A Breck Death (Jill Quint, MD, Forensic Pathologist Series Book 3)

by Peche, Alec

  "Let's focus on these ten drugs,” said Jill. “Which is the biggest blockbuster?”

  “I know Jo and Morgan are following the money, so it would be good to get their opinion on which is the biggest blockbuster. I have spreadsheets going back a decade on the various drug revenues.” Pointing to a column labeled with a drug name David said, “I think this drug would generate the largest royalties for Bloomfield Pharmaceuticals and RMCT Corporation and perhaps RMCT would put the greatest effort into falsifying data for that drug.”

  It took Jo and Morgan less than five minutes to verify David's assessment, and they both agreed. That really helped Jill focus on the one drug trial. The royalties of this one drug over the years of the relationship was fifty million dollars paid to RMCT.

  “I think I would like to verify the safety and efficacy of this drug from the RMCT clinical trials,” Jill proposed. “David can you find that spreadsheet first? I would then like the reports that Broomfield has kept for the years since the drug has been on the market. By the way, when did the FDA approve this medication?”

  “Jill, here is the RMCT trials results as well as drug incident reports sent to Broomfield after the drug was on the market. As you can see from those dates, the drug went through two years of trials and it took a year beyond that to gain FDA approval. It has been on the market now for six years.”

  “I would think that it would have been cheaper for Broomfield to hire its own clinical staff to do the tests,” Marie surmised.

  “I think that is the reason that only twenty-five percent of the drugs went to RMCT,” agreed Jill.

  “Yeah, I remember Joseph griping about the cost of the royalties and how that was motivating him to start his own in-house trials unit,” noted David. “When Broomfield was growing its business in the beginning the company tried to put all of its cash into R and D. So an offer from RMCT to have significantly lower clinical trial costs in return for a share of future earnings would have caught their interest.”

  “What is this drug used for?” asked Marie. “I am amazed at the royalty payments.”

  “This drug is Broomfield’s most successful drug ever and it is used to boost the energy levels of patients undergoing chemotherapy. Energy level is important as it can boost mood and make a cancer patient more likely to exercise,” Jill explained. “Mood and exercise greatly contribute to the healing process. I would guess that this drug has become part of a standard cocktail of drugs used to treat the side effects of patients undergoing chemo or radiation therapy. Since it is not cancer type specific and can be used on all cancer patients, I would guess that usefulness is responsible for creating the huge revenues involved.”

  “So it sounds like there is a downside to this drug.” Angela suggested.

  “That is what I am searching for,” replied Jill. “I don’t remember hearing anything about it in my medical journals, but I don’t follow cancer research announcements that regularly.”

  “We had better all be quiet and let you start looking for the source of the problem,” said Marie. “Besides we all have our own work to do.”

  Silence reigned in the room for a while. Then they all nearly caused themselves neck muscle injuries by jerking their heads around when Jill muttered aloud. “I got it”. This was followed by a babble of “what?” from nearly everyone in the room.

  “So this drug does exactly as it says. From all reports it elevates mood and patients do report being able to do nearly all of what they want to do. There were one or two marathoners who couldn’t run for twenty-six miles while undergoing chemotherapy, but some patients even took up with more rigorous fitness programs after they started the drug. Alas there are a couple of problems with that level of happiness. The drug is highly addictive and has such a high rate of suicide after its abrupt withdrawal that it deserves at the very least a black box warning and perhaps it would even warrant pulling the drug off the market. Few patients after ending their cancer treatment have been weaned off of it. I think most physicians seeing the depression and perhaps suicidal ideations of patients were afraid not to keep the patient on the drug.”

  “So why wasn’t this additional element discovered during the trials, I would have thought that they saw the problem six months into a trial?” queried Jo. “I thought Jake mentioned cancer antigens.”

