Case of the Chatty Roadrunner Page 8

  “Here. Do you see these two tables here? That’s where we’ll find the public access computers. I’m guessing that’s where we’ll also find the terminals that have access to all the public records this library says it has.”

  I nodded, “That way it is.”

  We navigated our way around bookcases, walked by a huge reading area with row after row of comfortable arm chairs (many of which were occupied), and even walked by a section that had advertised audiobooks. This library had digital audio books. I stopped long enough to pick up a small device the size of a flash drive. This gizmo was equipped with a headphone jack, allowing the listener to plug the device directly into an audio system – or car – and listen to the chosen book, all without having to worry about changing CDs.

  “Have you been in this branch before?” Jillian softly asked.

  I shook my head, “I’m pretty sure this used to be a part of a mini-mall. I’ve been to Phoenix libraries, don’t get me wrong, but I’m positive I’ve never been in this one before.”

  We passed by a row of bookcases, which advertised they had ‘Recent Releases’. Jillian suddenly stopped and pointed at a familiar cover on the top shelf.

  “Look, Zachary! They have your latest book!”

  I feel I should point out that most libraries are already, by nature, quiet. However, that one comment alone seemed to silence every conceivable sound, so that the only thing I could now hear was my own breathing. Noticing the complete absence of noise, I slowly turned around and surveyed the room. Every pair of eyes in the reading room, and I guessed there had to be at least two dozen, suddenly stopped what they were doing and were intently watching me. I noticed movement in my peripheral vision and saw that Jillian had placed a hand over her mouth, as though she had uttered a foul word.

  “I think that was loud enough to be heard back in Oregon,” I quietly observed.

  “I’m so sorry,” Jillian whispered back.

  “It’s okay,” I assured her. “No harm done.”

  Just then, I felt a tap on my shoulder. Turning, I saw a tiny, wrinkled face peering anxiously up at me. Now, I say ‘up’ because she couldn’t have been taller than 5 feet wearing heels. She was standing just behind me, and was peering intently at the titles, no doubt trying to figure out which one was mine. Several books were clutched tightly in her arms and, as she saw me look her way, held up her selections.

  “Is it one of these, dear?”

  “You’re looking for my books?”

  “Yes, dear. I heard her say one of your books was here, in our library. I’m wondering if it’s one of these.”

  I looked down at the two books she was holding. According to her selections, I was either Tom Clancy or I was Dan Brown. I leaned forward and tapped the cover to ‘Origin’. The woman’s eyes widened with shock and wonder.

  “No, I’m not Dan Brown,’ I hastily added. “I was just going to tell you that I’ve read this one, and it’s not too bad. I liked ‘The DaVinci Code’ better, though.”

  “Then, which one did you write, dear?” the woman plaintively asked me, as she shelved the two books she had been holding.

  I sighed and tried to envision what her reaction was going to be. Looking helplessly at Jillian, who gave me an apologetic look, I leaned over and tapped the book with the bare man chest on it, with perfect abs, I might add. The elderly woman squinted her eyes as she pulled the book off the shelf. Once she read the title, and noticed the author’s name, I saw those thin eyebrows of hers jump straight up.

  “This? This is your book? How can that be? This one was written by a woman named Chastity Wadsworth.”

  “Please, lower your voice,” I pleaded. “I write under a pseudonym. The books tend to sell better when the readers believe a romance novel was written by a woman.”

  A smile slowly spread across the woman’s face. Her eyes twinkled with mirth.

  “You really wrote this?” the woman asked again.

  I nodded, “I did. And, I should warn you about something. That book you’re holding isn’t for the faint of heart. It has some, er, steamier than normal scenes in it.”

  “Done!” the woman exclaimed, as she clutched the book to her chest. “That’s just what I needed to hear. Thank you, young man. Or, should I say, woman?”

  The lady giggled as she moved off. Yeah, I’m sure I was blushing by this point. A quick look at Jillian had her holding her hand against my forehead with alarm.

