Knockout Mouse (28 page)

As we worked, I said, “If you don’t think McKinnon did it, then who did?”

Abe paused. “Last night, I would have said Neil Dugan. But the fact is, Dugan didn’t know the science. If he engineered the murder, he succeeded through sheer luck.”

“He wouldn’t do it in such an elaborate way anyhow. If he wanted to kill Sheila, he’d just have killed her.”

Abe let out a bitter laugh. “True. Whoever planned this thought they had everything figured. It has the intricacy of science.”

“What about Doug Englehart? His stake in MC124 is almost as big as McKinnon’s. And his resentment of McKinnon is strong enough to blackmail him.”

Abe nodded. “Possible. Or Marion. I still haven’t deciphered her motives.”

“Marion becomes more mysterious every day.” I was as baffled by her disappearance yesterday as by her recent call to Wes.

Abe and I looked at each other. I saw a new receptivity in his face, and a humility. “Let’s not drop this yet, Abe. Let’s go down to LifeScience tomorrow morning. Dugan will see us if we ask him to.”

“Some big meeting tomorrow, isn’t there?”

“McKinnon is supposed to be signing the Curaris deal,” I answered. “If, that is, he’s not in jail.”

Neil Dugan’s office
was in an uproar. By coming at eight in the morning, I had thought we’d beat the crowd. I was wrong. The secretary, who was as orderly and methodical as a Dugan secretary ought to be, showed us in. “The
Mercury News
is on line one,” she told him.

“Bastards! Someone at the police leaked.” He punched the button and grabbed the receiver. “Who is this? All right, listen. You leave us alone for twenty-four hours, and I’ll give you the exclusive tomorrow morning. Got it? Good.”

The office was slightly bigger than McKinnon’s and had better views. The furnishings were all sharp edges, black metal, mahogany. The desk was so polished I could see cloud reflections moving across it. Few books were on the shelves; instead an elaborate media center was in the back corner of the room, faced by two sofas in tight leather. Dugan himself sat in a high-back leather chair. He was outfitted in double-breasted pinstripes. It was probably the suit he saved for really big days, when he planned to squash someone.

Dugan slammed the phone down. He gave us barely a glance, then started punching furiously at a keyboard on one of the many gadgets on his desk. We retreated to the sofas. For the first time
I noticed the figure pressed into the corner of one sofa, looking small and frightened. It was Carl Steiner. I introduced Abe, and asked Carl if he’d been treated all right. He nodded.

“Quiet!” Dugan shouted at everyone.

The door burst open. I heard the secretary’s protesting voice outside. Frederick McKinnon strode in. He went straight to Dugan’s desk and slammed it with his palm. “You can’t do this, Neil!”

Dugan leaped to his feet. “What are you—”

The two men began a shouting match. McKinnon raised his voice another notch. His face was red. “I demand an explanation!”

“You demand nothing! You can’t—”

“You spilled to Curaris!”

“I spilled nothing. You’re no longer—”

“Curaris cancelled!”

“Bullshit they cancelled!”

“They called off the deal!”

Dugan stared at him with wide eyes, fists pressed to his desk. Echoes of the shouts still rang in the room. “What do you mean called it off?”

McKinnon turned down the volume. “Someone told them about MC124. Told them everything. They’re out. Gone.”

“It wasn’t me, Frederick. I had every intention of proceeding with the deal—with or without you.”

“Oh, stuff your absurd accusations. We’ve got real problems to handle, not delusions of murder.”

Dugan’s mouth went into a little pucker. “The police are reviewing the evidence. They will arrive later today.”

“This is outrageous, Neil. It’s a scheme to unseat me. The board will see right through it.” McKinnon’s voice had reached
a new calmness and resolve. He realized it was going to be a battle to the end with Dugan.

Dugan finally acknowledged my presence with a demand. “Bill, I hope you brought the materials you promised.”

“They’re safe.” Abe and I had failed to turn up anything new in our search of Sheila’s apartment. I had my DAT recorder, but everything else was with Karen. “If the police request them, we’ll turn them over. But only to the police.”

McKinnon slowly turned to me. His look of betrayal made my stomach go queasy. I stood up. “We’re not sure who actually—” I started to say.

I was interrupted by the arrival of Doug Englehart. Abe stood up with me. Doug marched straight past us to the desk, across which McKinnon and Dugan faced each other. Carl was still sitting in his corner, staring at the door.

