Black Water

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

A minute later Merci sat in one of the headquarters' conference room and watched a dazzling blue wave break beyond a pale sand beach. Then another. Zamorra adjusted the volume on the television and sat across the table from her. He pushed aside the box of financial record he'd collected from Wildcraft's house, making room to take notes.

The title of the movie appeared over the breaking waves- MiraVei and the Treatment of Malignant Blastomas. Produced by OrganiVen Biomedical Research Partnership and the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine.

A factual male voice talked over the waves: "Cancer has been with mankind since the dawn of civilization if not history herself. It is an organic disorder that afflicts not only human beings, but virtually all of the higher vertebrates and even some plants and trees. A cancerous cell is a cell that has broken free of healthy DNA programming, to metastasize-reproduce-without control within the host body. Such reproduction eventually kills the very host in which the cancerous cell has been thriving."

The screen went from elegant waves to surgically opened bodies showing tumors of various size and location. Merci felt a quiver of nausea go through her, and a little tremor of lightheadedness. Surgical scenes and autopsies bothered her in a way that crime scenes rarely did, something about the slow precision of the former versus the explosiveness of the latter.

"Treatments for cancers have evolved from the primitive to the sophisticated. But until now, no one treatment, or even a combination of treatments, has shown itself to be effective on the deadly blastoma- or budding-forms of the disease. The common problem in all previous treatment modalities has been the concomitant destruction of healthy cells as the tumor is resected by surgery or laser, bombarded with radiation or chemotherapy, even cooled or heated.

"Enter MiraVen. Developed by OrganiVen Biomedical Research Partnership, MiraVen treatment modality is so effective that Dr. Stephen Monford of the University of California, San Diego, Medical School has called it a…"

The picture cut from a tumor-riddled lung to a white-haired, white-coated man sitting behind a gleaming wooden desk. Merci saw the diplomas on the wall behind him. He was sixty-ish, lean and lightly freckled, with rimless glasses and beautiful blue eyes.

"People in my profession don't use the word miracle," said Dr. Monford. His voice was soft and slow. "But I do now. I've seen what MiraVen does and there's no better way to describe it. Two things were necessary to bring about this treatment. The first is nature's simple genius: MiraVen does exactly what nature intended it to do-it destroys cells. The second is the work of the OrganiVen biomedical research team, which discovered a way of totally preventing collateral tissue damage. The results are, well. miraculous. I could talk for hours on the medical aspects of MiraVen, and what OrganiVen Biomedical means to the future of cancer therapies. But why don't you see for yourself what MiraVen can do?"

On-screen, Dr. Monford gave way to a cobra, head raised and hood spread, casually tracking the sway of a turbaned man who kneeled in front of the snake and played a flute.

The first male voice came back then, stern with factuality.

"The snake. The serpent. Wrapped in mystery, shrouded in fear. Some ancients believed the snake was Satan. Some believed he was a god. But they all knew the dramatic effects of snake envenomation on human beings. However, not until the late nineteenth century did modern science begin to explain what happened when a poisonous snake injected its deadly venom."

The monitor showed a drawing of a human being with only the major components of the nervous system illustrated. A cartoon snake injected a drop of black liquid and the liquid started to constrict the spinal nerves, working its way to the heart and brain.

"Early biomedical researchers determined that snake venom was of two basic types: neurotoxic-which attacked the nervous system, an hemotoxic-which attacked the blood and tissue. It was the fearsome killers-the cobras and mambas and kraits of India-that possesses the neurotoxic poison that could kill a man in less than half an hour after introduction. But a far different venom is possessed by other poisonous snakes of the world: the rattlesnakes, the adders, the vipers. The venom of these snakes works directly on the blood and tissue of the victim."

Now the screen showed a simplified illustration of blood: red cell, white cells, platelets. A cartoon snake injected a little pool of black liquid into the blood and the various cells began to wither and vanish.

The Voice of Truth and Reason continued:

"In nature, a bite from one of these serpents can lead to a slow painful death. But in the OrganiVen research laboratories, under the direction of the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine, scientists set out to find a way to turn this deadly hemotoxin into a killer of cancer cells, not healthy cells.

