“So, are you saying that he didn’t get visits from pharmaceutical reps trying to get him to push their drugs on his patients?” I asked her.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Sally said. “I mean, I got inquiries constantly on his behalf from this pharmaceutical company or that pharmaceutical company. And, Dr. Gregory got a lot of visits from pharmaceutical reps. They were here like every other week, giving him samples of drugs, and taking him out to eat and to go golfing and different things like that. He got to stay in some really nice hotels, sometimes in the penthouse suite, all on the dime of the pharmaceutical companies. I didn’t think that was ethical, but who am I to say what’s ethical and what’s not? Who am I to really say anything to him? So, I didn’t say anything to him or the reps. But I really thought that Dr. Dunham was running a good, clean practice. He wasn’t tarnished by those pharmaceutical reps like Dr. Gregory was.”
“So, are you saying that there was not an opportunity for Dr. Dunham to be exposed to opiates? At least, there wasn’t an opportunity for him to take samples from reps and maybe take them himself?”
Sally shook her head. “No, I’m not saying that at all. In fact, what happened a lot in this office was that the patients would surrender their drugs to him, but he had a protocol for disposing of those drugs. Dr. Dunham knew that he was breaking the law when he accepted these drugs from his patients, but, at the same time, he thought it was the right thing. These patients were trying to get off of drugs, and if he had to rely on them to go through the rigmarole of disposing of those drugs on their own, they probably wouldn’t do it.”
“How are you supposed to dispose of drugs here in Kansas City?” Harper asked her.
“It’s kind of a pain in the tukus, to be honest with you. You’re supposed to take it to some kind of drop off spot, but there’s only 12 of them around the city. If a patient comes in, and tells Dr. Dunham that they want to be off the drugs, and didn’t want them around the house anymore, then Dr. Dunham took the drugs from them. Once a week, he would go in and drop them off at the drop-off spot.”
My ears perked up, as Sally was admitting that Dr. Dunham didn’t do things exactly according to the way the law required him to. I understood why he chose to dispose of the drugs for his patients, but I also wondered if that would have been a way for him to have taken drugs. He simply could take the pills that were surrendered to him to consume for himself.
“Now, do you keep separate calendars for the patients and for other events that might come up? So, one calendar for patient visits and another calendar for non-patient visits?” I asked her.
“I know that Dr. Dunham had a personal calendar. He kept it on his computer. It was a calendar that he scheduled different things, like social events, and continuing education courses that he might be taking. He didn’t put any of his patients on that calendar. I kept the calendar that scheduled the patients.”
I nodded my head. “Would you be willing to give me a copy of that other calendar?”
“I don’t see why not,” Sally said with a smile. “Hang on, I’ll go into his computer and get a copy of that for you. Sit tight.”
When she left, Harper looked at me. “ Just curious, what do you think we’re going to be seeing on this calendar?” she asked me.
“I don’t know. I just have a hunch. I mean, Sally said that pharmaceutical reps didn’t visit Dr. Dunham, but that they visit Dr. Gregory. I just wonder if maybe there’s something on his calendar that would contradict that.”
“Why would Dr. Dunham try to hide something like that?” Harper asked.
“I don’t really know. I don’t know if that’s even the case. He obviously had an interest in making Sally believe that he wasn’t prescribing drugs to his patients. And, if he wasn’t prescribing drugs to his patients, then why would he have a need for pharmaceutical reps to come in here? I have to admit, it’s very unusual for a pain management doctor to not prescribe opiates. I mean, a lot of doctors also have alternative ways of managing pain, but they still prescribe drugs as a last resort.”
