Sunday morning, after the kids left for breakfast with Lurleen, Mason and I headed to his office downtown. I got wired up with his help and Kevin’s, and then I slipped into my costume. Mason nodded at the transformation. We checked everything out. Kevin had agreed to let Mason listen to the exchange in a room close to Jonathan’s. They would both be there with two additional officers in case anything went wrong. There would also be an officer at the door of Jonathan’s hospital room.
We’d cleared it with hospital administration that I could deliver Jonathan’s lunch to him, so Mason and Kevin dropped me off at the kitchen entrance behind the cafeteria. They called five minutes later to make sure they could hear clearly, and I checked my earpiece to be certain it was invisible beneath my cap. Then I headed upstairs with a lunch tray.
Jonathan didn’t recognize me at first. I wasn’t surprised because he’d only seen me briefly at the book club. As quietly as I could, I explained who I was underneath my disguise, and he settled down after that.
I don’t know what I expected, but Jonathan seemed better than I anticipated. He looked healthy for a tortured soul, which was how Stephanie had described him.
“I’ve waited a long time to tell the truth about something,” Jonathan said, “and I don’t mind if you record this conversation. I’m tired of secrets.”
I pulled out a notebook and felt rotten about the wire, which clearly wasn’t necessary. “I have to ask—why are you willing to talk to me and not the police and not your wife?”
“I realize they will have to know, and I’m sure you’re obligated to tell them. I guess I’m treating this like a dress rehearsal. You know about the pressures of medical school and I assume you know about the pressures of research, the need to find the answer and make money while doing that.”
“I know more than I want to know actually. A professor in my med school was a researcher who took money on the side to pay for talks meant to promote a drug’s efficacy even when his research didn’t support those claims. It was serious because he claimed a drug was safe for pregnant women to take and it wasn’t.”
Jonathan looked relieved. “Good, then you know about the underbelly of research. I didn’t try to sell corrupt data, but I did something just as bad. Stephanie said she told you about my early research and my work with Dr. Ornstein. He seemed headed for a Nobel prize, and I really think that would have happened if he hadn’t died first.”
I sat quietly and nodded as he spoke.
“For some reason, Dr. Ornstein liked me a lot. I don’t think I was any more talented than my colleagues. At first, we all got along well. I was working with three other researchers, all post docs. By rights I shouldn’t have gotten any of the best assignments, but Ornstein wanted to help me get my PhD as quickly as possible.
“One colleague was working on a particularly important link between a little known virus and what might be used to treat it effectively. She had a breakthrough, and I . . . I stole her work. I told Dr. Ornstein it was actually my discovery, and he believed me.”
“How could you pull that off?” I asked. “Didn’t everyone in that lab know who was working on what?”
“We were all focused on the same virus, the same treatment options, so it wasn’t hard to say her work was mine,” Jonathan said. “I look back now, and I can’t believe I did that. I think the other people in the lab knew and couldn’t believe it either. No one had any proof so it was my word against hers, and I had the typed up notes I stole from her.”
“What happened?”
“She was kicked out of the lab and for years she couldn’t find another lab to work in. No one wanted to hire a researcher accused of lying about their research and stealing someone else’s work. Dr. Ornstein wouldn’t give her a reference and even after he died, labs knew what she’d been accused of.
“What I did has haunted me forever. She also haunted me for a long while, literally. She’d turn up in the audience when I was giving a talk or at a restaurant where I went with my family. She never spoke to me; she just turned up. When I’d try to approach her, she’d disappear.
“Recently, there was an opening in a lab near mine at the CDC, and I made sure they put her name at the top of the list. I gave her my full endorsement, and she got the job. I thought I had finally made it right with her, but seeing her every day at work made me crazy. As crazy as when she was shadowing me. I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t do my work.”
“Her name?” I asked.
“Adeline Morgan.”
I wasn’t surprised by the name. She was the woman who refused to join the book club and the person who had recently begun work at the CDC.
“Did the two of you reconcile?” I asked.
“Not really. I wasn’t brave enough to admit out loud what I’d actually done. I said it was a misunderstanding. I told her it was a conclusion that Dr Ornstein reached on his own and that I’d found some of the same answers she had. I never fully admitted my part.”
“Did you know she was one of the people Josephine asked to be in the book club?”
“I don’t know much of anything about the book club. I was dealing with my own problems.”
“The threats to your wife?”
“How do you know about those?” Jonathan asked.
“Stephanie mentioned them to Lurleen. I don’t know if the police have the information you just gave me, but they will now.”
Jonathan stared at me. “You’re wearing a wire, aren’t you? The police would never let you talk to me if they weren’t recording this,” he said. “I’m sure there’s a pile of them outside the door even now. I wish they’d focus on keeping my wife safe. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Your wife made it sound as if you’d gotten threats also,” I said.
“You mean besides the fact someone ran me off the road? No, nothing other than that. It’s only been my wife, and she gets them on her cell when I’m not around.”
“Do you think they’re coming from Adeline Morgan wanting more revenge?”
