Читать книгу Morgan O'Brien Mysteries 2-Book Bundle - Alex Brett - Страница 8

The Thai Kitchen was up Cambie within walking distance of the hotel. I showered, put on a clean pair of jeans, and pulled on my all-purpose leather jacket. I left the laptop hidden under my shirts but took the file and my briefcase with me. The traffic was still imposing, but it had eased up enough for the cars and trucks to move along at a steady, if slow, pace. I took my time walking up Cambie, checking out the wood-oven pizzerias, upscale Chinese take-outs, and clothing boutiques.

The interior of the restaurant was dark, lit mainly by flickering candle lamps, so it took me a moment to locate Sylvia. She was sitting by the window sipping an amber liquid from a tiny glass. She looked like an exotic gypsy who at any moment might pull out a deck of tarot cards and lay them across the table. I’d expected her to be wan and pale, but from where I stood she looked vibrant, almost excited. I crossed the room and wrapped my arms around her, kissing her Montreal style, once on each cheek, then I slipped into the chair on the other side of the table.

“I thought you weren’t allowed,” I said, nodding to the glass.

“What’s it going to do, kill me? Actually, it’s sherry. Vile drink, but it stimulates the appetite. Not as effective as a joint, but cheaper and more accessible. You look well for a woman still working in the vipers’ nest, although you could use a little blush. I like the hair, though. Very nice.” She reached out and lifted a lock at the side. When Sylvia had left Ottawa my dark, wavy hair had been shoulder length, but I’d recently had it cut short in a layered style that was fashionable, easy to care for, and stayed out of my eyes.

“Yours looks spectacular.” “Well, thanks sweetie. Then I’ll leave it on. I think it goes well with my bone structure, don’t you?” She patted her hair, looking coy, then she caught my expression. I hadn’t realized it was a wig. “Get used to it, babe. If you can’t take the heat get out of the kitchen. Anyway, I’m in remission, sort of. On my last CAT scan the little bugger’d stopped growing.”

“Just like that?” “Apparently they do that sometimes. Might be the radiation, but I’m also off estrogen. Which is a drag, so to speak, because I’ll start to grow a beard. Won’t the undertaker get a surprise.”

I hated these conversations. When I had first met Sylvia, she had been David: brilliant, sensitive, and doing a Ph.D. in the macho world of physics. Over the years, as he gradually went through the process of changing sex, I was witness to the taunts, the threats, and the intolerance of our learned colleagues. It sickened me. A year ago, when she was diagnosed with a tumour embedded deep in the cerebellum, the surgeon had been blithe.

“Probably the hormones,” he’d said. “Guess you shouldn’t have tinkered with God’s work.” And he’d turned and walked out of the examining room. So, while she still had the strength for humour, I couldn’t say the same.

“So what’s that mean… in the long term?” “Who knows. Who cares. Anyway, lighten up. Order a beer. I’ve got lots to tell you, and we have to get through it fast before Elaine the drain gets here.”

“Sylvia — “ “She’s such a downer. She was better for a while — I swear she was bonking someone but she wouldn’t tell me who — but now she’s back to her usual obsessive-compulsive self. Boring. And around me? Too depressing. I don’t need that.”

I smiled. “So things haven’t improved.”

“I tried. Asked her out for lunch a few times. But honestly? Mutual avoidance works for me. I invited her here for you, for old times’ sake, but if she slips and calls me David she’s dead. Of course, being Elaine, she could-n’t make it for dinner. She’s much too busy. But she said she’d come for dessert.”

When the waiter came over he gave his full attention to Sylvia. She was remarkably beautiful as either a man or a woman: fine boned with curly black hair, pale skin, and an eye for dramatic detail. Tonight, she was wearing a red scarf in her hair, a snow white cotton peasant shirt that almost glowed in the dim lights, and, although I hadn’t checked under the table, I assumed she had on her signature tight black jeans with elegant black boots. Like any self-respecting woman she avoided panty hose unless driven to it by some social necessity. I resigned myself to being invisible for the remainder of the evening and passed on my order to her. In record time the squid salad had appeared.

“They know you here?”

She glanced at the waiter disappearing into the kitchen and smiled. “Him? He’s not my type. I like a little bit more on the feminine side.”

