Blood Brothers (38 page)

Dr. Gomez pulled up the preliminary report for David Lee and frowned at it. This one was a problem. The cause of death listed was “heart failure due to unascertained causes,” but that was simply medspeak for “I don’t know.”

Lee’s body had several contusions, two broken ribs, and a broken bone in his right hand, but no injuries that could explain his death. The emergency-room staff thought they had detected intracranial swelling, and an emergency craniotomy had been performed. But Dr. Gomez saw no noticeable swelling and ruled out both the alleged swelling and the craniotomy as potential causes of death.

There were two tiny holes in the left side of David Lee’s chest where the Taser needles had hit him, but Dr. Gomez discounted these as a cause of death. He had seen the literature and knew that deaths allegedly due to Taser strikes almost invariably had other causes—generally lethal levels of illegal drugs already in the body.

Based on those studies and the behavior recorded in the police reports that accompanied Lee’s remains and medical records, Dr. Gomez had therefore expected the toxicology reports to show very high levels of cocaine, PCP, or some other controlled substance. But they hadn’t. Unsurprisingly for a med student several hours after a big exam, Lee had alcohol and caffeine in his system, but not in concentrations remotely near lethal levels. His adrenaline levels were also high—even for someone who was in the middle of a fight—but, again, not high enough to contribute to his death.

One possible culprit was the experimental drug Lee had taken. Both the drug and its metabolites were in his system, indicating that he had taken it recently. The levels in his blood and liver were above those reported by the drug company for Phase I participants, but well below the toxic levels established during their rat and beagle studies. Could the drug’s interactions with caffeine or alcohol make it lethal? Maybe, but Dr. Gomez doubted it. The drug company had tested the drug’s interactions with multiple common chemicals—including alcohol and caffeine—and hadn’t found anything troubling. Besides, based on the drug’s chemical structure, Dr. Gomez doubted that it would interact negatively with either one.

So what killed David Lee?

C
HAPTER
E
IGHTEEN

B
ERSERKERGANG

At two fifteen the next day, Ben got the phone call he had been waiting for. “Mr. Corbin, it’s Lisa Sinclair, Judge Reilly’s clerk. The jury has a verdict.”

“Great. We’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

He hung up the phone, took a deep breath, and dialed Gunnar’s cell-phone number. He answered on the first ring. “Ben?”

“The jury is back. Can you be at the courthouse in ten minutes?”

“You know I can.” The big Norwegian had spent the last two and a half days wandering around the Loop because he wanted to be in the courtroom when the jury announced its verdict. “I’ll see you there.”

“I’ll meet you in the lobby downstairs. North side.” Ben dropped the phone into its cradle, grabbed his jacket, and hurried out the door. He speed-walked to the courthouse, cell phone to his ear the whole time as he briefed Noelle, who was at home with Eric, and Sergei, who was in New York on another job.

He found Gunnar in the courthouse lobby, and five minutes later the two of them walked through the doors of Judge Reilly’s courtroom. The judge wasn’t there, but the clerk and bailiff were in their seats. Karl and his team already clustered around their counsel table, talking in hushed, tense tones. They looked up as Gunnar and Ben entered. The Bjornsen brothers exchanged curt nods as Ben walked up to the clerk’s desk and informed her that everyone was there.

The clerk disappeared through a door behind the bench, and a few minutes later Judge Reilly appeared. Everyone in the courtroom stood and remained standing as the bailiff opened the door to the jury room and the jurors filed silently into the jury box and took their seats. They didn’t make eye contact with anyone except the bailiff, and Ben thought they looked tired.

After the last juror took her seat, everyone else in the courtroom sat down. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, have you reached a verdict?” asked Judge Reilly.

A white-haired man—the retired sales executive whom Ben would have preferred to keep off the jury—stood up. “We have, Your Honor.”

“All right, the parties will rise for the reading of the verdict.”

The Bjornsens and their lead lawyers stood.

“What is your verdict?” asked the judge.

