Florida Is Murder (Due Justice and Surface Tension Mystery Double Feature) (Florida Mystery Double Feature) (28 page)

Distractedly, he said, “The resemblance is uncanny.”

No kidding.

Of course he was Carly’s father. Otherwise, why put Carly in his will?

He asked, “Does Carly know?”

“She must,” I said. “But if not, should we tell her?  Or should we confront Kate?”

That idea did not appeal to me. At all.

We hashed it around for a while before we punted. We’d watch the tapes, then decide.

Carly knew what Morgan looked like. She must know more. Interesting that she’d never mentioned the resemblance, if that’s all it was.

I picked up the phone. Dialed.

“Who are you calling at this hour?” George demanded, watching the video still.

He picked up on the third ring. “Frank. Willa Carson here. I need a favor.”

Maybe, if he hadn’t had that crush on me, he’d have refused. But I’d never called him before dawn. Once a news man, always a news man.

“Robin Jakes suggested I call you.”

Instantly alert he replied, “Oh?”

I explained what we had, what we needed.

He said, “I’ll meet you at the station in fifteen minutes.”

We left Carly asleep in the guest room. Where would she go, after all?

As promised, Frank had set up the editing booth with three chairs and minimum fuss. He knew when to accept a gift horse. Altruism had nothing to do with his decision.

“Start with this one,” I said, handing him the edited tape airing later in the week on national television.

“Dateline’s” familiar format featured guest journalist Robin Jake’s interviews with Morgan, interspersed with commentary and reportage about him and his theories, as well as history of the “breast implant crisis.”

George smirked. His oft repeated low opinion of the media was that nothing short of a “crisis” was deemed worth covering beyond a ten second sound bite.

Morgan’s voice was deep, resonant, commanding. I imagined him crooning in the ears of countless women. No doubt he displayed a certain charm. Good physical condition. If he suspected his killer, overpowering him would have required significant size and strength, as I’d suspected.

Someone he knew, then. Someone he would sit down with at his kitchen table voluntarily. I’d been hoping that theory was untrue.

The story contained several sequences of Robin and Morgan walking around Tampa; along the Bayshore, at University of Tampa, outside his home, sipping coffee con leche at Cold Storage. These sequences were filmed on multiple occasions. Wardrobes, weather, background vehicles and pedestrians varied. The overall effect was of in-depth investigation.

Morgan declared, “I know why some patients get sick and others don’t.”

Robin asked, “You’ve researched women with implants who’ve developed nonspecific auto-immune symptoms, such as rashes, fatigue, joint pain, memory loss and the like?”

“Extensively.”

“And what did you discover, Dr. Morgan?” Robin said.

“Quite simply stated, the silicone solution.” He didn’t seem smug, although the words on a transcript could be read as condescending. “And no one will listen to me.”

“We are listening now. Millions of women and their families are concerned here, Doctor. What is the answer? Why do some women get sick? Allergies? Randomness?” Robin pressed.

His expression and tone were serious, “I’m sorry I can’t tell you, and you knew that before you asked. I’ve explained that we’ll reveal the answer at the right time. But I’ve told someone. And I’ve provided a sealed copy of my presentation, in case something happens to me before I can present the data in the right context.”

Robin leaned in, crossed her forearms, reaching out physically and emotionally. “You’ve finished your work and prepared a presentation. Why are you unwilling to tell us now?”

His voice shook a bit. “I’m telling you that I know and that’s as far as I can go right now. People know I’ve been researching. There are people who don’t want me to find the answer; don’t want to know the answer. But I do. And now the world knows I’ve done it. You might say this interview is life insurance.”

Seemed more than a little paranoid, but if Robin challenged his stated fears, the questions must have been left on the cutting room floor. Carly said Morgan told her he’d been threatened. Was that true?

In all, the report was fair and complementary, but was primarily a chance for the regular “Dateline” staff to rehash the breast implant controversy and give a new twist to the story. Aside from revealing Carly’s paternity to me, it hadn’t told me anything new, but Frank seemed intrigued.

