The Black Silent

CHAPTER 5

After Ranken was finished taking his statement, he walked Sam to Ben's office. Frick had no doubt ordered Ranken to delay him, for reasons he was sure he would soon discover. Ranken didn't much like being a stooge, but he was going along with Frick for the moment.

The building that housed Ben's office was impressive: the walls were of some rough-surfaced, stonelike concrete block; the ceilings were tall, about twelve feet; great care had been taken in making moldings of natural wood; the floors appeared to be acid-stained concrete made to look mottled in gold and rust. The money behind Sanker was evident.

A couple of officers stood in Ben Anderson's large office. There was no sign of Frick, and Ranken seemed interested in leaving upon arrival.

"You stay here with Officer Wentworth and Ms. Walthers. Officer Frick will be by with more questions," Ranken said.

Haley stood near one of the officers, looking a combination of angry and discouraged.

Sam went to her immediately, searching for any evidence of harm.

She gave him a look that said she was all right. "This is 'Crew' Wentworth." She indicated a handsome officer with a blond buzz cut. Sam had seen him around and had observed Haley talking with him when the squad car was curbside near the coffee shop.

"She's been telling me a little about Ben's work," Crew said.

Sam raised his eyebrows. Haley nodded quickly-Crew was okay.

"Basic molecular biology," she said. "One of the things Ben did was compare long-lived species with similar but shorter-lived species. Like the tortoise that lives maybe one hundred fifty years versus a sea turtle with a much more modest life span. Bottom line: he studied the DNA of sea creatures as it pertained to longevity. I think he was looking at over two hundred or so genes of interest."

"I'm supposed to find Ben's most current work," Crew said. "How the hell I'm supposed to tell, I haven't figured out yet. A Dr. McStott is really in charge of the technical stuff.

Haley here is my best hope. I'm supposed to be looking for papers about DNA. About genes."

"What about DNA?" Sam asked.

"Something that would slow aging."

"I'd like to talk to Haley a moment," Sam said to Crew. "If that's okay with you."

Crew nodded. "Just don't touch anything, and don't take long. I need her help."

Sam moved with Haley a little farther away from the deputies, near an open window.

"Are you all right?" Sam whispered.

She nodded. "He cuffed me, gagged me, and threw me in a room."

"Frick did that?"

She nodded.

"He must be desperate to take that kind of risk."

Another nod.

"He won't be in charge for long," Sam said. "Soon the undersheriff or the regular sergeant will probably show up and I have a hunch things will change. He let me in only because he thought he might get more information that way."

"Frick says Ben's dead," Haley said. "He said I was part of the murder. He's going to put me in jail for something, maybe murder, maybe some kind of unlawful entry pending a bail hearing. He even said he'd kill you. Unless I cooperated."

"Wait, now. What did he say you did?"

"Let in the killers. A lab tech is dead as well."

"And he threatened to kill me?"

She nodded. "And he was serious. So I signed the paper and he totally changed his tune."

"Yeah, he's playing his own version of good cop/bad cop. He's using Crew to get you to lead him to Ben's work. They're onto Ben's aging stuff?"

Another nod.

"Maybe he doesn't know any more about what Ben was doing than we do."

"Sam-I'm scared. Do you think Ben's really dead?"

"I don't know. It seems unlikely if Frick's got no body." Sam looked out the open window and studied the drop to the ground. "Does this building have balconies?"

Haley nodded and explained where it was located. They walked back over to Crew and his huge stack of papers.

"Crew… may I call you that?"

"Everybody else does."

"Did Officer Frick tell you to get Haley to tell you what Ben was doing?"

Crew nodded. "That obvious, huh?"

"Ben just disappeared, as far as you know?" Sam asked.

"He called the department. Said somebody tried to murder him. We found footprints below the balcony at the end of the building. We suspect they're Ben's."

"Does Frick know about them?"

"Oh yeah. They're pretty obvious. Deep in the mud. We do have a dead lab tech, though.

Found him in the bushes."

"So Frick says Ben's dead, when he's not," Sam said. "And he wants you to talk your old friend into getting him Ben's secrets, right?"

