Black Water Read online

  "No, you weren't supposed to. I was trying to be factual."

  "See you later, Archie."

  "Okay, sure. Something weird just happened, Sergeant."

  She waited, feeling her anger rise.

  "I just remembered what it was about that car. You know, the car the men drove to the meeting with Gwen?"

  Again she said nothing.

  Archie was nodding, frowning a little and looking past her. "It was a Lincoln Town Car, black. But it had livery plates. That's what made it different. It was registered as a limousine. When I looked at the plates I saw it."

  "So they took a car to the meet," said Merci.

  "But one of them drove it. That was another thing that seemed odd. The big guy drove it but he was part of the meeting, so he wasn't chauffeur, right? And the blond rode up front, not like a customer but like a friend or something."

  To Rayborn, it seemed odd, too. And Wildcraft hadn't mentioned the blond before. "Describe the blond man."

  "Average build, mid-forties. Hair a little longer than usual. More like a seventies look."

  "When you first saw him, did you happen to think, businessman?

  "That's exactly what I thought."

  Just like Dobbs, thought Merci. "You wrote down the plate numbers, didn't you?"

  "I believe so."

  "What did you do with them after you wrote them down, Archie?

  He was already shaking his head.

  "You can't remember."

  "I can't remember."

  "Do you have a regular notebook?"

  "Yeah, I think it was regular. Here, I'll give it to you. Just a second."

  Archie came off the bed and went into his closet. Merci could hear coins hitting coins, the rattle of change in a container, then pages being flipped.

  He came out a second later with an inexpensive three-by-five notepad with a spiral binding at the top and a green cover. "Good luck," he said. "I couldn't find anything that looked like plate numbers."

  "No. And you can't tell me anything more about that meeting?"

  Archie shook his head, frowning, biting his lip. "I wish I could. Just that it had to do with our OrganiVen stock, I mean, I associate the car and the stock but I don't know why. And Gwen wanted me there. I remember that very clearly. I'm really sorry."

  "Me, too."

  "Oh, wow! I just thought of something else. The light came down at me."

  "What do you mean, Archie?"

  "The light. That night. I'm six-three. Most people would have to shine it up at me. That guy, he aimed down. I just remembered."

  Halfway back to headquarters, her cell phone rang. It was Sheriff Vince Abelera, speaking in his usual soft tones.

  "I want to meet with you and Paul at five o'clock."

  "Yes, sir. Can you give us a sneak preview?"

  "Whether or not to arrest Wildcraft. Brenkus and Dawes will be there. They want to file, they say that it's a good case. Better than good. Everyone's got strong opinions about this crime. For obvious reasons, I need yours."

  Her heart sank. "I look forward to it, sir."

  "You and Zamorra have my complete trust and confidence on this."

  She wondered about that last statement, wondered why Abelera would bother to make it if it was true. She clicked off and sighed, told her partner.

  "I was wondering when they'd lower the boom," Zamorra said.

  "Me, too."

  She looked at him and tried to read the thoughts behind his trim face. "Paul, you've let me lead the charge on this one. Or the non-charge. But am I missing something here? Am I blind? Am I the only person not ready to charge that guy with murder?"

  Zamorra was quiet for a long moment. Merci watched a man talking on a phone swoosh into the car-pool lane in front of them at about ninety, wished she could pull him over and cuff him.

  "I think Wildcraft is running something on us."

  "This is news to me, Paul."

  "This morning clinched it. He doesn't remember anything more on the walk-through. But he remembers livery plates at a meeting that may or may not have taken place. He suddenly remembers the light came down on him, not up. He gives you that speech about what a good detective you are, and so beautiful too, you remind him of his wife who's been dead six days. I thought you might swat him silly for that one."

  "I almost did. Nice eavesdropping, by the way."

  "I started down the hall with the box and thought I'd listen in. Just the way he was sitting on that bed. It set off an alarm. Sorry."

  "Hey—you're my partner, listen in any time you want."

