Margaret Truman's Deadly Medicine Read online

  “Did you ever work with him?”

  “No. Oh, sometimes, but never to the extent that I was involved in any experiments. As much as he loved me I think he preferred to work by himself.”

  “What was growing up in Papua New Guinea like? I’m sure it’s nothing like Oakland where I was born and raised.”

  “Different in some ways, of course, but with the same sort of problems as most places I suppose. I was raised in the capital, Port Moresby, more urban than most of the country. My father was white.”

  “A mixed marriage. My parents were a mixed race couple, too. It posed problems for me every once in a while.”

  “Someone told me that you used to be a professional baseball player.”

  His laugh was self-effacing. “I had a minor league contract and played a couple of years. Good field, no hit. That was me. He grunted and shook his head. “I was just thinking,” he said, “about your father and his work. If he worked alone as you say, whatever advances he’d made in his research died with him. What a shame.”

  She started to respond but held herself in check.

  “I really should be going,” she said.

  “Another wine?”

  “Thank you, no.”

  “How about dinner downstairs?” he asked. “The food is good and they have live jazz on Thursdays, only this isn’t Thursday. Bad timing.”

  “I’d like that, Nate, but I really need to get home.”

  “I understand, and I promised I’d see that you got there.”

  He paid the check and walked her to her car.

  “I enjoyed it,” she said. “It’s a nice place.”

  “Being with you was what was nice about it,” he said.

  She smiled demurely. He placed fingertips on her cheek and brushed his lips against hers. To his surprise she intensified the pressure.

  “We’ll do this again soon, right?” he said.

  “Yes, we will,” she said, pleased that he hadn’t pressed to extend the evening.

  “Enjoy your book,” he said, “and careful driving home.”

  CHAPTER

  11

  At a few minutes before midnight Jayla turned off the television and headed for the bedroom when the phone rang.

  “Jayla, it’s Elgin Taylor. Please tell me that I didn’t wake you.”

  “You came close,” she said. “I’m usually asleep at this hour but I became engrossed in an old movie. How are things with you?”

  “Things are good with me,” said the Port Moresby attorney, “but a few complications have set in regarding your father’s estate.”

  “Oh? Anything serious?”

  “Not yet, but it could develop into something nettlesome. I don’t suppose that you’ve heard what happened to the fellow who took care of your dad’s plot of land in Pagwi, Walter Tagobe.”

  “No, I haven’t heard anything.”

  “He was found dead in an alley in Wewak.”

  “Oh, my goodness, how dreadful. In an alley you say? Had he been attacked?”

  “Yes. The police are labeling it a mugging and robbery that went wrong. I only know about it because I received a phone call from the acting police commissioner in Wewak, a fellow named Rauba. The police traced Tagobe back to Pagwi and were told that he oversaw your father’s land there. He’d received a monthly stipend from your dad for his services, and the police wanted to inform your father of his death. I told Mr. Rauba, of course, about your father’s demise, which should have put an end to their inquiry. But Rauba has turned the case over to an Australian detective.”

  “Why?”

  “It seems that the possible connection between Walter Tagobe’s murder, your father’s murder, and the razing of your father’s land, has piqued their interest, which when you think about it makes sense.”

  “Yes, it certainly does. What had Walter been doing in Wewak?” Jayla asked. “According to my father Walter Tagobe never left Pagwi. He used to say that Walter would benefit from seeing a bit of the larger world.”

  “I don’t know why he was in Wewak, Jayla. Actually, the Tagobe murder is only one of a few issues that I need to raise with you. Your father had written and executed a codicil to his will that I was unaware of. I found it among numerous papers he left. It was handwritten, signed by him, and witnessed by a nurse your father hired from time to time. In that codicil he left this Walter Taboge chap what amounts to a thousand U.S. dollars.”

  “I wasn’t aware of that either, but I’m not surprised. My father was kind to those who worked for him. What will happen to the money now that Walter is dead?”

