“Nueva Vida.” Nicole spoke the words slowly and watched the doctor’s reaction. Surprise made the muscles in his face stiffen. His eyes flared. His fingers pressed into the edge of the table. They sat in the interrogation room. Lars watched from the two-way mirror, and all of it was being recorded on video. “Your great discovery,” she prompted.
“Yes. It will be great, for many, many people.”
“What is it?”
“Can you imagine a world without cancer?” he posed. “I can. Cells that stop fighting each other and begin to champion each other instead? Yes, it’s possible. It’s probable. The reality is coming.”
“You found the cure for cancer?” She knew there’d been many advances in the area, but it was still the number-one killer of Americans after heart disease.
For a moment, his face was animated. He opened his mouth to speak but then thought better of it, his daughter remembered. Grief stirred in his voice as he admitted, “I made an important discovery. More than one, actually. Science is like that. You find the right key and it opens many doors.”
“Stop talking in riddles, Dr. Esparza.”
“Not just cancer, Sheriff. Not just one disease, one life, one save,” he assured her. “I found life in death. A way to heal without radiation, without chemotherapy. I have engineered the perfect cell. And I have replicated it outside the laboratory.”
And pharmaceutical companies would be the biggest losers. Cancer was a billion-dollar business.
Nicole said as much to the doctor.
“It isn’t good for them,” he agreed. “Most of them.”
She wondered how much life went for.
“You found a company who wanted to do business with you.”
“More than one,” he agreed. “I gave my notice at the hospital.”
“Conflict of interest?”
“That, and the pay is better.”
“Beatrice didn’t like it.”
What wasn’t there to like about a cure for cancer? Selling it at a premium few could afford? The greed Joaquin had spoken of?
“My daughter would have made a better doctor than me,” he said. “Did you know that? My Beatrice wanted to follow in my footsteps. AP classes in the sciences in ninth grade.” His voice filled with pride. “She was set on it.”
“Why better?”
“She was moved by matters of the heart.”
“Unlike yourself, Dr. Esparza?”
“She was still young and hadn’t developed balance. She didn’t believe that life must be measured in degrees.”
“That not all could be saved,” Nicole posed.
“Exactly,” he agreed.
“Beatrice was compassionate.”
“Yes. To a fault.”
“Explain that, please.” Nicole sat back and folded her hands in her lap—settling in for the long version.
“If she didn’t grow beyond her ideals, the medicine-for-all pledge she took, she would have squandered her talent in a free clinic in some barrio.”
“Similar to the circumstances of your youth?”
He wasn’t surprised by her observation. He didn’t question or challenge it. He had waited in the box more than two hours and had probably wondered what his family was saying about him.
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t want Beatrice going there?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Because you had climbed out of that black hole …”
His lips thinned, but his voice remained steady. “Beatrice was born in an American hospital. She was born a citizen; she didn’t have to fight to become one. She knew nothing about having to struggle as an outsider.”
“And it wasn’t okay for her to want to reach a hand down into that hole and haul someone to their feet?”
“A person must climb out on their own, use their own quickness of mind and body, rely on their wits to truly appreciate where they land.”
“Appreciate? Don’t you mean contribute?” she asked.
“To society? Yes.”
“And to family,” Nicole pressed. “Isn’t that the Esparza creed—contribute to the advancement of the family position?”
“It’s a reasonable expectation,” Esparza said.
“And you’re never too young to do your part.” She heard the challenge in her voice, and Esparza responded to it.
“You don’t understand because you have no base of reference.”
Nicole smiled into his insult. “The American caste system.” She sat back. “I’m one of the forty-seven percent.” Middle class.
He acknowledged her reality with a nod.
“And your position, Doctor?”
“Now or tomorrow?” he asked.
The smugness in his tone squirmed under Nicole’s skin. She drew a breath to clear the irritation from her voice.
“Your contribution is that big? It will make a significant change in your family’s standing? You will leave your mark on the world?”
He leaned forward, his fingers slipping from the edge of the table. His hands settled in his lap. His gaze became sharp, capable of puncturing a hole through stone. “Few people,” he insisted, “will have done more.”
Nicole felt his intensity. It escaped from his pores. It was suffocating. She drew a breath and eased her body back in the chair, and she smiled to indulge him.
