Due Diligence (19 page)

Although it still didn't make any sense to me, for a brief moment there seemed to be something different about the list. Then I realized it was just the paper. For the past week I had been handling and passing out
photocopies
of the list. I hadn't touched the original in more than a week, and the original was typed on heavy bond paper.

Bond paper
?

I leaned back and held the list up to the light overhead. I could detect the outline of a watermark in the center of the page. I tilted the page slightly to focus the light on the watermark.

Stunned, I lowered the page.

After a moment, I held it up to the light again. The watermark consisted of an oval with a symbol in the middle. The symbol was a stylized rendering of a mortar and pestle, the emblem of the pharmaceutical industry. The oval was formed out of two words, the letters curving around the circumference. The top half of the oval was the word “Armstrong,” and the bottom half was the word “Bioproducts.”

I allowed the significance of the watermark to sink in. The list of names—the only original document that Bruce Rosenthal had given to David Marcus for safekeeping—had been typed on bond paper bearing the private watermark of Armstrong Bioproducts.

“Rachel?”

I started at the sound of the voice, and then smiled sheepishly at my secretary. Jacki gave me a troubled look. “You're a little jumpy today.”

“Sorry.”

“After last night, you're entitled. Well,” she smiled proudly, “I think I found your printer.”

“Oh?”

“Here.” She handed me a slip of paper. “LaSalle Press. It's over on St. Charles Rock Road east of the Inner Belt. That's the address and phone number.”

“Who'd you talk to?”

“The proprietor, I think. He sounds like an older guy. His name is Harry Beckman.”

“What did he say?” I asked.

“He said he used to print materials for FDA filings, but that he hadn't done one for years. I told him I needed references. He had to search through his files. It took a while. He said he printed a few INDs for Monsanto back in the 1960s and several for Armstrong Bioproducts back in the 1970s.”

“Yes!” I said, delighted. “That's terrific, Jacki. Did he sound friendly?”

She thought it over, moving her head from side to side. “Mostly, he sounded old.”

“I like old.” I stood up and stared at the address on the slip. “You're wonderful, Jacki. Wish me luck.”

Chapter Nineteen

I peered through the window of LaSalle Press. Although the yellowed placard on the door read OPEN, there was no sign of life within. I tried the door. It was open, so I stepped inside the storefront office. A mechanism on the door rang a distant bell.

As I waited at the counter, I looked around. LaSalle Press was at least a decade past its prime. Everything seemed old and worn, from the dull paint job on the walls to the two dented metal desks on the far side of the counter to the rust-stained light fixtures overhead. A faded sign on the wall announced LaSalle's fortieth anniversary. From the dates on the sign, the fiftieth anniversary was just two years off.

There was the sound of someone clearing phlegm from his throat, and then Harry Beckman emerged from the back, an unlit cigar stuck in the corner of his mouth. He was short, thick and slightly stooped with age, and his bald head was sprinkled with age spots. He was wearing a wrinkled white shirt that was too large for his neck and a maroon tie that was too short and too wide for any recent decade. Several stubby red pencils stuck out of the side pocket of his vest. His rumpled slacks were bunched in folds at the tops of his scuffed black shoes.

Removing the cigar from his mouth, he squinted at me. “Yes?”

I introduced myself and explained that my secretary had called earlier regarding his experience on print jobs for pharmaceutical companies.

“Right, right,” he rasped, with a hint of a smile. There were flecks of tobacco on his lips and on his chin. “Well, come on around and have a seat.”

I joined him by one of the metal desks on the other side of the counter. There was a nameplate on the desk that read. H. BECKMAN. I glanced at the other desk. That nameplate read MRS. BEAM.

“She's at home,” he said, gesturing toward the other desk with his cigar. He took a seat behind the desk, wincing as he sat down. “Her damn arthritis is flaring up again.” He jammed the cigar back in his mouth. “Now run this story of yours by me again, young lady.” His eyes were clear blue and seemed amused.

I explained that I represented a pharmaceutical company that needed to have an IND printed and that my job was to help select an appropriate printer. I thought my delivery was excellent.

When I finished, Harry Beckman crossed his arms over his chest and grinned, exposing an uneven set of tobacco-stained teeth. “Young lady,” he said in his gravelly voice, “you'll do better if you don't try to shit a shitter. I'm not completely senile yet. You know and I know that you're not here looking to get an IND printed. No one sends those goddam things to outside printers anymore. And even if they did, let's face it—” he paused to survey the room “—this place is no longer on anyone's short list. I haven't done that kind of work in more than a decade.”

