When the brunette finally ran out of words, he let out a sigh and waved everyone into the booth. Lena glanced at Rhodes and caught the look in his eyes. No doubt about it, the man in the leather chair was Tremell’s father. The man who wrote the checks.
“Let me see your ID,” he said.
Rhodes handed over his badge. Dean Tremell snapped on a low wattage lamp and slipped on a pair of reading glasses. As he examined Rhodes’s ID and photo in the dim light, Lena glanced at the suit he was wearing, his handmade shirt and silk tie, measuring the quality of the fabrics. In spite of his age, Tremell’s father looked strong and vigorous and was built something like an overgroomed bull. His face was pockmarked, and weather-beaten, and ruined from too much time spent in the sun. His thick white mane had been meticulously styled, his fingernails buffed and polished. But when he passed the badge back, Lena was struck by his easy gaze-the intelligence in his gray eyes-and the gentle sound of his voice. He wasn’t angry anymore. Far from it. He seemed curious and surprised.
“Homicide,” he said. “What’s this about?”
“We came to speak with your son,” Rhodes said. “We believe that he may have witnessed a crime.”
Lena kept her game face on, trying not to reveal anything as Tremell turned and gave her a long look. Rhodes had called his son a possible witness instead of a probable suspect. A very real person of interest. He had played it just right, and it looked like Dean Tremell was buying it.
“Do I know you?” he asked her.
“I don’t think we’ve ever met.”
“That story in the paper,” he said. “I remember it now. If my son witnessed a murder, he would have said something about it.”
“He may not have had enough information to know what he was seeing,” she said. “That’s why we’re here.”
Tremell thought it over, his eyes still on her, not Rhodes. “Is there any way we could put this off until the end of the day?”
“If you’ve read the newspaper,” she said, “then you know that the crime was egregious. We believe that your son can help us. It’s already past three. Time is of the essence.”
He held the look with something churning behind his eyes. Lena imagined that he was probably chewing over the short list of good reasons to pick up the telephone mounted on the wall and dial his attorney’s worn-out number from memory. Oddly enough, he didn’t. Instead, he broke the long gaze and searched for his son’s assistant waiting in the gloom behind them.
“Ann,” he said. “Get Justin.”
“Yes, sir.”
The brunette scurried out of the booth. As the door closed, Lena noticed the monitors and speakers and realized that the room on the other side of the one-way mirror was wired for video and sound. The space was set up like a classroom, the microphones and cameras hidden. Thirty people were seated at desks with pads and pens as a soft-spoken man dressed in a sweater and slacks stood before the blackboard. If the article in the newspaper was correct, the man directing the session was Justin Tremell’s business partner.
Lena scanned the classroom, but didn’t see Tremell. When the door off the lobby opened and his assistant hurried to the back of the classroom, she spotted him leaning against the rear wall. Whether by choice or happenstance, Justin Tremell had claimed perhaps the only spot in the entire room that was out of his father’s line of vision.
She found this curious, watching his assistant deliver the news that his father wanted to see him. She kept her attention focused on his reaction. He was a tall, lean kid with long dark hair and a sullen face. Although he shared his father’s gray eyes, there was something different about them. Something lost or missing. Still, he took the news with a decisive nod and headed for the door with his assistant in tow.
While they waited, Lena tried to follow what was going on in the classroom but found it difficult to listen to. Even disturbing. She turned and looked at Dean Tremell’s face. By all appearances he was concentrating on the focus group, trying to recapture his place in the session before they interrupted him. All the same, he could have just as easily been plotting his next move. There had to be a reason why he didn’t kick them out. Lena figured that he wanted more information-wanted to know how deep a hole his son had fallen into-and felt more than confident that he could pull the plug whenever he wanted to. This was a fishing expedition. Both parties were seasoning the water with chum and running out line.
“What is it you’re trying to do here?” she said.
“I should be asking you the same question, Detective. But if you really want to know, we’re preparing to launch a new drug.”
“What’s it called?” Rhodes asked.
“We’re not that far along yet. That’s why these people are here. We’re hoping they’ll point us in the right direction. The release of a new medication is more art than science these days.”
The symptoms were listed on the blackboard and Lena could hear Justin Tremell’s partner running the session over the speakers. He was asking the audience if they ever walked out of the house and couldn’t remember if they turned off the coffeepot or locked the front door. If they ever ran into an acquaintance and couldn’t remember his or her name. If they ever woke up in the morning and felt like they needed another hour of sleep. Questions everyone in the room could answer yes to because they were something everyone experienced in life.
She turned back to Dean Tremell. “These are symptoms?”
The man shrugged. “We think they are. We think we can improve people’s quality of life.”
“What are you calling the disease?”
He sensed the irony in her voice and seemed amused. “We don’t really use that word anymore because of the negative connotations. Medical issue is a far more positive form of expression.”
“What are you calling it?”
“Cognitive Lapse Disorder is the working title. We like the acronym CLD, but we’re concerned that the name may sound too negative. We’re testing a new word that we hope will replace the word disorder. People are generally unwilling to talk about or admit that they have a disorder. But if it’s a syndrome, they’re more likely to ask their doctor about it.”
“And that means more sales,” she said. “You don’t try to reach the doctor anymore. It’s all about hooking the end user.”
He looked her over and grinned a little. “That’s the way it works, yes.”
“So why don’t you just change the name to Cognitive Lapse Syndrome? Why go through all this?”
That quizzical look was still in his eyes. “Because of the acronym,” he said. “If you told someone that you had CLS, they might ask if you’re going to die.”
His grin widened and he seemed pleased with himself. Pleased with the demonstration of his intelligence and knowledge. Lena glanced at Rhodes, wondering why Tremell’s son was taking so long to get here. For some reason she thought about a weekend seminar she had attended on drug intervention sponsored by the FBI. Before reaching the homicide table in Hollywood, Lena had spent her first two years as an investigator working narcotics. The event was held in Nashville, and offered a complete view of drug use worldwide that proved invaluable. But equally fascinating was the historical data the FBI provided. Although morphine had a very real medical purpose in pain management that continued to this day, there was a time in the mid-1800s when the drug had been marketed and prescribed as a cure for alcoholism. In 1898, a major pharmaceutical company introduced heroin as a cough medicine. For $1.50 you could order a bottle out of a department store catalog and have it delivered to your door. When reality sank in, when the party was finally over, the miracle of cocaine hit the world and was mixed in countless foods and drinks.