HD66: Search for a cure or a killer?

by Babs Carryer

  I walk to the bus stop. My Prius is in the shop and I like to take the bus when I can. It makes me feel like I am doing something to help. I trip in a sidewalk hole and hurt my wrist catching myself. I have a spot on my tan pants now too. I’ll have to download the PathVu app that maps sidewalks. I recall that the inventor is a friend of Errol’s from Centre who had recently formed a startup to commercialize the app.

  What about the Middle East trips, I ponder, as I rub my wrist? What could he have been doing over there? I shiver in the brisk late-March morning. The bus passes me with a splash from a puddle. Now I have dirt AND water on my pants.

  I think back to Popov Brothers and my conversation with Boris. It’s never been clear how Errol knew them. Had he met them, one or two, or all of them, during the trip to Russia? Why didn’t he like them, and why did he have such a hissy fit when we were considering them as investors? How did Boris end up at Quixotic for that matter? A bit too coincidental. I recall that I have the number that Boris left me. Now, where did I put it? I run into a tree while I am fishing in my purse. My nose is scraped. I find the scrap of paper. Then I dig through the outside pockets for my phone. I drop the scrap of paper, which blows away. I run. And trip.

  Finally, I dial Boris’s number. The phone rings and then I hear a generic voicemail. I leave a short message to call me back. I don’t even know if that is still his number. If he was running from something, then he might have changed his phone number again. Maybe we were too quick to let Popov Brothers off the hook? I’ve got to talk to Jim. He’ll know what to do. I swing open the door to the new Tazza D’Oro in Shadyside to get an Italian cappuccino. I need to change my life.

  Chapter 31

  March 30

  It’s the middle of the night. I’m restless. Neal is peacefully asleep, but I sneak out to my kitchen to make myself a cup of tea. Checking my email, I see that I got a response from the second licensing officer involved in the UMass Stronghold license. She’s willing to talk to me and gives me a date and time. I email back that I can make the time. Which is actually today, I realize. We’re confirmed for the call at 8 a.m. That’s hours away. I’m asleep on the couch when my phone buzzes me awake at 7 a.m.

  “Neal?”

  “Hey babe, where are you?” I go in to get my share of love for the day.

  “Oh dear,” I jolt awake at 7:55. “Sorry, Neal. I have a call. It’s important.” I stumble to the kitchen and my computer. A few minutes later my cellphone rings. It’s her, Jane Lutrell, the former licensing officer, now a staff member at a Boston-based technology incubator. The conversation is short. She can’t remember very much, and she is no longer in tech transfer. She tells me that the first licensing officer went on maternity leave half-way through the deal, and Jane took over for her colleague. What she could remember was that it was a “complex deal that was very hard to close and keep all the parties happy.”

  “What do you mean by complex?” I ask.

  “Well, there was some conflict amongst the inventors as I recall. Some kind of dispute as to who was an inventor, and who was entitled to do what. Our job was to keep our constituents happy, which meant all of our faculty, so we didn’t take sides. I don’t remember how this got resolved exactly – I remember a yelling match between several faculty members, a woman was one of them I recall. The company, the startup Code something-or-other, had put an ultimatum on the table. They forced it to conclusion.” She pauses and sighs. “I saw everything in tech transfer. The ugly side of researchers and human conflict. I don’t remember the details of the deal. I think that eventually the university made some money from it. But I was gone shortly afterwards.”

  “Do you know what happened to any of the faculty involved? Did they join the company, stay at the university?” I ask.

  “Well that part was kind of interesting. I remember that the woman faculty member died in a tragic car accident. The timing was weird because it changed immediately who we were dealing with. I mean one day there was all this fighting. Then someone was dead, and it got a lot simpler real quick. I remember now because it was just as I was leaving. I do remember that the one guy, this really loud, kind of obnoxious faculty member – had a name that suited his style, I remember, Strongloud or something like that – he quit the university and went with the company. I always thought that was a bit strange; it’s hard for a university researcher to make the transition to a startup, but some do. And he didn’t start out that way. That happened, I don’t know, maybe after the accident? This guy had a personality that I thought would clash with others. Oh well. Go figure. Why the company wanted him I don’t know. Maybe he brought something with him other than university technology and know-how? I don’t know what happened to him after that. I got sour on the TTO front, you know. It was difficult to do deals in the first place. On top of that most of the professors weren’t living in the real world. It’s so isolated there. Amherst is in the middle of…” I think she was going to say “nowhere,” but her good manners got the better of her.

