A Breck Death (Jill Quint, MD, Forensic Pathologist Series Book 3)

by Peche, Alec

  "Tell me more about Henrik and his company," remarked Tom.

  "Henrik is a personal friend to Jill and me,” Nick explained. “She solved his wife's murder in Belgium. He runs a multinational company that provides software that senses and repels hackers or other intruders into IT systems. He has engineers whose sole duty is to break software solutions that other engineers of his company have created. As you can imagine those engineers are the best of the best and they enjoy a good hunt for intruders in information systems. Henrik is also a skier and when I mentioned the chairlift failure, he immediately understood both the IT system that operates the chairlift and likely your vulnerabilities. He felt he could have one of his engineers solve this remotely for you. He would give his considerable opinion as to whether hackers could stop the chairlift during the time that Joseph was murdered. He would provide that service to you gratis with no strings attached. He felt fairly sure his engineers could hack into your system even without your permission. Are you interested in having his company try to solve this problem for you? He will not try to hack into your system if you decline his offer.”

  "It sounds like a generous offer, but I will have to run it by our IT leadership which I will do as soon as this meeting is over,” noted Tom. "Did you find any useful information by looking at the resort’s ski pass system?”

  “Yes, it appears that two ticket holders had stalked Joseph and David for several days,” stated Nick. “No one else had the pattern of hitting the chairlift pass system as these two people. They had actually ridden the lift with them several times. As they had paid cash for their passes and had not tried to check their performance online through your app, I have no way of identifying them, unless there were cameras trained on some of the lifts. So I have narrowed it down to three lifts and four days of footage. I would also like your ticket booths windows if you have any cameras there as well.”

  “Before you arrived, I spoke with our counsel regarding releasing copies of pictures to you.”

  Jill and Nick tensed expecting to be turned down by the resort. They were both pleasantly surprised by Tom’s answer.

  “We couldn’t think of a State or Federal law that we might violate if we gave you the feed from the cameras, so if you’ll give me the camera locations and dates, we should have that for you within the hour.”

  “Thank you, we really value the resort’s help,” said Jill appreciatively. “We don’t have the power of law enforcement or a judicial order behind us; we just need to solve this homicide for David Gomez and Joseph Morton.”

  “We don’t want any murderers up on the ski slope or indeed anywhere in the State of Colorado. If we can help you identify him or her, it is a win for all of us.”

  “Then we won’t take any more of your time. Can you give me a call when the camera feed collection is completed and a location to pick it up from?”

  “Actually I understand from our IT people that they will send it to the cloud and we’ll give you a password to access it.”

  “That will work,” replied Nick and they stood up and shook hands before departing Tom’s office.

  Jill and Nick set off back towards their hotel. “That was easier than expected,” commented Jill. “After my reception by local law enforcement, it’s refreshing to get maximum cooperation.”

  “If they decide to take Henrik up on his generous offer, it could be of real value to them to learn their vulnerabilities.”

  “Let’s return to the hotel and get my car. I’d like to take a look at David and Joseph’s cabin to see the potential for someone to have followed Joseph from the cabin to the ski resort. David said we didn’t want to be on the road for the first time in the dark. It’s nice and sunny at the moment, a perfect time to go visit the Boreas Pass Road cabin. It is a short drive and you can tell me from your law enforcement experience if you think this was where the killer began following Joseph.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” replied Nick.

  A few minutes later they left the hotel garage and, using Jill’s GPS, followed the directions to David’s cabin. The day was bright and sunny and the view was spectacular. Jill reminded herself to send Angela up here with her camera. Sure she could take pictures with her iPhone, but they wouldn’t have the balance or beauty of Angela’s camera.

  Jill pulled into the driveway to Joseph’ and David’s cabin. It was elevated above the road, so David was right that anyone waiting there would be seen. It was a beautiful stone cabin. It was a reasonable size, not an ostentatious mess like some of the newer homes built in the last decade and a half. Not seeing anything else to investigate, they turned around to return down the hill to town.

  Chapter Eight

  One moment Jill was admiring the view and the next she was staring into the rearview mirror at a large SUV on her bumper. The closeness of the Hummer had Jill remarking to Nick, “What a moron, I can’t believe that person is driving so close to my bumper. I’ll pull over at the next opportunity and let him pass.”

  “Ah Jill not to raise the alarm, but I think the Hummer is out to do us harm and I think we are about to find out how good a driver you are. If that Hummer hits us hard enough, we will go straight off the road.”

  “Crap! Any suggestions?” Jill could feel rivulets of sweat on the back of her neck and under her arms.

  “If I wanted to push the car off the road, I would accelerate into our bumper at the start of any curve and catapult you straight off the cliff, so you need to fake him out. Slow down a lot and accelerate at the top of each curve. I’m hoping his reaction time will be slow enough to get us through each of the curves.”