Sally must’ve overheard us talking, because she jumped into the conversation as she walked through the conference door with a calendar in her hand. “I know, Dr. Dunham was very unusual. He used to prescribe opiates as a last resort. But, within the last few months, he decided to deal with his patient’s pain exclusively without drugs. He really did feel like he was on the cutting edge, and that his method of pain management was going to become the protocol for doctors everywhere in the future. Clearly he had hope that he would be able to do his part in making sure that the opioid crisis came under control. I mean, there will always be people taking drugs for reasons other than pain, to get high or whatever, and Dr. Dunham wouldn’t be able do anything about that. But he really did think that his new technique was going to be something that would be used nationwide by every pain management doctor, and that the opioid crisis that was caused by chronic pain would be wiped out. That was his ultimate ambition.”
I looked at the calendar, seeing that it was mainly a social calendar, but that there was a weekly visit by an individual by the name of Sharita Vance. Her visits to Dr. Dunham were once a week in the evenings.
“What are your hours here, Sally?” I asked her.
“8 to 5, Monday through Friday. I also come in from 8-noon every other Saturday.”
“You don’t work evenings?”
She shook her head. “No. I work enough hours as it is. I have a kid at home, and I’m a single parent. Dr. Dunham never had me work late.”
I decided to go ahead and change tactics with my questioning. “Now, the accused in this case, Olivia Ward, she told me that Dr. Dunham was getting a lot of attention for his pioneering pain technique. Can you tell me a little bit about that?”
Sally’s face brightened up. “Yes. That was the most exciting thing about what he was doing. I mean, he was perfecting something. What he was already doing for his patients was amazing, but he was working hard, most nights, on perfecting something even more special and unique. He was looking to conduct a clinical trial on it, because he did a clinical trial on the last technique that was so amazing, and he had already gotten inquiries from doctors around the country. He was also going to be interviewed by some national magazines. Self, Prevention, even Time magazine. He was even getting invitations to appear on The Doctors, you know that television show that comes on every day with those doctors that talk about health issues. He was about ready to blow up huge when he died. It’s such a shame.”
I showed her a copy of the calendar that she had printed out. “There’s a name here that I see coming in here every Wednesday evening. Her name is Sharita Vance. Does that name ring a bell to you?”
Sally looked perplexed. “Can I see that? That calendar that I just gave you? I’ll admit, I didn’t really take a look at it before I gave it to you.”
I handed her a copy of the calendar, and she put on a pair of reading glasses. She handed it back to me after looking at it for a minute or two, the confused look still on her face.
“Yes,”she finally said. “Ms. Vance is a pharmaceutical rep. I know who she is, because she comes and sees Dr. Gregory all the time. I’m so sorry, I guess I was telling you the wrong thing when I said that Dr. Dunham didn’t see pharmaceutical reps. I guess he did.” She continued to stare at the calendar while shaking her head.
I was getting ready to ask another question, when I saw that she was still looking like she was extremely confused. Her eyebrows were scrunched up, and she was staring at the table. She looked like she was lost in thought. Her lips were moving, as if she was talking to herself.
“So, you had no clue that Dr. Dunham was seeing a pharmaceutical rep, right?” I asked her.
She sighed. “I guess he was. I don’t know, I thought I knew him. I thought I knew what kind of practice he was keeping here. I really thought that he was different from all the other pain management doctors. But maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he was prescribing medicine, and he jus
t told me that he wasn’t.”
“And this bothers you?” I knew the answer to that question. It clearly did bother her. If it didn’t bother her, then she wouldn’t be looking as if someone had killed her dog.
She didn’t answer for a few minutes, but then she just shrugged her shoulders. “I mean, he was a pain management doctor. All the other pain management doctors prescribe opioids, so I guess he was entitled to prescribe them, too. I guess I’m just disappointed that I thought that he was somebody who wasn’t like the other doctors.” She lowered her voice, and looked around, as if she was afraid that somebody would hear her. “I kinda thought that I was working on behalf of a cause, not just working on behalf of a doctor. I don’t want to raise my voice about it, because I think that Dr. Gregory is sensitive to this sort of thing. I don’t want him thinking that I’m judging him or anything. But maybe I am.”