  “Yes,” I told her. “I’m from Amherst so I know how ‘nowhere’ it is.”

  “Yeah,” she responded. “Anything else I can help you with?” This was a signal that the conversation was ending. I made sure that I could contact her if I needed to.

  …….

  Later that day, March 30

  The conversation with Justin Cheray, the ex-CodeGenetics guy that had returned my LinkedIn message, was not much more helpful. Jim was listening in on the call. No one else knew what I was doing, and Jim was the only one I trusted besides Straler. I didn’t know the guy directly from my Carnegie Mellon days. But he was from Pittsburgh, raised in the South Hills, a typically boring suburb of Pittsburgh, did his undergraduate work at CMU in bioengineering, a master’s at Pitt in the same field, and then interned at CodeGenetics, an opportunity which turned into a job. His profile says he stayed only three years before moving away to get an MBA in New York. Not bad credentials, I thought as I was dialing his number. His email had told me that he’s now at a Philadelphia-based startup in genetic sequencing.

  He doesn’t mince words about Stronghold once I ask a couple of leading questions. “He was a class-A asshole,” he tells me within the first few minutes of the conversation.

  “Tell me more.”

  “I mean he came into the company apparently with all this intellectual property,” he goes on. “Had patents from the university and all that. But he had no idea about product, about commercialization. He tried to show us all how smart he was, but in a startup environment you don’t really care about smarts. You care about action. You’re in a startup, right? You get this, eh?” Justin pauses for breath.

  “Yeah, I totally get that.”

  He continues, “I was a first-timer myself, so I didn’t know much then. But I’ve been in startups since then, and now I know that there is no place for assholes like Stronghold. Well, except for VCs – they’re all assholes.” I start laughing. “What’s funny?” he asks.

  “Nothing. Just someone I knew said that about VCs.”

  “Yeah, well it’s true.”

  “I agree. Why did the company keep him on?” I ask, trying to forget.

  “I have no fucking idea,” Justin replies. “They had a strange relationship,” he continues. “At the top. Those guys at CodeGenetics were always meeting in the conference room, and they never seemed to call Stronghold out on anything. It was like, I don’t know, like he had something on them, some sort of trump card.”

  “Any idea what that card was?”

  “No idea. I think the core patents were his, and he had his fingers in a lot of the technical pies at the company. I doubt they could have gotten rid of him without him making a big stink. He had a terrible temper, and a lot of people went through the company. Meaning they didn’t stay long, either because of their choice or his. I don’t know because I didn’t work for him, but you could hear him yell a lot. One woman sued, I think, saying that he threatened her or something. I don’t know
the outcome of that…” He pauses and then continues. “I know a guy who stayed at the company after I left and saw it through a couple of the mergers. Made a little bit of money and ended up out in Silicon Valley at his own startup. He may know more if you want to talk to him. Stewart Cohen is his name, a nice guy. Goes by Stu. I don’t stay in touch much with him, but I think I can get ahold of him if you like.”

  “Yes, please,” I answer.

  After the call, Jim and I sit for a moment. His brow is furrowed, and I can tell he is struggling with all of this. “Jim?” I ask. “This may be a stretch, but clearly this guy is difficult. It’s awfully coincidental that Errol’s advisor dies in a car crash and then Stronghold alone gets a license.”

  Jim clears his throat and replies, “Brie, it sounds like this guy is a complete asshole.” I can’t help myself. I laugh.

  “What’s funny?” Jim asks.

  “Nothing. Just a lot of people say that about other people.”

  “Well, Stronghold sounds like an asshole, but I don’t know that he is the kind of guy who murders to get what he wants.” Jim finishes.

