by Ken Brigham
When Rook called Dr. Karpov’s laboratory, the plaintive voice that answered had the sound of a lonely and distracted graduate student who had been assigned to tend some experiment, a duty which was interfering with other more attractive plans. The voice informed him that Dr. Karpov had left work early, saying that she was going home. With that information, Rook decided that he would walk up to the Printers Alley residence of the good doctor, thinking that a surprise visit might actually serve his purpose better than a forewarned one. He walked to the entrance and pressed the button under Hadley/Karpov.
“Yes, who is it?” Katya’s voice came through the small speaker by the door, distorted, but clear.
“It’s Mitchell Rook,” he replied. “I apologize for appearing unannounced, but I need to speak with you about a matter of some urgency.”
“Very well,” Katya replied, shrugging her shoulders in Shane’s direction.
She pressed the button to release the door and walked over to the elevator so that she would know when their visitor entered the car and could call it to the second floor.
Hardy Seltzer was, once again, completely confused.
“Who is Mitchell Rook?” he asked, having overheard the brief conversation over the intercom.
“Mr. Rook,” Shane answered, “is a business lawyer who is apparently involved with the startup company that Professor Bartalak formed to develop his drug. He contacted Katya earlier, but it wasn’t clear exactly what he was looking for. I suspect that we’re about to be enlightened.”
Rook exited the elevator into the living room. He didn’t recognize the third person in the room but was quite sure that he was with law enforcement. The persona of the breed was a dead giveaway and was difficult to conceal even if an effort was made in that direction. In this case, no such effort had been made.
“Mr. Rook…er…Mitchell,” Katya greeted the visitor, recalling his insistence on first names, a level of intimacy that she still felt unwarranted; she gestured toward person number three and continued. “You may not know detective Hardy Seltzer. He’s with the Metro Police Department.”
Rook walked over to shake the detective’s hand and said, measuring his words. “Oh yes, Detective Seltzer, I believe I’ve seen your name in the papers recently.”
“I’m afraid so, Mr. Rook….”
“Please,” Rook interrupted. “Mitchell.”
“OK, Mitchell,” Hardy said. “Not publicity that I’ve asked for, obviously.”
“Yes, unfortunate,” Rook said. “Unfortunate.”
Rook was trying to imagine why the detective was there and why the three of them seemed so seriously cautious about his arrival. It was as though he had interrupted something important. Maybe Seltzer and Shane Hadley had been compatriots when Shane was on the force. But, if this was a social call it appeared to be a particularly chilly one.
Rook asked. “Are the two of you old friends from the days of Sherlock Shane?” recalling the moniker that the press had invented some years back.
“Actually,” Hardy replied. “We never worked together when Shane was on the force. I didn’t play in his league in those days.”
Katya interjected, obviously anxious to find out the reason for the unexpected visit. “So, Mitchell, what can we do for you?”
“I had hoped to speak with you privately, Katya,” Rook said.
“Whatever you have to say is perfectly fine for Shane and Hardy to hear,” Katya said. “They are generally trustworthy sorts.”
“If you say so,” Rook replied, obviously not entirely comfortable with the arrangement. “But some of what I have to say is strictly confidential for now and very sensitive information.”
“We can handle it,” Shane said, a bit impatiently.
Rook was still not sure how much to reveal. He paused for a few moments, obviously thinking. The four of them were still standing in front of the elevator. Finally, Rook decided to play it straight. That would have to happen sooner or later if Katya was to be a witness.
“Katya, I was not completely forthcoming on my previous visit here, I’m afraid,” Rook began. “There was good reason for that as you will see. But the information you implied, if not actually stated, on that visit was very helpful.”
“I didn’t realize that I had given you much information,” Katya said.
“You didn’t, that is not explicitly. But there was a great deal of information in what you did not say. However, let me come clean at this point. I have been cooperating with the US attorney’s office in an investigation of Cyrus Bartalak, your chairman. The investigation was instigated at the highest level of the Department of Justice and was based on the suspicion that Dr. Bartalak was guilty of a crime in an earlier transaction in Texas which had so far been difficult to prove. That suspicion was sufficient to lead the US attorneys to surmise that fraudulent business transactions were a pattern of behavior for Dr. Bartalak. When they got wind of this new venture, Renaptix, Inc., set up to develop the new drug, the similarity to the Texas situation was so striking that they enlisted me to pose as an investor in the company while actually acting as an informant. I agreed to participate as the front man in a sting operation that was intended to provide evidence of Dr. Bartalak’s criminal activity if such there was.”
The three members of Rook’s audience were spellbound.
“And?” Shane spoke up.
“And, to cut to the chase, as they say, there certainly was criminal activity. We have documentation of Dr. Bartalak’s intent to sell his share of the startup company at an inflated price based on a pending Big Pharma deal and on his contention that the drug showed near-miraculous results in the preliminary clinical studies. We have information that he has knowledge that casts doubt on both of those factors, knowledge that would negatively impact the value of the company. He explicitly denied having any such information and did not even hint at such a possibility in attempting the sale of his share of the company. That is a crime.”
