Around noon Saturday, as they staggered forth in their stupors, they realized the guy had already left. They could not imagine him leaving in his condition, and they spent an hour or so chugging coffee and talking about some of the things he had said.
Loretta was quick to acknowledge that most of her information was secondhand at best, but she believed it anyway. Why, other than being drunk, would the guy know so much? Her source was the ER nurse, a trustworthy pal she had known for about five years. He was bothered by some of the things the guy said, at least as much as he could remember.
At work the following Monday, the guy kept away from his drinking buddies and fell into his usual routine of saying little and acting detached. The ER nurse described him as being “downright weird.”
His name was Oscar Kofie. Simon remembered meeting him in Eleanor’s room not long after she was admitted. He and another technician were in the process of returning her after more X-rays. She had referred to them — Bill and Oscar — as her new friends. Oscar Kofie, an unusual name, and one that Simon had run across digging through the hospital’s records.
As lawyers, Simon and Raymond immediately recognized the potential danger facing Loretta and her story. If it led to the investigation and, hopefully, conviction of Kofie, the hospital would be liable for the death of Eleanor Barnett.
At that moment, they didn’t care. Finding the killer was far more important. And Loretta was a confident professional who gave every indication of being able to fend for herself.
Simon managed to suppress his excitement and thanked Loretta for coming forward. Raymond puffed away, poker-faced, and said they would check out the new suspect. He said, “We’ll keep your name out of it.”
Loretta said, “Thanks, this is all secondhand stuff. I don’t have any real proof.”
Chapter 59
Time for more tea with Zander. Her wondrous hacking skills had yet to produce anything useful, not that Simon was ungrateful. Since she had already found her way into the hospital’s system, running down another name was no problem. She opened her laptop on the little breakfast table and pecked away. “Got him.”
She turned the screen to Simon who was suddenly staring at the face of Oscar Kofie, one he vaguely remembered from last December. Early thirties, chubby cheeks, clean-shaven, drugstore eyeglasses, receding hairline. Nothing noticeable or distinguishable about the face. Nor the bio — associate’s degree from a community college in Dayton; certified X-ray tech in Ohio, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia; eleven years of experience in various hospitals, public and private.
“What makes him a suspect?” Zander asked casually, as if she didn’t care. Simon had learned that she really, truly didn’t care about anything, except perhaps her incarcerated boyfriend and the problems he might cause them after he was paroled.
“Just some new gossip. How deep can you dig into this guy?”
“Deep as you want.”
“How about prior places of employment?”
“Give me a day or two.”
Simon drove to Charlottesville to meet Landy for lunch. She was appearing before a grand jury there and wasting the day, in her opinion. In her spare time, and Simon reminded her repeatedly that in his world there was no such thing as “spare time,” she had put together profiles of about forty hospital employees, with no red flags. Oscar Kofie was not one of them.
They were eating outdoors on the downtown pedestrian mall, under the shade of an oak, with dozens of other young professionals, shop owners, office employees, students, and tourists. It was a splendid day. Simon was eating with a pretty lady, one he had known in every way since they were twenty-three years old. As fine as the moment should have been, he found it impossible to enjoy anything about it.
“You look miserable,” she said.
“Well, maybe prison does that to a person. Don’t know. Plus I got the letter from the state bar yesterday, yanking my license without so much as a hearing.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You keep saying that and I wish you’d stop.”
So she said nothing for a long time as they suffered in silence. He hardly touched his food and finally said, “I’m spending twelve hours a day digging online. I have piles of research, most of it useless. I’ve gone back twenty years and tried to find every murder-by-poison case in the country. There are about twenty a year, confirmed, but probably hundreds that go undetected. I need more help from the FBI.”
“I’m doing all I can, Simon, and I’ll do whatever is possible.”
“The FBI collects more crime data than any other agency, but many cases go unreported and fall through the cracks.”
“A lot of crime in this country.”
“I know. Is it possible to go behind the published statistics? Is there more data that the FBI doesn’t publish, for whatever reason?”
“You’re talking about poisonings, right?”
“What else?”
“Don’t snap at me. I’m on your side, remember?”
“Sorry. Yes, murder by poison.”
“I don’t know, but why would we, the FBI, hide those statistics?”
Simon took a deep breath and didn’t answer. He tried two bites of a pan-fried trout and put down his fork. “I know I’m being difficult.”
“Not at all, Simon. I’m trying to understand.”
“It’s just that we expect miracles out of the FBI and I know that’s not realistic. But I have a hacker pal who’s finding more stuff than the FBI.”
“Hacking is a crime. We can’t go in without a warrant.”
“I know.”
“Are you violating the law?”
He laughed and said, “Who cares? I’m fifty-eight days away from prison. Indict me! Convict me! Hell, give me the needle.”
“Not so loud, Simon.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’ll see what I can do. Just hang on, okay?”
“Easy for you to say.”
“I know, I know.”
At four-thirty that afternoon, Simon walked into an Avis car rental office in Pentagon City near Reagan National. Three women worked the counter, one of them was Matilda Clark. She wore a smart navy pantsuit uniform with Avis above the right pocket and her new name, Maddie, above the left. It fit her nicely. He wore a cap and sunglasses, got in line, and sort of hid behind the large man in front of him. When it was his turn, he yanked off the cap and sunglasses, leaned on the counter, and was face-to-face with Tillie. She appeared as though she might faint.
“Hello, Matilda,” he said in a low voice. “Oops, I see it’s ‘Maddie’ now.”
She was still struggling to speak and glancing nervously around.
“Don’t worry. I need to rent a car. No problems from me.”
She pecked her keyboard as if just doing her job, gained some composure, and asked, “What do you want?”