Fatal Care (14 page)

“Oh, I think the odds are pretty good that a well-dressed woman would have credit cards. Don’t you?”

Jake nodded, wondering where Joanna was headed. “Okay. Let’s assume she had them.”

“So, where would she use them?”

“Not in that goddamn neighborhood,” Jake said. “You don’t use credit cards in cheap bars and doughnut shops. And last I looked, there weren’t any Neiman Marcus stores in south Santa Monica.”

“But there are gas stations.”

Jake blinked rapidly as the pieces suddenly fell into place. “Like you said, she was really well dressed, which means she wasn’t a local. She drove in from Beverly Hills or the west Valley. And she did it at least two or three times a week, so she could track the guy and learn his routine.”

“She might have gassed up in this area,” Joanna opined. “She wouldn’t want to run out of gas on the freeway on her drive back.”

“Or run out of gas following the Russian,” Jake added. “Hell, she didn’t know where he was going at first. He could have led her to the next county.” Jake nodded firmly. “She gassed up nearby. And maybe, just maybe, one of the service station guys will remember her. They don’t see many expensively dressed blondes in this area. She’d stand out.”

“It’s a long shot,” Joanna told him. “And it’s also a ton of work. There are dozens of gas stations in that area.”

“But at least it’s a possible trail to follow, and who knows what might turn up.” Jake looked over at Joanna and gave her a big wink. “That gas station idea was damn good. You’re pretty sharp after a roll in the hay, aren’t you?”

“Well, I’ve had a chance to turn my brain back on now,” Joanna said demurely.

Jake grinned. “I hate quick women.”

“How about quick women who make great chicken pot pies?”

“Those I can’t live without.”

Joanna went into the kitchen and removed the well-done chicken pot pies from the oven. She placed them on a tray and reached for napkins and forks and fresh beers. Life was going so good, she thought contentedly. Joanna came back into the living room and placed the tray on the lower ledge of the brick fireplace. She used a fork to break the crusts of the pies. Small puffs of steam seeped out, carrying a wonderful aroma with it.

“Want to talk a little more crime while we wait for these to cool a bit?” Joanna asked.

“Sure,” Jake said as he stirred the crust into the steaming pie. “What do you have?”

“I finished the autopsy on the drowning victim.”

“And?”

“And I don’t think it was accidental.”

Jake smiled thinly. “I knew it. I just knew it. What’d you find?”

Joanna told him about the skull fracture and the large subdural hematoma beneath it. “I think somebody conked him on the head and pushed him overboard.”

“Would it stand up in a court of law?”

“Probably not,” Joanna had to admit. “The findings are suspicious, but suspicions don’t prove a damn thing.”

“His wife did it,” Jake said with certainty. “The young brunette with the big boobs and the cute ass either iced him or had him iced. I’d bet on it.”

“Is she a lot younger than he?”

“Try thirty years.” Jake tasted a small piece of the chicken pot pie. It was still too hot. “And it wasn’t only the age difference. There were other things.”

“Like what?”

“Like the way she tried to act sad when she wasn’t,” Jake answered, remembering. “And there were her eyes. She tried to look straight at me and Farelli, but her gaze kept drifting to the young studs passing by in the marina. She just couldn’t control it. She’s got hot pants, and she’ll be ready to ride as soon as they bury her ex.”

“And she’s going to have a ton of money to ride with,” Joanna said. “What do you think she’ll be worth?”

Jake hesitated. “It’s hard to determine exactly how much because his will is so complicated. Apparently he was into a dozen different ventures. Most of them go to his two sons from a prior marriage. Some go to family charities and some to Miss Hot Pants. Then there are all sorts of options on who can buy out who and what they’ll have to pay for it.”

“Roughly, what does she stand to inherit?”

“Somewhere in the vicinity of twenty million dollars.”

“That’s a lot of reasons to murder someone.”

“And don’t forget the two-million-dollar life insurance policy she gets.”

“That gives her even more reasons.”

“And chances are the little bitch will walk,” Jake said sourly. “With twenty-two million tax-free dollars.”

“We might get lucky,” Joanna said with little optimism. “I still haven’t looked at the microscopic slides. Maybe they’ll turn up something.”

