No Way to Die

by M. D. Grayson

  When I got back to my apartment just after ten o’clock, I was too keyed up to go straight to bed. I turned the TV on to the news and muted the sound. I felt pretty strange. I don’t usually have a problem being alone. I was always a pretty solitary kid. I like to hit the running trails by myself. I like to sit by myself and play the guitar. I like to go camping by myself.

  But tonight, my feelings were different.I actually felt lonely. Jen was three thousand miles away, but as I examined my feelings, I came to the conclusion that Jen’s absence wasn’t why I felt lonely. I wanted to talk to Toni—to spend time with her. I missed my best friend.I don’t know, maybe talking about the history of the company made me reflect on my history with her. Whatever, I know I missed her. I went to the stereo to search for some music that matched my mood. I put on “Someone Like You” by Adele, the same song that had gotten Toni all ruffled in the car. I listened carefully to the lyrics. I wanted to know why Toni had reacted the way she had. When Adele reached the chorus, I found out. I was surprised to find that I had tears in my eyes. I walked over and turned it off.

  Chapter 10

  I WAS STILL tired the next morning when I hit the road—I’d tossed and turned all night. At six thirty, the sun was just about to come up. It was cool but not raining—not for the moment, anyway. Friday’s workout schedule calls for a short, easy run—runners call it active recovery. Sandwiched as they are between Thursday’s schedule of hard intervals and Saturday’s long-distance runs, Friday’s six mileworkouts are—well, they’re easy. I find that it’s a good time to run things through my mind.

  I thought about Nicholas Madoc as I jogged north along Dexter Avenue. Was that why I didn’t sleep well? I don’t remember dreaming about him—maybe I did—but I think that something about him must have been getting to me. I mean, why would the guy walk right up to us in the middle of dinner? Was he trying to send me some sort of subliminal message? I’m not always the best at catching and interpreting subtle signals—I’m working on it, but I admit it’s an issue. Maybe I overthink things. Whatever. Anyway, was this some sort of signal?

  And how did he even know where we were? Granted, we hadn’t made any efforts to keep our anniversary dinner a secret, but then again, we didn’t broadcast it, either. But he damn sure had all the details, didn’t he? Who told him?

  And along those lines, how’d MST find out about Logan PI being involved in the first place? I saw a puddle ahead, so I jumped over it without slowing down. If MST had some involvement in this—and it seems like they might—then who was working with them? And to what end?

  One thing was for sure: I had more questions than answers. That needed to change.

  * * * *

  When I got home thirty minutes later, I showered and got dressed and grabbed my laptop. I Googled Nicholas Madoc and found a half-dozen people in the United States with that name, but no foreigners. Also, there was no listing for Madoc Secured Technologies, no MST—at least none that fit. I was coming up with a whole lot of nothing, so I decided to shorten the process. I grabbed my phone and punched in a number. After a couple of rings, the call was answered.

  “Special Agent Thomas.”

  “Good morning,” I said.

  “Hey, you!” Jennifer said, sounding happy to hear from me.

  “Can you talk?”

  “Yeah. I’ve got a meeting in half an hour, but I’m free for the moment. How’re you doing?”

  “I’m good,” I said. “How’s your trip so far?”

  “It’s good,” she said. “What’s going on there?”

  “Want to hear an interesting story?”

  “Sure.”

  I walked her through the whole story of ACS and Thomas Rasmussen and how we’d been hired to look into his death.

  “So do you think Thomas Rasmussen was murdered?” she asked when I was finished.

  “I don’t know. It’s possible. Even though all the physical evidence points to suicide, we have a very credible expert who says that it’s possible for a skilled group to murder someone with a gun and disguise it to make it look like suicide. And Thomas was working with sensitive technology that could have been worth a lot of money.”

  “That’s a pretty strong motive,” she said, “particularly if someone believed there was a pathway to the money and that Thomas Rasmussen was standing right in the middle of the path, blocking the way.”

