Dead File (10 page)

Wheeling down the white-tiled corridor of the ICU, William Schaeffer considered what had happened to his daughter. Someone had shot her, in her office, well after business hours, in the early morning, in fact. Someone who knew her, the police speculated, someone inside the company. Someone high up, Schaeffer reasoned, to have access to the top executive suites at that hour, or any hour. Instinctively, he didn’t trust those two.

20

S
chaeffer Pharmacy in Westwood. William Schaeffer, in a white lab coat over the blue shirt, rep tie, and black trousers that Maxi had seen him in at the church that morning, greeted Maxi from behind the prescription counter.

“Hello, Mr. Schaeffer,” Maxi returned. “Is there someplace where we can talk?”

“Come back to my office,” Schaeffer said. “Benny will tend the store.”

A tall, lanky young man in large black-rimmed glasses, wearing a white coat over a yellow V-neck sweater and jeans, responded to the pharmacist with a nod.

“Is he a student?” Maxi asked when they were inside the office.

“Of pharmacology,” Schaeffer said. The sprawling UCLA campus was just down the street.

Schaeffer rolled his wheelchair behind a cluttered desk, and Maxi settled into a metal folding chair, one of two in the tiny office.

“May I ask what brought you to Gillian Rose’s funeral?” Maxi asked.

“I knew Gillian. I liked her. And she was good to my Sandie.”

“You said you were going over to Cedars to visit your daughter after the funeral—”

“I did. She’s still in a coma. It’s distressing. They’re worried about infection now.”

“Do you know anything at all about what happened, Mr. Schaeffer?”

“No. But I have my theories.”

“Which are?”

“I think it must have had something to do with business. Gillian was the brains behind Rose’s product output, and Sandie was her right hand—maybe the two of them knew something.”

“About … ?”

“Well, Gillian was testing some innovative formulas, some of them for products that would classify as drugs, so typically they would be outside the parameters of Rose International’s business model.”

“How do you know that?”

“Gillian talked to me from time to time about things she was developing, because of my drug expertise.”

“What made her consult with you? I’m sure the Rose company has its own labs.”

“Sandie told her about something I’ve been working on. Gillian got interested and came over to see me about it.”

“Can you tell me what it was?”

“No. But Gillian and I met several times about it, and eventually we both signed a letter of intent for her to purchase my formula. We were going to collaborate on its development; then she was going to market it. We signed a confidentiality agreement—Gillian didn’t want it public until we were ready to go with it.”

“I promise what you say will stay right here.”

“But you people put everything on the news—”

“Not if you tell me not to, Mr. Schaeffer.”

“Then why do you want to know?”

“Because Mrs. Rose is dead—and maybe it
wasn’t
natural causes. Maybe something you tell me will give me some insight into the reason why she died. And why someone tried to kill your daughter. None of this will go on the news, I promise you.”

“All right, then I’ll hold you to that, Ms. Poole. It’s a drug I’m working on for glaucoma. I’ve had glaucoma for years, and I’ve been developing an eyedrop for glaucoma relief. And I think I’m on to something. Something that not only effects relief, but reversal as well. Gillian was very interested—she was going to finance the FDA-required double-blind studies.”

“So you were going to sell your formula to the Rose company?”

“No. As I said, Rose International is not licensed to develop or distribute prescription drugs, just over-the-counter vitamins and dietary supplements. This is a pharmaceutical product that I tendered my intent to sell solely to Gillian Rose. She was going to start up a separate company to market it.”

“Why would she want to do that? Bother to develop and market one prescription glaucoma remedy when her company makes millions manufacturing over-the-counter dietary supplements.”

“She never said. Maybe there was a history of glaucoma in her family and she wanted to help get this drug to market. Glaucoma is hereditary, you know.”

“Well, I’m sure Carter Rose is Gillian’s sole beneficiary. Now he’ll be in possession of your intent document, right?”

“No. That deal is now null and void. But I’m still perfecting the product, and I’ll look for another company to test and distribute it.”

“I don’t understand,” Maxi said. “Even though Gillian is dead, the Rose company is still very much in business.”