The jury foreman unfolded two sheets of paper, which Ben recognized as the verdict form. “On the claim of Bjornsen Pharmaceuticals against Gunnar Bjornsen for trade-secret misappropriation, we find for Bjornsen Pharmaceuticals and against Gunnar Bjornsen. We answered
yes
to the interrogatory asking whether he should be ordered to return the Neurostim formula to Bjornsen Pharmaceuticals. We award Bjornsen Pharmaceuticals damages in the amount of one dollar.” Karl shook Bert’s hand discreetly, but Ben knew that was for the reporters in the back of the room—a show of victory on something that had been a foregone conclusion since the first day of trial. No matter what the rest of the verdict was, his press release would claim no worse than a mixed result. For his part, Ben was encouraged by the one-dollar damages figure.

The foreman paused to turn the page of the form, and the courtroom was perfectly silent except for the rustle of the paper. “On the claim of Gunnar Bjornsen, suing on behalf of Bjornsen Pharmaceuticals, against Karl Bjornsen for fraud, embezzlement, bribery, and mismanagement, we find for Karl Bjornsen and against Gunnar Bjornsen. The damages amount is therefore zero. We answered
no
to the interrogatories asking whether Karl Bjornsen committed serious financial misconduct and whether he should be barred from holding a leadership position in Bjornsen Pharmaceuticals.”

Karl shook Siwell’s hand again, much more enthusiastically, and smiled broadly at the jury. Ben glanced at Gunnar, who shrugged slightly but otherwise remained impassive as murmurs rose from the gallery behind them. This wasn’t the outcome either of them had wanted, of course, but it was one for which they were prepared.

Judge Reilly looked at Ben. “Mr. Corbin, would you like me to poll the jurors?”

“Thank you. I would, Your Honor.”

“All right.” The judge turned to the jury box. “Juror Number One, do you personally agree with every aspect of the verdict that was just read?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” said a petite blonde woman in the far right of the jury box.

“Thank you,” replied the judge. “Juror Number Two, do you personally agree with every aspect of the verdict that was just read?”

A tall man sitting next to Juror One nodded. “I do.”

The only juror for whom Ben had any hope was Juror Nine, the accountant. Ben thought she had reacted particularly favorably to Henrik Haugeland’s testimony, and if anyone on the jury had the financial sophistication to see through Karl’s stories, it was she. When Judge Reilly reached her, she pursed her lips and paused before answering. “Well, I don’t know, Your Honor,” she said at last.

The courtroom became silent again, and there was an uneasy stirring among other members of the jury. “If you do not agree with the verdict, then further deliberations are necessary.”

Several jurors frowned, and it appeared to Ben that Juror Eight muttered something under his breath. “I . . . No, I agree with the verdict,” said Juror Nine.

“Are you sure?” asked the judge. “If this is not your verdict, I want you to tell me now. You should reach your conclusions based solely on the evidence and the instructions I gave you and the other jurors, not the fact that you’ve been deliberating a long time and don’t want to go back.”

“This is my verdict, Your Honor,” she said with a forced smile. “I’m sure.”

“All right, if you’re sure.” He moved on to Juror Number Ten, and Ben began to pack his briefcase. It was over.

As soon as Dr. Gomez laid David Lee’s pathology reports next to each other, the answer was obvious—or at least the question was. He raised his thick eyebrows and put down his coffee cup. “That’s weird,” he said to himself. He picked up the phone and dialed Neuropathology. “Hello. Neuropathology. Dr. Goldberg speaking,” said a familiar male voice.

“Hi, Larry. It’s Tony Gomez down in Autopsy. I’ve got a dead kid down here—UCLA med student, actually—with some unusual path reports I’d like you to take a look at if you have time.”

“Sure. UCLA med student—what’s the name?”

“David Lee.”

“Didn’t know him,” Dr. Goldberg said with relief. “Still, that’s too bad. What happened?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. He died after being Tasered during a bar fight with a football player more than twice his size.”

“I heard about that. The football player died too, right?”

“Right,” confirmed Dr. Gomez. “His autopsy report was pretty straightforward, but this guy has no obvious cause of death. The injuries from the fight didn’t kill him, the Taser almost certainly didn’t kill him, and the standard tox screen didn’t show lethal doses of any drugs in his system.”

