Due Diligence (12 page)

Chapter Eleven

At 9:50 that night, I was standing in the lobby of the Berkeley Police Station waiting for Patrolman Dan Roland. According to the desk sergeant, Roland would be out of roll call any minute.

What I knew so far I had learned from the Missouri Highway Patrol, which had ceded jurisdiction to the Berkeley police. According to the Highway Patrol, Karen Harmon was killed instantly when her car hit a bridge embankment on Highway 170 out near the airport. The one-car accident occurred around midnight, which was about seven hours after Karen had left the message on my answering machine.

I turned at the sound of voices and footsteps. Several uniformed cops were walking out of a large room down the hall. Each was carrying a briefcase and a shotgun.

“Danny,” the desk sergeant called to one of them. “Got a lady over here to see you about that traffic fatality last night.”

Patrolman Dan Roland turned toward me. He was tall and stocky, with sleepy eyes and a neatly trimmed blond mustache.

“Ma'am?” he said in a polite but neutral tone. He was in his twenties.

I introduced myself, explained that I was an attorney, and told him I wanted to talk to him about the accident. He nodded and set the briefcase on the ground between his feet. He placed the shotgun next to it.

“What would you like to know, ma'am?”

“To begin with, how it happened.”

He nodded, crossing his arms over his chest. “It appears that the driver lost control of the vehicle. She wasn't wearing a seat belt at the time. The force of the impact threw her body through the windshield and against the concrete embankment.”

“How did she lose control of her car? Was there something wrong with it?”

He shook his head. “I don't think so, ma'am. The decedent appeared to be intoxicated.”

“Karen was drunk?” I asked in disbelief.

He nodded firmly. “That's my conclusion, ma'am. We won't have the blood alcohol count until the autopsy results are in, and that won't be for at least a week, but she appeared to be intoxicated at the time of the accident.”

“Why do you say that?”

He raised his eyebrows. “It seemed pretty obvious, ma'am. There was a strong odor of alcohol in the vehicle interior and on the decedent. There was an empty bottle of rum and an empty bottle of Diet Coke on the floor of the vehicle. Judging by the damage, the vehicle impacted the embankment at a speed in excess of fifty miles an hour. There were no skid marks in front of the collision site.” He paused, a hint of sadness showing through his cool facade. “She's my third one, ma'am, and they all pretty much look the same. The last two had blood alcohol counts between point-one-eight and two. I'm assuming hers will be up in that range.”

“What if it isn't?”

He frowned. “I'm not following you, ma'am.”

“Did you know she was a Mormon?”

“No, ma'am.”

“Her religion prohibits alcohol.”

He nodded slowly, his face expressionless. “Okay.”

“Doesn't that bother you, Officer?”

He tugged at his mustache. “She appeared to be intoxicated, ma'am. That happens sometimes, even to Mormons.” He took a small notebook out of his breast pocket and clicked his ballpoint pen. “I might put that information into a supplemental report.” He jotted something in the notebook.

“What about the car?” I asked. “Are you going to examine it?”

“We've looked in the vehicle, ma'am. That's where we found the empty bottles.”

“No, I mean the engine, the steering device, the accelerator. What if someone tampered with the car? What if it was sabotaged?”

As I asked the questions and watched his reactions, I realized it was pointless to try to convince this local patrolman that what appeared to be a routine drunk driving fatality on a stretch of interstate that ran through his town might actually be connected to two completely different deaths in two other jurisdictions, especially given that I hadn't yet been able to find any hard evidence of a connection between any of the deaths.

“Well, ma'am,” Patrolman Roland said, “we don't normally do much with the vehicle in an accident of this type. The vehicle was pretty much totaled. In fact, it may have already been hauled off for scrap.” He paused to make a note. “If you give me your name and telephone number, ma'am, I'll certainly be happy to call you with her blood alcohol count when it comes through.”

***

Hiram Sullivan answered the front door in his bathrobe and slippers.

“I want to talk to you,” I said.

“Do you have any idea what time it is?” he snapped. “It's almost eleven o'clock.”

“So what?” I said through clenched teeth. “What did you do to Karen?”

He stared at me, his eyes narrowing.

