by Ken Brigham
Shane supposed that the secretary had identified him to the sheriff before putting the call through since Shurf Tisdel didn’t seem to need an explanation from Shane.
“I need some information about a previous resident of Greensward.”
“Who?” Teasdale interrupted. “If it’s anybody who’s lived in Greensurd in the past thirty years, it’s likely I know’d ’em.”
“The person’s name is Elizabeth Anne Reid.”
“Archie’s kid,” the sheriff answered immediately. “Archie raised her here, but she got out soon as she could manage.”
Shane continued, “Can you tell me anything about her before she left?”
“Not too much to tell. Archie and her moved here from somewhere back east when she was a tyke. Just her and him. Archie never talked about the kid’s mother; at least if he did, I didn’t hear about it. Archie was a lawyer, a dee-fense lawyer. He set up shop here and did pretty well for himself for a lot of years gettin’ crooks off light. Did’n give a good goddam if they did it or not. Just aimed at getting ’em off as light as he could. He was good at it.”
“Did you know him well?
“Well enough. We was on different sides of most things, me being law enforcement and him seeing the law as somethin’ to be worked around instead of obeyed. We both did our jobs but they was different jobs and came up against one another most of the time.”
“And Elizabeth, his daughter?”
“Elizabeth was a cute kid. Good student. Kept to herself a lot. That was specially true after the accident.”
“Accident?”
“It was sad, but I guess turned out OK. She fell out of a tree when she was about fifteen, I’d guess. Broke her leg. The big bone in her thigh. Nasty break. Right leg I recall. Had to go to Houston for some surgeries, and she was laid up for quite a while. Archie paid to have one of them physical therapists to come down from Houston and live in town for a few months to help the poor girl get over it. She was a trooper, though. Seemed determined to get straightened out. Did too.”
“Turned out OK?”
“Well better’n that, I guess. After she got her leg workin’ again, she took up runnin’. Ran all over the place. I’d see her ever mornin’ on my way in. And when she went off to TCU to college, she ran cross-country races. Word was she won some trophies and stuff for the horny toads.”
Shane smiled. He was aware that the TCU athletic teams were known as the horned frogs, which was amusing enough, but horny toads conjured up something different and perhaps more appropriate for teams of adolescents with surging hormones.
Teasdale continued, “I don’t think she was ever perfect after the accident, though. When you’d see her runnin’ around here, she still had a little hitch in her gitalong even after a lot of years went by.”
“What about after college? Did she return to Greensward?” Shane asked.
“Not really,” the sheriff answered. “Even when she was in college, she was pretty scarce around here. Her and her daddy never did seem close. Oh, he taught her to shoot and he’d take her huntin’. He loved guns, collected some goddam expensive ones that he’d take out to the woods and show his daughter how to shoot. Seemed to me like he wanted her to be a boy, and she tried to do it but couldn’t ever be the kid he really seemed to want. So seemed to me that once she went off to college, she had left this town pretty much for good. And after that, she moved off to Houston, I think to get some kinda advanced degree. Never came back. But by then Old Archie was fading fast and maybe she just did’n want to be around to see it. Cain’t say as how I blame her for that. Twern’t a pretty sight.”
“So you never saw her again after she moved to Houston?”
“Yep, that’s pretty much right. Well, ’cept when Archie kicked the bucket, which was way past due when it happened. Archie’s timing never was any good. Elizabeth showed up then, claimed his stuff and got him buried.”
“His stuff?”
“Not a hell of a lot, considerin’. The house in town got sold to pay for Archie’s stay in the nursin’ home. He was there for a few years, just rottin’ away. It cost a pretty penny to stay in them kinda places. But he had to be somewhere, I guess. She got his guns, but sold ’em off to the locals ’cept for the antique pistols. They seemed to mean somethin’ to her and she packed ’em up and took ’em off to Houston with her. Prob’ly ’bout the only thing she kept of his. It was pretty sad, the whole thing. I wad’n no great fan of Archie Reid but his dyin’ was sadder than dyin’ oughtta be.”
