Paul Madriani: The Jury Part 27

"If there's no audit trail, it's not going to tell us much."

"There's some stuff from Cybergenomics in there. I saw the letterhead as I was copying. Didn't have time to read it all, but glanced at it. It looks like normal covering correspondence to me. No mention of Epperson, or Jordan. The letters were addressed to the financial affairs office at the university with copies to Crone."

I pick up Harry's shoes, hand them to him to get them off the desk, and start pawing through the papers, a stack about five inches thick. I go through fifteen, maybe twenty pages quickly, to see if anything jumps out. It doesn't.

"They bind all the working papers together each year. Put 'em between covers in those plastic spiral things and stack 'em on a shelf. I get the sense n.o.body really looks at them. Makes it a b.i.t.c.h to copy, though," he says.

"Hmm?"

"The spiral binding. Gotta turn each page. End up losing the margins in the copier." Harry sounds as if he's become an expert on this.

"Some of it's gonna be hard to read. The action seems to be in the budget augmentations," says Harry, "and new applications for grants."

"Did you see any references to genetic graying?" I ask.

Harry shakes his head. "Like I say, I didn't read every page. But then I wouldn't expect to find anything in there on that. If Crone was siphoning money from the grant to put ethnic evolution into overdrive, he wouldn't have been likely to doc.u.ment it in a grant application. You think?"

Harry is right.

"What's the process for the money?" I ask. Age-old adage-follow the money.

"From what I'm told, everything from the state goes into the university's general fund. Gets disbursed from there. Grant money is sequestered in separate accounts and doled out by the university in accordance with the written conditions for each grant. The vice chancellor for fiscal affairs has the final word if there's any dispute. Unless it gets into court."

"How often does that happen?"

"Never," says Harry. "Though according to the woman I talked to in the financial affairs office, disagreements happen more often than you might think. From what I'm told, flaps over grant money are usually handled at the administrative level. The courts are a little too public for comfort."

"Sounds like you got a lot of information from this lady."

"I took her to lunch," says Harry.

I give him an arched eyebrow.

"Nothing fancy, just the student union," he says. "Between soup and salad she tells me there's a lot of stuff goes on people don't know about in higher education. A lot of it comes under the heading of entertainment. Deans and chancellors, it seems, have to entertain. They buy a lot of s.h.i.t, pianos and furniture, university logos painted on the bottoms of their swimming pools. This seemed to be a real problem with her, so I listened," says Harry. "Give somebody a shoulder to cry on, sometimes you hear something. According to her, some of this stuff may not be entirely necessary."

"I'm shocked," I tell him.

"And sometimes it disappears. The university set gets real sensitive about scandal. Seems the chancellor at one of the other campuses took a dive on insurance fraud a few years back. It's one thing to fudge on the state budget, another to screw over an insurance company. Seems this chancellor spent a bundle of state money buying silverware to entertain," says Harry. "Somehow they misplaced it between trips to Europe. So they file an insurance claim on behalf of the university. Problem was, when they found the mahogany case with the silverware a month later, they forgot to tell the insurance company. Cashed the check."

"Oops."

"To make a long story short, this lady thinks there ought to be more insurance companies involved in education audits. That or the mob," says Harry. "Either way."

"Sounds like she loves the people she works for."

"According to her, the university is anxious to keep a low profile, especially when it comes to gifts, donations and the like. They don't like judges looking over their shoulder, asking accountants to get out their calculators. This makes the givers nervous," says Harry. "So disputes are almost always handled in-house. You get two professors p.i.s.sing on each other over who gets what for research, the chancellor's office steps in like the pope, resolves it and everybody kisses the ring and moves on. You screw with the chancellor, you find yourself in academic h.e.l.l."

"That means finding records of anything rising to the level of an argument is not likely," I say.

Harry points a finger at me like a pistol and drops the thumb like a hammer. "Bingo."

"According to the woman in the financial office, you have a director. In this case, Crone. Then you have a.s.sociates, other people involved in aspects of the same project getting funding."

