The Dead Man

Chapter Twenty-two

I was doing my drunk walk by the time I got back to my office, legs buckling, playing tag with the walls and furniture to stay upright. Leonard followed me into my office as I stumbled into my chair.

"What is up with that?" he asked.

"I'm in training for Dancing with the Stars. Find Sherry and tell her I want to see her in my office. Now. And close my door."

Corliss had brought some heavy baggage to the institute. I wondered what Milo Harper knew about Corliss when he hired him. Harper surely had enough money to hire people who hadn't been run out of town at their last job.

Lucy hadn't returned my call. I opened my cell to try her again and saw that she'd left me a message. I hadn't heard the phone ring so her call must have gone straight to voice mail. Her message said that she'd pick me up in an hour.

Leonard knocked and opened the door. "Sherry didn't answer. Her secretary says she's in a meeting."

"Tell her secretary to interrupt her."

"I did. I told her to tell Sherry that you wanted to see her immediately. She told Sherry and Sherry told her to tell me to tell you that something came up and she'd talk to you tomorrow."

I smiled, appreciating that Sherry was pimping me with my own excuses.

"Where's her office?"

"Opposite corner from here. What are you going to do?"

"Interrupt her ass."

Leonard's eyes got as big as his grin. "Can I watch?"

"Sorry. You're not old enough."

I kept close to the wall, bracing my hand against it as I walked to Sherry's office. I didn't knock. Her office wrapped around the south and east corners of the building. The Harper art collection was on display, in sharp contrast to the subtle shades of deep lavender and pale yellow in the furnishings. Her desk dominated one wall, a black granite surface resting on twin steel pillars, adorned with a tall red vase holding fresh-cut flowers.

She was sitting at a round table in one corner with two male staffers who had the fresh look of recent college grads and the slumping posture of subordinates. They looked up when I came in, Sherry glaring, the boys staring as I groped my way to an empty chair at their table, grabbing it for balance.

"Get out," I told the boys.

"You have no business. ." Sherry said, but I cut her off.

"Oh, I do." I turned back to the boys. "I said, get out."

They looked at me and then at her. She nodded and they left.

"Are you crazy, drunk, or both?" she asked.

"I have a movement disorder that makes me shake. When I get tired, I do my drunken sailor act. I toss in crazy for free."

She folded her arms over her chest. "Must be hard to play the tough guy when you can't stand up straight."

"I manage."

"I could have had you thrown out."

"You could have tried."

She sighed. "I didn't want to embarrass you any more than you'd already embarrassed yourself. Let's get this over with so I can get back to work. What do you want?"

"Did you delete Tom Delaney's and Regina Blair's files?"

"The police said their deaths had nothing to do with us. They were no longer part of the project. There was no reason to keep their files."

"So you deleted them?"

"I give orders. I don't push buttons."

"Who pushed the buttons?"

"Someone in IT whose job is pushing buttons."

"If their deaths were unrelated to their participation in the dream project, why erase their records? What were you afraid of?"

"Oh, c'mon Jack. Be a grown-up. People file lawsuits if they get a blister. These two died and Milo has the deepest pockets in six states. It would be hard to find a bigger target."

"Jason Bolt has put the institute on notice that he's going to sue you. Aren't you worried about destroying evidence?"

"The files were deleted in accordance with our document retention policy before we received Bolt's letter. The decision had nothing to do with a lawsuit."

"That's not what you said."

"That's how I'll testify."

"And if I won't back you up?"

"I'm general counsel for the institute. This conversation is protected by attorney-client privilege. The court won't let you say a word about it and, if you do, we'll sue you and collect every last disability and pension check with your name on it."

"Just leave me gas money so I can come visit you when you're in prison for obstruction of justice in a murder investigation. Now what was so disturbing on those videos?"

She stood and circled to her desk.

"I didn't watch them."

I nodded, giving her credit. "So you can testify that your decision to destroy the tapes had nothing to do with their content since you never saw them."

"Nightmares are powerful and frightening. They can make people do strange things even when the nightmares belong to someone else. I didn't want to take that chance with a jury. I told you. I'll do whatever it takes to protect my brother."

