John Lescroart - The Oath

"Did Tim talk to him?" Hardy asked. "Give him any kind of warning?"

"Sure. Brendan knew, I think, that Tim had made up his mind to let him go. It was just a question of the timing. Tim couldn't hide that from him if he wanted to, I don't think. If that's what you're asking."

And suddenly, Hardy was thinking that Driscoll was at least some kind of suspect. "How did he feel about Carla?"

"You mean would he kill her? And the kids? What for?"

"That's my question."

She was still thinking about her answer when Kensing had one. "If he felt that Tim was personally dumping him, I could see him wanting to wipe out any trace of him. The whole family."

But this was San Francisco. Hardy had to ask the question. "And you're convinced, Ann, that Tim was completely straight. Sexually. He and Brendan didn't have something else going on?"

"Tim wasn't gay," Ann said, dismissing the idea out of hand. "Promise."

Which, Hardy knew, did not make it a certainty by any means.

Eric spoke up again. "But if Brendan kills Tim, he's unemployed."

"But he's not fired, is he? He's the loyal and hardworking executive assistant up until the very end. He gets another job in fifteen minutes." Another thought occurred to Hardy, another tack. "When you threw him out of the ICU, where did he go?"

"I don't know. Off the floor, anyway." There must have been very little pleasure in the original situation, but Kensing relished something about the memory of it. "He didn't seem to believe that I could do that to him. Order him out of there. He found out."

"And you're sure he didn't return before the code blue?"

"I don't think he did. I can't say for sure. I told you, I was busy out in the hall."

"But he was definitely still in the hospital, at least."

"Oh yeah. After Tim died…" He sighed again. "He didn't take it well. It was pathetic, in fact. Embarrassing."

Hardy checked his watch. He had forty-five minutes before he needed to be home and he didn't want to start something he couldn't finish. But putting these two together was turning out very well, and Ann-as Markham's lover-had access to parts of his psyche that would be unknown to anyone else. "Let me ask you, Ann," he began. "What was in those original memos to Ross that made Tim so mad?"

"Let me guess," Kensing said. "Sinustop?"

Ann nodded. "That's it." She looked at Hardy. "Have you heard of it?"

"It's a new hay fever pill, isn't it?" Hardy had a vague memory. "But there was some problem with it?"

"Not for most people," Kensing said. "Some people, though, developed the unfortunate side effect of death. This was after the reps dumped thousands of samples on us and the directive came down from the corporate office-"

"From Dr. Ross," Ann interrupted. "He made those decisions. Not Tim."

"If you say so." Kensing's look told Hardy he wasn't buying that. "Anyway," he continued, "this stuff was so inexpensive and miraculous that we were strongly urged to prescribe it to all of our patients with any and all allergy symptoms. You know about samples?"

"Not enough," Hardy replied. "Tell me."

"Well, any new drug comes out, their reps go out and try to get doctors to give them to patients for free. The idea, of course, is brand-name recognition. The stuff works, it's on the formulary, we prescribe it. Bingo, a wonder drug is born. But the sample campaign for Sinustop was just unbelievable. Nationwide, they must have given away a billion pills."

"And this was unusual?"

Kensing nodded soberly. "The numbers were unusual, yes."

"So what was the problem between Markham and Ross?" Hardy asked.

Ann looked over at Eric, then back to Hardy. "Tim heard about the first death and got a bad gut feeling. He asked Ross to call back all the samples and take it off the formulary until they could check it out further."

"But he didn't?"

Ann shook her head. "Worse than that, really. He and Tim had had these fights before, but Ross was really super-invested in this one. He tells Tim he's the medical director, he knows this stuff. Tim just runs the business side. Why doesn't he stick to that and keep his nose out of the medicine, which he doesn't know anything about?"

"So they went at it?"

Kensing seemed jolted out of his silence. "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You're not saying Tim was the good guy here, I hope?"

She faced him with an angry and pitiless look. "What's he supposed to do, Eric? Tell me that."

Hardy didn't want to let any more friction develop. Kensing had enough reasons to hate Markham on his own-he wasn't going to change his mind because maybe Tim had been a better CEO than he'd thought. "So how long had Tim and Ross been together?"

"They were two of the founders." She shrugged. "You could look it up.

"And recently they'd had more than one of these Sinustop-type fights?"

She frowned. "A few. Tim thought Ross's decisions weren't good medicine. He believed we had to keep delivering a good product-"

"Product," Eric said, snorting. "I like that."

Hardy ignored the interruption. "But then with Sinustop, things got worse? What finally happened?"

"Well, Ross got his way. They didn't pull the samples-"

Kensing supplied the ending. "And sixteen other people died around the country. Two of them with Parnassus."

In the telling, Hardy had come to remember the scandal clearly now. But although it had been prominent in the news, he didn't recall that Parnassus had been any part of it, and he said as much.

Ann jumped to Markham's defense. "Tim covered for Ross, that's why."

Kensing was shaking his head. "Not." He turned to Hardy. "Tim released a statement that the two patients who had died had taken samples they'd gotten here from before the first death had been reported-apparently this was true-and that we'd recalled all the samples and taken Sinustop off the formulary at the first indication of any problem. Not true. And if you call that covering for Ross…"

"That's what he did," Ann snapped at him.

Hardy jumped in before the smoldering anger in the room could erupt again. "Okay, good," he said. "That's the kind of thing I want you both to keep thinking about." He turned to each of them in turn. But tension remained high.

He was afraid to push his luck any further. Standing, he kept up his patter to keep them from each other. "I'm afraid I've got another appointment. Mrs. Kensing, thanks for your time. We're settled in terms of the kids, right? All good there? Eric, I'd like a few words with you on our way out. I'll wait while you tell your children good night."

"Honey, I'm home!" Ricky Ricardo he wasn't, but for years early in their marriage, Hardy had come through the front door with his dead-on imitation. He'd made it with four minutes to spare by his watch, and considering the ever-escalating demands of the case that had been consuming his hours, he felt he'd done well.

All lanky arms and legs, Rebecca came flying down the hallway. "Daddy! I'm so glad you're home." She jumped at him and knocked him back, but he held on and gave her a spin.

In the dining room, the table was set. Frannie came to the door of the kitchen with her arms crossed over her chest, but she was smiling. "Cutting it close, buster. Very, very close."

"I'll get better, I promise."

They shared a chaste married kiss. Vincent, hanging back by the family room, said, "Gross."

So the two adults made eye contact and suddenly had their arms around each other, making out like teenagers. He picked Frannie all the way up off the ground and she kicked back her heels.

"Gross me out," Vincent shouted.

"C'mon, you guys! Please. Just stop, okay." This was Rebecca, arbiter of social correctness to the whole family.

"I can't help it," Hardy said, finally stopping. "Your mother makes me crazy."