"Jordan and Epperson," I say.

He nods. "If the money is apportioned and funding gets shifted around like a sh.e.l.l game, somebody finds out theirs was spent on some other part of the study. Well. You see what can happen," says Harry. "In that case, whoever got screwed might complain to higher-ups."

"Do we know whether that happened here? With Jordan and Crone?"

"Exactly what I was thinking," says Harry. "I asked the lady in the office. She didn't know. She says it would be in the doc.u.mentation, but we might have to read between the lines to find it. And that's not all."

"What?"

"There's no form," says Harry. "You'd think these people would come up with some kind of a form you could look for if there was a dispute. But they don't seem to want to do that," he says.

"For obvious reasons," I say.

"Right. So what do they do? They just send a letter to the vice chancellor. That's if we're lucky."

"What do you mean?"

"Sometimes it's just an e-mail message asking for a review of the grant and a ruling on an item."

"Let me guess. There are no copies of the e-mail messages in your pile of papers?"

Harry nods. "Academic confidentiality," says Harry. "You can't look at anybody's e-mail without a specific subpoena."

Before I can say a word, he goes on: "I've already prepared one for Jordan, Crone and Epperson. Problem is, Jordan's computer was re-programmed after she was killed. The cops got into it, took what they wanted, all under the careful eyes of university lawyers. Then they turned it back in to the university. G.o.d knows where it is now. I looked at their evidence sheet. There was nothing in the e-mails that came remotely close to a complaint on funding.

"Crone's machine is still collecting dust in his office," says Harry. "But it's not likely he would have complained about anything. And Epperson. I a.s.sume he has his. So we'll take a look."

"There must be a server somewhere."

"Paul, listen. I'm tired. Worn out."

"It is the university's e-mail system, right?"

Harry nods.

"There ought to be something in a server somewhere if Jordan complained about funding. See if we can subpoena the server?"

"Fine," says Harry. A long sigh. He makes a note. I can always tell when Harry's. .h.i.t the wall. I'm treading on thin ice.

"Too bad there was no federal money involved," he says. "In the grant."

"Why's that?"

Before he can answer, the phone rings. I look at it. It's the back line. This number is not listed. Both of us thinking the same thing-Epperson calling.

I pick it up. "h.e.l.lo. Law office."

"Is Harry Hinds there?"

I don't recognize the voice on the other end, but it's not Epperson.

"Who's calling?"

"Max Sheen."

"Just a second." I start to hand the phone to Harry.

"What did you mean, 'too bad there was no federal money'?"

"Who is it?" he says.

I hold the phone back.

"If there were federal funds, it's more likely there would have been an audit at some point."

"Ah."

"Who is it?" he asks.

"The press calling. Your friend Sheen." I hand him the phone.

Harry takes it. "h.e.l.lo."

I continue looking through the stack of papers on my desk, part of the original grant proposal. There are entire lines of typed print blocked out by black marker. Cla.s.sified material. No doubt information subject to protection as trade secrets. Arriving at conclusions is going to be like putting a jigsaw puzzle together without all the pieces.

"Why? What's happening?" asks Harry. There's a tone of urgency to his voice that causes me to look up.

"What is it?" I ask.

He shakes his head at me. Doesn't answer.

"When?"

"Are you sure?"

"What's happening?" I ask.

Harry cups his hand over the mouthpiece to the receiver.

"Epperson is dead."

IN THIS ANCIENT INDIAN VILLAGE OF COSOY.

DISCOVERED AND NAMED SAN MIGUEL BY CABRILLO IN 1542.

VISITED AND CHRISTENED SAN DIEGO DE ALCALA.

BY VIZCAINO IN 1602.

HERE THE FIRST CITIZEN.

FRAY JUNIPERO SERRA.

PLANTED CIVILIZATION IN CALIFORNIA.

HERE HE FIRST RAISED THE CROSS-HERE BEGAN

THE FIRST MISSION.

HERE FOUNDED THE FIRST TOWN, SAN DIEGO, JULY 16, 1769.