Deep Pockets (34 page)

Orza’s address in Somerville was a corner convenience store with a phone, nothing more, nothing less. Denali would have paid some clerk to say that Helen was out whenever Wiseman phoned. She’d have left a few letters for the clerk to post at certain intervals. What had Donna Barnette been charged with in New Hampshire, after all? Forgery. I didn’t bother to go into the store, confront the clerk, listen to his outraged denials.

Well, the place Denali went wrong was, she didn’t reckon with me. Thinks she’s the only one with half a brain. This patent shit’s taking too damn long. I don’t see why Chaney shouldn’t pay my expenses while I wait, and I don’t see why I shouldn’t make a chunk of change off Harvard while I’m at it. I mean, think of it, deep pockets, right? She says no, wait for the big score, forget about it, but she’s wrong. Chaney paid up like a baby, and Harvard will, too.

Wrong, I thought. You paid, Benjy. Hell, that’s why I’d sensed two patterns in the case, because there were two crooks, each trying to outsmart the other. Two patterns, one slow and crafty, the other hasty, eager to get rich quick. Two crooks, two plans. Denali wanted something big from Chaney. She was willing to wait. Dowling, the con who always went too far, who gilded the lily, was the blackmailer. He was the one behind the lawsuit. I wondered whether Denali would have killed him if he hadn’t branched off on his own, if that had always been her plan.

“Carlotta? You okay just sitting here?”

“Hang on a minute, Leroy.”

Anyway, I’m sorry it went down the way it did. I had nothing against that Helen, seemed like an okay kid. I’m not saying I didn’t know Denali would kill her — I mean, she stole her dental chart, right? — but I wasn’t really in on it, more what you call an accessory. I was real good. I shoulda been an actor, probably won an Academy Award. The cops took Helen’s hair-brush from my place when I told them I had it, case they decided to do that new DNA thing. Well, I’m smarter than Denali thinks I am. There’s hairs here in this envelope. Don’t throw them away. They’re Helen Orza’s hairs, from her hair-brush, I swear to God, and they’re just like the ones I told the cops were Denali’s. This is the truth, so help me God.

“Start heading to Cambridge, Leroy.”

I phoned Burkett, left a message telling him I’d messenger Dowling’s confession. I called Geary, Chaney’s lawyer. Still the recorded message. I called Spengler, head of security at Improvisational. He put me on hold while he checked, then told me Chaney wasn’t in the lab, that he’d been there but had left. “Alone?” I asked. “Did he leave alone?” Did I want him to pull up the video? Spengler asked. I did. We were still tracing the curving path of Alewife Brook when he reported that Chaney had left with a small blond woman, a real looker.

I called Chaney’s house, got Mark, the secretary, then Margo, the wife. The connection was bad. My cell battery was running down.

“What?” I said. “What did you say?”

Her voice sounded muffled. “Can you come over right away?” she asked. “Now?”

“Is your husband there?”

Static almost muffled her reply. “No.”

I told Leroy to drop me at the Chaneys’, then take the envelope to Burkett at the Cambridge Police Department, give it into his hands and his hands only. I tried for a dial tone on my cell, got nothing, picked up the cab’s two-way and got Gloria.

“Urgent,” I told her. “Call Leon at the JFK Building.” I didn’t have to give her a number; Gloria knows numbers. “Tell him his buddy Wilson Chaney is probably on the way to Logan Airport with a killer. Tell him I’ll be heading there in a few minutes, the international terminal, with a gun. Tell him if he can clear the path for me with the staties, I’d be obliged. If he can meet me, so much the better. Tell him the BPD will have paper. Chaney’s not supposed to leave the state, much less the country.”

“Got it.”

Leroy said, “Maybe I better stick with you.”

I said, “Come back here as soon as you’ve given the envelope to Burkett. If I’m already gone, meet up with me at Terminal E, Logan. Gloria, you still there?”

“Here.”

“Make the call. And send me another cab.” I gave her the Chaneys’ address.

The high gate was open, not hanging ajar,
but unfastened. That should have rung a bell, but the warning was muted because my mind was focused on the fact that Denali was Donna was Dorothy. That the golden girl was alive, not dead, a killer, not a victim. I pushed past the gate and took the flagstone path to the front door.