Crew didn't answer.

"Aggravating, isn't it?" Sam asked. "Makes you wonder what he's really doing."

Crew pretty much maintained a poker face, but he was an unhappy young officer.

"You may want to have someone make a plaster cast of Ben Anderson's footprints."

"If Frick says so."

Sam moved to Ben's desk and began looking over the papers.

Crew made another half-hearted stab at being Frick's errand boy. "Haley, what do you think Ben was actually doing in the lab?"

"If you mean the organics lab," she said, "probably growing bacteria, then breaking them down and separating out the critical proteins, pro hormones or whatever he was making."

"I mean, what was he trying to create?"

"I don't know."

"You're a scientist," Crew said. "You might be able to guess."

"Ben didn't tell anyone what was going on." Sam could hear the bite in her tone.

Crew didn't seem to have the heart to keep doing Frick's dirty work.

Sam moved away from the desk and looked around the office. In the large photo cabinet and on a few of the shelves, Ben Anderson had displayed something of his life. Sam looked it over to see if anything had changed since his last visit. A fairly recent picture of Haley, taken by Sarah, showed her at the Special Olympics with each arm around the shoulders of a kid. The way the kids gazed at her had touched him the first time he had seen the photo.

Aside from pictures of Haley, which were numerous, Sam saw pictures of Helen, Ben's deceased wife, and shots of various San Juan festivities, the sheriff and his family, and Ben with other friends. There were a number of more recent photos of Sarah in which she looked fond of whoever was taking the picture. Sam knew it was Ben.

The place was neat and tidy, if crammed, and Sam knew the orderliness was Sarah's doing.

Another photo showed a group of men and Haley standing in front of a house with the ocean in the background.

It was Ben's beach house on Lopez Island, where Sam had been a frequent visitor. In the photo older scientists were standing around and Sam suspected these were some of the fellows participating in all the private meetings.

Ben had also tacked a series of quotations on the wall. A couple of them were new.

It's not that I'm afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens.

— Woody Allen

I can do anything now at age ninety that I could do when I was eighteen, which shows you how pathetic I was at eighteen.

— George Burns

The term Haley had mentioned-"youth retention"- came immediately to mind.

"Nothing. Nothing." Frick screamed at Rolf as he walked out the door to the IT room.

The escrow was full of meaningless documents that told them nothing of Ben Anderson's secrets. There was only the slightest consolation and that was the geek's assurance that he might figure what Ben was doing by studying the memory of Sanker Foundation's server computer.

Frick was always cautious and he had backup plans to the backup plans. He was supposed to have twenty men from Las Vegas in Friday Harbor waiting. It had cost $100,000 in Sanker money to have them on standby, but it was worth it. It took only seconds on his cell phone to make sure they were in place.

When he arrived at his office, he considered the unsavory next step: calling Sanker.

Sanker was in a tough spot. They had entered a merger agreement with American Bayou and, after signing, Sanker stock value had plunged because Haley Walther refused to tell a few white lies. They got rid of her, but that didn't help the stock. If Sanker stock did not rise, then old man Sanker and all his executives would be out in the street taken over by the American Bayou people. The way to save the old man's skinny ass was to make sure that Sanker got Ben Anderson's aging discovery and announced this new molecular magic to the world.

Frick's mission was simple: Ben Anderson had to die- after Sanker understood all the ramifications of his discovery. As long as Ben Anderson lived, he controlled the invention and chose the manufacturer, with Sanker controlling nothing and getting half the profits.

The phone call to his contact at the Sanker Corporation would have to be oblique because no one, least of all Sanker, would be willing to discuss the real issues.

"I've been negotiating with Ben Anderson," Frick began. "It's just a hunch, but I think he may not have been complying with the terms of the escrow. And now he seems to have disappeared. Of course, we're looking for the details of his work." Frick kept the wording as vague as his contact, a Mr. Nash, would likely want it.

"What?" That single word expressed Nash's shock.

What followed was a short conversation that went badly. Frick repeated to Nash the same general bad news, but in more detail, and with a few hints at his knowledge.

