The Purple Patch - Missouri Valley College

ScienTel’s profits were also Paul Jensen’s profits. But Elberton
Industries had improved upon the formula for Scien-
Tel’s dementia drug and had driven it off the market. This
new drug did not have the side effects that had diluted
Diloxitin’s popularity, so the medical community deemed
it to be safer than Diloxitin. Sales of the drug immediately
dried up, along with ScienTel itself. The connection
between Jensen and ScienTel was soon discovered, and at
the conclusion of the two-week trial, it only took the jury
seventeen minutes to find him guilty. Although the prosecution
wanted a stiffer penalty, he was sentenced to only
nine months in prison, and two years of probation subsequent
to his release. The papers had a field day with the
verdict, calling it a serious miscarriage of justice. And they
were right. Paul Jensen had directly (or indirectly, as the
case may be) caused Stockton Brokerage to fall, ScienTel
to go out of business, Burt’s suicide, and the death of June
Roberts and her unborn child. It was something that Dave
Roberts would not forget.
Wisely stifling the rage welling up inside of him,
Roberts watched Jensen cross the room. If his eyes were
daggers, they would’ve cut his lungs out and Jensen would
be dead before he hit the floor. But that wouldn’t have been
good enough. Jensen would never have known what real
suffering was. Son-of-a-bitch, Roberts said to himself after
Jensen closed the door. You’re goddamn right I won’t regret
this. He thought back to the trial, and how Jensen had
seemed so arrogant on the witness stand. Jensen was no
more than a common thief, and not a very sophisticated
one at that. It didn’t take the SEC long to figure out the
scheme; there were a couple of tracks that Jensen hadn’t
covered up. No, not very sophisticated at all, he thought.
“Molly,” he said through the intercom to his secre-
48