The Fourth Law

by Paul Stein

  The hole in the victim’s forehead confirmed that a small caliber weapon was used. But the massive exit wound suggested a hollow point bullet, meant to shred and kill, rather than wound or maim. Brain matter was splattered against the back of the wall in a diameter of about fifteen inches, confirming that the back of the victim’s skull had literally exploded against the impact of the hollow point. Lieutenant Morris also recognized a small hole in the wall. It was at the center of the crimson splash of blood and brains from the victim’s head. This small hole was unquestionably made by the slug that was fired through Frank Santos’s cranium. Retrieving the slug would provide the caliber of the weapon used, though it probably wouldn’t be of much use beyond that. If, as he suspected, the murderer was a professional, the gun used was most likely untraceable. Still, there was a good bit of information to be gathered from this crime scene.

  “Got anything, Sergeant?” Morris asked as he entered Dr. Levassuer’s lab.

  “Not really. It looks like an unplanned entry, from what we can determine,” responded Sergeant Chino. “Stuff’s been shoved around to make it look like they were searching for something, but Dr. Levassuer claims that nothing’s missing. We got his statement.”

  “Anything interesting?”

  Sergeant Chino shrugged, looking at his notes. “You be the judge,” he replied, peering over the rim of his reading glasses. Chino had a reputation for short, terse statements. “Levassuer says he was walking down the stairs and was overpowered by two men dressed in black and wearing hoods. Both men were of medium height and build. He claims they approached him from below, but before he realized what was happening, they knocked him out. He came to sometime later, but distinctly remembers hearing a helicopter above the building. His statement corroborates what we’ve discovered on the roof.”

  “Okay, good work, Sergeant,” Morris replied. “Who’s on the roof?”

  “Sergeant Cristobel and his SWAT guys are up there. They found discarded climbing gear, rope, and two parachutes. Apparently the perps parachuted onto the roof, set an anchor, and rappelled into the fifth-floor office occupied by a Dr. Jarrod Conrad. Sergeant Reynolds is up there now,” Chino summarized so Morris could assess which location to check on next. “Let me know if I can help out on the fifth floor, Lieutenant,” he volunteered, hoping to get involved in the more exciting part of the crime investigation.

  “No…I want this area to have your full attention, Sergeant,” Morris instructed. He was well aware of Chino’s ambitious nature. “I want everything documented before the coroner moves the victim; make sure nothing’s overlooked. After the victim is moved and the scene is cleared, you can join us on the fifth floor. Understood?” he said politely. But he had not meant it to be anything other than an order.

  “Affirmative,” Sergeant Chino replied, not enthused with his orders but accepting them nonetheless. “I’ll make sure this scene is cleared by the book.”

  As Lieutenant Morris made his way to the fifth floor, he called Hawkley to give his preliminary findings from the homicide scene. He reported that the murder was committed by at least two professionals while attempting to obscure their primary crime: the burglary on the fifth floor. Hawkley was intrigued and asked for an immediate report on the fifth-floor break-in as soon as it was available.

  David Morris emerged from the elevator and proceeded to the open door about halfway down the long corridor of labs. The fifth floor of the Quantum Building seemed to be a little less clinical than the third floor. There were large photos adorning the walls along the full length of the corridor. One particularly striking photo dominated the area just off the elevator: the classic portrait of Albert Einstein—white hair a mess, chalk in hand, drawing complex equations on a blackboard. Another depicted Robert Oppenheimer at his lab in Los Alamos, New Mexico. At several locations throughout the corridor, placards displayed radioactive warning signs about the use of nuclear isotopes. There was little doubt that the fifth floor was conducting atomic energy research.

  As Morris approached the lab, several SWAT officers in camouflage turnouts were just leaving. He questioned them briefly and was joined shortly by Detective Sergeant Mark Reynolds from inside the lab. The nameplate showed the office belonged to Jarrod Conrad, Ph.D.

  “Evening, Detective,” Morris said, shaking Reynolds’s hand. “Got anything interesting?”

