The Associate

by Phillip Margolin

  "Kate?"

  Kate Ross stared at Daniel. If she was relieved to discover that her foe was not a psychopath, she didn't show it.

  "What the hell are you doing here?" she demanded angrily.

  "I could ask you the same question," Daniel snapped.

  "I'm working on a case for Arthur Briggs."

  "If you're looking for Kaidanov he's not here."

  Kate hit Daniel in the shoulder, none too gently.

  "Get off me."

  Daniel stood up and Kate got to her feet.

  "How did you know I was behind the door?" he asked.

  "I saw you push it shut."

  "Oh."

  "Did you make this mess?" Kate asked as she surveyed the chaos in the office.

  "It was like this when I got here."

  Kate walked into the hall and stared into the bedroom. Then she said, "Let's get out of here before someone calls 911."

  _ _ _

  Kate and Daniel agreed to meet downtown at the Starbucks on Pioneer Square, an open, brick-paved block in the center of the city. Daniel parked and found a table next to a window. When Kate walked in he was nursing a cup of coffee and watching a group of teenage boys, oblivious to the cold, playing hacky-sack in the square.

  "I got this for you," Daniel said, pointing to a cup of coffee he'd put at Kate's place.

  "You want to explain the B and E?" Kate asked without looking at Daniel's peace offering.

  "Yeah, right after you explain the assault and battery," Daniel answered, peeved by Kate's offhand manner.

  "When someone pulls a knife on you it's called self-defense, not assault."

  Daniel flexed his still aching wrist. "Where did you learn that judo stuff?"

  "I was a Portland cop before I went to work for Reed, Briggs." Daniel's eyebrows went up in surprise. "I still know the person who's in charge of burglary. Right now I'm undecided about whether to call him."

  "Why, are you going to turn yourself in? I didn't hear anyone invite you into Kaidanov's house."

  "Nice try, but Geller Pharmaceuticals is a Reed, Briggs client. Kurt Schroeder authorized the entry to look for Geller's property. So, let's start over. What were you doing at Kaidanov's house?"

  "Did you hear what happened at the deposition in the Geller case?" Daniel asked with a mixture of nervousness and embarrassment.

  "Dan, everyone in the firm knows about your screwup. It was the main topic of conversation yesterday."

  "Do you know exactly what happened, why I'm in trouble?"

  Kate shook her head. "I heard something about a document that you turned over to Aaron Flynn, but I don't know the details."

  "Are you familiar with the Insufort litigation?"

  "Only a little. I told Briggs that I wouldn't work on it."

  "Why?"

  Kate's tough demeanor cracked for a second. "My sister's kid was born with birth defects. She and her husband have gone through hell caring for her."

  Kate took a sip of coffee. When she looked up she had regained her composure.

  "Do you mind if I give you some background on the case?" Daniel asked.

  "Go ahead."

  "Insulin is a protein hormone secreted by the pancreas that helps the body use sugar in the form of glucose. Insulin becomes less effective in metabolizing glucose during pregnancy, which can cause some pregnant women to become diabetic. Insulin resistance during pregnancy must be treated because high sugar levels are toxic to a fetus and can cause birth defects. Geller Pharmaceuticals addressed the problem of insulin resistance during pregnancy by developing thalglitazone, which has the trade name Insufort. Insufort reverses the body's insulin resistance and prevents diabetes and its complications."

  "But there are problems, right? Birth defects?" Kate said. "And isn't there a connection between Insufort and the Thalidomide scare from the late 1950s?"

  "Yes and no. One tabloid called Insufort the `Son of Thalidomide,' and there is a connection. A drug called troglitazone helped pregnant women solve the insulin resistance problem, but it also may have caused liver failure. Geller's scientists combined a glitazone with the thalido ring from Thalidomide and created a harmless product that helps pregnant women overcome diabetes during pregnancy."

  "So why are women who take the pill giving birth to deformed babies?"

