Lying, Cheating, and Occasionally . . . Murder by Ginny Fite

Author:Ginny Fite
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2022-08-29T21:35:11+00:00

Chapter 23

March 31, 2016, 10 a.M.

As before, William Dickerson answered his own phone. Lagarde was once again disconcerted. He briefly scolded himself for not being as modern as he should be. The old ways were more cordial, at least as he remembered them, gave a man time to gather his thoughts while the call was being transferred from a woman with a pleasant voice to the object of the call. Lagarde missed those small niceties. The world was moving too fast.

“Good afternoon, Dr. Dickerson,” Lagarde began. “This is Detective Lagarde …”

“Yes, yes, detective, I recognize your voice. Is there something new in Harold Munson’s case?”

“Yes, in fact, there is.” Lagarde, unseen by William Dickerson, leaned back in his chair and ran a hand over his head, wondering exactly how to tell the scientist what he suspected. “We were able to obtain a sample of Dr. Rolle’s raw data from her cancer research and a few of her analyses from a thumb drive found at the crime scene.”

“Oh, it would be invaluable for us to have that data, I’m sure. Thank you for contacting me. I think you can FedEx …”

“No, sir, I think you’re misunderstanding me. We’ve had the data analyzed. It seems that Dr. Rolle has been, uh, overstating her research outcomes.”

William Dickerson drew in his breath and was silent. Lagarde waited. In a few seconds, he would know if Dickerson was involved in deceiving the medical science community about the success of Charlotte’s treatment.

“Ah,” Dickerson said finally.

Then Lagarde remembered the letters J.D. after Dickerson’s name. Juris Doctor. In addition to his medical and scientific training, Dickerson has a law degree. Damn. He would be extremely careful about what he said from this point on.

“How exactly did you determine this?”

So he’s not immediately leaping to her defense. That’s interesting. Did he suspect she was cheating? “A Dr. Harrison Norton at West Virginia University analyzed the data for us.”

“Yes, Dr. Norton, well respected in the field of statistics. But not a medical researcher, certainly not a neuroscientist. I’d prefer to examine the data myself, of course, before I make any comments about it.”

“I’m afraid we can’t give you the thumb drive, sir. It’s part of our evidence in the case.”

“I don’t understand. It’s evidence of something in Harold’s murder case?”

“Mr. Munson had a thumb drive with the data on him at the time of his death. Either he understood what was on it or he was going to find out. He and Dr. Rolle were in the middle of a bitter property dispute related to their divorce. The data gives Dr. Rolle a motive for wanting Mr. Munson dead. Were you aware that Dr. Rolle was fudging her research?”

Dickerson gasped. Whether his shock was from the assertion that his protégé would falsify her results, or that someone had found out, or that Charlotte might want to kill her husband, Lagarde couldn’t tell. He let the seconds tick off. Eventually, Dickerson would fill in the gaps.

“I, I’m sorry, detective, I have to talk with Dr.

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