“So what is it you want to know?” asks Tash. “You do understand that if it has to do with our work here, I can tell you nothing.”
“What is it with you guys?” asks Harry. “Sooner or later you’re gonna be called to testify. If not by us, by Evan Tannery. What are you going to tell him when he asks you what you do here all day long?”
“We do genetics research,” says Tash.
“And what if he wants particulars?”
“Then he will be dealing with an army of university lawyers. I would imagine in conference in the judge’s chambers. That is what they call it? Chambers?” Tash looks at me.
I nod.
“They’re prepared to obtain court orders, from other judges, to protect the substance of our work if that becomes necessary. I believe that Mr. Tannery will ultimately be persuaded that the specific nature of our work is irrelevant to anything in this trial. If he persists, all that will happen is that he will delay a verdict.”
“The way you say that, it sounds like you don’t believe Dr. Crone is going to be acquitted,” I tell him.
“On the contrary. I don’t think they have a thing on him.”
“You haven’t been in court,” says Harry.
“You don’t sound terribly confident yourself,” says Tash.
“My confidence level when it comes to clients,” says Harry, “is in direct relation to the truths they tell us.”
“And you think Dr. Crone is lying to you?”
Harry doesn’t answer, except with his expression that says it all.
“Why don’t you start by telling us about Kalista Jordan and your boss? What kind of working relationship did they have?” I ask.
“Is that what you came here for?” says Tash. “You could have saved yourself the trip. I would have told you that over the phone. What do you think went on?”
“Why don’t you tell us?” I say.
“Actually it’s a very dull story. It was the typical problem you have in any organization. David Crone is brilliant. Kalista was ambitious.” He reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out an apple, shines it on the sleeve of his coat, and from the pocket on the other side takes a small Swiss Army penknife.
“What about the complaint?” I ask
“You mean the sexual harassment thing?”
I nod.
“I saw it. Reads like a fairy tale. The woman would have said anything to get ahead. She was claiming a hostile work environment. If there was any hostility in the office, she brought it with her when she came. Unless, of course, you think they were having an affair.” He looks up at me and smiles at the very thought. “Trust me, the only part of her David ever saw that was naked was her ambition, and he only saw that when it was too late.”
Methodically he opens the razor-sharp blade on the knife and just as quickly cuts the apple in half, then quarters it deftly with all the pieces in one hand.
“Was she after his job?” I ask.
“That and other things.”
“Other things?”
“The product of his work. The fruits of his labor.” He slices the skin off the apple with thin precision so that you can see the reflection of light through it as it lands on the desktop in front of him in curling sinews.
“The papers she took from his office?” I ask.
“That was part of it. And don’t ask me what they were, because I won’t tell you.” He hasn’t been looking at us for over a minute, concentrating on the apple.
“Of course not. We wouldn’t think of it,” says Harry.
“It’s not that she was above using sex to get ahead,” says Tash. “It’s just that she was an icicle. If she touched you, you’d get frostbite.” Listening to Tash describe her is like hearing an iceberg describing a cube. “And she knew how to manipulate the system.”
“What system is that?” asks Harry.
“The thought-control process that now passes for liberalism in higher education. And I’m not talking open-mindedness,” says Tash. “In the sciences you live in a political bunker. You constantly measure your words for fear that you might utter some political blasphemy that can end your career. Undergraduate courses are the worst. Fortunately for us, we don’t do any of that. Some of the students are like the Red Guard: ready to report you to the administration at the first sign that you’re not sufficiently inclined toward proper dogma. You can find yourself enrolled in a mandatory course of thought correction just to keep your job. Of course they call it ‘sexual harassment guidance’ or ‘minority sensitivity training.’ And they can never get too much women’s studies,” he says. “Today if you want to take a survey course in biology, you’re required to take Women’s Political Thought and Marxist Ideology as prerequisites. Jordan was into all that crap. She used it whenever it suited her needs. When David gave her a subpar evaluation after her first six months at the center, she had the regular roster of feminists calling the chancellor’s office to complain. She played the gender thing like a harp, and when the tune went sour she tried sexual harassment. You want my guess, she was working her way up the chain toward race discrimination when somebody did us all a favor.”
“Sounds like you didn’t like her,” says Harry.
“I didn’t. I told the police that when they asked me.”
Harry and I have seen this in the police reports, Tash’s statement the day after they arrested Crone.
“In some ways she was like many young women today. Focused on what she wanted.”
“Sounds like a lot of the men I know,” I tell him.
“Hardly,” says Tash. “The young men we see, even the best ones, are constantly distracted by the pursuit of sex. No, no. Most women of Ms. Jordan’s generation view that as simply one more gift, like brains, or grades or a good degree from a name university, just another arrow in their quiver. And they know how to use it.”
“Are you saying Jordan was loose around the office?” says Harry.
“I’m saying she was ambitious, to a fault.”
“Did she ever try to come on to you?”
