by J. A. Jance
Chip Raymond was evidently having much the same thought. He ran one finger across the plush material that covered the walls. "No wonder cancer research is so expensive," he said.
I nodded. "Whatever kind of genes we're talking about, they must be solid-gold plated."
Just then, the elevator door opened and we stepped off into another lobby with a desk occupied by a vividly made up, middle-aged lady who greeted us with a gracious smile when Chip presented his card. "Mr. Whitten's on the phone right now," she said. "I'm his assistant, Deanna Compton. He asked that I show you into the conference room. Would either of you care for coffee?"
If I had encountered Deanna Compton and her unruly mane of red hair on the street, I would have taken her for either a real estate maven or a well-to-do matron. She was dressed in a flawless, navy-colored, double-breasted pantsuit. She wore spike heels that barely peeked out from beneath the hem of her pants. With all the gold on her body-rings on nearly every finger, earrings, and several gold chains-I'm surprised she didn't clank like a knight in armor.
"Is your coffee genetically engineered?" I asked.
Deanna smiled again, this time with somewhat strained tolerance, as though mine was an old and not entirely welcome joke.
"I wouldn't know about that," she said. "We use Starbucks. You'll have to ask them."
Chip passed on the offer of coffee; I accepted. While she went to fetch same, I examined our surroundings. The mostly glass-walled conference room was sumptuously appointed. The windowed wall to the west looked out almost eyeball to eyeball with the huge globe that sits atop the Seattle Post-Intelligencer building on Elliott. Beyond that was the slate expanse of Elliott Bay edged by Bainbridge Island in the distance.
The furnishings in the conference room-oblong table, ten chairs, and an enormous credenza-were made of some kind of light-colored wood, polished to a high gloss. Like everything else in the D.G.I. building, the furniture spoke of quality, of designers working for someone with both an eye for class and a bottomless checkbook.
Chip and I both took chairs along the far side of the table. When Deanna Compton returned, bearing a cup of coffee, she opened a drawer in the credenza and pulled out a brass, felt-bottomed coaster. Examination of the coaster revealed an engraved version of the Designer Genes International company logo-the letters D, G, and I artfully entwined to mimic a credible modern rendering of an ancient coat of arms.
"First class all the way," I muttered to Detective Raymond, passing him the coaster.
He glanced down at it with an "I'll say," and handed it back.
"Sorry to keep you waiting," a portly, balding man announced from the open doorway of the conference room. Compared to the way the secretary was dressed, this guy looked like your basic rumpled bed. His khaki-colored double-breasted suit could have used a good pressing. "I see Deanna brought you coffee," he said.
Chip and I both rose in greeting. "Mr. Whitten?" Chip asked.
"Yes."
"I'm Detective Raymond with Missing Persons. I talked to you on the phone earlier. This is Detective Beaumont."
Whitten moved briskly into the room and shook our hands with a broad-handed, surprisingly strong grip. Then he took a seat at the end of the table. "I don't know why you guys are bothering to hang around here," he grumbled irritably. "If Don Wolf had shown up for work this morning, I wouldn't have called you, now would I?"
"It's possible we may have already found him," I suggested quietly.
Whitten looked at me sharply. "Really. Where?"
Without a word, I extracted one of my business cards from my wallet and slid it down the table where it stopped directly in front of him. Whitten picked it up, held it out at the far end of his arm, and squinted at it.
"This says Homicide," he objected, looking questioningly from the card back to me. "I thought you were from Missing Persons."
"Chip here is from Missing Persons," I said. "I'm Homicide."
There was a long pause during which Bill Whitten's eyes sought mine. It's a moment that happens in every investigation when the people closest to the victim first become aware that the unthinkable has happened. Homicide cops are trained to observe the survivor's reactions, to gauge whether or not the response is typical, and if not, why not.
Whitten leaned back in his chair and steepled his thick fingers under his chin. "I see," he said. "You're saying you think Don Wolf is dead? When did this happen?"