"That's your issue," Nash said. "It's your job. We need you to find Ben Anderson. Big-name scientists don't just disappear. If he did, you make sure you get the relevant details and make arrangements to acquire his discovery. And I tell you again: break no laws."

Nash was a pompous hypocrite, but he controlled the six-figure payments due Frick upon completion of his tasks.

"Understood."

Frick now realized how lucky he was that his inside man had failed to kill Ben Anderson. According to the plan, several days previous they were to have looted the escrow and obtained all the secrets.

Frick made one more call, this one to a man called Griffith, also on the Sanker payroll.

Frick had brought Griffith and one other man in much earlier than the rest. Griffith was already in place on the island, and he knew the plan.

"Is Zebra Three still there?" Frick asked without prelude.

"Yeah. Hasn't moved. Seems oblivious."

"Pull the wire on the house phone."

"It's gone that far?"

"Just do as I say," Frick said. "Call me the instant he leaves the house. I'm still Zebra One as long as the under-sheriff doesn't show up or call in."

"Two-oh-one is taken care of?" Griffith asked.

"Don't worry about two-oh-one. Worry about containing Zebra Three and finding Ben Anderson."

Frick hung up the phone and sighed.

Ben Anderson was supposed to be discovered in the sea pen-a victim of a diving mishap. Certain death and a prompt discovery of the body would enable Sanker to acquire Anderson's research, perfectly legally, in short order. Now there was the need for a middle step and that was learning the secret before dispensing with its founder.

Frick swept the phone off the desk and onto the floor. He stood, his temples pounding, mind spinning.

Things were rapidly turning to absolute shit. Frick was self-aware enough to admit that he was headed down a path that might result in his having to flee the country.

Frick entered Ben Anderson's office with a spring in his step and a knowing look on his face. Sam's eyes followed Frick's right hand, which held an iron crowbar.

Frick stepped to Ben's desk drawers, tested them, and found them locked.

Frick looked at Haley, then Sam, then shoved the pry bar above the top drawer. The wood splintered with an ugly crack. Sam knew Frick was baiting them; he made no motion to stop him.

"It's a consensual search," Frick said. "I checked and the desk was purchased by the foundation and I just gave myself permission to tear it apart."

Behind Frick's jaunty air Sam detected tension, anger. Whatever Frick was up to was not going well.

With the top drawer out, Frick was able to pull the others open.

"Well, look at this." It was a gift box complete with a ribbon and a card reading: To Haley, on her birthday.

"My birthday's in April," she said quietly.

"That's obviously Haley's and belongs to her," Sam said. "What you're doing is illegal."

"It's evidence," Frick said. "You can argue about it in court during Haley's trial a year from now."

"Hey, wait a minute-" Crew began.

"You," Frick cut in, throwing Crew the box. "Open it up."

Crew carefully removed the wrap. Inside was a lacquered box, hand-painted with a scene showing beach and sea. He opened the box, revealing a strand of pearls at least eighteen inches long. Under the pearls lay another small card. It had a line drawing of a house and garden on one side and writing on the other.

"Give me those," Frick said, nodding at some greatly oversize tweezers in front of Sam.

Sam slid them across the desk within Frick's reach. "By moving the tweezers I'm not suggesting that Haley consents to this search of her property. It's absolutely not consensual."

"I forbid you to touch what is obviously a gift to me," Haley said, getting Sam's drift.

"I'm a witness," Crew said quietly.

"Whatever." Frick used the tweezers to pull out a card that read: To my treasure, my child, my student, more than my flesh: They live in the Black Silent on less than they consume and are not killed by their excess. Swimming above them the mastodons of the deep don't even possess such fantastic secrets. But they do have a few. Follow the logic.

Frick looked at Haley, then Sam. "Do you know what that means?"

Haley shrugged.

"How about the picture. Surely it's here for a reason?"

"I don't recognize the picture at all."

"I'd say the mastodons are the whales," Frick said. "I only see one whale in this room."

He walked over to a large model of a blue whale mounted on the wall. He fingered the outside of the whale, apparently looking for entry into a hidden compartment. "Know what ARCLES means?"

"I have no idea," Haley said.

