An Unladylike Murder, page 9
part #1 of Jessica Sloan Mystery Series
Sloan asked, “What did Jill say?”
“She said that if you want to be innovative and advance things forward, you have to be willing to get some things wrong.”
Thank God, I’m not using Jill’s device
Cutter and Sloan looked at each other.
Cutter said, “Can you give us a list of people who have lost family members?”
“Given the circumstances, yes, I can arrange for that.”
“I would also like a list of investors and the amounts they have invested.”
“I can do that.”
“Did Jill receive any threatening letters or emails?”
“She did.”
“Can we see them?”
The COO looked at the lawyer who nodded.
“Yes.”
Sloan asked, “Have you had to lay off any employees as a result?”
“We have. Let me guess, you probably want their information as well.”
“Yes. We’d also like their photographs. Please email or text them to me as soon as you can today.” Jessica passed him her card. “My email is on there.”
“I’ll make sure it happens.”
Sloan glanced at Cutter who nodded for her to keep going.
“What will happen to the company?”
The COO sat back in his chair. “We have enough cash to continue for another six months. After that, it will depend on our investors and public acceptance. With Jill no longer able to lead us, the outlook is not a good one.”
“Why is that?”
“All CEOs cut corners and speak glowingly of their company. If they didn’t, employees would never join them and investors wouldn’t invest.” He rubbed his head. “I have to wonder if she’d had better advisors if her story might have been different.”
Jessica didn’t like what she was hearing. What if iPoirot fails like Jill’s product did?
“Are you saying her investors were part of the problem?”
“No comment. All I’ll say is that we’re working with the main investor to reach out to potential buyers but so far, none have expressed any interest. Since we are in default of a loan from Coyne and Kumar, they have the right to take ownership of all of our assets.”
“Are you finding it hard to retain employees?”
“Even before Jill’s death, we had a hard time keeping staff.”
“Why’s that?”
The lawyer chose his words carefully. “Jill had unrealistic expectations from her employees and built a culture of fear. If she didn’t think they weren’t working smart or hard enough, she let them know it and if they didn’t impress her immediately, she didn’t just fire them, she blackballed them so they had a hard time finding another job. As of this morning, my guess is that eighty percent of the phone calls coming in are from headhunters trying to pick us clean. In six months we won’t have any employees left.”
Sloan said, “We’ll also need to review your books.”
The lawyer answered. “For that, you’ll need to show us a warrant.”
Cutter said, “We’ll get you one. In the meantime, I would ask that you immediately advise all employees to retain relevant documents and electronic documents. All document management policies such as routine destruction must be suspended.”
“The SEC advised us to do the same thing two weeks ago.”
Sloan was surprised. “Are you under investigation by the SEC?”
The lawyer answered. “We are. Criminal indictments may not be far away."
“Good to know. I’ll assume you’re in compliance then.”
The lawyer answered with a slight nod.
“One last question then. Who is leading the company?”
“That would be the main investor who is Chairman of the Board, David Coyne. By the way, Coyne had insisted on a large key man insurance policy for Jill.”
“Who benefits from the policy?”
“Why Coyne’s investment company, of course. No role in a startup is more crucial to a company’s success than that of the CEO, especially when they are the founder and maintain authority. Normally, they would have to do an extensive search for a new CEO. Given the circumstances, they’ll probably get to pocket the payout.”
The lawyer made a production of looking at his watch. “Is there anything else? We have meetings.”
“Where were you last night?”
“At home with my wife?”
“We’ll need her phone number for confirmation.”
“Fine.”
Cutter turned to the Chief Operating Officer. “Where were you last night?”
“I was at home.”
“Can anyone verify that?”
“No. My wife is visiting her sister in Portland, Oregon.”
Cutter said, “If both you gentlemen can give me your business cards in case we have more questions, we’ll let you get back to work for now.”
As soon as they were outside the building Cutter phoned David Coyne’s firm.
“Coyne and Kumar Ventures.”
“David Coyne, please.”
Cutter pulled the phone away from his ear so Sloan could hear it.
“I’m afraid the offices are already closed and everyone has gone home for the day.”
“What time in the morning does David Coyne normally get into the office?”
“Let me check… Okay, it says here that he’ll be in at nine tomorrow morning.”
“This is Detective John Cutter of the San Francisco Homicide Department. Could you please get a message to him that my partner and I will be at his offices to talk to him at nine sharp. Please tell him to set aside an hour for us.”
Cutter disconnected. “You did well in there. It was as if we were a seasoned team working together.”
“Thanks Cutter.”
“Since neither Forensics nor the Medical Examiner has called, we should call it a day. I’ll meet you in the squad room at 7:30 tomorrow morning so we can be at Coyne and Kumar by nine.”
“So we don’t have to work tonight?”