Schaeffer looked away, studying the wall for a beat as if contemplating whether to answer. Then he said, “Gillian made it clear in the wording that the agreement was exclusively between herself and me. She told me that her husband wasn’t interested in the product, so she was going to pursue this venture on her own. Distribute it under the aegis of a new company she would form, as I said, apart from Rose International.”

“Could this formula be something that someone would kill for?” Maxi asked with a note of incredulity. That strange meeting that she’d happened on between Carter Rose and Goodman Penthe had come to mind.

“I can’t imagine it,” Schaeffer said.

21

B
lessed Sunday. That can’t be the phone ringing,Maxi wailed silently. She glanced over at the digital clock by her bedside: 6:12
A.M.
Let it ring, she told herself, pulling one of the down pillows up over her head and covering both her ears. Unless all hell was breaking loose at work—earthquake, fire, Britney Spears was back with Justin Timberlake—she was going to ignore it.

The answering machine clicked on, and she heard her own muffled voice instructing the caller to leave a message at the sound of the tone. Then she heard the sound of the tone. It was followed by a grainy voice shouting over static, “Maxi, hi . . .”

“Omigod!” Maxi screeched, bolting straight up in bed and pouncing on the phone. It was her good friend and pre-sexual somewhat-significant-other, reporter Richard Winningham.

“Richard! How are you?”

“I’m fine. What time is it there? What
day
is it there?”

“Uh … Sunday morning . . .”

“Are you free for dinner Tuesday night?”

“Richard! You’re coming home!”

“Yes, but just long enough to get my dry cleaning done. Capra’s sending me to Israel.”

“Oh, I can’t wait to see you!” Maxi shouted into the phone. “When are you getting in? I’ll pick you up at the airport—”

“You don’t want to do that. My flight gets into LAX at 3:52
A.M.
Tuesday morning. The station’s sending a courier to pick me up.”

“Okay,” Maxi said. “And really, how long will you be here?”

“I leave for New York on Friday to spend a few days with my mom, then on to Tel Aviv. We’ll get all caught up, Maxi. But I have to hang up now. I found a phone that actually works, but there’s a line of raucous journalists behind me waiting to use it.”

“Wait! Wait! Where
are
you, Richard?”

“In a bar in Lahore—with a CBS correspondent literally pounding on my back waiting to call home—see you Tuesday, Max.” Before she could respond, the line went dead.

Maxi fell back on the pillows, smiling. She lolled in wakeful dreamland for about twenty seconds, then she felt the covers rustling. Opening her eyes, she twisted her head to the right and saw two gray paws that had claimed purchase on the side of her comfy feather bed.

“No, Yuke,” she mumbled to the paws. “It’s Sunday. Sleep-in day, remember? Go back to sleep. We’ll go to the dog park later. Much later. Okay?”

Evidently that was not okay. Yukon dropped back down to the floor and emitted a stream of small, cranky whines.

“Don’t sulk, Yukon,” Maxi said, sternly now. “That’ll get you nowhere.”

That remark was apparently lost on the big, furry malamute, who started pawing the carpet beside Maxi’s bed.
Just like a man—he wants what he wants when he wants it,
Maxi thought to herself, all the while staying perfectly still, her eyes tightly closed. Maybe she could fool him into thinking she’d gone back to sleep.

Wrong. Keeping up his restless noodling, he was not to be ignored. With a sigh of resignation, Maxi sat up, swung her legs around, hit the floor, gave the guy a quick rub, and headed for the bathroom, with Yukon padding after her, a big smile on his face.

Christmas was three days away. She’d already sent off gifts to her family in New York, and today was her last chance to do some fast shopping for friends here. But first to the dog park for an hour with Yuke, their Sunday-morning ritual. Now that she was up, might as well get an early start.

At the grassy public park at the corner of Laurel Canyon and Mulholland Drive, the city allowed dog owners to let their animals off the leash. Of course you had to hang with them every second, and even then an occasional fight would break out. An-gelinos called the place the showbiz pooch park, because on weekend days you would catch any number of celebrities supervising any variety of dogs. For Maxi, there was the added perk at times of nailing down interviews with dog-owner celebs. Dog-park camaraderie was infectious. Stars who ordinarily would have their “people,” the layers of staff they maintain between themselves and the press, routinely turn her down through regular channels would happily acquiesce at the dog park. Maxi would schedule her interviews first thing Monday morning, while the mutual doggie glow was still in the air. The most fun interviews were when she got the celebs on camera with their dogs. Jack Lemmon and Chloe, his big, beautiful, black standard poodle, did many interviews with her—Chloe would sit up in her own chair next to Jack’s.