Sam shook his head.

Frick touched the polished model with the heavy pry bar and nicked it.

"That's Ben's," she said.

"Wrong again." He knocked on the whale again. "Foundation property, no matter how Ben modified it."

Without warning, Frick slammed the crowbar into the side of the whale at the seam. He did it again, then began to pry. The wood shrieked as he tore into it like a man possessed.

Crew looked sick but said nothing.

"Seems hollow. Made to open," Frick said.

"It is nevertheless empty." Sam hoped that needling Frick might cause him to make a significant mistake.

"Maybe you'd like to dust this for prints and then use your latex to pull up on the bottom," Frick said to Crew, pointedly ignoring Sam.

Crew nodded and signaled to a tall fellow with a fingerprint kit, who came over to the whale. There were plenty of prints, probably all Ben's. When they were done, Frick probed the bottom of the compartment. In moments he had it open, exposing a deep belly cavity. Papers lay inside. The deputies picked them out with tweezers.

"What are these papers?" Frick asked.

"I'm assuming you can read," Haley said. "You tell us."

Frick thumbed through the pages. "Does he ever have these lab notes typed up?" He looked up at Haley. "Probably has Sarah type them, I expect," he answered his own question.

Crew was spreading the papers over the large desk so they could be seen. Haley came closer and moved them around with a pencil eraser. Sam knew it was strange of Frick to let them stand watching and concluded Frick was in a very big hurry and wanted instant reaction. The man's desire for information outweighed the normal concern an officer would have about keeping important information confidential so that it could be doled out in a useful manner.

"And where would the legible notes be?" Frick asked.

"I don't know," Haley said. "This is in Ben's shorthand."

"Sarah can read this, right?"

Haley set her jaw.

"Take her to the station," Frick said to Crew.

"I suppose that's obvious," Haley said at last.

"We'll need to take these notes for evidence," Frick said.

"Evidence of what?" Sam asked. "If you take that property you're looting, pure and simple. You need a warrant."

"Go to hell. This is a crime scene. That's evidence. Period. Now, what is this house drawing?"

"I have no idea," she said.

Sam suspected that Haley was sincere and wondered what the drawing might mean.

Crew tensed but kept silent when Frick gave him a cautionary stare.

"You'll need a warrant, anyway," Sam said, pushing Frick again.

The tension was palpable; Frick looked lethal even if under control.

"They stay here until we get the court order," Frick said. "You men don't let those papers leave this desk. And you two," he said to Haley and Sam, "touch nothing. I'll be right back." Then he walked out of the office.

Sam wondered what Frick was doing and figured they wouldn't like it. One of the papers that came out of the whale was stuck under another, and from the little that Sam could see, it appeared particularly interesting. Along its bottom edge was scrawled ARCLES.

"Next, I suppose, he'll be opening the wall safe," Sam said.

Crew looked around.

"Behind the picture over there," Sam explained.

Crew walked over to the picture to take a look, giving Sam the opportunity to snatch and secrete the ARCLES page.

Frick walked back in without warning. Dr. McStott, the man who had gotten Haley kicked out of Sanker, walked in with him and commenced looking at the papers for himself. Frick was folding up his cell phone. "I need some more information before we take you down to the station," he said to Haley. "Why don't you just run me through where you were today."

"Hold it," Sam said. "You've implied that she's a target of your investigation. You've imprisoned her without her consent and made her sign a phony confession. Now you're taking her into custody. You haven't even read her Miranda rights to her. She may want to exercise her right to remain silent."

"Get him out of here. He's under arrest for interfering with an investigation."

Crew couldn't cover his shock.

"Cuff him and remove him," Frick said.

Sam saw Frick's hand move to the semiautomatic hol-stered on his belt.

"If you'd just go out and wait by the car, I'll stay here with Haley," Crew said to Sam.

"I'd like to have a word with Officer Frick."

As the tension between Crew and Frick grew, Sam nodded to Haley. Sam walked through the door and waited just around the corner, in the hall. Being out of sight would work in his favor. It was always better to enter a fight on your own terms.

More important, he figured he was about to learn more about Frick and Crew.