Coldwater Revenge, James Ross [books for 9th graders txt] 📗

one of these outfits might have been using NeuroGene to distribute controlled substances?”

“You mean narcotics?” asked Sharp.

“Yes.”

Sharp’s lawyer interrupted. “Sheriff, is this a murder investigation or something else?”

Sharp waved a hand. “We’re talking about a few dozen petri dishes here, Sheriff. A couple of boxes of stoppered lab glass, that sort of stuff.”

“Did you ask?” Joe demanded.

“I didn’t have to. Every time I raised our handling fee, I got a call from Dr. Hassad with some new sob story. The next big cancer breakthrough… an off-license AIDS cocktail for some friend’s sick son. Whatever he thought might get me to hold the price down for one more shipment.”

“Did it?”

“Sometimes. But he always paid if I made him wait, so it was a question of how badly we needed the cash. In the end it’s a judgment call on how much the market will bear. I never felt like I squeezed him all that hard. It was more like he just enjoyed haggling.”

“Did Dave Willow participate in these negotiations?” Tom asked.

Sharp started to wag his head. Then he stopped. “At first he did. But then he always wound up chasing his own tail about who we should help and who we shouldn’t. There’s a lot of competitive jealousy in the research business. A couple of times we wound up turning away business when we really needed the cash. That’s no way to keep the doors open. So in the end, I just made those decisions myself.”

Sharp’s candor was making his lawyer visibly uneasy. “Why don’t we take a break for a few minutes?” he suggested. “I need to hit the men’s room and have a chat with my client.”

Sharp remained at the table. “You go ahead, Walter. I’m fine. I’d like to get this over with. Go on, Sheriff.”

“Tell me where you were last Saturday evening between the hours of ten P. M. and midnight?” Joe’s voice was steady, almost bored.

“What!” Sharp’s lawyer bleated. “My client isn’t a suspect here. And you have no jurisdiction to be asking those types of questions.”

“Home in bed, Sheriff, watching the Yankees on television.”

“Alone?”

“Alas.”

“Sheriff Morgan, if you’re going to pursue this line of questioning, I’m going to have to end this interview. Mike, I really have to insist.”

“Where is U- Labs located?” Joe continued.

“Somewhere near Montreal,” said Sharp.

“Mike!”

“It’s okay, Walter.”

“And how did these petri dishes or whatever arrive? Were there customs declarations and so forth?”

“Actually, the stuff usually just came in the mail.”

“From Canada?”

“No, from this side. Sometimes right from Coldwater.”

Sharp’s lawyer was perspiring visibly.

“How’s that?” asked Joe.

“Canada is only about thirty or so miles from Coldwater, right? Dr. Hassad probably just had someone pop over on a lunch break and put it in the mail.”

“Isn’t that somewhat… irregular?” Joe asked.

“No. I’d say VIP posting is the norm in our business.”

Joe lifted an eyebrow.

“‘Vial-in-pocket’,” Sharp explained. “Look, Sheriff, scientists are just like everybody else. They don’t like paperwork and they don’t like hassles.”

“You’re telling me that there are vials and petri dishes being walked across the U. S. /Canada border and just dropped in the nearest mailbox?”

“All the time. Occasionally, Dr. Hassad sent someone over, if it was something he thought needed special handling.” As he said this, Sharp paused, closed his eyes and tilted his head up and to the left. When he opened them he said, “Let me see that photo, again, Sheriff.”

Joe removed the blown-up copy of Billy Pearce’s driving license from the folder on his lap and handed it to Sharp.

“This guy came, once. I remember him now. He was a real prick. Parked his truck in the handicapped parking spot. Came in with a boom box blasting. Told everybody to get the hell out of the mail room. And he smelled, too. I called Dr. Hassad after that and told him to send someone else next time or find a new distributor.”

While Joe scribbled a note, Tom asked, “You said that you thought your partner wanted to buy you out so he could get back to basic research?”

“That’s right. The burn rate on our cash was pretty steep and I think Dave was getting kind of tired of the nonstop fundraising gig. He was on the road three days a week at least. We had a bunch of arguments about scaling back research to meet cash flow. I think Dave just got tired of the whole profit and loss side of the business.

Maybe he found an investor, or maybe he hooked one of the big drug companies. But at the silly price he was offering, I wasn’t going to ask.”

* * *

Tanner Hartwell, the senior managing partner at Tom’s law firm, and two other lawyers were waiting in a conference room when Tom arrived. A row of fat document boxes covered the table in front of them. Hartwell was a slightly stooped six foot one, the same as Tom though a quarter century older. He extended a long fingered hand, bound at the wrist by a slim Cartier tank watch. “Thanks for coming,” he said. “I believe you’ve already met Stuart. This is his associate, Charles Adams.” Tom shook hands with the balding compliance partner and the young associate who looked like he might have passed up a career in professional football. “Charlie, why don’t you show Tom those documents.”

The associate opened a series of red wells and velo-bounds stamped with the logo: Greater Cairo Infrastructure Project. He handed Tom one of the volumes, opened to the signature page and pointed to Thomas Morgan, Esq., attorney-in-fact.

“Do you remember this deal?” Hartwell asked.

“Vaguely,” said Tom. “That must have been fifteen years ago. I would have been a young associate, like Charlie here, working on pieces of fifty different deals. But if I recall correctly, it was an Egyptian public works project funded by the U. S. Agency for International Development. The partner in charge got me involved because Egyptian commercial law turns out to be based on the Napoleonic code.”

“Because you read French?”

“That’s right. Egyptian civil courts don’t publish judge-made case