“That’s the least of your problems, doctor,” Dugan suggested.
“If you’re referring to this murder charge—”
“Who’s charged with murder?” Doug demanded.
“Your superior,” Dugan said. His look was triumphant. “And I’m more convinced of it than ever, Frederick.”
Doug focused a full load of hate and reproach on his mentor. I could take it no longer. I cleared my throat, loudly enough to break through the vicious triangle around Dugan’s desk, and said, “You may be wrong about Dr. McKinnon, Mr. Dugan. I’d like to ask Carl a question.”
The room fell silent. I prayed that my hunch was right.
“Get on with it,” Dugan ordered.
I turned to Carl. He stood as if to take an oath. “Carl, you said that Dr. McKinnon wanted to give the tomatoes to Sheila for the party last week. Think carefully. How did you know he did?”
Carl scratched his head. “Well, he just did.”
“But how did you know that, Carl?” I pressed.
Carl’s eyes grew wide as the realization dawned on him. “It was Doug who told me so, the day before.”
Doug burst on Carl like a pit bull. “That’s a lie! You did it, Carl! You were in love with her!”
Carl was on the verge of tears. “Yes, I was. So why ever would I kill her?”
“Carl,” I said, “did you come up to Doug’s lab before the party and try to make Sheila tell you where she was going that night?”
He cringed. “No. I told you, I respect her. I admire her. I’d never do something like that.”
“Doug said you did.”
“No, see, I was up in Davis all day Wednesday, at our farm facility. Anyone there will tell you.”
“I never said Carl did that,” Doug declared. “You’re inventing things.”
I pulled a DAT cassette from the inside pocket of my jacket. “This was recorded yesterday. It’ll be fuzzy, but we’ll all recognize your voice.”
I started to load it into my player. Neil Dugan grabbed the cassette away from me, muttering something about my rinkydink machine, and put it into the DAT player in his media center. After a few fast-forwards, I found the segment. The voices were muffled, but as I cranked up the volume, they could be made out.
…“Carl was up here, badgering her about what she was doing, who she was having dinner with,” came Doug’s words.
“He said she didn’t return his call.” My voice.
“That’s why he came up. He was agitated, I’m telling you.”
I stopped the tape. Carl looked unbearably hurt. “You’re trying to lay it on me, Dr. Englehart?”
Doug’s teeth were clenched. “This is crap.” He turned on his heel and started for the door. I got there first and blocked his way.
“Have a seat, Doug,” Dugan ordered. He went to his desk and picked up the phone.
Doug made a lunge for the door handle. He got it open a few inches before I rammed it shut with my shoulder. He flailed at my face. I hit him in the stomach, and when he doubled over, I grabbed the back of his collar. Forcing his head down, I swung him around and drove him back to the sofa. Abe was with me now. Together we pushed Doug facedown into the leather cushions.
“Stop!” Doug’s scream was smothered in the sofa.
Once he stopped resisting, we allowed him to turn over. He lay on his back, shirt twisted, the top two buttons torn off. Abe loomed over him. Seeing just how much Abe would like to hurt him, Doug said, “Take it easy. I’ll stay here.”
Dugan was on the phone, summoning security. McKinnon came over to look down on Doug. He shook his head, searching for the right words. “A perversion of science,” he said.
Then he became aware that Abe’s eyes were boring into him. Abe appeared to be calculating something. When he spoke, his voice was slow and even. “How many other mice were there?”
“There were a handful,” McKinnon admitted. “Doug destroyed them. I should have caught it. In the back of my mind, I knew Sheila was on to something. I didn’t want to believe it.” His gaze fell to the floor. “I simply didn’t want to believe it. By the time Doug told me he’d falsified the results, it was too late. The financing was in place, the deals were rolling. I assumed we could finesse any problems in clinical trials.”
“At whose risk?” Abe said.
McKinnon’s eyes rose. But they had nowhere to go — Abe, Dugan, Doug, me. Finally they rested on Carl Steiner. “It was unprofessional. It was unethical. But I still believe MC124 can save lives. I don’t know if I’ll be the one to move it forward. I suppose the review board will decide that.”
Carl looked as though he felt it was his duty to come up with the right words to console McKinnon. I knew it was the last thing Carl wanted to do. A sharp knock at the door saved him.
The security men bustled in. As they pulled Doug to his feet, I said, “I’ve got one more question, Doug.”
He glared at me.
“Sheila’s Epi-Pen,” I went on. “She wouldn’t have let the solution go bad. Did you replace it with spoiled epinephrine?”
His look turned disdainful.
“The injector is sealed,” Abe said. “The solution can’t be replaced. But it could be heated. Thirty minutes in a toaster oven would do it.”
The disdain left Doug’s face. Abe had hit the target.
“Hold him downstairs for the police,” Dugan instructed the men. “Then seal his office and lab.”
I stood near the sofa. A silence hung in the room. For the first time, none of us had anything to say to one another. McKinnon rocked on his feet, hands in his pockets. Abe watched him, appearing to understand that further words of blame were pointless. Carl stared at the speakers through which the tape had been played.
Dugan had turned in his chair and was looking out the window. His moment of victory over McKinnon had been spoiled. Their battle would go on to the next round. Mine was over.
34
The air was fresh and sharp as we ascended into the Berkeley hills. The windows of the Scout were open. Karen was next to me in the passenger seat, and Abe was in the back.
After LifeScience, Abe and I had gone to Karen’s apartment. In reviewing the course of events with her, we’d come to the conclusion that Marion had the answers to our remaining questions. The receptionist at LifeScience said she was out of the office, and I got an answering machine at her house. So I tried the next most likely source. It took three attempts to get Wes to answer his cell phone, but finally he picked up.
“Wes,” he said, his voice thick and dreamy.
“Get dressed. We’re coming over.”
“We who? You’re doing nothing of the sort, Bill. I’m not home anyway.”
“That’s all I need to know.”
I hung up and we headed for Berkeley. Wes’s Jeep was parked in the space next to Marion’s Volvo above the bungalow. It took a minute for Marion to answer the door. She was wrapped in a silk robe. Her hair was tangled, and she didn’t look happy to see us.
“You missed the fireworks at LifeScience this morning,” I said.
Her face brightened. “Come in. Tell me all about them.”
The three of us walked into the living room. An open bottle of white wine was sitting on the coffee table. Karen took the rocking chair, and I sat in a straight back chair next to her. Abe sat on one side of the sofa, Marion on the other.
“We found out who killed Sheila,” I said to her. “Doug Englehart. But I think you already knew that.”
Marion cocked her head. “You’re sure Doug’s the one?”
“You wanted it to be Neil Dugan, didn’t you?”
She avoided the question. Nodding at the bottle of wine, she said, “This calls for a toast.”
It was three in the afternoon, but I didn’t object. “Have Wes join us,” I said.