“Yo, Kate! Jared!” Stan Willoughby, mindless of the sultry morning, trotted toward them carrying his briefcase and wearing a tweed jacket that was precisely six months out of phase with the season. He had attended all the sessions and had testified at some length as to Kate’s character and qualifications. “So, this is going to be it, yes?” he said, kissing Kate on the cheek and shaking Jared’s hand warmly.
Over the months that had followed the arrest and resignation of Sheila Pierce and Norton Reese, the two men, Willoughby and Jared, had formed a friendship based on more than superficial mutual respect. In fact, it had been Jared who suggested a year or two of cochairpersons for the department of pathology, and who had then cooked the dinner over which Willoughby and Kate had come up with a working arrangement for dividing administrative responsibilities.
“We can’t think of anything else that could go wrong—I mean go on—this morning,” Jared said.
“You were more correct the first time,” said Kate. “Most of this has been pretty brutal. First, all the threads connecting that animal Nunes to Redding Pharmaceuticals evaporate like morning dew. Then, suddenly, Carl Horner gets admitted to Darlington Hospital with chest pains and gets a medical dispensation not to testify. I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
“We still have the notebook and the tape,” Jared said.
Kate laughed sardonically. “The notebook, the tape, and—you neglect to add—a dozen earnest barristers asking over and over again where the name Cyrus Redding or Redding Pharmaceuticals is mentioned even once.”
“Come, come, child,” Willoughby chided. “Where’s that Bennett spirit? We’ve made points. Plenty of them. Trust this old war horse. We may not have nailed them, but we’ve sure stuck ’em with a bunch of tacks.”
“I hope you’re right,” she said, as they spotted Terry Moreland waiting for them by the steps to the Humphrey building.
The gray under Moreland’s eyes and the tense set of his face spoke of the difficult week just past and of the ruling that was perhaps only an hour or two away.
“How’re your vibes?” Kate asked after they had exchanged greetings and words of encouragement.
Moreland shook his head. “No way to tell,” he said. “Emotionally, what with your testimony and Ellen’s account of her ordeal, I think we’ve beaten the pants off them. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem as if we have a very emotionally oriented panel. When that fat one blew his nose in the middle of the most agonizing part of Ellen’s testimony, I swear, I almost hauled off and popped him one. Watching the indifference creep across his face again and again, I couldn’t help wondering if he hadn’t already made up his mind.”
“Or had it made up for him,” Jared added.
“Absolutely,” Moreland said as they pushed into the air-conditioned comfort of the office building and headed up to the second floor. “That sort of thing doesn’t happen too often, I don’t think, but it does happen. And all you have to do is look across the room to realize what we’re up against. Hell, they could buy off St. Francis of Assisi with a fraction of what those legal fees alone come to.”
The hearing room, modern in decor, stark in atmosphere, was largely empty, due in part to the surprisingly scant media coverage of the proceedings. Moreland had called the dearth of press a tribute to the power of Cyrus Redding and the skill of his PR people.
Redding’s battery of lawyers was present, as were two stenographers and the counsel for the Bureau of Drugs. The seats for the three hearing officers, behind individual tables on a raised dais, were still empty.
Moreland and Stan Willoughby led the way into the chamber. Kate and Jared paused by the door. Through the windows to the north, they could see the American flag hanging limply over the Senate wing of the Capitol.
“I don’t know which is scarier,” Kate said, “the pharmaceutical industry controlling itself or the government doing it for them. I doubt Cyrus Redding’s tactics would make it very far in the Soviet Union.”
“I wouldn’t bet on that, Dr. Bennett.”
Startled, they turned. Cyrus Redding was less than five feet from them, wheeled in his chair by a blond buck who looked like a weightlifter. The words were the first they had heard the man say since the hearings had begun.
“I have many friends—and many business interests—in the USSR,” he continued. “Believe me, businessmen are businessmen the world over.”
“That’s wonderfully reassuring,” Kate said icily. “Perhaps I’d better submit an article to the Russian medical literature on the reversal of the bleeding complications of Estronate Two-fifty.”
“I assure you, Doctor, that all I know of such matters, you have taught me at these hearings. If you have a moment, I was wondering if I might speak with you.”
Kate looked at Jared, who gestured that he would meet her inside and then entered the hall.
Redding motioned his young bodyguard to a bench by the far wall.
“I suspect our hearing to end this morning,” he said.
“Perhaps.”
“I just want you to know what high regard I have for you. You are a most remarkable, a most tenacious, young woman.”
“Mr. Redding, I hope you don’t expect a thank you. I appreciate compliments only from people I respect.”
Redding smiled patiently. “You are still quite young and most certainly naive about certain facts.”
“Such as?”
“Such as the fact that it costs an average of sixty million dollars just to get a new drug on the market; often, quite a bit more.”
“Not impressed. Mr. Redding, because of you and your policies, people have suffered and died unnecessarily. Doesn’t that weigh on you?”
“Because of me and my policies, dozens of so-called orphan drugs have found their way to those who need them, usually without cost. Because of me and my policies, millions have had the quality of their lives improved and countless more their lives saved altogether. The greatest good for the most people at the least cost.”
