Side Effects (1984)

by Palmer, Michael

  Her eyes opened momentarily. Her lips tightened in a grim attempt at a smile. “Zimmermann did this,” she said.

  Jared paced from the small, well-appointed quiet room out to the hall and back. Mary T. Henderson Hospital was reputed to be among the best community hospitals in the state, but it was still a community hospital, only a fraction of the size of the Boston teaching facilities.

  Nearly three hours had passed since the surgeon, Lee Jordan, had taken Kate into the operating room. Jordan was, according to the emergency room physician, the finest surgeon on the hospital staff. Jared had to laugh at his total surprise when the distinguished, gray-templed man his mind had projected as Lee Jordan turned out, in fact, to be a slender, extremely attractive woman in her midforties. Would he ever truly overcome all the years of programming?

  Kate’s wound was a bad one. The gash, Jordan had explained, required debridement in the operating room, and in all likelihood, an open-chest procedure would be needed to repair the laceration to her lung.

  Jared had been allowed to see Kate briefly during the wait for the OR team to arrive, but there had been no real chance to discuss any details of William Zimmermann’s attempt on her life. An officer from the Essex Police Department had come, taken what little information was available from him, and left with promises of state police involvement as soon as Kate could assist them with a statement. Meanwhile, it was doubtful that Jared’s word would be enough to issue an arrest warrant.

  Jared was studying the small plaque proclaiming that the quiet room was the gift of a couple named Berman when Lee Jordan emerged through the glass doors to the surgical suite. Her face, which had been fresh and alert on her arrival in the emergency ward four hours before, was gray and drawn, and for a moment, he feared the worst.

  “Your wife’s okay,” Jordan said as soon as she was close enough to speak without raising her voice. She appraised him. “Are you?”

  “I … yes, I’m okay.” He braced himself against the wall. “It’s just that for a moment there I was frightened that …”

  Jordan patted him on the shoulder. “You married one tough lady, my friend,” she said. “There’s frostbite on the tips of her toes, ears, and nose, but it looks like she came in from the cold in time to save everything. The tear in her lung wasn’t too, too big. I sewed it up and then fixed that gash in her side. She’s in for a few pretty achy days, but I hope nothing worse than that. You’ll be able to see her in half an hour or so. I’ve asked the nurses to come and get you.”

  “Thank you. Thank you very much.”

  “I’m glad she’s all right,” Dr. Lee Jordan said.

  It was after five by the time Jared arrived home. Medicated and obviously affected by her anesthesia, Kate had managed only to squeeze his hand and acknowledge that she knew he was in her hospital room. Even so, Dr. Jordan had warned him that she would, in all likelihood, remember nothing of the first five or six hours postop.

  Roscoe was another story. As soon as Jared arrived at the veterinarian’s, the dog was up and hopping about his cage, mindless of his plaster cast and showing no residual effects from the anesthesia that had allowed a metal plate to be screwed in place across the fracture in his leg. After seeing Kate with half a dozen tubes running into and out of her body, the sight of the battered and broken animal was the last straw. Zimmermann would pay. Whatever it took, Jared vowed, the man would pay dearly.

  Exhausted from the day and, in fact, from almost thirty-six hours without sleep, Jared brought a bottle of Lowenbräu Dark to the bedroom, finished half of it in two long draughts, and then stripped to his underwear and stretched out on the bed. There was little sense, the nurses had told him, in returning to the hospital before morning. So be it. He would rest and read and say a dozen prayers of thanks for Kate’s life and for Roscoe’s, and for Jocelyn Trent, and for being allowed to learn the sad truth about his father before it was too late.

  He had bunched up two pillows and was looking through the magazines on the bedside table when he noticed their telephone answering machine. It had been on since Kate left for her run, and there were a number of messages. The first three were from Jared himself, another was from Ellen, and still another was from one of the firm’s VIP clients, who had apparently been assured that Winfield’s son wouldn’t mind in the least being called at home. The final message was for Kate from a man named Arlen Paquette.