  “Hi, Dave…another thrilling evening in Gotham, eh,” Reynolds said sardonically, trying for a bit of levity.

  “Never a dull moment, Mr. Wayne,” Morris replied. “Tell me the Riddler hasn’t resurfaced.”

  “Riddle me this…” Reynolds continued dryly. “Here’s the synopsis.”

  Reynolds paused briefly, clearing his throat. “It appears that two men parachuted onto the roof and rappelled over the south side of the building. They then breached the office at the anterior of the lab, and hacked the main computer server from that office work station,” he said pointing to the computer terminal. “We haven’t determined what was taken, but they weren’t in the office more than about twenty minutes, tops. They had detailed reconnaissance of the building. Someone very connected put this together, Lieutenant.”

  Sergeant Reynolds had a particular expertise for solving crimes involving industrial espionage and computer theft. When he believed something was a certainty, most high-ranking superiors in the department considered it an incontrovertible fact.

  “Thanks for the update, Mark,” Morris replied. “No surprises, then?”

  “Well…actually….yes, there is a surprise of sorts. We found a crumpled piece of paper under the sofa with a phone number on it. It was written on a scratch pad from a construction company in Bernalillo, New Mexico. It’s unlikely the perpetrators would have dropped this paper; they’re too well choreographed to make that mistake. If they left it behind, it had a purpose…they wanted it found.”

  “Let me see the note,” Morris asked.

  Reynolds reached for a large zip-lock bag containing the previously crumpled-up paper. It was lying on a service table at the side of the office. He handed it to Morris. “We haven’t had time to dust for prints but we’ll get on this first thing at the lab,” he said, watching Morris examine the contents of the bag, turning it back and forth several times trying to get a sense of why this note would be in the office.

  Morris read the note aloud, “‘Check with Apache Steel about delivery of BigMo.’ It could belong to the occupant of the office, couldn’t it?” Morris guessed.

  “Sure could…but I doubt it,” Reynolds shrugged. “We won’t know until we can question the owner—Dr. Jarrod Conrad. From notes on his desk, it looks like he’s conducting some kind of gravity research. I’ve also called Sal Palatino. He’s on his way. Let’s see if he can get into the server. He’ll be able to tell us if anything was copied or corrupted.” Reynolds concluded his statements succinctly, taking the zip-lock back from Lieutenant Morris. He slipped it into his jacket pocket.

  “Okay. I assume you’ve assigned someone to contact this New Mexico Company about a connection to Dr. Conrad?”

  “Already called dispatch,” Reynolds replied. “They have the number. We’ll know who owns this company and what they do by morning. Someone from the local PD will pay them a visit tomorrow. Conrad may also be able to clear the whole thing up.”

  “Okay, tell me about this breach,” Morris questioned, walking toward the hole in the window. “Looks pretty clean. How’d they get past the alarm?” he asked, pointing to one of the deactivated sensors in the corner of the office.

  “Again…these guys are pros, Lieutenant, and their recon is some of the best available. They knew beforehand the type of sensors they’d encounter. The breach took less than a minute or the sensors would have recalibrated. This is a very cool customer.”

  Morris rubbed his forehead. He closed his eyes, trying to assimilate all the details from Detective Reynolds. “Alright, I get the picture,” he said drawing a big breath. “It’ll be interesting to find out what these
two were after.”

  Reynolds nodded. “I’ll bet it was something damned important.”

  “You’re probably right. Let me see if I’ve got this straight,” Morris continued, still massaging his temples. He reverted to this habit whenever he wanted to focus his concentration. “We’ve got two perps dressed in ninja garb. They jump onto the roof, rappel down to the fifth floor, and enter this office to grab something from Conrad’s computer. Then they exit, but meet an eyewitness, which forces an unplanned diversion into the lab on level three. This alerts the security guards, one of whom responds and they blow him away. They immediately retreat to the roof, get picked off by helicopter, and are presently at large in the city. Does that about sum it up, Detective?” Morris asked, looking bemused by the recitation of facts.

  “You got it—so far as we can tell, Lieutenant,” Reynolds replied. “Shall we visit the roof before heading back to the CP?”

