Doubt (Caroline Auden Book 1) (8 page)

Still, a dozen hits marched down the page.

Navigating back to the obituaries, Caroline skimmed until she found the piece of information she needed: Yvonne’s middle name. It was Ophelia.

Caroline breathed an internal sigh of relief. The letter
O
was unusual enough to limit her results to probable hits.

Sure enough, a search for “Yvonne O. Heller” retrieved two dozen results, most of which discussed Dr. Heller’s death and all of which presumably related to the correct Yvonne Heller.

Caroline digested information as fast as her fingers could probe the corners of each hit. Yvonne had been born in Pasadena. She’d attended high school in Glendale. Her volunteer work at Children’s Hospital garnered the praise of the mayor and other civil leaders.

On the third page of search results, something caught Caroline’s eye: Yvonne O. Heller was a member of the American Institute of CPAs.

Accountants had offices. With phones.

Caroline’s fingers tingled. She was closing in on her prey.

She ran searches for “Yvonne O. Heller, CPA,” “Yvonne Heller, CPA,” and “Yvonne Heller, accountant.”

But she retrieved no hits. Instead, the only reference to “Yvonne O. Heller, CPA,” outside of the AICPA directory itself, was a mention of a seminar a year ago at Claremont McKenna College’s economics and accounting department. Yvonne had sat as a panelist discussing the usefulness of accounting degrees in running small businesses. Yvonne didn’t have an accounting practice anymore. If she ever had.

Caroline sat back and considered how to find another point of entry into Yvonne’s life. Where did Yvonne live? Dine? Play? Who were her friends?

Caroline knew how to find out all of those things: Facebook.

She began with the obvious avenue of attack: Yvonne’s user profile.

As expected, Yvonne had set her privacy settings so that only her friends could view her personal information.

It was time to get creative.

Caroline navigated to Facebook’s home page.

The social networking site asked if she wanted to log in to an existing account or create a new one. She opted for the latter. Then she contemplated what to name her alias. She decided on Taylor Albert. A good gender-ambiguous name that would broaden the pool of potential faces to whom Yvonne might attach the name.

Now Caroline just needed to set up a false e-mail address and fill in the details on the profile, constructing a false identity, the plausibility of which Yvonne would justify for herself.

What kind of stranger would Yvonne accept as a friend? The wife of another research scientist? A neighbor?

Suddenly, a better idea occurred to Caroline.

With rapid keystrokes, she filled in the profile. Taylor Albert would be twenty-one, have graduated from Claremont McKenna College, and be pursuing a career in accounting. He’d like a half dozen accounting pages and organizations, including the Seminars and Speakers Series on the college’s Facebook page.

Now the last step: Taylor Albert needed some friends. Caroline didn’t have time to write her own code, so she navigated to blackhatbots.com to grab the latest Facebook account-creator bot. She loaded Facebook Flooder and set its parameters, and in moments, she had three dozen false Facebook identities with which to populate Taylor Albert’s friends page. Now Taylor would look like a real person instead of a hastily constructed tool designed for phishing.

It was time to bait the hook.

Taylor Albert sent a friend request to Yvonne. If Yvonne probed to see who this stranger was who wanted to Internet-befriend her, she’d assume that he was just an earnest student who’d attended her seminar. Flattery would lead her to accept this stranger’s friend request.

Fifteen minutes later, Caroline’s efforts were rewarded when Yvonne accepted the request. Now Caroline had access to Yvonne’s pictures, timelines, favorite websites, and, most importantly, her personal information, including her mobile phone number.

Grabbing her phone before her nerves could prevent her, Caroline dialed.

A woman’s round, rich alto answered.

Having used subterfuge to find Yvonne’s number, Caroline opted for honesty in her approach to the widow.

“Please pardon the intrusion,” she began. “My name’s Caroline Auden. I’m an attorney working on the
SuperSoy
case—”

“How did you get this number?” Yvonne asked, her tone so quick that Caroline winced, waiting for the click.

When Caroline didn’t hear one, she hurried onward. “I’m one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs.” At the silence on the line, she kept going. “Our case depends on something your husband wrote. I know that sounds a little dramatic, but it’s the truth.”

Heartened that Yvonne still hadn’t hung up, she got to the point of her call.

“We hoped you might know where we could find your husband’s article on SuperSoy,” she finished.