“Put this one in next,” I said, handing Frank the tape Robin thought contained the blackmail conversation.

“Robin’s voice mail said this one is about six hours long, and the conversation we’re looking for is about half way through.” While Frank and I set up, George collected cappuccino, bagels and cream cheese from somewhere. We set to the food like a pack of hungry wolves.

“Okay, maybe three thirty-three?” Frank asked, running the digital counter to that spot.

“She didn’t know precisely, but sure. Let’s start there,” I said.

Robin and Morgan were seated in his living room. I recognized it from my visit to the house, and from my pictures. But the images disoriented. In Robin’s video, all the furniture was upright and the room was arranged as it should be. I took the remote from Frank; manipulated the video until I found a wide-angle shot of the room.

Stopped.

Pictures.

On the piano, to the left of Morgan, were three photographs in frames. Fuzzy. Photos of Morgan and three different women.

“Can we zoom these shots, Frank?”

“Sure. We’re all about video around here. Hang on a second.”

He pressed some buttons for a few moments, then stepped back. “How’s that?”

Bookended disaster.

The first photo was normal. Morgan in black tie, snuggled close to a formally dressed Carolyn Young. She looked beautiful, as always. But also happy.

A fourth picture was Morgan standing between Cilla and O’Connell Worthington. Again dressed in formal wear.

The two center photos were nudes.

Frank restarted the tape.

I felt almost like the night I watched my first plane crash.

George said, “Wow.”

Robin spoke angrily. “Mike, during that malpractice case, you knew you were negligent.  You operated on a patient while you were drunk. The patient died. How could you possibly think that wasn’t your fault?”

Morgan pressed back, heated defense to justified outrage. Blue eyes bulged, face crimsoned, nostrils flared.

Nature or Nurture?  The old debate.

But anyone who watched this video and knew Carly at all would see Morgan was her sperm donor without a doubt. DNA not required.

“The woman died. It happens. No proof whatsoever that I did anything below the standard of care,” he snapped tough. “Causation, causation, causation. Look, if I’d operated with my feet, pickled to the gills, and she lived, no one would have complained, would they? Besides, I’ve paid for that mistake. About three million times.”

He didn’t seem to realize the import of what he’d said, but Robin did.

She followed up quickly with the next question. “What do you mean?  The settlement to the family was only $50,000 and the hospital paid, not you.”

Morgan responded rapidly, without planning. “That’s what the hospital paid her husband, not what I paid the lawyer.”

“You mean, the lawyer’s forty percent fee?” Robin seemed puzzled, but her instincts told her she was on to something. She went with her instincts.

Morgan snapped back. “No, I don’t mean the goddamned fee. I mean the money I paid that bloodsucker Fred Johnson to keep quiet about it.”

Fred Johnson?

Grover’s partner.

The one whose bank records reflected receipt of Morgan’s blackmail payments.

“I spy.” Again.

I felt pretty stupid.

We watched more of the unedited interview, getting a feel for Dr. Morgan. Seated beside me, George was drawn to the rest of the tape. Frank, too, seemed glued to the screen, calculating. Probably seeking a method to persuade me to release these tapes for “Live at 5” tonight, but I couldn’t worry about that now.

Robin never asked Morgan where he got the money to pay the blackmail, but I figured there could only have been one source. He must have been blackmailing the women he’d had affairs with and passing the money through to Johnson. The married ones would have paid for silence.

But how did he do it?  What leverage did he have?

All this time we’d assumed Morgan was murdered because he knew something about the breast implant controversy that his killer wanted to keep quiet.

What if that wasn’t the silence motivating his killer?

What if his killer was concerned about another of Morgan’s secrets?

We tried to ditch Frank, but he wasn’t having it. Now that we’d involved him, he stuck to us like glue. We were finally able to shake him by telling him we were going home to sleep, but we’d call him the second we woke up or if anything at all happened.

