Monday evening, June 14, Greenwich Hospital

Jake

“How the hell…”

Al Greenbeck paces beside the conference table, looking very much like a caged animal. His gray eyes roam the sterile room, moving from floor, to wall, to door, back to floor again. Looking anywhere but in my direction.

“I don’t… I just don’t understand how this could have happened!”

An analytical mind, struggling to come to terms with the impossible.

Jean Clark should be alive right now, showing off her wrinkle-free forehead to her friends.

Instead, she’s been dead for just over seven hours, her body cooling three floors below us in the Greenwich Hospital morgue. Over the next few days, her death, already labeled suspicious, will be investigated more closely than the wreckage of a crashed commercial airliner. Toxicologists will test her blood for every poison known to man. Forensic pathologists will scrutinize the strips of her procerus and corrugator muscles, down to the cellular level. Every organ in her body will be weighed and measured, then thin-sliced for microscopic analysis.

The full investigation might take months to complete, but if there’s a cause of death to be found, then someone will find it. And then…

Someone will be blamed.

Greenbeck finally brings himself to look at me. “How did your meeting with the husband go?”

“As expected.” I blink hard, picturing the hellish expression on Roland Clark’s face when I met him an hour ago. It’s the kind of look that Jack Nicholson flashed his wife in ‘The Shining,’ right before he came after her with the axe.

“So he’s going to come after us?”

“No doubt.” I shrug, surprised by my own indifference. Somehow, a malpractice suit seems so banal given the events of the past few hours. “He pretty much called me a murderer.”

Greenbeck contemplates this for a moment before shaking his head. “No… the man’s a hotshot ambulance chaser, so he knows where the real money is. Even if he takes a shotgun approach, he won’t waste much time on you. If he’s smart, he’ll go straight to the top. He’ll go after Pulsar.”

“You’re probably right,” I say, noticing how “us” just became “you.”

Distancing himself already.

“So you think it was the Replacidin?”

Greenbeck shoots me a withering look. “Impossible! The drug has a flawless safety record. More likely than not, your patient had a cardiac event. Either that or anaphylaxis.”

“But her symptoms were –”

“Inconclusive. I read you report, Jake. All you described was a train wreck. No way of knowing yet why it happened. The only thing that’s clear to me…” His eyes lock with mine, narrowing into slits. “Is that you should have never treated her in the first place.”

The words hit me like a sucker punch. I’d expect this kind of reaction from Nina, but from Al?

“How could you say that? You and Nina recruited Mrs. Clark into the study,” I remind him through gritted teeth. “I did nothing wrong.”

 “Yes…” Greenbeck presses his lips into a grim line, looking past me toward the door. “Well I suppose that’s going to be the purpose of this investigation.”

His hearing must be better than mine, because it takes me another few seconds to pick up the muffled sound of voices approaching.  

“Al!  So good to see you! If only it were under better circumstances.”

The effusive greeting comes from a petite, mature woman with a platinum-blonde bob and aggressively phony smile. She greets Greenbeck with quick air kisses to each cheek before turning to me. “And this must be Doctor Goodwin.”

We exchange a limp handshake as I read her Greenwich Hospital ID tag, which identifies her as “Barbara Arnsworth, Public Relations Liaison.” Impeccably dressed in a conservative tweed pencil skirt and blouse, she would fit right in down the road at the Greenwich Country Club. Four men and a woman trail behind her, all dressed in business attire.

“So,” Greenbeck motions to the entourage. “Looks like everyone’s here.”

“We’re still waiting for Doctor Roberts.” Arnsworth explains. “She’s en route from Farmington.”

“Roberts?” Greenbeck raises an eyebrow. “Why is the CME getting involved here?”

One of the suits – a short, heavy-set man with a receding hairline and beady, hostile eyes – steps forward to answer the question.  “Because my client asked her to. Chief Medical Examiner Roberts will be personally leading the investigation into Jean Clark’s tragic death.”

Arnsworth bristles at the interruption. “Doctors Greenbeck, Goodwin,” she says, her nose crinkling with obvious distaste. “This is Charles Schlager. He’s an attorney representing Roland Clark – the husband of the deceased. He asked to be present at this meeting.”

“Of course,” Greenbeck says agreeably, shaking the man’s hand even as he looks right past him. “We’re glad to have you here, Mr. Schlager. So, Barbara… shall we finish the introductions?”

Taking her cue, Arnsworth runs through the names and titles of the remaining four faces gathered around us. To my left stand Greenwich PD Detectives Doug Popov and Sean Mackey, arms crossed, prominently displayed badges clipped to their belts. Right behind them are Bridget Allen and Kyle Fulsom – a pair of Barbie and Ken look-alikes who represent Pulsar Nanotechnologies. Since Pulsar’s headquarters are in Reston, Virginia, I can only assume they were airlifted here via corporate jet or helicopter, but neither one shows any outward sign of rushed travel. Like Arnsworth, they have a freshly pressed, polished look that screams 'public relations.'