  “Kate Bennett, this is Arlen Paquette from Redding,” the man said in a rushed, anxious tone. “I won’t be alone for more than a few seconds. I have answers for you. Many answers. Come to the subbasement of the Omnicenter at precisely eight-thirty tonight. Bring help. There may be trouble. Please, trust me. I know what we’ve done to you, but please trust me. He’s coming. I’ve got to go. Good-bye.”

  Jared raced for pen and paper; then he played the message over and wrote it down verbatim. Answers. At last someone was promising answers. He scrambled into a pair of jeans, a work shirt, and a sweater. It was already after seven. There would barely be time to get to Metro by eight-thirty, let alone to try and pick up police help on the way. He would have to hurry to the subbasement of the Omnicenter and rely on himself. The Omnicenter. He threw on his parka and rushed to Kate’s Volvo. That was Zimmermann’s place. The man would be there. He felt certain of it.

  “I’m coming for you, you fucker,” he panted as he skidded out of the drive and down Salt Marsh Road.

  15

  Friday 21 December

  Like so many works of greatness, the formulas derived by William Zimmermann’s father were elegant in their simplicity. Even without Zimmermann’s help in translating the explanatory notes from the German, Arlen Paquette suspected he would have been able to follow the steps involved in the synthesis of the hormone Estronate 250—especially in the subbasement Omnicenter laboratory, which was specifically equipped for the job.

  The message to call Cyrus Redding had been waiting at the front desk when Paquette returned to the Ritz from surreptitiously recording a conversation with Norton Reese during which the gloating administrator had incriminated himself and a technician named Pierce a number of times. The compact recorder still hooked to his belt, Paquette had entered the elevator to his floor.

  “I was beginning to think you had run away,” a man’s voice said from behind.

  Startled, the chemist whirled. It was Redding’s bodyguard, a wiry, seemingly emotionless man whom Paquette had never heard called any name other than Nunes.

  “Why, hello,” Paquette said, wishing he had stayed at the tavern on the way back for a third drink. “I just picked up a message from Mr. Redding, but it says to call him at the Darlington number. Is he—?”

  “He’s there,” Nunes said, showing nothing to dispel Paquette’s image of a gunman whose loyalty to the pharmaceutical magnate had no limits. “He’s waiting for your call.”

  From that moment on, Paquette had barely been out of Nunes’s sight.

  Now, in the bright fluorescence of the subbasement laboratory, Paquette glanced first at Zimmermann and then at Nunes and prayed that the forty-five minutes until eight-thirty would pass without incident. A deal had been struck between Redding and Zimmermann—money in exchange for a set of formulas. Redding had let him in on that much. However, the presence of the taciturn thug suggested that Redding anticipated trouble, or perhaps he had no intention of honoring his end of the bargain—quite possibly both.

  “Okay, that’s seven minutes,” Zimmermann said, seconds before the mechanical timer rang out. “There’s a shortcut my father used at this juncture, but I never did completely understand it. Dr. Paquette, I suggest you just go on to the next page and continue the steps in order. He performed these next reactions over in that corner, and he checked the purity of the distillate with that spectrophotometer.”

  Paquette nodded and moved around the slate workbench to the area Zimmermann had indicated. The Omnicenter director was neither biochemist nor genius, but he had observed his father at work enough to be able to o
versee each step of the synthesis. And oversee he had—each maneuver and each microdrop of the way.

  The laboratory was quite remarkable. Hidden behind a virtually invisible, electronically controlled door, it had no less than three sophisticated spectrophotometers, each programmed to assess the consistency of the hormone at various stages of its synthesis and, through feedback mechanisms, to adjust automatically the chemical reaction where needed. It was a small area, perhaps fifteen feet by thirty, but its designer had paid meticulous attention to the maximum use of space.

  “Did your father design all this?” Paquette asked.

  “Be careful, Doctor, your reagent is beginning to overheat,” Zimmermann said, ignoring the question as he had most others about his father. “Excuse me, but are you timing a reaction I don’t know about?”

  “No, why?”

  “That’s the third time you’ve looked at your watch in the past ten minutes.”