“I’m sorry, but I really can’t help you,” Yvonne said slowly. The venom had left her voice. Instead, her tone sounded almost . . . regretful.

An instinct tugged at Caroline, a shadow of an idea forming in the far corner of her mind.

“I would prefer that you not call me,” Yvonne said.

The silence hung between them, pregnant and potent.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Caroline said finally. “I won’t call again.”

Hanging up, Caroline pondered the strange conversation. Either Yvonne Heller was a complete freak or . . . or what?

The buzz of a cell phone startled Caroline.

She looked down at the caller. Daniel Hitchings. Her uncle.

Caroline groaned. She didn’t have time for his antics. But she’d promised her mother she’d look after him . . .

“Hey, Uncle Hitch,” she answered.

“I hate to bug you,” her uncle began, his voice gravelly and slurring.

Caroline resisted the urge to disagree.

“I just need you to lend me some money,” he said. “Your mom was supposed to leave me some cash, but she only left me five and I need another twenty dollars, plus fifty-three cents.”

“I’m not helping you buy vodka,” Caroline said.

“Who said anything about vodka, kiddo?”

“Grey Goose costs $25.53.” She’d seen the labels on his bottles. She knew the price.

“No, but I—”

“I’ll see you later,” Caroline said, hanging up.

She flushed with annoyance. She’d been to meetings. She knew alcoholism was an illness, blah, blah, blah. She knew she was supposed to let go of trying to fix her uncle’s disease. But she hated witnessing it. She just needed to move out of that house, with its echoes of her mother’s madness and her uncle’s death spiral into the alcoholic unknown.

The phone on the desk rang.

Gritting her teeth, Caroline answered, “I can’t believe you’re calling me on my work line—”

“Excuse me?” Silvia’s voice asked on the receiver.

“I’m so sorry,” Caroline backpedaled. “I thought you were someone else.”

“Apparently so.” Silvia chuckled.

Caroline thanked the law gods that she hadn’t yelled at Louis. She doubted he’d be as forgiving as her assistant.

“Louis is on the line. I’ll join the calls together now,” Silvia said. Without waiting for Caroline’s assent, the line clicked over, and Louis’s patrician voice came onto the line.

“I’d like for you to come with me to Las Vegas tomorrow morning,” he announced.

Caroline mentally replayed his words. What could possibly be in Las Vegas?

“The Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee is meeting there,” Louis said.

“Are there a lot of plaintiffs in Las Vegas?”

“No, there’s a lot of food. The attorneys on the Committee are all over the country. They meet in Las Vegas every few months to strategize. Their regular meeting was scheduled for this week. Now that our firm is helping out on the
Daubert
motion, they want me to attend. I’d like you to be there, too.”

Caroline warmed at the invitation. Perhaps she’d been wrong about Louis’s waning interest in her career. But then she eyed the pile of articles. How could she travel to Las Vegas and track down the Heller article and finish the outline? She had time for one task, maybe two. But not all three.

“I know I’ve given you quite a lot to do,” Louis continued, “so it’s your choice. This isn’t a command performance.”

“I’m happy to come,” Caroline said.

“Excellent,” Louis said, his tone leaving no doubt that she’d given the right answer. “Dale is curious to meet you. He’ll be interested to hear your view on the scientific evidence.”

Caroline made a mental note to reread all of her notes before she met Dale.

“Please have Silvia get you a ticket for the nine a.m. flight out of LAX on Southwest,” Louis said. “We’ll fly together so I can bring you up to speed on the dynamics with the Steering Committee.”

“Dynamics?”

“We must be sensitive to our position in this case. We aren’t members of the Committee. Instead, we’re rather like Dale’s subcontractors. We mustn’t forget that fact. We’re here to help the Committee, yes, but we’re also here to make Dale look good.” Louis paused and cleared his throat. “To that end, I’ve spoken with the Committee about our efforts to synthesize the existing scientific literature.”

“You mean my inferential reasoning argument?” Caroline asked, wondering why she hadn’t been invited to attend that call.

“Yes. Some members of the Committee see some merit in the argument. Others think we can beat Med-Gen’s motion by simply showing the proximity in time between ingestion of SuperSoy and kidney failure.”

“You mean Dale’s pet argument.”

“Correct,” Louis said. “Those who believe most strongly in that proximity-in-time argument are concerned that our inferential argument about the Feinberg, Ambrose, and Tercero articles will weaken our presentation.”

