Blood Loss

58

Ren sat at her desk with her morning coffee and no food. She had typed up her interview with Laurie.

Gary came in and put a Danish on the desk beside her.

‘I had one left over,’ he said.

Ren smiled. ‘Thank you.’

Colin sat back from his desk. ‘OK — I’m done with my interview with Joshua. He is one nervous, jumpy kid. He could barely sit still. You want to keep snapping your fingers in front of his face to get him to focus. He was all over the place. Did you see his room? Shelves of shoot-em-up games. The kid just sits on his ass playing that shit all day. I’d say there were, like, two sports games.’

‘There is something weird about all this,’ said Ren. ‘Something I can’t put my finger on.’ She paused. ‘Hold on — does this latest version of events mean that Jonathan Meester stayed in the Merritts’ house while they went to Breckenridge the first time to get Joshua and Laurie? Or did he leave and come back to make sure someone was there with Joshua and Laurie while the Merritts went back to Breckenridge to address the problem of their “missing” daughter?’

‘The neighbor didn’t say anything about Jonathan Meester’s car leaving,’ said Gary.

‘Whatever the case,’ said Ren. ‘This means Jonathan Meester lied to us too. But why would he cover for them?’

‘Because they’re friends …’ said Gary.

‘Even if his own goddaughter had been hurt?’ said Ren. ‘Wouldn’t his feelings for Laurie Whaley trump any desire to protect Joshua Merritt? I mean, what does he care about Joshua Merritt …’

Gary nodded.

‘At the very least,’ said Ren. ‘Wouldn’t he have called a doctor? MeesterBrandt would have to have a list of doctors they deal with …’

‘Not at chairman-of-the-board level he wouldn’t …’ said Gary. ‘Cell phone records.’

‘I’m on it,’ said Colin.

An hour later, the details came through.

‘We got a call here from Jonathan Meester’s cell phone to a Bradley Temple, MD, at two thirty a.m. Sunday, November 15,’ said Colin.

‘When the Merritts were heading back to Breckenridge,’ said Gary.

Ren Googled Bradley Temple. ‘He’s a doctor here in Denver,’ she said. She searched his name with Jonathan Meester’s. ‘I got another hit here — they were at a pharmaceutical conference in Vegas together two years ago. Nolan Carr was there too. Bradley Temple was one of the “spokespeople” at the event, which was sponsored by MeesterBrandt, and he spoke very highly of their drug Cerxus, and produced some remarkable results of a clinical trial he ran …

‘Weirdness,’ said Ren, scrolling down the list of hits. ‘On the Saturday night of the conference, there’s a small piece in the Las Vegas Sun about a fourteen-year-old boy going missing from the conference hotel. His father was one of the delegates. But it doesn’t name names.’

Ren looked it up in VICAP.

‘A-ha’ she said. ‘Bradley Temple’s wife filed a missing persons report for the Temples’ fourteen-year-old son, Cameron … but he was found alive and well a few hours later. He had gotten into a fight outside a strip club …’ She shook her head. ‘Jesus. Outside a strip club.’

‘I’d say he knocked and he knocked …’ said Colin.

‘So the whole family was in Vegas,’ said Gary.

‘No doubt at the expense of MeesterBrandt,’ said Ren. ‘The kid’s probably in high school at the expense of MeesterBrandt. Note to self: find owner of pharmaceutical company and jump in pocket.’

‘Male goes missing in Vegas …’ said Colin.

‘He was fourteen,’ said Ren. ‘Seriously? Does Vegas strike you as the type of place you’d feel safe wandering out into at that age?’

Colin held out his hands and squeezed two handfuls of air. ‘As long as I could find comfort in a big pair of-’

‘Yeah,’ said Ren. ‘Let me guess: you lost your virginity when you were twelve … or your dad brought you to a hooker to make you a man … or the Swedish babysitter jumped you on the sofa one night …’

‘I remember, I had a red Mustang, The Colonel,’ said Colin, ‘and a girl called-’

‘No, no, no,’ said Ren. ‘No. Information. And aren’t cars supposed to have girl names?’

‘Back to our case,’ said Cliff. ‘What are you saying, Ms Ren?’

‘What happens in Vegas doesn’t always stay in Vegas?’

‘If it did,’ said Cliff. ‘Vegas would have fallen into a sinkhole years ago …’

‘All that silicone wouldn’t help,’ said Ren.

‘Saline is the way to go,’ said Colin.

‘Thanks for that,’ said Ren. ‘Let me call my surgeon.’ She pretended to pick up the phone. ‘Hello? I’m calling on behalf of colleague. Mmm-hmm, yes, yes … gender reassignment. He’d like to find comfort in his very own big pair of …’

Ren went back to her computer and ran Bradley Temple through CopLink.

‘Meanwhile,’ she said, ‘it appears that Bradley Temple has been thrown out of two casinos — one in Vegas, one in Baton Rouge. Apparently, both times, he was having drunken money-loss-related meltdowns.’

Ren went back to the Google search results and scrolled down further. She began to get hits on the Cerxus lawsuit.

‘Talk among yourselves, people,’ she said.

A name had jumped out at her: Diana Moore, head of the nursing home in Jackson, Mississippi that Shep Collier funded. A children’s clinic she had run was mentioned in a piece about a consultant psychiatrist, Patrick Kilgallon, who had been questioned in 2008 in connection with accepting kickbacks from Lang Pharmaceuticals to prescribe Cerxus to children between 2002 and 2006.