Florida Is Murder (Due Justice and Surface Tension Mystery Double Feature) (Florida Mystery Double Feature) (24 page)

Grover didn’t hold on to that first verdict. He’d settled the case at a substantial discount to avoid the loss on appeal. But he’d made his reputation as “the people’s lawyer.”  The next day, he hung out his shingle at the corner of Kennedy and Tampa Street and attracted more business than he could handle. He joined the Trial Lawyers’ Association and rapidly became its rising star. He took on case after impossible case and won every time.

Or so it seemed.

Truth was that he lost as many cases as he won; settled quickly at steep discounts; hid his losses and denied any existed.

By the age of thirty-five, Grover was a multimillionaire. And then he decided he needed respectability, which he couldn’t get from a random jury selected from the motor-voter registration rolls.

Grover joined another prestigious firm and married a state senator’s daughter in a splashy wedding at St. John’s Church followed by a splashier reception at the Tampa Commander’s Palace. They promptly delivered four children in five years, including a set of triplets. He seemed conventional for the first time, perhaps, in his life.

And respectability proved too much for him.

Maybe the burdens were too heavy, or the fish bowl too transparent. He began using drugs and traveling with a faster crowd.

When George and I arrived in Tampa, Grover had been divorced three times. His children didn’t speak to him. And he was in the process of rebuilding his fortune as he’d created the original one: taking on lost causes.

How much of this did Carolyn Young know or care about? Her antipathy originated elsewhere, I felt sure. But what had caused it? Carly?

Time to find out. I’d had enough. I felt a sprained ankle coming on, from a hard twist somewhere during the next three shots.

“Why are you taking referrals from him on explant surgeries, then?”

I’d meant to offend, shove her back a few notches.

Haughty toned reply. “Because I’m a surgeon and his clients are patients.” Eyes narrowed. “I suppose Marilee Aymes has been talking about how much money I get for the work.”  Nostrils flared. Snorted.

Not a particularly attractive habit.  “She mentioned it.”

“I’ll bet. Marilee seems to think a doctor should donate her talents for the good of mankind. Making money on the practice of medicine is sinful in her book.” Carolyn’s tone was nasty now. “If I’d inherited money, maybe I’d agree. As it is, even Michael Morgan didn’t leave me his shares in our company. I’m not apologizing for making money while I can, Willa. Last I heard, your husband was a healthy capitalist, too. It’s no crime.”

She’d finally raised my blood pressure with her condescending words about George.

“You’ve got a few years to make money yet,” I snapped at her, looking around for a convincing place to stage my minor accident.

“True, but this explant business won’t last forever and I’m planning to make all the hay I can while the sun shines.”  She sunk another fifteen-foot putt.

The sand trap to the right of the next green was a good spot for an ankle twist. I deliberately hit my ball there and headed over. While she had her back to me returning to the cart, I fell down and yelled as if I’d landed at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

Of course, when I devised this plan, I forgot she was a doctor. She didn’t buy it for a minute, but she seemed as glad to quit as I was.

I took the driver’s seat, ignoring that I’d claimed a right ankle sprain.

“Does Grover refer many explant patients?”  I asked.

“Yes, but not as many as his partner, Fred Johnson. I could make more money if I took referrals from Johnson.”

“Why don’t you?”

Her venomous retort could have killed alligators through her breath. “I wouldn’t do business with Fred Johnson if I was starving to death. That man is a snake and anyone who doesn’t believe it should have talked to Michael Morgan.”

Whoa! Jump back!

She really was a ruthless bitch. Good to know. Wise to avoid.

The Clubhouse was straight ahead. Very little time left in captivity.
Make the most of it, Willa.

“You’ve mentioned Dr. Morgan several times today,” I said, trying to act like I’d just noticed. “Did you know him well?”

“I knew Mike Morgan better than anyone did. We were planning to be married.”  Quietly, fighting for composure. Her chin quivered and eyes filled. She took a couple of deep breaths and wiped her tears. Theatrics?  I didn’t think so.

“I  had no idea, Carolyn. You must be devastated. I’m so sorry.”  I said, with real sympathy.