“But it’s better than nothing,” Caroline blurted.

“Yes, yes, I agree,” Louis said, his tone mollifying. “But I must say, I’m worried. I agree with the Committee that it isn’t very strong.”

“I’m still looking for that Heller article,” Caroline said. “If it’s out there, I will find it.”

“Fine, fine,” Louis said, and Caroline could imagine him waving an aristocratic hand around dismissively. “In the meanwhile, I’ve put together the rest of our
Daubert
brief using the various pieces that the Committee provided to me. Dale has asked that our shop handle the filing. That means I’ll need permission from the New York District Court. So please make getting my pro hac vice application filed a top priority.”

“Will do.”

“See you at the airport tomorrow morning,” Louis added, clicking off.

Caroline turned to her laptop.

She’d get Louis’s pro hac vice application filed.

She’d get her bags packed.

And then she’d find that article.

Since without it, nothing else on her schedule had much point at all.

CHAPTER 5

Two conversations had kept Caroline up, staring at her ceiling deep into the night.

The first was her conversation with Louis. She’d replayed it in her mind a dozen times, mining the words for hidden meaning. Every time, she came to the same conclusion: if she didn’t find the Heller article, Louis wouldn’t invite her to come to New York. He’d invited her to Las Vegas, yes, but that was a far cry from including her at the
Daubert
hearing. To solidify her place, she needed to produce something more than she’d produced so far.

The second worrisome conversation was the one she’d had with Yvonne Heller. Again, she heard it in her mind. The pauses. The subtext. The whole tone and tenor of the interaction carried some hidden meaning just beyond the edge of her comprehension. Like a splinter worrying its way up to the surface of her mind.

Unable to sleep, Caroline had arrived at the airport far earlier than she’d planned.

She found a spot near the tall windows fronting the runways, where she could watch the planes take off and land. Beside her, a group of travelers dragged matching rolling bags past the bank of orange plastic seats next to the gate where she’d board in an hour.

She saw no sign of Louis. Good.

Opening her laptop, Caroline resolved that when she saw Louis, she would have made progress on locating the article. Now she just needed to figure out how to make that resolution a reality.

She began with general searches, the equivalent of sinking dozens of lobster traps into the ocean in the hope of catching some unfortunate crustacean that wandered into her clutches. SuperSoy. Franklin Heller. Anne Wong. She searched them all, alone and together.

Each query retrieved gazillions of hits. None of them useful. Most she’d already read before.

She changed her strategy. She tried chronology. Perhaps someone had said something new about Dr. Heller.

She opened the most recent newspaper article, an investigative piece in a local Malibu paper on the failure of the city to stabilize the land along the bluffs. The intrepid journalist had examined the dangers of eroding cliffs to tourists, joggers, and other unsuspecting souls out to enjoy vista views. Caroline read a litany of it’s-not-our-fault quotes from the members of the Malibu City Council. “Hillside stabilization is a waste of city money,” one councilmember had told reporters. “The scrub brush prevents crumbling.” He went on to insist, “Dr. Heller’s death wasn’t caused by erosion or by the city’s failure to install guard railings.”

Caroline paused at the picture accompanying the article. When she’d first heard about Dr. Heller’s death, she’d imagined a cliff. But the hillside where the scientist had perished wasn’t steep. It was really more of an embankment than a precipice.

The police had investigated Dr. Heller’s death. The Malibu City Council had made sure of it. But there were no witnesses to Dr. Heller’s demise. Because there was no evidence of foul play, it was ruled “an unfortunate accident.” Just the sad sort of tragedy that strikes the seemingly safe.

An unfortunate accident.
Caroline tried on the explanation for size.

In her experience, the stories people told were often convenient ways of avoiding dealing with hard truths. That bruise on Uncle Hitch’s cheek wasn’t caused by the cat darting in front of him when he’d come home late at night. That argument between her parents hadn’t really been about her father’s busy work schedule. People tended not to look beneath the surface, but in Caroline’s world, there was always something beneath the surface.

Unbidden, she thought of Yvonne Heller. A woman whose husband would never again come home. Would never again enter the kitchen holding a bag of groceries. Would never again tell his wife about his day. What a strange way to lose him . . . a tumble down a hillside. A broken neck. The whole thing was so . . . so strange.

Even Yvonne Heller was strange. Again, Caroline could hear the odd cadence of the widow’s rich alto. Her flare of fury. Her sudden softening when she’d learned which side Caroline represented. Stilted and deliberate, Yvonne’s diction had felt . . . constipated.