  He was right; it probably didn’t add up that an executive at a public company would murder not just once but twice. And even if he did, why Errol? Why now? It’s been years since the UMass incident. What could trigger any issues now?

  Jim leaves to go about Quixotic business. I muse for a while in my office, make a few notes, and get on with other things. I still have a job to do.

  …….

  That night, sitting on my terrace mourning my grandmother’s pearls as I sip chardonnay from one of her cut crystal glasses, I think about where this is taking me. I sip my wine, admiring the many facets of the crystal. Arwen is playing with a new cat toy that Neal had brought her. My cellphone rings; it’s Amy.

  “Brie, I’m sorry I hung up the last time we talked. I just couldn’t handle it, you know.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Amy. I understand.”

  “Look, I didn’t mention this before, but you asked about Stronghold. I know that Errol always believed that Martin Stronghold was involved in the car accident, that it wasn’t actually an accident.” There is a long silence.

  “Amy, do you know why he thought that? Did he have any proof, any evidence, was it just a hunch?”

  I hear her snort, a kind of derisive dismissal. I used to hear her make the same sound at company picnics and social functions. But it was a happier sound then. “It was way more than a hunch. We didn’t discuss this more than once or twice. The first time was before we were married. We had gone on vacation to San Francisco. We had chartered a sailboat for the day, and you should have seen Errol at the tiller. It was a great day of heeling and salt spray. I asked him how he was. ‘Soaking wet and perfectly happy,’ was his reply. I was freezing when we got back and we jumped into the first bar we found. It was in North Beach, I remember. We started drinking even though it was still afternoon. We were doing malt scotch with beer chasers. I got really drunk, and Errol thought it was hilarious. You know how he was. He accused me of being a lightweight, and I started harassing him about his past in deep, dark liberal Amherst. I mentioned something about his having to have a female advisor/principal investigator because the men were all gay. I wasn’t serious; God knows I am a feminist for heaven’s sake, and I was just inventing everything for fun, but something that I said about Sall, his PI, really set him off. He started on about how it wasn’t an accident and that Stronghold had been threatening her. I asked him how he knew, and he said that Sall told him that Stronghold was following her, sending her threatening letters, or maybe it was emails. He got a call from her shortly before the accident. Errol was convinced that it wasn’t an accident.”

  “Did he go to the police with his accusations?” I ask.

  “Yes, of course, he did, but you know how it’s a really small town, and their guy was the Dean’s brother, something like that. Errol knew everyone, you know Amherst. I guess the cop’s dad was a policeman too, and his uncle was Mayor, all that kind of stuff. The allegations didn’t go anywhere. Errol had to move on. But he never forgot.”

  There is a pause as I take all this in. I’m scribbling notes and my glass is empty. “Was there another time that he talked about Stronghold and his conviction that Sall’s accident wasn’t an accident?” I pour myself a refill. I should save some for Neal. He’ll accuse me of being a lush…

  “Yes, one other time. It was recent. I guess it had to do with the deal with Quixotic. Errol was aware that Stronghold was at NGX. In fact, he was the lead on the deal, Errol told me. At first, Errol was against the deal; knowing Errol, you probably witnessed some resistance at the office?”

  I nod, and then realize that she can’t see me. “Yeah, I remember, all right,” I slurred, remembering his outbursts.

  “Well, something happened that turned him around. He said something about getting one over on Stronghold. Something about him not getting what he wanted. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but now I wonder if it had something to do with, you know…” she trails off unwilling to say the word.

  I don’t blame her. Her pain is still visceral. It is the same for all of us, and I can only imagine her lonely nights and mornings. Errol was a giant in so many ways. How do you fill a hole that big?

  “Brie?” she interrupts my thoughts, “Do you think that Errol really did piss Stronghold off so much that he would, that he would kill him?”

  “I don’t know, Amy. I really don’t know.” I pause as Arwen scampers inside. I follow her, slowly closing my sliding glass door. My apartment is deathly quiet. “But I intend to find out.”

