The Second Time Around (27 page)

T
he arrival of the officers brought an end to our conversation, so I didn't stay much longer with Allan Desmond. Detective Shapiro and Officer Klein sat with us for a few minutes as we reconfirmed the timetable as we knew it. Vivian had gone to a friend's house and had taken her car. Whatever had frightened her enough to send her fleeing from her own home, at least she had gotten that far safely. I knew that when Vivian's father and I saw Shapiro and Klein approaching out table, we both feared they were bringing bad news. At least now there was hope.

Vivian had called me around four o'clock on Friday to say she thought she knew who had taken the records from Dr. Broderick. According to Allan Desmond, her sister Jane had tried to phone her at ten o'clock that evening and got no answer but assumed—and hoped—she'd had plans. In the early morning the
neighbor walking his dog noticed the open front door.

I asked if they thought it was possible that Vivian had heard or seen someone at the back of the house and ran out the front, and that perhaps she had knocked over the lamp and table in her rush to get out.

Shapiro's response was that anything was possible, including his first reaction—that the disappearance had been staged. Following that scenario, the fact that Vivian left with her neighbor's car did nothing to reduce that possibility.

I could see that Shapiro's comment absolutely infuriated Allan Desmond, but he said nothing. Like the Bikorskys, who were grateful that their child might see another Christmas, he was grateful that his daughter might at least have gone somewhere of her own volition.

I had figured there was a 90 percent chance that I would get a phone call from either Mrs. Broderick or Mrs. Ward, the receptionist, telling me not to come to Caspien, but since I did not, I left Allan Desmond with the investigators, after agreeing that we would keep in close touch.

*   *   *

Annette Broderick was a handsome woman in her midfifties with salt and pepper hair. Its natural wave softened her somewhat angular face. When I arrived, she suggested that we go upstairs to their living quarters over the medical office.

It really was a wonderful old house, with spacious rooms, high ceilings, crown molding, and polished oak
floors. We sat in the study. The sun streamed in and added to the mellow comfort of the room, already cozy with its wall of bookcases and high-backed English couch.

I realized that I had spent this past week in the company of people who were very much on the edge, fearful of what life was doing to them. The Bikorskys, Vivian Powers and her father, the employees of Gen-stone whose lives and hopes had been shattered—all these people were under great stress, and I couldn't get them out of my mind.

It occurred to me that the one person who should have leaped to my mind and did not was my stepsister, Lynn.

Annette Broderick offered me coffee, which I refused, and a glass of water, which I accepted. She brought in a glass for herself as well. “Philip is doing better,” she said. “It may take a long time, but they expect him to have a complete recovery.”

Before I could tell her how glad I was to hear that, she said, “I frankly thought at first that your suggesting what happened to Philip wasn't an accident was pretty far-fetched, but now I'm beginning to wonder.”

“Why?” I asked quickly.

“Oh, I'm going too far,” she said hastily. “It's simply that when he began to come out of the coma, he was trying to tell me something. The best I could make out of what he said was ‘car turned.' The police think because of a skid mark that it's possible the car that ran him down was coming from the other direction and made a U-turn.”

“Then the police agree that your husband may have been deliberately run over?”

“No, they believe it was a drunken driver. They've had a lot of problems around here with underage kids drinking or smoking pot. They think someone may have been going in the wrong direction, turned, and didn't see Phil until it was too late. Why do you keep suggesting that it wasn't an accident, Carley?”

She listened while I told her about the missing letter from Caroline Summers to Nick Spencer, and the theft of her daughter's records not only from Dr. Broderick but also from the Caspien Hospital and the hospital in Ohio.

“Do you mean that someone may have put some credence in what would surely be considered a miraculous cure?” she asked incredulously.

“I don't know,” I said. “But my suspicion is that somebody certainly thought there was sufficient promise in Dr. Spencer's early records to steal them, and Dr. Broderick could identify that person. With all the publicity swirling around Nicholas Spencer, your husband may have become a liability.”

