Death of a Cure Read online

  Walking the last 100 meters to the building where Ron lived, had lived, I was let in by a doorman whom I vaguely remembered from my last trip. He remembered me.

  “Hi, Colonel,” he said. This impressed me as I wasn’t in uniform. “Sorry about your brother. He was a friend to everyone here.”

  I read his nametag. “Thanks, Antonio. I think that a lot of people will miss him.” Like most guys, we were struggling trying to talk about an emotional subject while still being the men we thought we were supposed to be.

  “If you need anything while you are here….”

  “I’ll let you know. Thanks again.”

  I made my way across the marble floor to the security desk where a spare key was provided by a guard. Maybe fortunately, I didn’t know the lady at the desk. After producing identification, it was determined that I was on “the list.” I wondered for a moment who else was on “the list.” Finding the correct bank of elevators, I went up to the eleventh floor and then left down the hall a short distance to Ron’s unit.

  New York, actually no large city, will ever be a comfortable place for me. I like the outdoors with lots of room around me and without the crowds. I like to see people coming up on me. When the door shut, I felt the relief of sanctuary away from the busy streets — at most, a temporary sanctuary. The good feeling was short lived as I looked around the room. It was Ron in every way and reminded me again of my loss. We had had some good times here. Not a wasted space anywhere. Everything was neat and orderly. Although this was not our family home in Boston, the condo was a pleasant enough place to be during the workweek, especially when you consider that it was in the middle of four million Manhattanites. Ron commuted home on weekends taking the Amtrak Acela Express from Penn Station in Manhattan to Boston’s South Station. Always the egalitarian, a quick ride on the Boston subway known as the “T” got him near the large house and compound that we still shared. The New York condo was certainly better than a hotel for as long as Ron needed to work in the city. Probably a good investment also — Ron didn’t make dumb financial decisions. Our family home in Boston was my only connection to permanence. Ron used to tease me that it was only a place where I stored my back tax returns. I thought of it as more than that, a little more than that.

  Throwing the comical number of locks and latches on the typical New York apartment door made me feel appropriately insecure. The condo had two guest rooms. One was actually for guests, and although he wouldn’t admit it, Ron kept the other one just for me. He encouraged me to leave clothes here so I would not have to pack as much when visiting. As usual, the sheets had been flipped, and the towels were fresh. My big brother always tried hard to make me feel at home. I’m sure that I had never been properly appreciative. He’d overlooked that.

  Although tired, I still was not ready for sleep. Travel makes you tired. It wears you out, all the while disrupting your sleep patterns. So I roamed the place looking for something that would help me understand why he would take his life. Other than the master bedroom and the two guest rooms, there was a large kitchen with an eating area, a formal dining room, a living room, and a large den. This place had set him back a big bag full of shekels. The furnishings were contemporary and expensive; at least I thought they were. I’m not much of an interior decorator, and I have been informed by a lady friend of mine who works for the FBI, that my taste is “mostly in my mouth.” She thinks that is very funny.

  Ron liked to cook and was good at it. The large kitchen seemed to have very professional looking appliances. Not an area of expertise for me. The expansive dining room had a table that seated ten with a view shared by the living room out onto Central Park. A little to the north, you could see the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir in the daytime from here. Whenever I was in town, Ron planned some gathering and invited people he wanted me to meet. He was constantly trying to fix me up with one woman or another. It used to amuse me to see how long it would take after the guests started to arrive for me to figure out who my intended was for the evening, if not longer. Most often the poor girl was way too sophisticated to ever want anything to do with me. This realization would come to her after only getting to know me just a little. Doctors are supposed to be classy; frequently I disappoint. I did manage to shock him a couple of times by having my dinner date stroll out of my bedroom the next morning and become my breakfast date. Not knowing that his brother had had an overnight guest, he would stumble over every word, and by watching him you would think that he had never scrambled an egg before.

  After checking the master bedroom and closets, I finally made my way into the den. I had saved this for last because this was the place we used to enjoy together most of all and the place that would remind me of what I would be missing. We’d spend late nights tinkering with whatever project he had going on. The small shop-like atmosphere was a great place for a couple of brothers, each working hard to show off to the other; Ron still trying to be the teacher and me trying to prove what I knew. On one wall, each sitting on its own shelf, were the radio controlled model helicopters that Ron built and loved. We would take them to the park and fly them like two little kids. He would make me fly them first as I had actual experience with the real world versions of the models. One of the shelves was empty, and I wondered what had happened to the bird that was supposed to be there. Maybe it had crashed. That had happened more than once. It made me think, “Why had Ron crashed?”

  Turning in, my last thoughts before going to sleep were why hadn’t Ron communicated whatever problem he had to me? Even worse, suppose he had been trying to and the message hadn’t been received? Sorry, big brother.

