Deadly Science

by Ken Brigham

  “I agree, Cy. Look forward to it. My people will be in touch shortly.”

  He hung up the phone and sat staring at it for a few minutes, reviewing the conversation with Gomez and pondering the next steps when there was a knock on his office door. The door opened without waiting for him to respond.

  “Cy,” Oscar Orbitz said, walking into the room and taking a seat opposite Cy’s desk. “Got a minute? I was up here for another reason and thought I’d drop by and give you a follow up on Beth.”

  The medicine chairman was a no-nonsense, straightforward professional who was more than a match for the chair of psychiatry if for no other reason because he was older and had more equity in the university system. Cy respected Orbitz professionally even though he viewed him as a competitor. Whatever else there was that affected how the two of them interacted, Cy, like everyone else, knew that Orbitz was an outstanding clinician and respected that.

  “Oh, thanks Oscar,” Cy answered. “Sorry that I had to be out of town yesterday, but thanks so much for seeing her. What do you think?”

  “I’ll get to that, but I wondered if you could answer a couple of questions.”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ll put this as delicately as I can, Cy. But I’m concerned about some kind of drug abuse. Is there any possibility of that?”

  “I entertained that thought briefly myself, but I don’t think so. Beth just isn’t the type for one thing.”

  “Yeah. And the tox screen was negative, so there’s no concrete reason to suspect it. It’s just that the clinical picture looks a bit that way. But let me tell you what I think. Something is going on with Beth and I’m afraid it could be something serious. She has some neurological signs that don’t fit a pattern but are troublesome. What I recommend is that she see a neurologist, get some tests done, MRI, EEG, and see if we can identify anything. I gather she has been slipping for a few months. Is that right?”

  “I guess,” Cy answered. “It’s been subtle. I don’t think I really noticed anything until more recently than that.

  “Here’s what I suggest, Cy,” Orbitz continued. “Let’s bring her into the hospital for a few days. She can be in one of the executive suites up on eight south.”

  Cy knew that eight south consisted of six suites virtually indistinguishable from deluxe suites in a five-star hotel. The wing had its own gourmet kitchen and chef de cuisine with meals prepared to the patients’ orders. Spa services—manicures, pedicures, facials, massages—could be scheduled. In addition to the patient bedroom, there was a sitting room, a work area with fax machine, and computer with Internet connections. There was a sofa bed for a family member to stay overnight if they wished. The cost of these suites was exorbitant, and only a fraction of it was covered by even the most lavish medical insurance. But, for the well to do who thought the privacy, convenience and amenities worth the price, it was a very nice way to spend time in a hospital if that became necessary. Cy had toured the area and had seen a VIP patient or two there as a psychiatric consultant. If Beth needed to spend a few days in the hospital, that’s where she should be alright.

  “Of course, of course,” Cy answered. “If you think that best, then that’s what we should do.”

  “Good,” Orbitz replied. “I can arrange her admission under my name. I’ll get the tests ordered and organize at least a neurology consult. I’d recommend Sol Feltzer, and I’m happy to arrange that. If we need other consultants, it will be easy enough to get those done while she’s in. Could you bring her in tomorrow, assuming I can get a bed?”

  “Well, I suppose if that’s what you think I should do,” Cy answered. “But is it really that urgent?”

  “Cy,” Orbitz placed his hand on Cy’s desk and leaned toward him. “I think we should get to the bottom of this as quickly as possible. I don’t know if it’s urgent, but it could be.”

  Cy was a little rattled. He had a number of pressing things to do. He had to talk with the Renaptix investors, give them the good news about Global Pharmaceuticals. And there was this message to call the lawyer, Mitchell Rook, that concerned Cy. He had been a little worried about Rook from the outset and couldn’t imagine any felicitous reason why the lawyer would want to talk with him privately.

