Lethal Remedy

by Richard Mabry

  She tapped the four bills. "So is it a sale?"

  The bills disappeared into Wes's pocket. "Sure. Let me get you a box of ammo and the cleaning kit."

  A peculiar double-buzz beside him brought Jack Ingersoll awake with a start. He opened his eyes and looked around at unfamiliar surroundings. This wasn't his bedroom. The walls were done in a subtle print of plum on a gold background. The bed where he lay was smaller than his own king-sized one. The source of the buzzing was a phone on a bedside table to his left, not in its familiar position to his right. Heavy drapes were half-open, revealing deep twilight outside.

  He fumbled the receiver offits cradle. "Dr. Ingersoll."

  "Herr Professor, you wished to be awakened at seventeen thirty hours."

  "Thanks. Er, Danke." He hung up the phone and let his thoughts settle. He was in Germany, for the international conference. This was a five-star hotel, the Hessis . . . something or other. He had an important presentation to make tomorrow, but tonight there were a cocktail reception and by-invitation dinner for the speakers and VIP's.

  His head was still fuzzy, the combined effects of an overnight transatlantic flight, too much complimentary champagne on the aircraft, and the worst jet lag he'd ever experienced. He stumbled out of bed and found that he'd slept in his shirt and pants. He pulled a plastic laundry bag offa hanger in the closet and consigned his wrinkled clothes and dirty linen to it.

  Half an hour later, fresh from a shower and shave, Ingersoll adjusted the knot in his red paisley tie, tugged the cuffs of his white shirt from the sleeves of his dark blue suit, and prepared to leave his room. He had one hand on the doorknob when the peculiar ring of the phone stopped him. He checked his watch and found it was still on U.S. time. The bedside clock showed five minutes until six. Oh, well. It wouldn't hurt to be a few minutes late to the cocktail party. He expected it to be a bore, but as a speaker he supposed he should put in an appearance.

  He lifted the receiver and answered.

  "Jack, is that you?" Bob Wolfe's voice betrayed none of the fatigue Jack felt.

  "Yes. Is this Bob?"

  "Right. I presume you're going to the Messe."

  "What?"

  "The conference center. Sorry. I get over here enough that I've picked up some German, and I tend to lapse into it." Wolfe chuckled. "I was headed over for the cocktail party myself, and wondered if you'd like to walk over together."

  Ingersoll's immediate reaction was "No." Wolfe probably wanted to squeeze him some more, make sure he hewed to the company line. Then again, Wolfe was the direct line to Jandra's purse strings, and Ingersoll needed to make sure they didn't suddenly tighten. "Sure," he said. "Are you at the Hess . . . the main hotel?"

  "The Hessischer Hof. Yes, I'm in the lobby right now. I'll wait here for you."

  "See you in a few minutes." Ingersoll depressed the cradle, dialed the operator, and arranged for his laundry and dry cleaning to be picked up from his room while he was gone. He rummaged through his briefcase until he found his registration slip for the conference. Then, as reluctant as a boy on his way to school without having done his homework, he stepped into the hall and looked for the elevator.

  Wolfe rose from one of the sofas in the lobby as Ingersoll approached. "Would you like a drink in the bar here before we face the crowd?"

  Ingersoll looked at his watch, which told him it was a quarter past noon in Dallas. "I've got to reset that," he mumbled.

  "It's six fifteen local time," Wolfe volunteered. "Your dinner is at seven thirty. It'll take you fifteen minutes to pick up your registration packet and badge. Unless you then want to stand around at the cocktail party for an hour, talking to doctors whose accents make it impossible to understand them, I'd suggest we have a drink here first."

  They found a quiet corner in the bar and ordered. A patron two tables away lit a cigarette, and Ingersoll waved his hand in front of his face. "I keep forgetting how many people in Europe still smoke.

  "It makes me appreciate my non-smoking room," Ingersoll said. "By the way, thanks for the upgraded accommodations. If I read the signs correctly, all the rooms on that floor are nonsmoking."

