“So you came to Butte to meet with Billy Buchanan’s brother.”
“Yes. I came to Butte to talk with you.”
They were both silent for a minute. Gordon pointed to the main administration building and they started walking slowly toward it. The sun was peeking through the treetops and the woods had come alive with chirping birds. The air was fresh and felt good in her lungs. An occasional machine whirred for a bit, then stopped, but other than the birds, it was quiet.
“It’s really beautiful here,” she said as they walked.
“I enjoy it,” Gordon said, his cowboy boots kicking up puffs of dirt. “Logging and working sawmills has been my life.” He glanced over at her. “It’s been a good life.”
“I can imagine. I read the article on your brother that was in the Butte paper after his death. He was quite the guy. Everyone liked him.”
“Yeah, Billy was a great guy. I miss him.”
They reached the edge of the parking lot, and Jennifer pointed to her rental. They walked across the cooling pavement and she got in the car. She dug in the small travel bag she’d brought with her and extracted a business card. She handed it to him, and he took a few seconds to look it over. He tucked it in one of his jean pockets.
“Well, thanks for meeting with me,” she said, offering her hand.
He shook it. “Thanks for coming. It was an interesting story.”
“Give me a call if you think we could help each other,” she said, starting the car and putting it in gear.
“I’ll do that,” he said.
“And Gordon,” she said as he moved back from the car so she could pull away. “I never said Kenga died on St. Lucia. Just mentioned it was a Caribbean island.”
She left him standing in the parking lot, a thoughtful look on his face.
23
The closest charter service that featured either Lear or Gulf-stream jets was in Helena. When Gordon Buchanan wanted to get somewhere fast, he didn’t rely on United-he chartered a private jet. He called the company and booked a Lear 31A to fly him to St. Lucia, then called the Twin Pines helicopter pilot at home. He apologized for calling late on Saturday and asking the pilot to work on Sunday, but stressed how important it was that he be in Helena by eight in the morning. His pilot agreed to come in without telling Gordon he would just as soon be flying as sitting in church. It wouldn’t have mattered-Buchanan would have appreciated it anyway.
Sunday, August 28, dawned cool and rain threatened. Both men were a bit early, and at ten minutes before the hour, the chopper lifted off and, after forty minutes of choppy flying, deposited Gordon on the tarmac in Helena. The Lear was waiting, the fee for the two-day trip already preauthorized on Gordon’s Visa card. Once the plane was airborne and en route to Miami, Gordon opened his files on Veritas and withdrew the folder on Jennifer Pearce.
Hers was a thin file, with her being such a recent hire. His investigator had pulled a brief work history covering her time at Marcon, and he started there. She was a brilliant woman, of that there was no doubt. She held a Ph.D. in microbiology and had been instrumental in bringing two midlevel drugs to market before shifting over to head up the Alzheimer’s division. And Gordon knew that Alzheimer’s was an arm of the corporate structure that every pharmaceutical giant looked to for a huge breakthrough drug. A pill to combat Alzheimer’s was a multibillion-dollar pill. And being offered the lead position was definitive proof that Marcon was enamored with its rising star. Yet three years later, that star had somehow tarnished. Nothing in the file indicated why.
But she had moved over to Veritas three months earlier, assuming the same coveted position with the rival company. Gordon glanced out the window at the passing clouds and wondered what tucked-away secrets Jennifer Pearce had brought with her to Veritas. At three-sixty plus bonuses a year, she was too well paid to have come across empty-headed. Gordon suspected Bruce Andrews had made a good choice when he offered her the position. But without knowing Jennifer personally, how could Andrews have been so sure?
And therein lay the problem. Did Bruce Andrews and Jennifer Pearce know each other prior to her starting work at Veritas? If the answer was yes, then chances were good that Pearce was another Andrews toady. If no, then maybe she was someone he could trust. The answer to that question was weighing on him.
He scanned down the page detailing her short tenure at Veritas. She was telling the truth about Kenga Bakcsi working in her department. She was Kenga’s direct boss. His investigator had not been able to ascertain whether their relationship went beyond the office to friends, but Jennifer’s story about tending to Kenga’s cat seemed plausible. In fact, there was nothing about Jennifer Pearce that did not seem plausible. He stared out the window and tried to put himself in her position. She was the new gal on the block in an increasingly alien environment. She suspected her employer might be responsible for the death of one of her staff. How disconcerting must that be? It would scare the crap out of most people, have them running for the door. But Jennifer Pearce did not run. She was doing the same thing he would do: assimilating information. She was making no decisions until all the facts were on the table, then she would make a rational choice. But what were her options? Remain at Veritas, bury her head, and hope the ax didn’t strike her? Unlikely: She wasn’t an ostrich. Involve the police while continuing to work at Veritas? Dangerous; very dangerous. Quit, walk away, and develop a severe case of amnesia? Again, dangerous if someone at Veritas was killing people to keep them quiet. Or search out someone to help her?
Gordon knew he was beginning to believe her. Time to play the devil’s advocate. Someone inside Veritas had been alerted by their legal team that Gordon Buchanan in Butte, Montana, was considering legal action against the company. They recruit a new hire, Jennifer Pearce, to visit Buchanan and find out the validity of his claim. He grinned at the absurdity of it. Jennifer Pearce was a Ph.D. researcher with a proven track record in the pharmaceutical industry, making extremely good money, with no history of being anything except what she claimed to be. She started at almost the same time Billy died, and at that time Veritas had no idea their product was responsible for Billy’s death. And if they were to send someone across the country to visit, the last thing a company spy would do is accuse her employer of killing its employees.
Gordon made his decision. Jennifer Pearce was the real thing.
He had an ally.
24
The Lear 31A touched down at George F. L. Charles Airport in Castries, St. Lucia’s largest and most modern city, and taxied to a private hangar. The Castries airport serviced mostly private jets and cargo, while international travel came in through Hewanorra on the south tip of the island, close to the world-famous Pitons. Gordon waited until Customs had come and gone, lazily poking their heads into the fuselage to see who had arrived, before deplaning. The sun was intense, even late in the afternoon, and he lounged in the shade next to the hangar, waiting for his ride to show. Ten minutes later, an older silver van pulled up a few feet away. The driver glanced over at him and waved. Gordon opened the door and slid in the front seat. The upholstery was worn but clean.
“Christopher,” he said, shaking the man’s hand. “Good to see you, my friend.”
“Gordon Buchanan,” the man said in lilting English. “Welcome back to St. Lucia, mon.” He was native Lucian, with roots easily traced back to when the slave traders had populated the Caribbean with Africans, torn from their homes and families on a distant continent. He was a large man, over six feet, and had a perpetual smile, his teeth punctuated with gold fillings. A pair of sunglasses was perched on the top of his head, and he was dressed in blue jeans and a crisp white shirt. “What brings my favorite country singer to our beautiful island?”