  “Yeah, let’s complete the circuit just in case Hawkley asks me something in particular,” he replied. He figured there wasn’t much to be gained since Sergeant Cristobel and SWAT had already investigated the scene. It wasn’t likely SWAT missed anything.

  Of all the available evidence, he considered the crumpled-up note the most remarkable. There was something distinctly outof-place about it. Also intriguing was the debacle that became of the exit strategy that resulted in the murder of an innocent man. Reynolds was correct; this case had every appearance of being a well-planned, professional operation. They would be lucky to find a shred of evidence to trace to these guys. But killing Frank Santos was a big mistake, and would lead to their undoing. Morris relished the challenge of leading the investigation. There’s a pattern here…I can’t see it yet, but it’s here. The more complex the crime, the more opportunity for error.

  Morris followed Sergeant Reynolds to the roof. As he suspected, there wasn’t anything new apart from what the primary investigators had already reported. He called Hawkley.

  “IC, Morris,” he radioed downstairs. He looked down at the Stanford campus. Flashing lights from myriad EMS vehicles continued to saturate the area, magnifying shadows and casting surreal images across the landscape. Morris couldn’t help but feel saddened by the thought of the dead guard. He wondered if the man had a family that would soon learn the tragic news of his death. He was thankful he wasn’t the department chaplain, who would notify the family of the loss. What a waste, he thought.

  “IC…report,” replied Hawkley from the incident command center. “Have you completed investigating the physical evidence?”

  “Affirmative. I’m just leaving the roof. We’ve got a couple solid leads you’ll find interesting,” he said. “We may be able to piece something together.”

  “I hope you’re right, Lieutenant,” Hawkley stated. “I haven’t seen squat so far. Get down here as soon as possible.”

  “Ten-four.”

  With that final transmission, Morris’s radio fell silent. He walked to the stairwell, wondering where this strange and confusing story would end. He remembered what his first partner had taught him: Don’t predetermine anything. It never ends up the way you first imagine.

  FIVE

  STANFORD UNIVERSITY

  A DISTANT BELL RANG DISTURBINGLY, waking Jarrod Conrad from his slumber. At first he was disoriented, having fallen into an intoxicated sleep; it took several seconds to realize that the phone beckoned a response. His head throbbed painfully as he glanced at the clock. It was after 3:00 a.m. Then he recalled the three glasses of wine he imbibed after leaving the lab. He cursed the caller for interrupting his sleep. He couldn’t imagine who might be calling at this ungodly hour, but they would get a double-barreled blast of his unmitigated wrath.

  Jarrod figured it was probably Millicent, the kiss-ass graduate student he was forced to mentor. She had no sense of propriety, calling about every mundane thing that happened in his absence. Her undisciplined behavior was exactly why Jarrod Conrad had resisted the dean’s request to work with graduate students. In the end, however, he was given an ultimatum: Mentor a handful of students like every other professor in the astrophysics program, or lose tenure at the university. He hated the dean for blackmailing him this way.

  “Conrad,” he answered ill-temperedly, summoning his most disagreeable voice. “This better be important.”

  “Dr. Jarrod Conrad, from Quantum Dimensions?” the caller asked.

  “Yes, this is Dr. Conrad. Please identify yourself and why you’ve awakened me. Do you realize the time? It’s bad manners to call people after midnight, you know,” he said rapidly, never pausing to allow the caller to respond.

  “I do apologize for interrupting your sleep, Dr. Conrad. This is Lieutenant David Morris, from the Palo Alto Police. Would it be possible for you to return to your office, sir?”

  “This better not be a practical joke, mister. Where are you calling from?” Jarrod hotly asked.

  “Unfortunately, this is a very serious matter, Dr. Conrad,” Morris replied, not surprised Conrad wanted verification. “I’m standing in your office, looking at photos of the Forty-Niners. Your lab was broken into. We’re trying to determine the extent of the burglary,” he said authoritatively. “Is that enough validation…or shall I have a patrolman pick you up?”

