The Associate

by Phillip Margolin

  "I know he's missing and I'm certain that something is wrong. We're all very worried about him."

  "Why is that?"

  "He went to New York on business, Sunday, February twenty-seventh. He was supposed to come straight back. I had his flight number and everything, but he wasn't on the plane. Then he called from Portland on Wednesday, March first. He asked for me, but I was in court, so he spoke with Maria Suarez, our secretary."

  "You weren't expecting him to go to Oregon?"

  "No. I've worked with Gene for six years, Maria even longer. We can't remember him ever mentioning any contacts, business or social, in Oregon."

  "Okay, what did he tell Ms. Suarez?"

  "He wanted me to know that he would be away for a few days on personal business. Maria said he asked about his mail and messages, and then he gave her his room number at the Benson Hotel and said he'd keep in touch. The hotel called on Tuesday, March seventh and said that Gene had reserved the room through Monday but had not checked out. They wanted to know if he still wanted it. I had no idea. The security chief said that he was putting Gene's belongings in storage. That's when I got scared that something was wrong and I contacted your missing persons bureau."

  "And no one's heard from him since?"

  "Not a word."

  "Is Mr. Arnold married?"

  "He's a widower. His wife died about a year before I started working here."

  "Do you have a photograph of Mr. Arnold that you could send me?"

  "I can find one."

  "Good. I also need the name and phone number of Mr. Arnold's dentist."

  Billie heard an intake of breath.

  "You think he's dead?"

  "I have no reason to believe that."

  "You're homicide, right?"

  Billie did not want to alarm Arnold's partner, but it was obvious that he was already upset.

  "Yes."

  "I'm not naive, Detective. I've handled some criminal cases. I know why a homicide detective needs dental records. You've got an unidentified body that might be Gene."

  "I do have a body, but I'm pretty certain I know who it is."

  "Then why call me?"

  "I've been known to make mistakes. But I don't think I have in this case."

  There was dead air for a moment. Finally Kellogg spoke.

  "Gene's dentist is Ralph Hughes. If you give me your address I'll have him send you Gene's dental records."

  Chapter Fifteen.

  After Daniel traded the hard drive from Kaidanov's computer for a cardboard box with his personal belongings, he left his former employer's domain with hunched shoulders and a crimson face. Even though he had no reason to be ashamed, he was grateful that no one he knew had been in the waiting room or the elevator.

  That evening, Daniel's phone rang several times. A few happy-hour companions had made condolence calls and promised to keep in touch. Joe Molinari invited him out to a bar. When Daniel said he was not in the mood to party Joe urged him to keep the faith. Daniel would not have minded talking to Kate Ross, but she did not call.

  Daniel slept late on Saturday then treated himself to an extravagant lunch at Wildwood. He knew it was foolish to spend so much money when he was heavily in debt with no prospects for employment and almost no savings, but the gesture felt important: he'd been fired, but not defeated. After lunch, Daniel wandered around the neighborhood, but it was hard being in a crowd of happy people. He envied them too much. The army had given him his first taste of self-confidence and the inkling of an idea that he could have a future. His college diploma was more than a piece of paper. It was proof that he could be somebody. The job with Reed, Briggs was beyond his wildest dreams. Now the job was gone, and with it his reputation. Daniel believed that he would always be known as the associate whose incompetence destroyed Geller pharmaceuticals.

  Sunday was hard to take. Since Reed, Briggs had hired him Daniel had spent most of his time, even weekends, in the office or thinking about things that he had to do at the office. Now there was nothing to dwell on except his failure. He killed the day by going for a long run and watching football. Shortly after six, he was preparing dinner when the telephone rang. The news was on but Daniel was not paying much attention to it.

  "Dan, it's Kate."

  "Oh, hi," Daniel answered, involuntarily breaking into a smile.

  "Sorry I didn't call yesterday. I was in Astoria investigating an oil spill the coast guard claims is from a ship one of our clients insures. Did everything go okay after I saw you?"

  "I gave the hard drive back and the cops didn't break in my door, so I guess so."