“You say that copies of the X rays were picked up at Caspien Hospital and a copy of the MRI from one in Ohio. Did the same person pick them up?”

“I checked that out. The clerks simply don't remember, but both are sure there was nothing outstanding or significant about the man who claimed to be Caroline Summers's husband. On the other hand, from what I gather, Dr. Broderick clearly remembers the man who came to him for Dr. Spencer's records.”

“I was home that day and happened to glance out the window when that man, whoever he was, got back in his car.”

“I didn't know you saw him,” I said. “The doctor didn't mention that. Would you recognize him?”

“Absolutely not. It was November, and he had his coat collar turned up. Thinking back, I will say my impression was that he used one of those brownish red rinses on his hair. You know how they can get that orange look in the sun.”

“Dr. Broderick didn't mention that when I spoke to him.”

“It's not the sort of thing he'd be likely to say, especially if he wasn't sure.”

“Has Dr. Broderick begun to talk about the accident?”

“He's under a lot of sedation, but when he's lucid, he wants to know what happened to him. So far he doesn't seem to have any memory of it other than what he tried to tell me as he was coming out of the coma.”

“From what Dr. Broderick told me, he did some research with Dr. Spencer, which is why Nick Spencer left the early records here. How much did Dr. Broderick actually work with Nick's father?”

“Carley, my husband was probably dismissive of his work with Dr. Spencer, but the fact is that he was keenly interested in the research and thought Dr. Spencer was a genius. That was one of the reasons Nick left those records with him. Philip intended to go on with some of the research but realized that it was far too time-consuming for him and that what was an obsession
for Dr. Spencer would have to be a hobby for him. Don't forget that Nick at that time was planning a career in medical supplies, not in research, but then about ten years ago, when he began to study his father's records, he realized that he had been on to something, perhaps even something as important as a cure for cancer. And from what my husband told me about it, the preclinical testing was very promising, as was phase one in which they worked with healthy subjects. It was during later experiments that things suddenly went sour. Which makes you wonder why anyone would steal Dr. Spencer's records.”

She shook her head. “Carley, I'm just grateful that my husband is still alive.”

“I am, too,” I said fervently. I didn't want to tell this very nice woman that if Dr. Broderick had been the deliberate victim of a hit-and-run driver, I felt responsible for its happening. Even though it might not be connected, the fact that after I spoke to him I went straight to the Gen-stone office in Pleasantville and started asking about a man with reddish hair, and then the next day Dr. Broderick ended up in the hospital, seems too connected to be a coincidence.

It was time for me to go. I thanked Mrs. Broderick for seeing me and once again made sure she had my card with my cell phone number on it. I know when I left her that she was not at all convinced her husband had been targeted, which was probably just as well. He would be in the hospital for several weeks at least, and would surely be safe there. I was determined to have some answers by the time he got out.

*   *   *

If the mood at Gen-stone was somber when I was there last week, the atmosphere on this visit was positively mournful. The receptionist had clearly been crying. She said that Mr. Wallingford had asked me to stop by for a moment before I chatted with any of the employees. She then dialed his secretary to announce me.

When she put down the phone, I said, “I can see that you're upset. I hope it's nothing that can't be straightened out.”

“I got my notice this morning,” she said. “They're closing the doors this afternoon.”

“I'm terribly sorry.”

The phone rang and she picked it up. I think it must have been a reporter because she said she was not permitted to comment and referred all calls to the company attorney.

By the time she hung up the phone, Wallingford's secretary was a few feet away. I would have liked to talk to the receptionist longer, but that wasn't possible. I remembered the secretary's name from the other day. “It's Mrs. Rider, isn't it?” I asked.

She was the kind of woman my grandmother would have referred to as a “Plain Jane.” Her navy blue suit, tan stockings, and low-heeled shoes were in keeping with her short brown hair and total lack of makeup. Her smile was polite but disinterested. “Yes, it is, Miss DeCarlo.”

