True-Life Adventure

loaded tape recorder on a low table. “There’s the tape.”
    Steve sat down across from her.
    Sardis spoke again: “Did you bring the money?”
    “Yes.” Steve took out an envelope and let Sardis look in it.
    She nodded and turned on the tape, the first one Lindsay had made, in which she described Terry’s illness, Jacob’s phony treatments, the emergency visit to Dr. Rumler, the call to Brissette, the visit with Marilyn, and the talk with Tillman. When it was over, Sardis turned off the machine.
    “Lindsay honestly believes Jacob killed those three men,” she said. “Only she doesn’t want anything to happen to him— at least not right now— because it would be a shock to Terry. On the other hand, she doesn’t want to be his next victim. That’s why she made the tape.”
    “If my brother is a killer, perhaps he should be locked up.”
    “Oh, but he isn’t.” As she spoke, Sardis took the tape out of the recorder. She kept holding it, hands in lap. “I’ve thought about it quite a lot and I see how it’s possible to come to that conclusion. Because he is mad.”
    “Oh?”
    “Of course. How do you explain nearly killing his own daughter?”
    “Look, Miss Kincannon, he was doing what he thought best. People don’t like to face the truth in situations like that. Everybody’s a little bit that way.”
    “Mr. Koehler, when a Nobel Prize-winning scientist doesn’t know what’s real and what’s not real, he’s flipped out.”
    “Nonsense. There’s nothing—”
    “Gone bananas, Mr. Koehler. Not playing with a full deck. Besides, a few other things have happened. A man in a stocking mask accosted me and demanded to know where Lindsay was. Susanna Flores got a threatening phone call. Jacob was the assailant and the caller.”
    She said it confidently, as if she knew it were true. Actually, it was just part of our theory, but it made sense: Not one but two people wanted to find Lindsay— Steve and Jacob. Steve might be a murderer, but nutty, desperate stuff like that wasn’t his style.
    “How do you know?” asked Koehler.
    “I’m not going to tell you yet. Instead, I’m going to go on with the line of reasoning I followed. I just asked myself a question, that’s all— if Jacob wanted to find Lindsay so badly, why would he kill the man he’d hired to find her?”
    “You tell me, Miss Kincannon.”
    “Well, he might if Birnbaum were blackmailing him. Birnbaum tried to blackmail me into giving him information. If he did that routinely, with everyone he investigated, pretty soon he might come upon a piece of information about his client that was worth a lot more than he was getting paid. So maybe he’d blackmail his own client.”
    “That’s pretty farfetched.”
    “Not at all, Mr. Koehler. Only Birnbaum didn’t do that. Crazy people don’t know they’re crazy. What would be the point of trying to blackmail Jacob on that account?”
    Koehler shrugged. “Because that’s what he found out about Jacob. Just like Lindsay’s tape says. She called Brissette to find out if she could get custody of Terry on grounds that Jacob’s marbles were missing. Brissette told Birnbaum about that. He was a coke freak and a politician and therefore vulnerable to blackmail. So Birnbaum didn’t have any trouble getting it out of him. Birnbaum didn’t even realize how valuable the information was. He didn’t know what I know, what the person developing Kogene’s new corporate identity would have to know— that your company’s going public in a couple of months.”
    “And you have only one asset, don’t you?” Sardis made it a taunt. “Without Jacob Koehler, there really is no Kogene.”
    “Nonsense. Marilyn’s almost as fine a scientist as Jacob is. And we have others—”
    Sardis shook her head. “I mean from the point of view of investors. And at this point, your investors are brokers, aren’t they? Your investment banker is probably even now putting together a syndicate to offer your stock. The whole deal will fall through if they lose confidence in the company.”
    “Any company with a good product is going to do well.”
    “But you don’t have one, do you? If word gets out Jacob is bonkers— like in a custody case that gets lots of media play— it’s good-bye public stock offering and good-bye Kogene and good-bye every cent Steve Koehler ever made or stands to make.”
    Koehler’s filbert eyes were starting to narrow and make him look mean.
    “Birnbaum figured out all