  Thankfully the road was dry so their only real worry was the SUV rolling over on a curve. Since it was late fall, the snow banks on the side of the road were low and would not stop a vehicle from driving off the cliff. Jill had the smallest SUV and it appeared that the Hummer on her tail was the largest SUV. Nick was right in that the larger Hummer would be more prone to rolling over and so she should be able to take the curves a little faster than the car behind her. It would all depend on her driving skill and composure. She did as he suggested and was able to stay away from the Hummer's front grill on the first three curves. She asked Nick to call 911 and report their situation to the police. Her timing was off on the fourth curve and she felt a jolt from the Hummer. Fortunately she had room to accelerate and pull away but she knew time was running out and fortunately so was the hill. They had one or two more curves before the road largely flattened and straightened out as they neared the town.

  It was hard to keep her eyes on the road yet check the position of the Hummer. On the fifth curve she swore she could feel the heat of the engine of the SUV behind her, it seemed so close. On the sixth curve she lost it. She'd been staring into the rearview mirror and hit the curve too fast so she could not accelerate away from the Hummer's bumper.

  Jill yelled at Nick, "Brace yourself we’re going off the road!”

  As soon as the words were out of her mouth she felt the Hummer ram into her SUV's rear end, sending them into the air. She had planned to brace her hands on the steering wheel, but the airbags exploded at the moment of impact. They were flying through the air and all Jill could see was the white of the airbag in her face. She heard Nick saying something which she suspected were profanities muttered in Dutch. Seconds later there was a thunk and they were catapulted forward as the SUV made contact with the ground. The many low fir trees and soft snow served to slow down their vehicle and they came to a stop, moments later. Jill turned the engine off.

  Jill looked over where she thought Nick would be beyond the fabric of her airbag and asked, "Nick are you all right?!"

  Seconds later she heard him mumble, "I'm fine, Jill, how about you?"

  Just then the airbags started to deflate and they got a look at each other. After the adrenaline rush of the last five minutes all she could do was laugh at the powder deposited on Nick's face, sure that her own looked equally ridiculous.

  Nick grinned back at h
er and asked, "Am I covered in as much powder as you?"

  "Yep."

  "See, Jill, these last five minutes were that entertainment factor I mentioned in connection to you. That was a wild ride and you did well. Great driving!"

  "If I was such a good driver then why are we sitting in the middle of a forest?"

  "If that Hummer had got your bumper on the first curve, I doubt we would be laughing at each other's looks at the moment.”

  "Okay the fun is over. Let's call the local police to report this accident, and I'll need to call the car rental agency to get a replacement."

  "Okay here's your cell phone, but I think I hear sirens coming our way. That must be in response to the call I made a few minutes ago."

  "I guess we should hike over to the road so they can find us, though I would've thought I left brake marks on the pavement before we were airborne."

  They both got out of the car and walked around it looking at the damage. The rear bumper was quite dented with black paint affixed in parts. The front hood fared better with no visible dents. She had no idea what the undercarriage looked like.

  Jill suddenly thought of something, "Do you think the gas tank could explode?"

  "No if it was going to explode it would have done so on impact. I smell burnt brake pads, but not gasoline.”

  They looked over at the road as they saw two police cars arrive, as well an ambulance. Jill waved them over. The EMT yelled “where are you hurt?”

  “We were saved by our airbags, we have no injuries. I am a doctor and we’re both fine.”

  “That’s good news, we received a call that a car was trying to push you off this road. What happened?”

  The officers had been walking toward Jill’s rental SUV during this shouted conversation. She was pleased to see this was not the officer she had spoken to yesterday to get a copy of the police report concerning Joseph’s murder.

  Jill pointed to the rear bumper and said “see the black paint there. That is where the Hummer hit our car sending us over the embankment. Fortunately it wasn’t a bad drop and we had airbags.”

  Nick held out Jill’s phone that he had used to call 911 and said “here is a picture of the car, no license plate, you can’t see the driver, but you can see how close he was to our car.”

  As the officers leaned in to look, Jill said “Nick that was brilliant! Angela has you well trained to snap pictures.”

  One of the officers stepped away and pulled out his radio. He requested a ‘be on the lookout’ alert for the Hummer. He returned to the group and said, “I issued a BOLO for the Hummer, we should find it shortly.”

  The ambulance had left and the sun was getting lower over the mountain peaks. One of the officers called for a tow truck. Nick used his mobile phone to check email thinking he might have an email from the resort. He did and so knew he could get to work on the camera data when he returned to their hotel. Once the police had their report completed and a copy of the photo from Jill’s phone, they waited around to see if the tow truck driver required any assistance. In the end the driver parked on the road and used his towing steel cable to pull the SUV out of the mini-forest it had landed in with the police directing traffic around the wrecker. The driver gave them the address of the vehicle’s location in town and left with it.

  The police dropped Jill and Nick off at their hotel, having given Jill a copy of their report so she could use that to deal with the car rental agency. She wondered how many customers made accident claims of attempted vehicle manslaughter. It was going to be an interesting call to say the least. The agency would need to bring her a replacement vehicle and take away the damaged SUV.

  Jill and Nick returned to the hotel suite. Marie and Jo looked at them seeing the airbag powder still on their faces.