Shaking her head, Caroline delved deeper into the results. She knew that search engines prioritized mainstream news outlets and paid sites. To thwart the search engine’s bias, she added specific terms to her search: “death,” “fell,” “investigation,” “GMOs.” Perhaps someone somewhere had said something about Heller’s research and who had picked up the baton to continue it . . .

Now her query retrieved more obscure articles about Heller’s death.

Caroline’s finger scrolled down through the pages, farther and farther away from the mainstream results.

She stopped at the web page of an organization called GMO Global Action Network. Between screeds lambasting biotech companies for compromising ecological diversity and killing bees, the Network’s director lauded the brave scientists who resisted the biotech companies’ efforts to discredit anti-GMO studies. At the very end of the home page, the director lamented the “suspicious timing of the death of Dr. Franklin Heller, coming so close on the heels of the filing of key motions in the
SuperSoy
litigation.”

In the back of Caroline’s mind, a worry began to stir.

She opened her bag and rummaged around until she found Hale Stern’s security token. The code on it changed every fifteen minutes to protect the firm’s server.

Caroline keyed in the password and remotely accessed the firm’s document management program. Then she quickly navigated to the
SuperSoy
matter.

She pulled up Med-Gen’s
Daubert
motion.

The stamp on the upper right-hand corner of the caption page read:
A
UGUST
24
.

Now Caroline flipped back to the Malibu article about hillside erosion.

She scrolled to the second paragraph and stopped. Dr. Heller had died on August 21.

Just three days before Med-Gen filed its motion.

She glanced back at the picture accompanying the Malibu newspaper article. The incongruence between the official cause of death and the innocuous hillside bothered Caroline. While it wasn’t completely outside the realm of possibility that a healthy fiftysomething scientist had tumbled down the slope and broken his neck, it seemed . . . unlikely.

She reread the introduction to Med-Gen’s
Daubert
motion. It boldly proclaimed that no published science anywhere on the planet linked SuperSoy to kidney damage.

Well, that was certainly true; Caroline huffed in exasperation. She’d researched every scientist who’d ever penned anything remotely connected to SuperSoy, and she’d found no one who’d ever drawn a direct link between the genetically modified soybean and renal failure. She’d spent hours on symposium chat boards and conference Facebook pages. Not that Louis would care. He only cared about results. And she still didn’t have any to show him.

She reminded herself that no one else on the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee had managed to find a direct link. But Louis’s disappointment aside, the unavoidable fact remained that they’d likely lose if they couldn’t find a direct link in the scientific literature.

Slowly, a horrible possibility dawned in Caroline’s mind like a perverse sunrise.

There was no science showing a direct link between SuperSoy and kidney injury . . . because the scientist who’d written what looked to be the key article establishing that link . . . had died in a freak accident . . . right before he could publish it . . .

A flock of goose bumps landed on Caroline’s back and fled down her arms.

How had Dr. Heller died?

Was it really an accident?

Perhaps the defense had bided their time, waiting to file the motion after they knew there’d be no evidence to refute it. The fact that they’d had a huge motion ready for filing so soon after Dr. Heller died certainly didn’t negate the possibility.

She considered what else she knew. Dr. Anne Wong had disappeared shortly after her research partner had died. She’d pulled out of that conference, sacrificing the opportunity to present her latest research on cannabinoids. That had been a big sacrifice.

Too big.

Maybe Dr. Anne Wong hadn’t taken a leave.

Maybe she’d run.

The possibility set Caroline’s gut to churning, low and menacing, and an itch began behind her ears, a tingle faintly felt the way a gazelle on the African savanna first perceives the presence of a predator lurking in the tall grass. Something was wrong here. Very wrong.

Caroline considered what to do with her nascent conspiracy theory. Perhaps there had been a police investigation that the newspapers hadn’t covered? Perhaps someone could tell her conclusively that Dr. Heller’s death really had been an accident, that in her desperation to win, she was letting her mind spiral down a whirlpool of paranoia?

Before she could decide, she spotted Louis strolling across the terminal. His white-haired head was visible over those around him, as if he moved at a different altitude than the mere mortals in his midst. He wore khaki pants, a red polo shirt, and Top-Siders. He had a small duffel bag slung casually over his shoulder.