When no one answered my knock, I turned the knob. The door swung in, stopped abruptly, stuck. I put my shoulder to the wood and shoved until I could slide sideways through the narrow gap.

Mark, Mrs. Chaney’s secretary, was dumped on the foyer floor like a sack of trash, the cause of the blocked door, the object I’d moved. I put a quick hand to his throat. His carotid artery pulsed weakly. He gave a faint snorting sound when I touched him. I slid out of my shoes, found my gun in my hand, eased down the hall toward the withdrawing room.

Silence hung over the house like a coiled and waiting snake. I kept my gun in both hands, used it to point around corners and into empty doorways. I found Margo in the withdrawing room, stretched on the chaise. She seemed to be asleep, but she was bound with the cord from the fancy telephone, the white lines almost invisible against her pale frilled nightgown. The instrument dangled near the floor, dead and useless, but Margo was alive, breathing, gagged with a scarf. Her eyes fluttered and she struggled weakly against her bonds.

I grabbed my cell, punched 911, got nothing, not the feeblest dial tone. The red light gleamed.
RECHARGE BATTERY
appeared in the small window. I was debating my next move, whether or not to untie Margo, whether she’d prove an asset or a helpless disaster, screaming in terror, when her imagined scream seem to materialize, echoing through the house, a wail of anger and rage, followed by a sharp report, the unmistakable sound of a gun. Not a backfire, gunfire.

I left Margo and raced back to the front door. Mark hadn’t moved, but I could hear groans and low murmurs, coming from the right of the foyer, down another hall. I pressed my body against the wall, making myself a smaller target, and inched forward. My thigh started to ache; the old gunshot wound seemed to tingle at the harsh smell of cordite.

Freeze frame: An office, small, disordered, lined with bookshelves. A desk, a sprawled chair. A painting leaning against a wall, a flash of color. A wall safe, door yawning. Wilson Chaney prone, a trickle of blood seeping from his temple; wearing a white shirt at first glance, a lab coat at second; his face twisted in pain, his eyelids flickering. A leather briefcase, open, papers scattered across a wooden floor. A woman bent over Chaney, kneeling near his waist, a spill of blond hair.

“It was his fault.” She seemed to know someone was in the doorway, but she didn’t look up. “Tried to trick me — bastard had a gun in the safe. Would you believe it, Wilson, with a gun?” She lifted her head and the silky hair framed her face like folded wings.

What had I expected? A devil in a dress? A femme fatale, cheap, gaudy, and obvious? She was beautiful the way angels in church are beautiful. Her chin was pointed, her cheek smudged. The left knee of her jeans was torn, and her breasts were bare under a tank top. Her nose was smaller than a true classic, but she was a stunner all the same, her lower lip full, her wide eyes cornflower blue. Calm, but with depth. They said, How could a girl like me do anything wrong? They said, I didn’t mean it. They said, Please take care of me.

“Back away from him,” I said. “Let me see your hands.”

She didn’t move anything but her sullen lips. “It’s his fault. He pulled a fucking gun. He — I don’t know — you can never tell with men, can you? So happy to see me, that’s what he said. He used to be happy to see me.”

“Get your hands in the air.” There was a gun in the room, but I couldn’t see it. Her hands were spread, one on each side of Chaney’s motionless body — one near his shoulder, one disappearing under his waist.

She smiled at me, showing small white teeth, staring unflinchingly into the gun barrel. “I thought you were still in the hospital.”

“I thought you were dead, Denali.”

“Your mistake.”

Wilson had yanked a gun from the safe, whirled, shot? No. He’d pulled the gun, aimed it at beautiful, beautiful Denali, stopped and spoken, tried to reason with her. She’d dazzled him, grabbed the weapon, fought him, shot him. He’d fallen.

Where was the gun?

“Move away from him,” I said.

She kept her hands where they were, her knees on the ground. I watched her feet. Beige sandals. Scarlet toes like drops of blood. If she was going to charge me, she’d need to shift her feet, get some leverage.

She smiled. “You work for him, don’t you?”

“Yes.” Was the gun under Chaney? Was she scrabbling for it? Had she reached it?

“You work for him. Right. So now I’m going to tell you why you’re going to back off and let me walk out of here. Listen, or you’ll regret it. He’ll regret it, and so will you.”

She had a low voice, gruff and throaty, almost like a teenage boy’s when it starts to change. I kept the pistol pointed at her chest.

