“Sounds like a complicated love triangle,” she said.

  “Victoria said Michael was jealous of Alex because he was their father’s favorite, but he still protected Alex if he got into trouble. Vincent wasn’t any better at being a father than Simon was, and I wouldn’t call either of them an easy man. That’s why they always argued. But they made good business partners, because money was always their first priority.”

  That’s also why Simon didn’t approve of Vincent coddling Alex, he said. Simon was concerned that his laxity would hurt the company.

  “Vincent could be a tyrant at times. He was often too harsh with Michael, who was trying to please him, and he was equally blind to Alex’s bad behavior.”

  Katrina nodded. “One favor,” she said, smiling to soften her next question. “Do you think you could get me copies of the autopsy reports from the ME’s office?” She didn’t mention that the police chief had threatened to seal them.

  “Sure, I’ll ask to see the reports as soon as they’re available, if not sooner,” he said conspiratorially. “I want to see justice done here. My family was murdered, and I don’t know why the police are being so damned namby-pamby about it.”

  Katrina couldn’t help but chuckle.

  What a great quote.

  “Do you think the secrecy stems from the fact that Vitaleron’s investors are some of this town’s biggest political power brokers?” she asked.

  “Yes, and that’s why you need to blow the lid off this thing.”

  “I’m going to try. You’ve been a big help,” she said. “I can see now that the police haven’t told me much of anything.”

  Bastards.

  “There’s one more angle for you to explore. I didn’t think to mention this to the detective because I didn’t see it as a factor in my brother’s death, but now I’m not so sure. Simon and I discussed using political campaign donations to get this drug on a fast track for FDA approval. I can only imagine how much he and his investors gave to the House legislative committee members with oversight in this area. For full disclosure, I’m an investor myself.”

  “Go on.”

  “So, I’d suggest you track the campaign contributions.”

  “It would help if I had a list of investors’ names.”

  “I’m sure there’s one on the computers the police seized from Vitaleron,” William said.

  “Which neither of us has access to, unfortunately,” she said.

  “True, but you can check the local delegation’s campaign statements online and work backwards. My brother always described his drug as a ‘family values’ product that would keep marriages together, a tagline he figured the Republican Party, and specifically Christian conservatives, could get behind. In fact, Brandon Winchester, the Republican congressman from Rancho Santa Fe, said he was very interested in helping out. I’d start with him.”

  “Marketing a sexual enhancement drug to Christian conservatives?”

  “Yes, that was the board’s strategy.”

  “It’s smart, actually,” Katrina said.

  “Something else has been bothering me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “My brother was shot in the right temple, but he was left-handed. Not impossible for it to be self-inflicted, I suppose, but highly improbable. More importantly, the guy at the morgue said the head wound didn’t really bleed, so they think he was shot after he was already dead.”

  “Whaat?”

  “It makes me sick that someone would do that,” he said.

  Although William had seemed to find relief in sharing his thoughts, he seemed sullen now that he’d finished. He’d hardly touched his salad, which the waiter had already transferred to a to-go box.

  “I should get back to the office,” William said, sighing as he stood up. “It was lovely to meet you.”

  After shaking Katrina’s hand, he started to drop a credit card on the table, but she stopped him.

  “It’s on Vincent,” she said. When he looked confused, she added, “I have an expense account.”

  William managed a slight smile. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll let you know when I get those reports.”

  Five minutes later, Katrina was back in her hot car. She couldn’t wait to tell Linda—and Joanne—that she finally had some meat on which to hang a story. She couldn’t get it all into one take—and the potential campaign donation bonanza would take a while to compile—but William’s comments would certainly make for provocative copy.

  Chapter 30

  Goode

  Tuesday

  After leaving Mister A’s, Goode drove back to HQ to make calls from his desk. The Homicide unit was divided into two rows of cubicles with an aisle down the center. His team sat together, with Stone next to Foster and catty corner to Goode, who sat next to Byron.

  Goode’s cubicle walls were lined with photos of his favorite surf spots, so he could gaze at them when he needed to grab a few Zen moments but couldn’t get down to Windansea. He also had a couple of photos of him and Maureen, one relatively recently with their surfboards, and one of them clowning around at Belmont Park as teenagers.

  He tried London again first. Still no answer.

  Do I need to go over there and knock some heads together?

  But he had more luck with the crime lab this time. “I know they went back to the scene this morning and they haven’t returned, so I assume they’re still there,” the receptionist told him. She gave him the number for the supervisory tech, Dwight Pepper, who was indeed at the mansion when Goode called.

  “Where are you now?” Goode asked, picturing the scene.

  “On the back patio. We’ve scoured this whole area, even searched under the bushes, but there’s no bullet or casing, Detective.”

  “Did you try the balcony above to see if you can find any blood or a different trajectory for the bullet from there?”

  “Um, no.”

  I thought that was the whole point of going back.

  “Do that for me, would you?”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really.”

  Goode heard the swishing sound of Dwight’s pant legs rubbing together as he walked through the house, breathing heavily as he climbed the stairs to the second story. Goode recalled that the man had quite a belly on him.

