Nondisclosure: A Medical Thriller

I awoke to the noise of blaring horns outside my bedroom window. A downside of living on a main thoroughfare in downtown Boston. The clock said it was almost eight. Driving back from New Haven last night hadn’t been the greatest idea. My adrenaline high had lasted about an hour. After that, I’d fought to stay awake until I finally got to my condo and collapsed in bed. And now, after less than five hours of sleep, I had to drag myself up again.

I shuffled into the kitchen and made twice my usual amount of coffee, assuming that caffeine would help. Then I looked at my phone. There was a text from Karen, which revitalized me more than I hoped the coffee would.

Can meet later today, as long as this isn’t about Steve Upton. Still can’t talk to you about that. But if it’s something else, how about eleven o’clock at Tessa’s?

I gave myself a mental high five. Not only would I get Karen’s help, but I’d also have a chance to see her again. I wrote back.

Not about Upton, I promise. Meet you there and then. I hesitated and then added, Looking forward to seeing you again.

She answered immediately, and I felt a jolt of pleasure when I read her response: Me too!

Tessa’s was a small bakery/coffeehouse across the street from Karen’s office in the university police headquarters. She was waiting at a back table when I got there, so I picked up a cup of coffee from the counter and sat across from her. She looked up at me with moist eyes and a smile that gave me butterflies.

“It’s been a while,” she said. “How’ve you been?”

I’d intended to keep this professional, but the warmth in her eyes fractured that resolve. I reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “Okay, except that I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too. I’m sorry—I really haven’t had any other choice. The dean was furious about what happened between you and Upton, and her orders for me to stay away from you were quite clear.”

“I understand. I’m sorry I got you messed up in that. But it’s okay for us to talk now?”

She nodded. “I think so. You promised it wasn’t about Upton, and I’m afraid his case isn’t going anywhere anyway.”

I raised my eyebrows. “That doesn’t sound very good. Can you tell me what’s happened?”

She shrugged. “I guess. Mostly it’s what hasn’t happened. The cops haven’t found any physical evidence linking him to Emily’s murder, and it turns out that he has a plausible alibi after all. After some heavy questioning, he told the detectives that he’s gay and was at home watching a movie with his boyfriend. It’s not perfect, but the boyfriend swears to it, the movie was rented from Amazon when he says it was, and the GPSs on both their phones were at Upton’s house. He obviously could have set the movie and the phones up and gotten his boyfriend to lie, but in the absence of anything linking him to the crime scene, the cops don’t have any evidence to pursue charges. So they’ve put him on the back burner and are trying to dig up other suspects—but without success.”

“Wow. So what’s going to happen to Upton? You still think he’s guilty, right?”

“I do. But thinking isn’t the same as proving it. The dean’s going to go ahead and terminate him with a negotiated nondisclosure agreement like we talked about earlier, so at least we’ll be rid of him. But the son of a bitch is going to be free to find another job elsewhere.”

“And if you’re right, he’ll have gotten away with murder.”

She frowned. “The investigation’s still open, so there’s nothing to preclude the cops finding what they need and arresting him at any point in the future. But for now, yes. Anyway, I’ve said too much. We weren’t supposed to talk about Upton, remember?”

I nodded. “Right, sorry. I wanted your advice on something else. Another nondisclosure agreement, this time involving Mike Singer.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Mike Singer? That’s weird.”

I took a swallow of coffee. “I know. There’ve been some financial improprieties involving a grant of Singer’s, and I looked into his file to see if there had been any previous problems. Very strangely, there was no correspondence about his move here from Yale ten years ago, so I made a trip to New Haven to see if I could find out anything more about it.”

She listened attentively as I told her about the payments to Sally Lipton, her refusal to talk to me, the nondisclosure agreement, and Martha Daniels’s suicide. When I finished, she leaned her head back and shut her eyes. Then she said, “So you’re thinking that his involvement with Lipton, which continues to present-day improprieties, was somehow tied into his being forced out of Yale?”

“There are plenty of other explanations, including innocuous ones. But yes, that’s what I’m thinking. And I somehow need to figure out what’s in that agreement.”

“That’s easier said than done. You’re right that the Yale officials, including our current president, aren’t going to talk to you about it. And it seems pretty clear that Sally Lipton isn’t going to help either. That leaves Martha Daniels, who can’t talk about anything anymore.”

“I know. But I’d like to try to find out more about Martha Daniels. Maybe locate a friend she talked to about whatever happened at Yale.”

Karen pursed her lips and nodded. “Yes, that might work. Maybe you’ll make a detective someday after all. And just how are you going to find out more about Martha?”

“I was thinking of going up to Holderness and talking to people at the school. And to the cops who investigated her death. They would have interviewed her friends, wouldn’t they?”

Karen smiled. “You’re getting good. Yes, the cops would have talked to anyone close to her as part of investigating a suicide. But they aren’t going to talk to you about it.”

“I figured that. I was hoping—”

She laughed. “That I could help you out? Why not, I could use a little diversion. How about I pick you up at eight tomorrow morning, and we make a trip north to Holderness?”