Years later, their dream became a reality, and a potential treatment modality for most forms of mankind's most deadly and feared disease."

Merci watched the picture change to the insides of some kind of animal, but the camera was up so close she couldn't tell if it was human being or a lab rat.

"I wish that pompous ass would tell us what we're supposed looking at," said Merci.

"The image modality is yet to be revealed by the OrganiVen biotechnical AV presentation team," droned Zamorra.

Then, Mr. Ass again:

"The neuroblastoma, or heart tumor-an almost invariably fatal tumor when treated by conventional therapies. But watch closely; University of California researchers inject this canine neuroblaston with MiraVen."

Merci watched. The camera moved in close. A rubber-gloved hand, a syringe, a silver needle pushing through the mush of a black tumor on the beating heart of the dog.

"Things like this make me queasy," said Merci.

"Close your eyes and I'll tell you what happens."

"I can cut it."

Merci took a deep breath. The needle slid away from the tumor and the rubber-gloved hand disappeared. The dog's heart throbbed earnestly and the black tumor attached to one side of it jiggled along with each rhythmic beat.

The Voice of Truth was back:

"You may follow the elapsed time on the screen timer while we speed up this videotape in the interests of time. What you will see in the next minute actually elapsed over fifty-seven minutes- less than one hour."

Merci saw a timer blip into action on the right side of the screen, digits counting the sped-up time.

She watched the black tumor bouncing rapidly with each heartbeat.

She watched it turn dark gray.

She watched it turn ash gray.

She watched it lose its firmness and discontinue its rhythm with the heart.

She watched it break up. The parts crumbled into smaller parts, then smaller parts again. And again.

Like a muffin soaked in water, Merci thought.

The rubber-gloved hand came back in preposterous fast motion. With a nozzle of some kind, it sucked the loose, soggy pieces of tumor away from the heart.

The on-screen timer stopped at fifty-seven minutes and four seconds. The Voice again:

"And this is the same dog's heart six months later."

Merci looked at the apparently perfect organ, still thumping away. It wasn't scarred or discolored, or damaged in any way that she could see.

A final clip showed a black cocker spaniel leaping after a red ball on a green lawn.

"I'm supposed to believe that?" Merci asked.

"Sistel Laboratories did," said Zamorra. "They bought OrganiVen for stock and cash that totaled four hundred million dollars. You can bet they had an army of doctors, lawyers and moneymen who looked at that video pretty hard. And everything else, too."

"Then they've really got a cure for cancer?"

"They've got something. That's why the Wildcrafts made two million on twenty grand. That's why Sistel bought the whole outfit. Happy start-up company. Happy investors, like Archie and Gwen. Happy international pharmaceutical giant."

Merci crossed her arms and sat back, looking at the dead TV screen. It was not in her nature to believe that wildly good news could be true. Wildly good news did not add up in the real world she'd lived in for thirty-seven years.

"There are some interesting things in this box," Zamorra said "OrganiVen letterhead and OrganiVen envelopes-nice heavy paper, thermal-raised letters. OrganiVen thank-you notes and matching envelopes. A long list of names and addresses that came off a laser printer-some of them with lines penciled through them, some not. Clean copies of newspaper and magazine articles on the venom cure. OrganiVen newsletters. Clean copies of the OrganiVen business plan, bios on the founders and doctors. Four videotapes, like the one we just saw. Same title, anyway."

"What did the Wildcrafts need all that for?"

"Two possibilities come to mind," said Zamorra. "One is they were shilling for the company-raising capital. That's what this tape would have been used for."

Merci nodded. "And the other is that they smelled something wrong-maybe afraid their twenty grand was going to vanish. The stuff could be evidence if OrganiVen wasn't on the up-and-up. Or Archie and Gwen thought they weren't."

"Exactly," said Zamorra. "Let's talk to that Monford doctor UCSD. And at least one of the OrganiVen founders. They're listed the bios here."

Zamorra pulled some papers from the box. "Here," he said. "Wyatt Wright, Cody Carlson, Sean Moss.

"Merci thought for a moment. "Wyatt, Cody and Sean. They sound like Tim's friends from the park."

"I'll take Monford and Wright. You get Cody and Sean. I'll call the Securities and Exchange Commission and see what they know."

