Genesys X

by B. J. Graf

  He smiled. “I think I can help with that.”

  “If you want to help, clear me to go back to work.”

  Sears smile twisted into a pained grimace. “.085 is well over the normal range, Detective. I recommend you take at least a few days off.”

  “And let my partner shoulder all the work?” I shook my head.

  “I thought you might say that.” Sears lifted his hands, palms out in a gesture of surrender. “Then let’s go through the check list, shall we? How are you sleeping? Any unexpected bouts of insomnia, night sweats, that sort of thing?”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary.” For two days after the shooting I’d woken at three, covered in a sheet of cold sweat. But little recaps were to be expected. Stress was an old friend. Why give Sears the ammunition to shoot me down?

  “Are you experiencing any unusual aches or pains since the incident?”

  “No,” I said.

  “How much do you drink?

  “A glass or two.”

  “Has your alcohol consumption changed since the accident?”

  “I’m drinking less.” In case of any unscheduled blood or Breathalyzer pop quizzes.’

  Was it my imagination or was Sears searching for the broken blood vessels and swollen nose of an alcoholic? There wasn’t anything like that on my face to find. Still, I silently cursed Joy Kidder, the civilian lawyer from the OIS interview who’d put me under extra scrutiny.

  “Are you experiencing any changes in your interaction with your partner since the incident?”

  “Other than my being on the desk?” I repeated my desire to get to back to active duty.

  “Patience, Detective. We’re almost done.” Sears glanced at his glove phone and then his eyes drifted up to the left corner of the room.

  Were there cameras? A hidden feed for the panel reviewing my actions?

  “I see from your file your father was a police officer too,” Sears said. “He’s had some trouble with anger management.”

  Ker-chunk! The sound of a nail gun slamming a four-inch steel nail through the flesh of my left foot echoed in my head. The hand on the nail gun had belonged to Piedmont Senior. The mere memory sent a shiver down my spine. I shoved the memory away.

  “Have you been able to talk to your father about managing the stress?” Sears steepled his hands on the desk. “Maybe he could be a helpful resource.”

  I suppressed the laugh but not the memory of how the Glock had felt in my fifteen-year-old-hand. Or the smell of cordite in the air. The nail gun on the floor and my father’s used syringe on the kitchen table. The lamp over the kitchen table swinging round and round like a chopper with a spotlight flying overhead.

  “If you’ve read the file on my father,” I said, “you know he can’t even help himself.” Anger management and green ice weren’t his only problems. It was an open secret my father was dirty. He’d taken drugs, and money for drugs, in exchange for turning a blind eye to some pretty bad actors. Eventually, he’d gotten caught and sent away for a three-year stretch in prison. That was another thing we didn’t talk about, my father and I.

  Sears said nothing, just held my gaze with a steady appraisal of his own.

  And I suddenly knew he’d made up his mind before we’d even started the evaluation. Sears had expected resistance, and I’d given it to him.

  So, I pivoted and jumped down a different rabbit hole.

  “You know what, doctor?” I said. “I will take that vacation you recommended. I could use a couple days off.”

  Sears slowly lifted his head and beamed. “I’m glad you see that on your own, Detective. That’s a very hopeful sign. A little time to unwind can make a world of difference.”

  “When will you be making your report?” I said.

  “We’ll be in touch.” Sears looked at me with a calm genial expression. “Get some R&R, Detective Piedmont.”

  “I’ll head straight to the beach,” I said, not waiting for the door to slam behind me on my way out.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  As soon as the door to the psychologist’s office snapped shut behind me, I put in for three days of vacation - effective immediately. Then I called Shin.

  “I’m off duty,” he said by way of greeting. “So, what does it mean that I’m happy to hear from you already?” Shin was sitting cross-legged on the roof of his house making repairs, a messy stack of white, sun-reflective, tiles to his right.

  “You’re a good cop and a bad roofer,” I said. “I called to say go ahead and close out the Devonshire file.”

  Hammer in hand he peered hard at me then slowly shook his head. “Every door that closes opens a window, as my grandmother used to harp at me. Is that it?”

