Murder, She Wrote: Prescription For Murder

by Jessica Fletcher

  “And you believed those leaks?”

  “I did. You might also have noticed that Alvaro Vasquez was a charming, manipulative man.”

  “Charming? Yes,” I said. “Manipulative? I wouldn’t know about that.”

  “Take my word for it,” Peters said angrily. He made a fist and rammed it into the palm of his other hand. “I trusted him,” he growled. “I had to. So much depended upon his research providing a leap forward. If he’d found a definite link between how glucose influenced brain cells and Alzheimer’s, and had come up with a way to reverse it, it could have led to a cure, with K-Dex leading the way. Think about what that would mean to millions of people, Mrs. Fletcher. I never stopped thinking about it.”

  I thought for a moment that Peters might break into tears.

  “Let’s get back to his laptop,” Seth said. “Surely it wasn’t the only documentation of his research and the progress he’d made.”

  “I’ve been led to believe that it was,” Peters said ruefully.

  “What about Dr. Sardina?” I asked. “Would he know where it is?”

  Peters’s sad expression turned angry again. “I trust Dr. Sardina as far as I can throw him, the little weasel.”

  His harsh statement lingered in the air, and neither Seth nor I responded.

  “I was questioning Sardina when you arrived. He’s an arrogant young man, that’s for sure. He claims that Vasquez kept him uninformed about how his work contributed to the big picture and that Al kept the overall progress reports to himself. Sardina would work on a specific project, give the results to Al, and that’s the last he’d hear about it. When I asked him about the laptop, he told me that Al kept it under lock and key and took it home with him every night.”

  “Then that’s probably where it is,” I said.

  “I can only hope, but I’m not sure I believe him. Of course, it might all be a moot point, depending upon how far along Al was. If he hadn’t achieved the sort of results he was always promising, his progress reports won’t be worth diddly.”

  There were other questions on my mind at that moment, all of them pertaining to why a businessman like Bernard Peters would enter into such a loose and problematic business arrangement with Vasquez. Of course, there undoubtedly were legal documents cementing Peters’s interest in Vasquez’s work. At least I hoped there were, for his sake.

  “Have you gone to the house to see if the laptop is there?” I asked.

  “I called and spoke to Al’s daughter, Maritza.”

  “She’s here?” Seth said.

  “She just arrived from Cuba.”

  It had been in the back of my mind that the Vasquezes’ daughter had not accompanied her parents to Tampa. I remembered a conversation Seth and I had had shortly after we’d learned that Al had asked the United States for asylum.

  “The newspaper said that both he and his wife defected,” I’d said. “Do they have any children?”

  “Oh, they do,” Seth had replied, “a son and a daughter. I met them when I was in Cuba.”

  “They didn’t defect?”

  Seth had hesitated before answering, and I’d wondered why.

  “It’s a bone of contention with Al and his wife,” he’d finally said. “Really none of my business. His son came to the States more than a year ago, which didn’t sit well with his folks. The daughter is in medical school and refused to leave Havana. You know how families can be. Kids have minds of their own.”

  “Where does his son live?” I’d asked.

  “In Tampa. He’d gone to Miami from Cuba, according to Al, but moved to Tampa not long after he arrived in the States. I imagine that played a role in Al’s decision to settle there.”

  “So the parents and son are reunited,” I’d said.

  “Seems so,” Seth had said. “I’m sure that pleases Al and his wife.”

  “I would imagine it does,” I had replied at the time.

  But the prickly relationship between father and son that I had witnessed at the party made me wonder whether Al had regretted moving to live near his offspring. Perhaps the decision had been made because Ivelisse was close to her son, but choosing to live near one child came at a cost. Her daughter had remained in Cuba. The Vasquezes had never returned to their homeland. How long had it been since they’d seen Maritza?

  “What did you say to Maritza?” I asked Peters.

  “I expressed my condolences, of course, and I asked whether I could come to examine some of Al’s belongings but didn’t get anywhere. She said that her mother was in no condition to have visitors and that I should call back in a day or two.”

  Peters was obviously distraught, and I wasn’t sure we should go through with plans to have lunch with him, but he settled it when he said, “Look, I have to cancel our lunch plans. I’m meeting with my attorneys to see if they can come up with a way to untangle this mess. If we can’t, the company stands to go under. We’ll do it another time.”

  “Of course,” Seth said.

  Peters went to his car and drove off, leaving us to decide what to do next.

  “I suppose we should go back inside and talk to Dr. Sardina,” I suggested.

  Sardina was still at the computer when we walked in.

  “Hope we’re not disturbing anything important,” Seth said.

  Sardina looked up and shook his head.

  “Mr. Peters has left,” I said.

  “Good,” was Sardina’s reply.

  “We were talking about Dr. Vasquez’s laptop computer, the one he used to keep track of progress,” I said. “Did you help him input lab results?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

  A rare laugh came from him. “Me? I think he would have chopped off my arm if he’d seen me go near that laptop.”

  “He let me take a look a few times,” Seth offered.

  “I know,” Sardina said. “He evidently trusted you more than he trusted me.”

  His bitterness was palpable.

