Chapter Twenty-Nine Margo Angelhart
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Margo Angelhart
“You didn’t have to bring me home,” I grumbled to Jack as he pulled into my driveway behind Cal’s car.
“Shut up,” he said, weary.
I glanced at him and realized he was exhausted. “I don’t mean to be a pill,” I said.
“I’m used to it.”
“I wish Nate would bring back my Jeep,” I muttered.
“He still hasn’t called you?”
“Nope. For all I know, he’s still waiting for Jim Novak to show up in the wash. I wouldn’t be surprised if he slept there
all night.”
It was after nine, dark, and they were all tired. Even Tess had snapped at Jack, and that wasn’t like her. Luisa had set up
her computer in the corner of Gabriel’s den and was still going through the VA files, I assumed, though we hadn’t discussed
it. I slipped her the names that Jack had sent Tess, and she nodded her acknowledgment, but didn’t share anything that she
might have learned.
Maybe it was a wild-goose chase. Maybe her worm or whatever hadn’t been able to get her the information we needed.
Jack got out of his truck and walked around Cal’s car.
“Cal has a classic Mustang?” he said with admiration.
“Yeah,” I said.
Jack whistled. “Wow.”
“You’re that into cars?”
“No, but this is a 1969 Mustang.”
He said it as if it meant something.
“So?”
He frowned at me. “I was on the fence about Cal, but maybe he’s an okay guy.”
I unlocked the side door. “You were on the fence?”
My alarm beeped, and I frowned. Cal was here, why had he set the alarm? I disarmed it and called, “Hey, Cal, it’s me.”
I smelled . . . chocolate. It was late, well past dinner, but I smelled chocolate.
Cal walked in wearing his apron, did a double take when he saw Jack. “Hey, Jack.”
“That your Mustang?”
“Sure is.”
Cal walked past them and set the alarm.
I was confused and must have looked it.
“Security,” Cal said without me saying anything. “You have tens of thousands of dollars in guns and ammo to protect when you’re
not here, but you’re worth more.”
I glanced at Jack and narrowed my eyes. “You told him.”
“You should have told him about Liz’s phone,” Jack said.
“I planned to when I got home.”
“That’s what cell phones are for, sweetheart,” Cal said and gave me a kiss on the cheek.
“What are you making?” I asked.
“Brownies. They’re cooling off.”
I had definitely found the right guy.
“Grab the gelato from the freezer,” he said as he took off his apron and hung it on a hook he had installed just inside the
laundry room door. “The new one, not the one we had the other night.”
“You made more gelato?”
“Vanilla bean goes better with brownies than chocolate. I cook when I’m stressed.”
“Working a difficult case?” I asked as I took out the gelato. I had learned that it needed to sit for a few minutes before
eating. I didn’t want to wait, but I would.
Jack hit me on the backside of the head.
“Hey!” I said.
“You’re clueless,” he grumbled. “Do you have enough for me?”
“Of course,” Cal said.
He put three large brownies on plates and brought the carton of gelato to the table. Tito jumped into his lap, turning around
three times before he settled.
We dug into dessert and I filled Cal in on the day, leaving out the part about Luisa hacking into the VA system. We’d made
progress, we’d narrowed down the people who were privy to the Phase 1 trial and may have had a financial incentive to hide
the bad data, but even if it was one of the people we’d identified, we couldn’t prove it.
Yet.
I had a plan for tomorrow, and Tess was doing more work on their financials.
And still, it might be none of them. It could be another doctor, another administrator. It could have been someone with Neurovantix
who still had credentials and came in after hours because Dr. Klein tipped his hand about blowing the whistle on the trial.
“You’re focused on the people who were involved in the trial who are still employed there,” Cal said.
“Yeah, because that’s the most logical reason why Liz would have been killed. Who else could have known what she’d found unless
they worked there? But she’s in general practice, that’s a huge division, there’s no feasible way we can investigate the hundred
or so doctors, nurses, and staff who are attached to it. If we were cops, we could get warrants for staff time sheets and
security logs and interview people, but even if the cops were involved that would take a lot of time.”
“How many people are you looking at?”
“Two are on the list because they were directly involved with the trial—the administrator Ames because he would have had to
approve it, and Stockman, who was the assistant to the research director. We’re also looking at the staff listed on the website
who work directly under Ames, but we don’t know which doctors or nurses may have been assigned to the project itself. I hope
my dad has that information and tells Mom tomorrow. Jack and I talked to the retired research director and she wasn’t much
help, and Tess is trying to track down Willa Blankenship, who was the Neurovantix rep on the trial.”
“That’s a lot of people to talk to,” Cal said.
“We’re still not certain how the record was deleted, if that’s even possible, but Luisa’s trying to figure that out. She’s
the computer whiz,” I added, so no one asked me what, specifically, she was doing to ‘figure it out.’ “Tess asked Gabriel,
but he didn’t know how to delete records, he thinks it’s not possible.”
“Liz didn’t know exactly what she was seeing, and then it was gone,” Cal said. “Why kill her?”
He sounded angry. I didn’t blame him; I was upset about the murder as well. It was so senseless.
