Fatal Reaction

the funeral this morning,” I said, once I’d gotten him on the line.
    “Yes. I’m going,” he said in a voice so guarded I found it almost impossible to read.
    “With John Guttman out of town I thought maybe we could represent the firm together.”
    “Fine.”
    “And if you wanted we could probably go early....”
    “I’d like that,” he said, this time more softly.
    “Fine. I’ll meet you in reception in twenty minutes. In the meantime I’ll give the funeral director a call and let him know to expect us.” I assumed there would be no difficulty in arranging what I wanted—a private moment of farewell from a friend who did not wish to draw attention to himself.
     

CHAPTER 20
     
    When we arrived at the funeral home Mr. McNamara was waiting for us at the door, ready to conduct Tom Galloway into the nether regions of the mortuary. I waited for them in the back of the chapel and tried to drive back the tide of memory that always threatened to overwhelm me on these occasions. I became a widow when I was twenty-five years old and everyone—from people I barely knew to those who stood with me as my husband’s body was lowered into the ground—insisted that time would heal me. Now that time has passed I have come to understand that healing is a painful and uncertain process. In five years I have laid down many layers of scar tissue. Waiting for Danny’s funeral to begin I was confronted by the fact that it wasn’t enough.
    A door to the outside creaked open. Through it slipped a sliver of gray winter light and Elliott Abelman. He was dressed for the occasion in a black suit, blue shirt, and wing tips polished to a Marine Corps shine.
    “You’re early,” I said.
    “I love funerals,” said Elliott, with a grin that drove the darkness from the room. “You never know who’s going to turn up. I called the funeral director yesterday. He’s going to try to make sure that everyone signs the guest book. I also have a photographer with a telephoto lens on the roof of the building across the street so that he can catch people coming out of the building.”
    “Did you talk to Stephen about coming out to Azor to question people?”
    “He says no. Scientists are apparently very temperamental. He doesn’t want their delicate psyches disturbed.” I could tell by his tone what he thought of the scientists and their psyches. “I did talk to Joe though. As soon as he gets back he’s going to give the Wohl file to his lieutenant.”
    “Any chance they’ll reopen the investigation?”
    “That’s hard to say. The wheels of justice always grind pretty slowly in this town, but even more so these days.”
    “Then I want you to be sure to go ahead and check out Michael Childress.”
    “Is he the crystallographer you were telling me about?”
    “Yes. I’ve been asking around. Supposedly Danny hated his guts, but Childress was always in Danny’s office for one thing or other.”
    “So you think it might have been window dressing?”
    “That’s what I want you to find out. The other guy is a protein chemist by the name of Dave Borland. There was a lot of animosity between the two men on account of an EEOC suit against Borland.”
    “Don’t worry. I’ll turn their lives inside out for you.”
    “Did you ever find out anything about Hiroshi Toyoda?”
    “Yes. He’s in the country right now, by the way.”
    “I know. I’m flying to New York to meet him this afternoon.”
    Elliott reached into his inside pocket and came out with a small spiral notebook, which he flipped open and consulted before speaking. “Hiroshi Toyoda, age thirty-four, born in Santiago, Chile.”
    “Chile?”
    “His father was attached to the consulate. He lived in Latin America until he was eleven, then his father was assigned back to Tokyo for two years. When he was thirteen, Hiroshi’s dad began a six-year stint in Washington, D.C. By all accounts our friend is a pretty cosmopolitan fellow, fluent in Spanish, Portuguese, English, and naturally Japanese. Smart, too—Georgetown, Harvard Law, M.B.A. from Wharton. Comfortably well-off until he married his wife, Fumiko, who is Takisawa’s only daughter. Now he’s rich, big-time rich. The couple live in Tokyo. They have a country house outside of Nagasaki and a place in Hawaii where they get away a couple times a year to play golf.”
    “Children?”
    “One. A son. His wife is ten years older than he is, by the way.”
    “Was he in the country when Danny died?” I asked,