  “The cancer antigens were from a different drug study provided by RMCT for Broomfield,” replied Jill. “While it is likely problematic, it generates one of the smallest sources of royalties for RMCT. As to why the element wasn’t discovered during the trials, I think it was discovered, but RMCT covered it up by one of three methods. Either they made sure they lost the patient to follow up because their cancer treatment was complete. You expect some of those patients in every study, but I have never seen such a high proportion. A second group of patients were victims of accidents. Again I have never seen such a high accident rate in a study group. This is not my area of research expertise, but I am amazed as to the number of patients that died of accidental causes - it is like perhaps thirty. The third group had the drug continued to be prescribed to them by a RMCT physician, but since the study ended, they didn’t have to report that to anyone. So they hid the addiction from Broomfield by continuing the patients on the medications. There were a few suicides, but they were attributed to the general suicide rate of cancer patients.

  “In the last twelve months, there were whisperings that turned into louder conversation within the cancer community about the drug. Patients had such a feeling of euphoria that all they wanted was to continue the drug, so they actually wanted the negative side effects to be hushed up. In chat rooms and blogs, patients would talk about how wonderful the drug was which caused many entrants into a cancer regimen to ask for the drug. I think it reached Joseph’s level after he spoke with a cancer researcher at a conference. The researcher was highly pleased with a different therapy of Broomfield Pharmaceuticals, but made remarks about the “happy pills” as they liked to call this problematic drug. When Joseph returned from the conference he started reviewing data on this drug. He saved a few spreadsheets last week. One spreadsheet was an analysis of all drug incidents reported to Broomfield. Another spreadsheet contained the names of the original study participants and where they were now. Some were dead as their cancer killed them, but what had really concerned him was the number of study participants still taking the drug six years later. It was unlikely that they had remained in cancer treatment for such an extended time.”

  “Joseph had a meeting on his calendar for first thing Monday morning when we returned from vacation to meet with the CEO of RMCT. We located the calendar entry as a part of recovering his company communications,” explained David. “I keep searching my memory to think about what Joseph may have commented on this issue, but I think he was still in a fact finding mode. He had a habit of not saying anything until he thought he had all the facts and he was probably waiting to hear what the RMCT CEO’s explanation was.”

  “Interesting that the CEO of RMCT didn’t mention that meeting when we asked him about Joseph,” remarked Angela.

  “Yes, isn’t it interesting,” agreed Jill.

  “Okay we have found a motive,” said Jake. “There is likely a big problem with any or all of the drugs that RMCT performs clinical trials on and it impacts patients. How do I connect these suspects to the murder? Where is my proof as to who fired the curare dart gun? What is the role of each of these Most Wanted suspects and where can I find them?"

  Jake said these words more to his own agents than to Jill’s team, but they could all tell he was frustrated. It was getting late, it had been a very busy day and the chocolate cake had long worn off.

  “Those are all very good questions,” agreed Jill. “You have your suspects so close and yet so far away. I am tired and unable to offer answers to your questions. Actually with the exception of Nathan, everyone in this room may be too tired to think. Let’s call it quits for tonight and start fresh in the morning.”

&nb
sp; Shortly thereafter, her team and David filed into their respective bedrooms or suites. Jake and his agents were left with Nathan who looked at them and said, “Don’t worry, she does her best work early in the morning. You’ll all figure this out tomorrow. If you would like to depart for your rooms, I’ll lock up behind you.” With those words of advice, the agents left the suite and Nathan did indeed lock up for the night and entered the room he and Jill were sharing. As usual, she did her rapid drop-off into sleep. She seemed to drain all of her considerable thinking resources on a case like this such that when she saw her bed, her brain snapped off and it was lights out.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Nathan was relaxing in bed thinking about Marie’s adventure on the chairlift, when he thought he heard a noise in the suite. He held his breath and listened again. Then he was sure there was someone out there. He woke Jill up, quickly told her what was happening and dialed Nick. Jill then called Jake to let him know what was happening. She hoped it was all a false alarm. She hadn’t called her friends for fear that their ring tones would make noise in the suite. They could see the occasional light under their door like someone was walking around with a flashlight.

