October 6, 1997
Jasper Jacks hung up the phone from his six o'clock wakeup call in his Penthouse Suite at the Port Charles Hotel and climbed out of bed. When he had renewed the lease in April the Quartermaines had tacked on a thirty percent monthly rate increase. His accountant had been aghast; he had felt the original lease terms had been beyond exorbitant. In contrast, Jax had merely signed the agreement and updated his credit card information. He liked the amenities and the convenience of living in a luxury hotel.
He was on his way to the shower when his cell phone rang. The early morning call hardly surprised him; his elder brother Jerry was in Jakarta which was eleven hours ahead of New York time.
"Hey, Baby brother," Jerry's voice boomed through the phone.
"Jerry, I'm going to be thirty next month. I think it's past time to retire this baby brother thing."
"We'll see about that. So how is life as a makeup mogul?"
"Jacks Cosmetics profits are up 10% for the 3rd quarter."
"Which hardly helps since the Quartermaines discovered you were about to raid Deceptions and pulled that into Subsidiary status under ELQ Diversified."
"That was the plan all along. Eventually I will be able to use my Deceptions Stock to broker a downstream merger of ELQ," Jax said.
"If you say so," Jerry said.
"Is there a reason for this call?" Jax asked.
"I just had an interesting meeting with Stefan Cassadine. He has an actual plan for taking over ELQ. He thinks your downstream merger is futile at best; at least with a cosmetics company," Jerry said.
"Regardless, there is no way Dad would allow you to get involved with the Cassadine Family again. In case you have forgotten, our last joint venture resulted in a significant financial loss for J&J Incorporated and the death of my wife," Jax said.
"You agreed that we needed to cut our losses," Jerry said.
Jax supposed he had agreed with the plan to blow up the mine and use the insurance payout to recoup some of their losses from the failed Cassadine partnership and fund their diversifying into Alaska. He just hadn't imagined his wife would get caught in the explosion. In the past he hadn't been able to handle knowing if his father or brother had known that would happen. There were many questions he had never let himself consider. But, suddenly, he felt braver than he had in years.
"I didn't intend for my wife to be collateral damage," Jax said.
"Listen, baby brother, dad and I feel horrible about all of that. If we had known that Mac Scorpio was such an incompetent drongo we would have never hired him," Jerry said.
Jax had heard those words before. None of it made it alright and he just couldn't go back there again. "Whatever, talk to dad about the Cassadine proposal. Don't bother wasting any more of my time until he signs off on it, which I guarantee you he won't. G'day!" he said. He disconnected the call before Jerry had a chance to say more and then he made his way into the shower. He had a busy day and had just added an additional item to the agenda, an important lunch meeting in Brooklyn.
XXXXXXXX
Detective Alex Garcia released another frustrated sigh as he paged through the reports from the crime lab. "Have you found anything helpful?" he finally asked.
"What do you mean by helpful?" his partner Detective Allison Jordan asked.
"How about anything which corroborates the victim's statement?"
"If the rape kit hadn't shown traces of semen, I would start to question if the whole event was just part of a bad trip. Her blood alcohol level was 0.12 and her toxicology screen was positive for cocaine and ecstasy. Any of the three could cause her to be a bit confused about reality. The crime scene techs didn't find any evidence that the crime happened at the firm. They picked up the victim's prints but mostly around her own desk. They did not pick up any body fluids and if they really had intercourse on Mr. Baldwin's desk, as she states, then you would expect something to light up," Allison said.
"Yes, and from what I understand from the crime scene guys Baldwin, Jordan, & Baldwin security footage shows her leaving the firm around 4:30. PCGH security footage shows a car pulling up and dropping her off around 10:30. They haven't been able to track the plate yet."
"Yes, and that also refutes her statement that she was forced to stay late and that she never left until after Scott left around 10:00 and then she walked to the hospital. To further bolster the case, Scott Baldwin's DNA is not a match for that from the semen found during the rape kit. So, she may have been raped but I think it is unlikely that she is correct about her rapist or the location. What I'm not sure of is whether she is blatantly lying or whether she truly believes it all happened the way she says. I probably need to go back and talk to her again, I guess I'm just dreading that. Maybe you should take a stab at that instead"
"Uhh, sure, but then confirming Scott Baldwin's alibi is all you. Have fun with that since he refuses to disclose the name of the woman he was supposedly eating Eli's ribs with at the Mt. Kisco overlook."
"I'm guessing it is the same woman he picked up from the main lobby of PCGH around seven o'clock. Hospital security identified her as one of the interns, Dr. Evelyn Lambert. So, I guess we can head over to the hospital, I can talk to Dr. Lambert and you can try to see if Tiffany Peterson has a different story now that she is sober."
"I can hardly wait," Alex said but he grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair and followed his partner to the elevator.
XXXXXXXX
No wonder she is so fit, she always takes the stairs! Port Charles General Hospital Pediatrics Nurse Manager, Grace Benton, lamented when she saw Dr. Monica Quartermaine emerge from the stairwell to the fifth-floor pediatrics unit just before eight AM.
"Are you on service this week?" she asked. She had thought they had another week of Dr. Gary Lansing but perhaps they had been granted an early reprieve. She would certainly relish that.
