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insisted that everyone live up to her lofty expectations. But all things considered, I can’t think of anyone who would have a motive to murder her.”
    “As the Executive Director of Horizon Cancer Research Center, what exactly is your role?” Dupree asked.
    “Although I do have a modest equity position in the company, Lauren ran the entire operation. I was merely a figure head—like the Queen of England. She was the one who secured the primary investor and kept the checks rolling in. She had all the power and all the authority to run the research center as she saw fit. She respected my feedback, of course, but ultimately made all major decisions.”
    “With all due respect,” Dupree said, “why did she hire you as her Executive Director? Why did she need you if she ran the whole operation?”
    “Lauren needed an oncologist on staff. I had just retired from my private practice, and frankly, after only a few months, I was bored to death. Don’t believe what people say about retirement. It’s not what it’s cracked up to be. Anyway, when Lauren offered me this opportunity, although somewhat skeptical, I found myself fascinated with the whole concept of what she was trying to accomplish. I’m talking about the possibility of developing the most significant medical discovery in the last hundred years.” He paused and blotted his forehead with a tissue. “If anyone else had tried to recruit me, I likely would have passed. But Lauren’s credentials in the medical research industry were impeccable. So, as a widower with no living relatives on the east coast, with nothing much to do but read and go fishing, I accepted on the condition that I not have to work more than fifteen or twenty hours a week.”
    “Dr. Crawford’s mother told us her daughter had scheduled a press conference that was supposed to take place yesterday morning,” Dupree said. “Do you know the nature of that press conference?”
    “Lauren had been working very closely with Dominic Gallo, Deputy Director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, a division of the FDA responsible for reviewing data and clinical studies on proposed new drugs and treatments. With Gallo’s assistance, Lauren planned to announce that Horizon was only months away from submitting an application to the FDA for an extraordinary treatment that could lead to a cure for certain cancers.”
    “So, who’s going to follow through with this now that she’s out of the picture?”
    “Good question. Now that Lauren has paved the way, I’m sure there would be several takers in the research community. In fact, Hyland Laboratories, the biggest pharmaceutical company in the world, contacted us about a year ago with a proposal to form a partnership. With their resources, it would have dramatically improved our operation. But Lauren, strong willed and oftenstubborn, turned them down. Hyland may still be interested in a partnership, but at this particular juncture, we’re in crisis mode and to be honest, I’m not even thinking about a successor.”
    “Tell me something, Dr. Mason,” Dupree said. “Considering the sensitivity of the data and research you deal with every day, how do you protect it?”
    “All of the data, clinical trials, and the FDA application are stored on a secure server with what they call an Advanced Encryption Standard System similar to what the U.S. government uses for top secret files. It is also backed up through an independent data protection company. Only Lauren and I had authority to access the information on the server. Lauren regularly downloaded the latest data to her laptop. On the afternoon before Lauren was murdered, she and I downloaded virtually everything on the server to her laptop computer because she was planning to work from home on some very critical statistics and needed all the research data. Her goal was to submit some preliminary documents to the FDA before the end of the week. Unfortunately, when she was murdered, she was