"Sistel was solid on Friday, Paul-up a buck and a half, I think it was. I looked."

"So did I."

"They got a real treatment for tumors, I might want to buy a few shares myself."

"No, you wanted to buy shares in OrganiVen Biomedical Research Partnership, before it got sold to Sistel."

"How much were those?"

"A quarter apiece. It says right here in the business plan. Archie and Gwen bought eighty thousand of them."

Merci did the math on that one, figuring the increase on a per-share basis. Her notepad was too small so she used a piece of OrganiVen stationery. She did her division the old-fashioned way, counting off the zeros with the tip of her pen to keep things straight.

"The stock was worth twenty-five cents a share when they bought it, and twenty-five dollars a share when they sold it."

She looked at the figures and tried to put two million dollars into real-life terms: a fancy home, cool cars, presents for everybody.

"We need to talk to the sister's beloved hubby," said Merci. "Charles Brock. He was the one who brought it to them. Right?"

"Wrong, actually," said Charles Brock of Ritter-Dunne-Davis Financial.

He had insisted on meeting them outside his air-conditioned place of employment. He had told them he was in an incredible hurry today, had about five minutes, at best. So the three now stood in the sweltering shade of a downtown Riverside magnolia tree two blocks away from the RDD building.

"What happened was, they brought it to me"

"Explain," said Merci. Charles Brock was stocky, dark-haired and dressed in a navy double-breasted suit. He stubbornly left the coat on.

Merci thought he had too much gel in his hair to be handling large amounts of other people's money. She noticed the little band of white around his finger, where a ring used to be. He was sweating in the heat but Merci guessed that he would be sweating out of the heat, too. His eyes were fast and furtive so he put on a pair of sunglasses.

"Priscilla and I had lunch with Gwen one day early last year," said. He spoke quietly, sliding his hands into his pockets and pitching his head toward the detectives. "Gwen said she'd heard about this start-up, OrganiVen, a biomedical outfit based down in San Diego. I look over the business plan and prospectus and the stock proposal and the founders' curriculum vitae, made sure things were right. I mean, a flake can try to issue stock these days. But OrganiVen looked solid enough so I told them if they wanted to take a nice fat risk with their money, go ahead."

"So you weren't in favor of them investing?"

"Not really. I didn't think OrganiVen was for them. I'm in favor of good investments. I'm in favor of blue chips and that's mainly what I sell. I look at people trying to get rich overnight and it makes me nervous. Especially family."

"How did Gwen find out about OrganiVen?"

Brock shrugged. "One of our guys."

"Which of your guys?"

"Trent Gentry, Newport office. He knew one of the OrganiVen founders from school. If I remember right, Trent met Wildcraft in bar or something. I think that was it."

Brock looked at them from behind his shades. He checked watch and pursed his lips. "I'm sorry, but I really got to go."

Merci tried to get a look at his eyes behind the dark lenses. "Do what you have to do, Mr. Brock. Thanks for taking five minutes help to solve the murder of your sister-in-law."

"You bet, not a problem."

"Did you know Gwen well, Mr. Brock?"

"Not really. I only knew her for three years. I didn't see that much of her."

"I guess you weren't invited to her birthday party, the night she was killed."

"No. Just Priscilla."

"Mr. Brock," said Merci, "I just thought of something. Did you buy a few shares of OrganiVen for yourself?"

Brock took a deep, honest breath, then exhaled. "Yes, I did. I purchased twenty thousand shares for five thousand dollars."

"So you did okay when Sistel stepped in?"

"I did just fine."

"Mr. Brock, did you ever have any reason to think that OrganiVen, or the people who ran it, were not honest?"

"None at all."

"Did you know any of them?"

"None of them."

"Did Archie and Gwen know you bought in?" asked Zamorra.

"No."

"And Priscilla?"

"Of course she did."

"Eventually she did," said Zamorra.

"Exactly."

"Because you and Priscilla weren't getting along," he said.

"Right. That's all I'm going to say about that."

"Thanks again for your help. We're going to have more questions."

"How about by phone? I don't need any office gossip. The other guy from your office doesn't mind just using the phone for this thing."

It took Merci just a second to figure it.

"Al Madden."

