Terminal (A Lomax & Biggs Mystery Book 5) (15 page)

“By the time the FDA became aware of it, a number of women had died. The company swore that they had no knowledge of it and quietly replaced the defective product with the earlier version. They also paid a fine.”

“How much?” I said.

“I believe it was four hundred million dollars, which was substantially less than the money they earned while the other product was out there.”

“Did anyone go to jail?”

“Dr. Dunbar was fired, and I know for a fact that the FDA is still investigating whether they can follow up with criminal charges, but so far they can’t prove that she knew the risks.”

“What about the women who died?” Terry said. “Did their families sue?”

“One did, but the case was thrown out. Like all patients, she
had signed a waiver acknowledging that she understood and accepted the risks of taking the drug, and indemnifying the company and the physician from any and all adverse reactions.”

“And I’m guessing the court considers death just another one of those pesky adverse reactions,” Terry said.

“Detective, I’m only giving you Egan Granville’s sworn testimony on what happened with Ovamax. A Senate confirmation committee bought it. If you choose not to—”

“Do
you
?”

“Do I take the word of one of the mayor’s biggest supporters over that of a dying man who has just been arrested for first-degree murder? What do you think? Besides, my personal opinion is totally irrelevant. The only thing that matters in this job is who I stand with.”

“I get it,” Terry said. “You’re a politician. Lomax and I are cops. You can buy into whatever story comes from the highest bidder. Mike and I have to follow up on every lead, and right now, the man who murdered Wade Yancy says there’s an Ova-max hit list.”

“If that’s true,” Berger said, “then I suggest you hurry up and check on the well-being of Dr. Dunbar. She’s the one that all the fingers on both sides are pointing to.”

“I haven’t consulted with my partner yet,” Terry said as the two of us headed toward the door, “but I’m pretty sure we both thought of that as soon as you mentioned her name. We’re also going to pay a little visit to the mayor’s friend, benefactor, and cabinet-member-to-be, Mr. Egan Granville.”

Berger bristled. “Why would you want to talk to Granville? Do you think he knows anything more than he told the Senate committee? He’s the CEO of a multi-billion-dollar global health care company. Take my advice, Detective Biggs, and do not harass him.”

“Thank you for your counsel, Mr. Deputy Mayor,” Terry said, standing in the doorway, poised to leave. “I may not be on board
with everything you’ve put forth, but there is one thing you said that I agree with wholeheartedly.”

“And what’s that?”

“Your personal opinion is totally irrelevant.”

CHAPTER 37

“YOU’VE GOT TO
hand it to Mel Berger,” Terry said once City Hall was in our rearview mirror. “Who else can give up details of the atrocities at Chilton-Winslow, and then casually label it all as ‘the Ovamax debacle’?”

“The man is a brilliant spin doctor,” I said.

“Speaking of evil doctors, I’m guessing this Dr. Amanda Dunbar who came up with the new formula is high on our vigilante’s hit list. Can you give Muller a call and have him track her down before she becomes just another chalk outline and a name in red Sharpie on our white board?”

Despite the fact that I’d have liked to kill Dr. Dunbar myself, it was my job to warn her. I made the call to Muller.

Twenty minutes later Terry and I were on a quiet stretch of Bristol Parkway in Culver City. Brushed-nickel letters set in a thirty-foot span of stone announced that we had arrived at the West Coast Campus of Chilton-Winslow.

The building, a simple eight-story steel-and-glass affair, was unpretentious as LA architecture goes, but the perfectly sculpted topiary gardens that lined the driveway would have fit right in had we been visiting British royalty.

“Their landscaping budget alone could feed a small nation,” Terry said. “But I’m sure their stockholders would agree it’s money well spent.”

We entered the lobby where a trio of blazer-clad rent-a-cops stood at an imposing marble desk.

“LAPD,” I said, flashing tin. “We’re here to talk to Egan Granville.”

The two guards at either end quickly deferred to the one in the center. His name tag read Eddie Montalvo. “Is Mr. Granville expecting you?” he asked, reaching for a phone.

I blocked the reach. “Don’t call. We want to surprise him.”

“Mr. Granville is in Washington DC,” Montalvo said. “I was calling Ms. McGirr.”

“And who’s that?”

