Shoofly Pie & Chop Shop (57 page)

“Like an enormous baby Gouda,” he said. “Marvelous. Truly.”

“Put these on before you get out of the van,” Nick said, handing gas masks and hard hats to Leo and Riley.

“I thought there was no gas,” Riley said.

“It just completes the disguise. This way, your own mother wouldn’t know you.”

Nick took a large toolbox and a plastic garden sprayer from the van, and they all went around to the back of the house. Nick searched the tarps, locating all the seams; at one point, just to the
right of the patio, the duct tape stopped six feet above the ground and a vertical seam flapped loosely in the breeze.

“That should be the door,” Nick said. “Good boy, Freddie.”

They slipped inside and removed their masks and helmets. Nick opened the toolbox, took out a black garbage bag, and handed it to Riley.

“Start with the trash,” he said. “Go room by room and round up everything, especially from the bathrooms and the study, if he has one. We’ll spread it all out on the floor in the garage. Leo, you know your domain.”

“I’m on it. I hope he wasn’t too cheap to buy a decent computer.”

“I’ll look for files and other records,” Nick said. “If anybody finds anything good, shout it out.”

Nick wandered through the downstairs rooms, drawing general observations from the overall layout. It was clearly the house of a divorcé, and definitely a divorced male. The furniture, though contemporary in style and of a very high quality, had been selectively removed from each of the rooms, leaving gaping holes and awkward asymmetries everywhere. The family room was the most desolate; it contained nothing but an old recliner that faced off with a thirty-six-inch Toshiba resting on the carpet in the center of the room. On the wall, a rectangle of contrasting paint marked the spot where an armoire or bookshelf once stood. The mantel above the fireplace was barren, and every print and photograph had been removed except for one framed medical diploma that stood out on the empty wall like a beetle on a windshield. The dining room contained a table, but no chairs; there was a breakfront, but every cup and dish had been removed. It was still a functional house, but no longer a home. Every trace of warmth or humanness had been negotiated away in the final settlement.

“There is no trash,” Riley said. “I checked the garage cans too. It must have been taken out.”

Nick frowned. “I should have checked the collection day.”

“What would we find in the trash?”

“Everything. Pay stubs, bills, phone numbers, credit card numbers, purchase receipts—if you own it, it eventually ends up in the trash.”

“Now what?”

“Upstairs,” Nick said. “It’s obvious Lassiter doesn’t live down here anymore—the place looks like an empty museum.”

The upstairs hallway branched off into four smaller rooms. On the left was the master bedroom and bath; near the center, a second bedroom contained nothing but an abandoned bedframe and three empty corrugated boxes. Farther down, an even smaller room housed a Landice treadmill, a wobbly workout bench, and a mismatched set of black iron dumbbells. Nick flipped the treadmill on and off quickly and watched the dust line move to the center of the roll.

At the end of the hallway, Leo sat smiling behind a black-and-mahogany computer workstation crammed with software boxes, user manuals, and other esoteric documentation. His fingers moved in a blur. Every few seconds he would stop, hum or whistle something to himself, and then his fingers would skitter off again like scorpions on a tile floor. On the floor beside him sat a squat, two-drawer file cabinet with brushed aluminum handles.

“You start in the bedroom,” Nick said to Riley. “I’ll go through this file cabinet.”

“Why don’t I start on the files?” Riley countered. “His bedroom gives me the creeps.”

“Have it your way.” Nick turned and headed down the hallway.

In the bathroom, he opened the mirror-front medicine cabinet. The top two shelves were conspicuously empty; the bottom contained the expected toiletries along with a bizarre assortment of vitamins and herbal supplements. Nick searched first for antidepressants or signs of any questionable prescriptions or illicit drugs; there were none. Next, he carefully picked up each bottle and examined it, being careful to note the facing of the label before he removed it from the shelf. There was red yeast rice extract for his rising cholesterol, Ginkgoba biloba for his fading memory, and saw palmetto for his aging prostate. There was ginseng root for extra energy, creatine for muscle growth, and Horny Goat Weed for—Horny Goat Weed? This guy’s trying way too hard, Nick thought. It looked like a salvage shop for middle-aged men.

