Dr. Kender sat forward, laid his hand on hers. "Listen, Erin, I'm truly nothing to Schiffer Hartwin, just an irritant, someone hardly worthy of their attention. When it comes down to it, all I ever did was yell and write letters. Surely they wouldn't see me as a threat."
"Sir, stay with me here. The game has changed. Blauvelt is dead. Not just dead, he was brutally murdered. Someone in Schiffer Hartwin has stepped way over the line. My guess is, because they're guilty of a real crime this time, that would mean jail time, not just a fine for pulling something unethical."
"Erin, who could possibly connect me to the break-in, and why would they even think of it? Schiffer Hartwin has undoubtedly gotten a truckload of furious complaints from patients."
She leaned close, lowered her voice. "Listen, everyone now knows the person who broke into Royal's office was a woman. Obviously they don't know who I am, at least not yet, but if they find me, they can and will connect me to you. The FBI will investigate the loudest voices against the company, if they don't solve this murder quickly."
Erin looked at him steadily. "Did Helmut Blauvelt contact you, sir?"
Dr. Kender shook his head. "No, he did not contact me. I have had no communication at all, either from Blauvelt or from anyone else at Schiffer Hartwin."
On the other hand, why would the snake warn his prey before sinking in his fangs? "Listen to me, you're not taking them seriously enough. What some of the drug companies have done curdles my belly. Until now, they've played corporate fun and games over patent extensions, skewing the data they present to the FDA to get new drugs approved, misleading the public about side effects. When asked about it, they defend the indefensible because billions of dollars are at stake. They seem to be willing to do just about anything to keep the money flowing in. But not murder, Dr. Kender. This is a whole different level of serious."
"You're wrong, Erin. Take the antidepressant drug Paxil. GlaxoSmithKline did not disclose that Paxil was ineffective or could be dangerous when taken by children. How many children might have become suicidal or even committed suicide as the result of lies and cover-ups like that? Wouldn't their deaths be the same as murder?"
She shook her head. "I'm sure no one at any of the drug companies wants people to die, Dr. Kender."
"That's a circular argument, Erin. The fact is, people have died. And so what? No one gets indicted, no one goes to jail. The drug companies simply pay out huge fines and go about their business. Like Pfizer. They were so blatantly unethical, last year our government fined Pfizer two point three billion dollars, yet no one was held responsible and charged, no one was sent to jail. Nothing happened that might have made a difference. I'll tell you, sometimes I think we're a failed species."
He shook his head. "Do you know that while negotiating this huge fine, Pfizer was being charged in another case in Nigeria alleging they'd done illegal drug studies on hundreds of children? That there were claims that Pfizer didn't tell parents their children were part of a trial? And claims that the Nigerian approval on which Pfizer relied was a sham?
"My bet is they'll get away with paying out a half billion dollars to the families and to government officials, of course-shareholders' money."
Erin reached out her hand and laid it over his. "All of that may be true. However, what's important is what's in front of us to deal with now. Schiffer Hartwin know they've got big problems here, and both they and the FBI are looking for the woman who broke in, looking for me. They could be watching us right this minute." Both of them looked around the dining hall.
"Everyone's a teacher or under twenty-two," Dr. Kender said. "Stop worrying. Caskie Royal, he's the one who should be worrying. He's the one who left the damning information on his computer. May I read the documents now?"
She leaned down to retrieve the pages from her ancient black leather briefcase. "Read, then we'll talk about what to do."
When he finished, he looked up, eyes glistening, grinning like a maniac. "You've got them! There's enough here to show reckless disregard, enough to lose them a great deal of money and force them to start making Culovort again. I can take this material to the media, and at the same time, get it sent to the Justice Department. I can tell all of them these documents were sent to me anonymously. You'd be safe then."
"Maybe for thirty minutes," she said. "Neither of us is invisible, Dr. Kender, and I'll have a bull's-eye painted on my chest. Even if the FBI were willing to keep my identity a secret for a while-and there is the small matter of breaking and entering-Schiffer Hartwin would eventually find out who I am. Neither of us is sitting in a good place here, Dr. Kender. Don't forget we'd also be suspects in Blauvelt's murder, and we don't know who killed him. I'd like to ask you to hold off going public with these papers, even anonymously. I want to give the FBI a chance to solve this murder first."
