new, post-election Senate — an investigation into the Omnivax debacle by the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
Ellen had already testified, as had Rudy and Matt and others, including Lara Bolton, the former Secretary of Health and Human Services in the former Marquand administration. For nearly six hours now, the senators, seated at draped tables beneath a massive, gray marble wall, had been taking turns questioning the star of the proceedings, Dr. Harold Sawyer, currently awaiting trial and being held without bail at the maximum security federal penitentiary in Florence, Colorado. And for nearly six hours, Hal had been sidestepping and evading their queries like an All-American halfback dodging second-string tacklers.
Matt, along with Ellen, and Cheri Sanderson from PAVE, had been present for Hal's entire testimony, and his patience as well as his faith in the system was frayed to near the breaking point. With Grimes, Sutcher, and the hired killer Verne all still missing, and Larry a bloated, fish-eaten corpse, washed up on the shore of Long Lake weeks after his death, there was little in the way of substantive evidence against Hal beyond the testimonies of Matt and Ellen.
'Dr. Sawyer,' Delaware Senator Martin Wells was asking wearily, 'let's get back to your relationship with Dr. George Poulos of the Institute for Vaccine Development. In the six months prior to your arrest, precisely how many meetings — face-to-face or by phone or by e-mail — did the two of you have?'
'I would have to check my appointment book, Senator,' Hal replied, smiling earnestly, 'but from my recollection, as I told Senator Worthington, it couldn't have been more than one or two times.'
'This is really depressing,' Matt whispered. 'He is just so damn slick. If I didn't hear him admit to what he's done, I would probably believe that he was just the unfortunate victim of hiring the wrong people.'
'Matt,' Cheri said, 'I heard that he's in the process of cutting a deal with the federal prosecutors. Is that true?'
'I'm afraid it might be. Once they realized that he was going to be tough to convict on many of the major charges against him, they started going after the bigger fish he was dealing with.'
'George Poulos, for one,' Ellen said. 'I'm convinced he's the link between the Marquand administration and Columbia Pharmaceuticals, which means he's the one who suggested they might send someone like Vinyl Sutcher to pay me a visit.'
'Senator,' Hal was saying, 'I want to cooperate, really I do, but I feel I have answered your questions regarding my relationship with Dr. Poulos as forthrightly and — '
'Oh, I've had enough of this,' Matt snapped. 'Let's go out for coffee. My treat.'
'Can't,' Cheri said. 'Sally's meeting me at the office in half an hour. She's at a meeting of the commission President Harrison has formed to look at vaccine issues, including funding for increased clinical investigation and public education, as well as debate on the whole business of parental choice. It's a miracle what's happening all over, and it's all thanks to you guys.'
'Oh, pshaw,' Ellen said.
'As long as we don't end up throwing out the baby with the bathwater,' Matt cautioned.
'Even we don't want to do that,' Cheri said. 'We just want to be listened to.'
'So, did someone say coffee?' Ellen asked.
After seeing Cheri into a cab, Matt and Ellen bundled up against the brisk February wind and walked arm in arm around to a diner on C Street. Hal's testimony would be continuing in the morning. Federal prosecutors had asked Matt to attend as long as his uncle was testifying, but today would be Ellen's last day at the hearings. Rudy was back at his cabin, teaching, writing, fishing when the weather permitted, and awaiting her return. She was still living in her place in Glenside, but the two of them had been seeing more and more of each other, and Ellen had mentioned something to Matt almost in passing about a trial period of living together in two places.
They sat across from each other in a booth, watching the traffic inch past, and saying little, but each aware of the bonds that would forever exist between them. Three months after she had helped to save his life, Ellen had returned to Belinda for the burial of Colin Morrissey, who rapidly became incapacitated from his neurologic disease and simply wasted away. Soon, sadly, Sara Jane Tinsley would share a similar fate.
For nearly six months now, the owners of BC amp;C had been besieged by attorneys, mine agencies, and government investigations. Armand Stevenson had been sent packing and was facing criminal charges. Elaine LeBlanc was gone as well, and latest estimates placed the fines and settlements in the tens of millions. Still, under new management, the operation had remained open, and recently, had even been hiring.
'So,' Ellen asked finally, 'what do you think about your uncle making some sort of plea bargain?'
Matt shrugged. He was thinking about his mother and her brother's many kindnesses to her. Since Hal's imprisonment, Matt had spent even more time with her than before. But she was inching closer and closer to custodial care, and now as often as not called him Hal.
'He hurt a lot of people,' he said finally. 'One minute I want to see him put away forever, and the next I think that he simply went crazy with all the money that was at stake. It's really out of my hands. All I can do now is keep telling the prosecutors what I know.'
'Well, I saw him in action,' Ellen said. 'I hope he gets twenty consecutive life sentences and they let him plea-bargain down to one. When are you headed back?'
'Probably tomorrow night.'
'You miss her.' It was a statement, not a question.
'I miss her,' Matt said.
Nikki had been in D.C. for one day and one night, but her responsibilities as a pathologist at Montgomery County Regional Hospital, and as the new medical examiner for Montgomery County, precluded taking much time off. After having her ankle fixed, she had taken a leave of absence from her Boston position, and had simply never gone back. Six weeks later, with the job offer from MCRH in her pocket, she had sent in her resignation, and a week after that, had flown up to Boston with Matt to pack her things.
'You want to know what she said to me when she was here?' Ellen asked. 'She said that men like you don't come along and resuscitate a girl every day, so she had decided to pay attention to that.'
'I'm paying attention, too,' he said. 'She's really been great to be around. I just have to get accustomed to… to having someone in my life.'
'It's just a day at a time.'
At that moment, Matt's cell phone began vibrating. Actually, it was Nikki's. He had never owned one himself, but she insisted they keep in close touch when he was in the big city.
'I'll be back in a minute,' Ellen said as he pulled the phone from his pocket. 'Say hello for me.'
'Hey, good afternoon, Doc,' he said. 'Didn't I just talk to you a little while ago?'
'That was then,' Nikki said. 'How's it going?'
'Hal's performing even as we speak. There're rumblings he's going to cut some sort of a deal with the prosecutors.'
'Well, he can't have his jobs back. I like them.'
'That won't be a problem. I have mixed emotions about any plea-bargaining. One moment I think there should be some lenience because he was just crazy, and the next I don't want him getting away with anything less than the guillotine.'
'It'll work out the way it works out,' Nikki said.
'I suppose.'
'I know you're in a tough spot, Matt. For what it's worth, I think you're handling things terrifically.'
'I think I needed to hear that.'
'I mean it. You're a great doc and a wonderful man, and I'll tell you that as often as you want to hear it.'
'Thanks. You're pretty terrific yourself.'
'Say, I almost forgot the reason I called. Yes, Virginia, there is a reason. The neatest thing just happened. I was getting ready to go into the office, but I had a little time, so I took my coffee and Kathy's mandolin out to the porch and played a few licks out toward the mountains. I have a ways to go on the thing to even be listenable, but I'm getting better.'
'That's a gross understatement. Remember, I've heard you.'
'But wait, that's not the point. While I was playing, this incredibly beautiful little bird flew down and settled on the railing right in front of me. I've never seen anything like it. I kept playing and playing and it didn't move. It just sat there like it was actually listening to my music. It was small, but so red and… and so perfect. What do you