“She’s the wolf at the door. Nobody, but nobody, gets to see Mr. Granville lest Ms. McGirr puts them through. And let me tell you, Detective, she’s not too keen on surprises.”

“I guess the wolf is going to have to adapt,” I said. “Lead the way.”

Montalvo led us to an elevator marked Private, and used a key to access the eighth floor. The doors opened, and we stepped into a gallery of museum-quality art. Montalvo carded us through a thick glass door, then steered us to an imposing L-shaped desk.

A well-dressed woman in her late forties looked up. The name plate on her desk said Marion McGirr, and the look in her eye said,
Don’t fuck with me
. Clearly she was not happy to see the three of us invading her space unannounced.

“Sorry to bust in without calling, Ms. McGirr,” Montalvo said, “but these two gentlemen want to ask Mr. Granville some questions.”

McGirr looked at me and Terry. “You and every other reporter in Los Angeles. You’re wasting your time and mine. The Senate doesn’t vote until Monday. We’ll hold a press conference Monday afternoon. Have your editor contact our public relations people.”

“We don’t have an editor, but we do have these badges that say LAPD homicide,” Terry said, extending his. “We’re investigat
ing the murder of Kristian Kraus, and we can’t wait till Monday.”

She stood up and checked his ID. Then she asked for mine. “Marion McGirr,” she said once she was convinced she was stuck with us. She dismissed Montalvo with a single nod of her head.

“We were all stunned by the news of Dr. Kraus’s murder,” she said. “He was a major asset to our company. Mr. Granville has been in Washington DC since it happened. I’m not sure how he could possibly help you with your investigation, but I’ve been his personal assistant for twenty-three years. I assure you I can answer any questions on his behalf.”

“I’m sure you can answer them all brilliantly,” Terry said. “And yet the United States Senate insisted on interviewing him and not you. LAPD operates pretty much the same way. We prefer getting our answers straight from the horse’s mouth. Perhaps you can tell us when the horse will be back in LA.”

Terry is skilled at putting people in their place in a big hurry. Most of them resent him for it, and they usually turn to me, hoping I’m the designated good cop. Not Marion McGirr. Her job was to cut people off at the knees, and suddenly, without warning, she found herself on the receiving end of the cut.

Maybe there’s an unwritten code among hard-asses, but instead of getting pissed off, McGirr let a half smile of admiration spread over her face. She had been bested by a master.

“Mr. Granville will be flying in with some of our senior officers Sunday morning. There’s a board meeting at 2 p.m. It will be his last one. The Senate will vote on his nomination Monday, and at this point it appears it will be unanimous. Do you gentlemen work Sundays?”

“Yes ma’am,” I said. “What time does he arrive?”

“The corporate jet lands at Van Nuys Airport at 9:30. They’ll chopper over here. I can put you on his calendar for ten. Does that work?”

“It does,” I said. “Thank you for your time. By the way, I read
that one of your other executives was killed in a car accident. Sad times for your company. We’re sorry for your loss.”

“That was Wade Yancy. He was Vice President of Brand Development. We were just getting over his death when Dr. Kraus was taken from us. I guess what they say is true—bad things happen in threes.”

“Threes?” I said.

“A few weeks prior to that another one of our senior people, Carolyn Butler, died in a climbing accident. Let’s hope this is the end of it.”

“Let’s hope so,” I said.

Based on Bruce Bower’s testimony, the person behind the two-way mirror had a hit list. And now that the body count was up to three, I was starting to think we were more at the beginning than the end.

CHAPTER 38

AS SOON AS
we left Chilton, I called Muller and added Carolyn Butler’s climbing accident to his already full plate.

By the time we got back to the office the boy genius was ready for us.

“Carolyn Butler was scaling a four-hundred-foot vertical face at Joshua Tree National Park last month when her rope snapped, and she fell a hundred feet to her death,” he said.

“Just like that?” Terry said. “Her rope snapped?”

“Climbing has its dark side,” Muller said. “Apparently that’s part of the rush.”

“And it was deemed an accident?”

“Signed, sealed, and verified by the ME. Joshua Tree is over twelve hundred square miles, Detective. It wasn’t the first accidental death, and it won’t be the last. But they’ve never had a homicide—at least none that they know of.”

“What did you find on Amanda Dunbar?” Terry said.