He took the cigar out of his mouth and squinted at me. “Now, I probably ought to run you out of here for trying to trick an old man like that. But, what the hell? We're not busy this afternoon. Hell, we're not busy this year.” He winked at me. “And you're just about the prettiest thing I've seen in here since a gal about three years back came in for some wedding invitations, and if a compliment like that is considered politically incorrect these days, well, that's just too goddam bad, 'cause when you get to my age, you can say whatever the hell you want.”

He pointed the cigar at me. “You came here looking for something. Tell me what you need. Maybe I can help.”

“Okay, Harry,” I said with a smile. I couldn't disguise my amusement. It was like talking to someone out of
Guys and Dolls
. “I need to know as much as I can about every IND that you printed for Chemitex Bioproducts and Armstrong Bioproducts.”

He studied me for a moment. “Why?”

I pondered the question. “I'm not sure,” I finally said. “And I'm not sure how much I should tell you. Three other people tried to find out information about those companies, and all three are dead. Last night, someone tried to kill me. Quite literally, Mr. Beckman, I'm beginning to think that the less you know the better.

He tugged at his ear and frowned. “What exactly are you looking for here?”

“Whether you printed an IND for a drug called Primax. Also, whether you printed an IND for a drug for treating Guillain-Barre syndrome. If the answer to either is yes, I'd like to see the INDs.”

He studied me for a moment. “If memory serves, those things are confidential.”

“They are,” I conceded. “Or at least they once were. The documents I'm looking for go back to the 1970s. Whatever was once secret about them must be old news by now.”

He nodded and stood up with a wince. “Well,” he said as he gestured toward the nameplate on the other desk, “let's hope Mrs. Beam did her usual thorough job of keeping track of old records.”

***

Thirty minutes later, a baffled Harry Beckman was on the phone with the woman he called Mrs. Beam.

“They're gone, Mrs. Beam. Not lost. Not misplaced. Just plain gone.”

We were standing in the file room in back. There was an open file drawer in front of us. According to Mrs. Beam's meticulously organized filing card system, all materials printed by LaSalle Press for Armstrong Bioproducts and Chemitex Bioproducts were supposed to be in File Drawer 78. According to the hand-printed file card, the contents of File Drawer 78 contained the paperwork for a variety of printing jobs over the years, including: three annual reports of Armstrong Bioproducts (1978, 1979, and 1980); form invoices for Armstrong Bioproducts and Chemitex Bioproducts; stationery, envelopes, and business cards for both companies; and five different INDs for Armstrong Bioproducts (covering the period 1974 through 1981). The annual reports were there, as were the invoices, stationery, envelopes, business cards—including the backup paperwork and samples of each finished product. But all five INDs were missing, paperwork and all.

“Now why in hell would I remove them, Mrs. Beam?” he said in exasperation. “Excuse me. I didn't mean to curse.” He glanced over at me and rolled his eyes. “Yes, Mrs. Beam. Very good. Certainly. I'll see you tomorrow, Mrs. Beam.”

He hung up and frowned at me. “That's the damndest thing,” he grumbled, indicating the open file drawer. “Some son of a bitch must have come in here and cleaned out the INDs.”

“Do you have any idea when?”

He snorted and shook his head. “Sometime over the past fifteen years, I guess. Last one was printed when?” He glanced down at the file card. “1981, eh? Well, they were all there in that drawer back in 1981.”

“Could I see the file card?”

He handed it to me. The work orders were listed in chronological order. The first entry for an IND was in mid-1974. It read:

7/12/74 IND (Phrenom)—
Galleys: 8/26—Final: 9/13
Invoice: 9/30—Paid: 11/10

The very next entry was for Primax. It read:

7/12/74 IND (Primax)—
Galleys: 8/28—Final:
Invoice: 10/30—Paid: 12/29

“What does this mean?” I asked Beckman, pointing to the two entries.

He glanced at the card and nodded. “For the first one, Phrenom, we got the job on July twelfth. It must not have been a rush, because we didn't send them galleys until August twenty-sixth. We did the final version on September thirteenth, billed them for the job on September thirtieth, and they paid November tenth.”

“But what about the one for Primax?” I asked.

He studied the card for a moment and grunted. “I guess we never did it in final form. Billed them, though, and they paid.”

“Why didn't you do it in final form?”

He squinted at the card and shook his head. “Don't know. They must have canceled the order.”

The other three INDs on the card resembled the entry for Phrenom; i.e. they were done in draft form and final form and presumably filed with the FDA. One of them was for Depran, a drug whose name Armstrong Bioproducts had trademarked in 1978 and canceled in 1979. If my earlier hypothesis was correct, the FDA never approved the drug. One of the other two INDs was for a drug with a familiar name. I think my internist had once prescribed it for me. The last was for another drug that had showed up on my trademark search.

“This is so maddening,” I said in frustration as I slid the file drawer closed. “Somebody is going to an extra ordinary amount of effort to hide something.”

“And trespassing on my property in the process,” Beckman growled.