Sally’s reaction to finding out that Dr. Dunham had been seeing a pharmaceutical rep was interesting to me, to say the very least. “You just said that you’re judging him? Dr. Gregory? What do you mean by that?”
Her face got red. “Well, I think that one of the biggest crises in America today is the opioid crisis. I keep reading about how many overdose deaths are occurring every year, and it’s scary. I think that most pain management doctors are part of the problem, not the solution. I mean, I don’t want to have to look for another job, and I would have to if Dr. Gregory knew how I felt about this, but I think that doctors like Dr. Gregory are the root cause of the opioid epidemic. Patients come in here with pain, he sees them for like five minutes, and they leave with a prescription for Oxycodon or Fentanyl or something else that’s really addictive. He gets them hooked.”
She paused for a moment, and then looked around again to make sure that nobody was around to hear her.
“I don’t know, I guess I just don’t really approve of doctors who don’t at least try to look for an alternative solution to drugs,” she said. “I know it’s easier just to give a prescription for pills, but it’s really not doing anything for people. Especially people who have chronic pain. And what happens is that they start to get addicted, and Dr. Gregory has to cut them off. You know, he finds out that they’re going around to other hospitals and other doctors, trying to get prescriptions all over town, and Dr. Gregory has to say that he can’t give them pain meds anymore. And then they get cut off everywhere, so they have to find a street vendor to score heroin. So the opioid epidemic becomes a heroin epidemic. It just keeps going on and on, and doctors like Dr. Gregory are the reason why.”
I had to admit that I was a little bit stunned that she was so open about the role of pain management in the opioid epidemic that this country was experiencing. It couldn’t have been easy for her to be working for somebody who she found so abhorrent.
She shook her head. “God, I sure do hope that this room doesn’t have a bug or anything like that. If it does, I’ll lose my job. Dr. Gregory has no idea that I feel this way, and I can’t afford to lose my job. I get paid pretty well here – $15 an hour. It pays the bills.”
I kind of felt like she had the demeanor and expression of somebody who had held somebody up on a pedestal, and that person came crashing down before her very eyes. That probably was the case here. She thought that Dr. Dunham was somebody who was one thing, and apparently he was somebody else. Of course, being an attorney, I didn’t want to necessarily judge him without further evidence. I did, however, want to find out who this Sharita Vance was.
“So, Sharita Vance. You’re familiar with who she is?” I asked Sally.
She nodded her head. “She’s one of the usual suspects. She’s somebody who’s pretty high-level over at Osiris pharmaceuticals. I don’t know much about her, but I talked to other office managers around town, and she’s kind of everywhere. She goes to just about every pain management doctor in town and sells them on all the latest drugs that Osiris is coming out with. That’s all I really know about her.” She steepled her hands. “I’m just so disappointed in Dr. Dunham. I mean, he lied to me when he told me that he wasn’t prescribing those medicines to patients.”
I had a few more questions for her. “I want to ask you about whether or not other people might have noticed that Dr. Dunham had an addiction to drugs. To your knowledge, has anybody filed a complaint against him? And that would mean not just patients, but professional organizations, like the AMA? Has anybody ever suggested that he needed to be supervised?”
She appeared to think about that question for a minute or two, but then she shook her head. “No. And I would know about it. I mean, I’m the person who would field questions like that from somebody. Or a complaint like that from somebody. He trusted me, and if something like that came down the pike, I would handle it. So I don’t think that it did. I don’t think that there was any need for supervision or any complaints or anything like that.”
That didn’t really tell me anything, except that maybe he was just very good at hiding what he was doing, assuming that he was taking drugs. That was a fair assumption, considering how he died. However, it would’ve been helpful if there was some kind of an evidence that people were concerned about him taking drugs.
I bounced my pen up and down upon the yellow pad, and I looked over at Harper. “Do you have anything you want to ask her?” I asked Harper.