“What’s going on?” Doug said. “I heard Curaris—”

“Were you the one?” McKinnon demanded. “You told them about the problems with the antibody?”

“Why in hell would I do that?” Doug looked at McKinnon as if he were an imbecile.

“Come on, Doug.” McKinnon’s face had gone red again. “You’ve been trying to undermine me for months now. Are you in on this with Neil?”

“Get off it, Frederick. I found the antibody! It’s mine, and you virtually stole it!”

“What happened to your loyalty, Doug? Where would you be without me?”

“Where
you
are!” he cried, his mouth twisted in spite.

Dugan raised his hands. “Enough. Enough! I’m going to find out who’s responsible for this breach of confidentiality. In the meantime, the program will continue. Contrary to what either
of you might think, we do not want to kill it. We simply want to know whether MC124 is what the two of you say it is. We have information now that it’s not. But under the right leadership, the program can be salvaged.”

Doug wrinkled his forehead. “What
are
you talking about, Neil?”

“Forget it, Doug,” McKinnon said. “They know about Sheila and the problems with MC124.”

“I don’t care what they know. One little knockout mouse does not destroy a brilliant antibody. Yes, we know now not to use it on people with food allergies. We know to be careful with dosage. So what? Add a caution. Aside from that, Phase I will prove it’s safe.”

“That’s not right,” McKinnon said. “We have to ascertain whether it stimulates immune hyperreactivity in other groups. There will be no Phase I, not until we’ve done more animal tests and we understand better how it works. We may have to rethink the molecule.”

“Bullshit!” The veins in Doug’s neck were bulging. He directed his words at Dugan. “It’s safe, and it will be proven safe in trials. How do I know this? Because I injected it. I put myself on the front line. What kind of reaction did I get?” He jabbed a finger at his neck. “This little rash. Nothing more.”

Dugan returned his attention to McKinnon. “So you were lying at the funeral, Frederick, when you told me you were planning to inject it—you and Doug had, in fact, already done so without authorization.”

“Sheila did, too,” I put in. “She mentions a rash in her diary.”

“Oh, stop with that,” Doug scoffed.

“Doug,
enough!
” McKinnon commanded. He looked at me, eyes flashing with a mixture of anger and contrition. “It’s true
that Sheila injected it. The whole team did, to test its safety. We hoped the mouse was an anomaly. I genuinely thought it was. I didn’t know that Doug had cooked the data. I didn’t know he’d use that fact to blackmail me—”

“That’s a ridiculous—”

“Don’t waste your breath, Doug,” Dugan cut in. “I’ve got documentation. Your new position is safe. You may, in fact, have more responsibilities than you thought.”

McKinnon glared at Dugan. But Abe fixed on McKinnon. “You allowed her to inject it,” Abe said in a measured, indicting voice.

“She volunteered,” Doug snapped.

“Reluctantly,” McKinnon admitted to Abe. “It was a hard decision for her. I could see that. She cared so much about the work. She was afraid not to test it. Afraid of what we would say. I can’t really forgive myself.”

“That’s the least of your problems, doctor,” Dugan suggested.

“If you’re referring to this murder charge—”

“Who’s charged with murder?” Doug demanded.

“Your superior,” Dugan said. His look was triumphant. “And I’m more convinced of it than ever, Frederick.”

Doug focused a full load of hate and reproach on his mentor. I could take it no longer. I cleared my throat, loudly enough to break through the vicious triangle around Dugan’s desk, and said, “You may be wrong about Dr. McKinnon, Mr. Dugan. I’d like to ask Carl a question.”

The room fell silent. I prayed that my hunch was right.

“Get on with it,” Dugan ordered.

I turned to Carl. He stood as if to take an oath. “Carl, you said that Dr. McKinnon wanted to give the tomatoes to Sheila for the party last week. Think carefully. How did you know he did?”

Carl scratched his head. “Well, he just did.”

“But how did you know that, Carl?” I pressed.

Carl’s eyes grew wide as the realization dawned on him. “It was Doug who told me so, the day before.”

Doug burst on Carl like a pit bull. “That’s a lie! You did it, Carl! You were in love with her!”

Carl was on the verge of tears. “Yes, I was. So why ever would I kill her?”

“Carl,” I said, “did you come up to Doug’s lab before the party and try to make Sheila tell you where she was going that night?”

He cringed. “No. I told you, I respect her. I admire her. I’d never do something like that.”

