Immortal in Death

"Do that. Oh, and I'm afraid there might be a few details for next Saturday you'll have to handle while I'm gone. Summerset has the memos. My transport's waiting." She watched him signal to someone off screen, then his eyes locked back on hers. "See you in a few days, Lieutenant."

"Yeah." The screen went blank as she muttered. "Bon fucking voyage."

"Well, hell, Eve. If you need to run off to your dressmaker, or take your cat to therapy, Peabody and I can handle this minor matter of murder."

Eve's lips stretched in a vicious smile. "Bite me, Casto."

Despite his many a

"Let's see if I've got this straight." She rose. She needed to stretch her legs. She poured coffee. "It was Pandora who told you about Immortality. And that was?"

"As I said, about a year and a half ago, perhaps a little more." He was iced down now, totally in control. The illegals charges could be dealt with, particularly from the angle he'd chosen. "She came to me with a business proposition. Or so she termed it. She claimed to have access to a formula, something that would revolutionize the beauty and health industry."

"A beauty aid. And she didn't mention the illegal or the dangerous qualities."

"Not at that time. She needed backing to start the line. One she intended to launch under her name."

"Did she show you the formula?"

"She did not. As I told you before, she strung me along, made promises. Admittedly, it was poor judgment on my part. I was sexually addicted to her, a weakness she exploited. At the same time, the business aspect seemed to have merit. She was using the product in tablet form. And the results were impressive. I could see that it made her look younger, more fit. It increased her energy and her sexual drive. Marketed correctly, a product such as that would generate enormous profit. I wanted the money for some commercially risky projects."

"You wanted the money, so you continued to pay her, little dribs and drabs, without being fully informed."

"For a time. I did grow impatient and made demands. She made more promises. I began to suspect that she intended to go out on her own or that she was working with someone else. Using me. So I took a sample for myself."

"Took a sample?"

He took his time answering, as if he was still Grafting the words. "I took her key while she was sleeping and unlocked the box where she kept the tablets. I, in the interest of protecting my investment, took a few to have them analyzed."

"And when did you steal the drug, in the interest of protecting your investment?"

"Theft is not established," the lawyer interrupted. "My client had paid, in good faith, for the product."

"Okay, we'll rephrase. When did you decide to take a more active interest in your business investment?"

"About six months ago. I took the samples to a contact I have in chemical analysis and paid him for a private report."

"And learned…"

Redford paused to study his fingers. "I learned that the product did indeed have the properties Pandora had promised. However, it was addictive, which pushed it automatically into the illegals category. It was also potentially lethal when taken regularly over a long period of time."

"And being a righteous man, you counted your losses and pulled out of the deal."

"Being righteous is not a legal requirement," Redford said mildly. "And I had an investment to protect. I decided to do some research to see if the unacceptable side effects could be diminished or eradicated. I believe we accomplished that, or nearly."

"So you used Jerry Fitzgerald as a guinea pig."

"That was a miscalculation. Perhaps I was overeager as Pandora continued to push for more money and made statements that indicated she was about to go public with the product. I wanted to beat her to it, and knew that Jerry would be the perfect spokeswoman. She agreed, for a fee, to try the product my people had refined. In a liquid form. Science makes mistakes, Lieutenant. The drug was still, as we learned too late, highly addictive."

"And fatal?"

"It seems. The process has been slowed, but yes, I'm afraid there is still the potential for physical harm in the long term. A possible side effect I warned Jerry of several weeks ago."

"Before or after Pandora discovered you were trying to ace her out?"

"I believe it was after, just after. Unfortunately, Jerry and Pandora ran into each other at a function. Pandora made some comments about her former relationship with Justin. From what I gather, and this is secondhand, Jerry tossed the business deal we had made in Pandora's face."

"And Pandora didn't take kindly to it."

"She was, naturally, furious. Our relationship was rocky at best by that time. I had already procured a specimen of the Immortal Blossom, determined to delete all side effects from the formula. I had no intention, Lieutenant, of releasing a dangerous drug to the public. My records will substantiate that."

"We'll let Illegals handle that one. Did Pandora threaten you?"

"Pandora lived for threats. One became accustomed to them. I felt I was in a good position to ignore them, even to counter them." He smiled now, more confident. "You see, if she had gone forward, knowing what properties were contained in the formula, I could have ruined her. I had no reason to harm her."

"Your relationship was rocky, yet you went to her home that night."

"In hopes that we could come to some compromise. That's why I insisted that Justin and Jerry be present."

"You had sex with her."

"She was a beautiful, desirable woman. Yes, I had sex with her."

"She had tablets of the drug in her possession."

"She did. As I told you, she kept them in a box in her vanity." His smile came back. "I told you about the box and the tablets because I assumed, correctly, that an autopsy would show traces of the drug. It seemed wise to be forthcoming. I did nothing but cooperate."

"Easy to cooperate if you knew I wouldn't find the tablets. After she was dead, you went back for the box. Protecting your investment. If there was no product but yours, no competitor, how much more profit there would be."

"I did not go back to her home after I left. I had no reason to. My product was superior."

"Neither of those products would have made the market, and you knew it. But on the street, hers would have hit big, bigger than your refined, watered down, and most likely more expensive version."

"With more research, more testing – "

"More money? You'd already put over three hundred thousand in her hands. You'd gone to the considerable expense to procure a specimen, paid for the research and testing to date, paid Fitzgerald. I imagine you were becoming a little anxious to see some profit. How much did you charge Jerry for a fix?"

"Jerry and I had a business arrangement."

"Ten thousand a delivery," Eve interrupted, and watched the point strike home. "That's the amount she transferred three times over a two-month period to your account on Starlight Station."

"An investment," he began.

"You addicted her, then you hosed her. That makes you a dealer, Mr. Redford."

The lawyer went into his spin routine, turning a drug deal into a profit-and-loss arrangement between investment partners.

"You needed contacts. Street contacts. Boomer was always a sucker for a credit in the hand. But he got carried away, liked to test the product. How did he get the formula? That was sloppy of you."

"I don't know anyone by that name."

"You saw him flapping his lips at the club. Making a big deal of himself. When he went into a privacy room with Hetta Moppett, you couldn't be sure how much he'd told her. But when he saw you, and he ran, you had to act."