“So you’re right up there with Einstein and Ford?”
“My place is certain.”
“And Beatrice?” She gentled her voice around the girl’s name. “What was her contribution?”
“It would have been huge,” he assured her. “But we will never know it now.”
The last word fell like a coin down a wishing well, tumbling and flashing until swallowed by the darkness. She let the silence stretch until she was sure he felt the possibility of an endless drop.
“How did you replicate this cell outside the laboratory?” she asked.
His breath hit his teeth, a sudden, choppy stream of air. Only then did she realize he’d been holding it. “That is not public knowledge,” he said.
“Beatrice was involved in that, wasn’t she?”
“She was helpful.”
“Helpful?” Nicole chided. “She was more than that. She was it. Walking, talking proof that your discovery worked, or didn’t.”
“You’re suggesting I used my daughter as a test subject, but that’s not possible.”
“Because she didn’t have cancer?”
“Because it is against the rules, of medicine and of common decency.”
“You don’t play by the rules, Dr. Esparza. Rules frustrate you.” Joaquin had described a sudden transcendence: Esparza had been ruing his limitations one day, boasting about his achievements the next. No middle ground. No time balanced on the edge of possibility. “You cheated the system, didn’t you, Dr. Esparza?”
He opened his hands in offering. “Think what you will,” he invited.
“Your daughter was proof of your cheating.”
He didn’t comment. No swift denial. No flicker of offense in his expression. He stared beyond Nicole’s shoulder and studied the wall.
“What function did she perform for you, Dr. Esparza? What contribution did she make to your discovery? Because she did something, gave something—along with her life—to Nueva Vida.”
“She did, and she will be publicly honored for it. Everyone will know my daughter’s name. I will make sure of it.”
“I don’t think Beatrice would like that.” Nicole leaned forward and tapped her pencil against the table. “You see, I’ve learned a lot about Beatrice in the past”—she gazed at the clock on the wall, just over Esparza’s left shoulder—“eleven hours, and one thing everyone seems to agree on, you included, is that Beatrice didn’t care about glory. She cared about people.”
“I do as well.”
“But not everyone will benefit from your work,” Nicole posed. “With one company holding a monopoly on … this super cell … it will go only to those who can afford it. True?”
“At first.”
“Beatrice hated you for that.”
“She did not hate me. We disagreed.”
“What is the exact nature of your discovery, Dr. Esparza?”
He shook his head. “That will come to light at the right time.”
“How did Beatrice become involved in it?”
“Curiosity,” he said. “She would not leave me alone about it. She wanted to be a part of it,” he insisted.
“So you let her?”
“Eventually, yes.”
“In what capacity?” Circuitous questioning. The verbal equivalent of the battering ram. If she asked enough times, he would eventually say more than he wanted to. She waited and watched his shoulders give a little, his wrists weaken so that his hands fell away from the table and into his lap.
“She made the ultimate sacrifice,” he said. “Like you said, she died for it.”
“You’re lying.”
“That’s an occupational hazard,” Esparza pointed out. “The police always think people are lying. You also believe there’s nobility in the pursuit of justice, but I doubt you recognize there’s also futility.”
“Something went wrong with the proofing, didn’t it, Dr. Esparza?” He blinked and drew in a breath that bottled in his septum with a delicate purl. “Yeah, we know about that,” Nicole confirmed. “Your round table. But it didn’t go as planned, and Beatrice was upset. She called her mom, crying. She asked her to come pick her up. Not you. Your wife, but definitely not you.”
“Beatrice loved me.”
“Your wife told me she went looking for Beatrice and that she called you.” Nicole leaned forward. “Seven times.”
The doctor remained silent.
“She was frantic.”
“She had no reason to be,” he returned smoothly.
“You can say that? Even now?”
“Someone murdered Beatrice. My cure did not kill her.”
“I think it did. But we’ll know for sure when we take a look at your lab and your notes, when the autopsy on Beatrice’s body is complete. So why don’t you just tell us, Dr. Esparza? What was Beatrice’s involvement with your super cell? What did you do to her? Kill her or cure her?”
“The world will see the contribution was worth the personal sacrifice.”
“You confessed to killing your daughter. We can subpoena the information.”
