Craig Kreident #1: Virtual Destruction (25 page)

He glanced at the pile of documents on the floor next to his chair.
 
“I’m about a third of the way through this top drawer and I can’t find anything that looks out of place.”

Paige picked her way through the clutter to the outside window on the far wall.
 
“Why do you have the miniblinds closed?
 
How about a little sun?”

Craig let out a sigh of relief when warm yellow light flooded the room, drowning the harsh white fluorescents.
 
Glancing at the clock, he figured he’d been sitting for nearly two and a half hours.
 
Craig stood up and stretched.
 
“Let’s go over the schedule, then.
 
I could use a break.”

“Kay-O.
 
Tansy has cleared a table for us.”

They left Michaelson’s office to see where Tansy Beaumont had, literally, shoved papers on the floor to clear a narrow table in one of the cubicles.
 
Tansy scuttled back to her office as the phone rang.

As Craig looked over her shoulder, Paige spread out a sheaf of papers.
 
“Michaelson arrived at Livermore back from Washington at around noon on the day of his death.
 
They’re having trouble downloading the CAIN booth records, but once we get that list we’ll be able to have an exact time he entered and left the T Program complex.

“We know that Michaelson showed up at the VR lab while everyone was gone for lunch.
 
He wasn’t too happy about seeing the place deserted with all the new work he had just dumped on them.

“Michaelson then spent most of the afternoon in various meetings, making phone calls.
 
He has something called a ‘boob tour’ written down for the late afternoon.
 
I have no idea what that means—other than the crude implications.”

Tansy returned just in time to overhear.
 
“Oh, that was a tour of the Plutonium Facility with Deputy AD Aragon.
 
Dr. Michaelson always called him a ‘boob.’
 
From what I hear, they had quite an argument during the tour.”

“So Michaelson and this Aragon didn’t get along?”
 
Craig picked up the sheet and studied the notes.

“I’m not privy to all the facts,” Paige said, “but I understand there was quite a bit of friction between them.”

“One-way friction,” Tansy interrupted.
 
“Mr. Aragon was like a puppy-dog, always trying to make friends with Dr. Michaelson, but Hal couldn’t stand him.”

Paige added, “I’ve already tried to call Mr. Aragon, but he’s home on sick leave today.”

Craig put down the paper.
 
“Nice coincidence.
 
Let’s get back to that.”
 
He nodded at her notes.
 
“What happened after Michaelson left the plutonium building?”

“He had a late meeting with the Lab Director.
 
Dr. Michaelson was apparently under quite a bit of pressure from the President to get this verification initiative off the ground, so he was pushing the Director for a substantial increase in manpower.
 
The front office is willing to schedule you with the Director any time you want to talk to him, if you think that’s necessary.”

“What about after Michaelson left the Director’s office—did anybody keep track of him after that?”

“No, but once the CAIN records are available, we’ll have the exact time he entered the VR lab for the last time.”

“And the time that anyone else left the lab as well.”

Tansy held up a yellow message slip clutched in her gnarled fingers.
 
“Sorry for interrupting, Mr. Kreident, but you’re supposed to call the FBI forensics lab.”

With a rush of adrenaline, he took the note from Tansy’s hand.
 
“Can I use this phone?”
 
He pointed to the phone beside the workstation in the cubicle.

“Dial 8 to get an outside line,” Tansy said.

Craig punched in the number.
 
“This is Kreident.
 
What do you have?”

The voice of the woman lab tech sounded bleached and brittle, as if she had seen it all.
 
“First cut on Michaelson’s cause of death.
 
We know he’s had some coronary problems in the past, but no evidence of a heart attack here.
 
Something a lot weirder.”

Craig sat up in his chair, pulling out his notepad.
 
“So what did they find?”

“Looks like HF poisoning.
 
Hydrofluoric acid.
 
Caused those severe burns on his hands and face.
 
According to our chemical toxicologists, HF penetrates the skin and begins eating away the nerves until it permeates the bones.
 
Bad thing is you don’t even know it until too late.
 
A five-percent bodily exposure is usually a fatal dose.
 
Michaelson got it over 14% of his body.
 
Pretty nasty way to go.”

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

Friday

Livermore, California

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.”