Nondisclosure: A Medical Thriller

My mind was still swirling as I took an aisle seat on the six-thirty flight home from Madison. I could put a story together at this point, all pointing at Mike Singer. It seemed pretty clear that he’d assaulted Martha Daniels years ago in New Haven. It had happened at one of Sally Lipton’s parties, and I was willing to bet that she’d seen something, which would explain her name on the nondisclosure agreement. And the dean responsible for shutting down Martha’s complaint had been Kenneth Emerson. The current president of BTI. The same asshole who’d tried to shut me down yesterday.

I was pretty confident about what had happened at Yale. And if Mike Singer was a rapist ten years ago, why not now? The implication that he was the one who’d assaulted Emily was unavoidable. An assault that involved drugging and then manually penetrating the victim, just like the attack on Martha Daniels.

The only problem was his alibi, which placed him firmly in his office when Emily was assaulted. But what Linda had told me about the suicide note she received from Martha Daniels might hold the key to that too. I googled “delay send email.” The lead entry was clear.

Delay the delivery of a single message.

It described how to schedule an email to be sent automatically at any desired time after it was written. Martha Daniels used it to send her suicide note to Linda after she was dead. And Mike Singer could have used it to fake what had seemed like a convincing alibi.

So was Mike Singer, my colleague and an eminent scientist, really a rapist and a murderer? And just how much was Emerson trying to protect him from?

I needed a reality check. A talk with Karen to see what a professional would say. I texted her that I’d be home around eleven and had quite a story to tell. Her response was immediate.

I’ve got some news to talk about too. Meet you at your place.

I was trying to puzzle that out when a tap on my shoulder broke my concentration. “Excuse me, could I get by for a minute? I’m in the window seat.”

I looked up at a red-haired woman in a gray wool skirt and black suit jacket standing in the aisle.

“Of course.” I got up and moved into the aisle while she maneuvered across the row to take her seat. She looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t quite place her. “I feel like we’ve met,” I said. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

She looked at me coldly. Maybe she thought I was trying for a quick pickup. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Anyway, I have work to do.”

She focused her attention on her laptop, effectively demonstrating that she had no interest in chatting. Which was fine—I had enough to think about.

Maybe I was letting my imagination run away with me. Just because Singer had been involved in a sexual assault ten years ago in New Haven, it didn’t mean that he’d become a serial rapist and murderer. And Emerson might have used the nondisclosure agreement as the best way to get rid of him. Nothing sinister, just like our dean had gotten rid of Steve Upton. And with all the money Singer was bringing in for the institute, an amount that could soar with the licensing of Immunoboost, it wasn’t surprising that Emerson wanted to prevent further scandal by my raising a nasty incident that was now far in the past. Sure, the assaults on Emily and Martha were similar. Drugged and then raped. But that was a common-enough scenario that it didn’t necessarily mean the same person was responsible. Wasn’t Upton still the obvious candidate?

My mental ping-pong was interrupted when my seatmate muttered an apology and squeezed across me to the aisle. She didn’t give me a chance to get up and let her out but was in such a hurry that she crawled over me, muttering a startled “Oh!” when the back of one of her legs rubbed against me. Then she turned and glared at me before going over to the flight attendant who was serving drinks a few rows behind us. They spoke briefly, and the attendant escorted her to another seat at the front of the plane. Then he came back to pick up my former seatmate’s laptop and bag from the overhead compartment.

“Is there a problem?” I asked.

He looked at me blankly. “No, she just needed to move her seat.”

“Oh, did she know somebody up there?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. It’s not your concern, okay?”

Weird, I thought. As if I’d somehow offended her, but we hadn’t even spoken since she sat down. Maybe I was supposed to be telepathic and know when she wanted to get out of her seat without her needing to say anything. Something else to ponder. A little break from thinking about Mike Singer.

The uniforms blocked my path, and one of the suits asked, “Are you Professor Brad Parker?”

“Yes. Is there a problem?”

“We need you to come with us.”

What the hell was this? “Wait a minute. What’s going on?”

He flashed a badge. “I’m Special Agent Larson, FBI. Again, we need you to come with us. Now.”

“Look, I need to get home. Just tell me what this is all about.”

“Fine, we’ll do it the hard way.” He turned to one of the uniforms. “Cuff him.”

One of the troopers grabbed my arms behind me and slapped handcuffs on. I started to struggle but got hold of myself. Resisting would only make things worse, whatever was going on.

“All right,” I said. “Wait a minute—you don’t need those.”

“Screw it. Just bring him,” Larson ordered.

They marched me through the airport, a perp walk with my hands cuffed behind me. We went down to the lower level, and they led me to a room in the bowels of the airport, behind the baggage claim area, away from normal passenger traffic. It was small and windowless, with no carpeting and painted a dull institutional gray with a single fluorescent light in the ceiling. The only furniture was a stark metal table with several chairs scattered around. A video camera was mounted on the wall.

“If you sit down and stop being an asshole, I’ll let him take the cuffs off,” Larson said.

I glared at him but took a chair. The uniform uncuffed me, and Larson sat at the table across from me.

“So will you tell me what this is all about now?” I asked.

He held up his phone and showed me a picture. “Do you know this woman?”

It was the woman who’d been seated next to me on the flight. “Not really. She was sitting next to me on the plane, but I don’t know who she is.”