  "No problem. We just want you to be happy," Wolfe said. And you want me to keep you happy, too, I'll bet. "So far I have no complaints."

  "Have you finished the PowerPoint for your presentation tomorrow?"

  "I put the finishing touches on it during the flight over. I think it'll go well."

  "You have it on your laptop?"

  "Uh, of course." Ingersoll was uncomfortable with the way this was going.

  "Tell you what." Wolfe drained the last of his drink. "Let's pop back upstairs to your room for a minute and I'll copy it onto this." He produced a small keychain drive from his pocket. "I'll review it while you're at the VIP dinner, and if I see any errors I can let you know in the morning."

  Ingersoll sat stunned. "I, I . . . "

  "You don't mind, do you?" Wolfe signaled for the check. "After all, we're all in this together."

  Ingersoll had already finished his drink. He lifted the glass to his lips, tapped it, and crunched the single ice cube that slid into his mouth. Yeah, we're in this together. But it's pretty clear now who's calling the tune.

  Ingersoll sneaked a look at his watch, now set to the correct time. Only another half hour until the cocktail party for all the conference attendees would be over. Already those who'd been here since the party began were drifting out to have dinner. Most of those remaining wore nametags with one or more colored ribbons that proclaimed they were a speaker, moderator, panelist, or officer of one of the sponsoring societies.

  "Entshuldig."

  Someone jostled his elbow, but fortunately the glass he held was almost empty. He supposed he'd just heard the German word for "excuse me."

  "No damage done," he said, and turned to find Dr. Gruber standing there with another man. Gruber's companion was a red-faced man who seemed to be stuffed into his ill-cut brown suit like a sausage in a casing. He wore horn-rimmed glasses and an expression of concern.

  The man stuck out his hand. "Professor Ingersoll, I am Dr. Rohde. I believe my colleague, Dr. Gruber, mentioned me." Rohde continued to pump Ingersoll's hand. "It is an honor to meet you."

  There was a tap on his shoulder. "Professor Ingersoll, we'll be leaving in a moment. Please meet us at the doorway."

  "Well, gentlemen, I'm sorry not to be able to visit with you," Ingersoll said, relieved at his rescue. "As you see, I have to leave now."

  Disappointment clouded Rohde's face. "I understand," he said. "I had several questions for you. But I will ask them during the open discussion after your paper tomorrow. Auf wiedersehen."

  As Ingersoll moved toward the door, he wondered if he'd avoided an uncomfortable conversation this evening, or been set up for a potentially disastrous public grilling tomorrow.

  "Put that thing away." Rip's words were almost lost in the noise of the medical center's food court as medical students, residents, and staffsnatched bagels and pastries to augment their breakfast coffee. He looked around but no one seemed to be paying attention to him and Sara, tucked away at a corner table.

  Sara had told him she had something to show him, but when she opened her purse the last thing he'd expected to see was a revolver. She closed her purse and dropped it onto the floor beside her chair, where it settled with a slight thud.

  Rip flinched at the noise. He leaned closer to Sara. "What are you doing with a gun? Where did you get it? Do you know—?"

  Sara patted the air in a calming gesture. "What am I doing with it? The next time someone shoots at me, I plan to shoot back. Where did I get it? You might be surprised to learn that they sell these things in stores all over the city. And as for your next question, I already have a current concealed carry permit, and I know how to shoot."

  "Why would you have a gun permit?"

  Sara glanced to either side of them and confirmed that the adjacent tables were empty. "When Jack and I were married, he insisted we bot
h have guns for protection. His argument was that sometimes we had to come out at night for an emergency, and hospitals aren't always in the best part of the city. He bought a gun for each of us. We both took the classes, got the permit. I carried the gun in my purse when I went out at night. He used an ankle holster for his. But when nothing happened, we gradually stopped carrying them, and I was glad. I hated to have them around. When we divorced, I told him to take my gun with him. Now I wish I'd kept it."

  "Is it safe for you to carry that around? What if you drop your purse?"