The tension in his features eased. His lips turned upward just slightly. Smug, but he probably didn’t think so. He lifted a hand and tapped the side of his head. “The information you seek—it’s all up here. How do you subpoena that?”
“You must have it written down somewhere.”
“You may or may not think so.”
“Who did you sell it to, Dr. Esparza?”
“You speak of it as a done deal.”
“It’s not?”
He shook his head. “Have you heard the term silent auction?”
“There’s a bidding war going on?”
“It takes only the interest of one of the Big Six to draw the interest of the others.”
“They got a whiff of the wind,” Nicole said. “They knew change was coming. That it could destroy their companies if they weren’t a part of it.” She folded her hands on the table and looked him in the eye. “That placed you, and your family, in a very powerful yet very dangerous position.”
“Montgomery had it worse.” He ran his fingers along the edge of the table, watched them. “His home was broken into many times, his lab even more. He was followed, ‘invited’ to clandestine meetings—attendance mandatory, of course. His life was threatened daily. He collected the notes that detailed his demise and mailed them to a former student. He died two days later. A witness said he walked fully clothed—topcoat and trench boots—into Lake Ontario.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I took precautions.” He looked up and smiled at her. His lips were weak and trembled. “I made it known. Do you know what a Chinese puzzle box is? You must slide the tiles in a specific pattern in order to unlock the deepest recesses of the box. That is where I stored my knowledge.” He tapped his head again.
“Then why is Beatrice dead?”
“I trusted, for the wrong reasons.”
“Did someone try to get to you through your daughter?”
“No, Sheriff. My daughter wasn’t for sale.”
Lars entered the room then. He stood behind Nicole’s chair and stared down at Dr. Esparza.
“You talk of your daughter as a saint.”
“I loved her.”
“You nailed her to the cross,” Lars corrected.
The words caused a ripple of unease to move across the doctor’s face, but he said nothing. Lars walked around the table and sat down on the edge of it, close enough to Esparza to really make him feel small.
“The chairlift operator remembers you, Dr. Esparza. He confirms your participation in the moonlight run.”
“I didn’t lie about it.”
“Well, you did, didn’t you? You were on the mountain thirty minutes tops. One run. Up the lift, then down the mountain. That stood out with the lift operator because he saw less of you last night than any other night. Your usual? Four runs. So where were you the rest of the time?”
The doctor leaned into the little space between them and opened his mouth to speak, but Lars raised a hand.
“And your wife lied about it too. She was covering for you. Why?”
Lars pulled a notebook from his shirt pocket and leaned back to catch the overhead light. He read his notes, then lowered the book. “You had an alibi. You both did. And convenient, too, that it was each other. But your wife flushed hers, and in doing so, yours as well.
“You went to the moonlight run, but you were done by nine o’clock. And that leaves a lot of empty time on the clock. In fact, that gives you opportunity.” Lars stuck him with his eyes. “Where were you?”
Esparza didn’t answer.
“Let’s move on to another lie, then,” Lars suggested.
Nicole agreed. “Augmentin. We did a little research, Dr. Esparza, and found out two very helpful pieces of information. First, oncology frequently prescribes the medication. It’s used for skin sores and lesions, such as a patient would develop during a course of chemotherapy. Did you forget about that?”
“I haven’t had much use for the medication,” Esparza returned, but Nicole could see fissures in his stoic facial expression.
“Second, children often outgrow their allergic reaction to penicillin.”
“And some children who react to penicillin don’t to Augmentin,” Lars continued.
“Why did Beatrice need the Augmentin? At a dose”—Nicole clarified—“that is within normal parameters for a child cancer patient?”
“Did you ask my wife?” Esparza suggested. “She cares for the children when they’re sick.”
Esparza’s muscles were pulled so tight that his back wasn’t touching the chair.
Nicole leveled her gaze on Dr. Esparza. “The moonlight run skirts Lake Maria. It brought you close to where we found your daughter. Were you there, Dr. Esparza? Did you watch your daughter take her last breath? Do you know who killed her?”
“No.” The admission released a set of slowly tracking tears.
“Why did you confess? Who are you trying to protect?”
His lips trembled then, and his chin wrinkled with an attempt to maintain some control.
“I don’t know.”