3rd Degree

Chapter 17

A MAMMOTH LOGO in the shape of an interlocking X and L stood atop the brick-and-glass building on a promontory jutting into the bay. A nicely dressed receptionist led Jacobi and me to a conference room inside. On the paneled walls, articles and magazine covers featuring Morton Lightower's glowing face ran the length of the room. One Forbes cover asked, CAN ANYONE IN SILICON VALLEY STOP THIS MAN?

“Just what does this company do?” I asked Jacobi.

“High-speed switches or something. They move data over the Internet. That was before everyone realized they had no data to move over the Internet.”

The door to the conference room opened and two men stepped in. One had salt-and-pepper hair and a ruddy com-plexion, a well-cut suit. Lawyer. The other, heavy and bald-ing, with an open plaid shirt. Tech.

“Chuck Zinn,” the suit introduced himself, offering a card to Jacobi. “I'm X/L's CLO. You're Lieutenant Boxer?”

“I'm Lieutenant Boxer.” I stared at the card and sniffed. “What's a CLO?”

“Chief legal officer.” He bowed apologetically. "This is Gerry Cates, who helped found the company with Mort.

“Needless to say, we're horrified around here.” The two men took seats, as we did, around the conference table. “Most of us have known Mort since the beginning. Gerry went to Berkeley with him. I want to start by promising the full coop-eration of the company.”

“Are there any leads?” Cates inquired. “We've heard Caitlin is missing.”

“We're doing everything we can to follow up on the baby. We were told the family had an au pair - who's missing. Any help you could give in finding her?”

“Maybe Helene could help you out. Mort's secretary.” Cates looked at the lawyer.

“I think that's doable.” Zinn scratched a note.

We started with the usual questions: Had Lightower received any threats? Were they aware of anyone who'd want to do him harm?

“No.” Gerry Cates shook his head and glanced at the lawyer. “Of course, Mort's financial affairs were paraded all over the media,” he continued. “People are always popping off at shareholder meetings. Financial watchdogs. Hell, you want to redo your kitchen, they're crying you're bleeding the company.”

Jacobi sniffed. “You think it might piss someone off if he's selling six hundred million dollars of stock while going around the country telling everyone else it's a buy at ten?”

“We can't control our share price, Inspector,” Cates replied, clearly upset by the question.

A tense silence settled over the room.

“You'll provide us a list of all your clients,” I said.

“Doable.” The lawyer jotted down a note again.

“And we'll need access to his private computers, e-mail, and correspondence.” I lobbed a grenade at the CLO.

The lawyer's pen never touched the page. “Those files are private, Lieutenant. I think I'd better check our legal footing before I can agree to that.”

“I thought you were the legal footing,” Jacobi said with a grin.

“Your boss has been murdered, Mr. Zinn. I'm afraid they're our matters now. There was a note at the bomb scene,” I said. I pushed across a copy of the photo. “It referred to Morton Lightower as an `enemy of the people.' There's a name at the bottom, August Spies. Mean anything to either of you?”

Zinn blinked. Cates took a deep breath, his eyes suddenly blank.

“I don't need to remind you that this is a murder investi-gation,” I said. “If anyone's holding something back, now would be the time...”

“No one's holding anything back,” Gerry Cates said stiffly.

“You probably want to talk to Helene now.” The CLO straightened his pad, as if the meeting was over.

“What I want is Lightower's office sealed, now. And I want access to all correspondence. Computer files as well. And e-mail.”

“I'm not sure that's doable, Lieutenant.” Chuck Zinn arched back in his chair.

“Let me tell you what's doable, Mr. Zinn.” I fastened on his phony, compliant grin. “What's doable is that we're back here in two hours with a subpoena, and anything deleted from those files in the past twenty-four hours goes under the heading of impeding a murder investigation. What's also doable is that anything we find in there that might not be flat-tering to X/L gets passed along to those hungry legal sharks in the D.A.'s office. Any of that sound doable, Mr. Zinn?”

Gerry Cates leaned toward his lawyer. “Chuck, maybe we could work something out.”

“Of course we can work something out.” Zinn nodded. “But I'm afraid that's all we have time for today. And you must be busy as well. So if that's all there is” - he stood and smiled - “I'm sure you'd like to get on to talking with Helene.”