Читать книгу Morgan O'Brien Mysteries 2-Book Bundle - Alex Brett - Страница 14

I walked slowly up to Madden’s office, running over what I’d discovered. For one thing, I now knew that the Network financial files were located in JJ’s office. That gave me a goal for this evening. It was also clear that JJ was a glowing candidate for embezzler of the year. Day trading in biotechnology stocks was as risky as running the ponies. You could lose a lot of money in a very short time. With signing authority on Network funds JJ would have no problem investing —and losing — a few hundred thousand that didn’t belong to him. I’d have to ask around, see what rumours were circulating on his private life and finances. Dinah would be a good source there, and JJ’s ex-wife might also be very forthcoming on personal details, especially if the final divorce settlement was as acrimonious as I imagined it might be.

But, while it was tempting to slot JJ into the role of the villain, I still felt uneasy. For one thing, Riesler wasn’t what I had expected, so was my preconceived picture of him completely wrong, or was he acting out an elaborate charade? And then there was Graham. How did he fit into this? Was he part of my case or the proverbial red herring? And then, of course, there was still Edwards, the disgruntled junior professor. Before I could make any real progress I’d have to interview him.

By this time I’d reached the top floor. I pulled open the vestibule door just as Riesler came barrelling through.

“Oh. Good,” he said when he saw me. He was wearing a grey tweed sports jacket over his denim shirt and had car keys in his hand. He spoke with the urgency of someone in a big hurry. “I just called down to JJ. He said you were on your way here.” He put his hand on my arm. “I’m terribly sorry, but something urgent has just come up and I can’t make lunch today.”

“Not a personal emergency, I hope,” I said sympathetically.

He shook his head. He’d moved around me and had one foot already on the stairs. “Nothing like that, but urgent nonetheless. I’d still like to get together. How about dinner tomorrow?” He was backing down the stairs.

“Dinner would be fine.”

“Good. Then I’ll find you tomorrow. We can firm up details then, and again, terribly sorry.” Then he turned and disappeared down the stairs.

The truth is I was just as happy to be on my own. I was beginning to feel both cranky and jet-lagged. I needed a burger, a nap, and a run — in that order — before I could process any more information. I headed back down the stairs, picked up my coat and briefcase in Elaine’s lab, and left the building. I’d be back soon enough. I had a busy night ahead of me.

The day had broken into brilliant sunshine, and unlike the east, where the maples blazed in colour, the trees here were just beginning to show a hint of red on the tips of their outermost leaves. I trudged up the hill to my car, contemplating the case as I saw it so far. There were so many disparate threads it was hard to know which ones, if any, were connected. This was not what I had planned for my three-day, quick-and-dirty case in Vancouver.

The parking lot was packed, a sea of brightly coloured car roofs glistening in the afternoon sun. I threw my briefcase in the back seat and took the main gates out of Southern. I kept my eyes peeled for a burger place, but quickly realized that the area was too trendy for such vulgar commerce, and by the time I’d hit 12th Avenue I was back on automatic pilot, thinking about Riesler.

Why didn’t he match his publication record? I ran that over in my mind. I tend to believe that people don’t change no matter how hard they try to convince you they have. My mother, for example, gave up drinking at least once a month with a solemn promise to never touch another drop. She died a raging alcoholic when I was sixteen. On the other hand, building a character profile based on a publication record was far from exact, especially since publication records are always out of date. The articles I was seeing in journals today were based on experiments that were run at least a year ago, and probably two to three years ago. If Riesler’s epiphany was recent it wouldn’t be reflected in his publishing record for at least another year. I made a mental note to go over his publications one more time. Maybe I’d see something telling: a hint of a new direction or a citation to a paper “in press.” What I really needed, though, was a contact; someone who had known Riesler over the years and seen the kind of change he must have undergone. It would have to be someone who could be trusted to keep the conversation secret. I filed that problem away. Finding the right person was a perfect job for Duncan.