  Less beer and more exercise, Spanky.

  “It seems unlikely that we would have missed a casing or blood on the first go-round,” Dwight said.

  That’s a whole lotta attitude there, Spanks. Stand down.

  “It was pretty dark when we got there,” Goode said, trying to be patient. “Since his gunshot wound was hardly bleeding and the bullet hasn’t turned up on the patio, he was probably shot elsewhere, then moved.”

  “Okay,” Dwight said, pausing and grunting. “Wait a minute.”

  “What?”

  “I just found a casing,” he said.

  “Where?”

  “Lodged in the corner of the balcony, between the wall and the railing, like you said.”

  “It’s nice being right every once in a while.”

  Dwight paused again. “Yeah, sorry,” he said, sounding a little embarrassed now.

  “We’re all human,” Goode said, closing his eyes to visualize what he wanted. “So, if he was shot on the balcony, that means he should have bled up there. Do you see any blood? It was hard to see in the dark.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Well, now’s the time to spray the BlueStar and see if you can light up any drops or spatters. The killer might have cleaned it up well enough that they aren’t visible to the naked eye.”

  “Right.”

  “Then try looking for the bullet in a broader radius downstairs, using that side of the balcony to calculate the trajectory. Picture someone leaning the doctor’s limp dead body against the railing, then shooting him at close range in the right temple. Maybe he thought about dumping the body over the top but decided against it and carried him downstairs.”

  Bodies are heavy. Probably would take two people.

  “That’s pretty creative,” Dwight said.

  “Yep. So, if you’re standing on the patio, facing away from the house, the bullet would probably be to your left. It could also have ricocheted off the side of the house and rolled away. The bullet went through his brain and ended up somewhere.”

  “Okay,” Dwight said. “Man, there’s a lot of brush over there.”

  “You guys have a metal detector?”

  “Uh, not with us.”

  “You don’t keep one on the truck? If you can’t find the bullet, you should go get one.”

  Silence.

  “You still there?”

  “Yeah, I’m here.”

  “All right, call me back and let me know how it’s going.”

  “Okay.”

  “Also, now that we know someone was up there with a gun, make sure to collect prints and DNA swabs from the doorknobs on both sides of the French doors, inside and out, and swab any blood spatter you find. It’ll probably be degraded from cleaners and the BlueStar, but you never know.”

  “Will do.”

  I knew the crime lab had issues, but why did I need to give these instructions three times? Better late than not at all.

  Goode rolled his chair over to Stone’s desk to fill him in. Stone was also a photo collector, his cubicle lined with shots of his wife Kelly and their three kids, who were making faces or sitting in his lap while watching TV, and the time they drew a mustache on his face with a black marker while he was asleep.

  “How’d they miss that?” Stone asked.

  “That’s what I said. I’m trying not to be annoyed about it.”

  “Thankfully, you were on top of it. Good work, Goode.”

  “I’ll let you have that one.”

  “Thought you might,” Stone said, grinning. “So, we know the killer shot a dead man on the balcony. Now we have to figure out what actually killed him. What if it’s all part of a big cover-up?”

  “You mean someone staged a messed-up crime scene to frame someone else or to protect themselves?” Goode asked.

  “Yeah, to create chaos and confusion, which is working, for the moment. What if Simon and Victoria were both experimenting with the drug by injection?”

  “That would be really twisted, wouldn’t it?”

  “I meant independently, with other partners.”

  “Right. Let’s see if Alex Battrelle will admit to experimenting with the drug with Victoria. Although we probably won’t find any needle marks on him by Thursday.”

  “We can ask him, although there’s nothing illegal about using an experimental drug. Unless he stole it—but how would he get in? He’s not on the board anymore. Also, say he used it with Victoria and something was wrong with the batch, then he should be dead too.”

  “Right, but he’s in the Caymans,” Goode said. “He’s allegedly in recovery, though, so he could’ve said no but went along for the ride, if you know what I mean. Got scared when shit went sideways, and he ran.”

  “A bad ride, indeed. Where are those damn tox screens?”

  “That’s my next call,” Goode said.

  Stone knew all about recovery. He’d dated Kelly since the eleventh grade, and they got married soon after they both graduated from SDSU. When Stone continued his college routine of weekend drinking binges, Kelly stayed sweet and loyal—nothing like Goode’s ex, Miranda—but she firmly told him to hit the wagon or she’d be in the wind. Stone got sober, and he and Kelly went on to have three little ones, who truly loved their Uncle Goode.

  Artie answered on the first ring. “I was about to call you. But you’re not going to like the tox-screen results.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Victoria had Xanax in her system, but not enough to be fatal. The oxys in her throat didn’t get absorbed enough to show up. So, we’ve got a whole lot of nothin’. It looks like someone sedated her, then shot her up with something that isn’t showing up on the standard screen.”

  “We also still have the missing-syringe problem, which means someone removed it, or them, from the house. What kind of substance wouldn’t show up?”

