“Sorenson,” the gruff gravelly voice said.
“Good afternoon doctor. It is your favorite detective in the whole wide world.”
“Who?”
“Jerk.”
“Oh, detective Jerk. Yes, I remember you,” he said.
Why do I even like this guy?
“Look grumpbutt, I need to give you a heads up. We are investigating the imminent death of a Doctor Wittman and we need you to go with us.”
Nothing.
“Sorenson?”
“Have you been drinking again Bartoni?”
“No, you old goat. Look, someone poisoned the guy and he isn’t expected to live much longer. We need to make this an official homicide so we can quit spinning our wheels and actually investigate.”
“Let me get this straight. You want me to go see a guy who is dying and call it a homicide so you can get off your butt and do some detective work. Does that about sum it up?” the curmudgeon said.
“Pretty much.”
“Why hasn’t anyone tried to save him?”
“They have. He is dying from radiation poisoning.”
“What? You want me to go see a dead guy who is glowing in the dark? I don’t think so. Damn Bartoni, you are one crazy woman.”
“He isn’t glowing. He ingested alpha radiation. Someone fed it to him and now he is dying.”
“Well that’s just shitty. Man, talking about wanting to put the hurt on someone. Alpha radiation turns your insides to goo,” Sorenson said.
“Apparently that is exactly what is happening.”
“Poor booger. Alright, when he expires, let me know and I can make a determination.”
“I’ll call you just as soon as I hear.”
“Oh goody, I can’t wait,” he said and hung up before I could reply.
It may not sound like we get along but I love that old fart. He is absolutely the best ME in the state and maybe in the US. His crusty exterior covers a heart of milk chocolate that would melt if you hugged him. We fuss and fight but it is always in good fun.
***
It was going on five o‘clock and Dan was getting antsy. He had evidently decided that women were not so evil and was chomping at the bit to get back in the game.
I know he was about ready to bolt when the phone rang. I saw his expression change and he slumped down.
“Detective Bartoni.”
“It’s Doctor Miller. Bryan just died a few minutes ago.”
“Alright doctor. We will be right there,” I told him and went to inform the captain.
“Sorenson is going to be there?”
“Yep, I just need to call him.”
“As soon as he signs off, get it on the board and then get it off as quickly as possible.”
“Don’t I always?” I replied and took off before he could answer.
I gathered Dan and we headed out to Nemein’s to meet the medical examiner, the lovable Doctor Sorenson.
I saw the ME’s van when we pulled up in front of the place. Sorenson was slowly making his way up the steps. I started to honk my horn at him to startle him but my common sense kept me from doing something foolish.
“Be right with you doc,” I yelled as we got out of the car.
He just waved us off and kept going.
The same guards were there as the last time. Sorenson was giving them a tongue lashing.
“You twits. I’m the medical examiner and I don’t need your permission to do anything. Now you two bozos get the hell out of my way or you will find yourselves on a slab at the morgue. Maybe you will be dead when I start dissecting you and maybe you won’t,” I heard him say.
They were looking at each other like ‘what the hell is this guy all about?’
“Boys, I think you need to back down. The good doctor doesn’t take kindly to people telling him what he can and cannot do. This is now an official homicide investigation and the police are in charge of everything that goes on here, including who comes and goes if it is deemed pertinent to the investigation,” I told them.
“We didn’t know,” one of them said.
“Well now you do,” Sorenson said and demanded to be taken to the body.
When we were alone in the elevators Sorenson said, “What a crock of crap that was Bartoni, even for you.”
“What?”
“The part about everything that goes on here, including who comes and goes. I’m embarrassed by that bald faced lie.”
“You’re just jealous because you didn’t think to say something like that,” I replied.
“Now children, play nice,” Dan chimed in.
“Butt out,” the doc and I said in unison.
Before anyone could say anything else the doors opened and Doctors Miller, Parker and Lawrence were waiting for us. Miller had a medical chart in his hand.
“This is our medical examiner, Doctor Sorenson.”
“Well Parker, you finally found someone to take you in,” Sorenson said.
“Long time no see Doctor Sorenson. Acerbic as ever I see.”
“Darn tootin’. Boy they must have been desperate to have hired the likes of you.”
“I told them I flunked your class and they hired me on the basis of that alone. They figured that if I could take someone like you, I must be pretty darn resilient.”
“They should have called me for a recommendation.”
“They did; I checked. You gave me a glowing report,” Parker shot back.
“I must have been high on formaldehyde at the time.”
“Could we see the body?” I finally interjected.
I knew one thing for sure; no one gets the better of doc when he gets wound up with his insults.
“Nice to see you Doctor Sorenson,” Parker finally said.
“Of course it is,” Sorenson replied as they led us down the same hall Dan and I had visited earlier.
CHAPTER SIX
“Is that the dead guy?” Sorenson asked pointing to Wittman lying on the bed.