Courtesy would keep Frank at bay for about four hours. After that, we’d have to come up with trained Dobermans.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Tampa, Florida

Monday 7:15 a.m.

January 25, 1999

When George and I got home, Carly was still down for the count. We’d consumed too much caffeine and too much tension to sleep.

We put Morgan’s report in the computer and read it before we did anything else.

Carly had unencrypted the whole disk allowing us to review the entire document.

The Silicone Solution report was long, complicated, and technical. Written for peers, not the general public like us.

I read through it a couple of times, skimming most of the medical jargon and the scientific recitations, which didn’t mean much to me anyway.

Morgan said he had been a member of the medical staff at Mid-Florida University hospital in Tampa and on the faculty for several years back in the 1970s and 80s. Later in his career, the University allowed him to return to teaching after he’d lost his license to practice medicine, mainly because he promised to bring in grants and do a great deal of research.

He said grants to study the effects of silicone on the human body were easier to get. When the FDA declared a moratorium on breast implants, several of the larger manufacturers immediately donated money for research grants to prove the implants were safe and effective. Morgan’s grant was funded by MedPro.

He summarized his research, including the disproved allergy theory.

The report contained tedious details, but the bottom line was no such allergy existed.

Given how ubiquitous silicone is in products I use every day, I was glad to read as much.

However, like the accidental discovery of the glue that didn’t stick leading to the invention of those ubiquitous un-sticky note pads, Dr. Morgan said he found something significant instead. He called his answer “Morgan’s Syndrome.”

Morgan said it’s only been within the last century that the immune system has been recognized as the single major determinant of health and disease.

His scholarly and scientific explanation seemed to boil down to this:  the immune system is a sophisticated scanning device that searches out and eliminates anything foreign.

When the immune system is compromised or absent, it fails to detect and destroy bacteria causing diseases and allows the body to attack itself, like AIDS.

Morgan described exciting new work in psychoneuroimmunology: the relation of the mind to the body’s immune system.

He said recent studies proved conclusively that the brain and the immune systems talk to each other and are interdependent.

Morgan said emotional conflict undermines physical health and absence of stress promotes health.

Oversimplifying, Morgan’s conclusion was that the “victimizing” of women by their own lawyers and the media, coupled with unscrupulous doctors willing to make a misdiagnosis without scientific support and to prescribe treatment, along with the hysteria around the supposed ill effects of free floating silicone in the body, had resulted in a psychoneuroimmunologic illness: Morgan’s Syndrome.

“In other words,” George said, “after all that, Dr. Morgan’s great Silicone Solution is that they think themselves sick. How did Kate put it? You get what you expect to get.”

He stretched and moved to the veranda seeking daylight.

I wondered who would have killed Morgan for that?

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Tampa, Florida

Monday 8:05 a.m.

January 25, 1999

Psychoneuroimmunology: the scientific study of the mind/body connection.

So much of the last century had been devoted to the study of how the human brain works that theories abounded.

From Freud’s study of “hysteria” and psychological dysfunction to Csikszentmihaly’s studies on human happiness and optimal experience, an astonishing number of theories had been explored.

Physical examinations of Einstein’s brain have been going on since it was retained for study after his death.

Goal setting and visualization are now de rigueur not only for athletes, but for salesmen, doctors, even day care providers.

Our popular culture has intuitively believed that attitude can cure cancer, although it’s never been proved.

Imagine the impact on all of society if Morgan’s theory had been proved by the scientific method. This would not only be The Silicone Solution, it could be the beginning of a solution to all illness and all achievement.

Man could truly control his own destiny. It would stir more moral debate than cloning, put physicians out of business, cause the gross national product to soar.

And the theory would make the scientist who popularized it immortal as well as rich.

Morgan’s solution was so simple that, like the concept of ulcers caused by virus, and colds caused by germs, it would take years before the world would accept it. It would be controversial and next to impossible to prove empirically.