Dr. Kender took a drink of his now tepid tea, gave her a crooked grin, and patted his mouth with his cloth napkin. "I've always believed cops were fascists. But maybe the FBI are the ones to help us now."
Erin said matter-of-factly, "You're a professor at an East Coast university. Of course you believe cops are fascists, it's hard-wired into the walls here, but they're not. I know three of them who only want to catch criminals."
"You mean us?"
24
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Early Wednesday afternoon
Veteran lobbyist Dana Frobisher cut the huge fried shrimp and lovingly laid it on her tongue. She didn't particularly like shrimp, but it was deep-fried, beautifully spiced, and the fact was, shoe leather would taste delicious if it was fried. She savored the taste, ate another shrimp, then opened her eyes to smile at Senator David Hoffman, Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, a long-time powerhouse on the Hill. She'd met him half a dozen times over the years, but she'd never sat across a private table from him, and, wonder of wonders, at his invitation. When his head staffer, Corliss Rydle, had called her executive assistant, Jeremy Flynn, and said Senator David Hoffman wanted to ask her to lunch, she could hardly believe it. And here she was, less than a week later, eating fried shrimp with the great man. He was fit and good-looking. He didn't look as old as she knew him to be, not that it mattered since he didn't, according to Jeremy, screw around with his aides or anyone else. What mattered was the senator could give her clout and influence with a flick of his pinkie finger.
"I've never eaten at the Foggy Bottom Grill before," she said, ate another shrimp, and saluted him with her water glass. No wine at lunch, a longtime promise she'd made to herself when she'd first arrived in Washington fifteen years before. She was pleased to see he was drinking fizzy water as well, a slice of lemon perching on the edge of the glass.
Hoffman raised his glass and smiled at her. "I see you like the shrimp. I usually order the shrimp myself, astronomical fat content be damned. I figure stuffing the fat-covered shrimp in my mouth once a week isn't going to clog my arteries. I'm pleased you're enjoying it."
"Oh, yes, it's nearly a spiritual moment." She ate another shrimp, patted her mouth with her napkin, and leaned back. The time had come to go beyond pleasantries. She was through with her shrimp now, good as it was, and she was ready to hear what he had in mind. Dana gave him a lovely sweet smile, tried to keep the excitement out of her voice. "Now, if I can do anything for you, Senator, I'd like to hear it. Otherwise, I have a couple of matters of my own that might interest you-"
"Actually, it's about my wife, Nikki. You worked with her at one time, didn't you?"
He wanted to talk to her about his dead wife? What was this all about? Dana said, "Yes, and I liked her very much. It was a huge loss to all of us when she died." That sounded good, she thought, and it was the truth, at least way back then. She saw a spasm of pain cross his face. He was still grieving? She ate a bit of organic salad, and waited for him to speak. But the salad didn't taste very good, more like a TV remote with vinaigrette on it. Had he asked her to lunch for a trip down memory lane about his dead wife? Wasn't this about the advice she could
provide him on the miserably low funding currently under discussion in committee for children's diseases?
"I believe you and my wife were involved in one of her favorite charities-spinal meningitis? As I recall, you were just a baby lobbyist at the time, full of passion, wanting desperately to move up in your lobbying firm. Weren't you with Patton and Associates at the time? Nikki was very impressed with the work Patton did."
Dana nodded automatically. She couldn't believe it, he'd asked her to talk about his damned wife? And her damned charities? She felt deflated, a bit angry at his deception.
Hoffman suddenly sat forward, his lunch, a small Cobb salad, untouched in front of him. "I still miss her, Dana. I suppose you could say she even speaks to me."
Speaks to him? Was he crazy?