"Your brother said that he'd do anything to protect the institute and you'll do anything to protect him. There has to be a limit to how far either of you will go."

"We're not even close."

I didn't have to throw anyone out of Milo Harper's office. He was alone, surrounded by stacks of reports, binders, and papers. Three flat-screen computer monitors ringed his desk. A sixty-inch plasma TV hung on one wall, soundlessly tuned to CNBC. The blinds were drawn, the light subdued, as if he didn't want to know what day or time it was.

I dropped into a round-backed chair opposite his desk.

"What's up?" he asked.

"Did you know about Anthony Corliss's adventures at the University of Wisconsin when you hired him?"

Harper smiled. "You mean the girl who died, the lawsuit, and the rumors that he and the girl were having an affair?"

"Yeah. That."

"Corliss told me what happened the first time I talked to him. He put me in touch with his attorney who put me in touch with the university's attorney. My attorneys talked to the police in Wisconsin and reviewed everything. They told me that the university caved to avoid bad publicity and that Corliss got a raw deal. Wouldn't be the first time a lawsuit was settled for those reasons."

Harper was right but that didn't mean his lawyers were. Still, he'd done his due diligence and I had to give him credit for that.

"Who runs your IT department?" I asked.

"Frank Gentry."

"Invite him to join us."

Harper made the call and went back to what he was doing while we waited for Gentry as if I wasn't there. I took the time to survey Harper's office. The walls were lined with bookshelves crammed with technical and scientific books. There was no room for the Harper art collection.

Five minutes later, Frank Gentry was at the door. He wore a jacket and tie, the only old-school person I'd met at the institute. He was slim, well into his sixties, with a buzz cut etching the boundaries of a receded hairline. He stood ramrod straight until Harper looked up and waved him in.

"Frank, say hello to Jack Davis. Do whatever he asks you to do." He selected a paper from the stack on his desk, ignoring us.

"Mr. Davis," Gentry said, giving my hand a firm shake.

"Someone in your department deleted a couple of video files from the dream project. Can you retrieve them?"

He bristled. "We have a strict protocol on file retention. Nothing gets deleted unless I sign off on it. I don't recall approving the deletion of any video files."

"Well, they're gone. Sherry Fritzshall says she told someone in your department to do it."

Harper leaned back in his chair, forgetting everything else. Gentry pursed his lips, hesitating to respond. He looked at Harper.

"Sir, it's hard to keep my people in line if your sister keeps going around me."

"I'll remind her. Can you retrieve the files?"

"It depends on how deep the purge was. Whose files are we talking about?"

"Tom Delaney and Regina Blair," I said.

"I'll see what I can do. Anything else?"

"Couple of things," I said. "Anthony Corliss has software on his computer that tells him whenever anyone accesses the dream project files. I want that software deleted from his computer. If it's on anyone else's computers, I want to know whose and I want it deleted from their computers as well. Then I want you to put it on my computer and my laptop. I'll bring the laptop in tomorrow morning."

Gentry nodded, looking at Harper who nodded in return.

"One other thing," I said. "I want a log of everyone who has accessed the dream project files in the last six months. And I want you to do all of this yourself. Don't delegate it to anyone and don't discuss it with anyone other than me."

"Yes, sir, Mr. Davis. I should have this taken care of for you by noon tomorrow."

"Take care of the alert software before you leave today and call me when you're finished with that." I gave him my cell phone number. "Tomorrow is fine for the rest."

"You going to tell me what that's all about?" Harper asked when we were alone.

"I want to see those videos. I'm going to be spending a lot of time looking at the dream project files and I don't want Corliss looking over my shoulder. I want to know who has been in those files and I want to know who looks at them going forward."

"That sounds like the makings of a list of suspects."

"Not suspects, not yet. Just people who may know something."

"Why did my sister have those files deleted?"

"To keep Jason Bolt from getting them."

"Should that make me sleep any better?"

"What's the difference? You don't sleep anyway. I've got one more question. I'm going to need some outside help. Don't ask me who or what. You'll have to trust me. What's my budget?

"Whatever it takes."