Paul Madriani: The Jury Part 34

"If you drive."

Ten minutes later Harry and I are headed up I-5, cutting in and out of traffic in Harry's Toyota.

"You should be careful," he says. "Unless you wanna get clocked by a cop. And I'd rather not flash all over my own front seat."

"Sorry. But we don't have much time." I get into the fast lane and try to smooth it out, just staying ahead of the flow of traffic. "I can't be sure, not certain enough to call the cops, but unless I miss my bet our visitor has one more stop to make."

"What the h.e.l.l's going on?" Harry looks a little green, head in his hands.

"The information was in front of us all the time. Jordan and Epperson were competing for money on different portions of the research project. They'd filed competing grant applications; drawing on funds Crone had set aside. I didn't realize it until I went looking back through the papers tonight. Up until a month before Kalista Jordan was murdered, there was a surplus of funds. Not a huge one, but enough. A hundred and eight thousand and change, according to the figures. That's what the argument between Jordan and Crone was all about."

"Money?" asks Harry.

I nod. "I've got no hard evidence. No proof. But I think I know what happened. Crone had carved the surplus out of funds originally earmarked for their budgets. Jordan found out. She went to him, and they argued. Crone refused to rescind his action, so she took some papers from his office. My guess is they were funding doc.u.ments, probably conditions for the grant from Cybergenomics. As far as Jordan was concerned, she was ent.i.tled to the money and she was going to get it. She tried to turn the screws on Crone, but he wouldn't budge. She was angry. It became a blood feud. She ended up filing the s.e.xual hara.s.sment complaint. He probably was hara.s.sing her, but it had nothing to do with s.e.x. He wanted the papers back. She wouldn't give them to him, and he wouldn't back away on the funding issue. As far as Crone was concerned, it was his project. He was calling the shots.

"So she went to Epperson, and the two of them filed supplemental applications to get the money back. They probably went around Crone to the university. Jordan did a little lobbying. Crone wasn't well loved in high places, and she ended up getting the funds restored for their research. Suddenly the surplus disappeared."

"I don't get it," says Harry. "Why was Crone holding back funds?"

"Because I asked him to."

"What?"

"It was Penny Boyd: the children's research project. Crone had come up with the funding by cutting into Jordan's part of the pie. She got it back, and the children's project died."

Harry is looking at me, the details beginning to seep in even as the lump on the back of his head throbs.

"There were three signatures on the final forms," I tell him. "Jordan and Epperson signed the supplemental applications to get the money back. But Crone must have refused to consent to it, because even after the university ordered the funds to be restored, he didn't sign the form authorizing it. He had Tash do it."

Harry looks at me, a question mark.

"What he didn't realize," I tell him, "is that Tash was signing his death warrant."

Suddenly it registers on Harry.

"I didn't realize until I put it all together. That and the conversation I had with Frank Boyd. He was around the bend, but I didn't realize how far."

"It was Boyd," says Harry.

I nod. "I didn't realize it until tonight. He must have gone out of his mind when the project for Penny was killed. He was convinced it would save her life. I tried to tell him it was a long shot at best, but he wouldn't listen. I should have realized when he came to me talking about divorce."

"He murdered Jordan because he held her responsible for killing the project," says Harry.

"And Epperson, and anybody else whose fingers might have touched the thing. I suspect he came to the office tonight because he thought we'd figured it out.

"Why did he think that?"

"Because you retrieved the file from Doris, the one she gave you, the one I left at their house after I did the original workup with Crone. That file had everything in it, the project application for the kids' portion of the Huntington study, along with the copies of the supplemental applications for funding from Jordan and Epperson. I'd let Doris keep them because they had nothing to do with the firm. They weren't legal files. She and Frank clearly had a larger stake than I did. All the while Frank was watching the money dry up in front of his eyes.

"My guess is he didn't know you'd come by to pick up the file until he went looking for it. He probably asked Doris. She would have told him where it was."

