Diva Las Vegas (22 page)

“Uh, yes.”

“So he stays somewhere, right?”

“In a hotel, I assume.”

“No,” Jakes said. “I bet he has a place. And I bet you have a file on him, a personnel file, with the address in it. And a phone number. I’d like you to get it for me.”

“I don’t think—”

“Get his file, Mr. Bennett,” Jakes said. “I’ll bet you have a secretary who can do that for you.”

Bennett’s smooth face began to shine with perspiration. He picked up his phone and said, “Grace, can you get me Dr. Eugene Reynolds’s personnel file please? . . .Yes, bring it in here. Thank you.”

“Now tell me about this,” Jakes said. He took out a piece of paper folded the long way, unfolded it and handed it to Bennett. I could see it was a photocopy of the memo I’d gotten from Eddie the Stalker. Even the chocolate and ketchup stains had been copied, in color.

Bennett accepted the memo, looked at it. And then, for the first time, something in his face moved.

“Where—where did you get this?”

“It was given to me.”

“By whom? This—this is a private memo. No one outside of this building—this company—is supposed to have it.”

“Well, I do,” Jakes said. “And I’d like you to explain it to me.”

“Detective . . .”

“Mr. Bennett?”

Bennett seemed to be running out of air. He loosened his tie.

“Detective . . . this is a private memo . . .”

“I understand that, Mr. Bennett,” Jakes said. “What does it mean?”

“Well . . . well . . . I’m not a doctor. I don’t really know . . . uh . . . all the details . . .”

“But,” Jakes said, pointing, “the memo was signed by you. I assume that means it was drafted by you. Is that correct?”

“Well . . .” Bennett licked his lips. “Well, yes . . .”

Jakes probably saw this all the time, a guilty person squirming and sweating, but to me it was fascinating. Jakes had told me a long time ago that everyone was guilty of something. This was certainly true of Mr. Carl Bennett.

“So if it was drafted by you and signed by you,” Jakes said, “then you can explain to me what it is about, can’t you?”

“I—I suppose so.”

“Good,” Jakes said. “Then I suggest you do it before I have to take you downtown and conduct this conversation in a smaller, less expensively furnished room than this.”

“Detective, our business here is research,” Carl Bennett said. “And our focus is an antiaging process that works. This one,” he said, tapping the photocopy of the memo, “didn’t work. This memo was to keep our people from wasting any more time on it.”

“Your people?”

“All the doctors who work on our staff as researchers.”

“So this memo went to every doctor on your staff?” Jakes asked.

“That’s right.”

Jakes took out the business cards he’d collected from the front desk and spread them out on top of Bennett’s desk like a winning poker hand. “These doctors?”

“Yes.”

“Alex, you got that other card?”

I took out Dr. Reynolds’s card, the one Jakes had found in his house in Vegas, and set it on the table with the others, as if it were our ace in the hole.

“And him?” Jakes asked.

Bennett leaned forward to look at the card. “Yes, Dr. Reynolds would have gotten the memo,” the administrator said.

“What was wrong with this particular formula?” Jakes asked. He read the name off the memo. “Botchuhylonic acid?”

“It didn’t work.”

“Be more specific.”

“It had . . . specific properties that worked against the antiaging process.”

“It made people older instead of younger?” Jakes asked.

“Detective . . . we don’t deal in science fiction here,” Bennett said. “I’m telling you, it just didn’t work.”

At that point, a woman entered carrying a folder. She crossed the room and handed it to Bennett. She looked like one of the Whitney Institute’s Stepford women, a sister of the smooth-skinned girl downstairs. Her dark hair was up, as were her penciled eyebrows. She was wearing a gray suit and high heels.

“Thank you, Grace,” Bennett said, accepting the file from her. “That’ll be all.”

She left the room without a word, high heels clacking, without looking at Jakes or me. Something was wrong with a woman who didn’t look at Detective Frank Jakes. My man is fine.

“This is Dr. Reynolds’ personnel file,” Bennett said, handing it to Jakes. “Whatever information we have, such as an address, would be in there.”

“What else?” It was a slender file.

“His résumé—work history, private information, educational background.”

“And both addresses,” Jakes said, “in Las Vegas and Los Angeles?”

“Wherever he lived when he joined the Institute.”

“And when was that?”

“It’s in there.”

“You remember, though, don’t you?”

Bennett took a deep breath, let it out.

“If I recall correctly, he joined us about five years ago.”

“And how long have you been here, Mr. Bennett?”

“Seven years,” Bennett said, “when the Institute first started.”

“What about Genetic Systems,” Jakes asked. “How long have they been around?”

“A very long time,” Bennett said. “It’s one of the largest drug companies in the country.”

“Like Pfizer?” I asked.

Bennett looked at me as if he’d forgotten I was there. I couldn’t blame him. Jakes was doing all the talking.

“Perhaps not quite that big,” he said.

“I’ll take this with me, Mr. Bennett,” Jakes said, patting the file, “and return it when we’re done.”

“You can’t—” Bennett started to say, but he changed his mind. “A-all right.”

Jakes stood up, tucked the file underneath his arm. I stood up also, giving Jakes a questioning look. I thought he’d ask more questions of Bennett, who seemed extremely nervous.

“Before we leave, I’ve got one more question,” Jakes said.

Bennett stood.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Was it dangerous? The formula?”

“Dangerous?” Bennett looked confused. “How?”

“I don’t know,” Jakes said. “Did it . . . hurt people? Maybe make them look older?”

“I’m not the man to answer that, Detective,” Bennett said. “My job was only to write the memo and send it out.”

“Who gave you the information?”

“The doctor in charge of research on that particular project,” Bennett said.

Jakes looked at me, and then at Bennett.

