by Ritu Sethi
Gray parked in front of the ground-floor apartment with the bright red door. Taking the large stone steps, he nodded at the uniformed officer standing outside and entered the high-ceilinged foyer.
The SOCO’s in the living room collected evidence, including a retro-style phone covered in blood. One of them waved to Gray as he entered. Here, too, the stench of feces and blood permeated the air, along with Jimmy’s imagined lingering presence.
Gray had expected to see blood but not the play of contrasts before him. Immaculate white walls, books arranged on shelves in order of ascending height, and a bare and pristine kitchen gave the unit the sterility of a surgical suite. And in the center, blood and brown liquid soaked the rug and sofa, crimson on white. Only a hanging picture of Jimmy and his mom, placed next to a standing houseplant, brought any warmth to the room. In it, Evelyn smiled broadly, backdropped by a clear, blue beach and holding a possessive arm around a tight-lipped but grinning Jimmy. They looked to be on vacation since in the backdrop there was a clear, blue beach. Neither would ever go there again.
“Hardly a speck of dust in the place,” a SOCO said to Gray. “Makes our job easier.”
“Get any prints you can. Check them with Jimmy’s and the ones we collected at the startup.”
The SOCO nodded and returned to work.
A pulse throbbed in Gray’s temple, and he consciously faced his failure. Evelyn Cane had lost her son. Jimmy had lost his life. Gray let it pass through him like a ghost. Failure tasted like acid. He’d played by the book so far, respecting Gabi’s privacy, respecting the privacy of Holly’s medical records, and look where it had gotten him. He should have forced Holly to speak sooner.
All that was about to change.
The startup sat at the center of things, and one woman ran the startup.
Gray held open his claw hand and clenched his fist.
He would make her talk. No matter how rotten she felt.
CHAPTER 15
April 3, 9 am
GRAY CLIMBED UP the stairs leading to HealSo’s office.
He’d just left Etienne at the hospital, relieved the boy was doing so well. Aside from some bruises and cuts, he was fine. Better than fine. Etienne looked more relaxed in the regular hospital than at the Institute. He even smiled upon learning that Director LeBlanc was considering transferring him out of the Institute and into the regular psychiatric ward. Etienne hadn’t fought back during Carl’s attack, and Gray had made certain LeBlanc heard knew it. He’d spent an hour on the phone with the man this morning. Hopefully, it would do the boy some good, but just in case, Gray had left Etienne with an alarm. A way to make contact in the event of an emergency.
Gray reached the fifth floor. He couldn’t believe it. Holly had already returned to the startup. Was the woman made of stone?
She had checked out of the hospital against medical advice early this morning. Apparently, the impending financial deal took precedence over her health.
The administration assistant buzzed Gray in through the startup’s door and into the foyer. Diagonal slashes of police tape sealed off the server room to the right of the long and narrow corridor until further notice, despite Simon’s ongoing protestations. In fact, the more the Founder whined, the longer Gray planned on keeping him out of that room.
At the end of the corridor, the space opened up to the hustle and bustle of the startup, the vast industrial space so typical of trendy startups – all glass, chrome, and cement. Five people stood together to the right for their morning stand up meeting. Others hunched over their workstations wearing headphones. Wafts of coffee and butter croissants called out from the distant kitchen.
Holly’s office sat in the corner straight ahead. Despite the rustling behind the door, she didn’t respond to his knocking. Turning the knob, he peered inside.
Her fruity perfume hit him at the threshold. She wore far too much, as though it were a talisman. Through the glass windows covering the opposite wall, a commercial liner could be seen slicing across the sky.
Holly’s head was cradled in her hands over the desk. She looked up. “Oh God, what do you want?”
“May I come in?”
“No. I’m not feeling well.”
Stepping inside, he closed the door and crossed his arms across his chest. “I want to know who attacked you.”
Shutting her eyes tight, Holly exhaled. Her bruises still looked fresh and blue. “I told you; it was too dark. Why won’t you leave me alone?”
“You’re lying.”
She pounded the desk. An empty coffee cup fell to the floor and broke in pieces “I am not lying. Now, get out before I file a formal complaint.”
Gray took a chair opposite her. Leaning back, he crossed one leg over the other.
“Did you hear me?” she said. “Unless you’re here to arrest me, I want you to leave. I know my rights. You can’t stay here and interrogate me against my will or without my attorney.” Cursing, she stood, picked up her phone, and began dialing.
“Jimmy’s dead,” Gray said.
Holly froze with one finger poised over the numbers. Her lids lowered, the shutters came down. “I heard.”
“Jimmy sent a letter to his mom, outlining a cover-up at HealSo which he claimed you knew about. Someone died because of HealSo’s faulty code, didn’t they? And Norman covered it up.”
Holly stiffened; a vein on her temple pulsed. Slowly, she lowered herself back into her chair and hung up the phone with a gentle click. Her quiet, almost disembodied voice resounded in the sparsely furnished room. “Where is this alleged letter?”
He didn’t reply; the moment stretched.