Tash gives Harry a look as if this doesn’t merit an answer. “No. She was self-absorbed, arrogant and dishonest, and absolutely shameless in the pursuit of publicity. The university would hype her to the alumni in their publications. Dr. Crone was never mentioned, nor was anyone else at the center. You would think she worked here alone. I remember the blazing headline, DR. KALISTA JORDAN ON THE CUTTING EDGE OF THE HUMAN CELL. Her picture on the cover. She was not the slightest bit embarrassed or apologetic. As far as she was concerned, it was her due. She got the cover photo framed and hung it in her office. You would have thought it was the cover of Time.”
“We want you to be candid,” says Harry. “We wouldn’t want you to sugarcoat it.”
Tash grimaces at him. “You wanted to know what I thought, so I’m telling you. The fact is, I told David, Dr. Crone, not to hire her. He wouldn’t listen to me.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. You’d have to ask him.”
“No, I mean why did you tell him not to hire her?”
“Call it instinct. I sat in on the interview. There was just something that wasn’t right about her. Besides, I felt we could have had someone more qualified.”
“In her field?”
“That’s right.”
“And what was her field?” I ask.
“You know very well.” Tash looks at me for the first time. “Molecular electronics.”
“Which is?” says Harry.
“If I’m going to do all your homework, I’m going to want a consulting fee,” says Tash.
“How about we just put you on the stand as a percipient witness and ask you?” says Harry.
Tash gives him a look, nothing you could call friendly. “It’s a new field. Basically, it involves the use of atoms and molecules to replace more conventional transistors in electronics.”
“And how does that fit into genetics?”
“It holds promise for medical scien
ce,” says Tash. “And that’s all I’m going to say on the subject.”
“Fine. Tell us about Jordan and Dr. Crone?” I ask.
“What do you want to know?”
“What was she like when she first came to work here?”
“She was personable. She seemed eager to get along. Worked long hours. She was often here when I closed up.”
“By herself?”
“Sometimes.”
“How well do you know David Crone?” says Harry.
“As well as anyone here at the Center. We’ve worked together, let’s see”—he looks up at the ceiling tiles—“I guess it’s going on fifteen years now.”
“Did he and Dr. Jordan socialize at all, outside the office?”
“No.”
“You seem pretty sure,” says Harry.
“I am. Outside of work they had nothing in common. Different types completely.”
“In what way?” I ask.
“She was a social climber, into cultivating friends who could do her some good, move her career forward. David hated that crap. You couldn’t get him to attend a chancellor’s function, a dinner or cocktail party if his life depended on it.”
“Maybe he had a secret side? A life you didn’t know about?”
“If he did, it didn’t involve Kalista Jordan. As far as I know, all their contacts were here at the Center. I don’t think either of them even knew where the other lived.”
“Still, there must have been some social interaction between the people who worked here,” says Harry. “I mean, a drink after work? Christmas parties? Beer and pizza? Something to celebrate, a birthday party, new breakthrough in whatever it is you do here?”
“Oh, sure.”
“But you never saw Dr. Jordan or Dr. Crone socializing?” I ask.
“Not in the way you mean,” says Tash. “They were sociable, at least in the beginning. What you would expect of professional people. They would talk, chat.”
“About what?”
“Who knows what people talk about? Hobbies. Work.”
“What kind of hobbies?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t pay that much attention. David played tennis. I don’t think she did.”
“But at some point the relationship deteriorated?” I say.
“Yes.”
“And when was that?”
Tash thinks for a moment, scans the ceiling with his eyes as if the answer is printed there. “I think it was about a year ago last May.” He is now nibbling at the edges of a quartered and peeled apple.
“David told me that he’d had a problem with Kali. He called her Kali.”
“Was that usual? Did he call other people by their first names or use nicknames?”
“Sometimes.”
“Who?” says Harry.
Tash thinks for a moment. He can’t come up with anyone else off the top of his head. It’s an issue to stay away from if we can when he’s on the stand.
“And the problem?” says Harry.
“She had taken some papers from David’s office, without his knowledge. He knew she had taken them because someone saw her do it.”
“Who?”
“I don’t remember, but it wasn’t important, because Jordan admitted it. She told David that she needed the papers to complete some of her work. He was furious. He told her that if she wanted something from his office, she should have asked him for it. They had an argument, here in his office.”
“Were you present?” says Harry.
“No.”
“Did anybody else see or hear this argument?”
“See it, no. Hearing is another matter,” says Tash.
I look at him from the corner of one eye.
“Voices travel,” he says. “Walls are thin.”
“And what did you hear?”
“Bits and pieces,” he says. “Snarling and snapping. Mostly from Kalista. Dr. Jordan. We all knew there had been a problem between them, but I didn’t know the precise nature until Dr. Crone told me.”
“And what did he tell you?” I ask.
“That she’d taken papers from his office.” We are now back to where he started. Tash has a satisfied look, as if pleased by the fact that he’s given nothing we didn’t already know.