A woman called from the second-floor landing, “Who is it, Hi?”

He turned toward her voice. “Go back to bed. I'll be up in a minute.” He turned back to me and crossed his arms. “I should have known,” he said, grimly shaking his head.

“What are you talking about?”

“Karen acted quite improperly when she requested those documents from Chemitex, and she was punished accordingly for her misconduct.”

“You think death is an appropriate punishment?”

“Don't be absurd, Miss Gold. I am referring to the disciplinary action for her misconduct. She had a ludicrous excuse, claiming that she wanted a backup set of documents. Obviously, I regret her unfortunate death. My firm mourns her demise. However, we certainly will not accept any blame for it. People who drink and drive must accept the consequences of their behavior.” He narrowed his eyes. “So it was you, eh? She was trying to get those documents for you?”

“Why is everyone so uptight over those documents?”

“I certainly can't speak for others, Miss Gold. My firm is concerned because we assumed certain confidentiality obligations with respect to those documents. Unlike some people, I happen to take such obligations quite seriously.”

The conversation was going nowhere. Barging in on him was a stupid idea—an angry, impulsive act that was looking dumber every moment. I decided to end with a shot from left field. “What was Bruce doing for you before he died?”

He took a step back. “What?”

I stepped forward. “He was working on a personal matter for you. What was it?”

“How do you know that?”

“Answer my question. What was he doing for you?”

Hiram Sullivan scrutinized me as he got himself under control. “A personal tax matter,” he said calmly. “Good night. Leave now or I shall call the police.”

He closed the door in my face. I heard him turn the deadbolt lock.

***

“How 'bout some more wine?” Benny asked.

“I've had enough,” I said, wiping my eyes. Frustrated and depressed, I'd come directly to Benny's place after my encounter with Hiram Sullivan. Thank goodness he was home, and alone. Two glasses of wine and a half box of Kleenex later, I was almost under control again.

I blew my nose. “I think I'm becoming emotionally unstable,” I said.

“You're not. You've been under incredible pressure. A new client dies, your boyfriend gets murdered, now this girl dies. And meanwhile, you've been running around like crazy trying to find a link. People are stonewalling you. Rachel, you're allowed to get upset. You're allowed to cry.”

I wiped my eyes with a tissue. “She was a good kid, Benny.”

“You really liked her. I could tell.”

“If they killed her…”

“Rachel, it doesn't sound like anyone killed her.”

“Benny, she was a Mormon. They're not even allowed to drink a Coke.”

“Rachel, we're Jews. We're not supposed to eat pork. Where do barbecue rib restaurants always locate? Near Jewish neighborhoods. Go figure.”

“But I think she was an observant Mormon.”

“Hey, I know some observant Catholics. They go to mass every weekend. And guess what? They have two kids. You think they're keeping the numbers down with just rhythm? Look, Karen got in big trouble at work, she was upset about it when she called you, her boyfriend is down in some dirtball village in South America, and she's all alone up here. Is it so crazy to think she might try to cheer herself up with a drink or two?”

“But it wouldn't be hard to fake the whole thing,” I said. “You could force her to drink that stuff, or just inject her with grain alcohol. Then knock her out, stick her in the car without a seat belt, toss in the empty bottles, wait until there's no traffic, fiddle with the accelerator, and let it rip. The car gets totaled, she gets totaled, the whole incident gets filed away as just another drunk driver fatality.”

“Well, the cop told you he'd file a supplemental report.”

I rolled my eyes. “Big deal. Even if he does, no one's going to pay any attention to it. And when the autopsy report comes back with a high blood alcohol count, they'll close the file.” I sighed in exasperation. “It's driving me crazy.”

“What else can you do now?”

“I'm going to try to talk to someone at Chemitex tomorrow morning.”

“Who?”

“I'm not sure, yet. I want to find someone in research and development, preferably a science type. I'm getting nowhere dealing with smoothies.”

“Speaking of smoothies,” Benny said, “did you see who's coming to town tomorrow?”

“Who?”

“Saint Armstrong. They had a blurb on the ten o'clock news. He's holding a press conference down at the Old Courthouse at two-thirty.”