  MIDTOWN

  I awoke hungry — an indicator of a good night’s sleep. After a quick shower and a shave, a seven-block walk brought me to a delicatessen that Ron and I had been to several times before. I found the deli without losing my way. Once having been somewhere, I can always find it again. This is especially true if the place serves up a good meal. One thing that New York City does well, although it’s not enough to make me fall in love with the place, is breakfast, and Arno’s Deli did it better than most. I walked in and was quickly seated, quickly ordered, and quickly served. The food was good, there was a lot of it, and I took my time eating while observing the street through the restaurant windows. I did not sit right next to the window. I never do. It may be occupational residue seeping over into my private life. It may be just my belief, but you can be paranoid, and people can still be out to get you.

  I had emailed back and forth over the last several days with the funeral parlor holding Ron’s body. My instructions to them were to do nothing other than safeguard the body and await my arrival. They had asked twice, but I intentionally did not tell them the specific date of my planned arrival in New York, just that I was on my way from the other side of the world. Not wanting anyone from Ron’s office to know of my arrival plans either, I was staying below the radar. It wasn’t that I did not trust any of his coworkers. I didn’t know any of them well enough yet to not trust them. That would come later. What I wanted to do was get on the ground and talk to the police without any help no matter how well intended. If I had reached out to the CID Society, last night I would have been met by a car service, chaperoned around, and overly assisted. I didn’t want a minder.

  My first stop was the 17th Precinct Headquarters on East 51st between 3rd Avenue and Lexington placing it four blocks north of the CID Society offices. A patrolman from the 17th was the first to respond when Ron died. Finding this out had not been easy. While in Yokosuka, I spent most of my available time before the flight to New York on the telephone. It began with calls to the New York City Police Department general information line, followed by a struggle through several voice mail jails before finally getting to speak to a human. The lady at the other end of the line was surprisingly helpful and was able to identify not only the precinct and its location but also the names of the detectives assigned to the case.

  Even though Ron was obviously dead
at the scene, protocol dictated that he had to be taken to N.Y.U. Medical Center. The ambulance driver did not hurry as Ron’s fate, while not yet memorialized, was already known with certainty. No reason to wreck the rig, or worse, add another casualty to tonight’s list. Ron was pronounced dead at the emergency room and then taken by ambulance to the New York City Crime Lab for assessment and establishment of the cause of death. It was normal for the body to go to the city facility, as the cause of death was not natural. I wanted to speak with the detectives, Sento and Broon.

  The 17th was easy to spot. There were two dozen patrol cars parked diagonally in front and flags on either side of the steps leading up to the door. I took the short flight of stairs two at a time. Walking over to a counter and asking for either of the detectives, I was instructed to wait in the lobby. In less than five minutes, and to my surprise, the precinct commander appeared.

  He introduced himself, “Dr. Briggs? Jim O’Dale. Wish we were meeting under better circumstances.”

  I made an appropriate response and shook his hand. We made small talk as we took the stairs up one flight and walked to his office. The precinct was already busy with phones ringing and multiple meetings taking place around us in the bullpen that we crossed. He made some reassurances about sharing with me all that the police department knew about the incident. He didn’t call it a suicide. O’Dale seemed genuine in his concern for me and about the circumstances surrounding Ron’s death. If it was an act, it was a good one. I was about to learn that he was the real deal. It was no act.

  “I knew your brother,” he said quietly. This surprised me, but it answered my question about his motives and explained why he had met me and not the detectives. “I met him on several occasions when I made official visits to the CID Society offices. We got to know each other and even had dinner a half a dozen times. I hadn’t seen him in a month or so, but the fact that I can’t pick the phone up and get him on the line leaves a hole. I know that my relationship was nothing compared to yours. He talked about you all the time. Again, I’m truly sorry.”

  Ron was incredibly friendly with everyone, but he would not have gone out to dinner with O’Dale without holding him in some regard.

  He continued, “I’m very glad that you stopped by. If you feel up to it, I’d like to talk about our investigation and see if you can add to what we know,” he said.

  This was looking much better. “Absolutely, Captain. Whatever I can do to help and I don’t want to wait. I’m sure that time is a factor in any investigation.”

  He looked a little uncomfortable as he responded, “You know, I’ve worked a lot of suicides. This city takes a lot out of some people. Sometimes when you look into it, you can believe that this man or woman was completely capable of taking his or her own life. However, many of them have been real surprises. Many more than you would think. You know, the guy was just not the type. His family and friends are shocked. It gets easy for a cop to turn a deaf ear. But in your brother’s case, and maybe it’s because I knew him and I liked him, I was shocked. I caught myself saying all the same trite things that we routinely hear. How he wasn’t the type, he had everything to live for, what a waste. Probably the same things you have been thinking. So, although my guys are telling me that it looks like a suicide to them, I’m keeping it open as a possible murder for the time being based solely on a personal belief. All we know so far is that Ron went out the window that he normally kept open this time of the year. There doesn’t seem to have been a struggle in his office, and no one has come forth with any information that might indicate that anyone wanted to kill him.”

  “Captain, I’ve asked myself a thousand times if my personal belief that my brother could not have killed himself was just another example of what you described — I’m just a shocked family member. I’m trying hard to be objective, but I’m not buying it. Not yet at least. The frustrating part is that unless a killer is found, the default is that he killed himself. Not the ending that I want to this.”