But not to the killer. The killer must have thought Liz had information that would hurt him. Maybe she did. Because she hadn’t told me everything. That was why we were meeting.
“There’s too much we don’t know, too much we’re guessing at,” I said. “Maybe because at the end of the day when she checked,
the record was gone—deleted. Deleting a patient chart can be a crime. It’s definitely unethical. She knew something. She implied
during our conversation that there was another patient who had missing records, then she clammed up. Maybe she talked to her
boss, or another nurse, or informed the administrator’s office. Maybe she said something to the wrong person and they didn’t
want her talking about it with me.”
Jack finished his brownie. “We have two names, patients who were in the trial, but had an adverse reaction. They should have
been included in the trial information. But according to Nadine Pierce, Dr. Klein said ten patients were missing from the
results. In a trial of fifty people, that’s 20 percent. Not a small number.”
“And,” I added, “the reason Nadine reached out to my dad three weeks ago was because the Phase 4 trial is complete and Neurovantix
is up for approval and a huge contract. Likely millions of dollars. Maybe tens of millions, what do I know?” I rolled my eyes. “Maybe they fixed the problem and this is going to be a game-changer
for vets who are suffering.”
“But the foundation is rocky,” Cal said.
“Exactly. Someone killed Klein. Was it because he was turning whistleblower? Based on the timing of his murder, that’s my guess. But we need
more information. Because why then? A whistleblower case can take months, years even, to develop. Wouldn’t it be easier, if the data was truly falsified, to
come up with a logical reason for it rather than kill a man and frame another? We all know how slow the government works in
cases like this.”
Jack stacked the empty plates and walked to the sink. “It makes me think that Klein knew something more than he let on, maybe something more damning.”
“More damning than lying about drug safety?” I countered.
“They could have swapped out the drug, maybe created completely different records, argued that Klein didn’t know how to read
the data.” Jack shrugged.
“Money,” Cal grumbled. “Doesn’t matter if the drugs are legal or illegal, it all comes down to the money.”
A knock on the door had all three of us on the move. Tito jumped off Cal’s lap as he stood and looked up at him as if waiting
for him to sit back down.
I looked at the men and said, “My house.” Still, I had my gun in hand when I checked the peephole. “It’s Nate.”
I disarmed the alarm and let him in. “How’s my Jeep?”
“Good,” he said, motioned to it parked on the street. “I found Novak.”
He looked at Cal. “That your Mustang in the driveway?”
“Yep,” Cal said.
“It runs?”
“Purrs like a kitten.”
“Sweet.”
“Novak!” I said, irritated that Nate had been distracted by a car.
He looked at the brownies. “I know you don’t bake,” he said to me before turning to Cal. “Can I have one?”
“If you tell me your name,” Cal said.
I said, “Cal, Nate Lorenzo, he works part-time for our firm. Nate, Cal Rafferty, DEA. You can have a brownie if you tell me
about Novak.”
Nate helped himself and sat down at the table.
“Took a few hours, but he showed up at the campsite we identified. Then, it took me a couple hours to convince him to let
me take him to Cave Creek.”
I was impressed. “You got him to go into rehab?”
Nate nodded. “He’s hurting. Up here.” He tapped his head. “So he drinks. But I caught him before he was too far gone for the
night. I told him we need his help, that Liz needs his help. He knows something, but he can’t remember, not with all the alcohol
in his system. And pills. When I brought him in, he turned over dozens of bottles of prescription pills he’d stolen from people’s
cars. I don’t know if he’ll be able to help tomorrow, but we can go see him.”
“That’s great,” I said.
“He’s a mess, but he had moments of clarity. The guy’s a hero.”
“You’re amazing.”
“True,” Nate said and finished his brownie. “But you were right. He responded better to me because we have the same background.”
He stared at his empty plate, his mind suddenly somewhere else.
“There, but for the grace of God, go I,” Cal said quietly.
Nate nodded, got up. “I’m heading back to Gabriel’s.”
“Lu is there,” Jack said. “She can handle it tonight. You should go home and sleep.”
“Who’s going to watch Lu’s back?” Nate said. “I already called an Uber—they just pulled up.” He gave us a half salute and
left.
“Interesting guy,” Cal said, getting up to set the alarm while giving me a dirty look that I hadn’t done it.
“He spent more time at our house than his growing up,” Jack said. “His parents were assholes. He would hop our fence and sleep
on the patio when they kicked him out.”
“I remember,” I said. “Scared the bejesus out of Mom a few times.”
“He enlisted the day he turned eighteen, and left for boot camp the week after graduation,” Jack said. “If he didn’t have the military, he probably would be dead or in jail by now.”
Jack got up. “I have to go too. Thanks for dessert, Cal.” He gave Cal a long look, as if they were communicating silently
so I wouldn’t know.
I rolled my eyes. “Out,” I said. “I’ll call first thing in the morning and we can split the list of possible suspects. I think
Lu would be better to go to the rehab center with Nate to visit Novak. She understands the medical files, maybe she can get
someone to explain how medical records can be flagged—or deleted without a trace.”
“There’s always a trace,” Cal said.
“That’s what Lu says. But this time, I don’t know.”