Looking down at the navy business suit she wore, Caroline cringed. She’d guessed wrong about the uniform she was supposed to wear for the trip. While it wasn’t a vacation, they were apparently supposed to have dressed as if it were.

“Sorry I’m late,” Louis said, sitting down beside Caroline. “Things were quite hectic at home this morning.” He leaned back, stretching his long legs in front of him. “My wife insists I take the dogs for their morning walks. Today, they woke me up before dawn. They must have eaten something last night that didn’t agree with them, because they . . .” He trailed off, but it was too late. Caroline smiled at the mental image of the dignified litigator cleaning up dog poop.

Louis ran his hands through his white hair, and Caroline noted he wasn’t wearing the Porcellian Club ring he always wore. She took it as a sign of the kind of morning he’d had.

Louis assumed a philosophical tone. “In life, you can set a person up for success or failure. Sending me on a walk with two overly pedigreed dogs in dire intestinal distress on a day when I need to catch a flight was most definitely setting me up for failure.”

“What kind of dogs do you have?” Caroline asked, trying to draw out the conversation. She liked this Louis, talking about normal things. He seemed less remote. More approachable. Plus it distracted her from the cloud of doom that had settled over her.

“Pembroke Welsh corgis. I know a top-notch breeder. There’s always a long wait for puppies, but if you’re interested, I could arrange something.” His eyes glittered with delight at his ability to make something happen where others could not. “Pedigree is everything, after all,” he added with the ghost of a wink.

Caroline wasn’t sure if he was talking about himself or his dog.

Louis cleared his throat, the patrician mask back in place.

“So, will I have my outline tomorrow, Ms. Auden?” he asked.

It sounded like a dare.

“Definitely,” Caroline promised. But then her stomach knotted.

She needed to tell Louis about her conspiracy theory, but her position was precarious. And whatever she said would sound paranoid. That couldn’t be good for her long-term prospects at the firm. And yet, she couldn’t
not
mention her concerns . . . if only so Louis could put a stop to the fear that now coursed through her veins like antifreeze.

She took a breath to steady her nerves.

“In the course of looking around for that missing article, I found out some other . . . stuff. There are some . . . circumstances . . . around Dr. Heller’s death that are just weird. The timing, for one thing. And I took a look at the place where he broke his neck. The hill isn’t that steep . . .”

“What are you driving at?” Louis’s eyes narrowed. “Are you suggesting Heller was murdered?”

Caroline stayed silent.

Louis chuckled. “You’ve seen too many movies, Ms. Auden.”

Caroline flushed. She hated sounding foolish to her boss.

“Witness intimidation and perhaps even the occasional murder may occur among criminals,” Louis said, his tone conciliatory, “but it is not something that happens in fights over money. Not business disputes or personal injury cases, anyway. There’s a reason why we’re civil attorneys.”

Caroline appreciated his effort to smooth over her paranoia. She hoped he’d forget she’d ever said anything. Quickly.

“We do have some real-life worries, however,” Louis said. “I assume you’ve read this morning’s decision in the
Scziewizcs
case? Putting aside for a moment that it is unpronounceable, that decision is going to be a problem for us.”

“I haven’t seen it,” Caroline admitted. She chastised herself for missing the decision. She’d been so wrapped up in hatching insane biotech murder scenarios that she’d forgotten to check the advance sheets.

She braced herself for a teachable moment.

But instead, Louis reached into his duffel bag and withdrew a short stack of papers stapled in the upper left-hand corner.

“Please give it a read,” he said, handing the papers to Caroline. “It’s a case involving a multidistrict litigation over a diabetes medication that the plaintiffs allege causes liver damage. A federal district judge in Nevada found that proximity in time between ingestion and injury is insufficient to defeat a
Daubert
motion. She dismissed the case.”

Caroline’s face flushed. This was bad. Really bad.

“But it’s just another district court in a different circuit, so it doesn’t bind Judge Jacobsen in our case, right?” she asked.

“Correct, but it’s still persuasive authority. Judge Jacobsen may choose to adopt
Scziewizcs
’s reasoning, even though it isn’t binding.”

“We need Heller,” Caroline said, articulating Louis’s unspoken conclusion.

Louis nodded grimly.

“Did Dale ever say anything about that article?” Caroline asked. It occurred to her that she’d been so focused on finding an Internet solution to her research quest that she’d failed to run down all possible avenues for obtaining human intelligence on it.