That was a change, but I wasn’t sure I wanted the gory details so I busied myself with the salad. After finishing her Ph.D. in physics, Sylvia left the labs to get a second doctorate in Library Science, where the level of tolerance for sexual diversity was higher than in the sciences. She quickly became an expert in large scientific databases and is known for her ability to pluck a single molecule from a sea of information. While officially there is no such thing as a forensic librarian there should be, because Sylvia’s online searches could expose scientific fraud like an x-ray reveals bone. So, while I ate the squid salad Sylvia picked at her food and talked.

“I started with three searches, comprehensive. Riesler, Edwards, and the third guy you named: Jacobson. Edwards looks clean. Only publishes in first-tier juried journals. Doesn’t publish a lot, but he’s consistent. No duplication. The progression of articles looks reasonable, one experiment leading logically to the next. No surprises here.”

“Is he a team player?” “Guarded team player, I’d have to say. He publishes alone, or sometimes with two or three other people, all well regarded. One is his ex-advisor in California. He doesn’t go in for group gropes with a hundred names on the publication, if that’s what you mean.”

“Graduate students?” “He hasn’t been out that long. Probably has a couple now, but they haven’t published yet.”

“What about the work?” “Hey babe, I only do titles and abstracts. Read the fine print.” Then she bent down, rummaged in her briefcase, and came up with a small pile of journal articles neatly bound with an elastic band and labelled Edwards.”But I do pull articles. Your bedtime reading. It beats a cold shower.”

I took the bundle and slipped it in my briefcase. “How would you know?”

“Ooh. Nasty. But I’ll take that as a compliment.” She looked like she was about to say more, then stopped, gave a small shake of her head, and got back to the topic.

“I can give you a snapshot, but don’t sue me if some error creeps in.” I nodded. “Edwards works on salmon — all these boys do — and Edwards’s schtick is stock identification. He’s developing some kind of technique to determine the stock of a salmon by removing a scale and zapping it with a laser. If it turns out that it works, you could tell, for instance, whether a particular salmon came from Canada, Washington, Oregon, or Alaska. Russia or Japan for that matter. Just by zapping its scale. In fact, if his recent stuff proves out, you could even go so far as to say what stream the fish hatched out in and when, which in salmon, tells you very precisely what stock it’s from. I gather Fisheries needs this kind of information to monitor endangered stocks.”

“But you could also use it to enforce quotas on particular stocks.”

“That’s an interesting interpretation.” She thought for a moment, then continued. “I’d say it’s too preliminary for that, but if it works… “ she let her voice trail off and leaned back in her chair.

I’d finished the squid salad, which was seriously spicy and wonderfully divine, when the waiter arrived with the noodles and curry. I ordered another beer. I motioned to Sylvia’s plate with the curry spoon, but she waved it away. “You eat, I talk. We’re on billable hours here.”

When I was about to protest, the eating, not the billable hours, she averted her gaze, so I let it go.

“What about Riesler?”

“He was fun. Must publish twenty papers a year, and he’s first author on every one. What a guy.”

I smiled. Both Sylvia and I knew that a man in Madden Riesler’s position spent about as much time in the lab as I did at the dentist, and I have good teeth. As the head of a large university research lab his time would be fully booked with teaching, committees, grant applications, and the endless paperwork generated by any large bureaucracy. So the science was coming from his students: a legion of post-docs and graduate students toiling away at lab benches in an almost medieval system of apprenticeship. The fact that Riesler’s name appeared first on all the publications told me a lot about the man. A more enlightened supervisor would have given the privilege of first authorship to the student who designed and carried out the work. It wasn’t as though Riesler needed the recognition. So he was either greedy, despotic, or insecure, none of which were particularly appealing characteristics.

“Anything else?”

“Not really, except he’s a splitter.” I looked confused. It was her turn to laugh. “He divides up his work into the smallest publishable increments. Say you run three experiments that all attack the same question but from slightly different angles. Normally you’d publish the results in a single paper. A splitter divides it up into three different papers. Three publications. It pads the publishing record, and publishing, as you know, is the name of the game.”

“But it’s acceptable?”

“Acceptable? Sure. Most people would never notice, unless they do a comprehensive search over several years. Let’s just say Riesler understands the game, and he’s damn good at playing it.”