“Really? On what?”

“No one's sure, but the speculation is that he's going to announce he's running for president. A two-thirty press conference is just in time for the national news.”

“At the Old Courthouse?”

Benny nodded.

I thought it over. “I'm going to go down there.”

He snorted. “Am I surprised?”

“No, not for that. Maybe he can help.”

“Help what?”

“With Bruce's death, and all the rest.”

Benny gave me a dubious look. “Pardon?”

“It was once his company, Benny. He must still have influence there.”

“Rachel, he's ancient history down there. Shit, he probably hasn't owned any stock for more than a decade.”

“Benny, he founded the company. He must know plenty of people down there. It's worth a shot.”

“Don't get your hopes up, kid.”

Chapter Twelve

I decided to bluff my way in, so I spent the first hour of the morning at the public library looking through the past ten editions of
Sorkins' Directory of Business and Government
. When I closed the current edition, I was convinced that Otto Pritzner was my man. He had been the head of research and development at Chemitex Bioproducts for the past six years. Prior to that, he had worked in their research laboratories. I called Chemitex Bioproducts from the library and confirmed (a) that he was still head of R&D, and (b) that he was in the office today.

Before heading down to Chemitex, I called my office for messages. There was one from Brown Nose Brauner and one from Bob Ginsburg. I called Brauner first.

“We're not turning up much, Rachel.”

“Tell me what you found.”

“No match on Guillain or LGB. Just a couple of obscure references to Primax.”

“Give me the specifics.”

“To begin with, there is no Primax file. At least none in the documents this Rosenthal fellow copied. The references to it appear in two of the older files, but they're vague and don't make much sense. For example, it's not even clear what Primax is.”

“Describe the references.”

“I can't tell you that, Rachel.”

“Come on, Barry. If the references are in older files, it can't be that important to your client.”

“That's where you're wrong. The age of the file has no bearing on its potential value.”

He was probably right. His statement was consistent with what Bob Ginsburg had told me: a project abandoned five years ago by Chemitex for lack of funds might be worth resurrecting, especially if scientific advances in the interim had solved a problem that had once made the project seem unpromising.

“I'm disappointed, Barry.”

“Give me a few more days, Rachel. Perhaps I can get you the clearance you want. What do you say to that?”

“I don't know.” I didn't believe him. It sounded like a stall tactic. “I'll think about it.”

“I'll get back to you in a day or so, Rachel. Oh, one more thing.”

“What?” I said cautiously. When a consummate lieutenant like Barry Brauner reaches the end of a discussion and then acts like he just remembered one more item, it's time to get wary.

“That list you gave me.”

“What about it?”

“We're having a hell of a time running it down. Where did you get it?”

“To quote you, Barry, ‘I can't tell you that.'”

“That's not fair, Rachel. You want answers from us. We'll have better luck giving them to you if we know where it came from.”

“You get me clearance to look at those files and then I'll tell you exactly where I got that list.”

“Well, I don't—”

“That's my proposal, Barry. Work on it.”

I tried Bob Ginsburg next, but his assistant said he was on an international conference call that would probably last for another hour. I said I would try him again later.

***

I told his secretary I was a close friend of Robin Dahlberg, the sister of Bruce Rosenthal, and that I wanted to talk to him about Bruce. It was enough to get me into the office of Otto Pritzner, Director of Research and Development at Chemitex Bioproducts.

I had expected someone matching Pritzner's career, i.e., a lifetime beneath the fluorescent lights of a laboratory. Instead, I found a gruff but good-natured drill sergeant in a crisp white short-sleeved shirt and a narrow black tie. He had a gray crewcut, crinkly blue eyes, a neatly trimmed mustache, even white teeth, and a Teddy Roosevelt smile.

“Terrible thing about your friend's brother,” he said with a frown when I introduced myself. “Hope they catch the bastards and fry 'em.”

I thanked him and explained that I had come to see if he could help me make sense of what Bruce had been concerned about during his last weeks.

“Bruce told Robin that he was looking through files down here,” I said. “Something about the sale of your company.”