  Beth had always been a source of unquestioning support for Cy. And she didn’t need a lot of attention. That had been a major source of pleasure for him, a big reason why he valued their relationship. He was not accustomed to organizing his life around her needs. He wasn’t anxious to do that, especially now. He needed to concentrate on finalizing this deal with GPI. But he really had no choice.

  “OK, Oscar,” Cy responded. “And thank you for seeing Beth and making these arrangements. I really do appreciate that.”

  “Glad to help,” Orbitz replied. “If there’s any problem with getting a bed for tomorrow, I’ll let you know. Otherwise, just bring Beth in at your convenience.”

  “So, let’s begin, Hardy, my man, by reviewing the facts. Always a good place to begin, don’t you think?” Shane said.

  “Sounds good to me,” Seltzer replied.

  Hardy had arrived in Printers Alley later that they had agreed on. He had been summoned to a meeting with his superiors that took place in the chief’s office. At the explicit request of the big chief, Seltzer had reviewed the status of his work with Shane for the small group—chief, deputy chief, and assistant chief. When Hardy had done that, the chief asked him whether he thought that Hadley’s mystery woman was the real murderer, and Hardy responded that it appeared to him to be a distinct possibility.

  The chief answered. “Detective Seltzer, possibilities aren’t going to save your neck, I fear. X Coniglio is on a real tear, and he’s got the mayor and the DA breathing down my neck now. X is going to move to dismiss the charges against Jody Dakota and, from what the DA says, that might just happen. Apparently X has a credible witness who will swear that Jody was in the city but nowhere near Printers Alley when Bonz was killed. If the charges against Dakota are dismissed, we’re back to square one with shit on our faces and with you squarely in the crosshairs of a lot of powerful people. We may have a day or two, but not much longer.”

  The chief’s tirade still reverberated in Seltzer’s head as he sat in the Hadley living room, trying to concentrate on what Shane was saying.

  “First,” Shane said, “We can rule out Jody Dakota as the killer. Are you ready to accept that?”

  “Maybe,” Hardy replied. “The chief says X might even get the charges dismissed. A situation that doesn’t please either the chief or the DA and may allow X to go through with his threat.”

  “The rolling of your head, I presume you mean,” Shane said. “Well, we can’t allow that to happen, can we? But let me continue.”

  “We have identified the killer, Hardy. The woman originally known as Elizabeth Reid possesses what I am convinced is the murder weapon. She has test-fired the weapon in the environs of our city. And this to me is the crucial piece of information: she had a childhood injury to her right leg that caused her to have a persistent oddity to her running gait. As Sheriff Teasdale so colorfully put it, a hitch in her gitalong.”

  Hardy listened intently to Shane. It would amaze the detective if Shane’s original observation of how the fleeing murderer ran would turn out to be the critical clue that eventually led them to the killer. But it was starting to look like that was a possibility.

  “Well, we have a problem, don’t we?” Hardy said. “While we know someone signing her name as Elizabeth Reid test-fired a gun like the murder weapon at that Williamson County place, we’ve drawn a complete blank in either locating her in Nashville or tracking her here from Houston.”

  “So far, Hardy, my man. So far,” Shane responded. After a pause he continued, “I believe that the hour is sufficiently advanced for a glass of sherry now, Hardy. Would you join me?”

  Shane wheeled himself over to the bar, retrieved one of his prized glasses, and poured a generous amount into it. He gestured toward Hardy wi
th the bottle questioningly.

  “Sure,” Hardy sighed. “I’ll have some.”

  Shane removed another of the Oxford glasses from the case and, after holding up to the light, filled it with wine. He rolled over to Hardy and handed him the glass.

  “There is a story to these glasses, Hardy, that perhaps one day I will relate to you. I think they add to the pleasure of the wine. See if you agree.”

  “OK,” Hardy answered.

  Hardy raised the glass carefully to his lips and took a sip. The wine really did taste quite good. He didn’t say anything but nodded to Shane, who raised his glass and returned the nod.