  "I didn't like what I heard. I don't like him and the little sister at Archie's place while Gwen was gone. What was going on then—I don' buy the mad-at-my-soon-to-be-ex outburst. I don't like the little sister showing up with Archie's clothes and helping him check out of the hospital. I'm going to poke around a little, have a closer look at her.

  "With an eye for her getting the cute hubby once big sister is out of the way."

  "That comes to mind."

  "I could see it. All right. Okay. I'm with you."

  "I think we should keep looking at him. Hard. And surveillance him while we do. Not a twenty-four/seven—but selective—see where he goes and who he talks to. I don't think he's going far with a bullet in his head. But he might go somewhere interesting."

  "They're going to want an arrest, Paul."

  "Then let's just tell them the truth. We're not ready and we're not moving until we are."

  "Good. That's fine. It's clean and decisive and that's what we'll do. Thanks, Paul."

  "I don't trust him and I'm beginning to think he did it. He botched the suicide and he's improvising now, trying to keep off of death row.

  "I don't think he did it. But I don't necessarily trust him."

  She smiled and Zamorra smiled.

  "We're a wholesome, humane, optimistic, trusting pair, aren't we? she asked.

  "That's us."

  "You really think he did her?"

  "He did something."

  Back at her desk Rayborn drew up a list of county limousine services, starting with those in Newport Beach. She only had time to make three calls but all three people told her the same thing. There was no very large, bearded driver employed by Executive Plus, Air Glide or Limo-Dream services. Sorry we can't help you, Sergeant.

  The Limo-Dream guy asked for her badge number and she told him, making a note of his nosiness in her blue notebook.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  A minute later Merci sat in one of the headquarters' conference room and watched a dazzling blue wave break beyond a pale sand beach. Then another. Zamorra adjusted the volume on the television and sat across the table from her. He pushed aside the box of financial record he'd collected from Wildcraft's house, making room to take notes.

  The title of the movie appeared over the breaking waves—MiraVei and the Treatment of Malignant Blastomas. Produced by OrganiVen Biomedical Research Partnership and the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine.

  A factual male voice talked over the waves: "Cancer has been with mankind since the dawn of civilization if not history herself. It is an organic disorder that afflicts not only human beings, but virtually all of the higher vertebrates and even some plants and trees. A cancerous cell is a cell that has broken free of healthy DNA programming, to metastasize—reproduce—without control within the host body. Such reproduction eventually kills the very host in which the cancerous cell has been thriving."

  The screen went from elegant waves to surgically opened bodies showing tumors of various size and location. Merci felt a quiver of nausea go through her, and a little tremor of lightheadedness. Surgical scenes and autopsies bothered her in a way that crime scenes rarely did, something about the slow precision of the former versus the explosiveness of the latter.

  "Treatments for cancers have evolved from the primitive to the sophisticated. But until now, no one treatment, or even a combination of treatments, has shown itself
to be effective on the deadly blastoma— or budding—forms of the disease. The common problem in all previous treatment modalities has been the concomitant destruction of healthy cells as the tumor is resected by surgery or laser, bombarded with radiation or chemotherapy, even cooled or heated.

  "Enter MiraVen. Developed by OrganiVen Biomedical Research Partnership, MiraVen treatment modality is so effective that Dr. Stephen Monford of the University of California, San Diego, Medical School has called it a...."

  The picture cut from a tumor-riddled lung to a white-haired, white-coated man sitting behind a gleaming wooden desk. Merci saw the diplomas on the wall behind him. He was sixty-ish, lean and lightly freckled, with rimless glasses and beautiful blue eyes.

  "People in my profession don't use the word miracle," said Dr. Monford. His voice was soft and slow. "But I do now. I've seen what MiraVen does and there's no better way to describe it. Two things were necessary to bring about this treatment. The first is nature's simple genius: MiraVen does exactly what nature intended it to do—it destroys cells. The second is the work of the OrganiVen biomedical research team, which discovered a way of totally preventing collateral tissue damage. The results are, well. miraculous. I could talk for hours on the medical aspects of MiraVen, and what OrganiVen Biomedical means to the future of cancer therapies. But why don't you see for yourself what MiraVen can do?"