His was a measured, emotionless reaction, the response of someone to expected, rather than unexpected, news, and one that fully justified Chip Raymond's reluctance to approach the D.G.I. interview without having someone from Homicide along for the ride.
"At this juncture, we're not one-hundred-percent sure," I told him. "An unidentified body washed up in the water off Pier Seventy early yesterday morning. As you know, that's only a matter of a few blocks from here. From the sound of the description you gave Detective Raymond, I'd have to say the dead man could very well be your missing Don Wolf. We'll need someone to come over to the morgue at Harborview to verify our tentative identification."
"He was in the water? What happened, did he drown?"
I shook my head. "It's too soon to say. There'll have to be an autopsy report. That'll take a few days, and a toxicology report will take a few weeks beyond that. My suspicion, however, is that death came instantly in the form of a wound from a single bullet."
Bill Whitten blanched visibly. "Don was murdered then?"
"We're investigating the case as a homicide," I corrected. "Whether or not the victim turns out to be Don Wolf remains to be seen. That's why we're here. We need someone who knew Don Wolf to come along down to the morgue and try to give us a positive I.D."
"You want me to do that?" Whitten asked.
I nodded. "That would be the first step. Actually, the third. Before we leave the building, I'd like to take a look at Mr. Wolf's office for a moment, and also at his car, if I may. I understand it's still parked in the garage."
"Certainly, but-"
"Furthermore, until we have ascertained whether or not the dead man is Mr. Wolf, it would probably be better if you didn't mention any of this to anybody, just in case the victim turns out to be someone else."
"Not even to Deanna…to Mrs. Compton, my secretary?" he asked.
"No," I responded. "Not even to her."
Whitten led us out of the conference room and diagonally across the reception area to an office located in the southeast corner of the building. The door was closed, but unlocked. "Here it is," he said, opening the door into an airy, windowed room.
Don Wolf's office was as compulsively clean and carefully organized as the furniture in a model home. Nothing at all appeared to have been disturbed. A bank of carefully framed diplomas graced one of the two nonwindowed walls. The other was covered with bookshelves. On the credenza behind the desk was a framed, eight-by-ten photo-a head shot of a smiling, glasses-wearing brunette.
"That's his wife," Whitten told me when he saw me looking at the picture. "Her name's Lizbeth. She's still down in La Jolla, waiting for the house to sell."
"That's enough for now," I said. "We can come back here later. Please ask that no one go in or out of this room until we do, would you?"
Whitten nodded. "Mrs. Compton will see to it," he said. As we left Don Wolf's office, we stopped in front of his assistant's desk. "Please cancel my appointments for this morning, Deanna, and for lunch as well. This may take some time. Also, please lock up Don's office and don't allow anyone in it until further notice."
"Certainly," Deanna Compton said, frowning up at him. "Is anything wrong?"
"I don't know," he returned. "It's too soon to tell."
Detective Raymond and I had arrived at the building in separate cars. If this was going to be a homicide investigation, there was no further reason for Raymond to stay involved. Down in the parking garage, he took his vehicle and headed back to the Public Safety Building while I drove Bill Whitten to the medical examiner's office in the b
asement of Harborview Hospital.
Those kinds of victim identification trips, often made in the company of a grieving relative or a close personal friend of the deceased, can be emotionally devastating at times. Some survivors chatter incessantly as a device to hold back the looming reality as well as the pain. Others endure the awful ordeal in stoic silence. Moments into the ride I realized Bill Whitten was no close personal friend.
We had just turned into traffic on Western when he leaned back in his seat, loosening the seat belt around his considerable girth, and heaved a gloomy sigh. "I might just as well tell you this right up front," he said.
"Tell me what?"
"Don Wolf and I didn't get along. In fact, I hated the son of a bitch. I'll probably end up being what you cops call the prime suspect."
"You hated him?" I asked. "How come?"
