New Tricks by David Rosenfelt

than I would have expected. It looks
     like one of those mini medical center complexes that have sprung up everywhere. The entire thing looks like it could have
     fit in one of the bedrooms of Timmerman’s now exploded home.
    The small lobby is not exactly a beehive of activity, matching the feeling that the exterior gives off of a slow-moving environment.
     Not what one would expect from the cutting-edge company that Timmerman was said to run.
    The directory still lists Walter Timmerman as the chairman and chief executive officer, with Thomas Sykes next in line as
     chief operating officer, so when I approach the receptionist I give her my name and ask to speak to Sykes.
    “Is Mr. Sykes expecting you?”
    “Anything’s possible,” I say, “but only he can really answer that.”
    “What is it about?”
    “I’m representing Steven Timmerman.”
    She picks up the phone and relays my message to whoever answers. The response is obviously positive, because within moments
     a young woman comes out to lead me back to Sykes’s office.
    The main part of the building is surprisingly alive. It is one large laboratory, with what appears to be the most modern equipment,
     and a large staff of earnest people using them. If anyone is over thirty-five, they’re aging well. The average basketball
     team is older than this group.
    Sykes himself seems under forty, though he is clearly the elder statesman here. He smiles and shakes my hand, welcoming me
     to Timco, as if I am joining the team. I thank him and enter his modern, well-appointed office, which has a large painting
     of Walter Timmerman looking down from the wall, as if he were Chairman Mao.
    “Thanks for seeing me,” I say.
    “No problem. But I doubt I can help you much; I don’t know Steven very well. The truth is, I’m not sure I’d want to help you
     if I could.”
    “Why is that?”
    “Well, if Steven… if Steven did this…”
    “That, as we say in legal circles, is a big ‘if.’ ”
    Sykes nods vigorously. “I understand. Innocent until proven guilty. I get it.” He shrugs. “But I really don’t know him well
     at all.”
    “I’m more interested in learning about Walter Timmerman.”
    He smiles. “Walter, I knew.”
    “Good. Please tell me about him.”
    “What do you want to know?” he asks.
    “Everything. I’m looking to fill in the blanks, and right now blanks are all I have.”
    He nods agreeably. “Okay. Well, there’s Walter Timmerman professionally, and privately. Two very different people.”
    “Start with professionally,” I say.
    “One of a kind,” he says. “An amazing, amazing man.”
    “I’m going to need a little more specificity than that.”
    “He was collaborative, inquisitive, brilliant… all he cared about was the science and the idea. He treated everyone whose
     ability he respected as an equal, even though he had no equal.”
    “What exactly did he do?”
    This question sends him headlong into an extended scientific dissertation, of which I understand maybe ten percent. When I
     hear the word “biology,” I interrupt. “So he was a biologist?”
    “Are you a basketball fan?” he asks.
    “Yes.”
    “Asking if Walter was a biologist would be like asking if Michael Jordan was a shooter. Of course he was, but he was so much
     more. Think of it this way. Usually you have chemists and microbiologists working side by side. Walter was the best of both;
     I like to say he lived at the intersection of Chemistry Boulevard and Microbiology Avenue. It was an incredible advantage
     for him in what he was doing.”
    “What was he doing? Particularly recently.”
    “Well, I can’t say exactly, because lately he wasn’t very talkative about his work, and whatever he did was in his lab at
     home. But for years he was studying the physical aspects of life; he understood it better than anyone who ever lived. He understood
     that the human body, any living organism, is a collection of chemicals.”
    “So you’re talking