  I told her about how Madoc Secured Technologies had made an offer for Starfire and how they’d been rejected by the Commerce Department.

  “That’d be the Bureau of Industry and Security,” she said. “The BIS. Those guys are hard-nosed, but I suppose they need to be. We conduct some of their investigations for them—usually the ones involving criminal issues.”

  “Madoc Secured Technologies sounds a little suspicious to me,” I said, “based on the way they’ve been acting.”

  “How’s that?”

  “You tell me. Why would a legitimate tech company feel the need to start spying on us?”

  “On whom? On you guys?”

  “Hell yeah, on us. They had guys scoping out our office a couple of days ago. We caught ’em red-handed and ran them out.”

  “That must have been interesting.”

  “Yeah, it was. And last night, Nicholas Madoc himself suddenly shows up right in the middle of our company anniversary dinner.”

  “Really? What’d he want?”

  “He brought a couple bottles of champagne.”

  She laughed. “I wonder what he really wants. Was it good champagne, at least?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Dom Pérignon ’96. Good to the last drop.”

  “Excellent. Did you save me some?”

  “Uh, well . . .”

  “You didn’t, did you?” she said. “You’re busted. So do you want me to check this guy out for you or what? Is that why you’re calling?”

  Perfect. I wouldn’t have to ask. “No,” I said, trying to sound as if I’d been insulted. “Why would you think that? But . . . since you’re offering, that’d be great.”

  “Yeah,” she laughed, “I know you pretty well, don’t I?”

  “Well, I am little worried about this guy,” I admitted. “But I wanted to hear your voice, too.”

  “Yeah, right,” she said. “Seriously though, if this guy and his organization were involved with killing Thomas Rasmussen, sounds like you might have good reason to be worried. You might need to be careful, you know what I mean?”

  “Yeah, we are.” I changed the subject. “When you coming home, anyway?”

  “Right now, it looks like Tuesday or Wednesday,” she said. “Why, do you miss me?”

  “Nah,” I said, smiling as I said it.

  “Good,” she laughed. “Me neither. I told you not to.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “I listened.”

  “Good,” she said. “That’s what I like about you.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said.

  “What?”

  “I lied.”

  “About what?”

  “I do miss you. Just a little bit.”

  She laughed. “See you in a few days. You watch out for yourself.”

  * * * *

  The Madoc Secured Technologies office was located in an industrial park at the north end of Bellevue, just off SR-520 near 116th Street. Toni and I left our office at about tenthirty.

  “So what are you thinking?” I asked her as I turned onto 520 from I-5 and headed east.

  “I’m trying to figure out what these guys are all about,” she said. “They sure don’t act like someone who’s been involved in a murder, do they?”

  “They act weird,” I said, thinking of Madoc’s odd behavior. “But I guess I’d agree—if they’ve actually murdered Thomas, they sure don’t act the part. Do you think we might be looking in the wrong direction?”

  She glanced at me. “I wonder about that, too,” she said.

  I drove in silence for a couple of minutes. I passed the University of Washi
ngton on our left before we dropped down to the floating bridge portion of 520.

  “I’m a little concerned. We’ve got to be careful not to fixate on MST,” I said. “If Thomas was murdered, maybe it has nothing to do with the Starfire Protocol at all. Maybe that’s pure coincidence. Maybe it was nothing more than a jealous lover in a fit of rage. Maybe there was something going on between him and Holly. Katherine found out and hired someone.”

  “Possible. But Katherine said they had a great marriage. Jonas and Stella seemed to concur.”

  “If she killed him, what else would she say?” I asked.

  “And don’t forget,” she added. “You said it best to Katherine. If she was the murderer, when the cops ruled suicide, she’d already gotten away with it. She had no reason to even raise the issue. Remember—she’s the one who wants the case reopened.”

