House Blood - JD 7

by Mike Lawson

  The doctor, a man named Reynolds, was a handsome man in his forties with an abundance of curly dark hair and Cupid’s bow lips. He reeked of arrogance. Emma imagined that all his life he’d been told what a fine-looking, brilliant fellow he was.

  “I want to know,” Emma said, “if Mulray Pharma needed autopsy results to establish the efficacy of the drug they developed.”

  “Probably,” Reynolds said, but before Emma could ask him to explain himself, he added, “All I know for sure is that Orson Mulray is going to become a very, very wealthy man. For the next five years other companies won’t be able to infringe on whatever patents he has and won’t be able to make a generic version of the drug, and during that period he’ll be able to set the price at any amount he desires.” Emma started to tell him that she didn’t care about how rich Mulray was going to become, but the doctor pulled a calculator from his desk.

  “Let’s say he sets the initial price for treatments at, oh, three hundred dollars a month.”

  “You think people would pay that much?”

  The doctor laughed. “At one time, men were willing to pay more than four hundred dollars for thirty Levitra capsules.”

  “Levitra?”

  “A drug for erectile dysfunction,” Reynolds said. “Anyway, let’s say Mulray charges three hundred for a month’s supply of the drug. I think three hundred is a good number because although that amount seems high it won’t be out of reach for a lot of people, and maybe their health insurance will help with the cost. Let’s also assume he’s able to prevent other companies from producing a similar drug for at least five years so no one else shares in the profits. Now, there are approximately one hundred and twenty million people in the United States over the age of fifty, and let’s assume that just one fifth of them can afford the drug either on their own or with the help of their insurance companies.” The doctor’s long fingers began tapping the buttons on his calculator. “One hundred twenty million divided by five times three hundred dollars times twelve months times five years that’s … four hundred and thirty billion dollars. Just in this country. The worldwide population is over six billion people and, just for the sake of argument, let’s assume that only one percent of them can afford the drug.” He tapped again on his calculator. “That gives you over a trillion dollars in a five-year period. And, of course, people who are fifty today could take the drug for as many as twenty or thirty years if it’s effective or if they even think it’s effective.”

  “Don’t you have to take into account the amount it costs to manufacture the drug, marketing costs, those sorts of things?” Emma said.

  Reynolds waved the question away. “Those costs will be a fraction of the selling price.”

  Emma hadn’t thought about how much money Orson Mulray could make, but it had never occurred to her the amount could be so much. A trillion dollars. The number was mind-boggling. And Reynolds was right. Middle-class, middle-aged people who had seen parents and grandparents afflicted with Alzheimer’s would be willing to pay three hundred dollars a month to keep that from happening to themselves. Emma certainly would.

  “And I think,” the doctor said, “that the number of people who will pay for this drug worldwide will be much higher than one percent. For people over fifty it will be like having a personal computer; everyone that age will want it. And unlike computers and software, you can’t share a pill with other people, so what I’m saying is, if you think Bill Gates is a rich man …”

  “We’re getting off the subject,” Emma said. “Tell me about the disease and if autopsy results would be needed to determine if the drug is effective.”

  “Alzheimer’s,” Reynolds said, “is named for Alois Alzheimer, a German physician who identified the disease in 1906. It is a progressive disease—meaning that the symptoms grow worse over time—and it’s ultimately fatal. Recent studies indicate that over five million Americans have the disease today and that fifty to eighty percent of the people described as having dementia actually have Alzheimer’s. It is the seventh-leading cause of death in this country.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Emma said, “but what causes it?”

  “I’ll keep this simple,” the doctor said—a comment which made Emma grit her teeth. “There are two abnormal protein structures called plaques and tangles which damage and kill nerve cells in the brain. The plaques build up between nerve cells and contain deposits of a protein fragment called beta-amyloid. Tangles are twisted fibers of another protein called tau, and the tangles form inside dying cells. Now, most people develop some plaques and tangles as they age—which is what will make Mulray’s drug so appealing—but those with Alzheimer’s tend to develop far more of them, and they form in areas affecting learning and memory, block communication among nerve cells, and disrupt activities that cells need to survive.”

