Part 3 (1/2)
He leaned back in his seat and offered a reluctant smile. ”Of course. You are absolutely correct.” He laced his fingers behind his head, leveled his eyes more at me than at Carlos and took a deep breath. ”The property, as you call it, is a compound called QE647, a synthetic food additive four-thousand times sweeter than high-fructose corn syrup.”
”A sweetener?”
”You are surprised?”
”A little,” I said, cracking a half smile. ”So, our bandit has a sweet tooth?”
He unlaced his hands and folded them upon the desk. ”You think this is funny?”
I shook the smile from my face. ”Of course not.” I looked at Carlos. He remained surprisingly composed. I wanted him to take over, but he missed the relay pa.s.s, or perhaps purposely dropped it just to see me squirm.
”Detective, this is a serious matter.”
”I understand, Mister Ferguson. I promise you we will take this case very seriously. So please, tell us exactly what is missing.”
”All of it.”
”All of it?”
”Detective, we only produced a small amount of QE647 for testing, about 800 cc's. Whoever stole it also stole the digital research doc.u.ments before erasing our computer drives and backups. He then ran a sophisticated shredding program on our entire systems to prevent us ever reclaiming data off the erased drives. He left us nothing. We are absolutely wiped out.”
”I don't understand. Who could do that?”
”Isn't it obvious? It is an inside job.”
”One of your employees.”
He rolled his eyes. ”Of course.”
I looked to Carlos. This no longer seemed like such a difficult case. ”You want this one?” I asked.
He gestured a wave as if offering the floor to me. ”It's all yours.”
I returned to Ferguson. ”Who in your employ could have pulled this off?”
He held up three fingers. ”If you asked me yesterday, I would have told you that only three men, other than myself, had access to the sample compound, the files and the pa.s.sword to our security system's mainframe needed to disable the alarms, shut off the cameras and erase the surveillance tapes.”
”What changed since yesterday?”
”Two of the three men died yesterday.”
”How's that?”
”Mark Williams, my executive program coordinator fell off his balcony in a drunken stupor.”
”Oh my.”
”Oh my is right. The second man, Rick Delaney, my operations and logistics manager, died last night after a freight train T-boned his car at a railroad crossing.”
”Yes. I heard about that accident on the radio this morning.”
Carlos added, ”That cannot be coincidence.”
”Hardly. Who else Mister Ferguson?”
”Detective?”
”You said three men other than yourself had access to the material, the data and security system.”
”Yes, of course. The third man is Howard Snow. He's the senior research supervisor.”
”Can we talk to him?”
He shook his head. ”Howard failed to show up for work this morning. I had Personnel call. He does not answer his phone.”
”That's your man,” said Carlos.
”If he's not dead,” I said. ”Carlos, call Spinelli. Tell him to get a black and white over to Snow's house and have them bring Snow in for questioning.”
”Okay.”
”And while you're at it, have him send someone here to dust.”
”For prints?” said Ferguson.
”Yes, of course.”
”No. No dusting.”
”Why not?”
We have some very important investors walking the facility later this morning. I don't want them knowing we were robbed.”
”You are going to lie to your investors?”
”I am going to wait until a more opportune moment to tell them.”
I looked to Carlos and gave him a nod. ”Okay, you heard the man. Go ahead and get Spinelli working on bringing Snow in.”
”Got it,” he said, and he excused himself to make the call outside in the hall.
I said to Ferguson, ”You know this is beginning to smell a bit fishy. What are the odds two of your top employees die the same night someone robs you? Have you called the FBI in on this?”
”I did.”
”And?”
”They told me it was not an FBI case, that I have no evidence an interstate crime has taken place. They told me to call the State Police, who in turn told me to call you. Seems that because I suggested this was an inside job, they consider it an internal problem and therefore a local complaint.”
”But this could be a lot bigger than just some stolen sweetener.”