  “Your grandmother was a fount of wisdom.”

  “And you’re a crazy hakujin.” Shin put down the hammer and stared at me again. “Don’t do anything stupid, Eddie. I mean it. I don’t want to break in another new partner.” He sighed, but I watched as Shin closed the Devonshire file via phone and went back to his roofing.

  With the case closed, there was nothing that said I couldn’t have a friendly chat with Dr. Lee during my vacation. My glove phone told me it was already past seven. Too late to head out to the Valley given L.A. traffic, but I might be able to catch him at home. For the first time since the shooting, I felt a sudden rush of optimism.

  Pacific Palisades, with houses that dot the mountains as they spill down to the ocean, is utter suburbia for rich people who call themselves middle-class. Unlike gated communities for the ueber-rich, places like Beverly Park, no security guards control access to the Palisades. Its leafy streets fan off one feeder boulevard – Sunset.

  Lee’s home was a grey Cape Cod McMansion crammed onto a small lot not far from Sunset. Freshly painted white trim on the house matched the low white picket fence that ran along the edge of the line between sidewalk and lawn. Tidy borders of Mexican sage clustered near the fence.

  A late model white Mercedes SUV sat parked in the drive. Last night’s research with Shin told me it belonged to Lee’s wife Meredith. There was also a high-powered Yamaha job standing next to it. The bike was registered to the teenaged son, Raymond.

  No sign of Lee’s Lexus E3, so I parked a little way up from the house and waited. Even from fifty feet away I could spot cameras and sensors which covered the front and side doors of the house. A glance up and down the street at the neighboring homes told me they weren’t standard for the area.

  There’d been no police reports of illegal activity of any note in the vicinity of Lee’s home either. Yet Lee’s latest model Smart Sensa-guard security with its drone patrol and fast response time cost about fifty grand. Was Lee typically hyper-vigilant, or had something spooked him recently? Like a troublesome girlfriend making threats?

  Past eight now, and still no sign of the Lexus, so I rang the front door bell and waited. The flat slapping sound of bare feet on hardwood floors told me someone was approaching, but the door didn’t open. I flipped my coat jacket open, letting my gold shield wink at the invisible watcher behind those CCTV cameras.

  “Yeah,” said a bored teenaged voice that I guessed belonged to Lee’s son Raymond. The face matching the voice appeared on the security screen to the left of the doorbell. He yawned. His hair stuck out at strange angles without benefit of product and he had sleep in the corners of his glassy eyes.

  “Detective Piedmont,” I said. “I’d like to talk to Dr. Gabriel Lee.”

  “He’s not here.”

  “Where is he?”

  Raymond shrugged.

  This time there were no telltale footsteps before the door abruptly swung open. Meredith Lee stepped slightly in front of her son and regarded me with wary concern.

  “Can I help you, Detective?” Her eyes were black stones set in an unsmiling wrinkle-free face. Meredith Lee’s ink-colored coiffeur showed no hair out of place. She wore an expensive beige sweater set with a single strand of black pearls and coordinated trousers.

  “Dr. Lee,�
� I said, remembering she’d been an anesthesiologist before taking early retirement. “I need to talk to your husband.”

  “It’s Mrs. Lee. What’s this about?” Her voice betrayed the barest hint of a Korean accent.

  I could see past Mrs. Lee to the foyer. A row of white orchids anchored by smooth grey pebbles in square glass vases sat on a stone bench next to the wall to the right. A few pairs of shoes lined up with military precision stood under the bench, including neon-colored sneakers and a variety of women’s shoes.

  “I need to ask him about a woman named Britney Devonshire.”

  The name sparked no sign of recognition from Mrs. Lee.

  “He may be able to help us out with some information.”

  “Why would my husband know anything about this woman?”

  I shot a pointed glance at her son. “Could we speak in private, Mrs. Lee?”

  Her spine stiffened. “I’m sorry. I think you’ve made a mistake. I can’t help you.” Mrs. Lee started to shut the door.