  “I see,” Emma said, “but you still haven’t answered my question. Would Mulray need autopsy results?”

  “I’m sure Dr. Ballard would,” Reynolds said. “He’d want to look directly at the brain to determine if his drug was inhibiting the growth of the proteins I mentioned. But he obviously has some noninvasive way of telling if the drug is working.”

  “Why obviously?”

  “If looking directly at the brain was the only way to determine the efficacy of the drug then Ballard would need a baseline, if you will. What I mean is, he’d have to slice the brain open before he administered the drug, then slice it open again after a few months of treatment to study progress, and he clearly didn’t do that. The people in these Warwick Care Centers weren’t operated on, as far as I know. So Ballard has some way of telling if the drug was working via the biological samples and tests he performed during the clinical trials, and he later used autopsy results to validate his conclusions.”

  Emma shook her head. “It sounds to me like you don’t really know what Ballard did.”

  Reynolds looked irritated; he didn’t like Emma pointing out that he wasn’t omniscient. “You’re right, I don’t—and neither does anyone else. My colleagues and I are all playing catch-up. I learned about this new drug the same day the public did and, of course, I don’t have access to Ballard’s research. So, you’re right. I don’t know exactly what Ballard did to prove the effectiveness of the drug and I’m sure he was anxious to get autopsy results, but there’s no reason to believe anyone was murdered to provide test data.”

  What planet do you live on? Emma wondered. There were a trillion reasons to believe people may have been murdered. And she recalled reading that in the 1940s, black soldiers in the United States were intentionally given syphilis to prove that penicillin was an effective cure. It wasn’t all that hard to imagine a drug company killing a few elderly people to test a drug that would make some people billionaires.

  “But if people were murdered, is there any way we can prove it?” Emma asked.

  “Well, I don’t think you can,” the doctor said, making sure Emma understood that he had no intention of being part of her investigation. “I’m sure the doctor in Thailand who administered the clinical trials will have paperwork from certified pathologists showing that people died of natural causes. If a pathologist suspected homicide, then he might test for exotic poisons, but why would he be suspicious? As Orson Mulray said, there’s nothing abnormal about an old person dying.

  “So, Emma, if Mulray Pharma killed people to provide data to support Ballard’s research, the only way you’re ever going to know for sure is if someone confesses.”

  DeMarco was standing on the top rung of a six-foot stepladder, cleaning gunk out of his rain gutters, when Emma arrived at his house. It had rained the night before and when he noticed water cascading down onto his front porch like a miniature Niagara Falls, it occurred to him that he hadn’t cleaned out the gutters in quite some time and the downspouts were probably blocked with leaves. And they were—but the leaves were no longer leaves. They were a smelly, bug
-infested, decomposing mass.

  “I guess you heard about Lizzie Warwick,” he said. He could imagine how she must be feeling about Lizzie’s death.

  “Yes, and I don’t want to talk about it,” Emma said. She then told him she had just come from seeing a doctor who was an expert on Alzheimer’s and relayed to DeMarco what the doctor had told her. As she was talking, he continued to drop handfuls of nasty plant matter onto the ground below him. She finally said, “Get down off that damn ladder before you kill yourself and pay attention.”

  They went into the house, and after he washed his hands, he said, “So we gotta squeeze a confession out of somebody.”

  “Yes,” Emma said—and from her tone he could tell that she hadn’t excluded waterboarding. “Are you going to help me?”

  “You know I am.” There was no point reminding Emma that this was his case and not hers. “And I’m still going to get Brian Kincaid out of prison.” DeMarco paused for a beat, then said, “The way I see it, there are two guys we can squeeze. Hobson or Nelson.”

  “How would we squeeze Hobson?”

  “We can threaten to report him for income tax evasion like Neil said, then offer him a deal to admit he framed Kincaid and conspired to kill Downing, then use him to go after Mulray Pharma.”