“Enough to send you and Lomax on an all-expense-paid trip along the Pacific Coast Highway, which is renowned for its scenic beauty and frequent landslides,” Muller said, a hint of a smile on his farm-boy face. “Dr. Dunbar left Chilton with a considerable retirement package, bought a house on Cliffside Drive in Malibu, and has been there ever since.”

“Let’s pay her a visit,” Terry said.

“One thing before you go,” Muller said. “Take a look at these mug shots.”

He laid out seven pictures on his desk. Terry and I both pointed our fingers at the same one. “That’s Charlie Brock,” he said.

“Really?” Muller said. He looked even more surprised than we were.

“Really,” I said. “Who did you think it was?”

He flipped the picture over. “His real name is Peter Thatcher.”

“How did you find him?”

“You said he had liver cancer, so I started searching the medical databases looking for a Charles Brock. I came up empty. So I had this thought: If I had a diseased organ, what would I want to do?”

“Try to get a healthy one,” Terry said.

“Exactly. A transplant. So I called UCLA and got a list of all their transplant candidates for the last two years.”

“You’re a genius,” I said.

“No, I’m an idiot, but luckily I’m married to a genius. Last night I was telling Anette what I was looking for, and she told me that Charlie wouldn’t qualify for a new liver if the old one has cancer. I said, ‘You’d think being married to a nurse I’d have known that.’”

“I live with a nurse, and I didn’t know that,” I said.

“Anette says a lot of people don’t know that, so they apply, and they get rejected. I took a ride over to UCLA, pulled out the files of the liver transplant rejects that fit Charlie’s description—white, male, forties—and I came up with this batch here.” He held up the picture we fingered. “You sure this is him?”

“He’s definitely the person we met at the Living With Dying meeting,” Terry said, “but Mike and I won’t know if he’s the one who shot the Bowers until after we sit him down and ask him a few questions. Thanks a lot. Great job.”

Terry started to walk towards the door, then stopped and turned around. “I almost forgot to ask,” he said. “By any chance did your wife also happen to get this guy’s address?”

CHAPTER 39

TWENTY MINUTES AFTER
we zeroed in on Charlie Brock’s real identity, Muller worked up a quick background and rattled off the bullet points for us.

“Peter Martin Thatcher, forty-seven, born Vallejo, California, attended UC Santa Barbara, majored in poli-sci, pulled six years with the Marines, two tours in the Gulf, honorable discharge, worked as a boat mechanic in Long Beach until five months ago, which coincides with the date he tried to get a new liver and was told, ‘Sorry, Charlie.’”

“They probably said, ‘Sorry, Peter,’” Terry volunteered.

Muller looked at me. “Does he ever let up?”

“Trust me, he’s even worse when he doesn’t talk,” I said.

“Thatcher’s been renting a furnished apartment on West Valley Boulevard in Alhambra,” Muller said, handing me the address. “That’s all I can give you right now.”

“We’ve got guns and vests,” Terry said, “so that’s all we need. Thanks.”

Terry and I drove to a two-story white stucco faux-hacienda rat trap that Thatcher/Brock called home. The building manager, a clueless, past-his-prime surfer dude who reeked of weed and apathy, gave us the key to what he referred to as Unit Four.

We drew our weapons, knocked on the door, and Terry bellowed out the mandatory “Open up, LAPD” salutation. Get
ting no response, and because the occupant was a bona fide suspect in a homicide investigation, we entered unencumbered by any further legal constraints that normally bog down our unrelenting quest for justice.

The apartment looked like it had been stormed by insurgents. The lone closet had been ransacked, and whatever clothes hadn’t been strewn on the floor were spilling out of three open dresser drawers. A black plastic garbage bag was stuffed with crushed Budweiser cans, grease-stained Papa John’s pizza boxes, and the rotting remains of rice, beans, and bones from El Pollo Loco.

“Looks like liver cancer boy is on a health kick,” Terry said.

The entire apartment consisted of a single eighteen-by-twelve room with a tiny toilet in one corner. In the opposite corner was a black matte gun locker. Unlocked. Terry swung the door open. It was the only thing in the place that had been stripped clean.

“Good news for some anxious apartment hunter who’s looking for something with that trendy Smith & Wesson flair,” Terry announced. “Charlie Brock has clearly moved on. Unit Four is definitely on the market.”

“Let’s look around and see if he left a forwarding address,” I said.