Project Moses - A Mystery Thriller (Enzo Lee Mystery-Thriller Series) (12 page)

Lee noticed that Sarah seemed distracted. He guessed that she was overwhelmed by everything that had happened to her.

“So, how is it being back on campus?” he said, trying to turn the conversation to a less stressful topic. “Does it bring back some pleasant memories?”

“Some,” said Sarah. “Some painful ones, too. I remember spending time with Orson. I half expected him to burst into the classroom. Aunt Miriam, too. When I did my moot court argument my first year, she was there.”

“That was nice of her.”

“Yeah. She was wonderful,” said Sarah. “The law professor who was supposed to be a judge was sick at the end so she volunteered to fill in. Afterward she took me out to dinner to celebrate. It meant a lot to me. There was no one else around.”

Sarah’s eyes filled as she thought about her aunt. Every once in a while, something would happen that reminded her of Miriam Gilbert and all the emotions came flooding back. It seemed like the smaller or more distant memories hit her the hardest, sneaking through her defenses.

Lee reached across the table to squeeze her hand.

“Look, Sarah. We’ll get to the bottom of this. It won’t bring her back. But, at least we’ll know what happened and that will bring some peace of mind. And we’ll figure out what’s happening to you, too. I know things seem very bleak to you right now. They’ll get better.”

Sarah looked up and nodded. She pulled some tissues out of her purse and blew her nose.

“So, tell me about this moot court,” said Lee. “How does it work?”

“Moot court?” said Sarah, clearing her throat and welcoming the change of subject. “Well, it’s really just a mock court case. Someone comes up with a hypothetical fact situation. The students research the legal issues, write briefs and argue the case. They choose sides and go at it like they are really arguing before an appellate court. Briefs, oral argument, the works. At the end, there will be a couple of judges, including a law professor or a practicing lawyer, and they’ll fire questions during the argument.”

“Sounds like fun,” said Lee. “How do they come up with the hypotheticals?”

“I assume the instructors and perhaps some of the second and third year students write them. They try to come up with some cutting edge issues, areas where the law isn’t fully developed. I’ve heard of law professors writing them based on cases they’ve been hired to consult on, just to see what kind of arguments the students use.”

“I see. Free research,” said Lee.

“In a way. Remember, sometimes there are judges on the panels and seeing how the pretend cases play out can help guide the real thing.”

“And all the students do this?” asked Lee.

“Right. Every first year student,” replied Sarah. “In a couple of weeks they’ll be holding twenty sets of moot court arguments a night. Different problems and facts, of course.

“The students who want to can keep at it,” she went on. “There’s a competition for second-year students, like a tournament. It culminates in oral arguments between the top two teams. It’s a big deal. Real appellate judges sit on the panel. There are hundreds of people in the audience.”

Lee turned in his chair to find the waitress. He caught her eye, signaled for the check and turned back to Sarah. “So, you must like working with the students,” he said.

“I love it,” said Sarah, nodding. “I think I’d like to teach eventually, once I’ve learned something worth teaching. I love the students’ enthusiasm. It actually makes me more enthused about being a lawyer.”

“Yeah?” said Lee. “Maybe I should try that. I could use a little enthusiasm in the workplace right about now.”

•   •   •

LEE HAD JUST returned from San Jose the next afternoon where he had covered his first “miracle” story for the News. A sighting of the Virgin Mary in the bark of a tree had turned ugly overnight. All that remained in the morning was a stump and a bunch of guys selling holy wood chips at $1 a pop. The archbishop had been relieved that the tree wasn’t a protected species: (“
Praise God it was only a ficus…”
) Lee found a note on his chair telling him to call Bobbie Connors.

“Hello,
Mister
Lee,” said Connors. Her tone put Lee on his guard.

“Hey, Bobbie. What’s the news?”

“You want to tell me some more about your ideas? Your grand conspiracy theories?”

“Uh oh. Why so interested now?”

“You know who they found last night with three bullets in the head?”

Lee shot to his feet.

“Who was it? Not Sarah Armstrong?” he said.

“Who? Oh, the niece? No, not her. But it’s nice that you care, you sweet thing.” Connors laughed. “No, it was Warrington. Found him last night outside his house. It looks like a .22. Killed a dog, too.”