“You give me to the cops, I’ll nail your boss for rape, first off. You know, we had a thing going, but I’ll say it was rape, and who’s to say it wasn’t? That’ll fix the bastard. He’ll never get another job like the one he’ll lose.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Once the cops pull her record, no one will believe a thing she says, I thought.

“He wouldn’t want you to keep me here. The shooting was a mistake. Just let me go and you can rush him to a hospital. He’s still bleeding, see? He’ll be okay.”

I didn’t move. Neither did she.

“Hey, he’s no saint, believe me. None of this would have happened if he hadn’t been trying to cheat Harvard in the first place. Oh, I’ll talk about that, don’t think I won’t. He’s no angel in this. Does that surprise you? It does, doesn’t it? You fell for him, didn’t you? Such an important man, such a brilliant man.”

My eyes flicked over the floorboards, the rug, her splayed hands. Had her right hand, the hand near Chaney’s waist, disappeared farther under his body? His lab coat blocked my view.

“You know what an unintended consequence is?” she asked.

Oh yes, I thought. “Yes,” I said aloud.

“There’s more going on here than you could possibly know. And it’s worth millions, hundreds of millions.”

I watched her watch me, looking for the gleam of interest when she mentioned money. I tried my best to supply it.

“Sure he’s been talking about an ADHD drug, help all the poor kids. Sure that’s where he started. But when you mess with the brain, you don’t really know what’s gonna happen. These guys, they think they’re so damn smart, but they don’t know.”

“What do you think he found?” I asked.

“What
did
he find.” she said, correcting me. “I’m no fool.”

I’ve seen politicians claim they were bankrupt and mobsters swear their innocence on their mothers’ graves, but I have never seen a more calculating face. I watched her clear blue eyes decide what to tell me, and I knew that whatever it was, it wouldn’t be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but.

“He’s in late stage clinicals now. You know what those are, right? You’re not dumb, either; you read the papers. A woman in your business, you must be sharp.”

She was working me, trying to get me on her side, flattering me. I watched her bait her hook. It was like taking a master class in con artistry.

“One of Impro’s clinical trial groups, at a certain dosage, had an unexpected outcome. Totally unexpected. Chaney couldn’t have been more surprised if they’d sprouted wings and flown away. They all, every single man, woman, and child, lost weight. Brilliant Chaney didn’t expect that. That hadn’t happened before, not in the animal control groups, not ever. He was so excited, he had to tell someone.”

Poor Chaney, blabbing to his sweet little lover.

“And nothing else bad happened to those people,” she went on. “No adverse effects. They all lost pounds and kept on losing. He had to stop the trial. Imagine. You know how many fat people there are in this world? How many who aren’t fat but think they’re fat?” Her right hand moved just a little. She licked her lips and tossed her hair to cover the movement. If I’d been male, the tricks might have kept me looking at the wrong things.

I pretended I hadn’t seen her move. I could see the ease flow into her eyes then, the idea that she was going to walk away, that she’d found herself another sucker.

“Fifteen percent of kids in this country are fat, for Chrissakes, and that’s just kids. You know what people will pay to look good? You know what women pay for Botox shots, poison shots? In this country, weight loss is a fifty-billion-dollar-a-year thing. Imagine what they’ll pay for this. Imagine. Chaney did. Chaney said, Why should Harvard get all that money when I did all the work? Why shouldn’t I walk away with the giant’s share? Why shouldn’t I be able to leave my bitch wife, go off with my girlfriend? Have all the money in the world?”

“There’s a problem, Denali. If Chaney were gone, if he’d disappeared with his drug formula, well, then people might believe it, but here he is, and you shot him.”

Her eyes blazed. “It was a fucking accident. It should have happened like I said.”

“ ‘Should have’ isn’t going to cut it.”

“If he hadn’t been so fucking slow, everything would have been fine. He kept saying it would only be a little longer, a little longer. He had to be able to replicate his results, make sure he could duplicate every little thing. I needed him to fill out the damned patent application.” She waved at the papers scattered on the floor. “It’s all done now. We could walk away with it, you and me. There’s plenty for two, plenty for three. You can have Wilson’s share, for doing nothing, for walking away. I know a man in Switzerland who knows people at drug companies. I could really use some help. I hurt my shoulder and—”