  “I’ll have to sort that out with his family. But there’s more to the story, Jayla.”

  “I’m listening, Mr. Taylor.”

  “I received a call from the young man who worked as your father’s assistant in the laboratory, Eugene Waksit.”

  “You heard from Eugene? How is he?”

  “I’m sure he’s fine, although the reason for his call was unsettling. He told me that your father had vowed to him that should he die, all the results of his experiments would belong to him in return for his years of service.”

  Jayla thought for a moment before saying, “That doesn’t make any sense. My father would never do such a thing.”

  “My reaction exactly.”

  “Dad willed everything to me, aside from specified amounts of money for his housekeeper, Tabitha, and for Eugene.”

  “Precisely.”

  “Does his unsubstantiated claim hold any water?” Jayla asked.

  “It could, Jayla. Obviously, having something in writing to bolster his claim would help his cause, but a verbal agreement, especially since he worked for your father for a number of years and was thought of highly enough to be left five thousand dollars for his service, adds a certain gravitas to what he says.”

  “I can’t believe this,” Jayla said through a burst of exhaled air.

  “I suggested that Mr. Waksit meet with me to further discuss this, which he agreed to. He said that he would call again. He hasn’t.”

  “He lives in Port Moresby,” Jayla said.

  “Or did,” Taylor said. “I have his address from your father’s papers, as well as his phone number. I called it but was informed that it was no longer in service, which leads me to believe that he’s now living elsewhere. Of course he’ll have to make contact with me if he wants to receive the money your father left him in his will, but that’s months off. The probate system grinds slowly here in PNG. Do you have a more recent address for him?”

  “I don’t. I mean, I assume that the address I have is the same one that you have, the apartment he lived in since he came to work for my father.” She gave him the phone number, which matched the one that Taylor had called.

  “I’ll let you know if I hear from him,” Jayla said.

  “I’d appreciate that. I suspect that this will all blow over, but better to nip it in the bud. A suggestion?”

  “Please.”

  “Do you have an attorney there in the States?”

  “No. Do I need one?”

  She heard him sigh. “Probably not. I doubt whether this will develop into a legal issue, and if it does it will have to be adjudicated here. My suspicion is that this Waksit fellow will realize how weak his claim is and will simply disappear. But you might want to have an attorney on tap in the event you need legal advice closer to home.”

  “All right,” she said. “I can’t believe that Eugene would do such a thing.”

  Taylor’s laugh was deep and throaty. “The older I get,” he said, “the less I know what seemingly rational people are capable of doing.”

  “I’m sorry to hear about Walter Tagobe,” Jayla said.

  “I’ll also keep you informed of what happens on that front. Go to bed. It’s late where you are.”

  She did as he suggested, but her sleepiness prior to the call had abated and she was now wide awake and dealing with her anger at Eugene Waksit.

  The following morning,
fuzzy from a fitful sleep, she padded into the kitchen and turned on the Keurig coffeemaker. The anger at Waksit reemerged as she waited for the water in the reservoir to heat. How dare he make such an outlandish claim? Her father had no obligation to leave him anything in his will, yet had left him $5,000. Waksit’s lack of gratitude was offensive to her, but confirmed the vague, negative feelings she had about him. She glanced at the time. Seven o’clock. Three the previous afternoon in Port Moresby. She retrieved Waksit’s phone number from the desk and dialed, but received the same recorded message that the attorney had: “The number you have called is no longer in service.”

  Waksit had obviously moved. To another apartment in Port Moresby? To Australia? Would Tabitha know? Probably not. Maybe the attorney could trace Waksit’s whereabouts.

  Showered and dressed, she left the apartment at eight thirty and had breakfast in a neighborhood coffee shop. While there she decided to call the phone number Flo Combes had given her for Mackensie and Annabel Smith. Annabel answered.

  “Hi, it’s Jayla King.”

  “Hello, Jayla. How nice to hear from you.”

  “I hope I’m not calling too early.”