  “So,” Hardy said. “What do we do now?”

  “Yes, yes,” Shane responded. “I have a suggestion. After considering the possibilities, excluding the impossibility that our mystery woman has actually disappeared from the planet, I propose the following.”

  Shane took a swallow of the wine and sighed.

  “Suppose,” he continued. “That our woman did indeed change her name immediately upon arriving in our fair city, prior to establishing a residence or transacting any business that would have placed her original name in any of the databases. And suppose that was several years ago so that she felt that signing Elizabeth Reid in the shooter’s club log did not risk revealing her true identity.”

  “You mean legally had her name changed? You think she came here with the plan of eventually killing Bagley and so covered her tracks in advance and then waited several years to do it? Isn’t that farfetched? What about motive?”

  “Very astute of you, my man,” Shane responded. “I am certain that we have the killer, but motive…I am still puzzled there. The four shots to the head are surely telling us something but I’m unsure what as of yet. Did Bagley have any connections with Texas?”

  “Not that we uncovered. He’d been in Nashville forever.”

  “No country music connections? Did any of Bagley’s mentees in the business have Texas roots?”

  “Probably,” Hardy responded. “A lot of the business goes on between here and Texas. But we don’t know anything specific about that in this case.”

  Shane paused, sipping from his sherry, then continued, “Well, my man, we’ll continue to ponder motive. However, I have a suggestion for action in the meantime.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I suggest a foray to the local marriage license bureau, the written signature of our Elizabeth Reid in hand. I have a personal experience with that office. When one obtains a marriage license in this city, there is a quaint procedure that involves each of the parties signing their names in a massive ledger, volumes of which line the walls of the small office in the basement of one of the buildings at the place known as the Old Howard School.”

  Hardy knew the place. There was a complex of buildings that had been acquired by the metropolitan government when Howard High School moved elsewhere, and the complex was still known as the Old Howard School. It may even have been officially named that for all Hardy knew. Several local government offices were housed there. It was only a few blocks from Lower Broad out Third Avenue.

  Shane continued, “The task may be a bit arduous, but if our Elizabeth Reid changed her name in our city by way of matrimony, the most likely device for achieving that end, there will be a signature in one of those ledgers at around the time that Ms. Reid disappeared from Houston that exactly matches the signature from the shooting club log. And further, the adjacent signature of the man whom she was to marry will provide us with our murderer’s current identity.”

  Hardy had almost finished his glass of sherry and wondered whether the fact that Shane’s reasoning seemed brilliant was an effect of the wine. But even if not brilliant, it was something to do.

  “Are you up to the task?” Shane asked.

  “I’ll have a go at it. Shouldn’t be too difficult,” Hardy responded. “Maybe not very exciting, but not too difficult.”

  “I suspect that there will be excitement,” Shane responded. “I suspect, Hardy my man, that there will be excitement enough to spare.”

  “The alley’s changed since Bonz’s murder,” Katya made the comment offhandedly.

  She and Shane sat on their balcony. They had eaten sushi at the little place just at the Church Street end of the alley. They were both fond of sushi, and that place was close and the food was good enough to compensate for the surly attitude of the middle-aged Japanese man who ran the place—they referred to him privately as the sushi Nazi. Shane had a glass of sherry, and Katya was drinking sparkling water from a wine glass. A clear glass cylinder still half full of the Voss water that she favored sat on the small table between them. It was just turning dusk. The alley was uncharacteristically quiet. But it was early yet.

  “I agree, my love,” Shane responded. “Something more than Bonz may have died. He embodied the spirit, if that’s not too strong a word, of the place. Seems as though the life of the alley itself suffered a serious blow, possibly a mortal one.”

  They sat for a while without speaking, enjoying the cool evening breeze.

  “Ironic,” Katya said.

  “What,” Shane responded. “The alley? I suppose that’s one apt descriptor of the place.”