  “Oh, that.” Paquette hoped his laugh did not sound too nervous. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Nunes, seated on a tall stool at the end of the lab bench, adjust his position to hear better. “A habit dating back to high school, perhaps beyond, that’s all.”

  He had made up his mind that there was no way he would complete the Estronate synthesis and turn the three notebooks over to Nunes. That act, he suspected, would be his last. He and Zimmermann were not scripted to leave the laboratory alive. The more the evening had worn on, the more certain he had become of that. He glanced at the metal hand plate to the right of the entrance. Though unmarked, it had to be the means of opening the door.

  There were less than thirty minutes to go. If Kate Bennett had gotten his message, and if she had taken it seriously, she would be waiting, with help, in the storage area outside the laboratory.

  Paquette’s plan was simple. At eight thirty-five, allowing five minutes for any delay on Bennett’s part, he would announce the need to use the men’s room. They had passed one a floor above on their way in. With surprise on their side, whatever muscle Bennett had brought with her should have a decent chance at overpowering Nunes. If there was no one in the storage room when the door slid open, he would have to improvise. There was one thing of which he was sure: once outside the laboratory, he was not going back in. God, but he wished he had a drink.

  Traffic into the city was inordinately light for a Friday evening, and it was clear to Jared that barring any monstrous delays, he would make it to Metro with time to spare. Still, he used his horn and high beams to clear his way down Route 1.

  Risks. Bring help. There may be trouble. With each mile, Arlen Paquette’s warning grew in his thoughts. He had made a mistake in not calling the Boston police before he left Essex. He could see that now. Still, what would he have said? How lengthy an explanation would have been required? His father, he knew, could pick up the phone and with no explanation whatsoever have half a dozen officers waiting for him at the front door to the Omnicenter. Answers. Paquette had promised answers. Perhaps for Kate’s sake it was worth swallowing his pride and anger and calling Winfield. Then he realized that the issue went far deeper than pride and anger. The man could not be trusted. Not now, not ever again.

  Bring help. Jared pulled off the highway and skidded to a stop by a bank of pay phones. It was seven forty-five. He was twenty minutes, twenty-five at the most, from the Omnicenter. There was still time to do something, but what? With no clear idea of what he was going to say, he called the Boston Police Department.

  “I’d—ah—I’d like to speak to Detective Finn, please,” he heard his own voice say. “Yes, that’s right, Martin Finn. I’m sorry, I don’t know what district. Four, maybe.”

  Finn. The thought, Jared saw now, had been in the back of his mind all along. Tough but fair: that’s how his father had described the man. If that was the case, then it would take only the promise of some answers to get him to the Omnicenter.

  Finn was not at his desk.

  “Has he gone home for the night?” Jared asked of the officer who answered Finn’s phone. “Well, does anyone know?” … “Samuels. Jared Samuels. I’m a lawyer. Detective Finn knows me. What is your name?” … “Well, please Sergeant, this is very urgent and there isn’t much time. Could you see if you could get a message to Lieutenant Finn to meet me at eight-fifteen at the front entrance to the Omnicenter at Metropolitan Hospital?” … “That’s right, in half an hour. And Sergeant, if you can’t locate him, could you or some other officer meet me instead?” … “I don’t know if it’s a matter of life or death or not. Listen, I don’t have time to explain. Please, just try.”

  Jared hurried back to the Volvo, wishing he had more of an idea of who Arlen Paquette was or at least of what was awaiting him at the Omnicenter. It was exactly eight o’clock when he sped over the crest of a long upgrade and saw, ahead and to his right, the glittering tiara of Boston at night.

  Perhaps it was the tension of the moment, perhaps the six hours since his last drink; whatever the reason, Arlen Paquette felt his hands beginning to shake and his concentration beginning to waver. He pulled a gnarled handkerchief from his back pocket and dabbed at the cold sweat on his forehead and upper lip. It was only ten minutes past the hour. The hormone synthesis, which had proceeded flawlessly, was well over half completed.

  “Are you all right?” Zimmermann asked.