  “What happened to you two? What is the white stuff on your face and in your hair?”

  “We were run off the road by a Hummer and the airbags exploded as soon as it rammed our bumper.”

  “Do you two have any injuries? What happened to your car? Were the police involved?” asked Marie in her usual rapid fire style.

  “No injuries, the car may be totaled or not, and yes the police were involved. Let Nick and I have our hot showers and we’ll be back out to discuss the event with you. Don’t open the door to anyone,” advised Jill.

  Her adrenaline rush had carried her through the last hour, but suddenly, she was ready to drop to the floor and bawl her eyes out. Give her a hot shower, and a few minutes alone and she would have it all back under control.

  Twenty minutes later she returned to the living room and she could tell the other two had peppered Nick with questions. Looking at her friends she asked, “So was Nick able to give you all the details?”

  “OMG, yes! What a terrifying adventure. You were lucky that the road was dry, that your SUV had airbags, and you used evasive driving until the final curves!”

  “I was lucky to have Nick with me providing me evasive driving techniques. Whew! I need a glass of wine,” announced Jill. “Does anyone else want something to drink?”

  The other three joined her in toasting their good fortune.

  Taking a big swallow of wine, Jill asked, “Did Nick show you the picture? Angela would be proud after all the pictures she took in Belgium of the creeps that were after us there.”

  “No he didn’t show us a picture! Whose phone is it on? Let us see it.”

  Jill went over to her purse and searched for her iPhone then she leaned in and showed it to her friends.

  “Wow that is so real. We are so lucky to have you alive and well,” said Jo and soon a group hug was taking place.

  “This is really getting scary. I was grateful to have someone in the car with me on that mountain and especially one that could quickly give me a driving skill to focus on and get us down out of the higher cliffs. Thank you so much, Nick.”

  “I’m starting to think that you need a bodyguard when you start one of these cases.”

  As the three women stared him down, he tried to think of a way to backpedal and get back in their good graces.

  Finally he said, “Don’t tell Angela I made that stupid remark.” And with a laugh breaking the tension they knew they were back on solid footing with him.

  “Someone must have a tail on us between the encounter with the snowmobiler last night and now this road rage problem,” mused Jill.” How else could they have found us?”

  “I’ve been thinking about those same questions. I think we should eat in this evening as there have been two attacks less than twenty-four hours apart. At least we should maintain a low key existence until we figure out how these people are following us or perhaps until they find the Hummer. Furthermore, I have plenty of work and we haven’t even heard from Jo and Marie as to what they have found in their searches.”

  “You’re right, Nick. We’ll eat in or at least you and I will. Marie and Jo, you should go explore the town; there are many great restaurants, and I don’t think your faces are known here. Why don’t you tell us what you found, and then take off for dinner?”

  “I would like to see the town and I think our faces are not known,” agreed Jo. “Let me start with what I learned about Joseph’s biotech company.

  “Broomfield Pharmaceuticals has been around for almost two decades and has had a few blockbuster drugs to treat cancer. It went IPO two years ago so there is a lot of public information on the company. There are three divisions within the company - one that does clinical trials, another performs the research and development that creates the drugs, and the third arm manufactures its therapies. Sometimes their clinical trials branch did trials for other companies and sometimes they would collaborate with other companies for the research.”

  “What is the size of the company?” asked Jill.

  “Six hundred million based on this morning’s stock price,” Jo calculated.

  “Ok that is a considerable size,” commented Jill. “If there is a problem with the company, protecting that company
value might drive some sicko into murder. What is the news from the last six months? I can’t imagine someone that plots this kind of murder taking longer than that if something angered them.”

  “The most recent management reports hint at a problem with a bio-therapeutic developed in collaboration with another company.”

  “What kind of collaboration?” asked Jill.

  “This report doesn’t elaborate beyond the statement that there were problems that might affect future operating income margins. If you could look into the FDA from your medical view Jill, they might have additional information. There is mention here about interactions with the FDA, so there should be a paper trail.”

  “I’ll work on that tonight. Would you add that other company to your list of things to review? Thanks. Marie, what have you found?” asked Jill as she added Jo’s information to her temporary murder board.

  “I started by concentrating on Joseph and David. David is a well-regarded teacher in the Denver area. All of the school districts at one time or another have offered him a permanent job which he has turned down. Students love him, they have a wide circle of friends, and really there are no red flags in any of the data that I looked at for David.

  "Joseph has a far bigger public presence due to his position of CEO. He was a leader in his field speaking at many events. He had been on the quarterly earnings presentations; he chaired a regional committee for biotech companies, lectured at both high schools and universities, and provided several lectures on research findings at large cancer meetings. He was well respected. His personal life for the most part stayed out of the spotlight. His marriage to David, while not a secret, was rarely photographed or spoken about. It appears to me that he didn’t take his partner to most corporate events. I really didn't see any negativity toward Joseph or his company in my search. Even sites where employees talk about their companies seem to be full of respect for Broomfield. I'm moving on to that second company that Jo mentioned as well as the board members.”