  "The cylinder holds five cartridges. I keep the hammer down on an empty chamber. I make sure the safety's on. The gun's a one-pound paperweight until I need to use it." She pointed her finger and dropped her thumb like the hammer of a gun coming down. "But when I need to use it, it'll be there."

  Rip shook his head. "I don't know what's happened to you. Right after that shooting, you told me you were scared to death. You were ready to jump at your shadow. Now you've turned into a gunslinger who's itching for a fight. What made the difference?"

  Sara had wondered that herself. Was it the aftereffects of the shooting that changed her? Was she ready to fight back because, all around her, patients were developing serious, potentially lethal illnesses from medication she'd agreed to give them? Had her attitude hardened after Mark found the recorder in the attic? Maybe it was the cumulative effect of all these events. Whatever the reason, she had to agree with Rip. She'd changed.

  15

  BOB WOLFE CLOSED HIS LAPTOP COMPUTER AND RUBBED HIS EYES. HE'D been over Jack Ingersoll's presentation repeatedly, running it again and again last night until he literally fell asleep at the computer. He awoke long enough to set an alarm for 5:00 a.m. and fall into bed, fully clothed. His biologic time clock was all fouled up, so this morning he was dependent on a combination of strong, black coffee and nervous energy to keep him going.

  At 7:00 a.m. he picked up the phone and dialed the number for Ingersoll's room. The call was answered after two rings, and Wolfe silently cursed Jack for sounding so chipper this morning.

  "This is Bob Wolfe. How are you this morning?"

  "Fine, fine. The dinner last night was shorter than I'd expected—I guess most of the attendees were as jet-lagged as I was—so I managed to get a good night's sleep." There was an audible gulp, followed by the clink of china on china. "I'm just having a room service breakfast before I get dressed and leave for the conference."

  "I suppose I'll see you there." Wolfe swallowed some of his cold coffee. "I just wanted you to know that I've been over your presentation, and I think you've nailed it. No inaccuracies that I can see."

  "That's good." Another pause, another clink. "I guess I'd better get moving."

  "Good luck—" It took a second for the click on the other end of the line to register. Wolfe dropped the phone into the cradle and stared into space.

  Up until now, Ingersoll had been eager to cooperate with Jandra, striving to keep the carrots coming while avoiding the stick. Maybe the dinner last night had convinced him that he truly was a VIP, that he didn't need Jandra's approval and backing. If that was the case, a dose of the stick might be in order. And it ought to be administered before Ingersoll made his presentation at the mid-morning general session.

  Wolfe grinned with self-satisfaction as he picked up the phone, dialed "0," and asked in passable German for Herr Generaldirektor Lambert. He was told that Herr Lambert wouldn't be on duty for another two hours.

  "Then reach him at home. I expect him to call me in my room within five minutes."

  "Begging your pardon, Herr Wolfe—"

  "I represent Jandra Pharmaceuticals. Herr Lambert knows the value of our business. Give him the message!" Wolfe slammed the receiver into its cradle and began to pace. He checked his watch every few seconds. This had to be done before Ingersoll left for the conference.

  Three minutes after he'd bullied the desk clerk, his phone rang. "Dr. Wolfe."

  "Herr Doktor, this is Wilhelm Lambert," the general manager said in flawless English. "How can I help you?"

  "Thank you for calling back so quickly. As soon as we hang up, I want you to phone Professor Ingersoll's room and give him this exact message."

  Sara hurried down the hall, already late for the internal medicine department's not-to-be-missed meeting, Grand Rounds.

  "Got a minute?" Rip fell in beside her.

  "Not really," she said. "I want to hear this lecture. The guy won a Nobel Prize in medicine for his work."

  He matched her stride for stride. "I think when you hear what I have to say, you'll agree it's more important than hearing a lecture by a Nobel Prize winner."

  Sara made a sharp right into a side hall where they'd have a bit of privacy. "Okay, what is it?"

  "Does the name Ed Drummond mean anything to you?"

  "Not offthe top of my head. Why don't you tell me what you've got, instead of playing twenty questions?"