"There was something I wanted to ask you about, something she told me about the two of you-"
Dana Frobisher heard his deep mellifluous voice, the words nearly resonating, a master's voice, she thought, but oddly, she couldn't seem to understand the words, what they meant, ah, but they were so beautiful, his voice so mesmerizing. There were two shrimp left on her plate and she forked one up, but as with the salad, she couldn't taste the delicious fried fat anymore. She stopped chewing the shrimp when she felt a hard pounding over her right eye. Oh, no, not a headache. The last thing she needed was a headache while she was sitting not two feet from one of the most powerful men in Washington. She never had headaches, but she knew this wasn't just a headache, this was something more, this was fast becoming excruciating, vicious. She closed her eyes and swallowed, felt suddenly nauseated.
"Dana?"
She opened her eyes, tried to concentrate, but she couldn't quite focus. She realized she couldn't seem to swallow, and she started to hear her own breath in her throat. She rubbed her palms over her neck, working the muscles, but everything seemed to be backing up inside her, not just her precious breath, but something black and rancid and vile. She tried to scream with the sudden terror of what was happening, something she couldn't begin to understand, but nothing came out of her mouth. She fell over onto the floor, vomit heaving out of her mouth. In another moment, she went into violent convulsions. She heard the shouts of those around her, felt hands touching her, and she saw Senator Hoffman's face over hers, a pale blur, and she heard him say over and over, "Tell me what's wrong, Dana. Talk to me. Tell me what to do."
What to do? Her stomach was ripping apart and he wanted her to tell him what to do? He was shaking her shoulders, still speaking, but now it didn't matter because her mind spasmed with horrible, unspeakable pain and then something inside her brain seemed to pop, and she didn't know she was convulsing anymore, or that foam was billowing out of her mouth.
Her heart stopped at exactly one-thirty p.m.
25
Wednesday afternoon
Savich stepped out of the black FBI Bell helicopter at exactly five p.m. Special Agent Dane Carver waved him toward his Jeep. As Dane pulled out of Andrews Air Force Base, he said, "Everything's still in an uproar. The body of the lobbyist who was poisoned at the Foggy Bottom Grill is already with Dr. Branicki at Quantico. The paramedics who showed up a few minutes after she died said it looked like arsenic to them. We already know they were right. Of course, they've closed the place down and it's all over the news."
Savich said, "Where is Senator Hoffman?"
"Back at his home in Chevy Chase, with Mr. Maitland. He's shaken, as you can imagine. Look, Savich, Mr. Maitland told us you'd been working with Hoffman, that you told him his wife was trying to warn him-do you think the poison was meant for him? That Dana Frobisher was poisoned by mistake?"
Savich looked out the Jeep window at the sun baking the sidewalks, radiating enough heat to make you sweat just looking. Here it was mid-September and nearly ninety degrees. There were still tourists wandering around, families with tired children in tow. Wasn't school back in session? He remembered Dane's question. "To swallow a bullet meant for someone else, to die because of a mistake. That's tough, Dane."
Dane turned onto K Street. He spotted staffers thick on the ground, off for the day, heading for the local bars, maybe for home. He pulled the Jeep into a parking slot in the underground garage at the Hoover building.
Dane said, "According to Senator Hoffman, she'd had only a few bites of the salad, but she'd really plowed into the fried shrimp. I guess the poison was probably in the batter coating the shrimp. It's all being analyzed as we speak."
They walked through security, took an elevator to the fifth floor, and walked down the impossibly wide hall to the CAU, Savich's Criminal Apprehension Unit.
Ollie Hamish, Savich's second in command, was speaking to Ruth Warnecki, gesticulating as he always did. Agent Cooper McKnight, only three months in the unit, stood close, listening intently. Shirley, their unit assistant, sat on Dane's desk, chewing on an apple, listening as well.
Everyone turned when Savich and Dane walked into the large room. Ollie called out, "Mr. Maitland just phoned. Arsenic poison was all over the shrimp, in the batter, and she ate five of the six shrimp they served her. That's why she died so quickly. He said it wasn't elemental arsenic, but an arsenic compound-arsenic trioxide, to be exact. Get this-arsenic trioxide is approximately five hundred times more toxic than elemental arsenic. A lethal dose of pure arsenic in adults is about a hundred milligrams. The woman ate about four hundred milligrams of the arsenic trioxide. Dr. Branicki said she'd have died from just one shrimp.
"It literally exploded her system. She was dead within minutes, maybe less. The senator is in shock.