  I thought about this. In the end, I concluded that there was no rational excuse for Katherine to try to reopen the case if she was the murderer.

  “Okay. What if it was Holly?” I said. “What if Holly had him killed because their affair was going badly? Katherine would be the last one to know, wouldn’t she? And it wouldn’t be that difficult to hide things from Jonas and Stella. I doubt they were probably even paying attention. If Thomas and Holly were having an affair, they’d have probably needed to be pretty blatantly open about it before a couple of tunnel-visioned scientist-types like Jonas and Stella would have noticed.”

  “Maybe,” Toni said. It was quiet for a second, and then she added, “This is great. Think about it. We might have a suicide, except the background evidence doesn’t support it.”

  “And we might have a murder,” I said,“except the physical evidence doesn’t support that. And MST might be involved with the murder.”

  “Except their behavior afterthefact is bizarre in the extreme,” Toni said.

  “And we might have had Thomas killed by a jealous lover,” I said.

  “Except that the jealous lover would have had to hire a stone-cold pro to pull it off.”

  “Never mind the fact that everyone says that Thomas was perfectly content with his family.”

  “Exactly,” she said.

  “So where does that leave us?”

  “Nowhere. It leaves us still looking for answers,” she said. “There’s no smoking gun yet, that’s for sure.”

  * * * *

  I pulled into the parking lot of the Rainier Industrial Park off 116th in Bellevue at five minutes before eleven. We parked and went inside.

  “Good morning,” I said to the cute, young receptionist. She had long blond hair. She wore a print blouse over tight blue jeans. “Danny Logan and Toni Blair to see Nicholas Madoc.”

  “Yes,” she said. “He’s expecting you. If you’d follow me, I’ll take you back to the conference room.” She led us down a hallway toward the back of the office. I admit that I found myself admiring her tight little butt swishing rhythmically back and forth as she walked. I must have fallen into a trance—it’s a guy thing—because a scant moment later, Toni jabbed me hard in the ribs with her elbow.

  “Ouch!” I said. I looked over at her, startled.

  “Really?” she said quietly, rolling her eyes.

  I straightened up. The receptionist led us into a conference room that overlooked a park.

  We were still standing, admiring the view of the park, when Nicholas Madoc and Cameron Patel walked in.

  “Good morning,” Madoc said, walking over to greet us. “It’s so good of you to come by and visit us this morning.”

  Madoc wore a perfectly tailored navy suit with a light blue shirt and a forest green tie. He even had a matching pocket square. He introduced his associate, Cameron Patel, who was also turned out sharply in a black suit with very faint gray pinstripes. I don’t dress up often, and I certainly wasn’t going to dress up for these guys. I wore my standard blue jeans, running shoes, and a solid-colored burgundy flannel shirt. Maybe they’d think it was casual Friday at my office.Toni—well, Toni was dressed like Toni. She looks like a model even when she does dress casually. Today, she wore a black skirt with black tights, her Doc Marten boots, and a striking turquoise poncho-type top that showed off her tattoos when she took her coat off. She wore multiple piercings this morning.Both the men seemed fascinated by the look—especially Madoc.

  “Thanks for the invitation,” I said.

  Madoc tore his attention away from Toni and turned back to me. “Please, have a seat,” he offered. “I thought it might make sense for us to meet and clear up any misunderstandings.”

  “By all means,” I said. As soon as we were seated, I got down to business. “Without trying to be rude, why were your boys in our parking lot yesterday spying on us?”

  Madoc stared at me for a second. Perhaps he was impressed by my directness. He nodded.“Simple answer,” he said. “It was an unfortunate mistake on our part. The police department told us you were involved in the investigation of Thomas Rasmussen's suicide. We decided that before we offered our services to help, we wanted to find out who you were and what you were about. We were in the process of completing that background investigation when, apparently, our men got sloppy and allowed themselves to be identified. I wish to apologize again for the cloak-and-dagger routine. We’re usually better at it than that.”

