The faces of three women-two dead and one her friend-flashed in her thoughts. "I know, " she said grimly. "But it's all I… it's all we have. Say, before I forget. Have you got the purchase invoices for the Redding generics that I asked you about?"
Zimmermann opened his file cabinet. "Carl Horner does the ordering. He gave me these and asked that I convey his desire to cooperate with you as fully as possible. He also asked that you return these as soon as you're done."
"Of course, " Kate said, glancing at the pile of yellow invoice carbons.
Redding Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Darlington, Kentucky. The words sputtered and sparked in her mind. Then they exploded. "Kate, are you all right? " Zimmermann asked. "Huh? Oh, yes, I'm fine. Bill, something very strange is going on here. I mean very strange." Zimmermann looked at her quizzically. "I don't know how long ago they moved, but at one time, the Ashburton Foundation was located in Darlington, Kentucky."
"How do you know?"
"I found their old address in my father-in-law's Rolodex."
"So?"
Kate held up an invoice for him to see. "Darlington. That's where Redding Pharmaceuticals is headquartered."
For the first time, William Zimmermann seemed perturbed. "I still don't see what point you're trying to make."
Kate heard the irritation in the man's voice and, recalling his oblique reference to the Bobby Geary letter, cautioned herself to tread gently.
Her supporters, even skeptical ones, were few and far between. "I… I guess I overreacted a little, " she said with a sheepishness she was not really feeling. "Ellen's being in the middle of all this has me grasping at straws, I guess." She glanced at her watch. "Look, I've got to get over to the OR. Thanks for these. If I come up with any facts," she corrected herself with a raised finger, "make that substantiated facts, I'll give you a call."
"Fine, " Zimmermann said. "Let me know if there's any further way I can help."
Kate hurried outside and across the street, mindless of the wind and snow. Ashburton and Redding-once both in Darlington, and now both at the Omnicenter. A coincidence? Not likely, she thought. No, not likely at all. The lobby clock read two minutes to ten as she sped toward the surgical suite and the small frozen-section lab. The room was dark.
Taped to the door was a carefully printed note.
OR CRYOSTAT INOPERATIVE. BRING BIOPSY SPECS TO PATH DEPARTMENT CRYOSTAT FOR PROCESSING
"Ten seconds to ignition. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Ignition." Tom Engleson struck the wooden match against the edge of an iron trivet and touched the brandy-soaked mound of French vanilla ice cream. "Voila! " he cried. "Bravo! " Kate cheered. Tom filled two shallow dishes and set Kate's in front of her with a flourish. The evening had been a low-key delight, drinks at the Hole in the Wall Pub, dinner at the Moon Villa, in Chinatown, and finally dessert in Tom's apartment, twenty stories above Boston Harbor. She had forgotten to break their date, and for once her poor memory had proven an asset.
Twenty minutes into their conversation at the Hole in the Wall, Kate had given up trying to sort out what she wanted from the evening and the man and had begun to relax and enjoy both. Still, she knew, thoughts of Jared were never far from the surface, nor were thoughts of Redding Pharmaceuticals and the Ashburton Foundation. "Okay, " Tom said as he poured two cups of coffee and settled into the chair next to her, "now that my brain is through crying for food and drink and such, it's ready to try again to understand. There is no Ashburton Foundation?"
"No, there's something called the Ashburton Foundation, but I'm not at all certain it's anything other than a laundry for money."
"Pharmaceutical company money."
"Right. I called the number I got from my father-in-law's Rolodex and got a receptionist of some sort. She referred every question, even what street they were located on in DC, to someone named Dr. Thompson, apparently the director of the so-called foundation."
"But Dr. Thompson was out of the office and never called you back."
"Exactly. I tried calling the receptionist again, and this time she said that Thompson was gone for the day and would contact me in the morning.
It was weird, I tell you, weird. The woman, supposedly working for this big foundation, didn't have the vaguest idea of how to handle my call."
"Did you ask Reese about all this?"
"He was gone for the day by the time I called, but tomorrow after I see Ellen, I intend to camp out on his doorstep."
"But why? What does Redding Pharmaceuticals get out of funneling all this money into our hospital?"
Kate shrugged. "That, Thomas, is the sixty-four dollar question.
At the moment, every shred of woman's intuition in my body is screaming that the tie-in has something to do with the contaminated vitamins our friend Dr. Paquette has gone to such lengths to cover up."
"Incredible."
"Incredible, maybe. Impossible? " She took a folded copy of an article from her purse and passed it over. "I came across this yesterday during one of my sessions in the library. It's part of a whole book about a drug called MER/29, originally developed and marketed by Merrell Pharmacouticals."
"That's a big company, " Tom said, flipping through the pages. "Not as big as Redding, but big enough. This MER/29 was supposed to lower cholesterol and thereby prevent heart disease. Only trouble was that other companies were racing to complete work on other products designed to do the same thing. The good folks at Merrell estimated a potential yearly profit in the billions at just one twenty cent capsule a day for each person over thirty-five. However, they also knew that the lion's share of that profit would go to the first company whose product could get cleared by the FDA and launched into the marketplace."
"I'm not going to want to hear the rest of this, am I, " Tom said.
"Not if you have much trust in the pharmaceutical industry. Remember, the FDA doesn't evaluate products, the pharmaceutical companies do. The FDA only evaluates the evaluations. In its haste to get MER/29 into the bodies of the pharmaceutical-buying public, Merrell cut corner after corner in their laboratory and clinical testing. But since none of the shortcuts was evident in the massive reports they submitted to the FDA, in 1961, MER/29 was approved by the FDA and launched by Merrell. Two years later, almost by accident, the FDA discovered what the company had done and ordered the drug removed. By that time, a large number of people had gone blind or developed hideous, irreversible skin conditions or lost all their hair."
Tom whistled. "Kids with no arms because their mothers took a sleeping pill called thalidomide. Kids with irreparably yellow teeth because tetracycline was rushed into the marketplace before all its side effects were known. The list goes on and on."
"You sound a little angry, " Tom said, taking her hand and guiding her to the couch across the room. "They paid off my chemist, Tom, " she said. "They've made me look like a fool, or worse, a liar. You're damn right I'm angry."
She sighed and leaned back, still holding his hand. "Forgive me for popping off like that, but I guess I needed to."
Tom slipped his free arm around her shoulders and drew her close.
Together they sat, watching fat, wind-whipped flakes of snow tumble about over the harbor and melt against the huge picture window. "Thank you, " she whispered. "Thank you for understanding."
Again and again they kissed. First her blouse, then her bra, then Tom's shirt dropped to the carpet, as he bore her gently down on the couch.
His lips, brushing across the hollow of her neck and over the rise of her breasts, felt wonderful. His hand, caressing the smooth inside of her thigh was warm and knowing and patient. She felt as excited, as frightened, as she had during her earliest teenage encounters. But even as she sensed her body respond to his hunger, even as her nipples grew hard against his darting tongue, she sensed her mind begin to pull back.