In the bedroom he checked the dresser and nightstands for
journals, phone lists, or personal letters. There was very little of a personal nature anywhere. Was that the cause of his divorce, or the result? Many men, failing in love, choose to pour their entire lives into their work; Lassiter had obviously chosen this path. The only indication that his wife had ever existed was her conspicuous absence, and the fragmented home she left behind.

Nick headed back down the hall.

“Any security problems?” Nick said to Leo.

“Security, but no problems,” Leo replied. “I was in in less than three minutes.”

“How about you? Finding anything?”

“Bits and pieces,” Riley said, the floor around her scattered with manila folders. “Most of this is obsolete financial records, old tax returns, auto repair histories …”

“Anything current? Anything that would tell us about his income or his financial situation?”

“I know what he makes,” Riley said. “A pathologist in our office makes about sixty thousand a year.”

“Sixty thousand? You people put in four years of medical school and six or seven years of residency just to take home sixty grand? And I thought professors were crazy.”

“That’s not all of it,” Riley said. “Most of our pathologists have private autopsy practices and consulting services that can be very lucrative. The smaller counties can’t afford to keep their own pathologists, so they hire ours on a case-by-case basis. And sometimes, when a local medical examiner gives them a verdict they don’t agree with, they hire one of ours to get a second opinion. An autopsy here, a consulting fee there—it all adds up.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Leo said. “That’s the problem.”

Nick and Riley stepped behind him and looked over his shoulder at the screen.

“Our friend does his personal finances and business accounting in Quicken and QuickBooks,” Leo said. “Doctors are notoriously bad with money; his expense records are very spotty, but he does manage to keep track of his salary and receivables. He’s not incorporated, so he’s treating his private practice as part of his personal income. Riley, do you have his most current tax return?”

“Got it.”

“OK, check his 1040 for total income. Does it come out to about … that?” he said, pointing to the screen.

“That’s about right.”

“Really? Then how do we explain … this?” Leo clicked on Quicken’s Investing Center icon and switched to Portfolio View. There, in front of them, was an inclusive listing of Lassiter’s investment holdings, complete with a record of individual transactions.

“Last year, his investments were modest and unfocused. A few shares of a tech stock, a little money in a high-yield fund—just your average dabbling day-trader. But this year all his investments have focused on a single company. And last year, his investments were roughly consistent with his earnings. But notice this fiscal year. Look at this transaction … and this one … and this one here. See? Those three transactions alone total a quarter of a million dollars. My friends, that’s more than his entire income.”

“Where is he getting that kind of money?” Riley asked.

“Is there any record of a loan, a second mortgage, anything like that?”

“There’s no indication of where the money came from,” Leo said. “However, we do know where it went.” He pointed to the Security line within each of the three transactions. Each one read, “PharmaGen, Inc.”

“Now look at this,” Leo said, switching to Internet Explorer and pressing the History icon. “This is a record of all the Web sites he’s visited in the last three weeks. There are the usual hits: eBay, Google, ESPN, plus a few that reveal a serious lack of character. But notice all these:
PharmaGen, PharmaGen, PharmaGen.
What’s the old saying? ‘Where a man’s treasure is, there will his heart be also.’ ”

“What do we know about this PharmaGen?” Nick asked.

“I’ve heard of it,” Riley said. “It’s a Pittsburgh-based biotech startup in the field of personalized medicine. It’s known as
pharmacogenomics.
Very new, very cutting edge.”

“They’re talking about this in my department,” Leo said. “It involves a groundbreaking information field known as
bioinformatics
—taking genetic or biological information and putting it on a computer for comparison and analysis.”

“Has this PharmaGen gone public yet?”

Leo opened a separate window. A few quick keystrokes took
them to the Web site of the Securities and Exchange Commission and its EDGAR database. “They haven’t filed with the SEC yet,” Leo said. “It looks like the company is still privately held.”

“Then our boy isn’t buying stock,” Nick said. “He’s trying to get in on the ground floor of this company
before
it goes public. Looks like he’s betting the farm on it.”

“He’s betting the farm and then some,” Leo said. “The question is, where is the farmer getting the extra money? And why this one company? This is not what one would call a ‘diversified portfolio.’ He’s taking an enormous risk.”