  On-screen, Dr. Monford gave way to a cobra, head raised and hood spread, casually tracking the sway of a turbaned man who kneeled in front of the snake and played a flute.

  The first male voice came back then, stern with factuality.

  "The snake. The serpent. Wrapped in mystery, shrouded in fear. Some ancients believed the snake was Satan. Some believed he was a god. But they all knew the dramatic effects of snake envenomation on human beings. However, not until the late nineteenth century did modern science begin to explain what happened when a poisonous snake injected its deadly venom."

  The monitor showed a drawing of a human being with only the major components of the nervous system illustrated. A cartoon snake injected a drop of black liquid and the liquid started to constrict the spinal nerves, working its way to the heart and brain.

  "Early biomedical researchers determined that snake venom was of two basic types: neurotoxic—which attacked the nervous system, an hemotoxic—which attacked the blood and tissue. It was the fearsome killers—the cobras and mambas and kraits of India—that possesses the neurotoxic poison that could kill a man in less than half an hour after introduction. But a far different venom is possessed by other poisonous snakes of the world: the rattlesnakes, the adders, the vipers. The venom of these snakes works directly on the blood and tissue of the victim."

  Now the screen showed a simplified illustration of blood: red cell, white cells, platelets. A cartoon snake injected a little pool of black liquid into the blood and the various cells began to wither and vanish.

  The Voice of Truth and Reason continued:

  "In nature, a bite from one of these serpents can lead to a slow painful death. But in the OrganiVen research laboratories, under the direction of the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine, scientists set out to find a way to turn this deadly hemotoxin into a killer of cancer cells, not healthy cells. Years later, their dream became a reality, and a potential treatment modality for most forms of mankind's most deadly and feared disease."

  Merci watched the picture change to the insides of some kind of animal, but the camera was up so close she couldn't tell if it was human being or a lab rat.

  "I wish that pompous ass would tell us what we're supposed looking at," said Merci.

  "The image modality is yet to be revealed by the OrganiVen biotechnical AV presentation team," droned Zamorra.

  Then, Mr. Ass again:

  "The neuroblastoma, or heart tumor—an almost invariably fatal tumor when treated by conventional therapies. But watch closely ; University of California researchers inject this canine neuroblaston with MiraVen."

  Merci watched. The camera moved in close. A rubber-gloved hand, a syringe, a silver needle pushing through the mush of a black tumor on the beating heart of the dog.

  "Things like this make me queasy," said Merci.

  "Close your eyes and I'll tell you what happens."

  "I can cut it."

  Merci took a deep breath. The needle slid away from the tumor and the rubber-gloved hand disappeared. The dog's heart throbbed earnestly and the black tumor attached to one side of it jiggled along with each rhythmic beat.

  The Voice of Truth was back:

  "You may follow the elapsed time on the screen timer while we speed up this videotape in the interests of time. What you will see in the next minute actually elapsed over fifty-seven minutes—less than one hour."

  Merci saw a timer blip into action on the right side of the screen, digits counting the sped-up time.

  She watched the black tumor bouncing rapidly with each heartbeat.

  She watched it turn dark gray.

  She watched it turn ash gray.

  She watched it lose its firmness and discontinue its rhythm with the heart.

  She watched it break up. The parts crumbled into smaller parts, then smaller parts again. And again.

  Like a muffin soaked in water, Merci thought.

  The rubber-gloved hand came back in preposterous fast motion. With a nozzle of some kind, it sucked the loose, soggy pieces of tumor away from the heart.

  The on-screen timer stopped at fifty-seven minutes and four seconds. The Voice again:

  "And this is the same dog's heart six months later."

  Merci looked at the apparently perfect organ, still thumping away. It wasn't scarred or discolored, or damaged in any way that she could see.

  A final clip showed a black cocker spaniel leaping after a red ball on a green lawn.

  "I'm supposed to believe that?" Merci asked.

  "Sistel Laboratories did," said Zamorra. "They bought OrganiVen for stock and cash that totaled four hundred million dollars. You can bet they had an army of doctors, lawyers and moneymen who looked at that video pretty hard. And everything else, too."

