Nondisclosure: A Medical Thriller

It was one of those late-fall days when Boston weather was unexpectedly pleasant. Sunny and midseventies. Karen suggested that we get lunch from the Italian sausage truck and take it down to the river, so we got sausage, pepper, and onion subs and found a bench on the edge of the Charles. Joggers kept passing by on the path behind us, but otherwise, we were alone with the river and a couple of ducks.

I saluted her with my can of soda. “A Monday picnic. This is an unexpected treat.”

“Just a working lunch to give us a chance to talk. How’re you doing with all this? I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you over the weekend. I was just totally bombed with the other case I mentioned.”

I smiled inwardly as I took a bite of my sub. It was nice that she mentioned her failure to respond to my email. “No problem. Don’t worry about it. How’s that going?”

“It’s a mess. It seems that the victim’s thesis advisor has been harassing her for years, threatening that she’d never get her PhD if she didn’t have sex with him. She went along, didn’t feel she had any other choice, but finally, she decided to stand up to him and filed a report. Now the problem is that he denies it all. Says that she’s always been a weak student, and he’s talked to her about leaving the PhD program, so she’s just making these charges as revenge. Leaving us with a classic case of he said, she said. There have been previous allegations against the professor, so I believe the student. But I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get to the bottom of it and actually prove anything.”

I shook my head in disgust. “Terrible. It’s just so sad how common that kind of behavior is. And most men still manage to get away with it.”

She sighed. “Yes, all too common. And what happened to Emily is the next step in the progression. A date-rape drug followed by assault, and often the victim can’t remember anything after being drugged. Unless we have a bit of luck, cases like this never get solved.”

I tossed the ducks a piece of my sub roll. “You still think that’s what happened to Emily? Upton slipped something in her drink at the restaurant?”

She shrugged. “That’s the simplest explanation. Although jilted ex-boyfriends are also good suspects in cases like this.”

“Like that Derek jerk?”

She finished her sandwich. “Yeah, like him. But Steve Upton’s the one who had the opportunity to drug her, so he’s still our best bet. Let’s go chat with him.”

Upton’s office was empty when we got there, but the door was open. He was apparently in the building, so we went across the hall to his lab. It had the same basic design as mine, but it was twice the size and had one wall taken up with four large chemical hoods, which were needed to accommodate the part of Upton’s research that involved the synthesis of new drugs. Each hood was a floor-to-ceiling, vented cabinet, with a glass sash window in front to protect the operator from toxic fumes in the work area. Two of the hoods contained glove boxes, which completely separated the researcher from whatever nasty stuff went on inside them.

I spotted Upton talking to a young man—presumably one of his students—at a desk near one of the hoods in the back of the lab. We went over, and Upton got up and waved when he saw us. He was casually dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a well-worn green turtleneck that was fraying at the cuffs. His thick, horn-rimmed glasses and long black hair, in need of a trim, completed his look as a harried academic who didn’t have time to worry about his appearance.

I introduced Karen as a member of the dean’s office. Upton, in turn, introduced the student as Josh Cohen. “You might not know it,” Upton said, “but Josh is working with one of your students, Laurie. They have some nice data with one the compounds he’s synthesized.”

I shook Josh’s hand. “I do know about it. Laurie showed me her data last week. Looks promising.”

“So is that what you wanted to chat about?” Upton asked.

“No, there’s something else,” I said. “Can we go to your office?”

His office was standard faculty issue in the research building. About a hundred and fifty square feet with a U-shaped desk in the back, under the window. A colorful poster from a conference on the Greek island of Mykonos hung on one wall and a big whiteboard, covered with chemical formulas and equations, on the other. The front of the room held a small, round conference table, big enough for meeting with two or three students.

We sat at the conference table, and I said, “We’re here to talk about your student Emily and what happened to her last week.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. I know she missed the weekly seminar, but her mother had a fall, and she needed to go out to Chicago and help. She emailed me Wednesday morning, and she’s back today. She’s a good kid. It’s too bad she wasn’t at Carol’s talk, but it couldn’t be helped.”

I started to say there was more to it than that, but Karen spoke up before I could get the words out. “You say she emailed you Wednesday morning? Could we see that, please.”

Upton looked surprised but said, “Sure, I’ll print it out.”

He did so and handed copies to both Karen and me.

Sorry about this, but my mom had a bad fall and is in the hospital. She’s all alone, so I came here to be with her. Just landed in Chicago. I’ll keep you posted but should be back in the lab next week.

And thanks for helping me home last night. Guess I had too much to drink at dinner!

Karen and I looked at each other. It had been sent at eleven thirty, some three hours after the text to Carol. Emily had gotten herself back together quickly. And it didn’t seem like the kind of email she’d send to someone she suspected of having assaulted her.

“I’m afraid it’s more complicated than this email suggests,” Karen said. “She sent another text a few hours earlier to Carol Hopkins, one of Mike Singer’s students.”

“Of course. I know Carol. She’s Emily’s collaborator.”

She handed him a copy. He turned pale as he read it.

“My God, she’s saying she was attacked that night! This is horrible. Have you talked to her? What happened?”

“We’ve talked to her, but she apparently passed out and doesn’t remember anything. We’re hoping you can help us figure it out.”