We take our seats around the conference table, and for the next five minutes, I scroll through my iPhone menu, pretending to concentrate on the screen as I listen to the conversations buzzing around me. Detectives Popov and Mackey are going off on last night’s Yankees game (blown save in the ninth) and the team’s slower than usual start. I tune them out, trying to pick up snippets of the hushed conversation going on between Greenbeck, Arnsworth and the Pulsar reps.

I’m not the only one who’s listening. Clark’s lawyer has one ear pressed to his cell, but I can tell from his hungry expression that he’s taking in every word – words like “accident,” “anaphylaxis,” and “one in a million.”

They’re the kind of defensive words that would make even a novice ambulance chaser salivate.

The Connecticut State Chief Medical Examiner doesn’t keep us waiting long. After another set of introductions, Doctor Alice Roberts takes her place at the head of the conference table, shadowed by her administrative assistant – a young woman with doe-like eyes and an obvious admiration for her boss.

All eyes are on the CME as she settles into her seat. Medical Examiners are supposed to be shy, skittish personalities who prefer dealing with the dead rather than the living, but Roberts clearly shatters this stereotype. Looking at her now, I see an elegant, middle-aged African American woman with an almost regal air about her. Every detail, from her impeccably tailored gray pants suit to her tall stature, handsome facial features, flawless skin and silver-streaked hair commands respect.

As Arnsworth repeats the introductions, Roberts calmly surveys the faces around her – the captain at the helm of her new ship.

“Thank you all for gathering on such short notice,” she announces, looking right at me. “I don’t plan on keeping you for long this evening. We’re here mainly to establish a working relationship.”

“Yeah, well time’s not an issue,” Clark’s lawyer interrupts gruffly. “We’ll stay here as long as it takes.”

Roberts gives him a tight-lipped smile. “Perhaps time is irrelevant to you, Mr. Schlager, but I wouldn’t speak for the other people in this room.”

“Yeah,” Detective Popov chimes in. “We don’t bill by the hour.”

That earns enough chuckles to make Schlager’s face flush.

“Besides,” Roberts continues. “Let me be clear from the start: This investigation will take as long as it needs to take. I don’t work on a deadline, and we’re certainly not going to reach any conclusions today. So…” She turns to her assistant. “Jenna, shall we start recording?”

The assistant cues her boss by announcing the case number, date, time, and names and titles of everyone present.

Roberts takes a long sip of coffee before beginning: “The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of the State of Connecticut has been called in to investigate the sudden, unexpected death of Jean Clark, Caucasian female, age fifty-nine. Doctor Goodwin?”

My heart leaps at the sudden mention of my name.

“I’ve reviewed your incident report. Correct me if I’m wrong, but your patient’s death occurred this morning at approximately ten a.m. during an experimental, office-based therapeutic procedure.”

“That’s right,” I answer hoarsely.

“And I see that no general anesthesia or IV sedation was used.” She glances up from her notes for confirmation. “What about local anesthesia?”

“Only a small amount of topical EMLA cream,” I say.

“And this procedure was cosmetic in nature, involving the injection of an experimental drug called Replacidin?”

“Yes. Mrs. Clark was enrolled in an ongoing, multi-center clinical trial called the Replacidin Efficacy and Safety Trial, or REST for short.”

Across the table, Pulsar Ken and Barbie both twitch at the mention of their drug. Pulsar Ken reaches for a thick binder, half-raising his hand for attention.

“Yes, Mr. Fulsom?”

“As requested, I have copies of the REST study protocol, drug specifications and safety data here for you to review,” he announces eagerly. “And please let me take this opportunity to say that Pulsar Nanotechnologies is deeply saddened by Mrs. Clark’s tragic death. We would like to offer our heart-felt condolences to her family.” Here, Fulsom attempts to make eye contact with Schlager, but all he gets is a contemptuous smirk.

“This is a traumatic day for all of us,” the Pulsar rep continues earnestly, turning back to Roberts. “Over ten years of clinical investigation and three thousand plus Replacidin treatments, this is the first incident of its kind. Of course, it goes without saying that you’ll have our full and eager cooperation.”

“That means open access to anything you need,” Pulsar Barbie chimes in. “24-7.”

Roberts gives her a nod, looking thoroughly unimpressed. “That’s good to know. I’ll certainly be taking you up on that offer, but for now...”

When she turns back toward me, her eyes may as well be spotlights.

“Let’s just start by hearing what Doctor Goodwin has to say.”

*****

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