If she had loved Morgan, maybe everyone was being too harsh. But I knew this would be my only chance to ask her, so I softened my tone and pressed on.

“Do you have any idea who killed him?”

“I’m sure Ben Hathaway will tell you that there were enough suspects to fill the Tampa telephone book. But a woman scorned is most likely.”

“I’ve heard Dr. Morgan had a number of affairs,” I said, letting my voice trail a bit. “Who might have been jealous enough to do such a thing?”

“I’ve thought about that a lot these last few days, Willa. I’ve developed a narrow list. If I was a betting woman, which we know I am, I’d look for one who stands to gain the most now that he’s gone, and that obviously wouldn’t include me.”

Obvious answer. Hathaway had said the same thing.

Trouble was, Carolyn Young might be the only woman who knew Morgan and didn’t profit by his death.

Had she orchestrated that, too?

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Tampa, Florida

Saturday 4:45 p.m.

January 23, 1999

Dog tired, preoccupied, ready for a break that included a tall glass of something very cold, I called to George when I entered our flat. “Are you home?”

“In here,” he called back from the living room.

I lifted my foot to step across the threshold and stopped abruptly, foot still in the air, when George yelled, “Bup, bup, bup!”

Across the divide, George stood hands on hips, feet braced, iced tea in hand, examining his efforts. A carpet of black ink on 8 ½ x 11” white recycled copy paper, twelve by sixteen feet, placed in the center of the living room reached almost to the threshold. He had moved the furniture aside to accommodate his giant newspaper article mosaic as it grew beyond Harry and Bess’s favorite rolling rug.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“This stuff is fascinating. I started laying your articles out chronologically on the kitchen table, but I ran out of room, so I moved them to the floor.”

“Okay. But what is it?”

“A chronological display of everything you pulled off the computer.”  He said this with more pride than the accomplishment seemed to warrant.

I’m sure I seemed less than grateful for his creation, because that’s how I felt. I needed a shower to get the sand out of my hair, and a fresh set of clothes.

“I can see what you’ve done here, but so what?  I’ve read those articles until I can practically recite them verbatim. They don’t solve Morgan’s murder or tell me where Carly is.”

He smiled, unperturbed. “You may be the lawyer, Willa, but you have no head for numbers and you’re missing the obvious. Read these in the order they were written, not in the order they were printed, and they give you a more accurate picture. This way, it’s easier to see that one reporter is responsible for more than half the stories, too. And guess who that reporter is?”

George seemed so proud, I was sure the author must be a Pulitzer Prize winner, at least.

“I give up.”

“Robin Jakes,” he said, looking like the cat who’d consumed second helpings of Big Bird for lunch. “Look here,” he said, pointing again and again. “And here. Here. Here. See?”

How did I not notice that? Because I skipped the fluff like dates and bylines and headed to the meat, that’s why. Bad habit.

Robin Jakes is a good friend of ours from Detroit. A perfect resource; one that never would have occurred to me.

“That’s not all. Look at the development of these articles,” he maneuvered around the edges of his paper carpet; coaxed me onto the floor with his enthusiasm and an insistent pull on my leg.

“George, I looked at the ‘development’ of those articles until 3:30 in the morning. If I could see some ‘development’ in them, I would have noticed it already.”

“You don’t have to be so testy. I’m only trying to help you. Look, early on, the articles are excessively sympathetic to ‘the plight of the women victims of our male-dominated society which makes breast implants a desirable commodity’. But as time progresses, the articles get less sympathetic and more scientific, see?” He gestured to the relevant papers to demonstrate. “In the next group, they’re discussing recent science and point out how that science supports the manufacturers, not the victims.”

He had my full attention. I leaned over his bent knee on the floor so I could read the computer print more clearly. “I see what you mean. At the same time, the global settlement is about to fall apart and the major manufacturer and contributor to the global settlement goes into bankruptcy.”

George nodded like a teacher whose dim pupil was finally catching on. “Exactly. Until finally, there’s hardly a supportive article on the plaintiff’s side. Instead, the articles are about the financial woes of the plaintiff’s bar and the limited amounts being paid to ‘victims’.”

