Never Tell

Chapter Forty-Two

Ellie was nestled into the space between her couch and her trunk-doubling-as-coffee-table, pen in right hand, nan bread in left. She was prepping a huge scoop of saag paneer onto her flatbread when she heard keys in the door. Before she realized it, she had dropped her pen and was checking her breath in her hand. She and Max had exchanged house keys nearly three months ago, but she still got a little rush when he popped in unexpectedly.

“Oh God, I detect the distinct odor of dirty diaper and singed hair. How can you eat that stuff?”

Not Max. Jess. Just as well. She was still trying to settle back into a comfortable rhythm with Max, but she could stink up both her breath and the apartment with the stench of curry, and her brother couldn’t say boo about it.

She ignored Jess as he continued to feign holding his breath, then choking, then fainting on the sofa behind her.

“You mind?” he said, reaching for the remote.

“If I minded the sound of a television, I would most definitely not choose you as a roommate.”

To her annoyance, she recognized the two women arguing on her television screen. Even though she’d never actually watched the reality show, she somehow knew who these D-list celebrities were, what products they were shilling, and the details of their screwed-up love lives.

“I swear I’m going to get one of those parental control chips for the cable box.”

“It took you four weeks to call the super when your bathroom sink was clogged. If you can brush your teeth in the tub for a month, I don’t see you lining up at Time Warner Cable just to deprive me of my housewives.” She noticed that he kept the volume lower than usual. “How can you work and eat at the same time?”

“I’m just making some notes, is all.”

“Again: How can you work and eat at the same time? Take a break. You’ve been killing yourself lately.”

“Not anymore. We let Casey Heinz go today.”

“Didn’t you call that when it first went down last week? Why’d you even bother busting your ass?”

“Because when it comes to murder, we don’t usually let people go because we have a feeling. I really expected we’d have some answers by now.”

“You’ll get them.”

“Doesn’t always happen that way, Jess. I think we both know that.”

“I also know you. You’ll get there.”

She considered arguing with him, but chose instead just to thank him and continued brainstorming on her notepad.

She started drawing lines of connection between the principals. Julia Whitmire’s threats against Adrienne. Julia’s friend, Ramona. Ramona’s friend, Casey, research subject to Dr. David Bolt. The Adderall—without a prescription—in Julia’s handbag. The Casden School, alma mater to Bolt, where prescription drug abuse ran rampant. Missing witness Brandon Sykes, another subject to David Bolt.

That psychiatrist’s name was popping up a little too frequently.

She pushed her plate to the side to make room for her laptop. She entered “David Bolt” into Google and hit enter to search. As she scrolled through hits relating to a southern lawyer, a freelance graphic artist, and a hotshot middle school hockey player, she realized her job would be a lot easier if everyone in America had a name as unique as Rumpelstiltskin.

Fortunately, a fair share of the hits concerned the man she was interested in. There was his practice’s website. Various celebrations of his professional achievements. Announcements of the Phase I clinical trial of Equivan, one making special mention of Bolt’s earlier decision to forgo his academic appointments rather than disclose the income he made from the pharmaceutical companies that funded his research. Consumer-focused websites protesting the funding of the research by the drug companies that manufactured the two drugs that went into Equivan.

Her surfing came to a halt. On the screen was a photograph from a twenty-five-year class reunion at Yale, a group shot of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. Second row, third man from the left was Dr. David Bolt. Next to him was Ramona Langston’s father, George.

She tried to slow her impulses. She’d been reacting on emotion, not facts, ever since they’d caught this case. She told herself there could be a rational explanation. To a certain segment of the population, there were only ten acceptable high schools, and three acceptable colleges. It wasn’t so coincidental that Bolt would go to college with George Langston, or have graduated from the same prep school as his kid. Casden and Yale probably went together like peanut butter and chocolate.

But these two men didn’t just go to the same college. They were in the same frat. And in this photograph, Bolt had his elbow crooked around George Langston’s neck, giving it a playful squeeze. These guys were tight.

She searched for their names together: “George Langston and David Bolt.”

She got one hit, a New York Post article with the headline “Suicide Leads to Lawsuit.” She clicked on the link. It was a short article from March.

The parents of a Manhattan high school student who died of a drug overdose last month have filed a civil lawsuit arising from the experimental combination of two leading psychiatric drugs. According to the complaint, filed yesterday in the district court for the Southern District of New York, Wallace and Janet Moffit claim that the drug Equivan—an experimental combination of the anti-depressant Flovan and the mood stabilizer Equilibrium—caused their son, Jason, to suffer severe depression and take his own life. The lawsuit seeks $20 million in damages.

Jason Moffit, 17, a student at the prestigious Casden School, was found dead in Central Park on February 14 from a heroin overdose. A representative for Dr. David Bolt, the acclaimed researcher overseeing the drug trial, declined comment, as did the Moffits’ attorney, George Langston.