  “It’s a process of elimination,” he patiently explained. “We identify everyone who had opportunity and look for motive. If we can’t connect opportunity with motive, suicide becomes the official verdict simply because we have nothing to take to the D.A. As far as opportunity goes, I have a list.”

  “A list?”

  He produced a manila file folder from his desk drawer. “Here, these are all of the people that were in the building when Ron died.” He still hadn’t said murder or suicide, keeping his options open.

  “The ones highlighted in red are CID employees. The ones highlighted in green are employees with other building tenants. The group in yellow, the last group, are the visitors. What can you tell me about anyone you see on the list?” he asked.

  I looked at the list. Due to the fact that it had happened after normal business hours, the list was not long, even given the size of the office building. There were eleven names in red and about seventy-five in green. Then I turned the page and saw the visitor list. It had over a hundred names on it.

  “How did you get this?” I asked, as it was more than just a copy of the visitor log from the security desk.

  “It’s from the building security log. Everyone who works there has a radio frequency identifier tag that they carry. It’s called an RFID. They are picked up by the system as they pass by the security desk going into and out of the building. Visitors must sign in. We added the manual visitor log to one generated by the computer tracking the RFID’s. There is a hole. Almost no visitor signs out even though they are supposed to, and as they don’t carry the RFID, they aren’t recorded by the system either. They just walk out the door. So, most of the names on the visitor list are people who had come and gone. I’ve got Sento and Broon running down the visitors trying to eliminate those who had left the building. I’m sure they think it’s a waste of their time.”

  “I recognize a couple of names on the red list. Ron had made some passing comments about his coworkers from time to time. I don’t see any names here of people that I have met in person.”

  “Anyone on that list a problem for him?” Captain O’Dale asked.

  “Ron’s style was super optimistic and ‘everyone is great,’” I replied.

  “Yeah, I got that from him too. He would have been a great guy to work with.”

  “I can only think of a couple of times when he let a little frustration come through. Once he complained about some woman who was a peer. Kind of like the chief of staff to the CID Society president. I can’t remember her name. She rubbed him the wrong way. There was also an outside researcher who tried his patience. I don’t recall her name either. In neither case did he mention any specifics. I figured it was just normal work politics and on that day he had had a belly full.”

  “That’s probably what it was. Are you planning to go to his office?” he asked.

  “Later today or tomorrow morning.”

  “I can’t officially let you look at or have this list. But then again, the copy you are holding might not make it back into this folder — we don’t log copies,” his eyes narrowing as he spoke.

  I folded the list length-wise and slipped it into my inner jacket pocket. He didn’t comment.

  I asked Captain O’Dale, “How can I help?”

  CRIME LAB

  I left the 17th and headed straight south and farther downtown by cab to the city crime lab. O’Dale had called the coroner’s office to alert them to my impending visit. He told them to expect me — he didn’t ask if it was convenient. I liked him more and more.

  There exists a popular misconception about forensic detective investigation. It is a misconception based on the number of television shows about forensic investigators and the role that crime labs play in bringing the nefarious to justice. People seem to believe that each and every crime in America somehow has a forensic budget allowing for countless lab tests and unlimited technician labor. Amazing science depicted with animated 3-D renderings of the trauma affecting the victim’s insides along w
ith special software that only exists in the minds of the show’s writers, will expose every criminal. It’s just not that way.

  A simple bit of arithmetic tells the truth. According to the city budget easily found on the Internet, New York’s Crime Lab has an annual, departmental operating budget of just over twenty million dollars. Let’s be conservative and suppose that only one-third of that is fixed costs to maintain the physical plant, pay the administrative staff, and service the fancy equipment. It’s probably more like one-half, but I’ll be kind. That leaves about thirteen million dollars for the science-based labor and consumables — the direct costs associated with solving crime. Now consider just the major crimes that Gotham’s five bureaus have to contend with: Murder and Non-Negligent Manslaughter, Forcible Rape, Robbery, Felonious Assault, Burglary, and Grand Larceny. New York City reports over 200,000 major crimes per year. What it comes to is sixty-five dollars per crime. Sixty-five bucks doesn’t buy you a lot of scientific testing. Sorry to disappoint.

  In reality, the preponderance of the budget gets spent on the high-profile cases that get district attorneys favorable mention in the press and on TV. I suspected that Ron’s case did not have the requisite profile elevation to warrant any excessive allocation of resources. He was a prominent physician and scientist, but without a push from above, not much was going to happen at this lab. Not a big leap in logic. Numbers don’t lie.

  The Crime Lab did have the basic dodge that his body was so damaged impacting the ground that there was little to do other than blood and other body fluid chemistries. An assistant coroner, Dr. Philip Michaelson, met me. He introduced himself with a bored voice and did not offer to shake my hand. He led the way to a conference room near the lobby.

  “Although I am sorry for your loss, Dr. Briggs,” he said mechanically and with a strange emphasis on ‘Dr.’ almost as if he did not believe that I was one, “I’m not sure that I can offer you anything.” His tone did not sound like he was sorry about anything other than the fact that he had been ordered to deal with me.