  "Well, cheer up. I may have something for you. Natalie Tasman, one of the paralegals at Jaffe, Katz, Lehane and Brindisi, is a friend. She told me that they're going to be looking for an associate soon, so I talked to Amanda Jaffe about you. You should give them a call tomorrow."

  "Isn't Amanda Jaffe the lawyer who represented that doctor who was charged with those serial murders?"

  "The same. The firm is small-there are only seven or eight lawyers-but everyone is top-notch. They practice criminal defense and plaintiff's litigation. I think you'll fit in over there a hell of a lot better than you fit in at Reed, Briggs."

  "Thanks, Kate. You're a good friend."

  "You're a good lawyer."

  Daniel was about to reply when something on the television caught his eye.

  "Hold on, Kate. There's something on TV about the fire."

  On the screen, a reporter from one of the local television stations was standing in front of the burned-out shell of the primate lab.

  "There is a bizarre twist in the multimillion-dollar litigation against Geller Pharmaceuticals, manufacturer of the pregnancy drug Insufort," the reporter said.

  "Kate, turn on Channel Four, quick."

  "Late yesterday," the reporter continued, "this station received copies of a study alleged to have been made on rhesus monkeys that were burned to death in the building behind me. According to the study, a significant percentage of the monkeys that were given Insufort during pregnancy gave birth to babies with birth defects.

  "Eyewitness News has learned that Dr. Sergey Kaidanov, the scientist alleged to have authored the study and an employee of Geller Pharmaceuticals, has disappeared. We have also learned that the remains of an unidentified male were found in this building, which was destroyed by arson. According to the police, the man was murdered."

  The picture changed and Aaron Flynn's face appeared on the screen.

  "Earlier today, reporter Angela Graham talked with Aaron Flynn, the lead counsel for the plaintiffs in the Insufort litigation."

  "Mr. Flynn, what is your reaction to this new information about Insufort?"

  "Angela, I haven't had time to digest it all. I did learn recently that Dr. Kaidanov conducted this study, but I have not seen the study, so I can't comment. But the news that Dr. Kaidanov may have been murdered is shocking and raises the possibility of a cover-up.

  "I must say that I am stunned by the possibility that evidence of the horrible effects of Insufort may have been intentionally destroyed."

  The reporters moved to another story.

  "Did you see that?" Daniel asked Kate.

  "Yeah, and I just switched channels. The story was on the national news on Channel Six, too. Dan, I've got to ask: Did you leak the story?"

  "Of course not. Briggs said he'd have me arrested if I told anyone what was on the hard drive." Daniel paused as what he'd just said sank in. "Oh, man. If Briggs thinks I leaked the study I'm screwed."

  Kate and Daniel were silent for a moment. Then Kate asked the question they both wanted to ask.

  "If you didn't tell the media and I didn't, who did?"

  Chapter Sixteen.

  Billie Brewster sneaked a peek at the clock over the guard's station at the end of the visitors' room at the state penitentiary. Her brother noticed and he flashed her a tolerant smile.

  "You got to go, sis?"

  Billie was embarrassed
at being caught. She'd never been able to put one over on Sherman.

  "Duty calls, little brother."

  "That's okay. Ain't no one wants to stay here longer than they have to."

  "You remember that," Billie said as she squeezed his hand.

  "You don't have to worry about me. I'm bein' good."

  They stood and he hugged her tight. Billie hugged him back. She hated visiting her brother in this place, but she hated leaving him more. Every time the iron doors clanged shut behind her, she left a piece of her heart in the prison.

  "Go on now," Sherman told her, flashing an innocent, toothy smile that almost made her forget that he was kept here by a trap of his own design.

  _ _ _

  Outside, a sleeting rain was falling, cold and unpleasant, like Billie's mood. As she walked along the sidewalk toward the prison parking lot, the detective hunched her shoulders. Her visits to her brother were always hard on her. After their father walked out, their mother had been forced to work two jobs. Billie was the only one around to raise Sherman. She was sixteen-still a child herself-but she'd tried the best she could to keep her brother straight. Her mother had told her repeatedly that it was not her fault that Sherman was at the penitentiary. She never really believed it.