Pritzner nodded and explained the transaction and Bruce's role in due diligence. He also explained his own background. Otto Pritzner had been with the company for fifteen years—all the way back to the time of the Doc which is what the oldtimers called Douglas Armstrong.

“Have the police talked to you about Bruce's death?” I asked.

“Nope. I know they talked to Mr. Carlson, and I think they talked to Mr. Andrews, but no one else that I know of.”

Ronald Carlson was the president of Chemitex Bio-products and Howard Andrews was general counsel. I had concluded that neither of them was worth my time: even if they agreed to talk to me, they wouldn't tell me anything important. That's why I chose Otto Pritzner. I thought I stood a better chance with someone who wasn't experienced at answering inquiries from people outside the company.

“You said Bruce seemed concerned about us?” Pritzner asked.

“He seemed bothered by some of the stuff in the R and D files.”

“Such as?”

“Robin didn't understand a lot of what Bruce said to her. It was all kind of technical. She does remember some names. One sounds French: Guillain. I think it's a first name. The last name begins with a B. Another could be just someone's initials: LGB. Do you know anything about them, or it?”

“Them,” he said with a smile, “
and
it.”

“What do you mean?” I said, trying to mask my delight at finally finding someone who knew something.

“Guillain was a French doctor: Georges Guillain. His research partner was Jean Barré. The
it
is the disease named after them. Back around World War One, they described a rare disease that's been known ever since as Guillain-Barré syndrome.” He gave it a French pronunciation, with a hard “g”: gee-LAN-bär-RAY.

“Actually,” he continued, “some call it Guillain-Barré syndrome, and some call it Landry-Guillain-Barré syndrome. LGB for short.”

“What kind of disease is it?”

“It affects the nervous system.”

“Is it fatal?”

“Usually not, but it can be. The early symptoms are numbing or tingling in the arms and legs. Sometimes it progresses to temporary paralysis. In rare cases where the paralysis progresses enough to cause respiratory or circulatory problems, it can be fatal. Do you remember the problems with the swine flu vaccine?”

“Vaguely.”

“Back in 1976 there was a big scare over what many medical researchers predicted would be a particularly virulent strain of influenza that winter. It got nicknamed the swine flu. One of the pharmaceutical companies developed a swine flu vaccine, and the federal government arranged for mass inoculations across the country, especially of children and older adults. Unfortunately, there was a rare side effect no one predicted: Guillain-Barré syndrome. Some of the patients developed it, and some of them died from it.”

“What caused the disease?”

He shook his head. “No one is sure. For the most part, the victims were perfectly healthy before the inoculation.”

“Is there a cure?”

“I don't think so. As I recall, most doctors believe it's caused by a virus. There've been different treatments over the years, but none are sure cures. Usually, the disease runs its course and the patient recovers.”

“But not always.”

“No, not always.”

“Was someone at Chemitex working on a cure for Guillain-Barré?”

Otto Pritzner rubbed his chin and frowned. “I don't believe so. At least not recently.”

“What do you define as recently?” I asked.

“At least the last six years. That's how long I've been head of R and D. Before that, well, I guess it's possible. I don't recall hearing any of the others talk about it, but it's certainly possible.”

I opened my briefcase. “Robin found this in her brother's papers.” I pulled out a photocopy of the Beth Shalom/Labadie Gardens list. “Do you know what this is?”

He studied the document. “No. Can't say that I do.”

“Bruce had you copy a lot of documents from the files, didn't he?”

Otto chuckled. “You can say that again. I was afraid we were going to burn out that copy machine. We had two secretaries designated to do the copying, and he kept those poor gals running eight hours a day.”

“Did you keep track of what you copied for him?”

“No, can't say that we did. He'd bring them a file with those yellow stickers on every page he wanted copied, and they'd remove the stickers as they made the copies. Then they'd refile the originals and give him the copies.”

I gestured toward the Beth Shalom/Labadie Gardens list. “Do you think that was copied from one of the files?”

He studied the list again. “Hard to say.” He started to hand it back to me.

“Keep it,” I said. “It's a copy. I'd be grateful if you'd show it to some of the others here. Maybe one of them will recognize it. Anything you learn might be helpful.”