The three doctors just looked at each other.
“He is just kidding,” I said.
Dan was shaking his head. I think he was embarrassed to be seen with us.
“Got his charts?” the ME asked and Miller handed it over
“Are you kidding me?” he said scanning down the pages, “8Gy in his system?”
“That’s the reading we got,” Miller told him.
“Hell he was dead long before this. You couldn’t have done anything to save him. No one could,” the ME replied.
“We had to try.”
“Of course you did but with that kind of alpha radiation level he was essentially a dead man walking.”
“So we can officially call it a homicide?” I asked.
“Well unless he was a complete moron, and I doubt he was, he didn’t ingest this on his own. He was murdered, so yes, it is officially a homicide,” Sorenson told us.
“I will need some help getting the body out and in the van. Do you have a side entrance we can use?’
“We do. I can give you directions.”
“Give them to this young fellow,” he said nodding at Dan, “He is just standing around taking up space. Might as well put him to good use.”
Dan blushed but didn’t say anything. Sorenson gave him the keys and he went to move the van with Parker going along to help guide him to the right place.
They bagged the body, put it on a gurney, and started wheeling it to the exit where the van would be.
“Damn, what a way to go,” Sorenson said shaking his head.
“Painful?”
“I would say his last hours must have been total hell.”
“We kept him pretty well doped up,” Miller said.
“Good for you. At that point it didn’t matter how much you were giving him. I would have done the same thing,” he agreed.
“You will get some pretty high levels when you run the tox report,” Lawrence told Sorenson.
“Like I said, I would have done the same thin
g unless it was Bartoni here, then I would have given her an aspirin or two.”
“I love you too doc,” I said.
Doc, Parker, and Dan loaded the deceased Dr. Wittman into the ME’s van and closed the doors.
“It was really bad for him in the end?” I asked.
“I can’t even begin to imagine. I guess no one who is alive can. Your insides are turning to Jell-O and there is nothing that can be done to stop the process. This was one evil person who did this. I wish you could catch them and let me force a bit of alpha particles down their throat so they would know what it was like for Wittman,” he said.
Pretty unusual for the doc to get so emotional but then this wasn’t quite like anything any of us had seen before.
***
“Boss, it is officially a homicide,” I informed the captain.
“Then go put those skills of your to work and quit pestering me.”
“Aye, aye, mon Capitainé,” I said and quickly retreated.
“Are we going to go see the board of directors?” Dan asked.
“How detective like of you. That is exactly where we are headed.”
“And where would that be?” Dan asked.
“That’s a good question. How about we go see James Kingman at Sun Trust.”
“And he is?”
“The Chairman of the board for Nemein Pharmaceutical and Research Company.”
“Ah. And you know this because?”
“I looked it up on the internet.”
“That’s why you are my hero,” Dan said.
We were only fifteen minutes away from the Sun Trust building. It was one of those modern buildings that had been cropping up in the downtown area lately.
Inside, we showed our badges and asked to speak to Mr. Kingman. A few minutes later a short, balding man with a beard as wooly as I had ever seen, appeared and told us he was instructed to take us to see Mr. Kingman.
We rode the elevator to the thirty-sixth floor and the doors opened to one of those huge ultra-modern offices. A prim woman was standing there to meet us.
“I understand you wish to speak with Mr. Kingman.”
Well sister, I wasn’t here to talk to you, I thought.
“That is correct.”
“And you didn’t have an appointment?”
“Murdered victims don’t often give us much notice so making appointments is rather difficult,” I replied.
She took half a step back. She was a fashion disaster. If we were the fashion police we would be forced to give her a ticket. She had on one of those mid-calf maxi shirts, a baby blue silk blouse buttoned to the top and ugly, with a capital UG, shoes. They looked like something the Wicked Witch of the West wore in OZ.
“I see,” she finally said.
How nice.
“I’ll let Mr. Kingman know you are here.”
“Capital idea,” I replied and she went over and picked up the phone.
“This way please,” she said, opening the doors to the inner sanctum.
Kingman came from around his desk and waved to the two leather couches. They were light-years from what McGregor had.
“I’m James Kingman. I assume this is about the death of Doctor Wittman?”
“The murder of Doctor Wittman,” I corrected.
“Murder? I thought it was some kind of poisoning like e-coli.”
“No one told you that he was poisoned by alpha radiation?” I asked.
“They have been very tight lipped over there. They didn’t want the employees to get upset. After all, he just assumed the new position.”
“He was intentionally poisoned,” Dan added.
“Am I a suspect?” he suddenly asked.
“I sincerely doubt it. What we need to know is who besides the following were considered for the CEO position,” I said taking the list out of my pocket and passing it over to him.
He looked it over carefully.
“Yes those are the ones.”
“I understand there was someone outside the company as well,” I prompted.
“There was but I would rather not involve him if at all possible.”
“And why is that?”
