Well, that was weird. “What time do you want me there? What time is good for you?” I asked him.
“I have an opening today, at 2 PM. You can bring Harper if you like. I know that she’s your second chair on this, and I really need to talk to both of you.”
I thought about it, realizing that I didn’t have court in the afternoon, nor did I have any depositions or client meetings that afternoon. I looked over at Harper, and nodded at her. “Do you have an opening today at 2 PM to go to the lab?” I asked her.
She took a glance at her online calendar. “I have a new client intake at 1:30, but I’m sure that Pearl can move it around for me. I’m sure it won’t be a problem, it is just a new domestic case that I might be getting into.” Harper had decided to go ahead and take a limited amount of divorce cases, against her better judgment. She just felt that it was time to diversify her practice a bit more, and get out of having so many criminal cases that were just sapping her mental energy. Or at least, that was how she had explained it to me. Personally, I thought it was out of the frying pan and into the fire, but if it made her happy to not have to have so many criminal cases, then more power to her.
“We’ll be seeing you at 2 PM, David,” I said to him.
“I’ll be seeing you then.”
I got off the phone, and I looked over at Harper. “It’s odd, don’t you think, that David couldn’t just tell me over the phone what was going on?”
Harper shrugged her shoulders. “I suppose, but maybe he just wanted to meet with us face-to-face. Sometimes people are uncomfortable talking over the phone about something like this.”
Maybe. But I just had a feeling that there was something else behind David’s request to meet in person behind closed doors.
Chapter 24
At 2 o’clock that day, Harper and I found out exactly why David had requested a face-to-face meeting. To my surprise, when I went to the pharmaceutical headquarters where David worked as a drug chemist, he was standing in the parking lot, scanning it and obviously looking for us. When I parked my car, he was right there, looking in the window.
I put down the window, and he peered in.
“Can I get into the car, and we can go somewhere? I’m so sorry, I should not have invited you to my office. Not for this. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I really need to not be in this office, and we need to go someplace else. Someplace else to talk.”
I unlocked the door, and he got into the backseat.
As I drove off, he was looking anxiously out the back window.
The name of the pharmaceutical company that David was working for was named Anastas. Like Osiris, the pharmaceutical company that Dr. Dunham’s brother was working for, Anastas was a relatively small player in the pharmaceutical business. It did a hundred million dollars in sales, annually. Also like Osiris, Anastas’ major line of products were opioids.
I looked into the rearview mirror at the very nervous-looking David. He still was looking out the back window, an anxious look on his face.
“Where do you want to go?” I asked him. “You want to go to a restaurant?”
He shook his head. “No. Listen, I just want to maybe just drive around, and you can bring me back. I’m so sorry, I just really don’t want to be in a public place, seen with the two of you. Just drive out of the parking lot, and I’ll explain everything.”
I drove out of the parking lot, and into the street, feeling apprehensive. After a few miles, David seemed to relax. “So, what’s going on?” I asked him.
“Listen, Damien, I know you want me to help you out here. And I will. But only if I can find a different job before the trial. I’ll be looking for one, very soon. I really didn’t anticipate that I would be looking for a new job, but here we are. If I don’t have a new job by the time you go to trial, I can’t promise you that I will agree to be your expert witness on this. And you are going to need an expert witness to testify on the stand. That much is clear.”
I felt a sense of excitement building as he spoke. “I’m assuming that you tested that pill, and you found out that it was not Oxycontin?”
“No. No it wasn’t. It definitely was not Oxycontin. In fact, I tested it, and I found that it was heroin. Extremely pure. So, I’m not at all surprised that Dr. Dunham overdosed. I’m not at all surprised about that.”
I looked over at Harper. She looked like she was surprised, but not really.
“Tell me more. And, while you’re at it, tell me why the cloak and dagger? Why are you so afraid to be seen with us?”