“Just one other question, sheriff,” Shane said, “Do you have any idea where she is now?”
“Not really,” Teasdale answered, then paused. “Guess she’s still in Houston. Word was, and there weren’t much news that I heard anyway. Word was that she got a degree in somethin’ that got her a job at the university. And a few years ago when Sadie Griswold had her stroke and Alford took her up to the stroke center in Houston, Sadie came back sayin’ she heard that Elizabeth Reid was workin’ there. Seems now I remember, that some nurse or technician or somebody told Sadie that the Reid woman from Sadie’s hometown had stirred up some gossip there. Something bout takin’ up with a married man. Big city gossip oughtta be better’n that, dontcha think? Hell, nothin’ like that’s surprisin’ anymore, even in a town no bigger’n Greensurd, y’know?”
“That’s certainly true, Mr. Teasdale,” Shane said, then, “Thank you very much for talking with me sheriff, you’ve been a great help.”
“Yer welcome, son,” Sheriff Bubba Teasdale responded. “Hensley, was it?”
But Shane had already hung up. He had taken notes during the conversation and was looking them over and jotting in additional items that he had missed getting down as they spoke. Hardy Seltzer was due In Printers Alley shortly and Shane wanted to have his notes organized so that he could share the information with Hardy. Shane was also very anxious to discover what Hardy had been able to learn about Elizabeth Reid’s life in Houston and wherever she currently resided.
Hardy Seltzer would arrive in Printers Alley, but he would not be there at the agreed-upon time. That was indirectly the fault of three people—the lawyer X Coniglio, the DA, and a freelance news reporter who occasionally wrote stories for the morning paper. Hardy’s delay was more directly the fault of the chief of police who, ignoring the formal chain of command, had summoned Hardy to his office on a moment’s notice and grilled him at some length about where he and Shane Hadley were with their investigation of the mystery woman whom Shane thought was Bonz Bagley’s real killer.
When Shane entered the chief’s office, his boss confronted him with a copy of the morning newspaper. It was a headline on the front page of the paper below the fold. The story under the headline, Metro Detective Botched Bagley Murder Case, didn’t really deliver on the headline’s claim, but it did accuse Hardy Seltzer by name of wrongful procurement of a gun that the DA claimed was the murder weapon and of illegally interrogating the accused murderer, Jody Dakota, well outside the geographic boundaries of Davidson County and thus outside the force’s legal jurisdiction. The chief held up a copy of the paper to Hardy immediately on Hardy’s entering the office. He hadn’t seen it before.
“Apparently,” the chief said, “X Coniglio is determined to dismantle the DA’s case against Dakota and do it in view of the widest public audience that he can possibly attract.”
“Why do you think its X’s doing?” Hardy asked.
“Look at the source,” the chief responded. “The article says it’s based on exclusive information from ‘a source very highly placed in the Bagley case investigation.’ Assuming that wasn’t you or the DA himself, neither of whom I take to be masochistic, it has to be X. X has been determined from the outset to try this case in the media and to make it a trial of the Metro police department as well. My guess is that this is the first salvo with a lot more to follow. This could get a lot worse, Hardy. Apparently X has the ear of whoever this reporter is, and X is off and running. Of course, if the DA
’s case starts to fall apart, the sonofabitch would be delighted to shift the blame to the police department. And X is stalling, doing everything he can to delay the trial. The DA isn’t going to get Jody Dakota before a jury of his peers for a lot longer time than the DA had hoped.”
The chief then asked Hardy for all of the information he had on the investigation that he and Shane Hadley were pursuing, and he told the chief everything he knew. But there wasn’t much more than interesting nodes of facts without enough hard connections between the nodes to support a complete story. Still a lot of speculation involved. However, Hardy outlined the direction they were taking and made a sincere effort to sound more optimistic than he actually felt.