  "It's either a compliance problem or coincidence."

  Kate looked at him with disgust.

  "No, it's true," Daniel insisted. "Many of the women who claim that Insufort caused their child's birth defect probably didn't take the pill as prescribed. Maybe they took it occasionally or irregularly or only a few times and their glucose rose to dangerous levels."

  "So we're blaming the victim."

  "Look, Kate, most women give birth to healthy babies, but some women give birth to babies who have problems. Sometimes we know why. Some anticonvulsant drugs cause cleft palate. Babies of older mothers are more prone to have birth defects. Maternal infections can also cause them. Then there's alcohol, tobacco, and drugs. But the causes of most birth defects are medical mysteries. The difficulty is that Americans have been taught that there is an answer to every problem." Daniel leaned forward and looked at Kate. "Americans can't accept the fact that shit happens. You get cancer, so you blame overhead power lines; you run someone over, so you blame your car. Are you familiar with the Bendictin cases?"

  Kate shook her head.

  " `Morning sickness' is a problem for many pregnant women. For most it's unpleasant, but it can be deadly. You've heard of Charlotte Bronte?"

  "The author of Jane Eyre ."

  Daniel nodded. "Hyperemesis gravida-`morning sickness'-killed her. In 1956, the FDA approved Bendictin, which was developed by Merrill Pharmaceuticals as a therapy for women with severe morning sickness. In 1979, the National Enquirer announced that Bendictin was the cause of thousands of defects in infants.

  "The best way to determine if there is a cause-and-effect relationship between a drug and a problem is to conduct an epidemiological study. If a control group that hasn't taken the product has as many, or more, problems as the group that's taken the drug, you can conclude that there's probably not a casual connection between the drug and the problem. All of the epidemiological studies of Bendictin concluded that there was no statistical difference in the incidence of births of babies with defects in the two groups. That didn't stop lawyers from convincing women to sue."

  "The plaintiffs' attorneys must have had some evidence of a causal connection between the drug and the defects."

  "They used experts who altered the results of studies or conducted studies without proper controls or inaccurately reported doses. The plaintiffs lost almost every case because they couldn't show that Bendictin was to blame for any defects, but it cost Merrill Pharmaceuticals a hundred million dollars to defend all of the cases. In the end, a perfectly safe product was taken off the market because of all the bad publicity and other drug companies were scared to produce a drug that would help women counteract morning sickness. In 1990, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported a twofold increase in hospitalizations caused by severe nausea and vomiting in pregnancy since the disappearance of Bendictin. So who suffered? Only the innocent."

  "Did all of the Insufort studies show that it's safe?" Kate asked.

  "All but one," Daniel answered hesitantly.

  Kate cocked her head to one side and watched Daniel carefully as she waited for him to continue.

  "I'm in trouble because I missed a letter from Dr. Sergey Kaidanov when I reviewed some discovery that was turned over to Aaron Flynn. The letter discusses a primate study involving Insufort."

  "And?"

  A vision of Patrick Cummings flashed through Daniel's mind.

  "The study showed a high incidence of birth defects in rhesus monkeys that had been given the drug during pregnancy," he answered quietly.

  "Did Geller tell you about this study before the deposition?"

  "No. Geller's chief medical adviser s
wears that he's never heard of it."

  "I see." Kate sounded skeptical.

  "The Kaidanov letter doesn't make sense, Kate. The percentage of defects was very high, in the forty-percent range. It's so out of line with the other study results that there's got to be something wrong."

  "Maybe there's something wrong with Geller's other studies."

  "No, I've never seen any evidence in any study of a link between Insufort and birth defects."

  "Maybe you've never seen any evidence because Geller is hiding it. Remember the asbestos cases? The asbestos industry covered up studies that showed increased cancer in animals. It wasn't until a lawsuit was brought that it came out that they'd known about the problem for decades. The lead-paint industry continued to defend its product even though lead poisoning was one of the most common health problems in children under six and there was scientific documentation of the dangers of lead poisoning as early as 1897. And let's not forget the tobacco industry."