“So our man is ambitious.”

She leaned over the table and lightly brushed my cheek with her fingers. “Ambition isn’t a crime, Morgan. Some of my best friends are ambitious.”

I knew what she was saying, and I didn’t like it. “But it’s another piece of the puzzle. What else?” She leaned back in her chair, examined me for a moment, then signalled to the waiter, who brought over another sherry. I could see a flush working its way up her cheeks. She took a sip then continued, in no hurry.

“He works on salmon migration and stock identification.”

I perked up. “The same area as Edwards.”

“Yes…” There was a noticeable pause. “And no.” I stopped in midbite and looked up. There was a glint of mischief in her eyes. She’d found something. “Same goal, to identify stocks, but totally different technique. Riesler pioneered the use of genetic fingerprints for stock identification. The theory is that all fish from a stock will share certain genetic characteristics. In other words, if you look at their DNA then you’ll be able to tell what stock they’re from. Sort of like the DNA fingerprinting they do in criminal cases. It’s turgid stuff, lots of blurry photos of DNA sequence data and endless descriptions of procedures and protocols. More your ballpark than mine…”

At this point Sylvia bent down and extracted another bundle of papers from her briefcase, this one at least four inches thick. On top were the search results, listing all of Riesler’s publications for the past twenty years. That alone was a tome. Underneath were journal articles. She handed the sheaf to me.

“… and they’re all yours. Thank you for using Canada’s National Science Library. By the way, I’ve just given you the review papers. Drop by tomorrow and I’ll pull whatever else you want. We can do lunch.”

I nodded to the pile. “So what’s your take on this?”

“On the surface, and that’s all I can give you, it looks to me like you got two guys in direct competition, and if these are commercially viable projects — if we’re talking patents and technology transfer — it’s more than just academic. You could be talking big money. Oh, you also asked about Jacobson.” I nodded. “They’re all in there.” She motioned to Riesler’s pile. “Must be Riesler’s Man Friday… or whatever. Everything he’s ever published is as second author to Riesler. The boy’s obviously got no life of his own.”

I packed Riesler’s stack of papers in my briefcase. That at least gave me somewhere to start. Sylvia and I chatted about her new life in Vancouver until the waiter came to clear the plates, then I checked my watch. Two beers, a jog, and a three-hour time change — I wasn’t going to last much longer. I also had one more item on my agenda that I couldn’t discuss in front of Elaine. I held off until the waiter was out of earshot, then I leaned forward.

“I have a favour to ask. A big one.” \

“And you need my permission? Since when?” “Can you trace a reference search?”

There was a pause. “What do you mean?”

“If I know the date and time that a remote search took place, and the number of minutes it took, could you tell me whose account it was charged to?”

“Legally or technically?”

“Technically.”

“I was afraid that’s what you meant.” She paused for a minute, analyzing the problem, then continued. “It could be done. I’d have to hack my way into the financial system, and that would be break and enter or trespass, as if you care.”

“But it is possible.”

“No guarantees, but I think so. I assume this isn’t a formal request.”

“It’s an informal request between two very good friends who always help each other out.”

“Ah. The very good friends angle. If I get caught you support me to the end of my natural life. You can’t pop me off because I become inconvenient.”

Since the prognosis on Sylvia’s life could be calculated in months I thought it was a deal I could live with. I gave her the information from the header, which she scribbled in a notebook.

“But if you can’t pick it up fast, get the hell out. I’ve got some other avenues I can try.”

She looked up from beneath her lashes and smiled wickedly. “I’m not worried. It’s challenge that keeps me young. But I still have to account for the time.”

Since there had been no cover sheet, and hence no charge-code, in the Network file, I had given her Bob’s personal charge-code to cover the time for the searches. I smiled. “Just bill it to the code I gave you. Triple time and a half if you have to.”

Just then the waiter approached the table.

“Is there a Morgan O’Brien at this table?”

I looked up at him. “That would be me.”

“You have a call. You can take it at the cashier.” Sylvia shook her head and muttered, “Figures.”

I picked up the phone. “Hi, Elaine.” I heard a sharp intake of breath on the other end. Guilt is such an overpowering emotion. “Give it a break. Nobody else knew I was here, so it had to be you.”