“Good thinking.” He smiled and placed the document on his desk. “I'll ask around.”

“Thanks.”

I glanced down at my list of topics. Next on the list was
Phase Two Trials
. “Dr. Pritzner, has—”

“Please, call me Otto.”

I smiled. “Okay. Otto, has the company been involved in any big litigation over one of its products?”

“Well, the folks to talk to for that would be our lawyers. I try to steer clear of the legal stuff.”

“I understand,” I said with a sympathetic smile. “I realize that pharmaceutical companies get named in lots of malpractice cases. That's not my focus. I'm thinking more in terms of one of those big class action lawsuits that sometimes get filed against a pharmaceutical company over one of its products. Like the Dalkon Shield case?

He shook his head and chuckled. “Nope. Thank goodness, we've been able to dodge that bullet so far.”

I nodded as I looked down at my notes. “One more thing. What do you know about Primax?”

I looked up when he didn't answer right away. He was studying me, his face blank. I waited.

“Nothing,” he finally said.

I tried to ignore the tension in his voice. “Do you have any idea what it is?”

“No,” he answered forcefully.

I stared at him. He looked down at his desk and moved a pencil over to one side. “Have you ever heard of Primax?” I asked.

He continued to look down. “No.”

I scrutinized him for a moment. “You're sure?”

He nodded curtly, checking his watch.

I handed him my business card as I stood up. “Thanks, Otto. I know you're a busy man, and I appreciate the time you've given me. If you think of anything else, please give me a call.”

He stood up to shake my hand. “I'll keep that in mind,” he said, just a little less tense than before.

***

I picked up lunch on my way back to my office. It was almost one-thirty. Armstrong's press conference was in one hour. I was even more anxious than before to talk to Armstrong. I needed help breaking the code of silence, and he might have the influence to do it.

I ate at my desk while I pondered the Primax puzzle. At least I had solved the Guillain-B puzzle. I reached for Bruce's list of questions:

Primax? Where?

Cross-referenced materials not there—Filing glitch?—Need to locate—Need to ask

What's going on with Guillain B?

Where are Primax files???—must find

Be sure to look for LGB—Sounds like typical G-B syndrome

Cross-reference to Phase Two Trial?—Need to check date—Phase Two Trial?—Not possible!?

“Primax” and “Phase Two Trial” were still a mystery, but now I knew that “Guillain B,” “LGB,” and “G-B syndrome” all referred to Guillain-Barré syndrome, aka Landry-Guillain-Barré syndrome, aka LGB syndrome. Unfortunately, Bruce's references to the disease were still opaque. What had he found in the R&D files having to do with Guillain-Barré? Was someone working on a cure? Was someone studying the disease? Had someone misidentified another disease as Guillain-Barré syndrome, or vice versa? And why did it make him so agitated?

As I was pondering these questions, Jacki returned from the library and came into my office. I filled her in on what I had learned about Guillain-Barré and told her of Otto Pritzner's odd reaction when I had mentioned Primax.

“How about you?” I asked. I had sent her off to the library to hunt down information on Primax. “Any luck?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. I checked all the reference books, all the guides to periodicals, and I even ran it through Nexus. Whatever it is, I can't find any information on it whatsoever.”

I leaned back in my chair. “That's strange.”

She nodded. “It sounds like a brand name for a drug, doesn't it?”

“It does,” I said glumly, and then I made the connection. “Jacki, you're right,” I said, sitting up.

“What?”

“It sounds exactly like a brand name.”

“Okay,” she said uncertainly.

“What if it is? Or was?”

“What?”

“Jacki, what's the very first thing a company does when it comes up with a new brand name?”

She shrugged. “What?”

“It applies for a trademark registration.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely, and if Primax is a brand name that means we can at least find out who owns it.”

“
If
they registered it,” she cautioned.

“If it's a drug product, I bet the name is registered. Pharmaceutical companies are obsessed with trademarks. They make sure they get the brand names registered with the U.S. Trademark Office as early as possible. If Primax has anything to do with pharmaceuticals, it'll be registered.”

“Do you have to go Washington, D.C., to find out?”

“Not anymore. It's all in computer data bases. We can access them right here from my computer.”