The Associate (11 page)

Kate and Daniel were silent for a moment. Then Kate asked the question they both wanted to ask.

“If you didn’t tell the media and I didn’t, who did?”

Billie Brewster sneaked a peek at the clock over the guard’s station at the end of the visitors’ room at the state penitentiary. Her brother noticed and he flashed her a tolerant smile.

“You got to go, sis?”

Billie was embarrassed at being caught. She’d never been able to put one over on Sherman.

“Duty calls, little brother.”

“That’s okay. Ain’t no one wants to stay here longer than they have to.”

“You remember that,” Billie said as she squeezed his hand.

“You don’t have to worry about me. I’m bein’ good.”

They stood and he hugged her tight. Billie hugged him back. She hated visiting her brother in this place, but she hated leaving him more. Every time the iron doors clanged shut behind her, she left a piece of her heart in the prison.

“Go on now,” Sherman told her, flashing an innocent, toothy smile that almost made her forget that he was kept here by a trap of his own design.

Outside, a sleeting rain was falling, cold and unpleasant, like Billie’s mood. As she walked along the sidewalk toward the prison parking lot, the detective hunched her shoulders. Her visits to her brother were always hard on her. After their father walked out, their mother had been forced to work two jobs. Billie was the only one around to raise Sherman. She was sixteen—still a child herself—but she’d tried the best she could to keep her brother straight. Her mother had told her repeatedly that it was not her fault that Sherman was at the penitentiary. She never really believed it.

This was Sherman’s third fall, but his first since she’d joined the police force. He used to get nervous when she visited, afraid that someone would find out his sister was a cop. A high-school friend who was a guard at the penitentiary kept her up-to-date on Sherman. She knew he was in a gang. Since he’d joined and made a rep he’d loosened up. Billie hated what he was doing, but she wanted him safe. Life was loaded with trade-offs.

Billie kept herself from thinking about her brother on the trip back to Portland by listening to loud music and reviewing her cases. When she passed the Wilsonville exit, she phoned in for messages and was glad there was one from Dr. Brubaker, the forensic dentist. The murder at the lab was her most interesting case.

She got Brubaker on her cell phone. “Hi, Harry, what have you got for me?”

“An identification on the body at the primate lab.”

“Don’t keep me in suspense.”

“It’s the lawyer from Arizona.”

“You’re kidding.”

“There’s no question about it. The dental records of Gene Arnold match perfectly.”

Completed in 1912, the thirteen-story Benson Hotel was listed in the National Register of Historic Places and was the hotel where presidents stayed when they visited Portland. Billie entered a luxurious lobby paneled in rich walnut, floored with Italian marble and lit by several crystal chandeliers, and found Kate waiting for her.

“Thanks for letting me tag along,” Kate said as they headed for the reception desk.

“You’ve been straight with me about your information. It’s the least I can do.”

“I can’t believe the body wasn’t Kaidanov.”

“I’d have lost a bundle myself if I was a betting woman.”

Billie flashed her badge at a bright-eyed, Japanese woman and asked for Antonio Sedgwick, the hotel’s chief of security. The woman went through a door behind the desk and returned a few minutes later with a muscular African-American in a conservative business suit. When the ex–Seattle cop spotted the homicide detective he flashed a big grin.

“Hey, Billie, haven’t seen you in a while. You over here to scam a free lunch?”

“No such luck,” Billie answered with a smile.

“Who’s your friend?” Sedgwick asked.

“Kate Ross. She’s an investigator with the Reed, Briggs firm.”

Billie turned to Kate and pointed at the security chief. “You have my permission to shoot this man if he comes on to you. He’s a notorious womanizer.”

Sedgwick laughed.

“I ain’t lyin’,” Billie said with mock seriousness. “Shoot to kill.”

“Besides ruining my love life, what brings you to the Benson?”

“One of your guests checked in on February twenty-ninth and disappeared by March seventh. Now he’s turned up dead and I’d like to see his belongings.”

Sedgwick snapped his fingers. “The guy from Arizona.”

Billie nodded. “His name was Gene Arnold. What do you remember about him?”