  "Then they've really got a cure for cancer?"

  "They've got something. That's why the Wildcrafts made two million on twenty grand. That's why Sistel bought the whole outfit. Happy start-up company. Happy investors, like Archie and Gwen. Happy international pharmaceutical giant."

  Merci crossed her arms and sat back, looking at the dead TV screen. It was not in her nature to believe that wildly good news could be true. Wildly good news did not add up in the real world she'd lived in for thirty-seven years.

  "There are some interesting things in this box," Zamorra said "OrganiVen letterhead and OrganiVen envelopes—nice heavy paper, thermal-raised letters. OrganiVen thank-you notes and matching envelopes. A long list of names and addresses that came off a laser printer—some of them with lines penciled through them, some not. Clean copies of newspaper and magazine articles on the venom cure. OrganiVen newsletters. Clean copies of the OrganiVen business plan, bios on the founders and doctors. Four videotapes, like the one we just saw. Same title, anyway."

  "What did the Wildcrafts need all that for?"

  "Two possibilities come to mind," said Zamorra. "One is they were shilling for the company—raising capital. That's what this tape would have been used for."

  Merci nodded. "And the other is that they smelled something wrong—maybe afraid their twenty grand was going to vanish. The stuff could be evidence if OrganiVen wasn't on the up-and-up. Or Archie and Gwen thought they weren't."

  "Exactly," said Zamorra. "Let's talk to that Monford doctor UCSD. And at least one of the OrganiVen founders. They're listed the bios here."

  Zamorra pulled some papers from the box. "Here," he said. "Wyatt Wright, Cody Carlson, Sean Moss.

  "Merci thought for a moment. "Wyatt, Cody and Sean. They sound like Tim's friends from the park."

  "I'll take Monford and Wright. You get Co
dy and Sean. I'll call the Securities and Exchange Commission and see what they know."

  "Sistel was solid on Friday, Paul—up a buck and a half, I think it was. I looked."

  "So did I."

  "They got a real treatment for tumors, I might want to buy a few shares myself."

  "No, you wanted to buy shares in OrganiVen Biomedical Research Partnership, before it got sold to Sistel."

  "How much were those?"

  "A quarter apiece. It says right here in the business plan. Archie and Gwen bought eighty thousand of them."

  Merci did the math on that one, figuring the increase on a per-share basis. Her notepad was too small so she used a piece of OrganiVen stationery. She did her division the old-fashioned way, counting off the zeros with the tip of her pen to keep things straight.

  "The stock was worth twenty-five cents a share when they bought it, and twenty-five dollars a share when they sold it."

  She looked at the figures and tried to put two million dollars into real-life terms: a fancy home, cool cars, presents for everybody.

  "We need to talk to the sister's beloved hubby," said Merci. "Charles Brock. He was the one who brought it to them. Right?"

  "Wrong, actually," said Charles Brock of Ritter-Dunne-Davis Financial.

  He had insisted on meeting them outside his air-conditioned place of employment. He had told them he was in an incredible hurry today, had about five minutes, at best. So the three now stood in the sweltering shade of a downtown Riverside magnolia tree two blocks away from the RDD building.

  "What happened was, they brought it to me"

  "Explain," said Merci. Charles Brock was stocky, dark-haired and dressed in a navy double-breasted suit. He stubbornly left the coat on.

  Merci thought he had too much gel in his hair to be handling large amounts of other people's money. She noticed the little band of white around his finger, where a ring used to be. He was sweating in the heat but Merci guessed that he would be sweating out of the heat, too. His eyes were fast and furtive so he put on a pair of sunglasses.

  "Priscilla and I had lunch with Gwen one day early last year," said. He spoke quietly, sliding his hands into his pockets and pitching his head toward the detectives. "Gwen said she'd heard about this start-up, OrganiVen, a biomedical outfit based down in San Diego. I look over the business plan and prospectus and the stock proposal and the founders' curriculum vitae, made sure things were right. I mean, a flake can try to issue stock these days. But OrganiVen looked solid enough so I told them if they wanted to take a nice fat risk with their money, go ahead."