  “Wow, your face puts off a lot of heat. I’m sorry about that. I really should watch what I say around here.”

  “It’s okay. I think I might have even made that woman’s day.”

  “The terminal is just over here,” Jillian said, as she pulled me around the corner and away from the shelves.

  A simple computer screen, looking no different from the rows of public access computers, sat forlornly in a single cubicle. A glance around the area revealed there were two other cubicles, all with the single terminal. All of them, I might add, were empty.

  I slid over a chair as Jillian took the seat in front of the machine.

  “Okay, what should we search for first?” she asked.

  “Well, what records does this have access to?” I wanted to know.

  Jillian’s fingers flew across the keyboard. The screen changed to display a double column of academic resources and magazines. Also on that list, I noticed, was the Arizona Daily Republic, namely the largest newspaper that serviced the Phoenix area. I leaned forward to tap the name.

  “Try this one. It’s the local newspaper. If we’re looking for mention of Semzar Pharmaceuticals, then I’d start here.”

  Jillian continued to type. I saw that she entered Semzar Pharmaceuticals News in the search window and then hit Enter. Within moments, a huge long list of results appeared, including the most recent, dated from two days ago, which mentioned the drug maker was holding a retreat outside, in front of the hotel, in two days. Well, no big news there.

  Jillian selected an entry from a month ago. Apparently, Semzar had reported their fiscal year earnings, and it was easily 300% higher than what anyone had thought possible. The profit margins were so high that there was talk about giving all the upper executives huge bonuses. I caught sight of what they were planning on giving the CEO, one Emil Gregory, and my eyes practically bulged out of their sockets. The CEO was slated to receive upwards of $100 million!

  I whistled as I went down the list of names. Looks like the reporter couldn’t believe the numbers, either, and was questioning the logistics of handing so much money over to the company’s elite, when he (the reporter) could think of many more practical uses for such large sums of money.

  My eyes jumped back to the CEO’s name. Emil Gregory. Since when does the company’s top executive participate in such silly team-building exercises? I mean, I had always envisioned corporate bigwigs as the golf-playing, rarely-in-the-office types. Could Emil Gregory be what he presented himself to be? A simple, caring boss?

  Then I remembered Sherlock woofing at him. He never once singled out anyone else, but to be fair, we really didn’t get a chance to do that. Instead, the little corgi had been a little preoccupied by keeping the inflatable ball away from the staff. Still, somehow – and I didn’t know how – that Emil guy was involved with Sam’s death. I just needed to figure out how.

  “Wow,” Jillian softly exclaimed. “Get a load of this. Did you know Semzar Pharmaceuticals is responsible for a number of drugs? Drugs that weren’t particularly successful when it came to treating patients?”

  I shrugged, “It’s not unheard of, especially when that’s what they’re supposed to be doing. Making drugs.”

  The screen changed again. This time, a few pages from a prepared report appeared. Jillian zoomed in on the second page and then leaned back to make sure I could see it.

  “Do you see this? It’s a list of all the drugs Semzar has made in the last five years. Do any of those names look familiar to you?”

  I leaned forward for a closer lo
ok. There must have been at least 50 names on the screen. And, for the record, none of them looked familiar to me. Granted, the only medication I ever took was maybe an aspirin or two, or at the most extreme, a few Advil, if I ever got a headache, but thankfully, I had my health. My medicine cabinet was remarkably bare.

  “Not a one,” I admitted. ‘Why? Do any of them sound familiar to you?”

  Jillian shook her head, which flipped her brown ponytail from her right shoulder to her left. Right into my face, that is. My nose was instantly annoyed and I ended up sneezing.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Did I do that?”

  I gave my nose a good rubbing and stole a glance at my girlfriend. She was sitting, with her back as straight as board, at the computer and typing so fast she could have made an executive secretary jealous with envy. Once again, I counted my lucky stars that she agreed to come with me to my old hometown. I certainly wouldn’t want to be doing this search by myself. I mean, I could, but where would the fun be in that?