“It could put him in a rather precarious position. He currently works for another pharmaceutical that is a competitor of ours.”
“I see. Someone was looking to jump ship?”
“Looking for advancement opportunities is how we looked at it,” Kingman replied.
“Tell me about the other candidates. Why was Wittman chosen and the others passed over?”
“It is a very detailed process. We actually go back to the first day of their last promotion and review everything that they have done since. We look at how they mesh with the corporate direction and philosophy. We spend a great deal of time discussing with each candidate where they think the company should go in the future. We spend at least two days and often three just talking about everything going on in the company. We want to know if they have a broad picture of the entire operation or they are focused on just their area of responsibility.”
“I understand all of that but something sets one person apart over the others.”
“Look, we all have our strengths and weaknesses. We try to find the one who has the most strengths and fewer weaknesses.”
“Once the decision is made, I assume you inform the other candidates?” I asked.
“Yes. We talk to each one of them but we still do not tell them who was selected. We just inform them of the decision and that they were not going to be the CEO in this case,” Kingman informed us.
“Who took it the hardest,” I asked trying to choose my words carefully.
“Obviously none of them were too thrilled. This type of position doesn’t come along all that often.”
“True but still…”
“I don’t want to speak for the other board members but to my mind I would have to say Walter Pike, our CFO. I think he believed he had it pretty well wrapped up.”
“Why do you say that?” Dan chimed in.
“It’s just his personality. He is pretty sure he is a lot smarter than everyone else. He is confident to a fault. That was one of the reasons he didn’t get the position. He feels superior and has a tendency to talk down to everyone. It makes dealing with him difficult for many of the other employees.”
“And how did he get along with Wittman?” Dan asked.
“They have had a few spats. Bryan was a strong person and he didn’t mind standing up to Pike when he thought he was right. He could give as good as he got in arguments.”
“Those happened a lot?” I asked.
“Not a lot but we have had some harsh words at some of the meetings. Pike is a brilliant CFO but his people skills are terribly lacking and that is something a Chief Executive Officer must possess,” Kingman said.
“Anyone else come to mind who was more than just disappointed?”
“I hesitate to mention it but yes, Megan Stewart, the Senior Vice President of Marketing. When we told her that she had been passed over she made a point of letting us know that Nemein would never be the leading pharmaceutical company if we continued to think the way we have in the past.”
“Why did she say that?” I asked.
“She is in marketing. They see things differently than the average person. The truth is, Nemein is a conservative company that takes things one step at a time. We talk it out, look at it from as many angles as possible before taking a step. Ms. Stewart thinks we need to make giant leaps in the next couple of years. The ‘damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead’, type thing. That made us all uncomfortable.”
“And Wittman was more along those lines?”
“He believed in looking at where we needed to be in five, ten, and twenty years down the road. He was a strong believer in double and triple testing everything we put in the market place. Stewart wanted to get it to market immediately. We were more comfortable with his vision and leadership style,” Kingman told us.
“So now you are b
ack to the drawing board.”
“Yes. We are meeting tomorrow night to discuss our options and how to proceed.”
“Mr. Kingman, we need you to hold off naming anyone as the new CEO.”
“Oh dear. That could pose quite a problem,” he said frowning.
“There are two reasons for my request. The first is that the new CEO could fall under the same threat. Someone could knock them off to get the promotion. Second, we are investigating a murder. What happens if the person you name is the murderer and we arrest them? I would imagine that would not do you much good in the market place.”
“Heavens. This is unbelievable. You mean if we pick the wrong one, they could be in peril and if we do pick the right one, they could possibly be the murderer?”
“I don’t know that for a fact but it is something you need to weigh out before you decide what to do.”
“What about someone who wasn’t considered. We could name them the interim Executive Vice President and keep the CEO position open until this is resolved,” he suggested.
“Dan?”
“I think that would work. The CEO position would still be open so there is no real reason to knock off the interim Executive VP. It would solve both problems nicely I should think.”
“Is that acceptable to you?” I asked Kingman.
“Honestly, I don’t like it much but under the circumstances, I think it is the best solution for now. I don’t know what the other board members will say but I will explain the situation to them.”
“You need to make it clear that if they put someone in that position while this murder investigation is going on they may be responsible for someone else’s death,” I said.
“Yes. I’ll make it quite clear. What a tragedy, first Bryan and now all of this. I do hope you can solve this quickly.”
“We will do the best we can. Let us know what the board decides and if you would like us to attend we would glad to help in any way we can.”
“I’ll call you right after the meeting and let you know what was decided.”
“Good luck,” I said, shaking his hand.
“I fear we are going to need it,” was his parting words.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The first thing I did when we got to the car was call Bobby Riley at the Bio-Hazard Lab and ask him to send a team to Nemein Pharmaceutical.
DEAD ON ARRIVAL: Angie Bartoni Case File # 14 (Angie Bartoni Case Files) Page 4
