. Juhle held a finger up to Abrams and picked it up. “Juhle, Homicide.” He all but came to attention in his chair, straightening up, grabbing for his pen. “Yes, Mrs. Robley,” he said, “go ahead. I’m listening.” And as he listened, his face clouded over until it was set in darkness. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Should I talk to her? No. Sure. I understand.” After another minute of monosyllables, Juhle hung up and looked over at Gerry Abrams. “Bethany Robley’s mother,” he said. “The son of a bitch sent his own daughter to threaten Bethany to change her testimony.”
This wasn’t good news for the witness by any means, but it brought a cold smile to Abrams’ face. “We’ve just tipped, Dev. Go talk to her on tape. Nail it down. Then let’s go find us a judge, get the sucker in jail while we’ve still got the chance.”
Robert McAfee greeted Wyatt Hunt in the doorway of the newly built warehouse-like structure on Geary at the eastern edge of Japantown. The site of the city’s soon-to-be-completed Total Joint Clinic was not in a low-rent neighborhood by any stretch, and its now-sole principal betrayed a distinct pride of ownership as he shook Hunt’s hand.
McAfee, dressed more like a construction worker than a doctor, in heavy work boots, tan denim pants and a black and gold Giants windbreaker, looked young and fit enough to play with the big club. He had all of his hair, and none of it was gray above a subtle widow’s peak that bisected an unlined forehead. With his piercing gray eyes, strong nose, good teeth and day-and-a-half stubble, he was as handsome as a movie star. He also accepted without question, and without looking at the proffered business card, Hunt’s description of himself as a defense investigator looking into the death of Caryn Dryden, offering only, “But I already talked to one of your partners, whose name escapes me, I’m sorry.”
“Devin Juhle?” Hunt volunteered, willing to take advantage of McAfee’s lack of distinction between police and defense investigators. Hunt had done what the Penal Code required—identified himself and given the witness a business card. What the witness chose to believe after that was not Hunt’s problem.
“That was it. Juhle. I told him I was asleep on Sunday night, which I was. Though of course I was devastated to hear about Caryn. I still am. But I don’t know what else you need to know from me. I hadn’t seen her since last Thursday. Surely I’m not a suspect, am I?”
Hunt loved it when he was mistakenly taken for a policeman. He answered with an open, guileless look. “Until somebody’s arrested, the field’s technically open, but you were home in bed when the murder occurred.” He phrased it as fact, although he knew from Gina that McAfee was Stuart’s pick as most likely suspect which, if true, meant the alibi was bogus.
“That’s right.”
“So my real interest is that as Caryn’s business partner, you might know something about her and either not know that you know it or not realize its importance.”
“Okay, that’s possible.” McAfee’s smile came and went haphazardly. Hunt’s presence and questions clearly were rattling him. “But I thought you’d more or less settled on Stuart?”
“He’s in the mix, Doctor, but as I said there’s been no arrest yet. The media’s made up its mind, if it has one, but there are some questions.”
Hunt’s intention wasn’t to let his cop impersonation intimidate the witness; he wanted to get him relaxed and talking. He looked over McAfee’s shoulder to where construction sounds could be heard and put some enthusiasm into his tone. “I love these infill projects. I live in a converted warehouse myself down on Brannan. How close are you to being finished here?”
“Well, now, with Caryn gone, that’s all a bit up in the air. If you’d like a quick tour while we talk, I’d be happy to show you around a little.”
“That’d be great. I’d like that. Thanks.”
McAfee’s relief at leaving the immediate subject of Caryn’s death was palpable. He turned to indicate the reception area. “Well, where we are here, this is pre
tty much finished.” He led Hunt behind the counter, showing off the stations, the computer outlets, the phone bank.
“How many patients were you planning on handling?”
“We hoped to get up to eight a day.”
“Eight a day? That many people need new hips?”
“And shoulders, and knees. And yes, even hips alone, eight a day, at least.”
“You and Caryn were going to do four operations each, every day?”
Perhaps this struck McAfee as funny. Perhaps he was still nervous. At any rate, he had a loud, uninhibited laugh, though he cut it off after the first couple of notes. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but no. We hoped to be able to bring in associates, fellow orthopedic specialists, and have them on staff here within a year or two. Any one doctor shouldn’t do more than one total joint surgery in any given day. Although there are some who try.”
Hunt decided to take a risk. “Michael Pinkert?”
The name stopped him, wiped the joviality from McAfee’s face. “Yes, he’d be one of them. Have you been talking to him?”
“Not yet.”
“But obviously you know that he’d been in some negotiations with Caryn.”
“And with you, right? You want to talk about it?”
Clearly, McAfee didn’t. He looked back over his shoulder quickly as though considering whether he should take his inquisitor on the next leg of the clinic tour, but finally flashed another false smile and leaned back against the wall. “You have to understand that Caryn and I, we went back as far as our residencies together. She was an incredible woman—smart, driven, a workaholic really, like me. With so much going on in her brain all the time. It was—she was—a joy to be around. Not that everybody saw that part of her, of course. She could be very…abrupt, I suppose. And short-tempered. Impatient with stupidity, that was all.”
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