“Who did it?” asked Lee.

“Listen to him. ‘Who did it?’ I wouldn’t be soliciting your wisdom if I knew who did it, now would I? They didn’t leave much behind. No witnesses.”

“Hmmm. Listen, Bobbie. You met the guy. He could have been into anything. Drugs. Religious cults. Extortion. He was slime. Pretty smart slime. But still slime.”

“So, now you’re the one saying it’s coincidence. But, you got me convinced now, Mister Lee. I still don’t know about the judge and her niece. But, we pick Warrington up for possible murder one day and he’s blown away a few days later. That’s just too much coincidence for me. How about you?”

Lee was quiet for a minute.

“Yeah,” he said. “As much as I’d like to think these are random events, it’s too unbelievable. You’re right. I mean I’m right. It’s got to be connected. Someone wanted to shut him up, right?”

“That’s what I think,” said Connors. “Whoever it was that killed Orson Adams. Maybe Warrington could ID him. Maybe Warrington tried to negotiate a little something to stay quiet.”

“Could be. The other possibility is whatever might have come out in Warrington’s trial.”

Lee explained what he knew about Warrington’s burglary defense, that his claimed motive for breaking into the medical school laboratories was to find evidence of improper experiments involving animals. He left out his suspicions about Warrington’s legal fees. He wanted to find out more about AgriGenics first.

“Maybe there was some truth to what Warrington was saying,” said Lee. “Maybe there was some research being done off the books. Maybe he was making people nervous. The surest way to avoid a new trial is to kill the defendant.”

Chapter 15

LEE’S FIAT SPIDER sped south on I-280, through the brown rolling hills and reservoirs at the base of the Santa Cruz Mountains south of San Francisco. The top was down and the cool, late afternoon air swirled through the car.

In the passenger seat, Lorraine Carr in her signature black-on-black ensemble, held a shiny report in her lap that fluttered with each new gust of wind. Over the noise of the motor and the wind, she read the final paragraph aloud.

“‘Since its inception in 1978, AgriGenics has cultivated the best that nature has to offer. Our goal has been to enrich the earth’s bounty through an age-old farming technique. We choose the hardiest, the best tasting, the most abundant - simply, the finest in the world - and make it the industry standard.’“

“Wow!” said Lee. “That’s what I call an annual report. Is it my imagination, or did they get through that whole thing without once using the term ‘genetic engineering?’“

“They must believe that people don’t want to know too much about what they eat,” said Carr.

They turned off on Page Mill Road, and took a right two miles later onto a recently paved street.

The sweeping drive that led to the new AgriGenics complex was two lanes wide with a thick median landscaped with turf and sharp-looking succulents.

A flat gray and silver building sat at the end of the mile-long drive. It was three stories high, but a grass berm surrounded the structure, flattening its visual impact. In front of the block-long structure sat a smaller building, one-third the length of its neighbor.

When they drew close, Lee could see that the back building was of more functional design, made of gray concrete and aluminum-hued reflective glass. The closer building was modern but with classic touches. The facade was white granite. Massive arched windows wrapped around the building, reflecting the outside world in metallic blue.

On the sidewalk in front of the building, Lee saw a line of people. There may have been two dozen, mostly young but joined by a few with gray hair, walking back and forth in an elongated circle. They carried white placards with black and red lettering.

“Reengineer AgriGenics,” read one. “Don’t Play God,” read another. “Keep Your Genes Out of My Jeans” read a third.

Lee and Carr parked in a lot across the drive from the white and blue building. As they neared the front entrance, they could hear the crowd chanting: “…two, four, six, eight, we don’t need to replicate…”

A half dozen uniformed policemen, their patrol units discretely out of sight, clustered to one side of the tall entranceway, keeping the picket line from blocking it. Well-dressed men and women trickled into the building, smiling tolerantly at the demonstrators.

They entered an immense, open lobby better suited for a posh hotel than an office building, particularly in Silicon Valley with its reputation for no-frills work environments. The floor as well as a long curved staircase that rose to a balcony were clad in white marble. Luxurious Oriental rugs held a few pieces of furniture made of leather and dark teak wood. The balcony, with a glass and metal barrier along the outer edge, overlooked the lobby from a height of 20 feet.