He stood up and leaned over in my face. “You don’t, huh? She’s the woman you assaulted when she tried to get out of her seat to go to the bathroom. You stuck your hand up her skirt and grabbed her ass. Do you remember that, you damned pervert?”

“Wait a minute! Nothing like that happened!”

“Oh no? Did she keep her seat next to you for the whole flight?”

“No. She got up and said something to the flight attendant. He moved her to a new seat.”

“And you’re telling me you don’t know why? You’re unbelievable.” He was shouting now.

I tried to stay calm. “No, I don’t know why she wanted to move. I never touched her.”

“You’re a liar. She told the flight attendant what you’d done, so he moved her and called us to meet the plane. Two other passengers confirmed her story.”

“No, that’s just not true.” This was the kind of situation where I knew that anything I said would be disbelieved. But I couldn’t keep myself from trying. “Absolutely nothing like that happened. This is ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous, is it? Are you aware that sexual assault on an airplane is a federal crime? That’s why you’re talking to the FBI, asshole. And I don’t think you’ll find federal prison to be ridiculous. Not a pansy college professor like you.”

I took a deep breath and tried to fight the panic rising in me. “Look, all I can say is that I didn’t assault her. And I want to talk to a lawyer.”

“That’s the first smart thing you’ve said so far.” He picked up his file. “And apparently someone’s looking out for you. I understand your legal beagle is already on his way.”

He turned and left, slamming the door behind him. I got up and tried it, even though I knew it’d be locked. It was. I sat back down to wait.

Where was a lawyer coming from? Karen could have sent one, but how did she know about my predicament? And more than that, what the hell was going on?

Time passed slowly. I had my phone, so I tried texting Karen. But no service—they presumably had the room blocked. I was sure the cops were watching, but I restrained myself from yelling at the video camera. Better to stay in control and wait for the unknown lawyer to appear.

It was almost three hours later when there was a knock on the door and two suits came in. The first, a tall, slim guy with silver hair, introduced himself as being from the BTI Office of General Counsel. His companion was Doug Westman, executive assistant to the president.

Westman took the lead. “You’ll recall that we spoke by phone two days ago to arrange the meeting you had with President Emerson yesterday?” He stared at me with unblinking gray eyes that looked as cold as he’d sounded on the phone.

“I remember,” I said. “But how did you know I was here?”

He ignored the question. “It seems like you didn’t understand what President Emerson said to you. He told you to stay the hell away from Mike Singer, didn’t he?”

I returned the cold stare. “What’s that have to do with anything?” I turned to the lawyer. “Who called you guys to come down here? And more important, how about getting me out of this mess?”

“Who called us doesn’t matter,” Westman said. “What does matter is that you don’t seem to have gotten President Emerson’s message. You went straight from his office to Madison, sticking your nose in the wrong place again.”

So somehow this was all tied in with Mike Singer. But how did they know what I’d done after meeting with Emerson? And were they really using these charges to get me to back off?

“I don’t see what that has to do with these ridiculous allegations,” I said.

Westman handed me a letter. “Ah yes, the allegations. Unfortunately, we don’t think they’re ridiculous at all.” He sniffed. “Quite credible, actually. This is formal notice of your removal from the position of department chair and your placement on administrative leave from your faculty appointment. You are to stay away from campus and avoid any contact with students until the matter is resolved. And I would suggest that you follow President Emerson’s advice about terminating your illicit investigative activities.”

“There are two ways this can play out,” the lawyer said. “It could be that your seatmate will decide not to press charges, and the whole matter will be dropped. Unfortunately, if she decides to go ahead, it looks like the case against you is quite strong. What you’ve done is a federal offense, and I can tell you that they come down hard on this kind of thing. You could be looking at years in prison. Not something you want to mess around with.”

“You could help yourself by voluntarily leaving BTI,” Westman said. “We’d ask you to resign and sign a nondisclosure agreement covering any information you have pertaining to Mike Singer. In that case, I’m sure we could get the charges dropped. You’d be free to find another position and move on with your life.”

I looked from one to the other. So they were using this to shut me up and get rid of me. Just as Emerson had threatened. But I’d never imagined an academic playing this kind of hardball.

I clenched my fists and forced myself to stay cool. Or at least try to appear cool. “I’ll need a little time to consider,” I said. “In the meantime, can you get me out of here?”

The lawyer nodded. “Yes, I’ve made the necessary arrangements for your release. You’re free to go for now.”

“Think carefully about your next move,” Westman said. “I’ll need to hear from you within the next two days or our offer is off the table. And I don’t think you want to know what will happen after that.”

My teeth were clenched as I watched them go down the hall and out of sight. Then I followed them out of the room. The airport was dark and deserted at this hour of the morning, giving it a ghostlike appearance. My heart was going a mile a minute, and all I really wanted to do was to smash Westman’s face to a bloody pulp. Then I thought of Karen. It was almost two in the morning—I couldn’t imagine what she must be thinking.

I grabbed my phone, which now had a signal again. And was surprised to find a text from Karen waiting for me.

I found out what’s happened. I’m so sorry! Somehow you must have been set up. Try to get some rest. I’ll be over in the morning. Rosie’s all taken care of. Don’t worry, we’ll figure this out. Xoxo

I reread the message and gave a sigh of relief. At least Karen believed in me. She’d probably be the only one. This was the kind of offense where everyone automatically assumed the accused was guilty. As had happened to Steve Upton.