She said, “Cooley’s working on something for you.”
“I can’t wait.”
“Are you being a smart-ass?”
“Yes.”
“He has developed his own home-brew software that cannot be hacked or penetrated. Calls it Teflon.”
“Original.”
“Smart-ass again. I have it on my computer. He’s customizing a program for you that’ll keep your systems thoroughly secure. That way, he and I, and anyone else for that matter, can send you stuff without leaving a trace.”
“And what are we afraid of? I’ve already been convicted, Zander. I’m going to prison.”
“Congratulations, gold star for you. I, however, am not a felon, not yet anyway, and I prefer to keep it that way. I’ll install the software for you at no charge and you’ll never know it’s there.”
“Whatever. I wonder if Kofie likes girls. He’s thirty-six, single, never married. Maybe he cruises through the dating sites looking for love.”
“I couldn’t care less. But if he does, Cooley will know soon enough.”
Loretta Goodwin reluctantly agreed to meet for coffee after work. She was the mother of three, happily married, and unwilling to risk being seen talking to Simon in a bar or some other shady place. She chose the cafeteria in the basement of the hospital, a place that was always deserted at 6 P.M.
Simon bought two cups of coffee and they hid at a corner table, his back to the entrance. Loretta could see those coming and going, but there was hardly anyone to notice. She was not eager to talk but willing to listen.
“We don’t have a solid suspect,” Simon said. “Our list is rather short, but Kofie is at the top of it. I’m not accusing him, yet. But Kofie is the most promising. How much do you know about him?”
She shrugged and studied the floor. “Not much at all.”
“Does he have a close friend here at work? Does he date anyone? Straight or gay?”
“I don’t know and don’t care. It’s none of my business. I have enough to worry about, Mr. Latch.”
“Please call me Simon. How often do you see him?”
“Once a week maybe. He’s the kind of person you see but don’t see. Like a piece of furniture.”
“But there has to be someone here who knows him.”
“Maybe, but I don’t know who. We work in different worlds, Simon. When I’m here I’m very busy caring for my patients. I don’t have time to socialize. That’s not part of my job.”
“I understand. You told the story about Kofie out drinking with his buddies from work and running his mouth. Who were the friends? I believe there were three of them, right?”
“I think so.”
“Can you get me their names? And the names of his supervisors?”
She took a deep breath, reluctant to say yes.
“Please, Loretta. I’m not asking you to do anything illegal or unethical. I’m desperate, okay?”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you. Any scrap of info could be crucial, not only for me, but for the hospital as well. Imagine for a moment if Kofie is really the killer. The legal aftershocks for the hospital would be horrendous. An employee, one supposedly vetted, poisons a patient. There’s not enough money in the Commonwealth to pay for that lawsuit.”
“I get it.”
Chapter 61
Meticulously researched, beautifully written, and thoroughly persuasive, the Defendant’s Motion to Vacate the Guilty Verdict and Grant a New Trial was filed by Raymond Lassiter on time. It was a 38-page masterpiece, at least in the opinion of its author, the defendant himself. Raymond and Casey read it carefully and did not suggest a single change, not even an extra comma.
With that chore out of the way, Simon returned to the monotonous task of tracking murder-by-poison cases over the past forty years. Landy received clearance from her supervisor — crime data was not exactly classified material — and was passing along links to more crime statistics than any one person could read and filter. The previous year there had been twenty-two cases, or at least twenty-two people had been indicted for such murders. Four had pled guilty. The others were still awaiting justice. The troublesome trend in the past decade was that about a third of the persons accused walked free with not-guilty verdicts. Murder by poison was hard to prove. This, obviously, was not comforting to Simon. He had been nailed by a screwball jury, and the more he dwelt on his verdict, the more he was convinced he had been convicted because of the greedy-lawyer theme the prosecution had used so effectively.
His phone pinged at 2:38 in the morning, and of course it was Zander, who slept past noon most days because she roamed the internet all hours of the night. Simon was at his desk, sipping strong coffee, wide awake, and digging through crime statistics.
“Bingo,” she said.
“And?”
“A major breakthrough. Just wormed my way into the hospital’s archives and found the employment application for our boy.”
“Congrats. I will not ask how you did it?”
“You wouldn’t understand if I drew pictures for you.”
“Thanks, as always.”
“Oscar Kofie applied to Blue Ridge Memorial in 2013. His previous job was the same, an X-ray tech at the University of Maryland hospital, where he worked for two years. Before that, a system in Scranton. Before that, a hospital in Columbus, Ohio. Seems he moves around every two or three years. I’ll send you the data.”
“Any reasons for his departures?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. He applied in an effort to get a job, not lose another one. Why would he include anything even remotely negative?”
“Got it.” Simon once again chastised himself for throwing out useless questions when he knew damned well they would draw a sarcastic retort.
“I’ll send it over.”
“Can you take a look at his HR files at previous hospitals?”
“I’m on it. So is Cooley.”
“Thanks.”
Simon fell asleep on his sofa, which was more comfortable than his cot, though between them they were wreaking havoc with his spine. He slept a few hours and woke up with the sunrise. He went to the reception area, peeked out the front window, saw no one and no traffic, and at 6:15 sneaked out the back door into the alley and went for a long run. Day 51, more than halfway to his sentencing date when Judge Shyam would be forced to send him away for a long time.
After a shower, he packed his gear and drove three hours south to a state park in the Appalachian Mountains. Paula had spent the first night with the kids in a rustic cabin on a lake, and she was eager to hand them off and get away. She and her old girlfriends from Braxton had a week of partying planned in the Outer Banks. The family ate hot dogs together for lunch, then Paula made a quick exit.
Simon was in charge of the kids, so there were no rules. They swam in the lake for hours, fished the mountain streams, canoed and kayaked, ate junk food at will, and watched old movies until they fell asleep. No one said a word about the future, though it was always there, hanging over them like a distant cloud. Buck and Danny knew far more about the case than Simon could imagine. It was not clear how much Janie knew because she said little. All three ignored the mess their father was in, or at least did a fine job of pretending to.
The only unbendable rule for the week was no devices. The vacation was offline. They awoke early, went nonstop during the days, and at night played old-fashioned board games and cards when they were not watching movies. Simon taught them poker, though it was obvious the boys had played it before. He taught them gin rummy, bridge, and blackjack. Before long they were betting with plastic poker chips, and all three kids seemed to have a knack for the table. Little Janie did especially well and suggested they up the ante to real pennies. Simon worried about the example he was setting, but let it pass. He admitted to himself that he missed the action at Chub’s. It was harmless fun, right? By the third night, Janie was up a hundred and ten cents at blackjack.