“I wish I could, but I don’t know anything.”

I stepped in so that Karen didn’t have to do all the work. “You and Mike Singer took Carol and Emily out to dinner that night, right?”

“Yes, to celebrate their paper. Like Emily says, she had too much to drink and was barely able to walk when we finished dinner. Mike drove us to her apartment, and I got her inside. She basically passed out on her couch, and I left.”

“Have you been out drinking with her before?” I asked. “Or taken her out for other social occasions?”

He frowned. “What are you implying? I know the rules. I don’t date my students. This was a celebration dinner with another faculty member. I’ve had Emily over to my house a few times for parties with my other students, but never alone.”

“Okay,” I said. “Just had to ask.”

He glared at me, and I gave Karen a nod, signaling that she should take over.

“How did Emily hold her liquor on those occasions?” she asked. “Did she ever have a problem like Tuesday night?”

“No, never. She’d always have a few drinks and enjoy herself, but she never got drunk or lost control. Tuesday was weird—maybe a combination of excitement about the paper and one too many.”

Karen nodded. “What happened after dinner, then? Did you help her out of the restaurant?”

“No. Carol walked her out of the restaurant, and we all got into Mike’s car. He dropped Carol off and then took us to Emily’s apartment. Then I got her out of the car and up to her apartment, like I said.”

“How’d you get into her apartment? Was it locked?”

“Yes. Emily gave me the key.”

“What did you do with it when you left?”

“I put it on the kitchen table, so she’d find it in the morning.”

Karen stopped to make a note, and I asked, “Did you lock the apartment when you left?”

“Of course I locked it. Do you think I’m an idiot?”

Upton didn’t seem too fond of me this afternoon. I went back to letting Karen do the talking.

“How long were you up there?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Just a few minutes.”

“Can you tell us exactly how you got her onto the couch?”

“What do you mean?”

Karen leaned forward and spoke with an edge to her voice. “Were you holding her close to you? Maybe touching her breasts? Or seeing down her clothes? We can understand how something exciting could have happened.”

Upton turned red and sat up straight in his chair. “Are you crazy? You’re accusing me of assaulting her? That’s ridiculous.”

He looked as if he were going to attack Karen, so I held out a hand. “Calm down, Steve. We just have to ask, okay? You can see how this could look. You took her up to her apartment, and then she passed out and woke up naked.”

“Do I need a lawyer? I’m not sure I want to say anything else to you people.”

“A lawyer is up to you, but we have to find out as much as we can about that night,” Karen said.

Upton took a deep breath and sat back. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You can start by answering the question,” I said. “Did you get too close and fondle her when you put her on the couch? Yes or no?”

“No, damn it, I didn’t touch her in any way that was inappropriate! I was holding her with my arm around her shoulders and eased her onto the couch; then I swung her legs up. I’m not interested in unconscious women. Ask Singer. The lights were on, and he could see from the street.”

“The shades were open?” Karen asked.

“Yes. I could see Singer in his car.”

“Did you close them when you left?”

“No, I don’t think I bothered. I just turned off the lights.”

“Okay,” Karen said. “Did you see anyone else on the street, either when you were outside or in Emily’s apartment?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t paying attention. I don’t remember anyone.”

“All right, then what?”

“Nothing. Mike drove me back to my car, and I went home.”

“You live in Cambridge, right? What time did you get home?”

“Probably around nine thirty. I have a condo near Harvard Square.”

“Was anyone with you?”

Upton gripped the table and leaned forward. “What difference does that make? Screw this!”

“Look, we need to get everything pinned down for that night,” I said. “So again, just answer her question.”

“I live alone. You know that. I watched TV for a bit and went to bed.” He seemed to get control of himself. “Now what are you suggesting? You think I went back to her apartment and assaulted her later?”

“If you didn’t do it when you took her upstairs, someone had to have gotten in and assaulted her later. It would have been easy enough for you to leave the door unlocked or keep the key and go back when Mike Singer wasn’t watching from the street. So we need to know where you were.”

He clenched his jaw. “Well, I told you. I was home.”

Suddenly the rage seemed to evaporate, and he just looked sad. “For Christ’s sake, I’d never hurt her. I didn’t do this. Just get whoever did.”

I shook my head. “Why do you always ask me that first? What do you think?”

“Detective training. I’m always after information, not interested in giving it out. So you first.”

“Well, his story matches everything else we know. Except if Singer was watching from the street, it would have been hard for him to have done anything when he took her upstairs.”

“Yes, I want to take a look at the scene and see what kind of view Singer would have had,” Karen said.

“So you still think it was Upton?”

“He’s certainly the obvious candidate. If it wasn’t him, we have to believe someone else came back later and found her. Whereas Upton could have planned it from the beginning, drugged her, and been right there in the apartment to do what he wanted with her.”

“I don’t know. I can see where he looks like a strong suspect. But my gut is that he’s not the one. Emily obviously doesn’t think it was him, and something about his manner makes me believe him.”

She frowned. “Well, my money says it’s him. But I do agree that we need to check out any other possibilities.”

“And how do we do that?”

She looked at her watch instead of answering. “I have to get back to the office for a meeting now, but do you want to join in with me tomorrow and find out?”