  Nathan and Nick had both peered into the suite’s living room to see someone taking flash photos of Jill’s murder board. That was the light they saw and the sound they heard - he had been snapping pictures and moving papers on the board. He had his back to the suite’s bedroom doors, so Nick held his hand out as he counted one-two-three, and both men ran toward the photographer. He heard the noise and, startled, he ran for the suite’s door and opened it to find Jake standing there. He started backing away from Jake and ran into Nick, who grabbed his arms to restrain him, hoping that Jake carried wrist ties with him. Nathan had stood back turning the lights on once the intruder was detained. Jill was right on his heels knocking on the doors of the other three women. She heard Jake talking in the suite’s living room.

  “Bjorn Daniel Sundin, you’re under arrest for various cybercrimes including ones that you have likely committed tonight in this suite.” Jake proceeded to give him the Miranda warning, and called his team members from the cabin to assist him in escorting Mr. Sundin to an interrogation room at the FBI building near the airport. They would arrive there about two in the morning and Jake made arrangements to have another agent take charge of the operation in Breck while he accompanied Mr. Sundin to Denver. Two Most Wanted criminals dead or arrested in the past sixteen hours and now he was on the hunt for Bogachev and Brown. He might bag four people off of the Most Wanted list within a week. If he wanted a job at Quantico, he would bet it was his for the asking after this case. Of course he couldn’t take all of the credit. Jill’s team was the best set of private investigators that he had ever worked with.

  After Jake left with his agent escort and prisoner, it took some time for the suite of people to relax again. Before any of them could go to bed, they discussed what the likely next steps were when Sundin didn’t show up or contact Brown. Nick would review the room key system in the morning when they awoke. They agreed that it was likely that nothing would be tried in the suite again this night. They might know some new information after Sundin’s interrogation so they may as well all get some sleep. Again the suite was quiet, but this time Nick was taking a sofa in the living room to be the guard for the night.

  Despite the interrupted sleep, Jill was again up early. She sent Nick back to his room to get a little more sleep as she guessed the sofa was not the most comfortable spot for a tall guy like him. He hesitated than agreed he would be a little better with some sleep.

  Jill was sitting at the dining room table staring at the murder board. Fortunately, last night’s intruder had not destroyed her board. While she was sitting there, she got texts from both David and Morgan to see if she was awake. Morgan knew of last night’s adventures; David did not. They soon joined her in the suite.

  “Good morning, David. We had another adventure last night with someone breaking into our suite. Mr. Sundin is now down in Denver being interrogated by the FBI. Morgan, have you heard any news from Denver yet?”

  “Who was Mr. Sundin again?” asked David.

  “He was on the FBI’s Most Wanted list for cybercrimes,” replied Jill. “We think he may have been either solely responsible or part of a team that shut down the lifts. I am referring to the sixteen minute stoppage that occurred about the time that Joseph was murdered. He may have been the person that wiped Joseph’s computer drive and cut off his access. He got access to this suite last night and he was taking pictures of the murder board at the time of his arrest. Nick is following up on the room access card, but while you are in your suite, you should have an agent guarding you.”

  David looked at Jill with concern. “Wow, you had a busy night Jill. I’m glad that of the four criminals, one is dead and the other in custody. Perhaps this case will get solved today like you said. I thought you were being optimistic yesterday when you gave that timeline.”

  “Yes I am a little short on sleep, but as a morning person, I can never sleep late no matter how poor my sleep was the night before. So I have been staring at the board thinking about Jake’s question on how we tie the clinical trial problems and Joseph’s murder with Jason Brown.”

  “Jill, didn’t you say that Jason Brown worked as a manager while the company was growing and that he was the supervisor of clinical trials at the time the falsified data was created,” asked David.

  “I did say that. However, how do I get from there to sitting next to Joseph on the chairlift, injecting him with curare?”

  “Have you tried to track down the purchase of the curare or the dart gun? Or how about asking Mr. Sundin where did the order to stop the chairlift come from?”

