House on Fire

67

When I got back to our suite, I found Sukie on her computer doing edits on her film remotely, exchanging text messages with her editor. She looked up and said, “Did she confess?”

She was being arch, but I decided to take her seriously. “So do you think she did it?”

“What do you think?”

I’d considered it. I answered her evasive question with my own question. “Would Maggie have had a reason to meet with Megan outside the house that night?”

“If Megan asked her to, sure. To discuss the job she’d hired her to do. They might not want to talk about it inside the house.”

“And let’s say Megan caught her by surprise back there — a sudden shove from behind at the right place in the woods is all it would take. She’s a strong woman.”

“But why would she do it?”

“I don’t know. Unless Maggie turned up something she shouldn’t have and told her about it.”

She shook her head. “I don’t see it.”

I nodded slowly. When a private investigator works for an attorney, he or she is bound by confidentiality to the client. It’s like an extension of attorney-client privilege. Under some state laws, there are penalties for divulging information. She’d have every reason to observe confidentiality.

But say Maggie found the Tallinn file, full of evidence that the company knew how dangerous its flagship drug was and buried the warnings. I could see her refusing to observe client secrecy like she was supposed to. You keep your client’s secrets, yes — but she’d be outraged. Especially if Megan planned to keep the truth hidden. She’d do what she felt was the right thing, even if it caused her to lose a client and a payment. That was just who she was.

Sukie interrupted my thoughts. “You know, talking about the woods behind the house reminds me of something. I remember when I was maybe eleven or twelve, and there was a huge herd of deer, somewhere toward the back of the paddocks in Katonah. I ran at them, and of course, they scattered. As I knew they would. But there you had a couple thousand pounds of muscle, hoofs, and horns. And I was this shrimpy little thing. They could have charged me and trampled me to death.”

“Good point.”

“Well, my point is, there was some unwritten rule of nature saying which one of us was a danger to which. As long as everyone obeyed the rule, things would go on the way they always did. It’s like with my father. He’s a danger to us. He says what goes. He charges, we scatter. But maybe one day the script changes. We never know how much power we have until we use it. Who’s the dangerous one? Who’s the one in danger? It’s like a belief system. And beliefs can change.”

I nodded, smiled.

“What do you say we head out to the sales conference?” I said. “Establish our cover?”

She closed her laptop and got up to change. Since I didn’t have to change, I worked on locating Dr. Zubiri.

According to the program we’d been given at check-in, we’d missed his presentation. That had been the day before. But I was certain he hadn’t left. He’d want to enjoy a few days of ultra-luxury in the Caribbean. Anyone would.

The pre-dinner session was being held in an outdoor theater, open to the elements. It had squarish pillars and a swooping stone roof. This was not a thatched-roof kind of place. The theater’s sunken rows of seats were nearly filled, the theater dark. We found a couple of seats at the back.

A rap video was playing on a giant movie screen, and I’d never seen anything like it. A giant Oxydone inhaler with purple arms and legs was dancing with a pair of white guys in black hoodies and gold chains and dark sunglasses who were making elaborate gang signs. The giant inhaler was rapping about how he “got a lotta doctors on speed dial” and something about “the last mile” and “clinical trial.” We watched the screen, mesmerized.

When it ended, there was raucous cheering, and out of the darkness a white beam cut a small round spot. Over the loudspeaker a deep male radio announcer’s voice said, “Ladies and gentlemen, we have with us this evening a special surprise guest.” The spotlight moved up the dark curtains and stopped, and then the white circle of light gradually grew bigger and the curtains pulled back to reveal the old man himself, Conrad Kimball, standing there in his customary navy suit over black collared shirt. It was a look I’d seen in all of his publicity photos.

“Doctor Conrad Kimball!”

The extraordinary thing was how Kimball looked twenty or thirty years younger. The white hair cut short, the pale gray eyes, the suntan, or maybe it was makeup: he looked vigorous and healthy, a man in his prime, a man of power and prowess.

He smiled broadly. “My friends!” he said.

The crowd got to its feet, applauding their chairman, cheering the unexpected guest, the boss.

The spotlight drew in closer and then softened. “My fellow warriors!” He extended his arms like a benediction. “With all the lies out there about Oxydone, all the propaganda, all the crazy protests and the vilification, all the fake news — I think it’s worth stepping back for a moment and remembering what we are doing. What our mission is. And why I built this company.”

He shifted his gaze from straight ahead to his left, looking directly at the sales reps seated right in front of him. “Hundreds of millions of people around the globe live with pain every single day. Right now. Pain that’s untreated. Pain that’s so bad that millions of them can’t go to work. Or go to school.”

Looking straight ahead now, he said, “I know a man named Jake. Jake has cancer, and he was living in unimaginable agony. Burning, stabbing torment. His life wasn’t livable. His marriage had fallen apart, he’d lost his friendships. He told me that it was like being tortured every day, with no means of escape. Tortured! He was on suicide hotlines several times. Because chronic pain drives people to suicide. He saw five practitioners before he finally got help. And then a wise doctor prescribed Oxydone.” He paused. “It was a godsend. For Jake, Oxydone was a miracle. He was given his life back.” He raised his arms in the benediction pose again.

“Now, has Oxydone been abused in the substance-use community? Undoubtedly. Just like they abused opium a hundred years ago and still do. Just as some people are allergic to penicillin, some have these susceptibilities to opioids. But penicillin has spared multitudes. And so has Oxydone.”

He turned to face another segment of the audience. “But that must never stop us from bringing the miracle of pain relief to the lives of millions of sufferers. People like Jake. People with arthritis or migraines, with neuropathic pain or fibromyalgia or back pain or any other chronic discomfort.” He bowed his head, and after a beat, he looked up. “What I want you all to remember is that we’re not the villains here. We’re the ones who treat the pain. We’re the ones who do so much to alleviate suffering around the world.

“This medicine that’s derived from poppies, it’s a gift from nature. A gift that we bestow upon the hundreds of millions of afflicted people who need it so desperately. Ultimately, that is what we are giving the world. A gift.”

The spotlight faded, and the house lights came up, and everyone had gotten to their feet to cheer the old man.

“My friends,” he said over their cheers, “let’s go out there and save lives.”

I applauded, along with everyone else, and meanwhile I was thinking. The fact that Conrad Kimball was here had suddenly changed everything.