  “No, Shane, I didn’t mean that. I was thinking about Bonz. He was scheduled to come in to see me for the clinical exam on the day after he was killed. He’d come in for the lab tests earlier, and the final clinical exam that the protocol required was to happen on that Monday, the next day. I’d even scheduled him for some more lab tests that wouldn’t have been part of the drug study because I thought he was getting worse just from seeing him in the alley. Those tests would have been part of his regular medical record and wouldn’t have been sequestered behind Beth’s firewall where she hid the study data. If he had lived one more day, I’d have come by the proof of Beth’s treachery without having to compromise myself.”

  “Would’ve saved a lot of trouble if someone hadn’t killed the old guy,” Shane, feeling the effects of the sherry more than usual, replied. “And the irony?”

  “The irony, my love, is the collateral damage of an apparently random event.”

  “I’ve rarely found murders of this sort to be random events.”

  “Well,” Katya said. “Maybe not random, but surely unrelated to the effects it had on me, potentially on us.”

  “Certainly appears that way,” Shane replied. “I think it probably qualifies as irony. I’ll grant you that. But I must add that true irony in my experience, while a useful literary device, rarely happens in real life.”

  Chapter 29

  Cy Bartalak was driving out West End toward home and thinking over the last couple of days. He decided not to stay at the hospital with Beth. He had gotten her checked in early that morning, and Orbitz had scheduled a bunch of tests as well as the neurological consultation that all happened over the day. Cy had gone by to see Beth before starting home. She was sleeping and he didn’t wake her. He thought briefly about staying with her in the suite that night, but didn’t like the thought of sleeping on a sofa bed in a strange place that, while perfectly nice, lacked many of the comforts that he enjoyed and felt that he deserved.

  Cy thought that he had things moving in the right direction. On the previous afternoon, he had organized a conference call with his three investors and brought them up to speed on the GPI deal. He was confident that the deal would happen, and the potential of this drug was so enormous that GPI would pay a premium to get control of it at an early stage. He told his investors, and he believed it was true, that at the signing of the GPI deal, the value of Renaptix, Inc. would immediately increase from probably six million or so to at least fifty million dollars and probably more. And with subsequent milestone payments and royalties, if the drug was eventually successful, the value of their little startup company could well exceed a billion dollars. Even if the drug didn’t pan out for some reason, they still all stood to make millions. This was really heady stuff.

  He w
ended his way up his driveway and parked the Mercedes in the garage. He dropped his briefcase in the foyer, went to the den and turned on the lights. The house felt cold and empty without Beth there. He opened the bar and made himself a martini. He sat down and thought about his relationship with Beth. The days shortly before they left Houston were when the passion ran hot, like nothing Cy had experienced before. And Beth was so devoted to him. She’d insisted on assuming his name even before his divorce was final and was anxious to tie the knot as soon as the papers came through shortly after they arrived in Nashville. Beth wanted him, seemed to need him, although she was, or had been, a perfectly competent woman on her own. That was what attracted him, a lovely woman who needed him because of who he was rather than because he made up for some deficiency of hers. Even when the passion cooled, Beth had been loyal, committed, a reliable and useful companion. Maybe there was even more to it than that, he thought. The house did feel her absence somehow. Maybe he felt that some too.

  He sat sipping his martini for a while. The conversation with Mitchell Rook had seemed strange. Rook had asked Cy to return a call, and he suggested that Rook just stay on the line with him after the conference call concluded and the others had rung off. But Rook only wanted to ask whether Cy was aware of any other early-stage investment opportunities in the medical field. Apparently the lawyer had some more money to invest and felt so positive about the Renaptix experience that he was looking for other similar deals. He had told Rook the truth. He was not involved in any other ventures at the moment, but he promised to keep his ear to the ground and let Rook know if he heard of anything. Cy liked the fact that the big-time business lawyer was asking him for investment advice. He liked that a lot. Could open up some opportunities later. He filed away the episode in his mind for possible future reference.