“Sit wherever you’d like,” Fulton whispered.
Oliver chose a chair, Marge took the sofa. The doctor stood next to the fireplace screen and rubbed her hands together. “I shouldn’t be here. I should be there…at the hospital…helping.” She brought her hands to her face and cried into them.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to sit?” Oliver asked.
“No.” She wiped her eyes with her fingers, folded her arms across her chest. “What happened?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Marge said.
“Was he kidnapped? Carjacked? I mean no one would have hurt him if they had known who he was, right?”
Oliver took out his notepad. “You sure you don’t want to sit, Doctor?”
“Positive.” She shook her head. “I mean…why?”
Oliver said, “If you could help us with the why, you’d be doing everyone a service. When was the last time you saw him, Doctor?”
“Last night. At our research meeting.”
“The Curedon meeting,” Oliver clarified.
“Yes. How did you-You’ve spoken to Dr. Decameron, then.”
“Yes.” Marge took out her pad. “You have regularly scheduled meetings?”
“Yes and no. Dr. Sparks sends us a memo when we’re to meet. It works out to about once or twice a week.”
“You don’t mind that?” Marge asked.
“Mind what?”
“That he sends you a memo at his…discretion?”
Fulton threw Marge an impatient look. “He’s a very busy man. Of course, we work around his schedule.”
“When was the last time you actually saw him?” Oliver repeated.
“Oh gosh! He cut our research meeting short. It must have ended around seven-thirty, maybe quarter to eight.”
“Why did he cut the meeting short?” Marge asked.
Fulton said, “Well, he really didn’t cut it short, per se. He just summed things up rather quickly after he took the phone call from his son. He gave no reason for hurrying things along.”
“Did he seem upset after the phone call?”
“He was upset when he took the call. He was angry at-” She stopped short.
Oliver said, “Dr. Decameron told us he had an argument with Dr. Sparks.”
“It wasn’t an argument. Dr. Sparks just became a little irritated shall we say.”
“Irritated at Decameron.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Her eyes grew suspicious. “Dr. Decameron didn’t tell you?”
“We’d like your opinion,” Marge said.
She stared at Marge, appeared to be weighing her words. “Dr. Decameron read some of Dr. Sparks’s faxes. The latest Curedon trial results. Of course, Reggie apologized right away. He was just excited about the data. You see, there had been some slowdown of Curedon’s efficacy rate. The newest numbers however were very encouraging.”
“Yeah, Dr. Decameron told us something about that,” Oliver said. “How you’ve been getting a lot more deaths lately.”
She bristled. “Not a lot. Just some…Dr. Decameron seems to feel it might be a lab or computer processing error.”
Oliver said, “Maybe he’s making excuses because he’s anxious to bring Curedon to market.”
Marge said, “Big boost in his career as an academician, right?”
“Yes, but-”
“Maybe he’s even been promised a piece of the profits,” Oliver suggested.
“No, no, no,” Liz protested. “That’s entirely false. The only one who would gain anything monetarily is…was Azor. You’re way off base.”
“You’re sure about that,” Marge said.
“Sure I’m…at least to my knowledge.”
“Let’s go back to the meeting,” Marge said. “It ended around seven-thirty maybe quarter to eight?”
“About that time, yes. Then Dr. Sparks and Dr. Decameron walked out together. Maybe that was ten minutes later.”
“Did Dr. Sparks seem in a hurry?”
“Well, he did push the meeting. But no…he didn’t seem as if he was rushing to get somewhere. Of course, that wasn’t Dr. Sparks’s manner…to hurry things.”
Marge said, “Did Dr. Decameron and Dr. Sparks often have arguments?”
Fulton gave a mysterious smile. “One doesn’t argue with Azor-with Dr. Sparks. Yes, we do have some academic exchange of ideas. But you try not to displease him. If you do, then you figure out what you’ve done and make amends. You either play his game or you’re not on the team.”
“That doesn’t make you feel…hemmed in?” Oliver asked.
“Hemmed in?” Fulton gave him an incredulous look. “Sir, that’s just a given when you work with someone of his stature. That’s how it is with medical academia. Dr. Sparks owns everything that comes from his lab, even if he’s only worked tangentially on the project.”
“That doesn’t seem fair,” Marge stated.
“That’s research science,” Liz said. “Get on Azor’s good side, you might get some credit. And you need credit if you want to advance. You must publish the right material under the right people. Someone with clout. For that privilege, you have to eat…you know.”
“Sparks make you eat a lot of…you know?” Marge asked.
“Well, he was graceful about it. He could afford to be because he knew who he was. I’ve worked for him for the last four years. It’s nice to have a boss who’s a benevolent tyrant. Because I’ve worked under the other kind, too.”
“Benevolent tyrant,” Marge repeated.
“Tyrant is too strong a word.”
“Dictator?” Oliver tried.
“Put it this way. After a while, you know when to suggest something and when to keep your mouth shut.”
“Does Decameron know the rules as well?”
“Reggie is an individualist. More forceful than I am, certainly. More than once at our meetings, he played devil’s advocate. But he knew when to stop. The man is no fool.”
“Dr. Sparks was deeply religious,” Marge said.
“Yes.”
“How’d he feel about Dr. Decameron being homosexual?”
“I don’t know. It never came up in any of our conversations.”
“Never talked about ‘those’ kinds of people?” Oliver said.
“Not to me.”
“A passing derogatory phrase never slipped from his lips?”
Fulton smiled. “Nothing slips from Dr. Sparks’s lips. If he ‘utters’ something, it’s for a reason.”
“Dr. Decameron said that one of Sparks ’s sons is gay. You know anything about that?”
“Which one?”
“The priest.”
She waved Oliver off. “That’s ridiculous. I mean I don’t know if Bram is or isn’t. But I don’t know why Dr. Decameron would know, either. Unless he’s indulging in wishful thinking. Bram’s a nice-looking man.”
Marge said, “I take it you never detected Sparks having a problem with Dr. Myron Berger being Jewish.”
“Dr. Berger and Dr. Sparks have known each other for thirty-plus years. They attended Harvard Medical School together.”
“So they’re…peers.”
“Yes,” Fulton said.
“Being his peer,” Oliver said, “is Dr. Berger just as…respectful of Dr. Sparks’s rules? Or does he have more independence than either you or Dr. Decameron?”
“We all had independence,” Fulton said testily. “We aren’t chattel.”
Oliver said, “You know what I’m getting at.”
“Frankly, I don’t,” Fulton said.
“Was Sparks Berger’s boss?” Marge asked.
“Of course.”
“And that didn’t create resentment?” Marge asked. “Two of them going to medical school together, and now Sparks is above him?”
Fulton rubbed her shoulder. “If Dr. Berger felt resentful, he certainly had the skills, the experience, and the publications to move on. Being as he hadn’t, I’m assuming he’s comfortable with the relationship he has…had with Azor…with Dr. Sparks.”
“What kind of relationship did Dr. Sparks have with his family?” Marge asked.
“They adored him.”