  “Tax evasion. Big deal,” Emma said. “He’d probably just get a fine and be ordered to pay back taxes. He’s not going to confess to murder to avoid a slap on the wrist. Forget Hobson. The person to go after is Nelson. He’s a paraplegic facing a prison sentence and he may be willing to trade information for a deal to stay out of jail. But that means we need someone to influence the person prosecuting Nelson. Someone who can make the prosecutor promise Nelson a deal if he talks about Mulray Pharma or can promise to make his life as miserable as possible if he refuses to talk. In other words—and I can’t believe I’m saying this—we need Mahoney.”

  Mahoney was three sheets to the wind when DeMarco met with him.

  A congressman had died, a fellow Democrat from Massachusetts named Callahan. While Callahan was alive, Mahoney rarely had a kind thing to say about the man. He had called Callahan a “righteous, mealymouthed little turd” and said he should have been a priest instead of a politician. DeMarco judged from these comments that Callahan had ethical qualms about some of the things that Mahoney did or wanted him to do. Whatever their past relationship, Mahoney went to Callahan’s wake, which was being held at an Irish pub on Capitol Hill, and DeMarco had no doubt that Mahoney gave an eloquent eulogy and lied about how much he had admired the man.

  When DeMarco entered the pub, Mahoney had one thick arm around the shoulders of Callahan’s chief of staff, a woman named Allison Bridge. Bridge was in her forties, had short blonde hair, a pleasant face, and a marvelous figure for a mother of three. The few times DeMarco had encountered Bridge in the past, she’d come across as cold, calculating, and manipulative—in other words, a perfect political chief of staff. Tonight, however, it looked as if she had had more than a few drinks to help her cope with the passing of her employer—and probably the loss of her job; her cheeks were flushed and she seemed unsteady on her feet. And naturally, Mahoney—being Mahoney—was trying to take advantage of the situation.

  As DeMarco approached Mahoney, he heard him say to Bridge, “Yeah, I loved Dick, loved him like a brother. I’m gonna miss him like a, like a … like a brother.”

  DeMarco rolled his eyes, then tapped Mahoney on the shoulder and said, “I need to talk to you. It’s important.”

  Mahoney scowled and said, “Well, whatever it is, it’ll wait until tomorrow. I’m busy now.”

  “Mavis said you’re going out of town tomorrow.”

  “Oh, yeah, that’s right,” Mahoney said. “Then whatever it is will have to wait until I get back.” Mahoney pulled Allison Bridge closer and said, “Did I ever tell you about the time Dick and I—”

  “Sir,” DeMarco said, “it’s about the thing with Brian Kincaid. It’s a big deal.”

  “Aw, for Christ’s sake,” Mahoney grumped. To Bridge, he said, “Stay here, sweetheart. I’ll be right back.” To DeMarco he said, “Let’s go outside. And, goddamnit, this had better be good.”

  DeMarco knew Mahoney wanted to go outside so he could smoke a cigar. He about went nuts when the District passed laws outlawing smoking inside restaurants and bars and—in an under-the-table way—had tried his best to get the laws rescinded. It wasn’t Mahoney’s only political failure but, because it affected him personally, it bothered him more than some other battles he’d lost.

  Once they were out on the sidewalk in front of the pub, Mahoney handed DeMarco the shot glass of Jameson’s he’d been holding so he could ignite his cigar. When the tip of the stogie was blazing, he took the glass back from DeMarco and drained it. “So now what is it?” he said.

  Knowing how short Mahoney’s attention span could be, particularly when there was a semidrunk and vulnerable woman to pursue, DeMarco quickly told Mahoney how he needed his help to squeeze a confession out of Nelson.

  When he finished, Mahoney muttered, “I could have made a ton of money if I’d bought Mulray stock when this whole thing started.” DeMarco didn’t know what to say to that and before he could think of anything, Mahoney said, “Okay. I’ll call the guy tomorrow, before I leave.”

  DeMarco wanted to say, Are you sure you’ll remember to call? But he didn’t. He did wonder, however, if Simon Ballard could invent a pill to reduce the number of Mahoney’s brain cells that died each time he attended a wake.

