“Jenny,” I called over my shoulder, “someone broke in!”
I clambered out the window and down the ladder. No one was hiding in the weedy postage stamp of a backyard. No one in the garage either. I did a pull-up on the fences on each side of the yard. No sign of the intruders. I went back up the ladder, two rungs at a time, and called the cops.
10
The police didn’t stay long. They were not impressed with the extent of our loss. Yes, I admitted, the expensive camera equipment was intact. My insurance company would be spared. The only things missing were some videotapes and Jenny’s handbag. Luckily, she’d taken her wallet and cell phone with her. The cops wrote it up and told us they would be in touch. They also suggested I put the ladder away.
That much was true. Mrs. Debler, the owner, had some roof work done two years ago. The ladder had been leaning against the back fence ever since. I collapsed the ladder and stowed it in the garage. I also checked the yard again, more slowly, and this time found a few boot prints. I went back up to get a camera.
“This makes me so mad,” Jenny said. She was looking around for what else might have been taken. “All this really valuable stuff, and what do they pick? My bag.”
“You think they should have taken my livelihood — my cameras — instead?”
“You know I don’t mean it that way. It’s just that I had some personal stuff — some really good skin lotions I just bought.”
“They weren’t looking for money. This is all about Sheila. They were looking for specific items relating to her. My videocassettes, which probably are blank. They may have thought the diary was in your handbag.”
Jenny’s eyes widened. “You don’t think it was Fay?”
“Could be. Or the guy from LifeScience. Or Marion. They all knew about it. I’ll ask the neighbors if they saw anyone.”
The sound of the phone ringing startled us. I picked it up in my office. Jenny followed, hand covering her mouth.
“Hi, Wes,” I said. “Glad it’s you.”
Jenny exhaled with relief, then paced in the hall while I told Wes about the break-in. She came back into the room and said, “I’m going to look around the neighborhood. Maybe whoever took my bag tossed it in the bushes.”
I told her I’d come find her.
Wes knew about Sheila, it turned out. Marion had told him. Apparently the two of them had been burning up cell phone minutes. Wes was seeing her tonight and expected cellular communication of another kind to occur.
I asked if she’d said anything more about Sheila. “Not to me. You had to go down and identify the body, huh? That must have been weird.”
“It’s only gotten weirder.” I filled him in about LifeScience, Fay, and the diary, and wondered which one of them was connected to the theft.
“I don’t know, Billy,” he said. “Is it really worth getting involved in this?”
“I’ve been looking for something to do for nine months. This isn’t what I had in mind, but I can’t stop thinking about what happened to Sheila. My flat getting robbed means I’m already involved.”
Wes’s call-annoyance feature interrupted the conversation. He said he had to take it, so we signed off. I went downstairs to photograph the footprints in the garden.
I was back inside when the doorbell rang. I assumed it was Jenny. But when I opened the door, there stood Gregory Alton. “You’re here,” he said. “Good. We can talk now.”
Slamming the door in his face would have been enjoyable. But if I did, he’d just stand out there until Jenny came back. So I joined him on the porch. “Hey Gregory, how do you get the dotcommer off your doorstep?”
He looked over his shoulder, as if I was talking to someone else. I answered my own question. “Pay him for the pizza.”
Gregory managed to crack a smile. Then he made a show of removing his sunglasses and looking me directly in the eye. “Bill, I hope you got my message.”
“What’s this bullshit about legal risk?”
He took a deep breath and started to make chopping gestures with his glasses. “Kumar’s jumping our technology. We’ve got a way to model — well, never mind, the point is, Kumar’s filched the key step in the process. We’ve filed suit, but by the time we get a decision we’ll be broke.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. What does it have to do with us?”
“Let me see the footage you got at Kumar’s. I’ll show you what I mean.”
“Footage isn’t here, Gregory. How long have you been in the neighborhood? Since, maybe, nine this morning?”
“Bill, the life of my company is at stake. Literally. You’d do whatever you had to do to protect your business, wouldn’t you?”
“I wouldn’t break into other people’s houses.”
Gregory skipped right over this. “You’ve got to help me. What’s he’s doing is totally bogus.”
“Someone just climbed a ladder and broke in through my back window. They took my girlfriend’s purse and my videotapes. That’s what I call bogus.”
This stopped him, but only for a moment. “Buddy, that’s a drag. But you don’t think I’d—no way, Bill. Not me. Maybe it was Kumar. Seriously, he is scum.”
“I’ve dealt with the guy. Nothing came off on my hands. Besides, he has no reason to break in. The footage is his.”
Gregory answered with a slow head shake. “See, you just don’t know how smooth he is. He’s pulled some fast ones. Slimy, slippery fast ones.”
I stared at Gregory. Kumar had not pulled any fast ones on us. Nor, for that matter, had Gregory shown any guilt when I mentioned the break-in. But what he was saying about Kumar could as easily be true of himself. I’d seen young CEOs operate. How they could be exhausted, discouraged, sullen — then turn on a dime for an interview, rev up the charm, roll out the company myth, and pronounce with utter sincerity the precise opposite of what they’d just said in private.
“Gregory, you are going about this in such the wrong way.”
“All right, so I get a little… enthusiastic sometimes. But BioVerge, it’s my passion, it’s my life. What would you do?”
He looked a bit ridiculous, standing there with his shoulders cocked, wearing a yellow-print Hawaiian shirt and, incredibly, a yellow scarf round his neck. His hair was a peculiar — and it now occurred to me artificial — shade of yellow. With the little nub of blond turf on his chin and the pleading look in his eyes, he was starting to resemble a golden retriever.
“What was that bullshit about having us shoot a film for you?” I said.
“Absolutely real, buddy. We want you to do one up. If Kumar doesn’t ruin us, I’ll pay you like I said.”
“I’ll dashboard it, Gregory,” I said, mimicking his expression. “But don’t call us. We’ll call you.”
“I don’t have that kind of time. A contract is coming up. Huge. We’re bidding against Kumar. Whoever gets the LifeScience deal—”
Gregory caught the change in my face right away. His confidence came galloping back. “So you know LifeScience. Players, dude. About to bust out with a product that will turn the monoclonal world upside down. A big pharma is already courting them. We’re bidding to partner up on their next project. We’ll be riding their comet trail. You should get in on this action, Bill. Help me stop Kumar.”
“What exactly is it that you want from me, Gregory?”
“Let me see the footage. It might have the evidence I need to derail his bid.”
My phone rang upstairs. “Okay, I will discuss this with Rita, and I will call you as soon as possible.”