"Ruth here personally interviewed the waiter. Tell him, Ruth."
Ruth Warnecki said, "Mr. Graves is a twenty-year veteran waiter at the Foggy Bottom Grill. He told me the senator always orders the fried shrimp every week when he comes in. This time he didn't. Mr. Graves said he was surprised, but the senator told him, laughing, that his waistline was begging for only a salad today, and Mr. Graves recommended a small Cobb salad. He remembers the senator told his companion about how great the fried shrimp was, and she ordered it.
"When he brought their plates, Mr. Graves said he accidentally placed the shrimp plate in front of the senator, only to be reminded that Ms. Frobisher had ordered it. He said he remembered thinking that it was a forgivable mistake on his part, since he was used to serving it to the senator, and usually it was the ladies who ordered small salads."
Savich said, "Okay. Ruth, I'd really like to speak to Mr. Graves myself."
Ollie gave him a big grin. "Ruth and I figured you would. He's in the conference room with Lucy."
When Savich walked down the hall into the conference room, he saw Agent Lucy Carlisle sitting beside an older man who was squeezing the life out of a Coke can. He was long in the torso, thin as a plasma TV, and was trying to grow a beard that had, so far, produced only patches of hair on his chin and cheeks. Lucy looked up, smiled at Savich. "Ollie said you'd be here in twelve minutes. Ruth said ten. She was right." She turned. "Mr. Graves, this is Special Agent Dillon Savich, my boss. He'd like to speak to you."
Mr. Graves raised tired eyes to Savich. Savich saw his right eye twitch. He'd finally crushed the Coke can, and now he was tapping it up and down on the tabletop. The man was a mess.
Savich sat across from him. "Mr. Graves, I appreciate your waiting for me." He shook the man's hand, wishing he could calm him. "I'm Agent Dillon Savich. Now, I know this must be very difficult for you, a huge shock. I know you've probably told what happened at least a half-dozen times by now, but I hope you would tell me. Please go slowly, all right?"
". . . When I first saw it, the shrimp plate was under the warming lights, the table number and order tucked beneath it. The Cobb salad sat beside it, not under the warming lights. You never put salads under the warming lights." Mr. Graves blinked, cleared his throat. "I took both plates to Senator Hoffman's table and automatically put the fried shrimp plate in front of Senator Hoffman. He laughed, told me not today, he had to lose an inch, but
the lady was fit as a fiddle and so it was for her enjoyment today. I was embarrassed, I'll admit it. To make a mistake like that with Senator Hoffman, but as I said, he only laughed, wasn't put out or anything, not that he ever is. He's been coming to the Foggy Bottom Grill for maybe ten years now, once a week, like clockwork, and he always orders that shrimp plate-" He looked at Savich and his eye twitched again. "That poor woman, it was horrible, Agent Savich. One of the busboys pulled my arm, and I looked up to see her holding her throat. I remember thinking she looked more confused than anything, like she didn't know what was happening to her. It was so fast, it's hard to remember, but then she toppled off her chair and onto the floor and she was vomiting and writhing and then she just seemed to freeze. White foam was pouring out of her mouth, I can see it so clearly, that white foam just gushing out of her mouth, so much of it, then she lay there perfectly still, and I just knew she was dead.
"Senator Hoffman was with her, talking to her, trying to find out what was wrong, shaking her, but it didn't do any good. She was gone. It was horrible."
Mr. Graves put his head on his folded arms on the table. His shoulders were shaking. Lucy reached over and patted him.
Suddenly Mr. Graves raised his face, now white and drawn, his eye twitching again. "What if Senator Hoffman had ordered the shrimp? What if I'd given him the plate? He would have died." He stopped cold, as if appalled at what he'd said. "It didn't matter, did it? No matter where I put the plate, one of them would have died."
"I know, sir. Mr. Graves, do you have any idea how the poison got into the shrimp batter? Are there any new employees?"
"Yes, I already told Agent Hamish. There are a couple of young kids working in the kitchen, busing, washing dishes, that sort of thing. It's a low-paying job, but enough to give high school kids walking-around money. All the waitstaff, we've been there for years. It's a good job, and we have our own clientele, really, who come in and ask for us specifically."