Strong Medicine Richard MacAndrew
Summary
Mark Latto is a doctor from Melrose, Scotland,
who works with patients with Parkinson’s disease,
using western drug treatments. He visits Santa Cruz,
California, to meet Deborah Spencer, a doctor
treating patients with the same illness but using Asian
medicine and new forms of treatment. On arriving
at her house, he finds she is dead, and although the
police think it was caused by a heart problem, he is not
convinced. That evening he returns to her house to get
the sunglasses he left there; however, the door is open,
and when he goes in a man runs out from a room with
Spencer’s laptop and knocks him unconscious. Latto
describes his attacker to Detective Martinez, and while
the policeman thinks it was just a kid stealing to sell,
Latto thinks there may be a connection between the
death and the theft.
Next day he meets Sylvia Koning and Ray Molinaro,
Spencer’s co-workers. They tell him that she had been
writing a book about her new methods of treating
Parkinson’s, and that the only copy was on that laptop.
Molinaro uses Latto’s motel-room bathroom. That
evening, Latto and Koning have dinner together.
They are starting to like each other. As they approach
Latto’s motel room, they see someone climbing out
of the window, and inside they discover that Latto’s
laptop is missing. After talking to Martinez about it,
Latto goes to bed but as he falls asleep he realises that
Molinaro must have seen his open laptop with a letter
from Deborah Spencer on it, with an attachment. And
so he suspects him of involvement in the theft.
The next morning he waits outside Molinaro’s office
and sees the same young man who hit him two days ago
(he recognises the earring) give Molinaro a laptop-sized
bag, in return for a thick envelope. He follows Molinaro
in his car to Keiffenheim Laboratories and is surprised
that a doctor working with Asian methods would visit a
place which produces drugs for western medical cures.
Back in his room, he realises that someone has done
something to his orange juice when he finds a small
hole in the cap. He tells Martinez who sends it away
for analysis. However, the detective’s boss, Lieutenant
Becker, wants him off the job, claiming it is no longer
a homicide case. Martinez, in the meantime, has been
investigating Koning and Molinaro; while the former
is ‘clean’, the latter has got big debts to the casinos in
Las Vegas where he goes twice a month.
Latto suggests that maybe Molinaro stole Spencer’s
laptop because Keiffenheim would pay a lot of money
for her book not to be published because it could
damage their sales of Parkinson’s drugs. Through two
false phone calls, Martinez finds out that Molinaro has
been seeing Matthew Crocker, Head of Development
at Keiffenheim. After planning with Martinez, Latto
then phones him up, saying that he has a CD copy
of the book, and that he wants $150,000 for it. They
arrange to meet at midnight in the open-air theatre of
the university arboretum.
Martinez and Latto go there. Unknown to
them, Koning follows them in her car. Latto has
microphones attached so that Martinez, who stays
hidden, can listen to and record his conversation
with Crocker. They meet. Latto gives Crocker the
CD, but Crocker pulls a gun on him and doesn’t give
him the money. Crocker is joined by Max, the man
with the earring, and is about to kill Latto. However,
Latto gets him talking so Martinez can record more
information about the crime. However, when he
thinks Martinez is coming to his rescue, Molinaro
arrives with a gun in Martinez’s back. Crocker, Max
and Molinaro all have guns trained on Martinez
and Latto, and it looks like the end, when a voice
calls for them to drop their guns. Crocker goes for
his gun and is shot through the hand. Latto knocks
out Molinaro. Martinez gets Crocker’s gun. Max
runs away into the trees and Latto chases him. He
is surprised to find it was Koning who had shot
Crocker. They chase Max, but he is chased by a
mountain lion, which Koning kills. They then catch
Max and go back to the others. Martinez calls for
police help to take the criminal trio to prison.