  The door caught on my foot as I pulled up a picture of the auburn knockout and held it out for her and her son to see. “This is Britney Devonshire, an exotic dancer at the Sandy Beaches Gentlemen’s Club.”

  Raymond’s glassy eyes popped wide open. Mrs. Lee’s narrowed.

  “She’s dead,” I said. “You didn’t know her?”

  Two angry red splotches bloomed on Mrs. Lee’s cheeks. She shook her head, ‘no.’ Questions were already gnawing at her. Good.

  “Ms. Devonshire made a number of calls to your husband. Including her last call right before she died. That’s why I need to talk to him.”

  Mrs. Lee’s jaw hardened as she lifted her chin. “I don’t want any trouble.”

  “Neither do I. When do you expect him home?”

  She pressed her lips into a thin line of disapproval but said nothing. I let my silence push her.

  “My husband and I are taking a little time apart, Detective.” Those wary black eyes met mine in a level gaze.

  Trouble at home only made my interest in Dr. Lee tick up a notch higher.

  “When you hear from him,” I said, “would you ask your husband to call me right away?” I left my number.

  A curt nod followed by the slamming door was my answer.

  I lost no time getting back to my car. Mrs. Lee seemed to be telling the truth. The shoes under the bench corroborated her husband’s extended absence. No matter - I didn’t expect to hear back from Dr. Gabriel Lee either now or in the future, but in about thirty seconds I did expect his wife to call her husband and read him the riot act. Any wife would want to know what her husband was doing with some stripper young enough to be his daughter, and worse, what he had done to bring the police to their door.

  I had my StingRey ready. The scanner mimics a cellphone tower, luring a phone to connect with it. Then it measures signals that phone puts out. Legally, I couldn’t pull the call out of the air and de-encrypt it like a paparazzo tracking a celebrity scoop. I was just hoping for the “ping” and a number for Lee’s glove phone.

  A minute later the ping came. But not to Lee’s glove phone. Mrs. Lee placed a twenty second call to a land line in Sun Valley. Genesys, the pharma research company where Dr. Lee worked, was situated there. Twenty seconds wasn’t long enough for Mrs. Lee to have read her husband the riot act. It was, however, long enough to leave a voicemail. Was he still at work?

  I put in a call myself and got voicemail, so I hung up and tried the main reception. The recorded message informed me Genesys was closed and gave the office hours. I guessed Lee had left for the day but was at least checking calls. It was worth the drive tomorrow. Singing along with latest Indigo Panthers-narco-corrida, I turned the car around and headed home.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Early the next morning, as I made my way through the traffic gridlocking the 405 freeway that linked Venice and the San Fernando Valley, questions buzzed in my brain.

  Lee had moved out. It seemed likely his trouble at home was linked to Lee’s involvement with the now dead stripper. Had the new security system he’d installed at his Palisades home been aimed at keeping a hot little blackmailer away from the family? Had Dr. Lee done more than just install security? He wouldn’t be the first guy to panic at blackmail and shove an inconvenient girlfriend into the void. For that matter, Mrs. Lee wouldn’t be the first wife to back her cheating husband over a rival even if she did kick him out temporairily by way of payback.

  In any event Britney Devonshire’s overdose was looking less and less ‘accidental.’ I needed to talk to Lee himself and see what I could see.

  Sun Valley is a sunny name for a bland grey industrial section of the city. Genesys took up half a street block in this unassuming part of town, opposite a Psychic Franchise, and an Herbal Care, the drive-through boutiques that sell Lipitor, marijuana and other pharmaceutical antidotes to the pain of living.

  The three-story burnt sienna-colored building could have housed an insurance company - so nondescript was its boxy façade. But the bland impression was quickly dispelled by the band of protestors spilling over from the sidewalk and blocking my entry through the gated Genesys parking lot. Tapping the horn, I waited in my idling Porsche, a rock in a stream as activists protesting the biomedical research company slowly flowed around me.

  Their signs featured slogans in dripping red. Subtle slogans like: Genesys means Genocide: No to GMO, and Yes on Personhood, No to Murder! An equal opportunity offender, Lee’s company had managed to alienate both sides of the political spectrum.