“Doug said you did.”

“No, see, I was up in Davis all day Wednesday, at our farm facility. Anyone there will tell you.”

“I never said Carl did that,” Doug declared. “You’re inventing things.”

I pulled a DAT cassette from the inside pocket of my jacket. “This was recorded yesterday. It’ll be fuzzy, but we’ll all recognize your voice.”

I started to load it into my player. Neil Dugan grabbed the cassette away from me, muttering something about my rinkydink machine, and put it into the DAT player in his media center. After a few fast-forwards, I found the segment. The voices were muffled, but as I cranked up the volume, they could be made out.

. . .
“Carl was up here, badgering her about what she was doing, who she was having dinner with,”
came Doug’s words.

“He said she didn’t return his call.”
My voice.

“That’s why he came up. He was agitated, I’m telling you.”

I stopped the tape. Carl looked unbearably hurt. “You’re trying to lay it on me, Dr. Englehart?”

Doug’s teeth were clenched. “This is crap.” He turned on his heel and started for the door. I got there first and blocked his way.

“Have a seat, Doug,” Dugan ordered. He went to his desk and picked up the phone.

Doug made a lunge for the door handle. He got it open a few inches before I rammed it shut with my shoulder. He flailed at my face. I hit him in the stomach, and when he doubled over, I grabbed the back of his collar. Forcing his head down, I swung him around and drove him back to the sofa. Abe was with me now. Together we pushed Doug facedown into the leather cushions.

“Stop!” Doug’s scream was smothered in the sofa.

Once he stopped resisting, we allowed him to turn over. He lay on his back, shirt twisted, the top two buttons torn off. Abe loomed over him. Seeing just how much Abe would like to hurt him, Doug said, “Take it easy. I’ll stay here.”

Dugan was on the phone, summoning security. McKinnon came over to look down on Doug. He shook his head, searching for the right words. “A perversion of science,” he said.

Then he became aware that Abe’s eyes were boring into him. Abe appeared to be calculating something. When he spoke, his voice was slow and even. “How many other mice were there?”

“There were a handful,” McKinnon admitted. “Doug destroyed them. I should have caught it. In the back of my mind, I knew Sheila was on to something. I didn’t want to believe it.” His gaze fell to the floor. “I simply didn’t want to believe it. By the time Doug told me he’d falsified the results, it was too late. The financing was in place, the deals were rolling. I assumed we could finesse any problems in clinical trials.”

“At whose risk?” Abe said.

McKinnon’s eyes rose. But they had nowhere to go—Abe, Dugan, Doug, me. Finally they rested on Carl Steiner. “It was
unprofessional. It was unethical. But I still believe MC124 can save lives. I don’t know if I’ll be the one to move it forward. I suppose the review board will decide that.”

Carl looked as though he felt it was his duty to come up with the right words to console McKinnon. I knew it was the last thing Carl wanted to do. A sharp knock at the door saved him.

The security men bustled in. As they pulled Doug to his feet, I said, “I’ve got one more question, Doug.”

He glared at me.

“Sheila’s Epi-Pen,” I went on. “She wouldn’t have let the solution go bad. Did you replace it with spoiled epinephrine?”

His look turned disdainful.

“The injector is sealed,” Abe said. “The solution can’t be replaced. But it could be heated. Thirty minutes in a toaster oven would do it.”

The disdain left Doug’s face. Abe had hit the target.

“Hold him downstairs for the police,” Dugan instructed the men. “Then seal his office and lab.”

I stood near the sofa. A silence hung in the room. For the first time, none of us had anything to say to one another. McKinnon rocked on his feet, hands in his pockets. Abe watched him, appearing to understand that further words of blame were pointless. Carl stared at the speakers through which the tape had been played.

Dugan had turned in his chair and was looking out the window. His moment of victory over McKinnon had been spoiled. Their battle would go on to the next round. Mine was over.

The air was fresh and sharp
as we ascended into the Berkeley hills. The windows of the Scout were open. Karen was next to me in the passenger seat, and Abe was in the back.

After LifeScience, Abe and I had gone to Karen’s apartment. In reviewing the course of events with her, we’d come to the conclusion that Marion had the answers to our remaining questions. The receptionist at LifeScience said she was out of the office, and I got an answering machine at her house. So I tried the next most likely source. It took three attempts to get Wes to answer his cell phone, but finally he picked up.