"Because he was out to get me," he said. "He came here two months ago. According to his resume, he was some kind of hotshot financial guru. His resume said he was a real genius, a Harvard-educated, MBA-wielding, money-raising fiend in the world of genetic engineering. I even sold the board of directors on him. The problem is, Don Wolf may have looked great on paper, but in person he was something else. He was one of those smart-assed guys who won't take direction from anybody. A total jerk, in other words, but it's hard to tell that from a resume and a couple of interviews."
I stole a glance in Bill Whitten's direction. He sat with his arms folded staunchly across his chest, with his eyes staring out the front windshield. "Detective Raymond told me you and he had a meeting scheduled for yesterday. What was that all about?"
Whitten considered for some time before he answered. "He was going to take me to the board of directors and ask them to force me out," he said finally. "Me, the guy who started D.G.I. and built it from the ground up!"
"Why?"
There was another long pause while Whitten's face reddened with suppressed fury. "He claimed he'd found evidence of wrongdoing on my part, that I'd been illegally skimming money and diverting it to my own use."
"Had you?" I asked.
"No, goddamn it! I hadn't. Don Wolf brought in some money, I'll give him that. He said he could deliver investors, and he did. The problem is, those investor dollars came with all kinds of strings. He was undermining me and badmouthing me every chance he could get. He made so much trouble that some members of the board of directors have actually started questioning my every move, including Saturday-morning quarterbacking my decision to build this building. I keep trying to tell them that you can't attract the best people if you don't have a world-class research facility. D.G.I. is that, and I'm the one who made it happen. Little old me-Billy Whitten from Seattle, Washington."
"Would it have worked?" I asked.
Whitten glowered at me. "Would what have worked?"
"Would Don Wolf have been able to force you out?"
He shrugged. "I guess we'll never know now, will we."
"Maybe not," I agreed, but what I had already heard was enough to spell the beginning of motive. From that point of view, everything Bill Whitten said would bear careful scrutiny.
Because of a massive ongoing construction project at Harborview Hospital, we had to park two blocks away, but the walk turned out to be pleasant enough. Pale midday sun was beginning to burn through the overcast, turning the day almost balmy. It felt more like spring than early January.
Once inside the M.E.'s dingy basement lobby, I asked for Dr. Cummings. Within moments, Audrey emerged from her own private office dressed in her usual crisply sensible costume. I started to introduce her to Bill Whitten, but that proved unnecessary.
"Why, Bill," she said, smiling a friendly greeting and holding out her hand. "How good to see you again. What in the world are you doing here?"
Whitten jerked his head in my direction. "I'm with him," he said. "Detective Beaumont here seems to think the unidentified body that was found off Pier Seventy yesterday belongs to someone who works for D.G.I." He stopped and then added a slight modification, "Someone who used to work for D.G.I."
Frowning, Audrey turned to me. "Really?"
I nodded in confirmation. "There's a good possibility," I said.
Audrey Cummings shook her head sympathetically. "One of your people? That's too bad, Bill. I certainly hope not."
"Don Wolf never was what you could call one of my people," Whitten replied with a grim smile. "In fact, as far as I'm concerned, if the dead man turns out to be him, I'll be the first to say it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy."
Coming from a self-admitted prime suspect, that blurted comment came as a surprising admission. He said it right there in public, in front of God and everybody. Usually, good manners dictate that people-even suspects-not speak ill of the dead, certainly not that soon after somebody kicks off. But with regard to Donald R. Wolf, although Bill Whitten was the first to express that derogatory sentiment, he certainly wasn't the last.
The body tagged with a John Doe label around his toe did indeed turn out to be Don Wolf's. A departed Don Wolf's. But as I was to learn over the next few days, the man was hardly anybody's dearly departed Don Wolf.
He was dead, and it turned out that, with one notable exception, no one in the world seemed to be the least bit sorry.