  “I’m sure he trusted you,” I said. “After all, you worked side by side with him every day.”

  “Need to know,” Sardina said. “That was his favorite saying, need to know. He told me just enough to keep me interested. I should have left ages ago.”

  His anger permeated the lab.

  “Apparently, he didn’t share any more information with Mr. Peters,” I said. “He said if he can’t find the laptop, the company will be ruined.”

  “Don’t you worry about him,” Sardina said sourly. “Bernie Peters ain’t goin’ to be missing any meals anytime soon,” he said, putting on a southern accent.

  “We understood the company invested millions of dollars in Dr. Vasquez’s work and this laboratory,” I said. “That’s a lot to lose.”

  “And don’t forget his home on Davis Island, and his boat, and all the other perks the great doctor received.”

  It was clear to me that Dr. Sardina had not been on the receiving end of any extra benefits and was resentful. “Don’t you think those losses will affect K-Dex and Bernie Peters?”

  “They would if they weren’t well insured.”

  “What do you mean?” Seth put in.

  “Peters had key-man insurance on Vasquez. Anything happens to him, the company recoups all its investments and Peters himself walks away with a tidy sum.”

  Seth pursed his lips and whistled. “Did Al know about this?”

  “If I know, he knew,” Sardina replied.

  “Is this what you wanted to talk to me about?” Seth asked. “You called and said you wanted to get together.”

  Sardina pressed his lips together and stared at the computer screen. He then looked at me.

  “Anything you want to say to me can be said with Mrs. Fletcher present,” Seth said.

  Sardina looked directly at Seth and said, “How much do you know about Alvaro’s researc
h?”

  “Some,” Seth said, “but from what he told me, he was about to reach a major advance, one that could lead to new pathways for drug trials.”

  Sardina’s smile was small but said volumes.

  “Tell you what, Dr. Hazlitt. You buy me a nice lunch and I’ll tell you things about Dr. Alvaro Vasquez that I’m sure he never told you about himself.”

  Chapter Ten

  Sardina drove us to a strip mall on the outskirts of Tampa and pulled in front of a restaurant whose sign promised an Asian buffet. “Hope you like Chinese food,” he said as we entered the large, busy place and found an isolated table away from others. “I come here a lot. Good food, reasonable prices.”

  We took turns going through the multitude of hot and cold buffet lines, one of us staying behind to secure the table while the others filled their plates. Once we were all seated with our food, Sardina said, “I’ll tell you right off the bat that I was no fan of Dr. Vasquez.”

  “I sorta gathered that,” Seth said.

  “Don’t misunderstand,” Sardina said. “I’m sorry that he’s dead.”

  “Yes, I’m sure you are,” I said. “How long had you worked for him?”

  “A little over a year. I can’t believe I stayed as long as I did.”

  “You indicated back at the lab that you wished you’d left a long time ago,” Seth said.

  “That’s right.” He tasted a few items on his plate before continuing. “Dr. Vasquez—he told everybody to call him Al, but not me; with me it was always Dr. Vasquez, very formal.” He said the name again, this time with disgust. “Yes, I should have left long ago. No, I never should have gone to work for him in the first place.”

  “How did you meet him?” I asked.

  “I knew him in Cuba, Mrs. Fletcher. We didn’t work together there. He was into his research, and I—well, I’m not a medical doctor. I have a PhD in infectious diseases. We ran into each other now and then. Dr. Vasquez—” He grinned. “Now that he’s gone, maybe I can call him Al like everyone else. Al was in favor with the Castro regime, got plenty of perks because of it. Ofelia and I were invited to a couple of parties at his house. Nice place—not what he has here, but a lot better than where we lived.”

  “I visited Al’s home in Cuba, too,” Seth said.

  “He told me that you did.” Sardina looked at Seth quizzically. “You and he really struck up a friendship, didn’t you?”

  “Pleased and honored to say that we did.”

  “He thought a lot of you.”

  Seth nodded, struggling to keep his emotions in check.

  “How did both of you end up in Tampa?” I interjected, giving Seth a chance to compose himself.

  Sardina turned his attention to me. “Ofelia and I left a few months before Al and Ivelisse defected. We attended a conference in London and came here instead of returning home. That was before the government put a tourniquet on foreign travel. We were lucky to get out.”

  “If the government further tightened restrictions on travel after you left, how was Dr. Vasquez able to make his escape?”

  “Al had connections,” he said, and stopped.

  I had the feeling that he wanted to say more but was editing himself. I asked a different question. “Why did you decide to come to work for Dr. Vasquez?”

  “Necessity. I thought once we got to the States, I wouldn’t have a problem finding work in my field. Well, I was wrong. As much as Cubans have assimilated into U.S. society, it doesn’t mean we’re welcomed with open arms. My degrees weren’t recognized here, and all I could manage to find was a low-level job in a lab at a university. It didn’t pay much, and I had a run-in with my supervisor, who knew less than half of what I know and refused to listen to my suggestions. It was around that time that Al called and asked if I wanted to work with him on his Alzheimer’s research. I jumped at the chance. He was paying a lot more than the job I had. Besides, working on finding a cure for a major disease was really appealing. The reality turned out to be less so.”