He looked out the back window again as if he was afraid something was coming out of the shadows. “Because of who you are. Because of who you represent. You have to understand, there are some major forces who want to make sure that they stay hidden on this. It’s not just my company, but it’s other companies too. Anyhow, I’m not even positive about anything, but I just have seen too many internal memos to ignore this as being just a coincidence.”
“Internal memos? What are you talking about?”
David just shook his head. “I’ve said too much. Too much. I need to find a new job before I can start to talk. I know now that I do need to find a new job. I know that. And when I do, you’ll be the first person to know. But I can’t tell you anything more than what I’ve already told you. I’m sorry it had to be so cloak and dagger. But it can’t be helped. If anybody ever saw me with the two of you, well, let’s just say I would be forced out by the end of the day. And I can’t afford that. Christmas is coming, and my wife is expecting me to take her to Barbados. I can’t very well do that if I lose my job right now. So, I told you all that I can tell you, and hopefully you can just put the puzzle pieces together from there.”
Internal memos? I wanted to have access to those internal memos, but there was just no way I could, legally. There’s just no way that a judge would sign off on a discovery request for internal memos of a random pharmaceutical company that was not even involved in the case at all. Osiris, the pharmaceutical company that had manufactured the tainted pill, probably also had internal memos on whatever it was that David was talking about. Which was not clear. But even getting a hold of those internal memos legally would be an uphill battle.
But perhaps it wouldn’t be, once I showed that the drug was tainted.
“Okay. Well listen, I appreciate you doing this for me. Does anybody know about the work that you did on my behalf?”
“No. When your assistant called me, and she told me what she wanted, I decided to keep it a secret. I’m sorry, I just feel so uncomfortable letting anybody know what I was doing on your behalf. You don’t know what kind of crazy atmosphere has been going on in my company and other companies. I wish I could tell you more, but, as I said, I have to find a new job first. Then I’ll be able to talk.”
As I looked in the rearview mirror, I just had a chill. He was looking so scared. I wondered if he was frightened about not just losing his job.
Maybe he was afraid of much worse.
Chapter 25
That night, I got my answer to that question. The headlines in my Yahoo! News said that Dr. David Dudley was found dead in his office of an overdose.
I closed my eyes. Then I opened them, and read about how it was a mystery why a chemist would be using drugs in his workplace. The article quoted employees of Anastas, who told the reporter that he had been depressed, and that he had openly spoken of suicide.
And that was that. I just knew that nothing more was going to come of the investigation into why it was that Dr. Dudley had died.
Dr. Dudley knew the truth about that Oxycontin pill. He was the only one who did know the truth about it. The problem, of course, was the fact that the one and only Oxycontin pill that I managed to get out of Dr. Dunham’s office was presently in the possession of Dr. Dudley. Which meant that, of course, it had been destroyed.
I called Harper to tell her the news.
“Oh my God,” she said. “Is a man dead because of us?”
“Yes. Tha
t’s my short answer, yes. A man is dead because of us. We were apparently not supposed to get this far. One thing is for sure, somebody is going to great lengths to try to cover all of this up.”
Harper was quiet on the other end of the line. “I feel so bad. I really liked that guy. Not to mention the fact that he’s been a very good expert witness for us over the years. Now, what are we going to do? How are we going to prove the truth?”
“The same way we always do. With the rest of our evidence. We issue some subpoenas of key people in the Osiris company, and break them down on the stand. Methodically. I’m also going to have to at least try to show the judge that internal memos from the Osiris company would be relevant, although that’s a long shot. Without showing that that drug was tainted, I just don’t see how we can possibly subpoena any kind of documents from Osiris. We’re going to be lucky if we can get top officials from Osiris to testify in court. I expect lots of stonewalling on this. After all, if the company is willing to kill somebody to protect their secret, whatever that secret happens to be, they’re going to go to great lengths to make sure that they don’t have to appear in court to answer questions. But I’m going to make them. I’ll fight, tooth and nail, any motion that they make to quash a subpoena. And I know that the main person I want to get into court is that damn Robert Dunham. Dr. Dunham’s brother. I just have a feeling that he is the key to this, but it’s more than him. I just have a feeling that this whole thing goes right to the highest levels. And I’m eager to show just how high up it goes.”