The doors to the offices off the long corridor were all open, and I glanced into them as I followed her.
Every single one of them appeared to be empty. The whole building seemed empty, and I felt that if I shouted, I'd hear an echo. I tried to engage her in conversation. “I'm so sorry to hear that the company is closing down. Do you know what you're going to do?”

“I'm not sure,” she said.

I figured that Wallingford had warned her not to talk to me, which, of course, made her all that much more interesting.

“How long have you been working for Mr. Wallingford?” I tried to sound casual.

“Ten years.”

“Then you were with him when he owned the furniture company?”

“Yes, I was.”

The door to his office was closed. I managed to throw out one more line, fishing for information. “Then you must know his sons. Maybe they were right that he shouldn't have sold the family business.”

“That didn't give them the right to sue him,” she said indignantly as she tapped at the door with one hand and opened it with the other.

A lovely piece of information, I thought. His
sons
sued him! What made them do that? I wondered.

Charles Wallingford was clearly not thrilled to see me, but he tried not to show it. He got up as I entered the room, and I saw that he wasn't alone. A man was seated opposite him at the desk. He, too, stood up and turned when Wallingford greeted me, and I had the impression
of being looked over very carefully. I judged him to be somewhere in his mid-forties, about five feet ten, with graying hair and hazel eyes. Like Wallingford and Adrian Garner, he had an air of authority about him, and I wasn't surprised when he was introduced as Lowell Drexel, a member of Gen-stone's board of directors.

Lowell Drexel—I had heard that name recently. Then I remembered where. At the luncheon, Wallingford had joked with Adrian Garner that the stockholder who claimed to have seen Nick Spencer in Switzerland had asked Drexel for a job.

Drexel's voice was notably devoid of warmth. “Miss DeCarlo, I understand you have the unenviable job of writing a cover story for
Wall Street Weekly
about Gen-stone.”

“Of
contributing
to a cover story,” I corrected him. “Three of us are working on it together.” I looked at Wallingford. “I heard that you're closing down today. I'm so sorry.”

He nodded. “This time I won't have to worry about a new place to invest my money,” he said grimly. “As sorry as I am for all our employees and stockholders, I do wish they could understand that, far from being the enemy, we've been on the battlefield with them.”

“We'll still have our appointment on Saturday, I hope,” I said.

“Yes, of course.” He brushed aside as absurd the suggestion that he might want to cancel it. “I wanted to explain that with a few exceptions, such as the receptionist and Mrs. Rider, we gave our employees the
choice of staying for the day or going home. Many of them chose to leave immediately.”

“I see. Well, that is a disappointment, but perhaps I can get a few comments from those who are still here.” I hoped it didn't show in my face that I wondered if the sudden closing had anything to do with my request to come here for interviews today.

“Perhaps I can answer any questions you have, Miss DeCarlo,” Drexel offered.

“Perhaps you can, Mr. Drexel. I understand that you're with Garner Pharmaceuticals.”

“I head the legal department there. As you may know already, when my company decided to invest one billion dollars in Gen-stone, pending FDA approval, Mr. Garner was asked to join the board. In such cases he delegates one of his close associates to take the seat for him.”

“Mr. Garner seems very concerned about the fact that Garner Pharmaceuticals is sharing in the bad press of Gen-stone.”

“He is
extremely
concerned and may be doing something about it soon, which I'm not at liberty to disclose today.”

“And if he doesn't do anything?”

“The assets of Gen-stone, such as they are, will be sold at a sheriff's sale and the proceeds distributed to the creditors.” He gave a sweeping wave of his hand, which I took to mean the building and furnishings.

“Would it be too much to hope that if there is an announcement, my magazine will get the scoop?” I asked.

“It would be too much to hope, Miss DeCarlo.” His
slight smile had the finality of a door closing in my face. Lowell Drexel and Adrian Garner were a pair of icebergs, I decided. At least Wallingford put on a veneer of cordiality.