“Interesting,” Katya said. “But what do you need from me? I had absolutely no involvement in or knowledge of Cy’s business dealings.”
“The information we have that Bartalak had knowledge that would negatively impact the value of the company is, unfortunately, hearsay, and therefore not admissible in court. It comes from a source that I am sworn not to identify but whom I believe is impeccable. And the information is that you personally gave Dr. Bartalak documents that raise questions about the value of the drug, the only asset of value that the startup company has. Is that correct?”
Katya was torn. She was surprised that Cy would get caught doing something criminal. Surely he was smarter than that. And this would be a scandal of major proportions that would reverberate throughout the academic community, well beyond the local university. If she got involved, there was a real possibility that her own stature in the larger community—her value in the academic marketplace—would suffer. But she had to live with herself. Honesty was, to her, the essential core of her profession. She must not betray that.
“As I said,” Katya finally said. “I know nothing of Cy’s startup company. I have no idea what assets that company has and don’t really care.”
“Very well,” Rook continued. “Let me be more direct. Are you willing to testify that you personally gave documents to Dr. Bartalak the contents of which raise questions about the efficacy and safety of the drug in question, and that you expressed to him concerns that Beth Bartalak, the statistician on the study and Professor Bartalak’s wife, had falsified some of the clinical data. That is the evidence we need.”
“If required to, I will testify to the truth. What you stated is the truth. However, it may not be without personal consequences, you know.”
Rook replied. “I appreciate that. And very much appreciate your willingness to cooperate.”
“You may also want to speak with the medical dean at the university,” Katya added.
“Why is that?”
“I have filed a formal complaint of scientific misc
onduct against Beth Bartalak with the dean and have given him the same documentation that I gave Cy. I would be very surprised if the dean hasn’t shared that with Cy. If so he could also provide relevant testimony, it seems to me.”
“An excellent suggestion, Katya, thank you,” Rook said. “I will do that. One other thing, can you provide the US attorney with copies of the documents that you gave to Bartalak and to the dean?”
“I’m not sure,” Katya responded. “Those are confidential documents.”
“I understand, but if subpoenaed, I presume that you would surrender them?”
“Yes.”
“I very much appreciate this, Katya. The US attorney, his name is Dom Petrillo, will be in touch with you. He’s an old friend of mine and I think you’ll find him amiable enough to work with. But feel free to contact me if at any point you have questions. Now,” Rook continued. “My curiosity gets the better of me. I must ask, why detective Seltzer is here if it is not a social call and why the pall of sobriety hanging over this little gathering? Something is obviously going on. Anything you can share with a curious observer?”
Shane said, “May I offer you a glass of sherry, Mitchell? And why don’t the three of you have a seat and make yourselves comfortable?”
“A sherry would be nice,” Rook replied. “Is this your Oxford sherry that I enjoyed earlier?”
“The same,” Shane said.
He rolled himself over to the bar and went about the familiar ritual that always resurrected for a moment the pleasant sensations that he associated with the place from which the sherry, no doubt illicitly, found its way to its unlikely destination in Printers Alley.
Shane delivered the glass to Rook, returned to the bar, refreshed his glass and then took the bottle and made the rounds, refilling the others’ glasses as well.
When he had replaced the bottle on the bar, he turned to face the group, now seated on the sofa, and raised his glass. “To the inevitable fate of the bad guys,” he said. “May they always lose in the long run.”
Each of them raised his glass.
Rook was heard to say somewhat timidly, “Here, here.”
The toast stated a fundamental principle that had driven Shane Hadley’s life. He smiled. It was good to feel once again the satisfaction of justice done.
Shane thought to himself, and to the abiding inspiration of the adventures of Mr. Holmes. He raised his glass again unobtrusively and took a long warm sip of Lincoln College’s best, relishing the taste and the memory of it.
Chapter 34
As predicted, the late afternoon search of the Jackson Boulevard home of Cyrus and Beth Bartalak yielded the Colt Hammer model handgun that ballistics later proved to be the weapon that fired the four bullets into Bonz Bagley’s brain. The search produced two other items that Hardy Seltzer, who had led the search team, discussed with Shane Hadley and Katya Karpov.
The strange bottle of pills with the handwritten label, Cy’s Wonder Drug, were identified by Katya as the laboratory formulation of the experimental drug that was the subject of the clinical study. Katya recalled Cy Bartalak’s enthusiastic speculation that the drug might improve the function of the normal brain based on the animal studies. Katya guessed that Beth who, judging from the collection of other pills that the search discovered, would take almost any kind of supplement that she thought had any chance of improving her health, must have taken the drug based on Cy’s excitement about it. Later, when questioned during one of her increasingly rare lucid moments, Beth admitted to that. She had started taking the drug about the same time that the clinical studies were initiated. She stopped taking it when she saw the results of the six month follow up tests from subject number one.
