Craig wheeled in his chair to look out the cubicle toward the VR chamber, its vault door yawning open. “Did the evidence techs find acid traces where the body was discovered?”
“No, but they weren’t looking for HF specifically. We’re sending a team back to Livermore to run a complete check.”
After Craig hung up, Paige and Tansy both watched him, eager for news. “They’ve got a preliminary cause of death,” he said. “HF exposure.” He watched them both closely to spot any reaction. If the term meant anything to the two, it didn’t show. “Hydrofluoric acid. You don’t know if Michaelson had access to hazardous substances, do you?”
“Not that I know of,” Tansy said. “They’re all just computer jockeys here. Nobody plays in a real chemistry lab, especially not Dr. Michaelson.”
Paige said, “If HF is a controlled or toxic chemical, we can get a list of all the places on site where it’s used.”
Craig nodded and stared at the VR chamber. The inside looked dark and foreboding. Fatal exposure to hydrofluoric acid. There seemed no further question about it — Hal Michaelson had been murdered.
CHAPTER 25
As Paige drove through the upscale residential section of Livermore, Craig sat in the MG’s passenger seat and turned over the events in his head. Tall live oaks leaned over the street, casting glossy green shade. The price range of the homes probably climbed ten thousand dollars every block.
“Now be careful not to say anything at all during the interview,” he said. “Let’s see how Aragon reacts first.”
“Kay-O,” she said, then turned left into a subdivision of custom homes with expensive rock gardens and landscaping lavished on the front yards. She checked the address from Craig’s note, and pulled up in front of a large stucco house with a tile roof and a wisteria-clad arbor overhanging the double front door.
Craig retrieved a pad of paper from his briefcase, slipped a pen into his pocket, and drew a comb through his hair before climbing out of Paige’s forest-green sportscar. She stood waiting for him in her strawberry-red suit, ready to stride up the sidewalk.
He held his FBI wallet ID and Livermore Visitor’s badge out as soon as the left half of the broad entryway door opened. A petite dark-haired woman flashed an automatic smile at them. “Hello, Rona Aragon? I’m Craig Kreident with the FBI, and this is Ms. Mitchell from the Lab. We called earlier?”
She nodded. “Please come in, my husband is expecting you.”
Craig flipped his ID wallet shut and gestured for Paige to precede him into the two-story home. A polished tile foyer extended to a formal living room with an empty fireplace flanked by two small crucifixes; arrangements of dried flowers sat on several smoked-glass end tables and shelves. Beyond, he could see a carpeted family room with a TV buzzing in the background. White walls were covered with family photographs from the local budget studio, high school pictures, and paintings of bucolic mountain scenes of the type usually displayed in cheap hotel rooms.
A dark-haired man not much larger than his petite wife rose from a reclining chair when they entered the family room. He smiled broadly out of habit, tinged with a sore weariness, and motioned with bandaged hands for them to take a seat. “Mr. Kreident? Miss Mitchell? I’m José Aragon. Pleased to meet you.”
He held up his bandaged arms. “I’d offer you my hand, but I’m under doctor’s orders not to do anything but air them out.” His wife came over to stand by his side. “What can I do for you?”
Craig withdrew the notepad and snagged the pen from his pocket. “I’ve been assigned to conduct the investigation into Dr. Michaelson’s death. Do you mind answering some questions?”
Aragon’s face fell slack. He gestured to the floral-print sofa beside them. “Please, have a seat. I’m glad to answer any questions I can, but I’m not sure I can help you.” He shook his head. “Terrible news about Hal. A tremendous man and a great asset to the Lab.”
“Could you please tell me where and when you heard about Dr. Michaelson’s death?” Craig asked.
Aragon nodded to his wife who hovered behind him. “Rona heard the news yesterday on Good Morning America. I was at the Kaiser Medical Center for most of the day with this.” He held up his bandages. “I haven’t been to work since.”
Craig looked Aragon’s bandaged hands more closely. They were covered from the elbow down with thick gauze, stained from within with a brownish-yellow antibacterial ointment. “What happened to your hands, Mr. Aragon?”
Aragon looked dismayed. “I only wish I knew. Two nights ago I woke up feeling like my hands were on fire. I went to the doctor the next morning and learned I had been exposed to some kind of acid. They had to remove a large circle in the middle of my right palm and excised the outer layers of skin from my hands. I’ll be scarred, but still able to use my hands once I heal up.”
Craig kept the emotion out of his voice as he took a gamble. “Where were you exposed to the hydrofluoric acid?”
“That’s the strangest thing. My Directorate covers a lot of territory, tech transfer and defense conversion. My only guess would be our glass-etching facility, but I visited the facility last week, not two days ago. I’d need to check my day planner.”
Craig wrote down a note on his pad and glanced at Paige. Her blue eyes were wide, but she said nothing to let on that Aragon had admitted to knowing about the HF.
“When was the last time you saw Dr. Michaelson?”
“Two days ago, just before he died. I took him on a tour to get his opinion on recent changes in the Plutonium Facility. He’s using that as part of his showcase of new technology for the International Verification Initiative. We’re very proud of that.”
“Michaelson worked for you, didn’t he?”
Sitting on the armrest of her husband’s easy chair, Rona stared down at the floor. Aragon smiled thinly. “Officially, yes — Hal Michaelson was assigned to my Directorate. But in practice, Hal worked for no one but himself. With his successful track record, Hal had carte blanche to do just about anything he wished.”
“Did you two get along?”
“Professionally, yes — very well. But we never socialized much. The only real contact I had with him was through program management, or we both had ties with the Coalition for Family Values. I head up the visitors program for the Coalition, and Hal’s programs always attracted the most attention. They were patterned after himself, I believe: flashy and overbearing.”
After Craig finished his repertoir of questions, he closed his notepad and stood. “Mr. Aragon, I appreciate your time and your candor.” He gave Aragon’s wife a business card. “If you can think of anything else about the last time you saw Dr. Michaelson, please give me a call.”
Aragon glanced at the official FBI card and looked worried. “This seems to be a rather in-depth investigation for a heart attack victim.”
“Where did you hear he died from a heart attack?” Craig asked.
Aragon blinked his dark, doelike eyes. “From the news. Was it something else?”
“We’d rather not say at the moment,” Craig said. “I’ll be back in touch if I need anything else.”
Paige stood by his side, brushing down her bright red skirt. “Thank you for your time — we can find our own way out.”
Craig shut the door behind them and motioned for Paige not to speak until they were inside her MG. Once they hummed along with the sound of a lawnmower engine, Paige blurted, “He's got HF burns, too? Is that some coincidence or what?”