  “When is Vance meeting up with us?” I asked, as I pulled my seat closer to the computer screen.

  Jillian paused in her typing as she speculatively eyed me, “You’re sitting awfully close to the monitor. Are you having trouble seeing the print? Perhaps we need to get your eyes checked out?”

  I both groaned and chuckled at the same time, “My eyes are good. They’re just tired.”

  Jillian checked her watch, “It’s only 9:30. Come on, Zachary. My grandmother has more energy in the morning than you do.”

  “Hardy har.”

  “Here’s something interesting,” Jillian suddenly reported. “I wanted to read about some drug Semzar was trying to market, but I clicked the wrong link. But, before I hit the ‘back’ button, I saw this article about a lawsuit being dismissed.”

  That got my attention.

  “What was it about?” I asked. “Was Semzar the one being sued, or were they the ones doing the suing?”

  “They were the ones being sued,” Jillian reported, as she skimmed through the article. “Some person, and it doesn’t say who, filed a lawsuit against Semzar.”

  “What was the claim?” I asked.

  Jillian read some more.

  “There are a few passing references to medical assertions, but nothing was substantiated.”

  “It was dismissed,” I guessed.

  Jillian nodded, “Right. And here’s another one.”

  “Does that one say what the lawsuit was about?”

  “Let me see. More allegations, more depositions, but nothing specific. Why wouldn’t they have more details on the case listed here?”

  I looked over at the screen and tapped the company graphics on the report.

  “I’ll tell you why. It’s because Semzar is the one who created this report. If there was something unfavorable to say, then you had better believe they aren’t gonna say it here.”

  Jillian was nodding, “I see what you mean. Let me try a new search.”

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Semzar Pharmaceuticals pending lawsuits.”

  I rubbed my hands together, “Oooo, good one.” I watched Jillian type her query into the terminal. The screen updated to display the results. I leaned forward, eager to see what the terminal had found, only what I was looking at was an empty page.

  “Not one pending lawsuit,” Jillian confirmed. “That’s disappointing.”

  “Take out the ‘pending’ word,” I suggested.

  Shrugging, Jillian removed the word from her query. The screen was immediately filled with a long list of hits. Surprised, we both skimmed through the results. Jillian tapped the bottom of the page, drawing my attention to a single line: Page 1 of 3.

  “Seriously?” I said, as I looked at Jillian. “There are, what, 25 results per page, and there are three pages? That’s incredible.”

  “It is incredible,” Jillian admitted, “but not in a good way.”

  “We need to find out more about some of these lawsuits,” I decided. “Something smells rotten here.”

  “Our source of information is Semzar itself,” Jillian reminded me. “We are going to have to broaden our searches if we want to uncover more details.”

  I looked over at the rows of public computers. I tapped Jillian’s shoulders and pointed at an open station.

  “Whaddya say we move this here operation over there?” I drawled, using what I hoped was an adequate John Wayne impression.

  Jillian giggled, collected her notes, and pushed away. Five minutes later, she had repeated her search, this time using Google. Boy howdy, once we got off of the Semzar servers, did the stories ever change. Turns out our friends at Semzar Pharmaceuticals had a really good legal team. We found scores of lawsuits, all detailing ‘highly questionable’ pharmacological experiments, or the lack thereof, regarding a number of new drugs. Well, new at the time.

  Semzar Pharmaceuticals was in trouble. Not in the legal sense, at least not that we could tell. Samantha’s employer was in dire financial shape. They hadn’t developed a ‘hit’ drug in over 5 years. In fact, the company must have spent a fortune settling their lawsuits, seeing how their last three drugs had been dismal failures.

  First up was some drug, which I can’t spell (or remember), which claimed it could cure something called Restless Leg Syndrome. I actually had to look the problem up, ‘cause I was certain that condition was imaginary. Well, I was wrong. Turns out RLS was a legitimate medical condition, in which the sufferer had the near irresistible urge to keep their legs moving, typically in the evening.