  “Not at all. Mac is in the shower, and I just came in from filling the bird feeder on the terrace.”

  “I so much enjoyed the dinner with you and your friends.”

  “And we enjoyed having you. Something we can do for you?”

  “I hope so. I received a call from my father’s attorney in PNG about possible legal problems that may arise with my father’s estate, and he suggested I confer with an attorney here in the States. I was wondering whether I could arrange a time to speak with your husband.”

  “I’m sure he’d be delighted to, although I doubt whether he knows anything about the law in Papua New Guinea.”

  “I wouldn’t expect him to,” Jayla said. “I probably don’t even need legal advice but thought it wouldn’t hurt to run a few things by him, you know, some questions in general.”

  “I’ll tell him that you called and … oops, my clean old man has just emerged. Here he is.”

  “Good morning, Jayla. What can I do for you?” Mac asked.

  She repeated what she’d told Annabel, and Mac replied that he’d make himself available whenever it was convenient for her. They made an appointment for five that afternoon at his office.

  “I can’t imagine what help I can be to her,” Mac told Annabel after ending the conversation. “Her father’s death is a matter for the authorities overseas.”

  “She didn’t specify what she wanted to discuss?”

  “No, but I’ll find out soon enough.”

  “Oh, Mac, I almost forgot. Robert called. He wanted me to tell you that he’d be late coming in this morning. He’s having breakfast with Will Sayers.” Annabel laughed. “Ever since Flo quit as his receptionist and opened her shop, Robert has been in a foul mood, especially with Ms. Warden. He seems to want to spend as much time as possible away from the office.”

  “Maybe I can get him an assignment in Papua New Guinea,” Mac quipped.

  * * *

  Robert Brixton sat in Will Sayers’s apartment. The heavyset journalist had made his guest a cup of instant coffee, which Brixton abandoned after a few sips. Sayers struggled with a nauseatingly yellow breakfast shake he’d concocted in a blender.

  “Since when are you drinking that stuff?” Brixton asked.

  “Since my doctor told me that either I lose weight or reserve a casket with my name on it.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “I’ll give it a try,” Sayers said. “Probably last a week. It tastes like—well, it tastes like what it looks like.” He pushed the half-empty glass away and belched.

  “Try moderation,” Brixton said, “you know, only one piece of key lime pie after dinner, skip the fries at lunch.”

  “Wise words from a man who doesn’t practice moderation. You busy these days?”

  “No. Things have slowed down, although I’m up for a job tracing where the funds went from a nonprofit. Into the treasurer’s pocketbook, I figure, but what I figure doesn’t stand up in court. You said you might have something for me.”

  “Yeah, I might, and if you’re nice to me I’ll consider telling you about it.”

  “Anybody ever tell you that you’re the spitting image of George Clooney?”

  Sayers laughed. “Okay, enough phony niceness. I mentioned to you at the Smiths’ dinner that I’m digging into the finances of Georgia’s esteemed senator, Ronald Gillespie.”

  “Despite having had a couple of martinis, I seem to remember that.”

  “Ever hear of a lobbyist named Eric Morrison?”

  Brixton grunted. “I think I’ve seen his name in the papers, got a hotshot agency on K Street.”

  “One and the same. He and his agency represent a number of clients, every one of them with open checkbooks to buy congressional votes. His biggest client is PAA, the Pharmaceutical Association of America. Senator Gillespie has always been a major recipient of their largesse.”

  “That’s old news,” Brixton said.

  “Very astute, Robert.”

  “So what’s up with the lobbyist, Morrison?”

  “He’s a strange cat,” Sayers said from where he stood at the kitchen counter cutting a large piece of crumb cake. “Want some?” he asked.

  “Moderation. Remember? Yeah, give me a piece, and something to wash it down with other than what you call coffee.”

  Sayers resumed his seat at the small kitchen island with two plates of cake and an orange juice for Brixton. “Where was I?” he said. “Oh, right, Eric Morrison. Morrison is nothing more than a conduit for the money his clients put up to influence legislation.”