“I guess if you didn’t believe that, you’d have a tough time looking at yourself in the mirror. Maybe you do anyway. I mean, a person’s denial mechanism can carry him only so far.”
Redding’s eyes flashed, but his demeanor remained calm. “Considering the hardship my late employee has put you through, I can understand your anger,” he said. “However, soon this hearing will be over, and soon we both must go on with our lives. I would like very much to have you visit me in Darlington, so that we might discuss a mutually beneficial joint endeavor. You are a survivor, Dr. Bennett, a woman who knows better than to subvert her needs in response to petty pressures from others. That makes you a winner. And it makes me interested in doing business with you.”
“Mr. Redding,” she said incredulously, “you seem to be ignoring the fact that the reason we’re here is so that I can put you out of business.”
Redding’s smile was painfully patronizing. “Here’s my card. The number on it will always get through to me. If you succeed in putting Redding Pharmaceuticals out of business, you don’t have to call.”
Kate glared at him. He was too smug, too confident. Was Terry Moreland’s fear about some sort of payoff justified? “We’re going to win,” she said, with too little conviction. She turned and, disregarding the proffered card, entered the hearing room.
“What did Dr. Strangelove want?” Jared asked as she slid in between him and Terry Moreland.
Kate shook her head disparagingly. “The man is absolutely certifiable,” she said. “He told me how little understanding I had for the difficulty, trials, and tribulations of being a multimillion-dollar pharmaceutical industry tycoon, and then he offered me a job.”
“A job?”
“A mutually beneficial endeavor, I think he called it.”
“Lord.”
At that moment, without ceremony, the door to the right of the dais opened, and the three hearing officers shuffled into their seats, their expressions suggesting that there were any numb
er of places they would rather have been. Before he sat down, the overweight, disheveled chairman pulled a well-used handkerchief from his pocket and blew his bulbous nose.
Kate and Jared stood by the stairway, apart from the groups of lawyers, reporters, and others who filled the corridor outside the hearing room. The recess was into its second hour, and with each passing minute, the tension had grown.
If over the previous four days the Redding forces had held the upper hand, the brilliant summation and indictment by Terry Moreland had placed the final verdict very much in doubt.
Of all those in the hallway, only Cyrus Redding seemed totally composed and at ease.
“I have this ugly feeling he knows something we don’t,” Kate said, gesturing toward the man.
“I don’t see how the panel can ignore the points Terry made in there, boots. He’s even better now than he was in law school, and he was a miniature Clarence Darrow then. But I will admit that Strangelove over there looks pretty relaxed. Say, that reminds me. You never said what your response was to his offer of a job.”
Kate smiled. “I thought you were never going to ask. The truth is, I told him I would be unsuitable for employment in his firm because the first thing I’d have to do is take maternity leave.”
Jared stared at her. “Slide that past me one more time.”
“I was saving the news until after the verdict, but what the heck. We’re due in April. Jared, I’m very excited and very happy.… Honey, are you all right? You look a little pale.”
“This is for real, right?”
Kate nodded. “You sure you’re okay? I can see where going from having no children to having a fourteen-year-old daughter and a pregnant wife might be a bit, how should I say, trying.”
Jared held her tightly. “I keep thinking I should say something witty, but all that wants to come out is thanks. Thank you for this and for helping me reconnect with Stacy.”
“Thanks accepted, but I expect something witty from you as soon as the business in this chamber is over. And please, don’t make it sound like I’ve done something altruistic. I’m as excited about Stacy’s visit as you are.”
Jared’s daughter would be in Boston in just ten days. Her first trip east. It was a journey that would include visits to Cape Cod and Bunker Hill, to Gloucester and the swan boats and the Old North Church. But there would be no visit to Win Samuels. Not now, and if Jared had his way, not ever.
“Hey, you two, they’re coming in,” Terry Moreland called from the doorway.
“What’s the worst thing the panel could do to Redding?” Kate asked, grateful that Jared had chosen not to distract his friend with the news of her pregnancy.
“I guess turning the case over to the Justice Department for further investigation and prosecution would be the biggest victory for us. A hedge might be the referral of the whole matter to administrative channels within the FDA, in order to gather more information prior to a follow-up hearing.” They settled into their seats. “Either way,” Moreland added, “we’ll know in a minute.”
Kate slid the black notebook off the table before them, and held it tightly in her lap.
“Ladies and gentleman,” the chairman announced, shuffling through a sheaf of papers and then extracting one sheet to read, “this panel has reached a unanimous decision regarding the charges brought by Dr. Kathryn Bennett against Redding Pharmaceuticals, Incorporated, of Darlington, Kentucky. It is our feeling that the late Dr. Arlen Paquette did, in fact, conduct illegal and dangerous human research on the synthetic hormone Estronate Two-fifty and that he may well have also experimented illegally with other unproven substances. However, all available evidence indicates that the man, though in the employ of Redding Pharmaceuticals, was acting on his own and for his own personal gain. There is insufficient evidence to demonstrate prior knowledge of Dr. Paquette’s criminal activities by Mr. Cyrus Redding or any other director of Redding Pharmaceuticals.