  What did Semzar’s drug do? Well, according to the lawsuits we found, the unpronounceable drug created blood clots in their legs. As you can imagine, that wasn’t a good thing. Semzar’s gaffe never made the news, but I’m almost certain that was because they paid a fortune to settle the individual cases as they appeared.

  Next up is another unpronounceable drug, this one with lots of ‘C’s and ‘D’s in it. This drug was more notable, since its claim to fame was the ability to block and prevent the average cold. Since nearly everyone I knew dreaded catching colds, you can imagine how many millions of dollars Semzar must have made selling something with claims like that. However, the drug was pulled after it was revealed it actually prolonged the cold, not prevented it. Lawsuits were filed almost immediately, and Semzar was forced to pull the drug and issue refunds.

  And finally, we learned about a pain-relieving drug which claimed to be up to 10 times more effective than Advil, and what’s more, it specifically targeted sciatic pain. At first, it appeared as though Semzar had found their Golden Fleece. This drug was actually working, and once word got out, sales of the drug skyrocketed.

  However, it wasn’t meant to be. One of the side effects of this particular drug, if allowed to build up in the human body, was to heighten nerve endings, thus ensuring that the slightest pin-prick would bring about excruciating pain. Semzar couldn’t yank that drug out of the public’s hands fast enough.

  “How has this company managed to stay in business?” I wondered out loud. “They must have spent millions, if not billions, settling lawsuits to keep themselves out of trouble.”

  “Did Samantha ever tell you the name of the drug she was selling?” Jillian asked.

  I was silent as I considered. Had she? Sam never really discussed her work with me, seeing how she knew I really didn’t care for pharmaceuticals, nor about hearing what they were supposed to cure. Surely, though, she must have mentioned something to me in passing. There must be something buried away in my memories.

  “There was something,” I recalled, using a wistful voice. I closed my eyes and willed the thoughts to surface. “She was excited about the latest drug she was selling, stating something about helping a lot of people.”

  “She didn’t tell you the name, did she?” Jillian guessed.

  “On the contrary,” I argued, “I’m almost certain she did, only I can’t remember it. I’m sorry. Hey, can’t we Google it and find out what Semzar’s
latest drug is?”

  Jillian returned to the computer and pulled up the search engine. She asked the computer to confirm the identity of the most recent drug Semzar had been developing. And there, right on the page, was the answer: glucosoquin. My P.I. had been right.

  As I read through Semzar’s description of the drug’s medical properties, I knew we had found our answer. Semzar had been proudly boasting to anyone willing to listen to them that this drug was the cure-all to a problem affected by millions of Americans. For that matter, millions of other people, too. As Alex Stokes had informed us earlier, glucosoquin, Semzar claimed, was the cure-all for diabetes. No longer would sufferers have to change their diet or do any exercise. One simple pill a day, for the rest of their natural life, would effectively cross off diabetes from the Top 5 Deadliest Diseases list.

  Come to think of it, I do remember seeing some commercials on television, when Semzar made its boisterous claims. I think I remember rolling my eyes at it, and Samantha would tease me about it later. This had to be the drug Samantha had been selling. I was sure of it.

  Jillian suddenly tapped the screen.

  “Zachary, do you see this? Sales of this diabetes drug have been so strong that Semzar Pharmaceuticals has made its first profit in over 5 years. The reporter goes on to say that this one drug alone has managed to pull Semzar back from the brink of bankruptcy.”

  I tapped the desk as I reflected on what we had just learned. The drug Sam had been selling was some new wonder drug? If it did what it said it could do, then no wonder the whole country was excited about it. Everyone always seemed to be looking for the easiest way to get something accomplished. Well, nothing was easier than taking a simple pill. Not being diabetic, I couldn’t even begin to imagine how much hope this one drug must have given people.

  Then my thoughts soured. Based on Semzar’s track record, was there something diabolically wrong with glucosoquin? Could there be some yet-to-be-reported side effect that Semzar desperately wanted to keep quiet? If there was, then one could only wonder what Semzar would do to keep the news from going public.