She shook her head. “No,” Harper said. “Thank you very much, Ms. Wallace, for seeing us. For taking the time to speak with us.”
“Not a problem,” she said. “If you need any more help, I’ll be glad to assist you in any way I can. Don’t hesitate to call.”
She showed us out, and I was kind of anxious to talk to Harper. I was working on a theory in my head, but I wasn’t quite sure exactly where the theory was going to go. There were several puzzle pieces missing, even in my head. I wanted to bounce some stuff off of Harper and see what she was thinking.
We got out of the car, and Harper turned to me. “I think we need to get this Sharita Vance in for a deposition. Or, at the very least, interview her.”
“I’m thinking the same thing,” I said, “but I don’t really know how it is that she fits into this.”
Harper looked out the window. “I don’t really know how she fits into it either, but I think that she does somehow.” Harper looked like she was contemplating something. “You know I was reading about Tracy Dunham online, and his family. One of the things that stands out to me is that his family has diversified its wealth over the years. They started out, way back when, with the old man who made his money on the railroad back in the day. But, since then, they’ve gone into shipping, tech, and pharmaceuticals. Pharmaceuticals.”
Harper kept saying the words pharmaceuticals over and over under her breath. That was her way of brainstorming, saying something out loud, and then, sometimes, she would hit on what the right answer was. Just by saying a single word.
“Pharmaceuticals,” I said. “I guess we’re going to have to take a look and see what pharmaceutical investments his family is involved with. However, I’m not really positive exactly why it would be that just because one of his relatives works in pharmaceuticals that he would be behind what happened to Dr. Dunham.”
Harper clinched her fist, and unclenched it. She did that several times. “He hadn’t come into his inheritance yet, remember?”
“Yeah,” I said. “That does seem rather unusual. I guess we’re going to have to find out exactly what kind of family feud caused him to be cut out of his inheritance. I mean, not cut out exactly, but from what I can see, he hadn’t gotten it yet at the time he died.”
Harper tapped her fingers on the dashboard of the car. “How do we know that he wasn’t cut out completely from his inheritance? I know that the records show that he hadn’t yet received his inheritance at the time he died, but what if the will of his grandfather, who was the man who was responsible for the Dunham heirs getting their money, actually cut him out? What then?”
“I don’t know. What are you getting at?
”
She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t really know. I’m just thinking out loud. Don’t mind me.”
We got to our office, and Harper got into her car to go home. It was getting late, and I knew that I had to get home to Nate and Amelia and spend some time with them. I was just going to have to compartmentalize, which meant that when I went home, I was going to have to leave my work behind. As much as I wanted to sit and stew and pick apart my interview with Sally Wallace, it wouldn’t do Nate any favors if I did that.
As I drove home, I was apprehensive. It seemed that I was getting further and further away from the answer to the question about what exactly was going on.
And I wondered if I was ever going to get closer to it.
Chapter 15
Later on that day, I made an appointment to see Sharita Vance. I called her, and she told me that she was busy all day on sales calls, but that she would would be able to fit me in that evening. As much as I hated to do that, because I was trying to get home every evening early to see Nate and Amelia, I also thought that maybe Sharita was going to be a good witness for me. I didn’t know why I was thinking that, but I did.
Harper decided to come along with me too. She still didn’t have a whole lot going on, as far as large cases. I knew why she didn’t have anything major on her plate. She didn’t have the mental energy to really take on a large case, except for second-chairing this one with me. I knew that she was very much in demand, because she had tried so many high-profile cases, and everybody knew about her. But I really got the impression that her dance card was not so full only because she wanted it that way.
It was burnout, but it was also what was going on with Axel and Michael Reynolds. I had great sympathy for her.
We met Sharita at Messenger, a coffee shop that was located downtown. It was a large coffee shop, three stories, with overhead pipes exposed and super high ceilings. It was definitely a very trendy place.
Until Proven Guilty Page 11