  This was Sherman's third fall, but his first since she'd joined the police force. He used to get nervous when she visited, afraid that someone would find out his sister was a cop. A high-school friend who was a guard at the penitentiary kept her up-to-date on Sherman. She knew he was in a gang. Since he'd joined and made a rep he'd loosened up. Billie hated what he was doing, but she wanted him safe. Life was loaded with trade-offs.

  Billie kept herself from thinking about her brother on the trip back to Portland by listening to loud music and reviewing her cases. When she passed the Wilsonville exit, she phoned in for messages and was glad there was one from Dr. Brubaker, the forensic dentist. The murder at the lab was her most interesting case.

  She got Brubaker on her cell phone. "Hi, Harry, what have you got for me?"

  "An identification on the body at the primate lab."

  "Don't keep me in suspense."

  "It's the lawyer from Arizona."

  "You're kidding."

  "There's no question about it. The dental records of Gene Arnold match perfectly."

  Completed in 1912, the thirteen-story Benson Hotel was listed in the National Register of Historic Places and was the hotel where presidents stayed when they visited Portland. Billie entered a luxurious lobby paneled in rich walnut, floored with Italian marble and lit by several crystal chandeliers, and found Kate waiting for her.

  "Thanks for letting me tag along," Kate said as they headed for the reception desk.

  "You've been straight with me about your information. It's the least I can do."

  "I can't believe the body wasn't Kaidanov."

  "I'd have lost a bundle myself if I was a betting woman."

  Billie flashed her badge at a bright-eyed, Japanese woman and asked for Antonio Sedgwick, the hotel's chief of security. The woman went through a door behind the desk and returned a few minutes later with a muscular African-American in a conservative business suit. When the ex-Seattle cop spotted the homicide detective he flashed a big grin.

  "Hey, Billie, haven't seen you in a while. You over here to scam a free lunch?"

  "No such luck," Billie answered with a smile.

  "Who's your friend?" Sedgwick asked.

  "Kate Ross. She's an investigator with the Reed, Briggs firm."

  Billie turned to Kate and pointed at the security chief. "You have my permission to shoot this man if he comes on to you. He's a notorious womanizer."

  Sedgwick laughed.

  "I ain't lyin'," Billie said with mock seriousness. "Shoot to kill."

  "Besides ruining my love life, what brings you to the Benson?"

  "One of your guests checked in on February twenty-ninth and disappeared by March seventh. Now he's turned up dead and I'd like to see his belongings."

  Sedgwick snapped his fingers. "The guy from Arizona."

  Billie nodded. "His name was Gene Arnold. What do you remember about him?"

  "I never met him. He didn't check out on time, so we sent a bellman up to his room. There was a `Do Not Disturb' sign on the door. We usually wait when we see that. At the end of the day I let myself in. It looked like he planned on coming back. All his stuff was there: toiletries on the sink, clothes hung up in the closet and neatly placed in the drawers. If I remember, there was even a book open on the end table, American history or something.

  "We called his contact number to see if he was going to stay another day. They didn't know anything about it. We didn't need the room right away, so I left everything there for one more day. Then I had his stuff packed up and put it in the checkroom. If you want to take it I'll need a court order, but I can let you see it."

  "That'll be fine for now."

  The checkroom was to the right of the concierge desk. It was a narrow room with a high vaulted ceiling decorated with ornate molding that had been the hotel's original entrance. Its glory had faded over the years. Half the floor was marble but the other half was plywood and there were exposed pipes to the right of the door. Two bare sixty-watt bulbs produced the light that had once been provided by a crystal chandelier.

  Arnold's valise was on a shelf to the left of the door. Sedgwick carried it to a small, unobstructed area near the front of the checkroom and opened it. Billie took out each item, inspected it, then placed it in a neat pile while Kate watched. When she was done she replaced the items carefully.

  "Suits are over here," Sedgwick said, pointing at two suits on a pole that spanned the room.