Back at my hotel I zipped across the street, grabbed a take-out burger from the White Spot, and took it back to my room. The message light on the phone was flashing. It was probably Bob, so I ignored it. After finishing my burger I tried to read one of Edwards’s journal articles, but within minutes my eyes glazed over and my eyelids began to fall shut. I put everything aside, lay down on the bed, and was unconscious in less than a minute.

My power nap was rudely interrupted by the phone. I didn’t answer it, just let it ring, but when it stopped I called down to the desk. There were three messages from Bob, but the latest was from Sylvia. Call immediately. I looked at my watch. It was three-thirty, half an hour before our scheduled meeting. I dialed her office number and she picked up on the first ring.

“Hey babe, screening your calls?” “Trying to keep Bobbins a continent away. What’s up?”

“Your boy Connell didn’t come up clean, and I suggest you get yourself over here before you waste your time on other things.”

“Can you give me a snapshot?”

“Patience, my friend, is a virtue, and anticipation is everything. I wouldn’t want to ruin your fun. Anyway, you have to see it. It’s a visual thing. And it’s good.” She paused. “It’s very good.”

My run was short, fast, and brutal, but it woke me up. Forty minutes later I was back in my car heading west toward the university and the federal government lab complex that sits at the edge of the property. I showed my ID at the door. The guard scrutinized it, gave a curt nod, and handed it back. He buzzed Sylvia, and a minute later she was through the swinging doors and towing me back down the hall at a healthy clip. White coats were scuttling this way and that, and I could hear high-tech equipment clicking and whirring in the rooms on either side of the corridor. I seemed to remember that this section had something to do with engineering: friction and wear research, bearings, lubricants, that sort of thing.

Sylvia’s office was reclaimed lab space. A bench ran across one wall and a government-issue couch — lacquered birch upholstered in tangerine — was pressed up against the other. A large desk faced the window, but the blinds were closed. The only light in the office came from the three computer monitors sitting on the desk, each with a different screen saver. Cockroaches skittered across one. The middle screen scrolled “Resistance is Futile” in royal blue. On the third, a black kitten leapt after mice that popped out of thin air and whizzed across the screen. I found all the movement disorienting, particularly since it was the only source of light.

Sylvia crossed to her desk. She picked up two file folders and chucked them onto the coffee table in front of the couch. “Have a seat.” She nodded to the couch. “There’s a light behind. You want coffee?”

I nodded and sat down. She turned to the lab bench, where a small drip coffee machine sat between the gas outlets and a sink. I switched on the light and busied myself with the files. When the coffee was gurgling and the office infused with that sublime aroma, Sylvia came over and sat down by me. She shook her head with a “tsk, tsk” and gathered up the papers I’d spread across the coffee table.

“You have to do this in a specific order. It’s like a voyage of discovery; a story unravelling. First, take a look at this.”

She pulled out a reference search and slid it across to me. It was Graham Connell’s publication record. I read it over: six publications, all in reputable journals.

“It looks okay to me. He’s bright, Riesler’s wonder boy, so I’m not surprised.”

She was smiling like the Cheshire cat. “A young man with a brilliant future, but nothing to raise suspicion. So take a look at this.” She handed me another sheet.

The coffee had stopped brewing. Sylvia got up and crossed to the bench, giving me time to look at the second document. It was another reference search for Graham, but this one picked up Connell spelled with both one L and two. There were over twenty citations, way too many for a graduate student. I looked more closely. Sylvia had organized the list by date rather than by subject. Within a six-month period Connell had published in eight different journals, and none of the journal names were familiar. Not only that, he’d published in an astounding range of subjects, from salmon egg survival to bioinformatics. If I hadn’t actually met him (and none of the journal editors would have) I would assume that he was a principle researcher in a lab the size of a Wal Mart. Out of curiosity I skipped ahead to the next page. Sure enough, a year later he’d returned to the same journals to publish follow-up articles, and that took serious commitment and organization. This guy was a professional.

Sylvia came back with the mugs and slid in beside me. I glanced up at her. “Holy shit.”

