Part 3 (2/2)
”Thank you. It is good to see you appreciate the gravity of my situation.”
I stood and offered my hand. ”Mister Ferguson, I promise I will leave no stone unturned.”
”I know you won't. Thank you, and thank Detective Rodriquez for me, too.”
”I will.”
I turned and headed for the door when instincts stopped me and turned me around. Ferguson was just sitting back down. He looked up at me. ”Detective?”
”One more thing, sir.”
”Certainly.”
”You mentioned three men other than yourself had access to the compound, the files and the security mainframe.”
”That's right.”
”Naturally, I have to ask you.”
”You want to know where I was last night.”
”I do.”
A smile came to him slowly. ”Last night I was in Toronto, Detective. I flew back early this morning on the redeye. Would you like to see my ticket stub?”
I crossed the room and put my hand out. ”If you don't mind.”
He reached into the inside pocket of his suit jacket and produced a boarding pa.s.s for the Toronto to Boston redeye run. I examined it briefly and returned it to him. ”Thank you.”
”No. No.” He pressed it back into my hand. ”Keep it. I don't want you second-guessing anything.”
I stashed the ticket in my back pocket. ”Thank you again, Mister Ferguson.”
”You're welcome, Detective.” He scoffed lightly. ”You know it's funny.”
”What's that?”
”McSweeney, my secretary.” He rolled his eyes before dropping a dead stare to the floor. ”My former secretary, I should say. The poor dear died recently. Horrible accident at home. Anyway, she made those reservations for me. You know she never used to book me on the red eye. Knew how much I hate night travel. The one time she does and this happens.” He looked up at me. His eyes were wet, but his cheeks were dry. ”I can't even give her h.e.l.l for it now. Can I?”
I shook my head. ”No, sir. I guess you can't.”
Out in the hall, Carlos was just hanging up with Spinelli. As we started for the elevator, I asked him, ”Spinelli sending a unit out to Snow's house?”
”It's on its way.”
”Did you think of telling him to check out Biocrynetix Laboratories, too?”
”I did. I also asked him to see what he can find out about Mark Williams and Rick Delaney.”
”Good.”
”So, what do you think?”
”'Bout what?”
”Ferguson. Is he telling the truth? About the super sweetener, I mean.”
”I don't know. I suppose so. You know something that sweet is worth stealing. Just about every processed food these days uses high fructose corn sweetener. If they invented something four-thousand times sweeter, it could revolutionize the food processing industry.”
”Yeah, but you see that's just it. I know it's super sweet and all, but why produce only 800cc's of it? That's like this much.” He spread his thumb and index finger to indicate a portioned amount in a lab beaker. ”This close to going public with it, I should thing they would have produced gallons of the stuff in drums and tested it in hundreds of food products already.”
”Hmm, I see your point, Carlos. You know that often big product rollouts are impossible for companies to keep completely under wraps this close to launch date. I wonder if Spinelli can find something about QE647 on the Internet. Why don't you call him back and ask him if”
”Already did.”
”You already asked him to check it out?”
”Yup.”
”Okay. That's good.”
A slick grin creased his face. ”I'm getting good at this, aren't I?”
I doubled-tapped him on the cheek and his grin fell away. ”After thirty years, my friend, I should hope so.”
We hopped into the car and headed back out. ”Spinelli was right,” he said. I think he was sulking.
”What do you mean?”
”You don't give me enough credit.”
”Excuse me?”
”You don't. You don't give either of us credit.”
”I most certainly do. Didn't I just say you did a good job?”
”No. You said Okay. That's good, but you didn't say good job, Carlos.”
”What? Do you really need affirmation from me for a job well done?”
He tilted his head and offered a half shrug. ”Be nice.”
”All right then, job well done. Nice work.”
He scoffed at that. ”Oh, like it means anything now that I had to pry it out of you.”
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