  "Jesus, Kate, whose side are you on? Geller is our client."

  "Our client is in the drug business to make a buck and it wouldn't surprise me if Geller covered up the Kaidanov study if the results are as devastating as you say they are. Do you think Geller markets Insufort to help women? Companies whose executives are men make a lot of these defective products that are used by women. There's Thalidomide, DES-the synthetic estrogen that was supposed to prevent miscarriages and caused vaginal cancer-and the Dalkon Shield."

  "Plaintiffs' attorneys play on this sympathy for women to gouge money out of corporations with frivolous lawsuits so they can rake in millions," Daniel answered angrily. "They don't care about their clients or whether they really have a case. The Bendictin lawyers were hoping that jurors would be so appalled by the birth defects they saw that they'd forget that there was no evidence that Bendictin caused them. The breast implant cases used sympathy for women to sway public opinion even though there's no evidence of a connection between defects in silicone gel implants and connective tissue diseases like systemic lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis."

  Kate looked fed up. "I have a good friend who's sterile because she used the Dalkon Shield. I worked on her lawsuit and I learned a lot about the way corporate America works. By the time the public discovers that a product is defective, the company has made so much money it can afford to buy off the victims. Tobacco is so flush it can make multibillion-dollar settlements and still keep trucking.

  "And don't come down so hard on plaintiffs' attorneys. They can make millions when they win a case, but they don't make a penny if they lose."

  "You think Aaron Flynn is a humanitarian?" Daniel asked, but his heart was not completely in tune with his words. As he spoke them he remembered Flynn ruffling Patrick Cummings's hair.

  "Who else is going to represent the poor?" Kate asked. " 'Cause it sure ain't Reed, Briggs. If lawyers like Flynn didn't take cases for a contingent fee no one but the rich could afford to sue. And they risk their own money on expenses, which they don't recover if they don't win. A good, decent lawyer can lose everything if he doesn't prevail. The lawyer who sued when my friend became sterile did it to pressure the company into taking a dangerous device off of the market. He cared about Jill. If Insufort is disfiguring children the only way to make Geller stop marketing it is to expose the problem, and one of the best ways to do that is in the courts."

  Daniel expelled the breath he'd been holding.

  "You're right. Sorry. I'm just scared that I'm gonna lose my job because I missed that damn letter. And I'm certain there's something wrong with Kaidanov's study. It doesn't make sense that he could get those results with Insufort. That's why I was trying to find him. You know he hasn't been at work for a while?"

  Kate nodded.

  "When I went to Kaidanov's house I didn't plan on going in, but I saw that the house had been searched and I thought he might be hurt or worse. And I did find something that might help."

  Daniel pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket and laid the hard drive on the table. Kate stared at it.

  "If the study exists, and Kaidanov wrote up his results, it may be on here."

  Kate laughed. "You stole Kaidanov's hard drive?"

  "I didn't steal it. I was trying to protect Geller. Isn't that why you were there, to protect Geller's property?"

  Kate hesitated and Daniel remembered something about her.

  "Wait a minute. Aren't you the investigator who got into the hard drive in that wrongful termination case when we needed to recover E-mail that an employee erased?"

  Kate smiled ever so slightly.

  "Could you look at this? I tried at Kaidanov's house, but you need a password to log on."

  "Why should I?"

  "I told you before that I wasn't born with a silver spoon like Joe Molinari. Well, the truth is that I wasn't born with any kind of spoon. This job is all I've got. Briggs will need a scapegoat if Kaidanov's letter sinks the Insufort case, and I'm it. I know there's something wrong with Kaidanov's study. If I can prove it I can save the case, and I might save my job."

  "What if the study is the real thing?"

  Daniel sighed and shook his head. "Then I'm toast."

  Kate made a decision. She held out her hand.

