Blood Loss

played it again, typing the entire speech. She listened to the audio only, and she highlighted where Collier laid emphasis.

‘Thank you all for coming. I stand here today as a proud American, a proud Republican, and a man in whom, at this moment, I can have no pride.

‘On the evening of October 24th last, while on a business trip to Boston, I availed of the services of a prostitute.

‘No other language can be used to make what I did sound any less deplorable. I am a carbon copy of those who have gone before me, men branded liars and cheats. Although certain of the promises they made to their supporters, they discovered at the nexus of political and private life, a false, misleading god, and an abuse of power, the results of which you see here today.

‘My beloved wife, Marie, patiently bore the trials of being married to a politician for over a decade, and despite the devastating impact of my actions, remains by my side today, and is bravely dealing with the effects, both psychological and physical on all our family, particularly on our children.’

Ren read what she had highlighted: the words where the stresses fell:

No lan car(r) brand(t) liars and cheats Cerxus misleading results of patient trials for over a decade devastating side effects both psychological and physical on children.

Holy. Shit. Shep Collier — I knew there was a reason I liked you. You daring bitch.

Ren played the press conference for everyone in the office, and talked them through her notes.

‘We need proof if we’re to touch Nolan Carr,’ said Gary. ‘Shep Collier’s press conference could be a man with a grudge giving a “screw you” on his way out the door.’

‘But Collier clearly knows about Nolan Carr-’

‘“Knows”, Ren?’ said Gary. ‘Unless you’ve got proof, Shep Collier “suspects”.’

‘Or allegedly alleges …’ said Ren. ‘If Collier is talking about Cerxus trials,’ said Ren, ‘that pre-dates Nolan Carr’s move to MeesterBrandt. Either way, he’s mentioning Cerxus, so that’s Lang Pharmaceuticals too. Nolan Carr is the common denominator. Who knows what was going on … allegedly … in my opinion …’

She filled everyone in on Diana Moore and Shep Collier asking her to fire Patrick Kilgallon. ‘The firing happened in August,’ said Ren. ‘Maybe it kicked something off with Shep Collier, and, whoever first set it up, Mark Whaley was able to tell Collier more. It sounds to me that whatever dirty practices were going on while Nolan Carr was at Lang, he brought them with him to MeesterBrandt.’

Ren called up another screen. ‘And for my piece de resistance,’ she said. ‘Check this out — I’ve got a picture here of Nolan Carr in 1999 with his ex-wife at a Lang Pharmaceutical charity event. Get this, people — Valerie Carr is now Valerie Trent, a lawyer specializing in class action lawsuits against — guess who? — the pharmaceutical industry.’

Ren raised her eyebrows.

‘Now, that’s what I’d call a big “screw you” on the way out the door.’

60

Valerie Trent’s office was in a historic building in downtown Denver. She was an unlikely match for her ex- husband. She was classically good-looking, naturally stylish. She had shoulder-length sandy blonde hair, and wore a beige Armani skirt-suit with a cream pussy-bow blouse. Like her ex-husband, she was perfectly groomed, but she had the striking looks to make it incidental.

Judges must love you, Valerie Trent.

‘What’s this all about?’ said Valerie.

‘I’m working on an investigation,’ said Ren, ‘and I’d like to ask you about your ex-husband, Nolan Carr.’

‘Who did you say you were with?’ said Valerie.

‘The Rocky Mountain Safe Streets Task Force.’

‘Aren’t you a violent crime squad?’ said Valerie. ‘Has something happened to Nolan?’

‘No,’ said Ren. ‘But it is a homicide investigation.’ Ren watched as the lawyer processed the information.

‘Is this about the MeesterBrandt CFO? The murder-suicide?’ said Valerie.

‘Yes.’

‘You think he didn’t do it?’ said Valerie.

‘The investigation is ongoing,’ said Ren.

Valerie smiled. ‘Ah, yes, the investigation is ongoing …’

Ren smiled back. ‘Can I ask you some questions?’

‘Sure,’ said Valerie. ‘Go ahead.’

‘I watched your ex-husband’s interview with CNN in 2000,’ said Ren. ‘The show about the dangers of antidepressants.’

‘Yes,’ said Valerie.

‘He used you as an example to illustrate the safety of Cerxus,’ said Ren. ‘You divorced by the end of that year. Was that a coincidence?’

Valerie nodded. ‘No.’

‘Can you talk to me about what happened?’ said Ren. ‘I’d like to hear your side of things. I’d like to know your experience of your ex-husband’s time with Lang Pharmaceuticals.’

‘Well, I had thought that time was great,’ said Valerie. ‘We were young, recently married, happy. He had a good job, I was studying law. We were lucky. Lang had a blockbuster drug in Cerxus and it was making hundreds of millions of dollars for them. It was the newest one on the market, while some of the others’ patents were running out. Some antidepressants were getting bad press because of side effects, but in the show you saw, they were talking about sexual dysfunction, and about the drug’s withdrawal symptoms. A lot of people had come forward to say that the withdrawal symptoms were so bad, they had to go back on the drugs. It was a big scandal at the time and Nolan was on damage-control. He was a clean-cut, attractive, young man who was presenting a good case. And Lang had spent thousands on media training for him. Nevertheless, he was dealing with an aggressive interviewer.

‘So I’m watching it at home,’ said Valerie, ‘and I hear him say, “I wouldn’t allow my wife to take it if it wasn’t safe.” And as you saw, he didn’t stop there. He said that our baby had been stillborn and that I had taken Cerxus to deal with the aftermath. What he said about our baby was true. But absolutely not something I wanted to share with America. So, in a few sentences, he managed to plant several ideas in the viewers’ heads: that Cerxus was safe, that it could be used to treat grief or post-partum depression … and what man is going to approve of his wife taking a drug that could cause sexual dysfunction? It was clever.’

And so screwed up. ‘So you weren’t taking Cerxus,’ said Ren.

‘No,’ said Valerie. ‘There’s no shame in taking meds if you need them. But Cerxus had huge issues. People were being misled. And I knew that what Nolan had said about me would reassure the public, and it made me sick to my stomach. It made me sick to think that people could die because of what he said. Can you imagine watching that, and it’s your husband on the screen, and he’s telling the whole of America about you? I was speechless. I just sat there. I couldn’t move. Nolan rushed home afterward, “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. It just came out. You saw the guy, he was on my case, it just came out. He was asking me was this drug safe, you saw him, he was pummeling me, and it just came out.”

‘He apologized over and over, and I believed him,’ said Valerie. ‘A few weeks later, I was looking for something in his study and I found some papers. There were memos back and forth from the head of Lang’s research lab to the sales and marketing department, drawing attention to the side effects of Cerxus, patients suffering from severe withdrawal symptoms, suicidal thoughts, terrible anxiety. Then there was a page with bullet points and on the top was written Cerxus/CNN. It was basically how to tackle the task of reassuring the public, how to minimize the fallout. Halfway down the page, I see, hand-written in the margin “personalize/empathy/Val”. The print-out was dated one week before the interview. And the note was in Nolan’s handwriting. So this wasn’t even an order from the top — mentioning me was something Nolan came up with