"Yeah," said Brock.

"The phone's fine until it isn't," said Zamorra.

"Whatever." Brock nodded but didn't offer his hand, then hustled back toward the RDD building, staying on the shady side of the street.

"Very broken up about his sister-in-law," said Zamorra.

"So broken up he wasn't even curious about who might have killed her. And so broken up about Priscilla that he's sneaking an investment or two he can hide from the divorce lawyer. He's already taken off his wedding ring."

Merci watched Charlie Brock round the corner at Market Street. "He was sweating kind of a lot, Paul."

"Not the heat."

"No, the bank thermometer says it's only a hundred and two."

They walked back to the car, keeping to the shady sides of the streets. Merci could feel the heat from the sidewalk coming through her shoes. "Ready to go see what Dr. Stebbins has to say about Archie's brain?" she asked.

"Yes. If we're expected to arrest him, we at least should know how his mind works. What's left of it."

Zamorra drove. When they hit the freeway it was backed up to standstill so he got into the toll lane. Zamorra hit eighty and Merci watched the chrome of the door handles flashing by beside them. She thought Brock was untrustworthy and Wildcraft was trying to tell the truth. She remembered how he'd described the "monstrous" head one of the men who had met with Gwen.

"Paul, Wildcraft thought his wife's meeting had something to with OrganiVen. He said there was the blond businessman and the big guy, in a car with livery plates. Archie thought the big guy might have been a chauffeur. But chauffeurs don't sit in on meetings. So, say both of those guys were tied in with OrganiVen. They could have been part of the company, right? And if so, then a lot of other people would know who they are."

"It's worth a try."

She found Wyatt Wright's number in her notebook, dialed, and got a forwarding number from the operator. A receptionist answered "BioLucid, Mr. Wright's office," then put Merci through when Merci said she was law enforcement.

Wright sounded young and unhappy to be talking to a cop. He said his former company, OrganiVen, never used a limousine service. They had to borrow money just to pay the rent back in those days, he said. He said this with pride.

"You ever do business with a huge man with a beard?"

"Never."

"What about a blond man, mid-forties, possibly foreign-born looked like a… well, like a businessman."

"No. My business was research, pure and simple. I didn't deal with anybody else but the other scientists. That was among the terms of my employment."

"Were a very large bearded man and a blond man, mid-forties, employed there also? Whether you dealt with them or not?"

"Not that I know. I had my head in a test tube the whole time. Really."

"Thanks."

Click.

"Never trust a businessman under thirty," she said.

Next, she tried OrganiVen cofounder Cody Carlson, but his secretary said Dr. Carlson was out of the country and could not be reached.

Cofounder Sean Moss had no office number so she called his home phone and got a machine.

She tried Dr. Stephen Monford-the voice of authority on the MiraVen promotional video-but he was on sabbatical in Norway.

She sat back and thought about the big man and the blond, perhaps tied to OrganiVen but perhaps not, meeting with a nervous Gwen Wildcraft, spied upon by Archie. A new black town car with livery plates. The big guy maybe a chauffeur but maybe not. She couldn't get a baseline, couldn't come up with one fact to build on. The whole thing seemed hazy and dreamlike, which she figured was exactly how it seemed to Wildcraft. But it wasn't in Rayborn's nature to let things go. Zamorra had once compared her to the Gila monster, fabled to hold its prey until the sun goes down.

"If the big guy and the blond were connected to OrganiVen but weren't founders, maybe we could trace them through the incorporation papers filed with the state," she said.

"Well, okay."

"But we've got the limo angle, so I'm going to burn some more department cell minutes."

Merci made eight more calls to limo services that might cover Newport Beach. She asked again about a very, very large chauffeur. And whether the car company had done regular work for a biomed outfit called OrganiVen. The calls were on the department cell phone but Merci didn't think you could catch bad guys on a budget. None of the companies employed or had ever employed such huge, bearded, bespectacled chauffeur. None had ever done business with OrganiVen as a regular client, so far as they remembered.

When she was done she wondered what the charges would be for those nine calls, for learning absolutely nothing except that Wyatt Wright was a smart ass and Red Carpet Limo had a late-summer special where you got the first hour free, three-hour minimum.