Four
Every homicide case is different, and yet there are always similarities. One of the most difficult aspects of beginning an investigation involves notification of the next of kin. I didn't know it then, but in the case of Don Wolf, it was going to be far more difficult than usual.
Once Bill Whitten had provided the positive identification we needed, I continued to ask questions while giving him a lift back to D.G.I. headquarters. "You told me earlier that Don Wolf was married, and that the woman in the picture in his office is his wife."
"Some people are more married than others," Whitten replied.
I let that pass for the moment. "What did you say his wife's name is? Elizabeth?"
"No, Lizbeth. No E; no a."
"And she's still down in California?"
"As far as I know."
"You have phone numbers, addresses, that sort of thing?"
"In his personnel file. I'll have Deanna locate them for you as soon as we get back to the office."
"Were they having marital difficulties of some kind?"
Whitten seemed to consider before he answered. "From what I could gather, she wasn't exactly overjoyed at the prospect of moving to Seattle."
"Did he have any children?"
"None that I know of. He and Lizbeth haven't been married that long-only a matter of months. There could be kids somewhere from a previous marriage, but I wouldn't know about that. Again, that might be in a personnel file as well, especially if the children were listed as beneficiaries under the group insurance policy."
"How much insurance?"
"Two and a half times his annual salary. A quarter of a million, less some change."
"You paid him a hundred thousand a year, then?"
Whitten nodded. "Salary plus."
"Plus what?"
"A finder's fee on the new investment dollars he brought in."
"If he was making that kind of money, there shouldn't have been any financial difficulties. Were there any other problems?"
Whitten gave me a sidelong glance. "You mean problems with anyone other than me?"
"Look, Mr. Whitten, let's don't make this difficult. At this point, I don't regard you as any more of a suspect than I do anyone else. If you'd like me to Mirandize you and let you have a lawyer present when we talk, I'd be happy to oblige. For right now, I'm just gathering general information."
By then, we had arrived back at the D.G.I. garage and pulled into a parking place. I opened the door to get out. When Bill Whitten made no move to exit the car, I settled back in my seat, closed the door, and waited. For almost a full minute, neither one of us moved or spoke. Whitten seemed to be pondering something important, and I didn't want to rush him. Finally, he made up h
is mind.
"I believe I already told you Don Wolf wasn't a nice man," he said.
"You did mention something about it."
"Well, I wasn't just blowing smoke," Whitten said defensively. "I have proof."
"What kind of proof?"
"My father was a pioneer in the in-store security business. He started his company-the company I started out with-back in the mid-forties, right after the war. In the economic boom that followed, shoplifting became a rising phenomenon. Stores that were large enough to pay the freight hired their own in-house detectives and security, but lots of companies were far too small to handle that kind of expense on a full-time basis. My dad's company provided roving bands of detectives for hire who went from store to store on a needs-only basis.
"In the sixties, as soon as the technology became available, Dad became a pioneer in installing in-ceiling or wall-mounted security systems. Later on, we branched out into scanners as well."
"Video cameras, you mean?" I asked.
"Yes, among other things. My dad died of cancer a number of years ago. When I sold the whole thing off a couple of years ago, I made out like a bandit. So did my mother."
"Where's all this family history lesson going, Mr. Whitten?"
"D.G.I. is my baby," he said. "I'm the one who started it. I'm the one who brought in the scientific expertise to do the research and who raised most of the money that built this building yet Don Wolf thought he could walk in here and take it away. Instead of just letting him have it, I decided to fight him with all the tools at my disposal."
"So?" I asked, although I had a reasonably good idea of where Bill's seemingly rambling tale would end up. "Are we talking employee surveillance here?"
Whitten nodded. "It's the same kind of system we had in our old corporate headquarters before we sold it off. This one is newer, of course. More bells and whistles. There's a hidden camera and microphone in every office," he explained. "I don't necessarily use all of them all the time. Some of them, the ones at the front of the building and in the garage and elevators, are on twenty-four hours a day. Others I only activate from time to time."