  “Could be some obscure drug that the person didn’t want us to identify.”

  “Or to find his or her fingerprints on the syringe. What about Simon?” Goode asked.

  “He had Viagra metabolites in his blood, but normal levels for usage the night before. No other drugs for him either.”

  “Shit,” Goode said, smacking the side of his car with his hand. “Owww.”

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah. You’re right, that’s not what I wanted to hear.” Goode paused before asking his next question. “So how do we identify other substances you don’t typically test for?”

  “We have other options we can try, but it would help if we had some clue what we’re looking for. Any ideas?”

  “Yeah, Stone and I were thinking it could be Vitaleron’s experimental sex drug.”

  “Can you get me some? We’ll have to send it out to a private lab. We don’t test for everything, but it wouldn’t show up on a screen anyway, because it hasn’t received FDA approval.”

  Goode sighed as he rubbed his bruised hand. “Let me work on that,” he said.

  Chapter 31

  Katrina

  Tuesday

  Joanne’s face lit up as Katrina recounted the highlights of her interview with William Fontaine.

  “Get going on the campaign research and don’t tell Linda anything until I talk to her,” Joanne said. “If I can’t get her alone, we’ll go in together right before the meeting, because the time crunch will give us some leverage. In the meantime, see if you can get Goode to confirm William’s description of the crime scene.”

  Katrina agreed, but she didn’t want to call Goode yet, knowing she would have more questions closer to deadline. So, she started scrolling through campaign records on the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and OpenSecrets websites, where federal campaign donations were grouped for easy analysis.

  As William had anticipated, US Rep. Winchester had received a boatload of donations from the Fontaines, Battrelles, and Vitaleron board members and their wives—$750,000 in the past year alone, most of which had been “bundled” at two fundraisers hosted by the Lexicon Group LLC. They were both held at the upscale University Club, a club for businesspeople on the top floor of Symphony Towers.

  Where have I seen the Lexicon Group before?

  Going back through her research, she confirmed that it owned the Vitaleron building, which was listed among Vincent’s many properties around the county.

  Great. Another link to Vincent. Just what Linda and John Palmer want to hear.

  Anticipating that Linda would ask her to compare the $750,000 to donation totals for the rest of the county’s congressional delegation, she put that task aside for the moment to wade through the FDA’s bureaucratese about the drug testing and approval process.

  After successfully completing animal tests, experimental drugs entered three phases of human trials. Phase one, conducted on twenty to eighty healthy subjects, studied how the drug was metabolized and pinpointed the highest dose that caused no serious side effects. If no “unacceptable toxicity” occurred, phase two began, monitoring the drug’s effectiveness on thirty-six to three hundred volunteers. Phase three expanded the test group to as many as three thousand people, watching for safety, effectiveness, and interactions with other drugs. If still deemed safe, the new formula would be allowed to enter the marketplace, with continued monitoring for rare and longer-term side effects. All of this could take years and cost many millions of dollars.

  Katrina jotted down the relevant names in the federal drug-review hierarchy, including the head of the Department of Health and Human Services, the FDA commissioner, and directors of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research and the Office of New Drugs. Drug approvals were under the purview of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, of which Winchester was a member. He was also the minority leader of a powerful appropriations subcommittee that oversaw the FDA.

  He’s definitely the go-to local guy for expedited FDA approval. This is like shooting fish in a barrel.

  Reading further, she saw that Winchester had headed the Sun-Dispatch’s circulation department years ago, which meant she might experience some pushback there as well.

  Gawd, what an incestuous town.

  From there, she checked the federal gift registry, where senators and US representatives were supposed to list items such as golf trips, professional sports tickets, and travel to junkets. Among the numerous gifts that lobbyists and other La Jolla folks, including the Battrelles, Fontaines, and Vitaleron board members, had given Winchester was a most notable trip to Hawaii for the recent Vitaleron retreat.

  That can’t be a coincidence. But why would he go to a Vitaleron retreat? Wouldn’t that be for employees?

  Next, she cross-checked Google for images of the names she’d jotted down and up came a photo of Winchester in the Washington Post’s Style section. Winchester was looking chummy at a black-tie event with a woman named Marcia Copeland, director of the FDA’s Office of New Drugs, who was sandwiched between the congressman and Darren McMurphy, Vitaleron’s new board chairman.

  Oh my God! They’re not even trying to hide their backroom dealings.

  Her phone pinged with a text from Joanne: ​​Talked to Linda. The story is all yours. Go tell her what you’ve got, champ.​​

  Linda smiled proudly as Katrina gave her the details of her fruitful interview with William Fontaine, though she seemed less excited about the campaign donations, gifts, and property records that dragged the Battrelles back into the story.

  “Let’s hold off on the campaign donations until you’ve examined the entire delegation. That $750,000 could be an anomaly. We can do that for the weekend, along with a summary of where Vitaleron is in the FDA approval process, with all that nice context you found,” she said. “For today, write up your lunch interview and make sure to include that ‘namby-pamby’ quote.”