“Yes, Doug told me about those.”
“Then what else do you want me to add?”
Michelle raised a conciliatory hand. “Well, no disrespect or anything, Eric, but one person’s assurance isn’t really enough in this kind of situation. I’d need to go through the records you have of exactly what was said at the time, and any references that pertain. Also, it would help if you could point me to other specialists in the field who could give an opinion.”
“Yes, yes,” Eric said, nodding several times. “Of course you can have all that. . . .” He read the expression on her face that said there was more and let his eyebrows ask the question.
“Do you really think that was all there was to it?” she said. “Or could those imaginations and those pieces of journalism have had a motive?”
“Oh, I see. You have been talking to Doug, haven’t you.”
“Just doing my job,” Michelle reminded him.
“Jealousy at Microbotics. Fear of being left behind. A scheme concocted to discredit the technology. . . .”
“It wouldn’t be the first time that something like that has happened,” Michelle pointed out.
“Practically anything you can name has happened, but that doesn’t mean every piece of tabloid gossip is right,” Eric countered.
Michelle hesitated, wondering if it would be diplomatic to bring up the subject of Vanessa’s previous husband just then. But Corfe had been particularly anxious to make known his suspicions regarding Jack Anastole’s involvement. She could hardly get this close and shy away now. “Wasn’t Jack supposed to have had documented proof?” she said finally.
“Oh, you know about him too?”
“He said he had evidence that something like that was going on—the names, everything.”
Eric flashed a humorless grin. “That’s what he said. And for a while I took him seriously. But when the time came for him to produce it, it all suddenly evaporated. And so did he—but I suppose you know all that too.”
“Isn’t it possible that he could have been bought off?” Michelle ventured.
Eric showed both palms and made a face. “Anything’s possible. But any scientist would be suspicious of a proposition contrived for no other reason than to explain away a lack of evidence. So should any lawyer.” He looked at her challengingly, as if to say that as far as he was concerned that wrapped it all up. Michelle bit her lip.
“Why would he make something like that up?” she persisted.
“Who knows? Perhaps he didn’t actually make it up—not consciously, anyway. More likely he had his suspicions, just like Doug, got all fired up to build a case around them—and wishful thinking did the rest, for a while. But by the time Jack came to see things more soberly, he’d implicated some influential people at Microbotics and elsewhere. When he realized there was nothing in it, he accepted a peace offer and made himself scarce until the dust settled.”
Michelle waited for a moment and then said neutrally, “Who’s contriving explanations now?”
Eric’s head jerked up sharply. He could have reacted with pique, anger, or a curt denial. Michelle tensed inwardly. But instead, his face creased into a grin of admission that she found warming. “Okay, you’ve got me,” he conceded. “So, I take it that you buy into this conspiracy theory of Doug’s. But, then, we’ve already agreed that lawyers have to be suspicious of everything, haven’t we?”
As it applied just then, Eric’s observation was even truer than he realized. As a result of the further research she had done and her subsequent reflections, suspicions had begun forming in Michelle’s mind of possibilities a lot more serious than just a disinformation conspiracy—suspicions that she had so far not confided even to Corfe. She studied Eric’s face, looking for a clue to whether this was the time to broach them. For clearly, Eric hadn’t made the connection, any more than Corfe had.
“Very much so,” she agreed. “As you say, about everything.”
Eric caught her tone. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It does seem . . .” Michelle reconsidered her words and began again, articulating slowly. “If there was . . . something, to what Jack was claiming, there are people who might construe what happened to him, when it did, an extremely fortuitous coincidence. . . . Wouldn’t you agree?”