Gerald Davis: A Murder Too Personal

Two years ago, Chisolm had bought out Edelstein with a cash and stock package worth three million. Edelstein had taken the stock, sold it when the SEC rules allowed him to, and invested the after-tax proceeds in half a dozen Internet start-ups.

When I met Edelstein at an alumni reunion, he was a guy who had his heart’s desire-a teaching career, a research lab and a plush and comfortable cushion on the side. “That way I can tell them to fuck off whenever I feel like it,” he’d told me. I wondered if Edelstein had ever regretted leaving Insignia Biotech.

Chisolm cleared his throat. “I’m a married man, so our relationship had to be discreet. We’d meet once or twice a week, usually in the city.”

“Was she seeing anyone else?” I asked.

He seemed genuinely surprised by the question. “Why? Was she in the habit of doing that?”

I didn’t answer. Let him ponder that possibility.

He smoothed his hair back as if he were looking into a mirror. “I don’t think so,” he said. “At least, I didn’t think so at the time.”

I could see he was thinking about it.

“What did she do in her spare time?”

“She didn’t have much spare time. She was a real work horse-put in long hours. And when she wasn’t working at the office, she was working at home. You probably remember that about her.”

I nodded. “Yeah.” At least that much about her hadn’t changed. She was always a hard worker and a hard player.

“You have any thoughts on who’d want to kill her?” I asked him.

He shook his head slowly and I had the sense he was trying to find the right words. “I’ve been giving it a lot of thought the last few days. Trying to find the who or the what. The problem was that she never spoke much about herself and her inner feelings. In a way, that was one of the masculine traits about her. That and her competitiveness.”

He stopped and stared out the window at a bird that had landed on one of the hedges. “Do you mind if I smoke?” he asked.

I shook my head.

He went over to his large polished mahogany desk and took out a pack of Benson amp; Hedges. He lit one, held in the smoke for a long minute and blew it out slowly. “Most women can’t stop talking about themselves, you know. Their emotions, their hang-ups, their desires. Alicia was different. She very seldom would let you know what she was thinking. She kept it hidden-almost like a poker hand.”

He paused, then asked, “Did you find her to be that way?”

He wanted to compare notes, but I wasn’t playing that game. He was astute-I had to give him that much.

“Go on,” I said.

“There was one other thing. Her feminism. She was an ardent feminist. She’d talk at length about it-almost as if it were an obsession. She’d go on and on with this drivel, and I’d listen to her and nod, yes…yes, just because I wanted to hump her.”

“What did you think was the point of her feminism?”

“Well, she said she was never going to be dependent on a man again, and I had the impression she really meant it.”

“What about her friends?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I didn’t know any of them. She never mentioned any friends and we never went out with any of them.”

“How well did you know her sister, Laura?”

“Yes, we had a few conversations. Nothing more than that. But I liked her. She was quite warm-very different from Alicia.”

He studied a painting on the wall. There was no mistaking the artist. It was by Francis Bacon. Two indistinguishable bodies twisted in an embrace to the death. A gaping shrieking mouth. A bloody slab of beef. An odd painting to be in a business office. “Alicia was like a thoroughbred. She was frisky and high-spirited. A lot of fun to ride. But…” he paused, “in the last few months she turned skittish. She didn’t seem to be as much fun anymore. She seemed preoccupied about something. I had actually…”

He stopped and fell silent.

I didn’t say anything. He was doing the talking, not me.

Finally, he said, “I was going to terminate our relationship. I told her so. I wasn’t enjoying it any longer. It was becoming a chore. You know, a Frenchman once said the only value a woman has is in her novelty. I subscribe to that theory. We had sex exactly seventy-nine times. I always keep meticulous records. Sixty-five times straight intercourse, eleven times oral sex, three times anal sex. So you can imagine how tedious it was.”

That was a new one on me. I would’ve liked to see his baseball scorecards.

“How did Alicia take it when you told her you wanted to break up?”

“Quite composed, as a matter of fact. I thought she would have taken it harder, but she didn’t reveal any emotion at all. She sort of shrugged her shoulders and said, well, let’s carry on. I had the sense she was tiring of me also.”

I nodded. “What about her work as an securities analyst? Which industries did she cover?”

He took another drag on his cigarette and stubbed it out in an ashtray. “Well, as far as I know, she followed companies in the real estate industry. She used to cover defense and technology areas. That was unusual for a woman. I kept on trying to interest her in genetic engineering but she was reluctant to change. I told her that this was a hot industry-this was where man played God.”

He stared at me. “And that brings me to the reason why I wanted to talk with you.” He leaned forward in his chair. “Now that the human genome has been sequenced, we’re going to be a very successful company. We have several genetic engineering projects going on at the present time-one of which is particularly exciting.”

His hungry eyes grew positively rapacious as he spoke. This guy made the big bad wolf look bush league. “We’ve produced hemoglobin from genetically-altered bacteria. We use recombinant hemoglobin that’s been engineered to mimic natural hemoglobin. This means we can mass-produce cheap synthetic human blood that would be free of HIV and hepatitis viruses. You could give a transfusion to any recipient without worrying about blood-type matching and the product would have a much longer shelf life than human blood.”

His eyes flashed. “Do you see how this blood could be useful for accident victims or wounded soldiers on the battlefield?”

I nodded. “And why are you imparting all this valuable insider information to me, free of charge?”

“Because…” And his eyes gleamed brighter than the Eddystone lighthouse, “we are about to make an initial public offering of our stock. We’re a closely-held company. This is going to be an exceptional opportunity. I know you have top-drawer contacts. I’d suggest you purchase some stock at the offering and inform your associates about this opportunity to make a large profit very quickly and very easily.”

I looked at him. This clown was violating just about every SEC regulation in the book and some they hadn’t even thought of yet. “And you’re going to make me a rich man because you like the cut of my jib?”

He snorted. “I do like your style, Mr. Rogan. And I know you’re not stupid enough to turn down an opportunity like this. Aren’t you interested in making a killing?”

“Not this way,” I said.

“Don’t you understand what we’re doing? We’re creating new strains of human gene cells that will enable us to pass on better traits from one generation to the next-actually improving the human species. We’ll theoretically be able to create a race of superbeings-far superior to the diseased and disabled wrecks you see around you. Something Nietzsche would envy and be proud of. Something he could only hope for in his writings. And think of the fortunes we’ll be making in the process. These new people will be smarter, tougher, more disease-resistant. In short, they’ll be far above and beyond your pathetic human beings of today.”