  Security guards posted just inside the gate were hardbodied guys with that ramrod straight posture you see on ex-Marines – heavy duty for corporate watchdogs. The Genesys brass must have been worried about the protestors.

  All the politics and protest were also unwelcome reminders of the police bond in the upcoming election and Captain Tatum’s warning to me. I had to tread carefully.

  As the sea of red paint parted and I threaded my way into the parking lot, one obvious hype caught my eye. He had the greenish pallor, rotten teeth and loose skin hanging off his emaciated frame so typical of long-time ice addicts. An addict with a cause though, that was different. Mumbling, the hype pressed a flyer under my car’s windshield wiper. Others followed. They papered my car with flyers as I inched past.

  “Shame on You, Yes on 2!” shouted the crowd, now safely in my rear view mirror. “Nature’s Way, Not Corporate Play!”

  Disease is nature’s way too. I dumped the flyers in the circular file just outside the main entrance to Genesys.

  Just inside the door I stopped at the security desk in front of the metal detector which blocked entry into the main lobby.

  “Detective Piedmont,” I said and flashed my badge to the security guard. “I’d like to talk to one of your employees.”

  Technically, I shouldn’t have used the authority of the badge while on vacation, but one glimpse of that gold shield and the guard’s bored demeanor instantly changed into something more respectful.

  Eyes wide, he looked up from my badge and scanned my grey Brioni jacket for the telltale bulge where my Glock was tucked. It was my personal sidearm. The department issued Glock was still impounded. But he nodded me through and signed out a visitor’s badge.

  At the reception desk I asked to see Dr. Lee.

  The hologrammed receptionist informed me Dr. Lee was not on the premises and asked if I wanted to leave a message.

  “When will he be back?”

  In no time at all Ms. Som, Director of Human Resources, appeared at my side wearing a silk dress in muted green and black along with her helpful smile. She informed me that Dr. Lee had taken sabbatical two weeks ago.

  That made me perk up. Dr. Lee might be homeshored, but he wasn’t home. So why had his wife called him here? Were things between them so cool she really didn’t know where her husband was?

  “When was the last time he logged in?” I said.

  Emily Som tapped her authorization code into th
e personnel log and scanned a more restricted roster. “October 1st.”

  A couple days before Britney’s death.

  “Do you have a sabbatical address for him?”

  She gave me the number for the Palisades place.

  Another query told me Lee’s salary went to direct deposit - another dead end.

  “I need to talk to Lee’s boss,” I said. “Mr. Maclaren.”

  “The CEO?” Ms. Som’s voice crept up half an octave.

  “Would you call him.” It wasn’t a question.

  “That might…take a while.”

  She gestured towards one of the chairs clustered around a squat coffee table in the lobby. “It will be at least an hour. If it’s even possible for you to see him on such short notice.”

  Cut from marble, the squat table stood rooted under a central skylight. A square glass vase filled with waxy white orchids anchored in smooth black stones sat on the surface of the marble table. Across the way near the elevator a screen played ads for the company’s products. New meds in the pipeline included a treatment for erectile dysfunction. The screen changed.

  “Genesys is on the cutting edge of Alzheimer’s X research,” a spokesmodel in a lab coat intoned.

  Glancing at people walking through the lobby, I spotted a derma ad tattooed on the inside of a trim left ankle. The ankle belonged to a blonde in a white lab coat heading for the elevators.

  Britney’d had a derma ad on her too, albeit for a marijuana boutique. Shin had said she’d been paid peanuts for it. In her file Shin listed his visit to the tattoo-parlor where Lotus Eaters’ human billboards were inked. Britney’s ad had been done only four hours prior to her estimated time of death. After that she’d texted or phoned only two people – her friend Mercedes and Dr. Lee. That gave a pretty tight timeframe for a last visit from Dr. Lee – if he’d made one.

  Ms. Som was still on her phone, back towards me. If I had to wait an hour to see the CEO, I saw no reason to waste it sitting here.