“Did he threaten her?” says Harry.
“Excuse me?”
“During this argument, did Dr. Crone threaten Dr. Jordan?”
“Did somebody tell you that?”
“Just answer the question,” says Harry.
“You mean threaten with violence?”
Harry nods.
Tash finds the question humorous. “Oh, I’m sure she often felt threatened, but it wasn’t by violence.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Let’s put it this way. If there were two people at any meeting and Kalista was one of them, she usually wasn’t the most competent person in the room. Her problems with Dr. Crone came down to insecurity.”
“How so?”
“David wanted to get rid of her. Dismiss her. It took him about a month to realize she was in over her head. She knew it. That’s what the sexual harassment thing was all about. She figured if she filed the complaint, it would be more difficult to fire her. But the fact is, she couldn’t do the job. Her work had been substandard almost from the day she joined us. She’d come to work late and go home early. Wouldn’t show up for meetings. There’s no doubt in my mind she felt threatened by the people around her. Their quickness and superior intelligence. She simply didn’t fit in.”
This doesn’t jibe with what we have been told of her work ethic by others.
“Well, one thing’s for sure,” I tell him.
“What’s that?” says Tash.
“Kalista Jordan’s arms and legs weren’t severed by a sharp wit or piercing intellect.”
This only draws a stone-cold look.
“He would have never threatened her. David doesn’t operate that way. He is very controlled. Everyone will tell you this. The fact is, I’ve never seen him lose his temper. He may have been upset. But even when he’s upset, David tends to be understated.”
“And you heard all this understatement,” says Harry, “from behind a closed door?”
“Mostly her voice,” says Tash. “Some people have that irritating nasal thing. You know what I mean? She had a voice that tended to carry.”
“So you only heard one side of the argument?” says Harry.
Tash concedes the point.
“Without divulging the contents or precise nature of these papers, how important were they?” I ask.
Tash thinks about this for a moment, and measures his answer. “What I can tell you is that our work here is quite compartmentalized. Different members of the staff work on different aspects of any project. It is designed so that their knowledge and responsibility are limited. Only the project director would be in a position to know how all the elements fit together.”
“And that would be Dr. Crone?”
“Correct.”
“So what you’re telling us is that these papers taken from Dr. Crone’s office allowed Dr. Jordan to know more about how all the pieces of the project fit together than she was authorized to know?”
Tash snaps his fingers, still moist with apple juice. “You got it.”
“And this created a big problem?” I ask.
“In a word, yes. How big it was I will leave for others to determine. You have to understand that confidentiality in our work is paramount. There’s a great deal of competition, patent rights and sizeable sums of money at stake. It’s the reason for all the security.”
“Yeah, we noticed it at the door,” says Harry.
“First impressions can be deceiving,” says Tash. “If you tried to get into any of our computers, you would find it more difficult than invading the Pentagon. There are multiple passwords for every level of access and a firewall guarding the entire system from the outside.”
“And yet Kalista Jordan was able to
walk out of Dr. Crone’s office with sensitive materials.”
“He didn’t think she would steal things.”
“Do you know whether Dr. Jordan passed these papers or the information on them to anyone else?”
“How would I know? She could have sold the information to a competing lab for all I know.”
“Do you have reason to believe that’s what happened?”
“As I said, I don’t know. And I really shouldn’t be discussing this stuff with you.” He’s talking about the center’s work product.
“One last question,” I say. “If Dr. Crone was the genetics expert and Dr. Jordan was in charge of molecular electronics, who was in charge of the other aspects of the project?”
He considers for a moment, weighs whether he will answer a question that can easily be sorted out by reference to an organizational chart. Tash knows this and so he answers: “That would be Bill Epperson.”
“Nanorobotics, right?”
Tash doesn’t say a word.
chapter
ten
harry and I are alone, mired in our differing assessments of Tash and his story of the moment as the elevator doors slide closed behind us.
It is difficult to get a clear picture of Kalista Jordan. Everyone seems to have a different take, perceptions being what they are. According to Tash, she was a self-serving viper lying in wait.
Harry’s view is that Tash might be useful. “It may be our best defense. Putting the woman herself on trial.” Harry is talking about Kalista Jordan.
This is not a novel approach in criminal cases where defamation of the dead seems to thrive. Raise enough eyebrows in the jury box, and murder can become a victimless crime.
“The question is whether Tash’s take on her is accurate. An African-American woman and a high achiever, someone with the title of doctor in front of her name. There’s certainly nothing in her background that looks bad on paper,” I remind him.
“You’re thinking there was some jealousy on Tash’s part?”
“There is that possibility. She may have been ambitious, but that’s not a crime. We take off after her, and we’re going to alienate every woman on the jury. That’s just for starters. We haven’t even begun to consider the issue of race.”
“You think our friend Tash was troubled by the color of the woman’s skin?”
The Jury Page 13