“And, it’s only in the end that Michael Morgan’s name is prominently mentioned,” I said. “What do you think, George?  Was Dr. Morgan about to disclose a definitive connection between breast implants and auto immune disease that would run the manufacturers out of business?”

He shook his head, unsure. “Or the opposite?  Was he about to disclose no connection? The whole house of cards would come tumbling down?  Either way, a large group of disappointed people would be lining up to keep him quiet.”

“I think a call to Robin is in order.”  I said, bounding vertical, all fatigue abolished. I grabbed the phone.

“Put her on the speaker,” George replied, as he leveraged his creaking knees to push himself up off the floor.

We spent an hour and a half on the phone with Robin. She told us she had been on the breast implant story since 1992. She had a special interest in the material, she said, because she’d had implants after cancer surgery and had never had a moment’s unhappiness with them. She covered the story from a variety of angles as it unfolded and she had written more than seventy-five articles in the past four years under her own byline. Some had been picked up by the wire services. We didn’t have them all.

Robin confirmed George’s observations regarding the progress of the controversy. She told us of the hardships the corporate defendants had suffered at the hands of the plaintiff’s lawyers. She had interviewed several dozen defense attorneys who, while happy to have the work, consistently proclaimed that the science didn’t support the causation theories offered to explain the women’s injuries.

“What do you think, Robin?” George asked. “You’ve been pretty close to this thing all along. You’ve got to know.”

Robin said, “There’s no evidence here. These products are safe. No doubt in my mind.”

Brief silence filled the distance between Detroit and Tampa.

I said, “What about Michael Morgan? What was his role in this thing?”

She hesitated briefly. A big, audible sigh. Then, “Dr. Morgan studied the phenomenon from the beginning. He claimed to be the most knowledgeable plastic surgeon in the country on breast implants. After he surrendered his license, he followed the controversy both academically, as an expert witness and as a defendant himself in many cases.”

George asked, “You interviewed him, right?”

“Several times,” she said.

“How did he seem to you?” I wanted to know.

“Varied. Sometimes was intoxicated, incoherent. Other times, quite lucid. But every time, he was absolutely convinced that he knew why some women developed autoimmune symptoms and others did not.”

“Did he say why? Was it the gel? Random problems for some women? Or what?”

“Morgan said the problem wasn’t caused by any of those theories. He said he knew the solution. He’d recently approached all of the manufacturers and defense attorneys. He offered to disclose his conclusions for the defense,” Robin explained.

“But that never happened, did it?” I asked.

“Because of his background, all of the defendants refused to be associated with him. They said they’d rely on more legitimate research,” she said.

George groaned. “I’m guessing Morgan didn’t take that well.”

Robin laughed ruefully. “You knew the guy, then? I met with him a few days before he died. He was outraged. Wanted to show them all up. He told me his theory and gave me a video of his presentation.”

“What did you do with the video?”

“I wrote a freelance feature for
The New York Times
, Sunday Edition. After Morgan disappeared, they held it a few weeks. But it’ll be published next week. I can fax you an advance copy, if you like, Willa.”

We accepted her offer and signed off. I gave George a proper thank you kiss, and headed to the shower when he trudged down to the restaurant for the Saturday night dinner crowd.

Cuddled up with Harry and Bess. Read the fax four times. Well written, but too many information gaps. And no video.

So I made a plane reservation on a six-thirty flight the next morning.

Then, I called Kate’s son, Mark, for an early lunch. No answer. Again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Tampa, Florida

Sunday 5:30 a.m.

January 24, 1999

Awoke to another glorious January day, with dawn in its infancy and ambient temperature fifty-five degrees. Carefully slipped away from my sleeping husband and ducked into the shower. Postponed my morning Java; I’d pick up a latte at the terminal. Sunday morning meant light traffic all the way to Tampa International Airport’s short-term parking lot. Smooth sailing along the surface streets, timing the traffic lights, and we arrived eight minutes after leaving our driveway; so quick, my hair was still slightly damp.