The good thing was that I now had a very clear path on how I could defend my mother. And, if it worked, I would not only get her off scot free, but I would hopefully see that an entire industry would be put on trial. The pharmaceutical industry.
It was going to be one of the more important cases of my entire career.
Chapter 26
March 15, First Day of Trial
It was the first day of trial, and I wasn’t really all that nervous because I had figured out exactly what happened in this case. Whether or not I was going to be able to prove it was another story. However, I knew how this case was going to go, and that’s what was important.
The prosecutor in this case was Kevin Williams. He was a thirtysomething black man, known for sharp dressing and even sharper cross-examination skills. One thing was for sure, he was going to be a formidable foe. He wasn’t going to give me any quarter, which was made clear when I tried to get him to drop the case once I got my mother’s records that showed that she had been sick when she took the first drug tests and taking an antibiotic that was well-known for causing false positives on such tests.
“Sorry, Damien, no can do. I can’t drop the charges against your mother, because the chances of a false positive on the drug test are infinitesimal, and I think you know that. Besides, I’m under orders from people higher up that I can’t do anything with your mom’s case. Don’t ask me anything more than that.” Kevin leaned back in his chair, and raised his eyebrows. I got the message. This guy, the prosecutor’s office, for some reason, was going to prosecute my mom to the extent of the law. I had no idea why.
But, over the months, I figured it out. I had uncovered what I saw was a vast conspiracy. There was something that was rotten in the state of Denmark, for sure, on this case.
I waited for my mom in front of the courthouse. She was running late, and I was getting annoyed. Harper was standing right next to me on the sidewalk, clutching her briefcase. As for me, I had boxes and boxes of documents that were on a wheeled cart. I managed to get documents for just about everything in this case, along with depositions from all the key players.
I felt as ready as I could be, but I was still slightly apprehensive. After all, this was the life of my mother on the line. Granted, she wasn’t much of a mother, and she never was. But, she was still blood. She was still beloved by my two kids, so I knew that Nate and Amelia would be devastated beyond measure if she went to prison for any length of time. So, I had to think about them. I had to give this case my all.
This was especially true because I was at a point with Nate where things could get better, or get much, much worse. Because Dr. Jordan, my appointed therapist, made it clear that I was going to have to get a prescription for antidepressants for Nate, I did go ahead and do that. I got a prescription for Prozac for him, but I never gave him any of them. I was just going to wait and see if he could pull out of his depression without them.
He was doing just that. He was getting better and better, happier and happier. He was playing basketball on a weekly basis, and he was hanging out with his friend, Austin. The boy who Amelia informed me was Nate’s boyfriend.
The thing of that was, Nate never told me in his own words that he was gay. And I had never brought the subject up to him, because I figured that if he wanted to tell me, he would tell me. In my eyes, it was simple as that. As for Harper, she knew about Nate, because of my blurting it out to her over the phone that one night. She had never brought up the subject, either. I would imagine that her reasoning for not bringing it up to me was the same reason why I didn’t bring it up to Nate – she figured that if I wanted to talk about it, I was going to talk about it.
The upshot was that nobody was talking about anything. I thought that the whole thing with Nate was fragile, and dependent upon external forces over which I had zero control. His mental health seemed to be dependent upon his continued success on the basketball court, and his continued apparent relationship with Austin. I felt like I was constantly holding my breath, waiting for the next shoe to drop. Waiting for Nate to go back into his depressed, sullen state, which was likely to happen if there was a falling out with him and Austin or if he got benched on the basketball court.