"It's a wonder he didn't kill me," says Harry.

"He was interrupted."

Harry looks at me wide-eyed.

"He was gathering information. Probably figured he had one last chance to get anybody who was involved before we turned him in and the cops got him.

"When I got there tonight the lid was off one of the boxes out in the reception area. You didn't do it. He nailed you before you got the lights on. So it was Frank. He saw the same papers I did. The stuff you got from the university. The ones with Tash's signature on them restoring the money and killing the project. They were open on the desk. Those weren't in the file I gave to Doris. The twisted mind," I say. "He probably figures Tash was in it with them from the beginning."

chapter.

twenty-one.

tash lives in a condo development out on the rocky shoals a few miles below the village, just south of a place known to surfers and locals as Wipe-out Beach.

It takes Harry and me twenty minutes to find the area, stopping twice for directions. When we finally locate the street, we are confronted with another maze. Every unit in the ma.s.sive complex looks like every other one, with numbers on the cl.u.s.tered mailboxes out front.

We find the address for Tash's unit and park in front.

"He's probably out with Crone celebrating," says Harry.

"Let's hope."

I reach for the door "Let's think about this," says Harry. "We could call the cops."

"And tell them what? Tate and Tannery aren't exactly in a mood to accept my theories on the case at the moment. They're not likely to put out an APB on Boyd based on a few doc.u.ments. But then they didn't have the conversation I did with Frank about schemes for divorce to avoid medical bills. The guy was desperate."

It's the problem any prosecutor would have at this point. After holding Crone in jail for months and trying him on capital charges, it's tough to go before the public and tell them, "Oh, by the way, we found another perpetrator." They are not likely to do it, even if it's the right perpetrator.

"So what are you gonna tell Tash when you find him?"

"For starters, I'll tell him to get a hotel room for the night. He and Crone both. I don't know exactly what Frank has in mind. But I'd rather not find out. Tomorrow I'll try to get ahold of Tate. It's Sat.u.r.day, the offices are closed, but somebody should be able to reach him. Maybe I can convince him to bring Boyd in, at least for some questioning."

"If you're right, he's a nut case," says Harry.

"I'm banking on it. I'll warn the cops every way I can." If they approach him, I am thinking Frank may go berserk. If they can get him into custody safely, that would cause them to take a hard look."

"What about the family, Doris and the kids?" says Harry.

"I thought about that. I tried calling Frank's house earlier. There was no answer."

"You think he's done something to them?"

"I don't know. I'm hoping maybe Doris took the kids and went somewhere. At the moment, Frank seems to be on a flat trajectory, single-minded. I think his sights right now are fixed on Tash. In his mind, he's racing against time. I'll check on Doris as soon as we're done here."

"That could be dicey," says Harry.

"I know. I can drop you somewhere before I go over there."

"Fat chance," says Harry. "Just so long as you understand I'm not blocking any bullets for you."

I smile at him. "Let's see if we can find Tash."

As Harry and I open the doors to the car we can hear the crash of surf on the other side of the development. The condos back up on the cliffs overlooking the beach. We check the numbers on the mailboxes. They are cl.u.s.tered in groups, by address, with unit numbers a.s.signed to each box.

We find Tash's mailbox, unit 312.

"Third floor. Up top," says Harry. We head up the walkway toward the door. When we get there, it's locked.

"We could wait until somebody comes out," says Harry.

On the wall next to the door is a speaker for an intercom system, with b.u.t.tons lining the wall, names penciled on placards next to them.

I press one of the numbers on the second floor and wait a moment. n.o.body answers. I try another. A voice comes over the intercom.

"Yeah."

I look at another name, this time from the first floor hoping they won't know each other. "This is Mr. Symington in one-oh-eight. I left my key in the lock to my apartment. I wonder, could you let me in?"

Whoever it is doesn't respond, but a second later there is a quick buzz and the lock snaps open on the front door. Harry yanks on it, and we're in. We move quickly up the stairs before the guy on two can check to see who came in.

