Regrets Only (32 page)

“Oh my.” Her mother sighed. Lucy could hear her take a sip of tea and swallow. “It showed the Israelites the workings of God. Solomon had prayed for wisdom. This story was evidence that it had been received.”

“The real mother was willing to endure the pain of giving up her baby in order for him to survive even though it meant she might never see him again. She put his interests far in front of her own. What about that part of the story?” Lucy asked.

“You sound like one of these feminist scholars. What have I raised?” Mrs. O’Malley asked rhetorically. “The role of a mother doesn’t get too much study in the Old Testament, or the New for that matter. Because who wouldn’t make that same decision? Who wouldn’t put her child’s well-being first? It’s a law of nature, one you’d understand if you’d get about having some tots of your own.” She paused, and Lucy could hear her take another sip. “When your brother Michael was born, I remember feeling so anxious, wondering if my instincts would be right. You hear stories—a woman can lift a car to free a pinned baby, or can pilot a plane to a safe landing to protect her family—but I didn’t know. It could be lore. What would I do? What could I do? And then once when Mike was a toddler, I was boiling some potatoes on the stove. A big pot. I lifted it toward a colander just as he bumped me. All I remember was thinking that he would be under the stream of the boiling water. In a split second, less than that, I lifted my thigh to block him, and the water fell on me. He was spared. Not a drop touched him. After that, I didn’t worry. I had a permanent scar to remind me that I had done the right thing. Or at least I didn’t worry when my children were with me.”

Lucy was quiet. All her life she’d seen the rectangular red scar that covered most of her mother’s right leg. Mrs. O’Malley hadn’t worn a swimsuit because of it, but she’d never before shared what had happened.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me that?”

“There was no reason. Parents shouldn’t be thanked or applauded for doing what’s right. I wasn’t a hero. I’m a mother. I did what I needed to do to protect Michael.”

“So then why was Solomon considered blessed with special wisdom if he was stating the obvious?”

“In order for the Israelites to understand his special gifts, he had to draw on a universal truth, a natural instinct, something with which no one would disagree. A mother’s urge to safeguard her child is just that. But my dear, why is this keeping you up?” Then she gasped. When she spoke, her voice was animated and had risen more than an octave. “You’re not . . . you’re not calling to tell me. . . . Oh, Lucy, your father—”

“No! Mom. Stop,” she called into the phone, recognizing immediately the false premise of her mother’s excitement. “I’m not pregnant.”

There was silence. “Oh.”

“But when I am, I’ll wait until after eight to call.”

9:05 a.m.

Jack could barely hide his astonishment. As they drove through the winding roads of Radnor, through fields edged with stone walls and blooming forsythia, Lucy relayed her discovery of Dr. Reese’s children.

“And you have no idea who the father is?”

“No. Santoros agreed to send an intern over to the Probate Court to see if we could find out anything, but it’s a long shot. We don’t even know if the man was from Pennsylvania.”

Jack thought for a moment. “Why’d you pretend to be interested in the Herbert house? Why go undercover?”

“I wanted to get inside, I didn’t think they’d volunteer to give me a tour, and we didn’t have enough for a warrant. I couldn’t think of any other way.”

“Well, if you buy the place, can I be the gardener?”

They laughed. “You garden and I’ll cook.” She pointed a finger. “There it is.”

The massive pink granite slab rose from the earth. The AmeriMed logo was chiseled on both sides so that it was visible to cars approaching in either direction:
BRINGING PHARMACEUTICALS INTO THE NEXT MILLENNIUM.
The early-morning sun sparkled off the letters.

“Let’s hope corporate America has some answers for us.”

They turned in, and saw a long paved drive ending in a semicircle of red brick buildings. They were forced to stop at the security gate, where the guard checked their identification and waved them through. Dixon Burlingame’s secretary had registered their visit with the Chairman that morning. “It’s building A—directly ahead. Visitor parking is to the left.”

As they approached, Lucy could see a white marble fountain that spewed water nearly ten feet in the air. Around it, topiaries grew in a latticework arrangement with hot pink impatiens planted in between. They parked and walked quickly to the entrance of what they assumed was the main building in the complex. They were correct: A brass plaque by the door read
AMERIMED. BUILDING A.