“She’s going to walk,” Jake said again.

“You’re probably right,” Joanna agreed. “But let’s touch all the bases. Can you arrange for me to take a look at Edmond Rabb’s yacht?”

“Yeah, I guess so.” Jake chewed on a hot piece of crust and washed it down with beer. “What are you going to be looking for?”

“I want to see if I can find some mechanism to explain how Edmond Rabb tripped at the back of his yacht, cracked his head open, and still managed to fall overboard.”

“And even if you can’t, do you think that would stand up in court?”

“Probably not.”

“Like I said, she’s going to walk.”

The cell phone in Jake’s coat chirped. He reached for it and spoke briefly. Then he switched it off. He stared into the fire for a full thirty seconds, his face expressionless, his mind obviously somewhere else. Slowly he pushed himself up from the fireplace and began gathering his clothes. “I’ve got to go.”

“What’s wrong, Jake?”

“Billy Cunningham just died.”

The desert wind gusted strongly, blowing sand and loose sagebrush across the highway. Joanna leaned over the steering wheel of her car and tried to see the center dividing line. All she saw was brown. Everything was brown. The sky, the air, the ground. A sudden blast of wind shoved her car sideways, and she had to fight to control it. Joanna slowed down more and hoped no one would crash into her from behind. The visibility was less than twenty-five feet.

Joanna concentrated on the road ahead, looking for the Bio-Med facility. The person who had given her directions said she couldn’t miss it. Just follow the highway out of Lancaster, turn left at the big intersection, and drive until she came to the plant that was surrounded by a big chain-link fence. She couldn’t miss it. But in a sandstorm like this, Joanna thought miserably, she could miss the Empire State Building.

Up ahead the air seemed clearer, but all Joanna could see was desert. And more desert. Again she wondered why Bio-Med had built their facility in such an isolated location. Eric Brennerman had told her that the land was cheap and security easy to maintain. But still, why come way out to the edge of the Mojave Desert? There were other places in Los Angeles County they could have used. She considered the possibility that the dry climate was somehow important to genetic research. No, she quickly decided. It was easy to control the temperature and humidity inside a research laboratory. One didn’t have to come out to the desert for that.

Suddenly the wind died and the sky cleared. The desert was colored a light tan, the sky a deep blue. Off to her right, Joanna saw the chain-link fence. Atop the fence were large coils of barbed wire. Maybe security was the reason for the plant’s locale, Joanna thought again, remembering that the science of genetic engineering had become a multibillion-dollar business. And with the human genome about to be deciphered—in essence, the product of every human gene determined—the genetic industry would be worth trillions. The money involved was staggering. Just isolating the gene that produced human insulin had already generated billions of dollars in the marketplace.

Ahead Joanna saw a tall metal gate with a kiosk adjacent to it. She slowed, turning to the right, and lowered her window.

“I’m Dr. Blalock, here to see Dr. Brennerman,” Joanna told the uniformed guard.

“I’ll need a photo ID,” the guard said.

Joanna handed him her driver’s license and noticed that he was armed. Inside the guard’s kiosk was a panel of electronic switches and buttons, and above that a bank of small television monitors.

The guard handed her license back and pushed a button. The metal gate slowly opened. “Follow the road straight in. You can park in the VIP spaces next to the front entrance.”

Joanna drove in slowly on a narrow asphalt road that was still covered with sand from the windstorm. In the rearview mirror, she saw the gate closing and the guard in the kiosk talking on the phone.

Joanna brought her attention back to the grounds around the plant. Everything was barren with no grass or trees or any attempt at landscaping. Off to her left was a paved parking lot, but the rest of the ground was covered with a gravel-like material.

She pulled into a parking space in front of a huge building that looked like a storage shed. Its walls were made of corrugated metal with no wood or trimming of any kind. There were no windows.

Joanna left her car and entered the building. She went through one set of glass doors and then passed another set before coming to an empty reception area. The room was small, with no furniture or decorations. On the white plaster wall in front of her was the blue logo for Bio-Med. It was a globe of the world surrounded by the words
Bio
and
Med
.

A side door opened and an armed guard came over. He handed her a visitor’s card and watched her pin it on. “Please wear that at all times.”

