by David Linzee
Chapter 21
Renata missed the press conference. She left immediately after her interview, drove to Clayton Police Headquarters and asked to see Detective McCutcheon. To her surprise, there was no delay. The young detective with the spiky forelock came out to the desk. His manner was as bland as before. He led her into a big, bright room with four desks. The others were unoccupied.
As soon as they sat down she asked, “Did you get a call from Luis Reyes?”
McCutcheon nodded.
“Oh good!” She waited, but McCutcheon said no more. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“A man was seen walking away from the house … after my brother left. Just before Reyes and Bert found the body. What do you have to say about that?”
“Ms Radleigh, please don’t do that again.”
“What?”
“Don’t go around talking to the other witnesses in your brother’s case and pressuring them to change their stories.”
“I did not pressure him! I just asked a rather important question that you apparently forgot to ask.”
“You’re a family member of the suspect. You can’t go around questioning people. It could be considered witness tampering. There’s a law against that.”
“This is the second time you’ve threatened to throw me in jail.”
“Please don’t make this personal, ma’am. I have to file a report that goes to the primary investigator on this case, and the lieutenant, and maybe the prosecuting attorney. I’m warning you that any of those people might decide to charge you.”
“You’ve made up your minds my brother is guilty. You won’t consider any other possibility.”
“The investigation is ongoing.”
“Well, what are you going to do about Mr. Reyes’s call?”
“I reported it to the primary. I’ve suggested another canvass of the area. He’ll decide if it’s worth it.”
“If it’s worth it! A man was seen walking away from the house—”
“Mr. Reyes did not say that. He said a man was walking along the sidewalk, maybe fifty yards down from the house. And his description was pretty vague. Sorry.”
Renata sighed heavily. “You think I’m a rather pathetic case, don’t you, Detective?”
McCutcheon shook his head. “It’s natural for you to believe he’s innocent. He’s your brother. But leave the other witnesses alone, okay? If you want to help your brother, the best thing for you to do is go visit him.”
Chapter 22
In response to a breathless summons from his boss Diane, Peter Lombardo jogged down the hall to the conference room. Most of the medical writers were sitting at the long table, looking at a television atop a credenza. The screen showed the well-coiffed and well-dressed anchorpersons of the Channel 2 afternoon newscast sitting at their desk. Diane beckoned him to sit next to her.
“What’s going on?”
“Have you ever met Keith Bryson?”
“Stromberg-Brand’s venture capitalist? Never. I deal with Jayson, the obnoxious kid he has running the office at Amygdala.”
“Well, he’s in town.”
“Bryson? You’re joking.”
“Apparently Roger convinced him to speak up for Stromberg-Brand. He did a terrific job, Roger says. It should be on the newscast.”
The first story was about a drive-by shooting in north St. Louis. The second was Keith Bryson. The assembled flaks shook their heads over the anchor’s setup, which repeated all the unwelcome details of Stromberg-Brand’s murder. They cheered up when the poised and handsome Bryson appeared on screen, lambasting the double standard. As Bryson explained Helen’s vaccine, they murmured appreciatively. Making bioscience understandable to the public was their métier.
When Bryson ended with “… and the patient happily [BLEEP] them away,” the medical writers cheered.
Grinning, Diane asked, “What do you think he said?”
“ ‘Pisses,’ I expect.”
“And they censored that? In a medical context? What a bunch of prudes.”
“You could call Channel 2 and complain.”
“No. I’ll call Channel 5 and Channel 4 and dare them to run it uncut.” With a gleam in her eye, Diane headed back to her office. The other writers stretched and rose. As they filed out of the room, chatting, Peter reached for the remote to turn off the television.
The screen showed a head-and-shoulders shot of a beautiful woman with thick black hair and piercing blue eyes. She looked worried and tired. The caption “Renata Radleigh” came up. She was saying, “As far as I know, no one has suggested any reason, let alone a plausible one, why my brother would want Dr. Stromberg-Brand dead. The case is purely circumstantial.”