"Do you mean for inpatient pediatrics? No, this is Dr. Lansing's block. I'm supposed to see a cardiology consult for him? Did you get Audra Longsworth from the Emergency Department, she is supposed to be a four-year-old with chest pain."
Grace resisted the urge to laugh. Dr. Lansing was always complaining that his wife thought he was a moron because he was a pediatrician. Grace frequently understood where Dr. Gina Dante-Lansing was coming from. "Please tell me he doesn't think the child is having a heart attack?"
"She is febrile and to be fair, just from the information I was able to pry out of Dr. Larmon, both myocarditis and Kawasaki Syndrome are probably in the differential. My echo tech is supposed to be on her way upstairs but if it looks like Kawasaki we may need to do an IVIG infusion," Dr. Quartermaine said.
"Your patient is in 506. Alysha is in there now doing the admission. I presume you want telemetry if you think we may be doing IVIG."
"Yes, telemetry would be helpful. I guess Dr. Larmon misunderstood me when I recommended it."
"No problem, I will bring a tele pack back to Alysha in a moment," Grace offered.
"Thank you," Dr. Quartermaine said as she started down the far hallway.
Grace turned towards the supply cabinet feeling a bit chagrinned. Perhaps Dr. Lansing was finally onto something. Or maybe it was just like Dr. London suggested that even a broken clock could show the correct time twice a day.
XXXXXXXX
Dr. Eve Lambert covered at least the tenth yawn as she wrote orders. She had literally not gotten any sleep the night before, which had probably been her worst call since starting internship. Of course, she supposed it could be worse. It could always be worse. She could have trained back in the eighties before there were work hour restrictions on residents in New York state. Long lived the legacy of Libby Zion and the Bell Commission. On that note, since call had started at 7 AM the thirty-hour clock which Chris was always tracking would expire for her at 1 PM and she could finally get some sleep.
"That is Dr. Lambert right over there," a loud brusque voice interrupted Eve's thought. She looked up to see the charge nurse Epiphany Johnson talking to a woman with long red hair dressed in a pants suit.
Eve fervently hoped that the woman talking to Epiphany wasn't the granddaughter of the cantankerous misogynistic gentleman she had admitted the night before. Although from the way he spoke about his daughters and his grandchildren she doubted any of them would deign to visit him. With that thought, she took a few steps forward and extended her hand to the woman. "Yes, I am Dr. Evelyn Lambert, one of the interns," she said.
"Thank you, I am Allison Jordan, a detective with the Port Charles Police Department. I had a few questions that relate to an open investigation, is there somewhere we could speak privately?"
Eve internally debated her next move. In almost twenty-five years of life, she had more encounters with the police under her belt than she could even remember. She had grown up in rough neighborhoods first in Moriches then in the Bronx. In some of those cases, the police encounter had been more traumatic than the crime. Then there were the events at the end of her second year of medical school. There were so many reasons to be wary of a few seemingly innocent questions from the police police interview but then there was the issue that acknowledging that might shatter the façade she needed to survive internship. With some trepidation, Eve released a sigh and said, "Sure, there is a conference room over here."
Once they were behind the closed door of the conference room on 4 North, Eve attempted to project both confidence and indifference. "Ok, let's make this as efficient as possible. I'm post call and I need to round with Dr. Phillips at nine o'clock," she said.
"Of course, I only have a few questions. But before I begin, when is the last time you spoke with Scott Baldwin?"
Eve's stomach lurched involuntarily. Had something happened to Scott? "We had dinner Friday evening and he dropped me off at my place around eleven on Friday night. I haven't spoken to him since then, but I was on call yesterday. Is he alright?" she asked.
Detective Jordan's facial expression changed but the significance of that was lost on Eve. "I am sure he is physically fine. I just needed to corroborate an alibi. So, Scott Baldwin picked you up at the hospital around seven PM and you were with him the entire time until eleven, is that correct?"
"Scott used me as his alibi?" Eve asked.
"He didn't volunteer the name of his date, actually he refused to give it when Detective Garcia tried to clarify but we pulled the security footage from the hospital for other reasons and we saw you leaving the main lobby with Scott so I figured I would start here."
"I see, so umm, what is Scott supposed to have done?" Eve asked.
"I can't really comment on an active open investigation."
"How convenient, well, in that case, are we done?" Eve asked.
"At least for now. I will have transcription type up what you just told me and then you will need to sign it. Are you able to stop by the PCPD sometime tomorrow afternoon or should I bring it by for you to sign on Wednesday morning?" Detective Jordan asked.
"I can stop down and sign it. But it will have to be some time after five or even six," Eve said. She decided the less that police detectives were nosing around her at the hospital the better.
"That is fine. My partner and I should both be in until seven pm tomorrow. If you just check in with the desk on the fourth floor, they can direct you. Thank you for your time, Dr. Lambert."
After Detective Jordan left, Eve took a moment to collect herself. She wasn't sure what to make of Scott refusing to identify her as the woman he was with. Was he ashamed to be seen with her? Was he trying to protect her? Was he truly guilty of whatever the PCPD was trying to pin on him?