“Nope, but be prepared to burn the midnight oil until we solve this case once we hear from Fitz and Forensics. Fitz will give us the cause of death and the Lab will give us the forensic evidence that the prosecutor will use at trial. The modern juror sees forensics magically proving cases every night on television and at the movies. So they expect it.”
Sloan said, “You’d think people would be smarter than that.”
Chapter 23
Wednesday
The next morning at 7:30 a.m., Sloan and Cutter were surprised to discover Lieutenant Brown was already in her office.
When Brown saw them enter the squad room, she went out to them. “I checked with the Lab. They told me they were hopeful they’d have some results for you today.”
“Thanks. Sloan and I are about to drive down to see Jill’s main investor.”
Sloan asked, “Any word on information from the system yet?”
The Lieutenant looked miffed. “The videos have been entered but it’s having a few startup problems, or so they told me. Something about syncing.”
Sloan noticed her partner grinning as they left the squad room.
As they got into the Taurus, Sloan put her thermos full of ice-cold filtered water into her cup holder while Cutter put a paper cup full of police black coffee into his.
As they drove south towards Sand Hill Road, they used the time to discuss the events from the day before.
“What d’ya think of Jill’s company, Sloan?”
“I wouldn’t invest in it if I was you.”
Cutter chuckled. “That’s the problem with a lot of the tech companies, they don’t have a real revenue stream. When they hit a pothole, they can vaporize overnight. Whereas a brick and mortar company has assets and locked in paying customers giving them a longer runway to try and turn things around.”
“That’s why they raise risk capital. When they rise quickly like her company did, then find out the technology doesn’t work as promised, it can disappear overnight. That’s why I’m glad iPoirot is from a proven company.”
“I feel sorry for the people whose lives depended on Jill’s device. They probably died more quickly than they should have… Why did you ask them to rush the staff pictures?”
“I want iPoirot to run them against the theatre patrons.”
“Good call.”
“What did you think of the lawyer?”
“Hmm. To me, he sounded like he’s busy looking for his next job.”
“I agree. How about the COO?”
“The same. Neither one of them seemed too upset that Jill was murdered. Normally my gut would tell me that they were signaling they were guilty. But in their cases, I think they’re just pissed their stock options are now worthless.”
Sloan passed a slow moving gardener’s truck. “What do you expect to learn from the main investor today?”
“I want to know why he sent Jill to the theatre. Then I want to ask him why he chose the people he did to accompany her.”
“Let’s discuss that night a bit before we get there.”
“Sure, I’ll start. Perhaps it was a question of opportunity. The suspect saw her and acted quickly.” John knew this wasn’t the case but wanted to see how Jessica reacted.
“Except people don’t normally carry a large syringe full of poison waiting for a chance to use it. Especially not to the theatre.”
“Good point, Sloan.”
“Given that Jill was killed in the Women’s Restroom and the guards didn’t say anything about an odd-looking woman that may have in fact been a man leaving the restroom, do you think it must have been a woman?”
Cutter snorted out his next words. “Given that this is San Francisco, I’m not ready to guess one way or another.”
“How did the killer know that Jill was going to the theater that night?”
“As far as we know, the only ones that knew were the investor who set it up, the housekeeper, the limo driver, the guards and that Rent-An-Actor fellow.”
“The next question is how would they have known which stall she was in and how did they get the stall door open?”
“From what the guard said, there wasn’t a line up waiting to get in and most of the women must have already used the facilities and returned to their seats. It would seem likely that the killer was in the restroom before Jill entered and watched which stall she went into.”
“That’s possible.” Sloan kept her eyes on the road as someone passed her. “What question is eating at you?”
“My biggest question is why they went to all the steps they did to kill her? Why not just shoot her with a gun, or stab her with a knife? Why inject her with a friggin’ syringe in the restroom?”
“Maybe once we hear from Fitz or the lab they’ll be able to tell us.”
“I hope so.”
“Do you think the killer could have gotten out before the performance ended?”
“Yes. Once they killed her, why wait around? Why not just walk out of the theatre?”
“Good point. Since the theatre has no cameras we should check surrounding CCTV cameras in the area and see who we spot near the Orpheum in the time during and just after the intermission.”
Sloan said, “Do you think there’s any chance they got out disguised as a part of the Forensics’ team or as a cop?”
“Yes, but not likely. To have done that they would have had to have taken the clothes off one of ours and we would have been told about it by now.”
“So, at the moment we don’t know the cause of death. We don’t know for sure if we’re looking for a man or woman or how they were dressed. Is it this painful waiting for the lab and Medical Examiner to get back to you on every case?”
“Yeah, at this stage we have to consider every possibility and run it down. Once we have the lab results and cause of death, we can start to focus. Look, the Sand Hill exit is coming up. What were you able to find out about this investor guy that we’re going to see?”
