Chapter 5 - The Page I Never Forgot
The notebook page was from a summer research project at Columbia. I'd been testing the stability of temperature-sensitive medical products, learning to spot bad handling records in shipping data. One set of samples had come through a Caldwell distribution warehouse. Their paperwork said everything was fine. The lab results didn't agree.
At the time, I assumed the labels had been switched. My adviser, Dr. Nora Bell, told me to redo the test and stop asking questions outside the project. Two weeks later Malcolm Caldwell was killed in what the police called a robbery gone wrong.
I had never connected the events until I saw that scanned page.
I called Dr. Bell. Her voicemail picked up. I left a message saying I needed to talk, not about an old grade but about a man who had died.
By morning she was waiting outside my apartment, a gray coat buttoned wrong over her blouse. She looked as if she hadn't slept.
"You weren't supposed to find the second file," she said.
"What second file?"
She held out an old blue folder. Inside were duplicate laboratory reports, a shipping manifest and a note in Malcolm Caldwell's handwriting: IF THESE NUMBERS ARE REAL, PATIENTS HAVE BEEN LIED TO.
"He came to campus the day before he died," Dr. Bell said. "He asked for the independent results. I promised to send them."
"Why didn't you tell the police?"
"Because someone put my son's school address in my mailbox. I was afraid. I'm still afraid."
I wanted to be angry. I was angry. But the shaking in her hands was real.
"Take that to Detective Kim," I said. "Not Ethan. Not a family lawyer. The police."
May you like
Dr. Bell nodded. Then she opened the folder to its final page. A handwritten delivery receipt showed who had collected the lab's duplicate results after Malcolm died.
The signature wasn't Pike's. It belonged to Victoria Haynes.