  “No, no, that won’t be necessary, Officer,” Jarrod replied, now ashamed he had treated the caller so disrespectfully. “Please excuse my manner…it’s very early. I was in a deep sleep. I thought one of my pain-in-the-ass graduate students was playing a practical joke. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  “Thanks for your understanding, Dr. Conrad,” Morris replied. “We’ll be expecting you.”

  Jarrod Conrad used every modicum of restraint to keep from slamming down the phone. His research was a closely guarded secret. Only a handful of select associates knew about his research on the super unified theorem. Great…just great, he thought. Someone knows about the gravity research. That fucking Penburton!

  He took a quick shower to help sober up, dressed in casual clothes, and left his home for the six-minute trip to the Quantum Building. His heart sank as he approached the back entrance. There was a kaleidoscope of flashing lights cascading over the building. Then he saw the paramedic’s vehicle and an ambulance. Why would paramedics be called to a burglary?

  His apprehension mounted after running into a gauntlet of police officers questioning his arrival. To make matters worse, he witnessed the paramedics wheeling someone out draped in a white cloth, obviously dead. What in God’s name happened here? he wondered, approaching the lobby elevator.

  Exiting the elevator on the fifth floor did not assuage his mounting anxiety. As soon as he entered the hallway, yet another plain-clothes officer approached to verify his identification. He was then escorted to his office, which was occupied by three men he had never before seen.

  “I’m Jarrod Conrad. Who’s in charge here?” he immediately asked.

  “Dr. Conrad, I’m Lieutenant Morris from the Palo Alto Police Department, Special Investigations Unit,” he said, extending his hand to the professor. “I called you earlier. Again, I apologize for the intrusion, but as you can see…we have a serious situation in your office.” Morris could tell from the pale, crestfallen look on Conrad’s face that he was overwhelmed.

  “Yes, yes, nice to meet you, Officer,” Jarrod replied distractedly, shaking Morris’s hand while staring at the man working at his computer terminal. “Can you tell me what happened? And what’s he doing?”

  “Certainly. That is Detective Sal Palatino, the department’s expert on computer espionage.” Sal was busily working at the twenty-four-inch monitor alongside the professor’s large walnut desk. “He’ll need your help with a few things. But, first, let me explain what’s occurred here this evening, Doctor,” Morris said, guiding him toward the opening in the large picture window.

  For the next several minutes, Morris explained in painstaking detail what the police had discovered. Because it didn’t look like anythin
g was physically missing, he speculated that whoever had breached the office was after something on the computer—hence the need for a programmer. Lastly, he questioned Dr. Conrad about the note that was found. He asked about the company on the logo, and if this was something he had inadvertently left behind.

  “Well, that son-of-a-bitch,” Conrad fumed when Detective Reynolds showed him the note from Levitation Solutions, Inc. “My cousin, Ryan Marshall, owns this company. And no…this is not a note I dropped in my office,” he said, pacing like a caged animal. “I do, however, recognize his handwriting. I can’t believe the asshole was actually in my office. I know exactly what the bastard was looking for.” He walked furiously over to the desk. “Get out of my way!”

  “Okay, let’s just settle down, Dr. Conrad,” Morris replied, blocking his path toward Detective Palatino. “The fact that the note’s on stationary from your cousin’s company and the handwriting looks like his doesn’t prove anything. I admit, it looks suspicious…but let’s not jump to conclusions. Now that we know about your cousin’s possible involvement, we’ll pick him up for questioning—as soon as we can dispatch an officer in New Mexico to check him out.”

  “Don’t placate me, Lieutenant. You don’t have a clue about my cousin, or our history together. We’ve been estranged since childhood. I know for certain that he wants the data I’ve been working on in this office. I hate the prick every bit as much as he hates me. Make no mistake…he’s at the bottom of this,” Conrad seethed. “Now, if you’ll kindly get your ass out of my chair, I’d like to see for myself the extent of my cousin’s latest affront.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Sal Palatino said defensively. “I can appreciate you’re upset, Doctor. But, I’m here to help.” He stood reluctantly to let Conrad take his seat in front of the terminal.