“What is it about?”
“I’m representing Steven Timmerman.”
She picks up the phone and relays my message to whoever answers. The response is obviously positive, because within moments a young woman comes out to lead me back to Sykes’s office.
The main part of the building is surprisingly alive. It is one large laboratory, with what appears to be the most modern equipment, and a large staff of earnest people using them. If anyone is over thirty-five, they’re aging well. The average basketball team is older than this group.
Sykes himself seems under forty, though he is clearly the elder statesman here. He smiles and shakes my hand, welcoming me to Timco, as if I am joining the team. I thank him and enter his modern, well-appointed office, which has a large painting of Walter Timmerman looking down from the wall, as if he were Chairman Mao.
“Thanks for seeing me,” I say.
“No problem. But I doubt I can help you much; I don’t know Steven very well. The truth is, I’m not sure I’d want to help you if I could.”
“Why is that?”
“Well, if Steven… if Steven did this…”
“That, as we say in legal circles, is a big ‘if.’ ”
Sykes nods vigorously. “I understand. Innocent until proven guilty. I get it.” He shrugs. “But I really don’t know him well at all.”
“I’m more interested in learning about Walter Timmerman.”
He smiles. “Walter, I knew.”
“Good. Please tell me about him.”
“What do you want to know?” he asks.
“Everything. I’m looking to fill in the blanks, and right now blanks are all I have.”
He nods agreeably. “Okay. Well, there’s Walter Timmerman professionally, and privately. Two very different people.”
“Start with professionally,” I say.
“One of a kind,” he says. “An amazing, amazing man.”
“I’m going to need a little more specificity than that.”
“He was collaborative, inquisitive, brilliant… all he cared about was the science and the idea. He treated everyone whose ability he respected as an equal, even though he had no equal.”
“What exactly did he do?”
This question sends him headlong into an extended scientific dissertation, of which I understand maybe ten percent. When I hear the word “biology,” I interrupt. “So he was a biologist?”
“Are you a basketball fan?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“Asking if Walter was a biologist would be like asking if Michael Jordan was a shooter. Of course he was, but he was so much more. Think of it this way. Usually you have chemists and microbiologists working side by side. Walter was the best of both; I like to say he lived at the intersection of Chemistry Boulevard and Microbiology Avenue. It was an incredible advantage for him in what he was doing.”
“What was he doing? Particularly recently.”
“Well, I can’t say exactly, because lately he wasn’t very talkative about his work, and whatever he did was in his lab at home. But for years he was studying the physical aspects of life; he understood it better than anyone who ever lived. He understood that the human body, any living organism, is a collection of chemicals.”
“So you’re talking about his discoveries in DNA?”
“That was just scratching the surface.”
We talk some more about Timmerman’s work, though Sykes keeps pointing out that in recent months he was utilizing his lab at home and keeping to himself. This doesn’t seem to fit in with the “collaborative” person Sykes described, but he doesn’t see the contradiction, so I don’t point it out.
When it comes to the personal Walter Timmerman, Sykes is much less expansive. He professes to know little about Walter’s home life, but his sense is that Walter could be a demanding husband and father.
“Had you met his wife?” I ask.
“Twice, but just to say hello. At industry dinners. Walter hated events like that, but he was receiving awards at both, so he couldn’t get out of it.”
“What was your impression of her?”
He grins, but doesn’t look particularly happy. “She was a handful. Knew what she wanted, and how to get it. But Walter seemed crazy about her.”
“With everything you know about Walter Timmerman, can you think of any reason someone would want him dead?”
He thinks about it for a moment. “Walter Timmerman was a person who pushed at the limits of science and knowledge. So who might kill him? I guess someone with an interest in preserving those limits.”
Then he shrugs. “Or not. Who knows?”
I CALL KEVIN AT THE OFFICE, where he’s been wading through the discovery documents.
As bad as they are, he doesn’t seem too distressed about it. Most of the incriminating facts in there are those that Richard has already alerted us to, so it’s not quite as awful as Kevin was fearing.
But it’s bad.
I decide not to go back to the office, since it might make me late for the arraignment. Hatchet wouldn’t look too fondly on that, and I certainly don’t want to get on Hatchet’s bad side at the beginning of a murder case. Or at any other time, for that matter.
Kevin is not going to join me at the arraignment. There would be nothing for him to do there anyway, and we’re better off with him spending the time getting familiar with the facts of the case. Or at least those items that the prosecution considers facts. Hopefully we’ll have a different interpretation.
My plan is to talk to Steven before the arraignment about some of the discovery information, but that plan is thwarted when a screwup results in him being brought over too late for us to meet. We only have about thirty seconds before the hearing starts, leaving me barely enough time to tell him what to expect, and how to behave.
It is rare that an arraignment is eventful, and this one doesn’t break any new ground. Richard states the charges clearly and concisely, and tells Hatchet that the prosecution is current on providing discovery information.
Hatchet asks how Steven pleads, and he answers “not guilty” in an understandably shaky voice. If I were facing two charges of murder in the first degree, I would barely be able to squeak.
I request bail, pointing out that Steven has never before been accused of a crime. Richard takes the opposite viewpoint, pointing out the heinous nature of these particular crimes, and adding that a person of Steven’s means is a particular flight risk.
Hatchet disdainfully denies bail, as I knew he would. I can see Steven flinch when he hears it, even though I had told him we had no chance to prevail and were basically going through the motions.