She followed him through the door and down a narrow corridor with no side doors or windows. Overhead she hear a soft whirring sound and looked up. A surveillance camera mounted on the ceiling was following her. At the end of the corridor they came to a panel on the wall. The guard punched numbers into the panel and stepped back as the door opened automatically.

Joanna entered an enormous laboratory that was an exact replica of Eric Brennerman’s lab at the Biogenetics Institute, except that it was at least three times larger. Joanna scanned the spacious glass cubicles that lined the walls. The colors of the plants and vegetables growing inside the cubicles were so bright they were almost blinding.

“Hey, Joanna,” Brennerman called out as he walked over. “Welcome to Bio-Med.”

“Sorry I’m late,” Joanna apologized. “I got caught in a sandstorm.”

“We get them all the time,” Brennerman said. “They come and go pretty fast.”

“Does the sand ever seep into the labs?”

Brennerman shook his head. “It can’t get through two layers of corrugated steel. And the skylights are made of Plexiglas that is sealed into the metal roof.”

Joanna glanced up at the skylight, which was large and circular. Each cubicle seemed to have its own natural light source. The cubicle nearest her contained green shrubs laden with brown beans. “Are those coffee beans?”

Brennerman nodded. “A special kind.”

“What’s so special about them?”

“They don’t contain caffeine.”

Joanna leaned up against the cubicle for a closer look. The glass felt warm and dry, but everything inside the cubicle appeared moist and cool. “How did you manage that?”

“By snipping out the plant’s gene that produces caffeine.”

“How does the coffee taste?”

“Like what you buy in the store.”

They moved on to the next cubicle. It was freezing inside with ice forming on the walls and floor. A researcher wearing a winter coat was tending to the tomato plants. The tomatoes looked ripe and delicious.

“Doesn’t the freezing temperature kill the tomatoes?” Joanna asked.

“Nope.” Brennerman knocked on the Plexiglas and got the researcher’s attention. He motioned for the man to pick a tomato and pass it out.

The cubicle door opened. Joanna felt a blast of cold air as the researcher handed her the tomato.

“Feel it,” Brennerman said.

Joanna gently squeezed the tomato. It was ripe and soft. There wasn’t even a speck of ice on its outer coat. “Amazing.”

“Not really,” Brennerman explained. “It’s done by gene transfer. There is a winter flounder that can swim all day long in freezing water, and it never ices up. That’s because the flounder makes an antifreeze which protects it. We isolated the fish’s antifreeze-producing gene and transferred it to tomato plants. The end result is a tomato that can withstand very low temperatures.”

“Impressive,” Joanna said, and meant it. But the idea of transferring genes between totally unrelated species—fish to tomato—bothered her. Creating a Frankenstein monster was now well within reach, particularly in the private biotechnology section where there was so little federal monitoring or regulation.

“And here is a real problem,” Brennerman said, guiding her along to the next cubicle. Inside was golden wheat bathed in natural light that was coming from the skylight above. “This wheat has been genetically modified to increase its protein content. In essence, that allows the farmer to plant less, yet feed more people.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“The wheat also produces something which makes it very resistant to antibiotics.”

Joanna furrowed her brow as she tried to think through the problem. Slowly she looked up at Brennerman. “Are you suggesting that the plants may be able to transfer this resistance?”

Brennerman nodded. “Maybe to the bacteria that feed on them in the ground. And if that’s the case, you’ll end up with a group of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and that would be very bad for man.”

“Jesus,” Joanna breathed softly.

The quiet in the laboratory was broken by a loud, angry male voice. Joanna and Brennerman turned to watch a scientist in a long white coat as he berated an Asian American technician. He glared down at the woman and shook a finger in her face, making her cringe. The technician looked as if she wanted to run and hide. Joanna couldn’t help but feel for her.

“That’s Alex Mirren,” Brennerman said. “He’s the senior scientist I mentioned to you last week.”

“Does he always embarrass his technicians in public?” Joanna asked.

“Alex is not much on civility,” Brennerman replied. “But he’s a very fine scientist who has made some important discoveries. He’s the one, by the way, who did the animal studies on the lipolytic enzyme.”