  Billie's inspection of the first suit revealed nothing, but she found a slip of paper written on the stationery of a SoHo art gallery in the inside pocket of the second suit jacket. It contained a name, Claude Bernier, a street address, and a Manhattan phone number. Billie and Kate wrote the information in their notebooks and Billie replaced the paper in the suit pocket. "Mr. Bernier?"

  "Yes."

  "My name is Billie Brewster," the detective said as Kate listened on an extension in Sedgwick's office. "I'm with the Portland Police Bureau."

  "Maine?"

  "Oregon."

  "I haven't been there for a while. What's this about?"

  "I'm investigating a homicide and your name came up."

  "You're kidding?"

  "Do you know Gene Arnold, an attorney from Arizona? He was in New York in late February."

  "Late February?" Bernier sounded puzzled. "Wait a minute. Is this guy bald, maybe forty-five? Glasses?"

  "That's him," Billie answered after consulting the photograph that Benjamin Kellogg had sent her.

  "Okay, now I've got him. Arnold, yeah. He was at my apartment. You say he was murdered?"

  "Yes, sir. What can you tell me about the meeting?"

  "Arnold bought one of my photographs from the Pitzer-Kraft Gallery. Fran works there. She called and told me that Arnold almost fainted while he was looking at it. She thought he was having a heart attack. Then he insisted on seeing me."

  "What did he want?"

  "He wanted to know everything about the couple in the photograph. That was the subject of the show, couples. This one was from Portland."

  "What did you tell him?"

  "Nothing much. They're all candid shots. I'd see a couple and snap them without them knowing I'd done it. I never got any names."

  "Can you describe the couple in the shot that Arnold purchased?"

  "It was a man and woman walking across that big open square you've got in the middle of the city."

  "Pioneer Square?"

  "That's it."

  "Anything else you can tell me about them?"

  "Arnold was pretty upset about that picture. He got more upset when I couldn't help him."

  "Can you send me a print?"

  "I think so. I'll have to look for the negative. I moved recently and ev
erything's still a mess."

  "Try hard, Mr. Bernier. That picture may show the person who murdered Gene Arnold."

  Chapter Seventeen.

  "Brock wanted you to know that everyone is in the conference room," Renee Gilchrist said.

  Arthur Briggs's mouth was set in a grim line and Renee noticed dark circles under his eyes. "Tell Brock I'll be right down," he said.

  One of the lines on his phone rang. Renee headed for the phone, but Briggs waved her away.

  "Briggs," the senior partner answered absently. Then he straightened up. "Put him through."

  Briggs turned to Renee. "I want my calls held. Tell Newbauer and the others to go ahead without me. Shut the door on your way out."

  Renee crossed the room as Briggs turned back to the phone.

  "Dr. Kaidanov, there are a lot of people who are very anxious to speak with you," she heard Briggs say as she pulled the door shut.

  Thirty minutes later Arthur Briggs entered a small conference room. Brock Newbauer and Susan Webster were seated on one side of a polished oak table. Facing them were Isaac Geller, the chairman of the board of Geller Pharmaceuticals, and Byron McFall, the company's president.

  Geller was a medical-school dropout in his late forties who had made a fortune in commercial real estate when he met McFall, a powerfully built man ten years his junior, at a golf resort. The men hit it off immediately. By the time Geller was ready to return to Chicago and McFall to his investment firm in Seattle, they had agreed to talk about a possible investment by Geller in a financially troubled Oregon pharmaceutical company that was doing some interesting research. Both men had made millions as the result of their chance meeting.

  "How bad is this thing, Arthur?" Geller asked as Briggs took his place at the head of the table.

  "What's your take, Brock?" Briggs asked, addressing his junior partner.

  Newbauer was surprised to be called on since Briggs was rarely interested in his opinion.

  "Well, we've all heard the news. They're saying that man was set on fire and the monkeys, too," Newbauer said, stumbling. "It's terrible publicity. The Oregonian had an editorial this morning." Newbauer glanced across the table at Geller and McFall, then looked away quickly. "They're implying that the company had something to do with the murder."