“I see. Evelyn hasn’t and isn’t planning to give it to you when it arrives; I think you know that, and that’s why you’re here harassing me. She won’t want her son’s name blackened.” A plucked eyebrow arched. The hard, jutting angles of her face seemed sharper alongside the bruises, even menacing if he used his imagination. “You have nothing, Chief Inspector. Nothing.”
Gray held her eyes. In a few days, all traces of the attack would vanish from her face. Her expression hovered dangerously close to smugness, a reaction which would evaporate the second he told her what he knew – the two secrets she’d chosen to keep hidden from the outside world. But knowledge of one inexorably led to knowledge of the other. Both facts were married together; he knew it, and so did she.
Her red nails grazed the lump on her forehead, and she winced, making something inside him waver. Compassion? Understanding? These were luxuries he couldn’t afford with a ferocious killer loose, bent on stripping faces and hanging victims from trees.
Holly linked her hands behind her head. She raised her false lashes. “Jimmy’s death is regrettable. We took him on after graduation, gave him a coveted position, and look how he thanked us. By accusing HealSo of wrongdoing.”
He opened his mouth and closed it. Of all the things she could have said...
Jimmy’s pale and limp body sprang to mind. The agonizing cries heard by his mom, her limp body falling to the floor at his bedside.
Any reticence within Gray died a quick death. It was Holly’s company, her people – yet she chose to aid the killer and protect her bloody acquisition.
She watched him expectantly, no doubt measuring his strength, always the ruthless negotiator reading the opponent’s weakness. Each second he hesitated, she grew stronger, so he dived in.
“Does anyone at HealSo know about the charges of fraud filed against you?”
Silence.
Whatever she’d expected, it wasn’t this.
Cat-like eyes bored into his. “Are you blackmailing me?” She rose, a clenched fist coming up into the air. He half expected it to make contact with his face. “Do you want money?” she said.
“Please sit down.”
She repeated the question.
“I have enough money. I’m interested in the truth. In catching a murderer and saving your staff.”
“By using coercion? Nice. I could
have your badge for this.”
Gray kept his voice even. “Coercion? I’m an investigating officer interrogating a suspect. I have reason to believe your startup acted unethically, and now I find out the CEO has an outstanding charge of fraud she never faced. How is that coercion? Don’t paint me with your tainted brush. Nothing you say is off the record, and I recommend you choose your words carefully.”
Holly fell back into her chair; the air seemed to go out of her. “You can’t get away with this.”
“We both know you have a legal obligation to your investors. You lied to them. Will anyone buy HealSo if your secret gets out?”
“But–”
“This fraud charge,” Gray said. “will inadvertently expose your real identity.”
“You want to expose me?”
“I want an honest account of PAS, past problems, and reasons why someone should kill your medical advisor. That’s all. I need that information to catch a murderer.”
He waited a full minute for her to reply. She leaned her face in her hands, but she wouldn’t want pity. Her eyes asked for something else.
“The other thing stays out of your official report?”
“You know I can’t promise that, as much as I want to.”
Holly licked her lips, and breathed heavily. She moved to the window, her back to him, feet planted widely apart, giving him space from her strong scent. Another jet silently streamed through the sky ahead.
“Who attacked you?” Gray asked.
“I didn’t see. It was too dark.”
“Tell me about PAS, Norman, and Jimmy.”
No answer. He didn’t want to push too hard, for fear she might clamp up.
“So many years of pain, of suffering.” She turned to face him, her expression soft. “I can’t let them be for nothing. I can’t let Melanie down after all we’ve been through.” A single tear slid down her cheek. He resisted the urge to wipe it from her face. Sometimes, Gray hated his job. He hated the things he must do.
“You win, Chief Inspector.”
Holly moved forward and slumped into her chair. All the blood drained from her face, so that the mottled bruises made her look inhuman. “Jimmy warned us. We didn’t listen. Then later, he feared getting caught.”
“Getting caught for what?”
“The early version of PAS had a flaw. No big deal; programs often have flaws. We expect them.”
“I want specifics.”
“Do you? Of course, you do. Your type always does.”
“Ms. Bradley –”
“Everything comes easy to men like you. Life falls at your feet, and you think you rule the rest of us, but you don’t.”
“This isn’t about me.”
“It is. It’s about all of you.”
“Tell me what Jimmy feared, or all bets are off.”
She slammed the table. “Simon! Simon ruined the code in one of his fucking flashes of genius, like the one he had when he came up with PAS, which led to nothing because so many of his flashes lead to nothing.”
She breathed heavily. He worried she might pass out.
“Simon altered Jimmy’s program? And that lead to what?”
“What do you think?” Holly leaned in close. He could smell the coffee on her breath. “Jimmy wanted to fix it before the clinical trials, but Norman wouldn’t risk the Hospital Board changing their mind about allowing us to do trials in the ID ward. We went ahead, but... but...”
“Someone died. Who?”
She looked away. “I don’t know. I didn’t ask.”
“You didn’t ask?” She turned away. “How could you not ask?”
Any sympathy he felt for her got immediately squashed.
“It haunted Jimmy,” she said. “He bounced between guilt and terror, and no matter what I tried, he grew more and more frantic, like some stupid child. Someone had to be the adult.” Her eyes whiplashed back to his as if reading his mind; her voice rose. “Only one person died, for God’s sake. Out of hundreds. You think nobody died when they developed the measles vaccine? When they eradicated Smallpox? How many lives will PAS save in the future?”