  "Give me that," she said, flicking her fingers toward the hard drive. "We'll take it to my house and see what we can see."

  Chapter Nine.

  Daniel followed Kate Ross into the West Hills along winding roads. At first, the streets were lined with houses, then forest began to predominate and the houses appeared farther apart. Kate lived at the end of a cul-de-sac separated from her neighbors on either side by a quarter acre of woods. Her modern glass-and-steel ranch perched on a hill overlooking downtown Portland.

  Daniel followed Kate along a slate path through a small flower garden to the front door. A staircase next to the entryway led up to Kate's bedroom. She walked past it and through a living-room and dining-room area. The outer wall was all glass. Daniel glanced quickly at her expensive-looking furnishings. The abstract painting on the living-room wall was an original oil, and so was a smaller French country landscape. The chairs and sofa were covered in leather and the dining-room table was polished oak and looked antique.

  Kate walked down another staircase across from the kitchen to a workroom lit by fluorescent lights. Scattered around the basement room were several workbenches covered with monitors, wires, motherboards, and computer innards. A desk was affixed to one wall and ran its length. Over the desk was a bookshelf filled with computer manuals and books on computer science and other scientific subjects.

  "Do you run a computer repair business in your spare time?" Daniel joked.

  "Something like that," Kate replied as she removed Kaidanov's hard drive from her jacket pocket. She tossed the jacket over a chair, brushed her hair back, and seated herself at the wall-length desk. In front of her was a removable hard-drive rack into which Kate inserted Kaidanov's hard drive before snapping the rack into one of her computers.

  "How are you going to get around the password?" Daniel asked nervously.

  "No problem. I've written some software that has yet to meet a password it couldn't break."

  "Where did you learn to do that?"

  "Cal Tech."

  Kate saw Daniel's eyes widen. She laughed.

  "I was recruited into the computer crimes unit of the Portland Police Bureau out of college. It seemed a hell of a lot more exciting than sitting on my ass in some high-tech company. Now I do my own thing on the side. It pays well."

  Kate turned back to the monitor and started tapping in commands on her keyboard. A minute later she smiled and shook her head.

  "It's amazing. They all do this. I would have expected more from a scientist. His password's six numbers-probably his birthday."

  "You're in?"

  She nodded. "First thing I'm gonna do is make a magnetic copy of this little devil, just in case something goes wrong."

  Kate's fingers flashed acro
ss the keyboard and lines of text began to appear on the screen.

  "This should be finished in a minute."

  "How come you quit the cops to go to work for Reed, Briggs?" Daniel asked to make conversation.

  "That's none of your business, Ames," Kate snapped before swiveling her chair so her back was to him. Daniel was so surprised by her outburst that he was speechless.

  "The copy is complete," she said a minute later, all business now. "Let's bring up Kaidanov's files."

  Kate tapped in some commands. "The stuff that's still on here isn't about Insufort. If Kaidanov did have files about his monkeys, they've probably been erased."

  "Shit."

  "Not to worry. Unless special software was used, the files aren't really deleted. They'll still be on the hard drive. I just happen to have written a voodoo program that will raise the dead," Kate said as she tapped the keyboard. More text appeared on the screen. She stood up and waved Daniel in for a closer look.

  "There appears to be a big block of files that was erased on March fourth. Sit down at the keyboard and hit `page down' until you find what you want and we'll print it out."

  Daniel took Kate's chair and stared at the monitor.

  "There's a lot of stuff here."

  "Give me some key words. I've got search software installed."

  Daniel thought for a moment. "Try Insufort, rhesus monkeys, primates."

  Kate leaned over his shoulder and tapped in some commands. Her hair brushed against his cheek. She smelled nice.

  Suddenly the letter from Kaidanov to George Fournet appeared on the screen.

  "That's it," Daniel said excitedly, but his excitement diminished as he scrolled through the files that followed the letter. When he stopped reading he looked grim.