When I was back in the front office area packing up my briefcase to leave, I remembered the Beth Shalom/Labadie Gardens list of names on bond paper. Harry was in the printing business. He might be able to help.

“Mr. Beckman, what do you know about watermarks?”

“Watermarks?” He bit the end off his chewed-up cigar and spit the chunk into the trash can. “A fair amount, I suppose. Why?”

“First of all, what exactly are they?”

“Watermarks? Well, I guess you could describe them as images that are inside the paper. A watermark is only visible when you hold the paper up to the light.”

“How are they made?” I asked.

“Genuine watermarks are made at the paper mill when the paper is wet and being formed. You etch the pattern onto a special plate and then attach that plate to a cylinder that's known as a dandy roll. When the paper goes under the dandy roll, the pattern gets stamped right into the fibers.” He sat down in his chair. “A watermark is like an indelible fiber finger print. You can't alter or remove it without destroying the paper.”

“What's the purpose of it?”

He looked around the top of his desk and found a blank sheet of bond paper. He held it up to the light and squinted at it. “Here,” he said, handing it to me. “Look.”

I held the paper up to the light. Near the middle of the page was the following watermark:

Strathmore Bond
25% COTTON FIBER USA

I lowered the paper and looked at Beckman.

“That,” he said, indicating the paper, “is the paper mill's watermark. It tells the world that Strathmore manufactured the paper. Then you've got your private watermarks.”

“What are they?”

“Well, if you're a corporation or a bank or a fancy law firm and you're willing to pay for it, you can have your own private watermark put on your stock of paper.”

“Why would a company do that?”

He shrugged. “Some do it for security purposes, especially for stock certificates, letterhead, business forms, and other important papers. Some see it as a mark of distinction, a status symbol. Others see it as a marketing tool.”

I paused, weighing the options.
Why not
? I reached into my briefcase and removed the list of names on the original bond paper with the Armstrong Bioproducts watermark. I handed it to him and said, “I assume this is an example of a private watermark.”

He held it up to the light and examined it. “Yep.”

“Is there any way to date that?”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“How can I find out when that paper was made?”

He held it up to the light and examined it carefully. He shook his head. “Sometimes paper with a private watermark is dated. Not this one, though. The paper mill might have a record on it, but that's a long shot. Hell, there hasn't been an Armstrong Bioproducts for what? Ten years?”

“Can you tell which paper mill made it?”

He held the page up to the light again and squinted at it. “Nope. Say,” he mused, “didn't they change logos?”

“Pardon?”

He stood up. “Come with me.”

I followed him back to File Drawer 78. He flipped through the various folders, mumbling to himself, and then stopped. “Ah-ha!” he said triumphantly.

“What?”

He pulled out the Armstrong Bioproducts 1979 Annual Report and pointed to the cover page. “Note the logo,” he said.

I nodded. “Same as the watermark.”

“Exactly.” He handed me the 1980 Annual Report. “Compare.”

I raised my eyebrows. “A new logo.”

He grinned broadly. “Yep.”

The new logo design was completely different. Gone was the mortar and pestle with the company name arranged in an oval shape. Instead, it had been replaced by a streamlined motif in which a silver Gateway Arch served as the letter “A” in Armstrong.

“Here,” he said, pointing to stationery with the same logo. He studied the file card. “We printed that batch of letterhead in 1981.”

“So the old logo was changed in 1980,” I said. “That means my list was typed before then.”

He nodded. “Narrows it down a little for you.”

“Who was your contact at Armstrong?”

“Our contact,” he repeated, trying to remember.

“Was it Douglas Armstrong?”

“No.” He chuckled. “I would have remembered him.”

I flipped to the back page of the 1979 Annual Report, where it listed the officers and directors of the company, and handed it to him. “One of these?”

He looked down the list. “Lee Fowler,” he said with a nod. “I remember dealing with him.”

I came around to peer over his shoulder. Lee Fowler was listed as Chief Financial Officer. “Anyone else?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah. I remember Peter.” He was pointing to Dr. Peter Todorovich, Director of Research. “He was the contact on a couple of printing jobs, too.” Beckman ran a thick finger slowly down the rest of the list. When he reached the bottom he shook his head. “Just Lee and Peter. I don't recognize the others.”

“Could you make me a copy of this page?” I asked. “It's a good source of names.”

He waved his hand dismissively. “Just take the original. I've got too much crap in those filing cabinets. It's time to get rid of this old junk.”

I put the materials in my briefcase and thanked him for his time and effort.

“Young lady,” he said with a grin as he jammed his unlit cigar back in his mouth, “it was my pleasure. I've always been a sucker for a pretty gal with long stems. Those legs of yours remind me of Cyd Charisse, and that's one hell of a compliment in my book. Good luck.”