  He seemed to be collecting his thoughts, and we ate in silence until he spoke again.

  “Al—” He chuckled. “I can’t get used to calling him that. Dr. Vasquez was—how can I put it?—he was not an honest man.”

  “In what way?” I asked.

  “In every aspect of his life.”

  I could feel Seth, who was sitting next to me, stiffen. I put my hand on his arm to keep him from blowing up. “That’s quite a condemnation,” I said.

  “And a truthful one, Mrs. Fletcher. Alvaro Vasquez was a smooth con man. I’m sure you saw that the few times you were with him. He lied to everybody—me, his wife, his kids, and especially Mr. Peters.”

  “Did he lie about how his research was going?” I asked, glancing at Seth to gauge his reaction to what Sardina was saying. Seth had had nothing but praise for Vasquez, personally and professionally, and I knew it must have hurt to hear his friend disparaged like this.

  “I’m afraid so,” was Sardina’s reply.

  “Now, hold on a second,” Seth said, dropping his fork noisily onto his almost empty plate. “I’d like to know what you base that on.”

  Sardina, sensing Seth’s pique, held up his hands in mock defense of himself. “Please don’t misunderstand, Dr. Hazlitt,” he said. “I know that you and he were friends.”

  “I’m not talking about our friendship,” Seth said. “I’m talking about his research. Are you claiming that he wasn’t honest about his research, that he lied about it?”

  “Yes, sir, I am.”

  “But how could you know?” Seth paused and then continued. “You told us back at the lab that you weren’t privy to how the research was progressing, that you only knew bits and pieces on, as you put it, a need-to-know basis.”

  “That’s true,” Sardina said, “but that doesn’t mean that I was completely ignorant about the bigger picture. I hated the way Al strung Mr. Peters along, always asking for more money for a new phase of the research even when there wasn’t a new phase. I was with him plenty of times when he did it. He’d get more money from Mr. Peters, and when he left, Al would laugh about it.”

  “I’m shocked to hear this,” Seth said, and his face reflected his anguish. I wondered whether he was thinking the same thing I was, that what Sardina was saying didn’t necessarily represent the truth. After all, Peters had said that he didn’t trust the young researcher. We were hearing one side, and I’ve always believed in waiting to hear both sides before coming to a conclusion. Of course, the “other side” of the story was Dr. Vasquez, and he wasn’t in any position to refute Sardina’s claims.

  I wondered whether there was more to Sardina’s negative view of Vasquez, perhaps a personal motive. I decided to ask.

  “What about Dr. Vasquez’s personal life?”

  The question came to mind because of what Dr. San Martín had told us about the circumstances of Vasquez’s death. It certainly wasn’t a new thought for me. It had been rattling around in my brain since our meeting with the medical examiner. If Vasquez hadn’t died of a lightning strike, and since the autopsy had revealed what Seth considered an almost impossible circumstance—a sudden and total collapse of Vasquez’s respiratory system—there was the possibility of foul play. I hated to even consider that option, but it couldn’t be ruled out.

  “What do you mean?” Sardina asked.

  “He seemed to be a pleasant, well-liked man,” I said. “Did he make enemies?”

  “According to him, he had enemies from Cuba threatening to scuttle our work. That’s why we were locked up tighter than a drum. Frankly, I think he just didn’t want anyone else to discover what he was really about.” Sardina motioned for a waitress to bring the check.

  “Did he have personal enemies, as well? People without a nationalistic motive?”

  Sardina snorted. “Let me just say that there wasn’t a woman w
ho was safe from his advances. I often think that his infatuation with Ofelia was why he hired me in the first place. He didn’t make any bones about being attracted to her, and she’s had to fend him off more than once. I imagine there were a lot of men who took a dislike to Alvaro Vasquez.”

  I thought back to the way Vasquez had tutored me on the golf course, pressing in close as he instructed me.

  I grabbed the check when it was delivered by a pretty young Asian waitress, waving off Sardina’s and Seth’s offers to pay. “Let me,” I said.

  When we were in Sardina’s car, he asked where he could drive us.

  “Our hotel, if you don’t mind,” Seth said.

  “Yes. That would be helpful,” I said to Sardina. “I have a call to make,” I reminded Seth, referring to the message Oona Mendez had left on the answering machine of the phone in my hotel room.

  “I have some calls to make, too,” Seth replied.

  Sardina dropped us off in front of the hotel, but before he left, Seth leaned into the car through the open front window. “Mind a bit of advice?”

  “Go ahead,” Sardina said.

  “I suggest that you keep your negative comments about Al to yourself. The man is dead and can’t defend himself. He deserves your respect.”

  If Seth’s harsh words impacted Sardina, he hid his reaction well. He simply said, “The truth is always hurtful, Dr. Hazlitt. I’m sorry if I’ve upset you.”

  Chapter Eleven

  I called Oona Mendez when I got to my room and arranged to meet her at King Corona, a café in Ybor City on East Seventh Avenue. Before leaving, I called Seth and told him where I was going.

  “Did she say what she wants?” he asked.

  “I’ll know soon enough. Have you had a chance to digest what we heard at lunch today?”