  I was confused. “Did I hear you correctly? You said someone at the police department told you we were involved?”

  “Yes, that’s correct,” he said. He turned to Patel. “I’m afraid I’ve forgotten her name. Would you mind telling us who?”

  “Detective Inez Johnson,” Patel said.

  “Inez Johnson told you about us?” I asked, surprised.

  “Yes, Detective Johnson,” Madoc said. “Very nice woman—native of Antigua, as I recall. Please feel free to verify this with her.” Apparently, he could see the surprise in my eyes. “It’s nothing nefarious, I assure you,” he said. “We’d contacted Ms. Johnson a couple of weeks ago to see about the status of the case regarding the death of Thomas Rasmussen. As you probably know, we’d recently made an offer to Mr. Rasmussen to purchase certain technologies that his company had developed.”

  “The Starfire Protocol,” I said.

  He looked at me. “Exactly. As it so happens, the government regulators have no knowledge of me or any experience with me. We’ve never actually purchased technologies like this from a foreign company before. Since I am a British citizen—and one with which your Commerce Department has no prior dealings—they told Mr. Rasmussen that we were not approved and that it might take as long as a year to approve us.”

  He paused and looked at me. Then he smiled. “But I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, am I, Mr. Logan?”

  “I know that your company made an offer to purchase Starfire,” I said. “I don’t know the details, except, of course, that the deal never happened because Thomas died.”

  “Indeed,” he said. “That is correct. As I’ve explained, that particular deal could not have happened because the United States government prohibited it. Since Applied Cryptographic would not have been able to sell us the technology—even discuss it with us from a purely technical standpoint—we hoped to reopen discussions along the lines of acquiring an option on the technology. We were willing to offer Mr. Rasmussen a generous nonrefundable deposit in exchange for exclusive rights to purchase the technology—if we were to be approved within one year. If we were not approved—or even if we were approved and simply failed to deliver the fundswithin the year—then our option, and our deposit, would be forfeited. ACS would be able to keep it. We think it would have been a good deal for ACS, whether we performed or not.”

  “So why, then, did you need to talk to the police?” I asked.

  “Quite simple, really,” he said. “Just because Thomas is gone doesn’t mean we’ve lost our interest in acquiring the Starfire Protocol. As I said, we hoped to reopen discussions concerning our option proposal. The question was, whom should we talk to?
Normally, we’d speak to the business manager. If, on the other hand, that person had become a murder suspect, then it would be quite unwise to do so. I called the police for information. I eventually found my way to Detective Johnson, who apparently headed up the investigation. She informed us two days ago that the official ruling had been issued—that the official cause of death was a suicide. This was a relief, of course. She also told us that a private investigation firm—your firm—had been engaged by the family and was involved in double-checking the facts.”

  “And, knowing that,” Toni said, “your plan was to check us out first; then, if we passed muster, to offer to help us?”

  “Precisely,” he said. “I confess that our true intentions are quite mercantile. We wanted the Starfire Protocol before Mr. Rasmussen’s untimely death. We would still like to own it now. Accordingly, we’d like to be able to present our proposal to the appropriate person in the shortest timeframe possible—thus, our intentions of offering our assistance to you. Like I said, we simply wanted to do a little background investigation on you first. I apologize for our clumsiness.”

  The room was silent for a few seconds as we considered this information.

  “Another question,” Toni said. “How did you know where we’d be last night? How did you know that we’d be having our anniversary dinner at the Merchant’s Café?”

  Madoc looked puzzled. He turned to Patel.

  “We sent a man by your office late yesterday afternoon,” Patel said. “He was to have hand-delivered an invitation to meet. Instead, he found your office closed and a note on the door, apparently left for a delivery person. The note said your office was closed for a company party. I believe the note said the party was at the Merchant’s Café.”

  I turned to Toni and started to say “What?” She shrugged her shoulders. This came as a shock to both of us.