“His firm is relatively new but is already one of the top three most successful venture capitalists in Silicon Valley. David Coyne is well respected and he’s considered to be the Venture Capitalist you really want to sit on your Board of Directors.”
“Why?”
“He looks after the founders even if he ends up having to replace them.”
“Were you able to find any dirt on him?”
Jessica turned right onto Sand Hill Road. “No dirt, no. But it doesn’t mean there isn’t any, just that he has the money to have a great Public Relations firm keep it off the internet search engines.”
Chapter 24
It was obvious to Jessica that this was John Cutter’s first time visiting Sand Hill Road. As he exited the car he said, “I don’t know what I was expecting, but these buildings don’t seem to be anything fancy.”
It was also Jessica’s first time in the hallowed location, but she didn’t let on.
Fifteen minutes later, they were sitting in the voluminous modern office space of Coyne and Kumar Ventures waiting for David Coyne to see them.
The office had white walls and displayed large pieces of modern art. Cutter said, “It’s not my style, but the interior is impressive.”
Sloan nodded as she knew how much money was available to the right entrepreneur with a great idea.
Her phone buzzed.
She stepped outside the office to take the call.
As soon as she hung up, she re-entered and spoke to Cutter. “Jill’s company emailed me a file with the photographs of the ex-employees and copies of all the emails and posts they’ve received from upset relatives. I sent them onto Forensics to enter into iPoirot, so they can be run against the theatre audience.”
“If it starts working, that might actually be helpful.”
Smartass.
Sloan followed Cutter’s eyes as an attractive woman walked up to them. “Mister Coyne will see you now.”
She pointed up to the open second level where a casually dressed man was standing on a white metal catwalk. He wasn’t smiling but he did motion at them to come up to his office.
Cutter stepped aside to let Sloan go up the white metal staircase first.
David Coyne didn’t wait for them. He’d re-entered his office and was sitting, tapping his fingers on his sleek glass desk.
Sloan was surprised that he seemed to be in his late thirties or early forties.
Coyne was used to being in control and let them know it as soon as they entered. “I don’t care who you are. I don’t appreciate how you set up this meeting. I had an important meeting scheduled to listen to an interesting startup’s pitch this morning. I had to reschedule them and they are very upset.”
Cutter completely ignored Coyne’s posturing. “My name is Detective John Cutter and my partner is Detective Jessica Sloan. We’re from San Francisco Homicide. We are investigating the death of Jill Gillberry. I believe she was the CEO of one of your investments.”
Jessica noticed how John had made the word ‘investments’ sound dirty.
Cutter kept talking. “Naturally we just assumed that you would want to be fully cooperative with our murder investigation.”
Coyne pursed his lips so tight they almost disappeared.
A second later he forced a half smile and held up the palm of his right hand. “Let’s not get off on the wrong foot. Since you’re here now, I’m happy to cooperate with you. It’s a crying shame that Jill was killed.”
“I said that she was dead. How do you know she was killed?”
“You’re joking, right? It’s been all over the morning television news as well as the tech news blogs for the past two days. I really don’t appreciate your attitude, detective”
Sloan decided she should break the tension between the two men. “Can you tell us where you were on Monday evening, Mister Coyne?”
“I was at a restaurant with my partners and support staff celebrating one of their birthdays.”
“What time was that?”
“We arrived by seven, were seated right away and didn’t leave until just after ten.”
“Can we please have a list of everyone who was there and their contact information?”
“Yes, but surely, you’re not thinking that I’m a suspect.”
“Part of our job is checking out everyone who was involved in her life. Now, what can you tell us about Jill and her company?”
David Coyne leaned back in his leather chair and steepled his fingers. “Jill was a bright and hardworking founder of a disruptive portable medical device company.”
“Can you confirm that you were her largest investor and that you were on her Board of Directors?’
It appeared to Jessica that Coyne raised his nose as he spoke. “You’re correct on both assumptions.”
“What happened? Why has there been negative press lately?”
Sloan watched with interest as David Coyne took a deep swallow before he answered.
“It tuned out that Jill snowballed my due diligence experts. In hindsight, I probably should have demanded more peer reviews since they are common in medical research.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Coyne’s eyes turned cold.
He sat up straight and pulled his chair closer to his glass desk. “She snowballed me until the very end.”
Sloan wanted to know how someone so rich could be so dumb. “Then why did you invest?”
A smile crossed Coyne’s lips before he flinched as if he had stomach pain. “In my business the odds are that most investments will fail while we hope that a few will do okay. What we count on is that one will really hit it big. Jill’s company was supposed to be that one for my venture fund.”
Sloan asked, “What exactly did her company do?”
“Did you ever watch Star Trek?”
“I’m afraid it was before my time.”
Cutter jumped back into the conversation. “I’ve seen some episodes.”