  “Fine, I’m fine,” Paquette said, clutching a beaker of ice water with two hands to keep its contents from sloshing about. “I … I’d like to talk with Mr. Nunes for a moment. Privately.”

  “Why?” Zimmermann asked with a defensiveness in his voice. “There’s no problem with the procedure up to now. I assure you of that. You are doing an excellent job of following my father’s notes. Just keep going.”

  “It’s not that. Listen, I’ll be right back. Nunes,” he whispered, his back turned to Zimmermann, “I need a drink.”

  “No booze until you finish this work. Mr. Redding’s orders.” As Nunes leaned forward to respond, the coat of his perfectly tailored suit fell away just enough for Paquette to see the holstered revolver beneath his left arm. Any doubt he harbored regarding his fate once the formulas were verified vanished.

  “Nunes, have a heart.”

  The gunman’s only response was an impatient nod in the direction of the incomplete experiment.

  “Any problem?” Zimmermann called out.

  “No problem,” Nunes said as Paquette shuffled back. “Say, Dr. Zimmermann, where’s the nearest john?”

  Paquette slowed and listened. In less than twenty minutes he planned to ask the same question and wait for Nunes to open the door for him. Then an unexpected push from behind, and the man would be in the arms of the police. It was perfect, provided, of course, that Kate Bennett had gotten his message.

  William Zimmermann pointed to the wall behind the gunman. “See that recessed handle in the wall right under that shelf? Just twist it and pull.”

  Nunes did as he was instructed, and a three-foot-wide block of shelves pulled away from the wall, revealing a fairly large bathroom and stall shower.

  “Father had this obsession about hidden doorways and the like,” Zimmermann said.

  His next sentence, if there was to be one, was cut off by the beaker of ice water, which slipped from Paquette’s hands and shattered on the tile floor.

  Save for the security light in the front lobby, the Omnicenter was completely dark. Jared parked across the street and was beginning a walking inspection of the outside of the building when a blue and white patrol car pulled up. Martin Finn stepped out, looking in the gloom like a large block of granite with a homberg perched on top. Even at a distance, Jared could sense the man’s impatience and irritation.

  “I got your message,” Finn said, with no more greeting than that. “What’s going on?” Behind him, a uniformed officer remained at the wheel of the cruiser. The engine was still running.

  “Thanks for coming so quickly,” Jared said. “I … didn’t know whom to call.”

&nbs
p; “Well?”

  Jared checked the time. There were thirteen minutes. “My wife is in Henderson Hospital. Someone tried to run her down with a car earlier today while she was jogging.” Finn said nothing. “She’s had to have surgery, but she’s going to be okay.” Still nothing. “She couldn’t speak much, but she said it was Dr. Zimmermann, the head of the Omnicenter, who tried to run her down and then chased her with a tire wrench.”

  “William Zimmermann?”

  “Yes. Do you know him?”

  Finn looked at him icily. “He delivered my daughter.”

  Inwardly, Jared groaned. “Well, he was involved in something illegal, possibly in connection with one of the big pharmaceutical houses. Kate discovered what was going on, so he tried to kill her.”

  “But he missed.” There was neither warmth nor the slightest hint of belief in the man’s voice.

  “Yes, he missed.” Jared swallowed back his mounting anger. There was far too much at stake and hardly time for an argument. “When I returned home from the hospital a short while ago, there was a message on our answering machine for Kate from a man named Arlen Paquette. I think he works for the drug house. He asked that she meet him here, in the subbasement of this building, and that she bring help. That’s why I called you. I suspect that Zimmermann is in the middle of all this and that he’s in there right now.”

  “In there?” Finn gestured at the darkened building.

  “He said the subbasement.”

  “Mr. Samuels, Dr. Zimmermann’s office is on the third floor. On the corner, right up there. I’ve been there several times. Now what on earth would he be doing in the subbasement?”

  “I … I don’t know.” There were eleven minutes. “Look, Lieutenant, the man said exactly eight-thirty. There isn’t much time.”

  “So you want me to go busting into a locked hospital building, looking to nail my wife’s obstetrician, because you got some mysterious message on your telephone answering machine?”