She was replaced by the anchorwoman, who said that Ms. Radleigh was appearing in the SLO production of Carmen, and that Donald Radleigh had been charged that morning and denied bail. Weather was up next. Peter clicked off. For a long moment, he stood staring at the blank screen.
Chapter 23
Visiting time at the county jail wasn’t as bad as Renata’s movie-fed imagination had led her to expect. It was pretty much like going to the airport: you waited in line, presented ID, submitted to a search, then sat on a hard chair in a noisy room, waiting to be called. She had plenty of time to think. More than she wanted, really.
Two hours ago, she had stood before the cameras and told the television viewers of St. Louis that her brother was innocent. An hour ago, she had talked with Detective McCutcheon, who plainly thought she was delusional. What was she to make of herself?
Renata was always willing to entertain any thought, as long as it was discomfiting. She made her living, such as it was, by pretending to be imaginary persons. Her business was make-believe. Had she made herself believe that Don was innocent?
Ordinarily she reproached herself for the opposite fault: for not being emotional and fanciful enough. Not that she could do anything about it. The life of an aging journeyman mezzo-soprano beat that out of you. It was all schedules and budgets and holding your tongue. Only successful singers could afford tantrums, tardiness, and other forms of self-indulgence.
So she was used to thinking. But it wasn’t true, was it? Yesterday morning, she had seen officers of the law doing their duty, arresting Don, and she had attacked them. She had waded into them swinging, with no more forethought or self-restraint than Lucia di Lammermoor. And within five seconds she was flat on the floor with her hands cuffed behind her.
Renata could feel herself smiling at the memory.
Now that was extraordinary. Regret and recrimination were her usual habits of thought. If she wasted four quid by helping herself to a drink from a hotel minibar, she would reproach herself for weeks afterward. If she made a candid remark to a slovenly makeup artist or forgetful chorister, she would remember it and cringe a hundred times. But she felt no urge to talk herself out of her pride at standing up for her brother. She would do it again.
If he’s a murderer, then I’m a fool, and I’d rather stay that way, Renata decided. Though she had another quarter hour to wait, she did not give the matter any more thought. Rarely did her mind grant her such peace.
At last her group was led into a long narrow room with a row of chairs on either side of a piece of furniture that was part table, part barrier. The chairs opposite were empty. They would not be able to embrace; in fact, a sign on the wall stated that touching was forbidden. So she would have to find words to console Don, whom she had not seen since his life was smashed up, possibly beyond repair.
Through a wired-glass window in a door in the opposite wall, she watched a group of prisoners being formed into a line by guards. They wore short-sleeved buttonless shirts and long baggy pants of some heavy tan material, with CO JAIL printed on their backs. Don’s blond head appeared, peering round the heads of the men in front of him. He grinned and waved as he saw her. When the guard opened the door, he bounded over to sit in the chair across from her.
“Renata, love, thanks fo
r coming!”
This was surprising and heartening. Don set great store by his social status and possessions, and now he had lost them, possibly forever. She assumed he would be dejected. But she tended to forget her brother’s good points. As a child he’d been a plucky little chap, cheerily facing up to the dental checkup or the first day of school, while his sister was moping and whingeing. She said that it was good to see him bearing up so well.
“I’ve been watching the afternoon news. We watch a lot of television in here. I saw what happened at SLO today.”
“Oh! Well, I simply told them what I believe, that you are innocent and will be cleared.”
“They interviewed you? Sorry, I missed that bit. I suppose one can’t expect them to give you much screen time when they have Keith Bryson. You were there? You saw him speak?”
“I saw him arrive. He was closeted with Bert and Congreve when I left. He gave a press conference, then?”
“It was absolutely splendid. He had those reporters in the palm of his hand. For starters, he’s giving us a gift, matching Helen’s. Three hundred thirty thousand is pocket change to Keith, of course, but it’s a wonderful thing for us. The timing is perfect.”