She nodded. “He’s good, isn’t he. He’s so good I almost missed it, but they all get cocky when they think they have the system beat.” I could see a flush of excitement on Sylvia’s pale skin. For her, it was the thrill of the chase. The kill, which was my job, was trivial. A necessary but inconsequential act. She leaned forward, cradling her coffee.

“I didn’t like his record. It was too pristine, and that’s not how real people work, so I pulled some of his papers and checked the citations. There it was. Reference to an article by G. Connel, published in some obscure journal, with a glowing review of the paper in his introduction. The little jerk, laughing up his nose at everyone. It took me an hour to find a database that carried the journal, but once I did it was like opening Pandora’s box, the crap just spewed out. But you haven’t seen the best part yet.”

She pulled the other file from under the papers, and held it up. “The other search you requested.”

She pulled the top paper and handed me a page with the header “Okada, Elaine: search query for 1/89 to 10/02.” My stomach contracted. Elaine couldn’t be involved in this. I took a deep breath and scanned the entries on Elaine’s record, but nothing hopped off the page. I looked up at Sylvia.

“I don’t get it.”

“Maybe this will ring a bell.” She pulled two reprints from the file. The top one was entitled Odour-coding properties of Bufo boreas (western toad) olfac-tory cortical neurons, and Elaine was first author, followed by several of her colleagues at Berkeley. The second reprint — Olfactory neurons in Bufo cognatus (great plains toad): odour coding properties of cortical neurons — had only one author: Graham Connel.

“Damn.” I threw both reprints on the table. “So he’s not fabricating the work. He’s stealing it.”

“He could be doing both. By tomorrow I’ll be able to tell you the names of the people he’s ripping off and we can eliminate the plagiarisms and see what we’re left with, but it’s going to take a bit of digging. He’s altered things just enough to obscure his trail. This,” she motioned to the two articles on the table, “was serendipity. It walked off the screen and hit me in the face when I was pulling Elaine’s publications. I knew you’d be relieved.”

I flipped to the end of Elaine’s list and checked her latest publications. They were all from her time at Berkeley, and I needed something more recent. Maybe Elaine had told Sylvia more than she told me? I closed the file.

“Who’s funding Elaine’s work? Do you know?” Sylvia paused, then exhaled dramatically. “Jesus, O’Brien, what are you on to? Elaine’s clean. She’s the victim, in case you missed that point.”

“Elaine had an affair with Edwards, the guy who made the complaint.” I watched Sylvia’s reaction carefully. “Did you know that?”

“It’s not the sort of thing she’d tell me, is it.” “Well, she didn’t tell me either.” “Big deal. You’re not her mother.” “Agreed. But guess who’s funding the hired help?” She shrugged. “Riesler, the accused. She lied about that too, told me the relationship was arm’s length. Why?”

Sylvia shook her head. “You two never change. You’re still two big, stupid dinosaurs hellbent on collision. Well, get this straight, O’Brien. I am not going to be between you at the moment of impact. Been there; done that; never again thank you very much.” She patted my arm. “My advice to you? Evolve, babe. Language works. Just ask her what the hell is going on.”

“Oh, that’s great advice from you. Too bad — “

I was interrupted by the phone. Just as well. It gave my brain time to catch up with my mouth and take the necessary steps to shut it down.

The conversation from Sylvia’s end was rather dull. “Ah huh… ah huh… ah huh… No kidding… You’re sure?… Bingo. I owe you. Next time in Ottawa.”

By the time she’d hung up I was feeling contrite. She turned from the phone but didn’t come forward. Instead, she leaned back on the desk and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Now, what were you saying, O’Brien?”

“Me? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Except thanks for the good advice.”

“You must be a psychic. That was the call on your seven-minute reference search.”

“I thought you were going to hack your way in?” “There are easier ways to get things done. I called in a favour: one of the clerks in the billing office. No big deal.”

Then she said nothing, just watched me, expressionless. Finally I said, “What do I have to do, grovel?”

“That would be nice.” Then she broke out into a big grin. “Patsy. The search was billed to your boss.”