“Detectives,” a cheery voice greeted them as they stepped inside.

Lucy turned to see a tall woman with an hourglass figure wearing a fitted red and white suit and red sandals. Her blond curls were pulled back from her round, freckled face, and her hazel eyes glowed. She had a big smile. “Welcome to AmeriMed. I’m Summer, Mr. Burlingame’s assistant. Won’t you follow me?”

Her hips swung noticeably as Lucy and Jack followed her down a long, carpeted corridor. The walls on both sides displayed posters advertising the latest products—everything from headache medicine and cough syrup to catheters and artificial lungs. “We moved into this complex about five years ago. Building A, where we are, houses most of the executive offices, the Human Resources Department, and our boardroom. Building B is for our legal counsel, as well as for the team of staff scientists who handle our patent applications. Buildings C and D are labs for research and development. D also holds an employee health club and a day-care center. So we really have everything we need right here. Mr. Burlingame wanted this headquarters to be completely self-contained.”

“And the Wilder Center is opening less than a mile away.”

Summer looked startled. “Why, yes. Are you familiar with it? AmeriMed actually donated most of the land for that facility. It’s very exciting. But I’m sure Mr. Burlingame can provide whatever details you need.”

She swung open a mahogany door. The square room held a circular table and six armchairs upholstered in a sage green print. A tray with a coffeepot, several mugs, and a pitcher of water served as a centerpiece. A row of large windows offered an expansive view. “It’s a lot of countryside out here,” she said, smiling. “Please make yourself at home. Mr. Burlingame will be with you momentarily.”

She was right. Lucy and Jack had barely taken seats and poured coffee before the door swung open and in strode a large man with a reddish face whom they instantly recognized from Ellery’s press conference at the Union League. He wore a navy suit, a pink-and-white-striped shirt with a white collar, and a dark tie secured with a prominent gold collar pin. His hands were big with thick fingers. “Now, what can I do for you?”

It was somewhat surprising that he’d come alone, that there wasn’t a personal lawyer—or at least one of the company’s attorneys—present. Apparently he wasn’t too concerned about the nature of the questions or the information he knew even though he’d brought the chief suspect, Dr. David Ellery, as his guest to the site of the murder.

Dixon pulled a chair out from the table and sat. He seemed to synchronize his wristwatch with the clock on the wall. “Nobody wants to waste time. You want to know what I had to do with Dr. Reese. It’s a bit more complicated than you might think, but hardly incriminating. You can believe me when I say the only person who wanted this murder investigation less than you two is me.”

“Why don’t you begin by explaining your involvement with the Wilder Center,” Jack said. “How come you got to head up the selection process?”

Dixon quickly recited a brief history of AmeriMed. For the past ten years he’d been chairman and chief executive officer of this major pharmaceutical manufacturer with revenues of approximately $2 billion annually. It employed more than three hundred people, not including the specialized scientists who were brought in as needed. Because of its extensive research into psychopharmacological agents—antidepressant, antiseizure, and antianxiety medications—the Wilder Center visionaries had approached him early in the conceptual phase of the hospital. AmeriMed agreed to their proposal. His company donated the adjacent land—approximately sixty acres—for the site.

“That had to be a huge investment. What did you get in return?”

“You mean besides a substantial tax deduction?” He chuckled, and then leaned forward with his fingers steepled in front of him on the table. “It’s about money, Detectives. Pure and simple. You have no idea the value of a new antidepressant. Look at Prozac. It’s been a phenomenon. People who didn’t even think they had troubles are getting prescriptions. Who doesn’t want to feel good? And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. We’re talking tricyclics, MAOIs, norepinephrine blockers, SSRIs, neuroleptics, benzodiazepines—it’s endless. We will be a major supplier to the hospital, and an exclusive supplier for everything we make that others do, too. But that’s only the half of it.” A wide grin spread over his face. “What matters most to us is that we will use the facility to run our human trials on new psych medications in development.”

“Like a laboratory?”