He would say Keith. She was willing to bet he’d never met Bryson. She straightened up and put her smile back on. Today, for once, she was not going to be irritated by her brother. “That is splendid.”
“He’s also neutralized bloody Bert. Reminded him which side his bread is buttered on, I expect. Best of all, he reminded people of what’s important about Helen—what a great scientist she was. He explained her discovery in terms even the great unwashed could understand.” Don was almost manic, bouncing around in his chair, gesturing with both hands. “He’s turned this whole thing round today. You watch.”
“That’s brilliant. But I … I’m not sure what you mean.”
“He’s put the, uh, our affair in proportion. People will stop talking about it now.”
“How will that—”
“Not that I’m looking for excuses. Don’t accuse me of that, Renata. I made a mistake. We’d been at SLO that afternoon. I’d shown her the sets and costumes. She had lunch with Phil and met Amy Song. She was a bit star-struck, which was fun to see. I drove her back to Clayton, but she simply didn’t want to cover the last two blocks to home. To bloody Bert. So we went to a little tapas bar on Central. Had a good deal more wine than tapas and, well, my judgment went out the window. We ended up in bed.”
“At the Five Gables. This was the day Bert was talking about on Saturday night?”
“Yes. Little did we know he was peeping in the keyhole, or whatever he was doing. The slimy bugger.”
“He said something rather odd this morning. To Phil. He said, ‘I know what happened in Chicago.’ ”
It was as if she had pulled the plug on a neon sign. All Don’s ebullience left him. “Chicago,” he repeated hollowly.
“Do you know what he was talking about?”
“When I was trying to talk them into making the gift, I noticed that the Lyric Opera was putting on Carmen. They’d never seen it, and I thought, they certainly should. Carmen will sell itself. It’s not like we were asking them to support Wozzeck. So I offered to take them to Chicago. Wine and dine them at a top restaurant, stay at the Palmer House Hotel. We agreed to meet at the airport.
“Only Helen showed up. Spitting mad that Bert had backed out at the last moment. What was I to do? Call the trip off?”
“You were alone together? What happened?”
He shrugged. “I took her to the opera, and afterward she signed the check. Carmen sold itself. I didn’t have to do anything, really.”
Renata stared hard at her brother’s averted face. Whenever Don said something modest, he sounded insincere. “She slept in her room; you slept in yours?”
“Yes, of course. I can’t help it if bilious Bert got ideas. We won’t have any more trouble with him now that Keith’s here.”
That was something else she was wondering about. Bryson had popped up at SLO, as prompt to his cue as the Devil in the first act of Faust. “Don, why is Bryson here, d’you think? Why would someone like that drop everything and fly to St. Louis?”
“Just watch the press conference. He and Helen were friends. You must have seen his TED talk about the potential of biomedical research. And there’s the money, of course.”
“That doesn’t matter to Bryson. He’s a billionaire.”
Don gave her one of his tolerant smiles. “One half of American women suffer from a UTI at some point. A quarter of the population. We’re talking about a market of almost a hundred million people for the vaccine. In the States alone. Even to the likes of Keith, that’s significant.”
Renata sat silent for a moment. A hundred million potential customers. And prescription drugs cost a fortune in America, as she was reminded every time she had to refill her anti-depressants. Not to mention that European women—herself, for instance—got UTIs too. The vaccine would be worth a stupendous sum.
Suddenly she was struck by an inchoate but potent insight. It wasn’t the opera and Don that had gotten Helen killed. It was, somehow, the vaccine and Bryson. The police were barking up the wrong tree.
One of the guards who had been walking back and forth behind the prisoners shouted, “Five minutes! You’ve got five minutes left!”
Don straightened up in his chair and smiled. “Don’t look so worried. There’ll be good news soon.”
“Don, what exactly do you expect Bryson to do for you?”