The Holderness police department was a small building with white clapboard siding, right off Route 3 near Squam Lake, made famous as the location of the movie On Golden Pond. A nice place for a cop shop.

Karen showed her identification and asked if we could speak with the chief. The receptionist asked us to wait and went into an office with a placard reading CHIEF PATRICK ENGELS. After a minute, she beckoned us in, and Chief Engels got up from behind his desk to greet us. He was fiftyish, with close-cropped, gray hair and an expression that seemed to convey a permanent mixture of tolerance and mistrust.

“What’s brought you folk all the way up here from Boston?” he asked.

“We’re looking for information about a Martha Daniels.” Karen handed him the newspaper obituary. “Suicide about eight years ago. We think she was involved in a case we’re looking into concerning one of our faculty members.”

He looked at the newspaper clipping. “Before my time, I’m afraid. Eight years ago, I was in Atlanta.”

“Can we get a look at the case file, see who may have investigated it back then?” Karen asked.

“Sure.” He handed the clipping to the receptionist. “Can you pull the file, please?”

She was back with the file in just a few minutes. An efficient operation.

Engels looked over the file first and then passed it to Karen and me. The police report was short but clear. Martha Daniels had been found hanging by a belt from her bedroom closet door frame. She’d left a brief note, printed out from her computer, apologizing to those she was leaving behind. An autopsy revealed some alcohol but no other drugs in her system. Several people interviewed had commented that she was unhappy with her position at the college and sometimes seemed seriously depressed. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, suicide was the obvious conclusion.

When Karen and I looked up from the report, Engels said, “Seems pretty straightforward. Any help to you?”

“Not yet,” Karen answered. “It’s a bit thin. Are there any more details of the interviews with her friends? We’d like to find people who knew her.”

“Sorry, that’s all I’ve got,” Engels said.

“How about the investigating officer?” Karen asked. “It’s signed by a James O’Connell.”

“The name’s not even familiar,” Engels said. “He must have left the force before I came on.” He turned again to the receptionist. “Maybe Barb can find something in his personnel file for you.”

We thanked Engels and followed Barb out to a file cabinet, from which she quickly pulled a new file. “James O’Connell retired six years ago. All we have is his phone number and address at that time.” She wrote them on a piece of paper and handed it to Karen. “Good luck,” she said.

Fortunately, James O’Connell kept the same phone number, which he answered on the fifth ring. He now lived in Moultonborough, about half an hour away. He was out fishing in what he called his backyard but said he would be happy to meet us at his house. And yes, he remembered the Martha Daniels case.

The house was small and more than a bit rundown, but it had the advantage of a secluded lot right on Lake Kanasatka. O’Connell greeted us when we pulled into the driveway and led us around the house to a large back deck overlooking the lake. There was a gas grill, a wooden dining table in the corner, and four Adirondack chairs with end tables arranged along the railing. If the house needed work, at least the deck was nicely outfitted.

He directed us to the Adirondacks, and I looked out at the lake. “So this is your backyard fishing hole? It’s a great setting.”

“I got it as a foreclosure. It needed some fixing up—still an ongoing project. But it’s lakefront that a retired cop could afford, and I’ve got things in good shape back here. You guys want a beer or something?”

“It’s beautiful,” I said. “I’d love a spot like this. And a beer would be great.”

Karen nodded her agreement, and O’Connell went in to fetch the beers. He returned with three bottles of Guinness and sat down. “So you’re following up on Martha Daniels?”

I allowed myself to enjoy the view of the lake and have some beer while Karen answered. “She was involved in something that happened at Yale around ten years ago, and we were hoping to talk to her about it. Now we’re looking for someone she may have talked to before she died. Did you interview any of her friends when you investigated her suicide?”

O’Connell nodded and picked up a folder next to him. “I pulled my old notes while you were coming over. The case was pretty clear cut, so it wasn’t much of an investigation. I talked to three of her colleagues over at the college. They all said she was basically a loner, and they didn’t know her well, but she seemed unhappy with her station in life. She also had a boyfriend, Bill Lawton, also a teacher at the college. He was pretty irrational about the whole thing—kept saying it was the fault of Yale University for ruining her life.” O’Connell shrugged. “Crazy, but I guess he was trying not to feel guilty about her death.”

“Why would he feel guilty?” I asked.

“They had a fight before she killed herself. But he said it wasn’t any big thing. Happened every once in a while with her, and then they’d make up again.”

“How well did this boyfriend know her?” Karen asked.

O’Connell consulted his notes. “Pretty well, I think. They’d been together a couple of years and talked of making it permanent, but according to him, she couldn’t seem to commit herself. In fact, that’s what he said they fought about.”

“Sounds like we should talk to this boyfriend. Do you have contact info?”

He handed Karen a piece of paper. “Thought you might want to find him. He left town soon after her suicide, but this is his old phone and email. Maybe the college will have more.”

Karen thanked him, and we got up to leave. Then she said, “One more thing. Did you ever find out more about what the boyfriend meant when he said it was Yale’s fault?”