She let out her breath slowly. “Sorry, Mo…” She was the only person in the world, other than my mother, who ever got to call me that, “… but I can’t make it. I’m still waiting for Cindy — she’s my graduate student — and she’s supposed to be bringing in live fish from Weaver Creek that should have been here an hour ago. I don’t know where the hell she’s got to, but if she does-n’t turn up soon screw her, she can unpack them on her own. Could we meet tomorrow morning instead?”

“You name the time. I’ll take you out for breakfast.”

We arranged to meet at eight in a café just outside the university gates. I can’t say I was upset. Watching two of my closest friends go at each other wasn’t my idea of a relaxing way to end the evening. As I sat back down in my chair Sylvia raised her eyebrows in a question. I nodded.

“Asshole.” I winced. She looked up at me sharply. “I can’t help it if it still hurts.” I reached across the table and took her hand. She didn’t pull away, but turned to look out the window so I couldn’t see her face. I felt a flash of anger at Elaine so intense it hurt. Why couldn’t she just accept Sylvia for who and what she was?

By unspoken agreement we made light conversation over a crème brûlée and finished up the evening early. Sylvia looked tired, and it was one in the morning for me. When I got back to the hotel I fell into bed and was asleep in minutes.

The phone rang at 5:00 A.M. I was on Albion Street and I had my mother by the scruff of her soiled nightgown, yelling at her, shaking her and yelling, angry at something she’d said or done or maybe not done. It didn’t seem to matter. She flopped about like a rag doll, and it slowly entered my head that she was a rag doll, and I shook harder, watching with detachment as the head flopped from side to side. Then I heard the phone ringing far away. I held onto my mother with one hand and with the other groped behind me, slowly changing dimensions from the dreamworld to a high-rise hotel on 12th and Cambie.

“I thought you’d be up by now.” It was Duncan. He was sounding pert and jolly, designed, no doubt, to annoy me. When I didn’t answer, he continued. “She wasn’t amused.”

“It’s five in the morning.”

“No, it’s not. It’s eight. Anyway, I’ve got meetings booked all day and I wanted to get back to you on the Patsy thing.”

I pushed myself up to a sitting position and cleared my throat. “Shoot.” It sounded more like a croak than human language.

“She went all wooden and stared at me, didn’t say a thing for a minute, then said something warm and caring like ‘Good luck in your new position. Now you’ll have to excuse me.’ Then she reached for the phone and glared at me until I was out of the office. A real people person.”

I was slowly resurfacing. “That’s it?”

“Not quite.” I waited. Duncan was going to play this for all it was worth. “Well, of course I wanted to say goodbye to Lydia, who, by the way, wasn’t at her desk. So I waited a few minutes to see if she’d come back — “

“Out of Patsy’s line of vision.”

“Possibly. Anyway, I did happen to overhear Patsy asking for Bob. Lucky for him he wasn’t there, because she wasn’t very nice. Michelle was told to find him and get him up to the fifth ASAP.”

Good old Bob. Never in the right place at the right time. So Patsy knew I had the file by the end of yesterday’s workday, making her the most likely candidate for Bob’s office visitor when I called later that evening. My head had finally cleared enough for me to remember what I’d wanted to ask Duncan. I scrabbled for my briefcase, which was lying on the other bed.

“Duncan, can you do something else for me?” He didn’t reply, so I assumed he was calculating the extra hours he could tag on to his babysitting bill. I found the Network file and pulled out the remote reference search. “Could you find out who was in the building last year on October thirteenth between one-thirty and two in the afternoon?”

“You mean you want me to say goodbye to the commissionaire as well?”

“It would be a nice gesture.”

It was a bit of long shot, but sometimes long shots paid off. The NCST building is locked on the weekend. If someone had done that search from their office computer they would have to stop off at the commission-aires’ kiosk and sign out a key to get into the building. I was pretty sure that the commissionaires’ office would keep those records for several years back.

When I had hung up the phone I briefly considered pulling the covers up over my head and refusing to face the day, but instead I braced myself, rolled out of bed, and headed for the shower. I had lots of reading to do and I needed to get my alias in order. Bottom line, Elaine could be the key to this whole damn thing, and if I was going to get her onside I needed to be prepared and have all my wits about me.