The Dead Man

Chapter Five

I nodded, knowing how little use cops, including ones that weren't lazy, have for dreams when we can make our cases with smoking guns, DNA, and confessions. "Did Delaney leave a note?"

"No. McNair said that not everyone who commits suicide leaves a note."

"He's right. About twenty-five percent don't. What was Regina Blair doing on the parking deck?"

"She was an architect for the general contractor for the three-story garage and an adjacent office building. Both were under construction. The police said she was inspecting the top floor of the garage when she slipped and fell."

"Anyone see it happen?"

"Not according to Detective McNair. It happened early on a Sunday morning." He fished McNair's business card out of his briefcase and handed it to me. "He can tell you more about it than I can."

"Where do I fit in?"

"I need to know as much as I can about Delaney and Blair-anything that will help us prove we had nothing to do with their deaths."

"What do you know about them so far?"

"Delaney was thirty-two, lived alone, and was a newspaper distributor for the Kansas City Star. Got a Purple Heart doing two tours in Iraq with the National Guard. He was the oldest of three kids. He went to high school at Rockhurst."

"The private Catholic school?"

"Right. He cut a wide swath there. He played football and basketball and he was on the debate team. His parents have established a scholarship there in his honor. Bolt says they're going to contribute anything they get in the lawsuit to the scholarship fund."

"What about Regina Blair?"

"She was thirty-five. She and her husband live up north at Riss Lake. She had a baby last year. They were active in their church and she volunteered for Big Brothers and Sisters. Her husband teaches at Park University."

"A boy scout and a girl scout. Not much chance I'll find anything in their backgrounds that you can use."

"I'm not looking for dirt. I want to know more about them than their credentials for getting into heaven. I want to know why Delaney dreamed about killing himself and what made Blair so afraid of heights. That could help us."

"What if your institute is responsible?"

"Then we'll pay what we owe and fix what's wrong with our project."

"Don't you have lawyers and an insurance company to take care of that?"

"We have a ten-million-dollar deductible and the right to control the investigation and handling of any claim. I've got the lawyers but I need you for the investigation. Your title will be director of security. You can start Monday morning. I'll pay you double what you were making at the FBI. Your office will be down the hall from mine. You'll have free rein to go where you want to go and talk to whomever you want. When this is over, I'd like you to stay but that's up to you."

Before I could respond, a spasm twisted my head sideways and down, locking my chin against my raised shoulder. I waited for it to pass, time and my body both held hostage, the cycle repeating twice more in a twisted game of catch and release.

"I've got a…"

"Movement disorder called tics. Simon told me. The brain can be a real bitch. It's okay."

"You aren't concerned that I'll shake when I should shoot?"

Harper smiled. "Superman was allergic to kryptonite and things worked out for him."

He reached into his briefcase again and slid a skinny black binder onto the table. "These are summaries of the projects we're working on, plus the names and contact information for the people running each one."

"Why do I need to talk to everyone when this case is only about the dream project?"

"I want to make certain we don't have problems with any of the work we're doing, not just the dream project, and I don't want to broadcast that we may be getting sued so I told the project directors that I hired you to review our internal security procedures to make certain our intellectual property is protected. I sent everyone a memo telling them to cooperate with you."

"I haven't said yes."

"Why wouldn't you? Kate Scranton won't work for me but Simon Alexander will. I'd call that a wash in the who-do-you-listen-to sweepstakes."

"I listen to my friends but I make my own decisions. You might not like that. You don't like people telling you how to do your job. Same goes for me. I start looking for one thing and I may find another you don't want found. You need to be in control and something like this doesn't want to be controlled."

"Open the binder. Read the tabs out loud."

They were organized alphabetically by subject matter. He interrupted me when I got to Alzheimer's.

"Makes tics look like a walk in the park."

"It's not about the work you're doing. I'm sure it's all important."

"Some more important to me than others."

I looked at him, saw how his eyes changed from lively to hot, how his face darkened.

"You? You're what-forty?"

"Forty-one. Six to ten percent of Alzheimer patients are under age sixty-five and that number is only going to go up. A few are younger than fifty and the youngest on record was twenty-nine."

"I don't know what a person your age who has Alzheimer's is supposed to look like, but you act like you're on top of your game."

He held up the small journal he'd been writing in when I arrived. "I try to write everything down in here on my laptop or my iPhone. I even use a Web service called Jott. I call a phone number and record what I want to remember and they send me an e-mail with my verbatim message and, if I want, a text message reminder. Even with all of that, I'm one step away from pinning notes to my sweater and leaving bread crumbs to find my way home. The trouble with memory loss is that you don't remember what you've forgotten until it's too late."

"Who else knows about your condition?"

"For now, no one besides you and my doctors. The institute is only one of my investments. I've got a lot of balls in the air and I don't know how much longer I can keep juggling them."

"I'm sorry."

He flattened his palms on the table, his fingertips arching, hanging on. "People are always sorry but that doesn't change what's happening to you or me. You're going to shake for the rest of your long life but I'm going to spend the rest of my dwindling years disappearing one brain cell, one memory at a time until I won't recognize you or me. The research we're doing might, just might, stop all of that, if not for me, then for someone else, and I'll be damned if I'm going to risk people's lives or the future of the institute. I don't care what I have to do. I thought you would understand that better than anyone."

Harper was right. I had been primed not to like him whether it was because of Kate or his phone call or the rotten weather or the fear of putting myself on the line again, a shaking and shaken man uncertain if I could do more so I could do more, too concerned about myself than fellow travelers like Milo Harper. I closed the binder, tucked it under my arm, and stood.

"I do. I'll see you Monday morning at eight."