“I don’t know,” Jonathan said. “She has a good job, and I don’t think she’d want to jeopardize that.”
“Could the threats be related to the death of Nicole Ash?”
“Why would anyone threaten Stephanie about Nicole’s death?”
“Your wife said you hated Nicole, that she’d said or done something to you in the hospital when you were being evaluated for what turned out to be a panic attack.”
“I found out after I left the hospital that Nicole had given me the medicine that caused that attack. A pharmacist friend told me she’d asked him what drugs might simulate a heart attack, and he put two and two together. When I confronted her, she put all the blame on Stephanie, but I knew what a manipulator Nicole was, so I knew that wasn’t true. It was Stephanie who gave me the pill and told me it was a new cold-relief medicine, but I’m certain that all came from Nicole. My wife would never try to hurt me.”
I chose not to tell him that I knew Stephanie had been involved.
“Nicole was part of the family,” I said, “present at the deaths of Luke and Stephanie’s father.”
“So? What are you driving at, Dr. Brown?”
“You knew her a long time,” I said. “You knew her before Luke was born. There’s no delicate way to ask this. Did you have a relationship with Nicole before Luke was born?”
“How could you suggest that?” Jonathan said. “Nicole has always been trouble.”
“We’ve heard how devoted you were to Luke as if he were the son you never had. Stephanie talked about how alike you were, both shy and interested in science. She said you two even looked alike.”
“You think I was Luke’s father?” Jonathan asked. “You think I would allow someone else to raise my son?”
“You might if Stephanie was not the mother,” I said.
“Okay, I’m starting to get the picture. You think I had an affair with Nicole, my wife’s sister-in-law, got her pregnant, and then we both agreed to let Mr. and Mrs. Strout raise him as their son. You have some imagination.”
“It seems doubtful Mrs. Strout was Luke’s mother,” I said. “She was in her forties, ill and traveling around Europe with Nicole as her companion, so yes, I and others wondered if Nicole might have been Luke’s mother.”
“Well, I sure as hell wasn’t the boy’s father,” Jonathan said. “I love Stephanie, and the only rotten thing I’ve ever done in my life was lie about research.
“And destroy a young woman’s career.”
“Yes, I did that and then I tried to make amends,” Jonathan said. “You’re implying a person who makes one desperate mistake is capable of anything, including cheating on his wife, murdering a mistress, lying about whether or not he has a son. I’m not that kind of guy! I think you better leave now.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I had to ask.”
“Okay, you asked. Now get out! You guys out there listening—I didn’t kill Nicole; I didn’t cheat on my wife. If you want to do something useful find out who’s threatening Stephanie and why. Find out who ran me off the road and maybe you’ll find Nicole’s murderer as well.”
I remained silent for a few moments, partly to see if Mason and Kevin were going to rush into the room. They didn’t.
“Can we start over, Jonathan?” I asked. “I want to get to the truth as much as you do, but there is so much about this case that doesn’t add up. Did you know you were run off the road on the same date that Luke and Mr. Strout died, on October 26th?”
The question silenced Jonathan’s rage. “I didn’t realize that,” he said quietly. “Luke’s death was such a tragedy for all of us. He went into the hospital with a stomach ache and a fever and never came out.”
“Did you think foul play was involved?” I asked.
“I didn’t think that at the time. I thought it was bad luck, rotten luck, but I have continued to wonder about what happened to Luke, and now I’m not so sure. If I was run off the road in some symbolic gesture on the same date, then whoever wanted me dead might have caused the other deaths as well.”
“It’s possible,” I said. “Do you know anyone who would hate the family enough to do that?”
Jonathan shook his head.
“Did you ever question whether or not Mrs. Strout was Luke’s mother.”
“I wondered how she had the strength to carry a pregnancy to term. We all knew how sick she was, and I guess we assumed it was some kind of miracle. I assumed she had a doctor in Europe that specialized in difficult pregnancies. She came home with a baby and she looked better than she had in years. She died five years later, so at least she didn’t have to see Luke die.
“She was a doting mother for as long as she lived. I suppose in a way she was more like a grandmother. It was the rest of us who raised Luke. Mr. Strout was a business man first and foremost. His family came second although I know he loved his wife. He was delighted about the way Luke seemed to brighten her world.”
Jonathan lay back on his pillow. His face was gray. “It’s unthinkable to believe anyone would have wanted to harm Luke intentionally.”
I believed he meant that. “Were you investigating the circumstances of his death recently?” I asked.
“That’s an odd question. As a matter of fact I was. It was something Nicole said to me in the hospital. She said she’d been harassed by the family ever since Luke’s death and that some people didn’t believe she’d done her best to save him. She said she’d even been accused of somehow causing his death and Mr. Strout’s a year later.”
“Did she tell you who was accusing her of murder?” I asked.
“She said it was Josephine who was poisoning the water against her and she wanted me to tell Josephine to back off. But instead she made me wonder if the accusations had any merit.”
Jonathan looked at me. “I don’t think I can do anymore right now. I didn’t kill Nicole. I didn’t kill anyone, but it seems obvious someone wants to harm me and my wife.”