By the time we get to the top floor, both Harry and I are sucking wind. He's holding the back of his head like it's going to come apart. I'm feeling like some NFL linebacker tattooed me in the chest with his helmet. We lean against the wall, catching our breath.

"You all right?"

"Yeah. Gotta start jogging again," he say.

"When did you ever jog?"

"When I was a kid," he says. Harry winks at me.

I look at the number on the door across from the top of the stairs. Tash's unit is to the right. We work our way down the hall, trying not to make the floor squeak as we walk. We pa.s.s four doors, two on each side of the hall, until we come to 312. Tash's place is on the back side, an ocean view.

There's a peephole in the center of the door at about eye height. I lean down and take a look. s.h.i.+elding the light from around the lens, I try to peer through it backwards. All I can make out is light and dark, what appears to be an absence of any movement inside. A couple of points, specks of brightness, bleed rays of light. These, I a.s.sume, are lamps that have been left on.

"See anything?"

I shake my head. I put an ear next to the door and listen. Nothing.

"We could just knock," Harry whispers.

I hold my hand up, shake my head.

Farther to the right there are two more apartment doors. Beyond that the hallway widens and forms a T. Quietly I move toward the intersection in the hall. On one side, in the intersecting hallway toward the front of the building, are two elevator doors. In the other direction, toward the ocean, is a sliding door leading out onto a veranda.

I head toward the sliding door. Harry follows. I flip the catch lock on the door's handle, slide it open and step out onto the balcony. There is a brisk breeze off the Pacific, rising as it hits the cliffs below us. I slide the door closed, and Harry and I can talk.

"What do we do?" he says.

I'm looking toward the balcony outside of Tash's unit. It's about thirty feet away. I can see from here that the sliding door to the unit is partway open.

"I want to take a look inside that condo."

"How?"

I look toward the balcony next to the one Harry and I are standing on. There's a span of about six feet between metal railings, a three-story drop and jagged cliffs below that, white surf cras.h.i.+ng on the rocks. I would have to negotiate two of these spans to make it to Tash's balcony. It's not a long reach. It's just the fall if you miss.

"You're crazy," he says.

"Do you know any other way to get in there?"

"We could ring the buzzer. Knock on the door."

"And what if Boyd is in there? He'll kill Tash in an instant. Cut his throat and throw him off the balcony." As I'm talking to Harry, I'm sliding the belt out of the loops in my pants. Leather, about an inch and a half wide.

"Give me your belt," I tell him.

"I'm not going over there."

"No, you're not. I'm going alone."

"As long as we have that settled." Harry whips his belt out of the loops of his suit pants and hands it to me. I string the two belts together, putting the tip of one belt through the buckle of the other, the tongue through the first hole, and pull on them making sure they will support my weight. Then I loop the belt over the steel railing and buckle the ends together. I adjust it for length, and look at Harry.

"Wish me luck." I ease myself over the railing, my feet through the wrought-iron spindles so that my toes are supported by the concrete deck of the veranda. Harry has me by one arm looking at me like I'm crazy. He is no doubt right.

I slip my right foot into the loop made by the belts and use it to swing out just a little at first, testing it. I can feel the pain in my chest pulling where Boyd nailed me.

Then, with my foot in the belt supporting my weight, one hand on the railing near Harry, I swing out once, come back; swing out twice. On the third try I catch the far railing, plant my foot through the spindles and in less than two seconds I'm over the railing.

I signal to Harry to uncouple the belts, and carefully he tosses them to me. I set up the arrangement on the far railing nearest to Tash's apartment. I avoid looking down, though it's hard to ignore the sound of the cras.h.i.+ng surf below me.

I swing out. This time I catch the railing on the second try, put my free foot through the spindles and ease myself over the railing. Now the belts are behind me, left on the other balcony. The only way out is through the door in Tash's apartment.