“Pretty much. The last phase of FDA approval is the human trial. You can induce bliss and happiness in all the chimpanzees and beagles in the world but at some point you need the real thing. That’s the critical component. And it can be very difficult for us to enlist doctors who will agree to enroll their patients. The paperwork alone is overwhelming. The government’s been going after the kind of incentive programs we used to use. So the Wilder Center is perfect. In exchange for our financial help, we get a captive population. Kind of like shooting fish in a barrel.” He laughed at his tasteless analogy. “It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement because the Center gets a great marketing tool. Its patients will get the latest drugs, many of which are still in the developmental stage. They don’t have to go to Mexico or Europe. They can stay right here in a luxurious room with over a hundred cable stations and be medicated up the wazoo.” He paused, seeming to gauge the reaction of his audience. “The promise of hope. That’s what this facility is all about. Dana-Farber, Sloan-Kettering, they offer that for cancer. We’re just applying that model of excellence to mental illness.”

“And David Ellery is going to run it?”

“David . . . David.” He seemed to gargle the name. “Ellery and I go way back,” he suggested as if that were an endorsement.

“You’re the chairman of the nominating committee that selected him?”

“I am.”

“But Dr. Reese was your first choice?”

He looked surprised, then stared down at his thick knuckles. “That’s right. Morgan was our top pick. She is . . . she was an amazingly gifted doctor. What happened is a great tragedy.”

“How well did you know her?”

“I hardly knew her except by reputation when she submitted her application. She was one of the first to throw her name in the ring. We—by that I mean members of my committee—interviewed her extensively. We interviewed her colleagues and personal references as well.”

“Do you happen to remember who those were?”

“Hmmm.” He pulled a small walkie-talkie from his pocket, pushed a button, and started to talk to his assistant. “Bring me the Wilder file on Reese. ASAP.” Then he turned back to Lucy and Jack. “I talked to hundreds of people during this process. The file will refresh my recollection.”

“And you were asked to be in charge of this selection because of the relationship between the Center and AmeriMed?”

He nodded. “That’s right. This was a huge investment on our part. Even in the best scenarios, we won’t see a return on that for a long time. My board thought the only prudent way to proceed was to make sure we had someone we could trust running the place. We can have all the legal contracts in the world, but without a committed director, it would all fall apart.”

“Aside from Ellery and Reese, who else applied?” Lucy asked.

“Who didn’t apply is the easier question. I think everyone who’d ever gone to medical school submitted an application. But we were pretty clear on what we wanted which streamlined the process considerably.”

“What was that?”

“Prominence in both the medical and business communities. Good contacts at the FDA, plenty of research credentials, excellent social skills, a history of successful fund-raising, . . . and . . . and . . . How shall I put this?”

Lucy and Jack leaned forward simultaneously.

“Little personal life.”

“What?”

Dixon looked uncomfortable. “This probably doesn’t sound right, but starting a hospital is not a family-friendly occupation. There are long days, sometimes even overnight without a break, business dinners virtually seven times a week, extensive travel, plus all the stress of actually overseeing the treatment of severely ill patients. You can’t have a spouse or children clamoring for time. You can’t want to take out your sailboat or ride your horse. The person has to be one hundred twenty-five percent—no, make that two hundred percent—committed. Our Center has to be the center of the universe or it isn’t going to get off the ground.”

Just then the door opened. Summer stepped inside. She laid a thick Redwell folder on the table in front of her boss. Without acknowledging her presence, Dixon opened it and thumbed through the labeled files within. He removed one, glanced at it, and raised his eyebrows. “Morgan’s personal references, here we are: Betty Graham, Rodman Haverill, and William Herbert, Esquire. The woman is her secretary, Haverill’s her ex, and Herbert’s listed as a friend.”

Lucy struggled to suppress her surprise. Why had Archer’s father been on this list? “Did you speak to these references?”

“I’ve known Rod Haverill for decades. I figured she had to be a first-rate politician. The man’s got a worse temper than my own. To get a divorce and be amicable rarely happens under the best of circumstances. To get a divorce and list your ex as a character reference—never.” He flipped some additional pages. “Looks like there’s a report of an interview with Graham. It indicates Morgan was a great person to work for, polite, efficient, not volatile, fair. We want that. This staff is being handpicked and we need someone who can work well with subordinates.” He pulled out a single typewritten page and passed it across the table to the detectives. “And Herbert . . . Herbert . . . what did he say?” He looked up. “I don’t see anything from him.”