“Heart abnormalities?” suggested Dr. Goldberg. “Burst aneurysm?”

“No, we looked for those too. Routine histopathology showed damage in the limbic nervous system, so we did some more in-depth chemical analyses and found a compound I hadn’t seen before. Once I spotted it, I checked the results for the other tissue samples. It’s there too, but in much lower levels.”

“Ahh,” said Dr. Goldberg as he realized the purpose of the call, “so you’re thinking that this is something that built up in the nervous system and may have been the cause of death?”

“Yes, or contributed to it, at least. One more thing—he was taking an experimental drug that affects the nervous system. The compound I spotted isn’t part of the drug or one of the metabolites listed by the company that makes it, Bjornsen Pharmaceuticals, but there might be some connection.”

“Interesting, interesting,” mused Dr. Goldberg. “Yes, please send me the lab reports. I’d also like to see whatever you got from the drug company and anything else you think might be worth looking at.”

“You’ll have it this afternoon.”

Karl was driving back to the office for a victory celebration when the call came. “Karl, it’s Bert. You’re not going to believe what Corbin and Gunnar are doing now.”

Karl sighed. “After fifty-five years of knowing Gunnar, I believe a lot more things than you’d expect. What is it this time?”

“Corbin just called to tell me that Gunnar is calling an emergency meeting of the board of directors for tomorrow night at seven o’clock to consider removing you as an officer of the company.”

Karl laughed harshly. “Their timing is off by a couple of days, wouldn’t you say? I thought they might pull this kind of stunt, but before the jury came back, not after.”

“It’s totally outrageous,” agreed Siwell. “It would be laughable if it weren’t for the inconvenience to you and the company. Do you want me to try to enjoin the meeting? I can have a team of lawyers work on the brief through the night and be ready to file when court opens in the morning.”

“No,” replied Karl. “I’m tired of screwing around with Gunnar. Let him have his meeting, and we’ll put an end to this. I know all of the directors well enough to know that there’s no way a majority of them will vote with Gunnar.”

“Then why is he calling this meeting?”

“Spite.” Karl spat out the word. Then he glanced at the speedometer and realized that his speed had crept from 75 to 90 as he talked. He eased his foot off the accelerator. “Either that or he expects us to try to stop the meeting. Then he’ll argue that we’re trying to hide something from the directors.”

“Good point,” agreed Siwell. “They want to hold the meeting at Bjornsen Pharmaceuticals. Do you want me to make them rent a hotel conference room somewhere instead?”

“Sure. Why make life easy for the other guy?”

“Words to live by,” replied the lawyer.

Dr. Goldberg was in Dr. Gomez’s office two hours after he received David Lee’s records. Larry Goldberg was a small, precise man with quick, birdlike movements and a perfectly bald head. He placed a stack of papers on the corner of Dr. Gomez’s cluttered desk. “This compound in the young man’s brain is similar to several chemicals that have been tested in rat and nematode studies,” he announced.

“What does that family of chemicals do?” asked Dr. Gomez, leaning back in his chair. “Anything that might have contributed to David Lee’s death?”

Dr. Goldberg raised a finger. “Ah, you assume they all belong to the same family. They don’t. One chemical affects the limbic nervous system, keeping it continually activated.” He pulled out a copy of a journal article and pointed to a chemical diagram. “Look, see the molecular similarities there and there. Now, look at this.” He flipped to another page and pointed to a series of bar charts.

Dr. Gomez leaned forward and pushed his thick black hair out of his eyes. “High adrenaline levels, just like Lee.”

“Exactly,” Dr. Goldberg said. He pulled out another article, this one marked with neatly annotated Post-it notes. “And here’s the other study. This one is about multireceptor agonists in nematodes. I’ve tabbed the pertinent data.”

Dr. Gomez took the journal from his colleague and skimmed through it quickly. Then he hunted for his notes from the Lee autopsy. He found them and compared them to the article as Dr. Goldberg watched with a smile of intellectual triumph. After a few minutes, Dr. Gomez uttered an expletive and looked up. “So this kid was in full fight-or-flight mode,
plus
he had something else amping up his nervous system?”