“Therefore, it is our recommendation that no further action be taken on this matter, and that all charges against Redding Pharmaceuticals be considered dealt with in a fair and just manner. Thank you all for your cooperation.”
Without another word, the panel rose and marched from the chamber.
Kate and the three men with her sat in stunned disbelief, while across the room, lawyers were congratulating one another boisterously.
“I don’t believe it,” she said. “Not a recommendation for further study, not a reprimand for hiring someone as unprincipled as Arlen Paquette, nothing.”
She glanced to one side, and almost immediately her eyes locked with Cyrus Redding’s. The man favored her with another of his patronizing grins, and a shrug that said, “You have to expect such things when you play hardball with the big boys, young lady.”
Kate glared at him. The battle may be over, Cyrus, she was thinking, but not the war. Somewhere out there is a noose so tight that even you won’t be able to wriggle free—and I’m going to find it. Reese, Horner, Sheila Pierce. Somewhere, somehow, someone’s going to come forward with proof of what you’ve done.
Jared took her hand, and together, they walked from the hearing room. “I’m sorry,” he said softly.
“Me, too. But mostly, Jared, I’m frightened.”
“Frightened? I don’t think they’d dare try and hurt you.”
She laughed sardonically. “You heard the verdict in there. I’m sure they don’t even think I’m worth bothering to hurt.”
“Then what?”
“It’s the damn drugs, Jared. Starting with Estronate. Think of how many human guinea pigs there are in this one notebook. We contacted as many of the women as we could find, but there are others we just couldn’t locate—and, I’m sure, other drugs. How many women out there are just starting to bruise? How many people—men and women—are developing weird tumors from medications they are trusting to make them well or keep them healthy?”
Jared gestured helplessly. “Kate, there are injustices all around. You’ve done what you could do.”
“It’s not enough. Jared, these drugs are like time bombs—unpredictable little time bombs capable of exploding inside anyone. I’ve got to keep after Redding. I’ve got to find some way to turn some heads around here, and if not here, then publicly. Somewhere, there’s got to be a way. There’s—”
“What is it, Kate?”
“What about an ad?”
“An ad?”
“In The Globe, The Herald, all the Boston and suburban papers—a classified ad asking women to search through their medicine cabinets for Omnicenter medications we can analyze. Maybe that’s where the rope is to hang that bastard and put the other companies on notice. Right in those medicine cabinets. If enough Redding products were found contaminating enough Omnicenter medications, even the FDA panel wouldn’t be able to ignore the company’s involvement. I’m going to do it, Jared. As soon as we get back to Boston, I’m going to do it. And if it doesn’t work, I’ll try something else.”
She glanced back down the corridor just as Redding was wheeled into the elevator. That sound you keep hearing in your ears is my footsteps, Cyrus, she was thinking. You had better get used to it.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MICHAEL PALMER, M.D., is the author of The Patient, Miracle Cure, Critical Judgment, Silent Treatment, Natural Causes, Extreme Measures, Flashback, Side Effects, and The Sisterhood. His books have been translated into thirty languages. He trained in internal medicine at Boston City and Massachusetts General Hospitals, spent twenty years as a full-time practitioner of internal and emergency medicine, and is now an associate director of the Massachusetts Medical Society’s physician health program.
Turn the page for an exciting preview of
Michael Palmer’s newest medical thriller
FATAL
available soon in Bantam hardcover
It was the second straight day of unremitting rain. Nikki Solari hated running in this kind of weather, but today she was considering doing it anyway. It had be
en more than a week since her roommate and close friend, Kathy Wilson, had stormed from their South Boston flat. A week without so much as a word—to her or to their mutual friends. The police had been surprisingly little help. Nikki had filled out the appropriate forms and brought in some photographs, but so far, nothing.
“… Miss Solari, try to relax. I’m sure your friend will turn up.”
“It’s Doctor Solari, and why are you so sure?”
“That’s the way it is with cases like this. Everyone worries and the missing person just shows up.”
“Well, this missing person is an incredibly talented musician who would never leave her band in the lurch, which she has. She is a wonderfully dependable friend who would never do anything to upset me, which she has. And she is an extremely compassionate and kind woman who would never say anything abusive to anyone, yet before she disappeared she had become abusive to everyone.”
“Doctor Solari, tell me something honestly. Were you and Miss Wilson lovers?”
“Oh, Christ …”
Nikki desperately needed to wrest the worry from her brain, if only for a while, and the only ways she had ever been able to do so were running, making music, and performing autopsies.
It was eleven in the morning. One more hour until lunch. She could go out and splash through a few miles then. She stood by the window of her office watching the cars creep down Albany Street past the modern building that was the headquarters of the chief medical examiner and his staff. This was her third year as an associate in ME Josef Keller’s office. She was fascinated by the work and absolutely adored the man. But the past week had been hell. She glanced over at her desk. There were reports to be read, dictations to do, and several boxes of slides to review, but the concentration just wasn’t there.
Side Effects (1984) Page 33