  “David, those are great suggestions. I’ll chase down the curare source. We still don’t know who actually pulled the trigger of the dart gun. It could have been Mr. Fisher since he was a sharpshooter. I remember from our viewing the woods where Joseph was located that I decided the dart gun shooter had to be good. He would have had to stop on a dime and take perhaps fifteen seconds to calm his breathing down and fire accurately. A sharpshooter would have the ability to do that. While we don’t know if our sharpshooter was a ‘skier’, he was found dead on an expert ski run so I think we can assume that he might be Joseph’s killer.”

  “What kind of slope was he found on? Just because he was found on an intermediate slope doesn’t mean he was advanced enough to ski the slope where Joseph was murdered.”

  Morgan joined them, having ended her conversation with Denver.

  “I spoke with Jake and he’ll return here later this afternoon. As you can imagine, he wants to drop by his own home, see his family, and grab some sleep and a shower. They aren’t finished interviewing Mr. Sundin, but they do have some new information for us.

  “Mr. Sundin understands he is going to jail and he’ll be without computer access for a long time. Jake said he cried when they told him he wouldn’t have computer access while he was in prison. Computers seem to be his obsession, passion, and addiction. He didn’t cry about going to jail, he cried about the lack of access to computers. Throughout their interview, he asked each agent at different times if he could play with their iPhones. If an agent took it out of his pocket to check a text, the interview stopped until it was out of sight. They are going to have a psychiatrist evaluate him today, since his behavior was so strange. Jake also mentioned that he and Bogachev, at Mr. White’s instigation, were experimenting with the ski resort’s computer systems. Sundin only knew Brown as White and had never performed an internet search on him to know his criminal background. It appears that in addition to just stealing from skiers’ credit cards, they planned to hold the resort hostage through a series of planned chairlift failures. He seemed to be totally exploited by Brown, and had no perception that his activities with computer systems might be illegal. He doesn’t understand the concepts of legal versus illegal; rather for him, it is just what he can do with a
computer. The criminal justice system will have a hard time dealing with this gentleman as he seems so brilliant in his understanding of computers and yet he has a childlike grasp of right and wrong. Jake is not sure we could even use his testimony against Brown.”

  “Wow! What an interesting individual,” exclaimed Jill. “I think we can cross him off our list of murder suspects. I sort of get the picture of his mental brilliance and deficits, so I can’t think he’ll lead us to Brown. Thus, we still have Bogachev and Brown running around out there. I think our next focus is three areas. David, see what you can find in Joseph’s email. When you recovered Joseph’s communications, did you recover just for the date and time that the computer was wiped around his death? If so, I would like to see if you can recover any emails for the month leading up to his death. These would be emails that Joseph deleted so I anticipate there will be a lot of junk mail in his trash. The second focus will be the video camera footage around the resort of Joseph, and the third will be tracking the curare purchase.”

  “Hey guys, good morning! Let me get some coffee and I’ll hear what you have been up to,” said Marie.

  Jill gave her a quick overview of Sundin and her plan for the morning. They agreed that she and Jill would go skiing in the afternoon. When all else failed, try the decoy method for smoking out Brown. Jo and Angela would pass on that adventure and likely Nick and Nathan would want to join Michael and the other agents in protecting them. She would check with Michael to be sure there was enough Kevlar for all of them.

  Once Nick and Angela were awake, she would have them work on the video identification, and she, Jo and Morgan would work on the curare and dart gun source, with Marie assisting David in going through a ton of emails. Nathan as always was expected to be their chef. Jill had a real urgency to solve the case today as she was losing most of her team tomorrow. Nick was heading back to the Netherlands aboard Henrik’s plane; Jo and Marie were going back to Wisconsin. Angela had an extra day and so if they solved the case today, they would spend some time together enjoying the ski town. The weather was expected to be good for the next three days after an overnight and early morning snow storm which was perfect for skiing and for Angela to take photographs. Morgan coordinated the agents for the afternoon ski excursion, keeping Jake informed of their activities.