I didn’t like it that I felt that he was not relying on his inner fortitude for his happiness. If there was one thing I had learned over my life, it’s that, if you rely on external forces for your happiness, you’re on a very fragile platform.
I felt that Nate was right there, on the precipice, ready to fall off.
So, it was more important than ever that I made sure that my mom did not serve a prison sentence. Yet, the prosecutor’s office was determined to make her do just that. They were determined to make her pay for what was not an accidental overdose, but, as Sally Wallace had intuited, was a deliberate act of sabotage. That was made clear when the test results of the Oxycontin that I had sent to Dr. Dudley came back showing that the Oxycontin pill had indeed contained pure heroin.
Of course, I was never able to actually prove to the prosecutors that the pill had contained pure heroin. That secret died with Dr. Dudley. I also was not able to subpoena the internal memos of Osiris pharmaceutical company, let alone the pharmaceutical company that Dr. Dudley worked for, Anastas. I tried to subpoena both companies, but the judge did not allow either subpoena. The companies were able to successfully show that their internal memos on the topic of Dr. Dunham’s pioneering pain management system were private and confidential, and, since I didn’t have enough relevant information to make either company a party to the case, the memos were beyond the scope of evidence that the judge was willing to allow.
It was frustrating, because I was hitting walls at every turn. I was able to subpoena Sharita Vance and Robert Dunham to come and testify in court, however. I presented to the judge the theory that I was working on that the Oxycontin sample that was consumed by Dr. Dunham was tainted, so I told the judge that was my theory of the case, and he allowed subpoenas of Sharita and Robert. He would not allow the memos to be subpoenaed from them, because that was privileged information, but he did allow subpoenas for testimony. So, I at least had that.
And I knew exactly where I was going to hit them. What questions I was going to ask them. Yes, I was going to put them on trial, but not just them. I was also going to put the pharmaceutical companies in general on trial, in a very deft way. As long as the judge allowed me enough rope, and allowed my leash to go as far as it could, I felt confident I w
ould be able to overcome the long odds in this case.
My mom was still nervous. “Damien, I don’t know why you don’t look more scared crapless. I’m about ready to pee my pants. Yet, there you are, standing there just like an oak tree. How do you do it?”
I had to admit, that for her, she was looking pretty good. Her hair was back to its usual dark color, with gray roots, and she had put on a few pounds in the last few months. She told me that was from stress eating, but, quite frankly, I thought that she looked better with a few extra pounds. She was just too skinny before.
“Mom, I’m not as confident as I look. Not at all. I mean, I’m reasonably sure about what happened in this case, and who is responsible for the death of Dr. Dunham. But one thing is for sure, the prosecutor is not going to go easy on you. Again, I don’t really know why. I mean I understand exactly why it was that Dr. Dunham overdosed. But I don’t really know why the prosecutor is choosing to go so hard on you. Except to say that putting the heat on you takes the heat off of the real person who is behind all of this. And that person happens to be somebody of means, a lot of means, and I highly suspect that some money changed hands in the prosecutor’s office. I certainly cannot say for sure, but that’s my suspicion.”
“Well, Damien, if those prosecutors have such a hard-on for me, what makes you think the judge won’t too? What makes you think I’m going to get a fair trial no matter what? Tell me that, and I’ll calm down just a little bit. But if you can’t tell me that, then I’m going to continue to crap my pants. I’m scared, Damien. I’m scared of spending the rest of my life in the joint for something I had nothing to do with.”
Harper put her arm around my mom. “Olivia, we can’t assure you that you’re going to be acquitted. But we can do the best job possible. Now, Damien was able to subpoena some key witnesses in this case, and they’re probably going to lie on the stand. But if Damien can get the story out there, even if the witnesses do lie on the stand, then he will have done his job. And that’s important. It’s important that he can show reasonable doubt. He doesn’t have to prove anything on that stand, just put reasonable doubt in the jury’s mind.”
Until Proven Guilty Page 16