When Hardy was finished, the chief said, “I must tell you, Hardy, that I’m getting some pretty fierce pressure from higher up. If this personal attack on you in the media persists, I may be forced to put you on leave until it gets sorted out. I don’t want to do that, but it could be necessary. If so, I hope you’ll understand. In the meantime, go after the mystery woman with everything you’ve got. In the unlikely event that you can develop evidence that unequivocally incriminates someone other than Jody Dakota as Bonz’s killer, the department could still come out of this smelling pretty good. In that case, we’ll just have to hope like hell that the real killer doesn’t hire that grandstanding sonofabitch, X Coniglio.”
So by the time Hardy Seltzer was greeted from the Printers Alley balcony by Shane’s habitual, “Hi-ho, Hardy my man,” the detective was in less than a positive mood. What he had been able to discover about Elizabeth Reid in Houston did little to combat the effects of the morning’s meeting with the chief. Hardy wasn’t especially anxious to reveal the disappointing results of his effort to Shane.
“Just let me in, Shane,” was Hardy’s curt response.
Shane did not answer but disappeared through the French doors into the flat. Hardy went through the routine—the buzz of the electronic door latch, the unmanned elevator door opening suddenly before him—Open Sesame—and then ejecting him on the second floor into Shane’s apartment.
“Allow me to suggest, Hardy, my man,” Shane said, gesturing the detective to sit on the sofa that fronted the fireplace, “a remedy for your obviously dark mood that I can guarantee from personal experience over many years, will dispel your demons of darkness.”
“I don’t want any sherry, Shane,” Hardy replied.
“I have found, my man,” Shane responded, “that forming opinions about a thing without experiencing it is a course that is bound to deprive one of many of life’s pleasures. Do you not think that a reasonable conclusion?”
“Just give me a glass of the goddam wine,” Hardy replied.
He was in no mood to encourage Shane’s banter. He just wanted to get on with the work at hand and decide where to go next. He’d drink a glass of Shane’s goddam sherry if that would shut his friend up about it.
Shane sensed that it was apparently not a good time to try to engage his friend in a light conversation and so just wheeled himself over to the bar, poured Seltzer a glass of sherry in one of the Riedel glasses, not one of his cherished Oxford sherry glasses, and delivered it to Hardy who sat forward on the sofa with his elbows resting on his knees.
“You’re a bit later than the time we set, my man,” Shane said. “And I deem from your mood that you didn’t spend the time engaged in joyful pursuits.”
“Have you seen the morning paper, Shane?” Hardy asked.
“Only briefly,” Shane replied, “but long enough to learn of your developing notoriety. Does that concern you?”
“Damn right, it concerns me,” Hardy answered; he took a gulp of the wine, most of which he apparently aspirated since he went into a coughing fit for a few minutes before continuing. “The chief may put me on suspension if this public thing goes much further.”
“I sense the workings of our friend X Coniglio in the matter, don’t you think?
Perhaps he’s enlisting the power of the press to assist him in honing his guillotine. Well, your head is still intact, at least. It just means that we need to move more quickly. We’re on the trail of the real killer, Hardy. I am certain of that. We just have to locate her. Which brings us to the matter at hand. Tell me what you’ve been able to find out about Elizabeth Reid of Houston.”
“Yeah,” Hardy answered, “I’m sure X has a bee in his bonnet, but you’re right. We need to move on.”
Hardy took another drink of the sherry, but sipped this time and thought the wine tasted pretty good. He didn’t tell Shane that.
“Here’s what I’ve got,” Hardy said. “I was able to get connected with a hotshot computer kid in Houston police department. Said he could find out anything about anybody and, I’m sure, did his best.”
“And?”
“Elizabeth Anne Reid of Greensward, Texas, did indeed live in Houston for several years.”
“Not to step on your lines,” Shane said. “But are you going to tell me where she lived next?”