“PAS might kill again.”
“No, Jimmy fixed it. The system underwent multiple trials afterward. There’s no danger to anyone now. Precision medicine has revolutionized health care by tailoring treatments to the genetics of every individual. How can you jeopardize that for one mistake?”
“Which you covered up.” But Gray felt uncertainty yank at his gut. Was he endangering countless future lives, slandering a life-saving technology to solve one case because he himself couldn’t face failure?
How many killers did he need to lock behind bars before he’d done enough? And did the execution of professional duty exonerate him from all consequences? Nothing could bring his former life back. Nothing could make him whole again.
Taking a deep breath, he counted to four. Holly’s eyes narrowed a fraction. She made deals for a living, deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and she was wheeling and dealing this very minute.
“The code,” he said. “Did you destroy the evidence?”
Her eyes widened. A pause. “Jimmy destroyed it.”
“No, he didn’t, did he? Why destroy his only proof of Simon’s meddling? And I bet neither you or Norman had the technical expertise to do it.”
“Can’t you let all this go?” she said. “I don’t... I don’t want to suffer, anymore.”
Holly turned her head and looked out the window. “Norman forgot his phone in my office the day before. When I saw the report of the faceless body on the beach... and Simon told me Norman was missing... I tried to buy some time by dialing my number from Norman’s cell.”
“To save your startup from scandal, to preserve the deal.”
Her eyes flared. “To protect the acquisition. That’s my judicial responsibility.”
“Your judicial responsibility doesn’t involve illegal acts – such as cleaning up blood from the server room or sabotaging a murder investigation.”
With proof of a faulty code, Judge Rodeau would finally give permission to examine the hospital charts of patients treated by PAS. Gray could finally get what he’d wanted all along – what his instincts had screamed would solve the case.
He stood; his voice was firm. “I want the faulty version of that program in my hands today. You’re going to give it to me.”
Holly searched his eyes. “I wonder if your department understands you. I do, even if they don’t.”
“You understand wealth and success, Ms. Bradley. I’m going to protect your team, even if you won’t. I’m going to make damn sure there isn’t another Jimmy. And you’ll give me what I need – whether you like it or not.”
CHAPTER 16
April 3, 10 am
HE COULDN’T WAIT to get his hands on those hospital records. The answer lay somewhere in patient files, charts, trials... Gray could feel it in his gut, in his bones. And after Holly’s guilty confession, getting access to the charts was a given.
Snow skirted across the road on the route back to his office. The car’s upper vents sent short, rapid bursts of hot air onto his face, and the lower ones didn’t work. His body effectively inhabited two different climate zones, leaving his cheeks burning and his toes numb.
A navy Chevy currently followed him on the freeway, keeping its distance two cars back while swerving and sliding with stealth and skill. He recognized the maneuver from his training days as an undercover officer.
Gray managed to lose the tail, pulled off route 720, and turned north on rue Saint Urbain. He pulled into the SPVM lot and parked, scanning the area around him, but nothing moved as he stepped out of the car. No one drove past.
A his office, he saw the green folder on his desk
Jimmy’s autopsy results.
Gray stared at it, hesitant to open the plastic cover.
Sliding the file under one arm, he headed towards the pathology department a few blocks away, preferring to discuss the findings
with Seymour in person.
The lab smelled like a butcher’s shop and evoked half-forgotten memories of high school dissection classes. Shelves, filled with multi-colored jars containing lumpy tissues soaked in formaldehyde, lined one wall. He purposely didn’t look at them too closely. A computer sat on a high bench in the corner.
One small window provided the only natural light, accompanying the depressing gloom of the overhead fluorescent bulbs. Everything possessed a faint blue hue, including Seymour’s animated face. He looked like the walking dead, cutting up the dead.
Gray clutched the green file to his chest, still unable to open it, and his hesitation wasn’t lost on the doctor who looked up, narrowed his eyes, and continued to wipe an examination table with a wet sponge. Pink liquid streamed down the stainless steel table before circling into a drain. Going where Gray wondered? He couldn’t get his eyes off that tell-tale pink; shallow breaths couldn’t keep out that metallic smell.
“That report makes you want to punch someone in the face, doesn’t it?” Seymour said. His caterpillar eyebrows went up and down. “Or maybe hook them up to a Madras curry IV for fun.”
“Please, just tell me what’s in the report.”
“I personally would choose someone who hates Indian food and only eats butter chicken.”
“Doctor –”
“No, on second thought, I’d choose the imbecile who translated the emergency stop lever on the metro train from French to English: ‘Use forbidden without good reason.’ I mean, for God’s sake.”
Gray felt another headache coming on. Seymour’s next move – of running a gloved hand through his hair didn’t improve matters. “I suppose one must have that sense of humor to spend all day in this place. If only to live through that disgusting smell.”
After taking a few steadying breaths, he noticed the other man’s crooked smile. The doctor had something hidden up his sleeve.
“You may as well just spit it out,” Gray said.