  36

  DeMarco met with the Arlington County prosecutor in the cafeteria of the hospital where Nelson was being treated—and held captive. To DeMarco’s amazement, Mahoney had remembered to call the man.

  Charles Erhart was a short, chunky guy who compensated for his lack of stature with an aggressive chin and an even more aggressive attitude. As there was no reason to hold anything back from Erhart, DeMarco told him the whole story, concluding with, “So we think Mulray Pharma killed some people to test this new drug, that Brian Kincaid was framed, and that Nelson was in that liquor store to kill me. The only reason he didn’t was because an off-duty cop couldn’t make up his mind on what kind of wine to buy.”

  “Can you prove any of this?” Erhart said.

  “Nope, I can’t prove a thing,” DeMarco admitted. “But if you can offer Nelson a deal and get him to talk … Well, I’m guessing you can imagine the kind of headline that would generate.”

  What DeMarco meant was a headline that read: ARLINGTON PROSECUTOR EXPOSES PHARMACEUTICAL GIANT.

  Erhart waved the headline comment away as if his career prospects had nothing to do with his willingness to cooperate. He sipped his coffee and pretended to think things over a bit. “Well, if John Mahoney hadn’t called me, I’d probably find all this a bit, uh, unorthodox, but since he’s the one who asked me to help—”

  “Good,” DeMarco said, cutting Erhart off. “Let’s go talk to Nelson.”

  DeMarco wondered what Mahoney had promised Erhart. Help getting elected to Congress? Financial support for his next campaign? Whatever he promised, it was enough.

  Nelson was lying in bed when DeMarco and the prosecutor entered the room, and DeMarco noticed there was a chin-up bar above the bed and next to the bed was a wheelchair. Nelson had been in the hospital for almost a month and, at least from the waist up, looked okay. He wasn’t connected to an oxygen tank and they weren’t dripping fluids into him from a bag. The angle of the bed was tilted so Nelson was in a half-sitting position and the television was on with the volume turned down low. Nelson was watching a bass fishing show.

  DeMarco had seen Nelson only briefly that day in the liquor store and he didn’t know if Nelson had weighed more before he was shot, but the man lying in the bed was a powerful-looking man—broad shoulders, ropy muscles in his neck and arms. His dark hair was cut short on the top and
shaved down to stubble on the sides; his face was hard and unforgiving. DeMarco had a mental image of what a Delta Force soldier should look like—and Nelson fit the image. Even lying in a hospital bed, he gave off an aura of lethal competence.

  DeMarco could tell that Nelson recognized him, but he didn’t ask what DeMarco was doing there. He just glanced at his two visitors briefly, then swiveled his head back to the fishing show.

  “Mr. Nelson,” Erhart said, “my name is Charles Erhart and I’m the Arlington County prosecutor. You’ve been dealing with people on my staff until this point. I’m the boss, in other words, and I’m the man who will decide your fate.”

  Without looking at Erhart, Nelson said, “Get out of here.”

  “I’m willing to make you a deal,” Erhart said. “If you’ll confess to your role in Phil Downing’s death and tell me everything you did to help Mulray Pharma develop this new Alzheimer’s drug, I’ll keep you from going to jail. The fact is, no matter what you may have done, you’re a small fish and the people I really want are the executives at the Warwick Foundation and Mulray Pharma. But if you don’t confess, I’m going to see to it that you’re incarcerated in the worst hellhole in Virginia and the one that has the least accommodations for cripples.”

  Nelson’s jaw clenched when Erhart said cripples.

  “And I’ll make sure,” Erhart said, “that you get the maximum possible sentence under the sentencing guidelines, which means you’ll spend fifteen years in prison. Remember—you tried to kill a cop. So think about that, Nelson. Think about spending fifteen years in a cage and what the animals will do to a man in your condition.”

  Nelson didn’t respond. He just turned up the volume on the television and continued to watch the fishing show, acting as if DeMarco and Erhart weren’t in the room. After a moment, Erhart looked over at DeMarco and shrugged and they turned to leave. As they were leaving, they heard: “Bobby Ray, can you believe the size of that fish? My Lord, buddy, that baby must weigh seven pounds.”