Joel Goldman - The Dead Man

"Well, the good deal may not be so good," I said. "Delaney's and Blair's families are suing the institute, Milo Harper, and your bosses, Dr. Corliss and Dr. Brennan."

"Oh, crap!" Janet said.

"I'm afraid there's more," I said. "You guys are getting sued too."

"Us!" Gary said, slamming his fist against the wall. "What the fuck did we do?"

"We came here," Janet said.

"Well, maybe we'll all get lucky and the lawyer who's suing us will die too," Gary said.

Janet sat upright. "Christ, Gary! Don't say that."

"Why not?" he said. "We're all going to die. What difference does it make if a few people here and there go ahead of schedule?"

"Two people are dead already. That's enough," Janet said.

"Three," I said. "Another one of your volunteers, Walter Enoch, is the third." Janet's chin dropped, her hands gripping the edge of her desk. "I gather you don't read the paper or watch TV."

"We don't own a TV," Gary said.

"And, nobody reads the paper anymore. Everything is on the Web," Janet said. "What happened?"

"He was murdered. Died just the way he dreamed he would."

Gary didn't say a word. Janet put her head on her desk.

"Shit," she said. "We are so totally screwed."

I was doing my drunk walk by the time I got back to my office, legs buckling, playing tag with the walls and furniture to stay upright. Leonard followed me into my office as I stumbled into my chair.

"What is up with that?" he asked.

"I'm in training for Dancing with the Stars . Find Sherry and tell her I want to see her in my office. Now. And close my door."

Corliss had brought some heavy baggage to the institute. I wondered what Milo Harper knew about Corliss when he hired him. Harper surely had enough money to hire people who hadn't been run out of town at their last job.

Lucy hadn't returned my call. I opened my cell to try her again and saw that she'd left me a message. I hadn't heard the phone ring so her call must have gone straight to voice mail. Her message said that she'd pick me up in an hour.

Leonard knocked and opened the door. "Sherry didn't answer. Her secretary says she's in a meeting."

"Tell her secretary to interrupt her."

"I did. I told her to tell Sherry that you wanted to see her immediately. She told Sherry and Sherry told her to tell me to tell you that something came up and she'd talk to you tomorrow."

I smiled, appreciating that Sherry was pimping me with my own excuses.

"Where's her office?"

"Opposite corner from here. What are you going to do?"

"Interrupt her ass."

Leonard's eyes got as big as his grin. "Can I watch?"

"Sorry. You're not old enough."

I kept close to the wall, bracing my hand against it as I walked to Sherry's office. I didn't knock. Her office wrapped around the south and east corners of the building. The Harper art collection was on display, in sharp contrast to the subtle shades of deep lavender and pale yellow in the furnishings. Her desk dominated one wall, a black granite surface resting on twin steel pillars, adorned with a tall red vase holding fresh-cut flowers.

She was sitting at a round table in one corner with two male staffers who had the fresh look of recent college grads and the slumping posture of subordinates. They looked up when I came in, Sherry glaring, the boys staring as I groped my way to an empty chair at their table, grabbing it for balance.

"Get out," I told the boys.

"You have no business. ." Sherry said, but I cut her off.

"Oh, I do." I turned back to the boys. "I said, get out."

They looked at me and then at her. She nodded and they left.

"Are you crazy, drunk, or both?" she asked.

"I have a movement disorder that makes me shake. When I get tired, I do my drunken sailor act. I toss in crazy for free."

She folded her arms over her chest. "Must be hard to play the tough guy when you can't stand up straight."

"I manage."

"I could have had you thrown out."

"You could have tried."

She sighed. "I didn't want to embarrass you any more than you'd already embarrassed yourself. Let's get this over with so I can get back to work. What do you want?"

"Did you delete Tom Delaney's and Regina Blair's files?"

"The police said their deaths had nothing to do with us. They were no longer part of the project. There was no reason to keep their files."

"So you deleted them?"

"I give orders. I don't push buttons."

"Who pushed the buttons?"

"Someone in IT whose job is pushing buttons."

"If their deaths were unrelated to their participation in the dream project, why erase their records? What were you afraid of?"

"Oh, c'mon Jack. Be a grown-up. People file lawsuits if they get a blister. These two died and Milo has the deepest pockets in six states. It would be hard to find a bigger target."

"Jason Bolt has put the institute on notice that he's going to sue you. Aren't you worried about destroying evidence?"

"The files were deleted in accordance with our document retention policy before we received Bolt's letter. The decision had nothing to do with a lawsuit."

"That's not what you said."

"That's how I'll testify."

"And if I won't back you up?"

"I'm general counsel for the institute. This conversation is protected by attorney-client privilege. The court won't let you say a word about it and, if you do, we'll sue you and collect every last disability and pension check with your name on it."

"Just leave me gas money so I can come visit you when you're in prison for obstruction of justice in a murder investigation. Now what was so disturbing on those videos?"

She stood and circled to her desk.

"I didn't watch them."

I nodded, giving her credit. "So you can testify that your decision to destroy the tapes had nothing to do with their content since you never saw them."

"Nightmares are powerful and frightening. They can make people do strange things even when the nightmares belong to someone else. I didn't want to take that chance with a jury. I told you. I'll do whatever it takes to protect my brother."

"Your brother said that he'd do anything to protect the institute and you'll do anything to protect him. There has to be a limit to how far either of you will go."

"We're not even close."

I didn't have to throw anyone out of Milo Harper's office. He was alone, surrounded by stacks of reports, binders, and papers. Three flat-screen computer monitors ringed his desk. A sixty-inch plasma TV hung on one wall, soundlessly tuned to CNBC. The blinds were drawn, the light subdued, as if he didn't want to know what day or time it was.

I dropped into a round-backed chair opposite his desk.

"What's up?" he asked.

"Did you know about Anthony Corliss's adventures at the University of Wisconsin when you hired him?"

Harper smiled. "You mean the girl who died, the lawsuit, and the rumors that he and the girl were having an affair?"

"Yeah. That."

"Corliss told me what happened the first time I talked to him. He put me in touch with his attorney who put me in touch with the university's attorney. My attorneys talked to the police in Wisconsin and reviewed everything. They told me that the university caved to avoid bad publicity and that Corliss got a raw deal. Wouldn't be the first time a lawsuit was settled for those reasons."

Harper was right but that didn't mean his lawyers were. Still, he'd done his due diligence and I had to give him credit for that.

"Who runs your IT department?" I asked.

"Frank Gentry."

"Invite him to join us."

Harper made the call and went back to what he was doing while we waited for Gentry as if I wasn't there. I took the time to survey Harper's office. The walls were lined with bookshelves crammed with technical and scientific books. There was no room for the Harper art collection.