“The short answer is no,” Hardy replied. “But let me finish. She received a degree in biostatistics from the university there. She stayed on the faculty for several years after receiving her degree and disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
“Well, that’s what my computer whiz says. He can’t find any record of her after she resigned her post at the university. She disappeared.”
“Did he check death certificate records?”
“Yep. She didn’t die. Just disappeared, like Bonz’s murderer disappeared somewhere between Printers Alley and Fourth Avenue. I don’t like people disappearing, Shane. When it looks that way, it means we’re being fooled, like a magic act.”
“I certainly agree, my man,” Hardy said. “People do not disappear, although they may appear to do so. Appearances and reality, critical to understand the difference even if you choose to ignore it. So what about the marriage records?”
“Nothing there either, I’m afraid,” Hardy said, sipping again from his glass of sherry. “The marriage records during the time from when she moved to Houston until she resigned her faculty position at the university and disappeared lists some Elizabeth Reids, but none of them checked out to be our girl. Dead end!”
“Bloody hell,” Shane exclaimed.
Shane then refilled his glass at the bar and proceeded to recount to Hardy his conversation with the Pinellas County sheriff, reviewing the information that encouraged Shane to believe that this Reid woman was the murderer they sought. But Hardy was right. They were at a dead end, and Shane couldn’t think of where to go next. They agreed to spend the night digesting the information they had and to meet the next day to try to decide what to do. The answer wasn’t obvious to either of them.
Chapter 26
Susanna Gomez did not rise rapidly through the ranks to her present position as Vice President in charge of neurological therapeutics at Global Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (known by insiders as GPI or just Global) by being indecisive. It was her prescient recognition of the potential of an antidepressant several years earlier, a drug discovered in the laboratory of a little known investigator at a second-tier medical school, that jump-started her career. She found out about the drug before it had undergone any clinical testing and was so impressed with the preclinical data that she convinced the powers that be to license the agent. Although she was in a very junior position at the time, she was put in charge of designing and managing the clinical trials and shepherding the drug through FDA approval and on to market. The drug became a blockbuster, and proceeds from its worldwide sales were a major source of income for the company for the past several years. That experience propelled Dr. Gomez into the top echelons of the company’s management and also imbued her with considerable confidence in her gut feeling about a new opportunity.
But, the patent on the antidepressant was due to expire in a couple of years, and the company didn’t have a successor in the pipeline. In fact, GPIs pipeline had pretty much run dry. Dr. Gomez was
under a lot of pressure to remedy that problem. So when Cy Bartalak called and relayed his excitement about his drug for Alzheimer’s, she was more than a little intrigued. She convinced Bartalak to take a flight the next morning to Newark and spend the day in an airport meeting room with her and a handpicked group of her people summarizing all of the preclinical data and the data from the preliminary clinical studies. Bartalak had given a masterful PowerPoint presentation for an hour and a half. He had expertly fielded questions from Gomez and her group over the three hours following his presentation and she had seen him off on a late afternoon flight back to BNA.
On her drive from the airport out to the Global campus, a hundred-acre complex in rural New Jersey, she pondered the situation. Bartalak made a very convincing case. Her only previous contact with the highly reputed academician had been when she had tapped him as an ad hoc consultant on a couple of occasions. She had thought him knowledgeable, articulate and perceptive in that role. He was highly regarded in academic circles and chaired an important department at a major university. While she was less than enamored of the man personally, and thought him incredibly ugly, he was otherwise credible.
There was work to do, but if things panned out as the good doctor had led them to believe they would, she wanted to do this deal. And the sooner the better. At this early stage, it was likely that they could get exclusive rights to the drug at a reasonable price. There couldn’t be more than ten or fifteen million dollars invested in the startup company, Renaptix. GPI would be happy to pay several times that to acquire an exclusive license for the drug and control of the further clinical testing, regulatory approval, manufacture, and eventual marketing. Those were things that GPI was expert at doing. If the efficacy was as dramatic as it appeared, the phase three trials might not have to be that big. And they could be expedited since there was no currently effective therapeutic for the target disease.