  “You won’t do this alone will you?” she says anxiously. “Like New York. I don’t want anything to happen to you…”

  “Don’t worry, Amy. We’ll tackle this as a group. I am going to talk to Jim tomorrow. And I promise to meet with the detective too. He’s new at this, but he’s good. He’ll be essential in figuring this out.”

  “OK,” Amy sighs. She sounds exhausted. I hear a door slam in the background and a passel of high-pitched hallos. “Oh, the kids are just home; my goodness, it’s 10 p.m. I have to go.”

  I drain my glass thinking that Amy has a lot to deal with. “I’ll keep you informed. Don’t worry.”

  “Thanks, Brie. You’re a gem. You know that, don’t you? He thought so too.”

  “I hope so,” I reply. But she has already put down the phone. I realize that I didn’t get a chance to tell her that the university has no record of any conferences or events that would take Errol to Saudi Arabia in January or March. Where’s his passport, I wonder? I make a note to ask Amy for his passport. One more thing. Would it reveal anything else that I don’t know?

  Chapter 32

  March 31

  I sleep fitfully and wake up at 4 a.m. I make myself coffee. Plain Peet’s coffee, not Italian Cappuccino. Sitting in my kitchen I start writing on the white board and giving my liver a rest by drinking tea. Neal laughs at me for having a white board in my kitchen, but it’s great for scheduling, for reminders, for figuring out thorny problems – like solving a murder.

  Errol thought that Stronghold murdered his PI but could never prove it. Of course, that meant a life-long, life-sized grudge. When it came time to doing a deal with NGX, Errol was against it because he didn’t want to do anything that would benefit Stronghold or his company. But Errol came around, which means that he must have figured something out. Some stunt that he could pull that would screw Stronghold in the long run. What exactly was it? Did it have to do with how Stan structured the deal? I remember Errol’s Cheshire cat grin when the deal was sealed.

  …….

  Errol looked like he had just won at squash.

  “What NGX doesn’t get,” Matt explained at our weekly on-the-same-page meeting “is everything outside of HD66, including the other earlier stage drugs in our pipeline. They don’t realize how much we have, how far along those programs are.”

  Stan added quietly,
“They’ll figure it out eventually.” He glanced at Errol.

  Errol put on a Buster Keaton deadpan face.

  “We got them,” Gigi said, laughing, her dark eyes glinting. “We got them sooo good. I just wish I could be there and see their faces when they realize…” She smiled brightly at Errol who beamed.

  Ah, this is how you spell revenge.

  …….

  I call Straler before I leave for the office. No answer. I am done with playing it safe. At 9 a.m. Matt, Jim, Gigi, and I convene in the conference room with the door closed. “You’ll need some strong coffee,” I announce. They looked surprised. Jim chuckles and immediately goes out. A few minutes pass and he comes back with a tray and cups of coffee. All done exactly how we like it. I smile at him and he smiles back. Complicity.

  As they sip their coffee, I drop the bomb, “We know that there was someone else on the boat that night.” The bomb explodes.

  “There was?” gasps Gigi. She drops her cup.

  “Yes, we do. I visited Captain Bob at the lock. He’s sure that he saw a second person. Stra… Detective Henrik validated this too.” There is a pregnant pause. “That’s why we’re done suspecting; I know that this is a murder case.” Matt’s brow furrows. “And I intend to solve it.”

  There is stunned silence. “To be clear, N, A, S and U are gone.” I add in a low voice. “It’s H. Whoever did this will go to jail.” I let this sink in. I tell them of my conversation with Amy, and my findings from my research about Stronghold. I don’t leave anything out. I can tell that they’re uncomfortable with what I am insinuating. I finish. They look at me.

  “Stronghold has motive.”

  “Shit!” Matt exclaims. “That’s brilliant!” He starts laughing. We all sit there, a bit shocked. Obviously, Matt agrees. “You’re right. Stronghold hated Errol. He wanted to take HD66 and what Errol was developing for Parkinson’s. It was about retribution for him. We had no way of knowing that Errol was outsmarting him. Do you remember how Errol fought to have only HD66 in the deal and how carefully we worded the exclusions in the contract? It was so slick they didn’t even notice. I mean we thought we got one over on NGX.”