“I never met him. He didn’t check out on time, so we sent a bellman up to his room. There was a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door. We usually wait when we see that. At the end of the day I let myself in. It looked like he planned on coming back. All his stuff was there: toiletries on the sink, clothes hung up in the closet and neatly placed in the drawers. If I remember, there was even a book open on the end table, American history or something.

“We called his contact number to see if he was going to stay another day. They didn’t know anything about it. We didn’t need the room right away, so I left everything there for one more day. Then I had his stuff packed up and put it in the checkroom. If you want to take it I’ll need a court order, but I can let you see it.”

“That’ll be fine for now.”

The checkroom was to the right of the concierge desk. It was a narrow room with a high vaulted ceiling decorated with ornate molding that had been the hotel’s original entrance. Its glory had faded over the years. Half the floor was marble but the other half was plywood and there were exposed pipes to the right of the door. Two bare sixty-watt bulbs produced the light that had once been provided by a crystal chandelier.

Arnold’s valise was on a shelf to the left of the door. Sedgwick carried it to a small, unobstructed area near the front of the checkroom and opened it. Billie took out each item, inspected it, then placed it in a neat pile while Kate watched. When she was done she replaced the items carefully.

“Suits are over here,” Sedgwick said, pointing at two suits on a pole that spanned the room.

Billie’s inspection of the first suit revealed nothing, but she found a slip of paper written on the stationery of a SoHo art gallery in the inside pocket of the second suit jacket. It contained a name, Claude Bernier, a street address, and a Manhattan phone number. Billie and Kate wrote the information in their notebooks and Billie replaced the paper in the suit pocket. “Mr. Bernier?”

“Yes.”

“My name is Billie Brewster,” the detective said as Kate listened on an extension in Sedgwick’s office. “I’m with the Portland Police Bureau.”

“Maine?”

“Oregon.”

“I haven’t been there for a while. What’s this about?”

“I’m investigating a homicide and your name came up.”

“You’re kidding?”

“Do you know Gene Arnold, an attorney from Arizona? He was in New York in late February.”

“Late February?” Bernier sounded puzzled. “Wait a minute. Is this guy bald, maybe forty-five? Glasses?”

“That’s him,” Billie answered after consulting the photograph that Benjamin Kellogg had sent her.

“Okay, now I’ve got him. Arnold, yeah. He was at my apartment. You say he was murdered?”

“Yes, sir. What can you tell me about the meeting?”

“Arnold bought one of my photographs from the Pitzer-Kraft Gallery. Fran works there. She called and told me that Arnold almost fainted while he was looking at it. She thought he was having a heart attack. Then he insisted on seeing me.”

“What did he want?”

“He wanted to know everything about the couple in the photograph. That was the subject of the show, couples. This one was from Portland.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Nothing much. They’re all candid shots. I’d see a couple and snap them without them knowing I’d done it. I never got any names.”

“Can you describe the couple in the shot that Arnold purchased?”

“It was a man and woman walking across that big open square you’ve got in the middle of the city.”

“Pioneer Square?”

“That’s it.”

“Anything else you can tell me about them?”

“Arnold was pretty upset about that picture. He got more upset when I couldn’t help him.”

“Can you send me a print?”

“I think so. I’ll have to look for the negative. I moved recently and everything’s still a mess.”

“Try hard, Mr. Bernier. That picture may show the person who murdered Gene Arnold.”

“Brock wanted you to know that everyone is in the conference room,” Renee Gilchrist said.

Arthur Briggs’s mouth was set in a grim line and Renee noticed dark circles under his eyes. “Tell Brock I’ll be right down,” he said.

One of the lines on his phone rang. Renee headed for the phone, but Briggs waved her away.

“Briggs,” the senior partner answered absently. Then he straightened up. “Put him through.”

Briggs turned to Renee. “I want my calls held. Tell Newbauer and the others to go ahead without me. Shut the door on your way out.”

Renee crossed the room as Briggs turned back to the phone.

“Dr. Kaidanov, there are a lot of people who are very anxious to speak with you,” she heard Briggs say as she pulled the door shut.