The other item recovered in the search that attracted Seltzer’s attention for some reason that he didn’t understand was a slip of paper found in Beth Bartalak’s desk with a date and time written on it in dark, deliberate block letters that were underlined and followed by exclamation points. Katya immediately recognized the date as that of the upcoming Sunday morning meeting of the Brain Trust. Neither she nor Shane would speculate any further about the possible significance of this item and Hardy didn’t press them. It is likely that all three of them suspected that the note had a meaning that was too frightening to speak of and in view of Beth Bartalak’s decreased ability to function, no longer a concern.
Beth Bartalak was charged with the first-degree murder of Bonz Bagley. She was arrested and put under guard in the hospital immediately. The nature of her mental condition was never determined and Cy refused to permit a brain biopsy as recommended by the doctors caring for her. The case was turned over to the DA who announced that he would seek the death penalty. When her neurological condition continued to deteriorate, Beth was confined by court order to a chronic care facility. Her husband hired Herbert Sandlin, a nationally prominent defense attorney who worked out of Nashville, to represent both himself and his wife. The attorney convinced them that Beth should plead that she was mentally incompetent to stand trial, which she did. She would spend the rest of her shortened life in a mental hospital. Her husband would be rarely seen there.
A series of articles appeared in the local newspaper beginning on the morning after the search of the Bartalak house. The articles detailed the series of events that led up to the solution of the Bagley murder case, praising the creativity and tenacity of the Metro police department, especially their lead investigator Hardy Seltzer. Detective Seltzer had persisted with his pursuit of the real killer in the face of rampant public criticism of him and his department. His investigation leading to the identification of the guilty party was an example of truly exceptional police work. The city was fortunate to have a department and people of this quality responsible for the security of its citizens. The series of articles, under the byline of Harvey Green, a longtime police reporter for the paper, frequently contained quotes from Hardy Seltzer and from the chief of metro police. The name of X Coniglio quickly disappeared from the news. The byline of the freelance reporter who had authored the earlier newspaper articles that were critical of the metro police department’s handling of the case was never seen again in the local paper.
Shane Hadley’s name appeared in only one of the newspaper articles. He had acquiesced to a single interview with Harvey Green, the substance of which was Shane’s elaborate complements of the work of Hardy Seltzer on the case. When asked directly whether he missed being a part of the force, Shane brandished his glass of sherry and replied, “There is satisfaction enough, my man, in seeing justice done, however that comes about.”
Cyrus Bartalak was formally charged and released on a bail of a million dollars. His attorney, Herbert Sandlin, embarked on a series of legal maneuvers that would delay trial of the case at least for several years and maybe forever. The case made national and international news off and on for several months. The National Institutes of Health launched an in-depth investigation of all of the research supported by their grants in which Bartalak was involved. The NIH team uncovered several instances of misuse of funds as well as strongly suggestive evidence of scientific dishonesty in much of Bartalak’s work. The NIH withdrew support of all grants on which Cyrus Bartalak served as Principal Investigator resulting in a several million dollar loss to the institution. Further, he was banned from receiving any government research support at least until his legal troubles were resolved and perhaps longer.
The university investigation of the charge of scientific misconduct against Beth Bartalak was never completed. The Global Pharmaceutical scientists who reviewed the information from the drug studies raised serious questions about the integrity of the data and Global terminated their interest in Renaptix and Cy Bartalak’s drug. An FDA audit of the data raised similar questions and the FDA approval of the IND was withdrawn. The dean concluded that the charge that Beth Bartalak had falsified data was almost certainly true and that because of her severely deteriorating cerebral function, an investigation was both impossible and pointless. B
artalak steadfastly denied any knowledge of Beth’s manipulation of the data and the dean did not pursue the question of whether Cy was a co-conspirator.
At the dean’s urging, Cyrus Bartalak elected to take a year’s sabbatical without compensation. Although he retained his faculty appointment, he was relieved of his role as department chair and was placed on probation pending resolution of his legal problems. Katya Karpov was named interim chair of the department of psychiatry, a position which she accepted on the condition that the university bear full financial responsibility for the lifetime medical care of all of the subjects who had been entered into the clinical trial of the drug, RX-01; the dean gladly accepted that condition. A committee was appointed to conduct a national search for the pathology chair. The pathologist, Sydney Shelling, was named to chair the committee. It was widely speculated among the medical faculty that the committee was appointed only as a formality and that Dr. Karpov would be named the permanent occupant of the chair.
Renaptix, Inc. ceased to do business. Rory Holcomb and Will Hadley both lost the million dollars that they had invested. That especially disappointed Dr. Hadley because he had intended his investment in the company to be a gift to his son and daughter-in-law, a way for them to profit from Katya’s work on the drug beyond the meager compensation the university paid to its faculty. Will Hadley was unaware of his daughter-in-law’s specific role in the drug study but believed what Cy Bartalak told his investors and assumed that Katya concurred or she would have objected. Dr. Hadley failed to understand that Katya’s objection was registered appropriately. She felt duty-bound to protect the integrity of scientific research. But neither she nor the university felt responsible for protecting gullible investors. Had Katya known of her father-in-law’s intent, she would have behaved no differently.