  “I’ve heard this before.”

  “But as they say on TV infomercials, ‘Wait! There’s more!’ Mr. Morrison, whore that he is, has also been rumored to provide certain services to his clients above and beyond simply passing their millions on to our greedy politicians.”

  “What kind of services?” Brixton asked.

  “Oh, little favors, like arranging for a professional lady now and then—”

  “Hookers?”

  “If you insist on being crude.”

  “Pardon me.”

  “You’re pardoned, Robert. Let’s see. Ah, yes, hookers. Certainly not scandalous in this day and age. But I’ve come into information from a source I will not name that Mr. Morrison has gone beyond simply providing female companionship for a price. His prize member of Congress is Senator Ronald Gillespie. What do you know about Gillespie?”

  “I feel like I’m on a quiz show,” Brixton said. “Gillespie. Aging senior Georgia senator married to a woman who could be his daughter. There used to be a comic here in D.C. who would say from the stage that he thought it was sweet that so many older men in the audience were treating their daughters to a night out.”

  Sayers laughed. “I’m sure that Senator Gillespie was in that audience. At any rate, the senator’s wife, whose name is Rebecca, isn’t the only young woman who has attracted his roving eye. There was, I’m told, a teenager—granted an older one—who succumbed to his charm, if you can call it that. And…” Sayers paused for effect. “And, I’m also told that a pregnancy was the result of their exchanging precious bodily fluids, as Sterling Hayden so aptly put it in Dr. Strangelove.”

  “Senator Gillespie knocked up a teenage girl?”

  Sayers’s exaggerated sigh was accompanied by a slow shaking of his head and a pained expression on his face.

  Brixton ignored him. “What happened to the kid?” he asked.

  “My best sources back in Georgia say that the senator, generous fellow that he is, paid the girl to cancel the birth.”

  “She had an abortion.”

  “Again according to my sources, the senator not only paid for it, he bestowed a generous financial bonus on her for her silence, which pleased her family who, I’m told, were dirt-poor.”

  “That’s quite a s
coop you’re working on,” Brixton said.

  “Yes, working on, but still without sufficient proof to run with it.”

  “What does this have to do with the lobbyist Morrison?” Brixton asked.

  “It has a great deal to do with Morrison. If my sources are correct, it was Morrison who arranged for the abortion, and paid off the girl’s family on Senator Gillespie’s behalf.”

  “If you think I’d be shocked, you’re wrong. You said when you asked to get together this morning that you might have something for me. I’m between assignments, as they say. Does this story have a place for me?”

  “It does, Robert. I need someone to apply his investigative skills to come up with the proof I need.”

  Brixton sat back and processed what he’d just heard. Sayers was a skilled and tenacious journalist who’d broken many stories over the course of his career. Why now seek the help of someone else? More important, as far as Brixton knew, Sayers didn’t have money to pay for help.

  He bluntly brought up the questions.

  “First,” Sayers said, “the people who might be able to provide the proof I need will undoubtedly head in the opposite direction if approached by a journalist, especially one whose reputation for digging up dirt is well known. Second, I happen to have funding to continue my query into the senator’s life.”

  “Who’s providing the funding?”

  “I’m not at liberty to divulge that. Let’s just say that it comes from people who would be delighted to see Senator Ronald Gillespie go down in flames. Satisfied?”

  “I’m shocked,” Brixton said, holding his hand to his heart.

  “At what?”

  “At a journalist of your standing accepting payment from a source.”

  “Strictly to pay expenses, not a cent into my pocket. Gillespie is scum, Robert. I’ll be doing everyone a favor by ushering him out of the Senate.”

  “Okay, okay, what do you want me to do?”

  Sayers handed him a sheet of paper with a name, address, and phone number on it.

  “Who’s this Paula Silver?”

  “She was on Morrison’s payroll, only she really didn’t do anything except service her boss. She was his mistress.”