"From the same thing? Small particle disease?"
"No. In fact, we've done several coagulation cascades and this is kind of the opposite, where we're seeing the creation of multinucle-ated giant cells which, essentially, become osteoclasts that eat bone."
"Eat bone? Not good, I'm guessing."
"It is bad. It's going to be much worse, though, if PII goes into full production."
"But if they know this, why would they go ahead with it? I mean, they've got to realize that they're looking at lawsuits forever. They'd be killing themselves."
"Not if they could get the problem fixed soon enough. They could take orders, start some cash flow going, have the delay later in the process rather than sooner. Caryn was already working on it, narrowing down some other options…"
"Another plastic?"
"Right. And pretty sure she was on the right track. She told me she thought we had a good chance to solve the problem in two years, maybe less. But it's a time and money game with PII. They're evidently strapped pretty badly right now, and if there's more delay before the FDA gives them a green light…"
"I know about that. At least I know that Caryn put up a lot of short-term money…" Stuart, struck with another insight, drummed his hands on the steering wheel. "Which would mean that at the time she did the mezzanine loan, she must have believed PII was going into production pretty soon, right? And was okay with it."
"But she wasn't okay with it. I know she wasn't." A silence settled in the cab. Finally Kelley said, "Look. She thought the money she gave them was to buy time for her research. That was her clear understanding. Except then she found out they weren't reporting the negative studies and planned to go ahead anyway."
"And when did she find that out?"
"I'm not sure exactly, but recently. Certainly by last week. She was down here, I think it was on Wednesday, and had evidently just gotten word from Mr. Furth that the FDA was days or weeks away from approval, and she was having a fit about it. She went into Mr. Blair's office and he told her that the deaths had occurred after the study was completed and therefore they shouldn't technically affect the FDA's ruling, which was going to send PII stock through the roof. And meanwhile she should just keep up her work on the next generation."
"How did she respond to that?"
"How do you think? She told him it was unconscionable and that
if he went ahead, she was going to go to the newspapers. It was her name on the socket, and she wasn't going to allow it to hurt people." "So what did Blair do?"
"He backed down a little, evidently. At least that's what Caryn told me when she came back out to the lab. They were all going to have another meeting this week and see if they could all come to some decision that made everybody happy. But she wasn't too optimistic."
"And the meeting was supposed to be this week?"
"Probably today," Kelley said. "She usually came down here to work on Wednesdays. Except of course now there won't be-" She stopped abruptly as her eyes teared up. For a few seconds she fought the urge to cry. At last, swallowing, gathering her strength, she went on. "So you see why I felt I had to talk to you?"
Twenty
Assistant District Attorney Gerry Abrams showed up uninvited at Devin Juhle's desk in Homicide at a little after four, when Juhle had just gotten himself arranged to write up an incredibly depressing witness interview he'd had with a despondent mother in a case he was following up on after he'd left Stuart Gorman's house. Abrams breezed by the lockers across from him, knocking on the top of one of them to announce his arrival. When Juhle looked up, he started right in, the soul of enthusiastic good cheer. "I must say you look a bit peaked, my good man. I've been thinking about Gorman, and I predict it'll cheer you right up."
Juhle threw his pen down on the desk, relieved after all at the respite. He pushed himself back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. "You know who I've been thinking about, Ger? Fidel fucking Rayas, that's who. Wondering why we've got to waste time and money on a trial for the son of a bitch."
"Because, my son, as I'm sure you know and appreciate, he's innocent in the eyes of the law until proven guilty. Who is he?"
"Christina Hidalgo's boyfriend. Also, p.s., the killer of her son, age five months."
"Shook him, did he?"
Juhle nodded. "Maybe a bit more than that. Although he's on his way to convincing Christina that it wasn't his fault, at least enough that she won't testify to it. He didn't really shake him. He just picked the kid up, trying to quiet it down, and then he just stopped breathing. Maybe because his skull got cracked. Somehow. Falling off his bed, maybe."
Abrams closed the gap between himself and Juhle's desk and plunked himself on a corner of it. "Tell her if it wasn't him, the only person that leaves is her. That ought to bring her right around."
Drawing a deep breath, fully disgusted, Juhle let out a string of matter-of-fact profanity. "I want to just shoot him right now," he concluded. "I swear to God, I do."
Abrams nodded. "I couldn't agree more, Dev. Really. The saddest thing about life here in San Francisco is there's no chance getting a death penalty. Maybe you could arrest him and accidentally slam into a telephone pole while you're driving him downtown. Guys like Fidel, I bet they're too macho to use their seat belts. You're going fast enough, he's toast."
Juhle perked up, straightened in his chair. "You know what, Ger? That's not a bad idea. Cost of a car against a murder trial, the city wins big time. I could get a medal." Juhle took a breath, seemed to shake the evil thoughts off his body, changed the subject. "So what were you thinking about Gorman? I thought yesterday we didn't have any evidence? You get something I don't know about?"
"No. But I watched the news last night."
"The fox?"
"His wife's sister. You saw her, then?" "She was hard to miss. Va-voom, huh?"
"At least. But you put her in the mix, suddenly we might be at a tipping point."
"Is she in the mix? Were they together?"
Abrams fairly beamed. "Why I love television. Noon news, just breaking. Her ex-husband says they went up to his cabin-that cabin again-for nearly a week. Alone together."
Juhle whistled, impressed. "But wait," he said. "There's been another development beyond that, not saying it's going to un-tip you, but you need to hear about it."
"What's that?" Abrams listened while Juhle explained about the TSNK e-mails. When the story was over, he said, "He's going proactive, that's all. Trying to give us something else, get us off him."
"That's how I read it too," Juhle said, "but it was a pretty good press. His lawyer and her investigator."
"Who's the lawyer?"
"Gina Roake."
Abrams brightened. "Roake. I don't recall her ever doing a homicide before. I should ask around. If she hasn't, it's something else to consider. The call on whether or not to bring him in is close enough. If he's got a first-timer defending him, odds on us go up. Maybe only slightly, but with everything else that might be enough."
"So what were you thinking about that brought you down here?"
"What we actually had." Suddenly the assistant district attorney was on his feet, pacing between Juhle's desk and the lockers. "Look, we've been going on about the lack of physical evidence, and there's no doubt that's a problem. The question is whether it's insurmountable. With this woman, finally-the sister-in-law-I'm starting to believe maybe it isn't."
"I'm listening."
"Okay, you're a jury. You hear about Gorman leaving the lakes at two o'clock in the morning. Squirrelly right off the bat, no? He takes way too long to show up at Rancho Cordova. And by the way, I did check and there were no traffic problems. Any way you cut it, there's lost time in there. It makes more sense that he drove up from the city after the murder. Then he's got a neighbor-and not just any neighbor, someone who's going to be a hostile witness for us and his daughter's friend-who puts him and his car at the house. He's doing CPR on a corpse in full rigor when the first squad arrives. Then there's the money. And finally, now, the other woman. This thing sings like Pavarotti."