“And who was that, Mr. Bennett?”

Bennett took a deep breath. It didn’t surprise us when he said, “Dr. Eugene Reynolds.”

When we got downstairs, Julie watched us walk out the door. Outside we found Jakes’s partner, Len Davis, waiting for us.

“You were late,” Jakes said.

“I figured you’d start without me.” He executed a slight bow in my direction. “Ms. Peterson.”

“Hello, Detective Davis,” I said. “I’m still Alex to you, you know.”

He smiled.

“What do you have there, Frank?” Davis asked.

“Personnel file on Eugene Reynolds.”

“Got a home address in there?”

“That’s what we’re going to find out,” Jakes said. “Leave your car here, Len, and come with us.”

“Alex is coming, too?” Davis asked.

“That’s right.”

“Why?”

“Because she gets in trouble when I leave her alone.”

“Reminds me of somebody else I know.”

Davis took the wheel of Jakes’s car, and I sat in the back. In the passenger’s seat, Jakes went through the file folder.

“The Vegas address is in here,” he said. “It’s only been five years. Most people don’t move in that period of time.”

“I haven’t,” I said.

“Me, neither,” Jakes said.

“I have,” Davis said. “Twice.” He looked at me in the rearview mirror and shrugged. “I get bored.”

“Okay,” Jakes said. “Here’s an LA address.”

“Nice neighborhood?” Davis asked.

“Brentwood.”

“I know the way there,” Davis said.

“Let’s go,” Jakes said.

I touched his shoulder, and he turned to look at me.

“If he was avoiding you in Vegas, what makes you think he’d go to his house here?”

“I don’t know,” Jakes said. “That’s what we’re going to find out.”

I sat back. What if all this antiaging-formula stuff had nothing to do with Shana’s death? Or the girl in Vegas? What if Reynolds was just a doctor trying to get FDA approval on a bad formula?

Well, like Jakes said, that’s what we were going to find out.

 

Davis stopped the car in front of Dr. Reynolds’s Brentwood home, an impressive mansion with a long, winding driveway behind a wrought-iron gate that had to be ten feet high.

“How do we get in?” I asked. I almost asked Jakes if he was going to scale this wall the way he had scaled the one in Vegas, but that would have gotten him in trouble with his partner. So I bit my tongue.

“The old-fashioned way,” Jakes said, opening his door. “We ring the bell.”

He walked to the gate. There was a box next to it with a button and a speaker.

“So how was Vegas?” Davis asked.

“Busy.”

“I been meanin’ to go to one of those events,” he said. “I just never get around to it. Almost made this one, since it was so close, but I was . . . busy.”

“Let me know if you want to go to the next one,” I said. “I’ll get you comped.”

“Hey, really?”

“Sure.”

Jakes was speaking to someone, bending over so he could talk into the box.

“So, did Frank do anything stupid in Vegas?” Davis asked.

“Stupid?”

He looked at me in the rearview mirror.

“You know what I mean. Bend the law a little bit?”

“Does he do that a lot here?”

“He has his moments.”

“Well, I wasn’t with him every minute,” I said. “Maybe he did.”

Jakes came back to the car and opened his door. As he got back in, the gate started to swing inward.

“The lady of the manor will see us.”

Davis pulled through the entrance and drove up the driveway. “And the doctor lives in Vegas?” he asked.

“Not sure,” Jakes said. He kept to himself the fact that the house in Vegas hadn’t looked lived-in at all.

Davis stopped the car behind a new Lexus, and we all got out. We approached the door, and Jakes rang the doorbell. The door was opened by a guy I’d guess to be in his late twenties. He also looked like he spent a substantial amount of time in the gym. He was busting out all over.

“Detective Jakes, we were expecting you. I’m Jones, Toni Jones—with an
i
,” he said in a very low voice. “The . . . butler.”

“With an
i
?” I asked. “Why an
i
?”

“My psychic told me it was better for my karma.”

O-kay, I thought.

“This is my partner, Detective Davis, and Ms. Peterson,” Jakes interjected.

The gym rat/butler looked me up and down. I had to give it to him: He had some guns. And muscles in places you’d never imagine.

“Ms. Peterson?” he asked. His voice reminded me of Darth Vader’s.

“She’s a special adviser working with us,” Jakes said.

“Special’s right.” He looked right at me, and I felt slightly slimed. He was some butler. “This way, please. Pookie is waiting.”

Pookie? Was he serious? Apparently so. He led the way, in tight, bun-hugging black pants that were dangerously close to ripping right down the center of his butt crack. I didn’t know what to make of this guy. But I didn’t have time to think about it. I was about to meet Pookie.

The house was simply spectacular. I didn’t know whether Pookie had an interior decorator or what, but someone had great, and very expensive, taste. As opposed to the Vegas pad, this place was definitely lived-in. As I looked around the beautifully appointed living room, I noticed the grand piano was adorned with a plethora of photographs. Interesting, I thought to myself. Photos of Dr. Reynolds were conspicuously missing.

Jones led us through the living room and another gorgeous room I assumed to be the library, to the back of the house. We walked through the doors and found ourselves in an atrium complete with glass walls and ceiling. Lush green trees were swaying in the breeze, and through the windows I could see a rolling lawn opening first to a pool surrounded by white statues and then, ultimately, a panoramic view of the Santa Monica foothills. As if this weren’t enough to take in, we were greeted by a woman lying on the floor with her legs in the air, her feet tucked behind her ears, like a contortionist. She looked as if her head were attached to her, um . . . This should be a fascinating conversation. I found myself wondering how long she could hold that pose.

“Pooks, Detectives Davis and Jakes,” Jones said. “Oh, and Ms. Peterson.” He looked at me, and again I felt slimed.