“Maybe,” Nick said. He leaned forward and took the mouse, guiding it to the PharmaGen folder in the History list. He tapped the mouse, and a dozen specific links appeared underneath.

“He’s been all over this Web site,” Nick said. “What’s the big interest?” He clicked on the link titled “PharmaGen.com: Welcome,” and the screen went suddenly black.

The Web site opened with a low, tremulous tone, followed by a woman’s voice as smooth and mellow as amber honey. “Welcome to the world of personalized medicine,” the voice cooed. “Welcome to the future. Welcome to PharmaGen.” In the right corner, a tiny Skip Intro icon appeared, and Leo instinctively reached for the mouse.

“Don’t,” Nick said. “This is what they want the public to see.”

In the background, music began to rise: first the rumbling percussion, then the soaring woodwinds, then the stentorian brass proclaiming “The World of PharmaGen” in clarion tones. Now vibrant images began to flicker past like flashcards: a baldheaded child with dark, sunken eyes and a pleading smile; handsome men and women in white lab coats and gleaming silver stethoscopes; backlit vials and flasks of bright, multicolored liquids; crowded laboratories and computer rooms dotted with intense, concerned faces; and a stunning panorama of the Triangle taken from the exit of the Fort Pitt Tunnel.

“PharmaGen,” the voiceover said. “The medicines of tomorrow from the knowledge of today.”

Now the screen dissolved to black again, and the image of a multihued double helix appeared. The image began to tip and rotate, and the viewer’s eye soared like a falcon over the connecting shafts and curling banisters that comprise the DNA molecule.

“Nice graphic,” Nick said.

“Nice Web site,” Leo added. “This was not cheap.”

“Pharmacogenomics
is the application of recent discoveries about the human genome to produce a bold, new world of pharmaceuticals, specifically tailored to individual needs. Environment, diet, age, and lifestyle all influence an individual’s response to medication—but an individual’s unique genetic makeup is the key. By tailoring medicines to individual genetic profiles, we can achieve far greater efficacy and safety than we can through the ‘one size fits all’ methods of today.”

The image of a young girl was suddenly superimposed; she was seated on an examination table, draped in an oversized hospital gown.

“A child is diagnosed with leukemia. As part of her treatment, she will receive a standard protocol of chemotherapy drugs. But a small percentage of Caucasian children lack a crucial enzyme that keeps those drugs from building up to toxic levels in their bloodstreams. Will her medications heal or harm? The drug that saves the life of one patient may take the life of another. Adverse reactions to medications kill an estimated hundred-thousand Americans every year and hospitalize two million more.

“Researchers at PharmaGen are studying the inherited variations in genes, known as ‘snips,’ that determine drug response in each individual. With this knowledge, we will be able to predict whether a medicine will have a helpful effect, a harmful effect, or no effect at all; we will be able to produce stronger, better, safer drugs and vaccines; we will enable doctors to determine dosages with much greater accuracy; and, by reducing the number of adverse drug reactions, we will play a major role in decreasing the soaring costs of healthcare.

“But it all begins with research. To accomplish these goals, PharmaGen faces a daunting challenge: we must identify as many of the genetic variations in the human genome as possible and trace them to specific diseases. To make this vision a reality, PharmaGen is forming a vital partnership with the people of western Pennsylvania. These visionary volunteers, half a million strong, are joining with us to accelerate our knowledge and help make the future a reality today.

“Won’t you join with us? Visit the PharmaGen Web site now to find out how you can contribute, invest, or become a member our Keystone Club volunteer program.

“PharmaGen: the medicines of tomorrow from the knowledge of today.”

At the tagline, the music rose once again, crescendoed, and ended with a clap of muted cymbals. The final image morphed to form a sleek, elegant, corporate front page.

No one said anything for a minute.

“Impressive,” Leo said, breaking the silence.

“Lassiter thinks so,” Nick said. “But how much of all this is just vaporware? Do they actually have a product yet?”

“I haven’t heard of one,” Riley said, “but they seem to have a great PR department. They’re in the news all the time, talking as if the big breakthrough is just around the corner.”