Thirty minutes later Arthur Briggs entered a small conference room. Brock Newbauer and Susan Webster were seated on one side of a polished oak table. Facing them were Isaac Geller, the chairman of the board of Geller Pharmaceuticals, and Byron McFall, the company’s president.

Geller was a medical-school dropout in his late forties who had made a fortune in commercial real estate when he met McFall, a powerfully built man ten years his junior, at a golf resort. The men hit it off immediately. By the time Geller was ready to return to Chicago and McFall to his investment firm in Seattle, they had agreed to talk about a possible investment by Geller in a financially troubled Oregon pharmaceutical company that was doing some interesting research. Both men had made millions as the result of their chance meeting.

“How bad is this thing, Arthur?” Geller asked as Briggs took his place at the head of the table.

“What’s your take, Brock?” Briggs asked, addressing his junior partner.

Newbauer was surprised to be called on since Briggs was rarely interested in his opinion.

“Well, we’ve all heard the news. They’re saying that man was set on fire and the monkeys, too,” Newbauer said, stumbling. “It’s terrible publicity.
The Oregonian
had an editorial this morning.” Newbauer glanced across the table at Geller and McFall, then looked away quickly. “They’re implying that the company had something to do with the murder.”

“Which is utter hogwash,” McFall said. “I want you to look into suing that rag for libel. And I want to find out who leaked that report to the press.”

“I’m already on top of it, Byron,” Briggs assured the irate executive. “What should we advise Geller Pharmaceuticals to do about the lawsuit, Brock?”

“I don’t think we have a choice. Susan tells me there’s a good chance that Judge Norris will let the Kaidanov letter in, and now it looks like Flynn has a copy of the study, too. If a jury hears evidence about the murder and the dead monkeys . . .” He shook his head despondently. “I think we have to seriously consider making a settlement offer.”

Briggs nodded in a manner that made it appear that he valued Newbauer’s advice before focusing his attention on Susan Webster.

“What do you think we should do?” he asked.

“I agree with Brock,” Susan said firmly. “My research leads me to believe that Judge Norris will let Flynn use the Kaidanov documents at trial. If he convinces a jury that Geller Pharmaceuticals covered up Kaidanov’s study, we’ll lose the case and the damages will be astronomical. If Flynn convinces the jury that someone connected with Geller murdered Kaidanov and set fire to those monkeys, we’ll need the world’s biggest computer to figure the damages.”

“This is bullshit, Arthur,” McFall exploded. “I’ve talked with all our top people. No one knows anything about that damn lab or those fucking monkeys.”

“Susan isn’t suggesting you do. She’s talking about a hypothetical situation so we can try to decide our best course of action.”

“Which is?” Geller asked.

“I’d rather not say just yet,” Briggs replied.

“Well, I insist that you do,” McFall ordered angrily. “I’m the president of a company that pays your firm several million dollars a year. This is the biggest challenge Geller Pharmaceuticals has ever faced and we need your advice.”

During McFall’s tirade, Isaac Geller had been coolly appraising his corporate counsel. Briggs was calm and composed, completely unruffled by a verbal assault under which Geller had seen many strong men and women wilt.

“You’re onto something, aren’t you, Arthur?”

Briggs smiled noncommittally.

Geller turned to McFall. “Maybe we shouldn’t press Arthur,” Geller suggested quietly. “His representation has always been top-notch. I’m certain that there must be something very important afoot if he is playing his cards so close to the vest.”

“I still don’t appreciate our attorney keeping secrets from us, Isaac,” McFall insisted to save face.

“I respect Arthur’s judgment.”

“Very well,” McFall grumbled, “but this better be good.”

Briggs stood. “Thank you, gentlemen. I’ll be in contact shortly, and I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.”

As soon as he got up, Daniel called Amanda Jaffe’s office, but Amanda was in Washington County for three days handling pretrial motions in a murder case. After breakfast, Daniel went downtown and spent the day job hunting. He returned to his apartment, tired and discouraged, to find the light on his answering machine blinking. He pressed the play button, hoping that the caller was Kate or Amanda Jaffe.

“Ames, this is Arthur Briggs. I was wrong about you and I need your help. There’s been a development in the Insufort case and you are the only one I can trust. Meet me tonight at eight.”