“Well … not him, not directly. But I have friends. SLO’s general counsel is representing me, remember. Dick Samuelson’s a Harvard man. College and law school. Very well-connected at the courthouse as well.”
His sandy eyebrows had disappeared under his blond forelock. He was smiling archly, the way he always did when he talked about his powerful friends. Renata was about to say that the Harvard man had failed to get him out on bail this morning, but she clamped her lips shut, reminding herself that she was here to cheer Don up. Not the opposite. But she was full of misgivings.
Chapter 24
Peter’s colleagues meant it when they praised the regular schedules of PR, compared to the long hours at a newspaper. Everybody bailed out promptly at 5 p.m. Heading for the elevator an hour later, he walked down a dim, quiet corridor.
The last few hours had been the busiest of his PR career. He had been fielding reporter queries about Dr. Stromberg-Brand’s vaccine non-stop. They were calling from all over the country. His boss Diane had looked in to tell him that there was more interest now than there had been when Stromberg-Brand first published her results in Nature. Such was the power of Keith Bryson. Peter had even taken a few calls from members of the public, UTI sufferers eager to know when the miracle vaccine would be in Walgreen’s. He had to tell them that FDA approval would take several more years.
Peter came to the elevator lobby but did not press the call button. The other half of the floor was the development department. Marian, the fundraiser who could tell him about the Sturm und Drang-Chase history, had an office farther down this corridor. He hesitated. Truth to tell, he was feeling a bit embarrassed about the glee he had felt stumbling on that grudge this morning. Working in PR, you tended to forget that the people and incidents you were writing about were real. Somebody really had broken Stromberg-Brand’s head with a crystal bowl. And Don Radleigh really was in jail, facing another twenty or thirty years behind bars.
Seeing the sister on TV was what had sobered him up. Her pale, lined face and intense blue eyes. Her swooping, emphatic English voice: “No one has suggested any reason, let alone a plausible one, why my brother would want Dr. Stromberg-Brand dead.”
She had a point: Radleigh and Stromberg-Brand had been cheating on her husband, and he’d found out, so the fundraiser was in big trouble. Killing her wouldn’t do him any good. But Peter had worked the crime beat in Springfield long enough to know that cops believed people in trouble didn’t think
straight. Anyway, cops were not that interested in motive. If they had enough physical and circumstantial evidence against Radleigh, they weren’t likely to put a lot of effort into developing other suspects. Should they?
Reluctantly Peter turned away from the elevator and proceeded down the hall. He was tired. With any luck, Marian would have gone home for the evening and he would shortly be behind the wheel of his car, headed for home and a gin and tonic.
Marian, one of the most senior people in development, was still at her desk. A small woman of sixty, she had short gray hair and big blue eyes behind horn-rim bifocals. She had a square chin she was in the habit of sticking out when she made a dry pronouncement about the state of the coffee in the office kitchenette, or the heat, or the tardiness of shuttle buses. All he knew about her was that she had an amusing style of complaining, but that in itself went a long way in office life.
She looked up and smiled. “Pete, come in. I’ve been meaning to send you an email.”
“What about?”
“You’re doing the Stromberg-Brand obit, right? Mrs. Blix might like to be quoted.”
“The obit has gone to Roger already. So the Blixes are still alive?”
“The widow is. Very gracious, ancient lady. She called this afternoon. Wanted to know if she should say something on the passing of her professor.”
“What would she like to say?”
“She didn’t know. Could you write up a few possibilities for her? I’ll call Roger now and explain.”
“Well, Marian, the thing is, Roger walked the obit straight over to the chancellor, and as soon as he approved it, Roger sent it out. I understand that he and the chancellor are currently unwinding with a drink.”
“Oh, if Roger is chez the chancellor, nothing else matters. I’ll mollify Mrs. B.”
“Was it you who talked her into giving the chair?” He thought this must have been a considerable feat. He didn’t know how much money it took, but the endowment had to be big enough to produce a six-figure annual income for the professor. An endowed chair was the top tier of academic heaven.