This morning the dog park was less crowded than she usually found it, probably because it was not yet seven o’clock. And not a celeb in sight.
They’re all sleeping in,
she thought, just like she should be doing. But at least it gave her and Yukon loads of room to do their Frisbee thing, and she felt her body waking up with the exercise. Still, every movement was circumscribed by her recent injury. With each jump, sprint, reach, and stretch, she felt twinges of pain, and she knew Yukon, game though he was, did too. They were both a lot slower than they were two months ago, but getting stronger every week. Today’s workout had been a little less painful than last Sunday’s.

Rolling out of the dog park at a little after eight o’clock, it occurred to Maxi that this might be a perfect time to drop by Cedars and check on Sandie Schaeffer—Sunday morning, early, no traffic, and quiet. It was a fast six minutes across Mulholland Drive to her small house in Beverly Glen. She settled Yukon in the backyard, put a tub of water next to his Home Depot “designer” dog house, then jumped back into her weekend junker, a beat-up Chevy Blazer, and zipped down to Cedars at Beverly and San Vicente.

Turns out this
was
a good time for a hospital visit—she even found free parking, no charge on Sundays, at one of the meters around the rambling medical center.

In jeans, T-shirt, and running shoes, she skipped up the concrete steps to the entrance at Cedars, and without stopping at the desk she made her way directly to the Intensive Care Unit on the eighth floor.
Act like you know exactly what you’re doing . . .

When she got to the entrance, three white-coated doctors were walking out of the steel-and-glass doors of the ICU, engrossed in conversation. As they rushed past her, Maxi managed to slip inside before the double doors closed behind them. Maybe she should have asked Mr. Schaeffer for permission to visit his daughter. Then again, maybe not. When you don’t ask, nobody says no.

She hoped she’d be able to recognize Sandie Schaeffer in this sea of ailing patients. Walking briskly past the nurses’ station and down the corridor that bisected rows of separate small patients’ rooms, she glanced right and left into each space as she passed. She found Sandie in a room about halfway down the hall, and she ducked inside.

Sandie was alone, lying perfectly still on the hospital bed, her lips dry and bluish, her head swathed in dressings, her arms, neck, and side hooked to tubes running from IV bottles and pouches. She looked pale, frail, and very small.

Maxi was about to say something to her when a white uniformed nurse bustled into the room. Above her left pocket she wore a plastic name tag, white letters cut into royal blue that read JANELLE ADAMS.

“Hello,” Nurse Adams said brightly. Which was not what Maxi expected her to say. What she expected to hear was “Get out.”

“How’s she doing, Ms. Adams?” she asked the nurse in a quiet voice.

Not so quiet, the bright-faced nurse said, “Actually, she stirred for the first time. This morning. She was trying to speak. Her doctor was very gratified. Are you her sister?”

“No,” Maxi said. “I’m a friend of hers, and the family. Her dad keeps me posted, of course. Bill.”

“Oh.” The nurse beamed. “Bill is wonderful. He’s here every day, most of the time twice a day, as you probably know. He was here this morning, talking to her—that’s when she tried to speak.”

“Yes, Bill is an early bird,” Maxi said, like she knew what she was talking about. “I’d like to try speaking to her a bit, tell her I’m here, and I love her. Is that okay?”

“Sure. That kind of stimulation is good for her, Dr. Stevens says. Let me get her pulse first.”

The nurse reached under the covers and lifted Sandie’s wrist, eyeing her watch as she did. “Strong,” she observed aloud. Then, “Y’know, you look like that newswoman—anybody ever tell you that?”

“All the time,” Maxi said.

“Well, don’t stay too long, now—don’t want to tire her out.”

“I won’t.”

When the nurse was gone, Maxi went around to the front of the bed and lifted the medical chart out of its metal holder. The inside cover had a card clipped to it; on it was a typed notation stating that only the patient’s father, William Schaeffer, was allowed to visit. Guess Ms. Adams wasn’t familiar with that order in the chart.