  "Ed Drummond was one of our earliest Jandramycin patients," Rip said. "Septic shock from Staph luciferus pneumonia. Ring a bell?"

  "Vaguely. What about him?"

  "He developed kidney failure."

  "So he's the one," Sara said.

  "Right. And it was hard to treat him because of his age and all his other medical conditions." Rip paused like a quiz-show host about to announce a winner. "He died yesterday."

  Sara took a step back, stopping when she felt the wall's cold tile against her. "So now . . ."

  "Now Jandramycin is killing patients."

  "Are you sure his death was due to the kidney failure?"

  "His doctor signed the death certificate that way. There were other factors, of course, but that was the primary cause of death."

  Sara pointed back the way they'd come. "We need to speed up our efforts. Let's go back to my office and work on this."

  "What about Grand Rounds?" Rip asked.

  "If we solve the Jandramycin puzzle, we might win a Nobel Prize ourselves." She shrugged. "And if we don't, more people are going to die."

  Jack Ingersoll checked his appearance one more time in the bathroom mirror. He frowned when he heard the phone ring. Was that Bob Wolfe, calling again to remind him that his presentation today was important . . . to both of them? As if he needed a reminder. He looked around at the room he'd been given, thought about first-class travel and nice honoraria paid discreetly through the program committees of international meetings. He knew what was on the line, knew it better than the man who was bullying him.

  "Doctor . . . er, Professor Ingersoll."

  "Herr Professor, this is Wilhelm Lambert, the Generaldirektor of the hotel. I hope I'm not inconveniencing you by calling." Despite the words, there was no apology in the tone.

  "Matter of fact, I was just leaving for my meeting," Ingersoll said.

  "Then I will be brief. We've had a bit of confusion about your room. It seems that Jandra Pharmaceuticals may not, after all, be paying your expenses. I will attempt to contact Herr Doktor Wolfe later today to clarify this. Perhaps it will even be necessary for me to call the company's office in America, but that will take several hours because of the time difference."

  "I—"

  "In the meantime, please stop by the front desk on your way out and leave your credit card information, so that your bill can be covered." A click signaled the end of the conversation. Message delivered.

  Ingersoll hung up the phone and turned to stare out the window of his room. The sun was up now, and he had a great view of the city, but his mind failed to register those images. Instead, he focused on the conversation he'd just had. He'd spoken with Wolfe only yesterday about Jandra covering his expenses. There was no mix-up. This was a means of applying pressure, plain and simple.

  He grabbed his computer case and started for the door, where he paused and looked at the room rates posted there. Of course, no one paid these rates, there were always discounts, and he had no doubt that the meeting organizers had arranged one. But the Hessischer Hof wa
s a five-star establishment that housed only the VIP's, their tab picked up by companies with deep pockets, and the rooms, especially this one on the Executive Floor, weren't cheap. If Ingersoll had to pay for this himself, he could count on dropping a couple of thousand dollars for a few days' stay.

  He pulled the door closed behind him. Okay, Bob, you've shown me the stick. It's time to go after the carrot.

  Ingersoll peered into the semidarkness of the lecture hall and tried to read the faces of his audience. He was on the next to last slide of his PowerPoint presentation, emphasizing probably his most important and most controversial point: that Jandramycin was 100 percent effective against the untilthen lethal scourge, Staphylococcus luciferus, with absolutely no adverse effects noted.

  Unfortunately, the combination of a dark lecture hall and the spotlights aimed at the podium made it impossible for him to see beyond the first row. In his limited field of view, Ingersoll didn't see any frowns. No one was shaking his head. But he knew the reactions of the attendees in his field of view didn't constitute a representative sample. At any meeting, the population of the first row consisted of those waiting to present, plus a smattering of speakers who'd already been on the podium but hadn't been able to escape in a timely fashion. The acid test would come when the lights went up and the questions began.

  Most speakers were given ten minutes to present their work. Ingersoll was allotted twenty, with an additional ten for questions and discussion. Not only that, his paper was the last one before a midmorning break, during which he would undoubtedly be held captive in the front of the lecture hall by individuals wanting a private word with him.