In the middle of the lobby sat long tables brimming with exquisite fruits and vegetables. Lee wandered amid them. Huge, blood-red strawberries perfectly uniform in shape. Tangerines the size of softballs. Figs sliced in half to reveal pink flesh with the aroma of oranges. Cold, cooked asparagus with tips twice the normal size. Lee felt a sense of future shock, as if he were getting an advanced peek at the brave, new world of supermarket produce. Beside each dish, next to the stacks of small China plates and neat piles of white and teal linen napkins, sat a card describing how AgriGenics’ work had enhanced each offering. Each card was embossed in gold with a design that consisted of a single spiraling helix intertwined with flowers and bunches of grapes.

The crowd had turned out in an unusual display of finery for a Silicon Valley event, Lorraine Carr said. She explained that while the executives who run the high-tech companies and the top tier of investment bankers, venture capitalists and lawyers who making their living in high-tech have money to burn, the preferred style is casual. Lee could see that for once, they had broken out the dinner jackets, evening gowns and diamond necklaces.

Circulating among the crowd, which now filled the lobby, were young men and women bearing silver trays of warm hors d’oeuvres and glasses of chilled champagne.

Television crews were making the rounds as well, each well-groomed reporter followed by a cameraman. As they buttonholed the CEOs of Intel, Silicon Graphics and the other stars in Silicon Valley’s firmament, a blinding camera light fixed a section of the crowd in its glare.

Lee noticed a man in a black dinner jacket with his hair cropped stylishly close on the sides begin walking up the curved stairway. Halfway up, the crowd began to notice him. People pointed and the murmur increased in pitch. By the time he reached the top, sporadic applause had grown into an enthusiastic ovation that continued while the man stood at a microphone on the balcony and looked over the crowd.

He was tanned, looked to be in his 40s and his well tailored jacket hung over a fit, athletic frame. He had a prominent nose, a strong chin and extremely white teeth that shone when he smiled. Meeting him casually, Lee might have guessed that he was an actor. It wasn’t just his good looks. It was also a certain air, as if by dint of his mere presence, one’s notice and respect were demanded.

“Thank you. Thank you,” he said to silence the crowd. “Thank you for joining us tonight to celebrate the completion of AgriGenics’ new headquarters and research facility.” More applause.

“But we all know this is about much more than mere bricks and mortar and glass. What this represents, and what the wonderful success that we have had on Wall Street this past year …” More applause. “…what that success represents is the fulfillment of a dream.

“Fifteen years ago, Arthur Sendaki created AgriGenics with a $5,000 loan from his mother and the credit on his MasterCard. One by one, he assembled the most talented group of biologists and geneticists the world has ever known. Many of them are here today. You came, and worked for a pittance, because Arthur sold you a dream.

“Arthur, and later I, went around to many other people in this room tonight to
beg
for money. I mean literally
beg
.” Laughter. “And you kept AgriGenics afloat for many long, profitless years. I don’t think you did that out of pity, did you? It was not because we were behind on our mortgages and our children had worn out their shoes. No, you too saw the dream and, with us, you believed in it, too.

“So, what is that dream? It is not simply the dream that Arthur Sendaki had twenty years ago in the biology labs of Stanford University of having a successful company one day…”

Off to Lee’s right, he caught a slight movement in the crowd. He turned just in time to see an arm clad in a gray sleeve rise above the crowd and swing forward in the direction of the man at the microphone. He saw a red object leave the hand, and fly upward, tumbling. It seemed like it took a long time for the tomato to finally smash against the glass barrier on the balcony just in front of the microphone.

The tomato splattered. Most of it slid down the glass and dropped down to the marble floor. A few people screamed as it fell toward them. The glass caught most of the splatter, but some drops of red goo had splashed on the speaker’s sparkling white shirt.

For a moment everyone was paralyzed. Then, eyes swung back from the tomato damage to the launching point. There was more movement, people moving away from the man who had thrown the tomato. At the same time, several young men dressed in identical dark suits rushed toward him. Lee saw two of them grab him roughly by the arms. A third held the man from behind, around the shoulders. A fourth stood near them talking into a handheld radio.