Cutting Edge (7 page)

“That’s not what you said when I wanted to get the goods on that embezzler last year.”

“You wanted to break into his office and hack his computer. I’ll stretch the rules, Sean, but I’m not sending you to prison.”

“I’m good.”

Duke shot him a glance. It was true, he probably would have gotten away with it, but Sean was already playing close to the edge and it was Duke’s responsibility to keep him on the legal side of the gray line.

“Arrogance will be your downfall, little brother.”

Sean grumbled. “Yeah, yeah. Okay, I get the plan — get close to the people in Cole’s group and find out if any of them are talking about arson or murder or Butcher-Payne. Or, anyone who seems to be acting weird, guilty, or unusually nonchalant about arson.”

“You’re here to observe, not act — understand?”

“I got it.” He made a move to get out of the car, and Duke grabbed his arm.

“This is serious, Sean. You have good instincts with the brains to match, but you’re reckless.”

Sean brushed off his hand with a frown. “I’m not a kid who needs to be bailed out of trouble, Duke. I know what I’m doing. I thought you trusted me.”

“I do.”

“You say you do.”

“Sean—”

“Look, I’m not going to do something stupid. You agreed that I’d be a partner by the time I was twenty-five, and I only have eighteen months to go. Or was that just talk to keep me in line?”

“You know it wasn’t—”

“Then let me do this my way. I know what you need. If any of Cole’s people are involved, I’ll find out who and give you the information.”

Duke had to let go. It was hard. He didn’t know if it would be any harder if Sean was his son instead of his brother. But Duke, fifteen years older, had always been protective of Sean. And after their parents died, Duke had raised him while their older brother Kane continued to fight other people’s wars. Duke hadn’t always done a great job — he pushed Sean hard and was often critical — but he was proud of his younger brother.

Duke said, “I already called the admissions director, he’s expecting you.”

Sean raised an eyebrow. “Someone you know?”

“An old friend.”

“Why am I not surprised you know just the right person to get me inside?”

“He might suspect I have another reason wanting you here, but I told him there was a glitch with your diploma from MIT and you need a social science requirement you’d missed as an undergrad. It happens that Professor Cole’s class fits the bill. He didn’t asked questions. By the time he gets your files from MIT, you’ll be out of here.”

Sean shook his head with a half grin. “And you think I break the rules.”

“I’m bending them.” He added, “The only thing, you might want to tone down your background.”

“In what?”

“Having two bachelor of science degrees and graduating from MIT might be a tip-off that you aren’t a liberal-arts major.”

“Got it.” He glanced toward the building, but Duke saw his mind working.

“What do you have up your sleeve?”

“Nothing. Trust me, I can blend in, no problem.”

“One of them could be a killer. Don’t get cocky.”

He grinned and winked. “No cockier than the average Rogan.”

While Quin continued to work her magic at the crime scene, and the M.E. moved the body to the morgue, Nora drove with her partner Pete Antonovich to the town house of Melanie Duncan, Jonah Payne’s head research assistant.

“You were right,” Pete said as he parallel-parked down the street from Duncan’s residence. “The water pump was sabotaged, and whoever did it knew
exactly
what they were doing. Either an inside job or a smart guy with an engineering background. Popped the locks like a burglar, and inside the substation the water was shut off at the source. No computer knowledge necessary, just knowing which screws to turn, so to speak.”

“And I’m guessing no fingerprints or tools left around to identify the culprit,” she said.

“The sheriff’s forensic unit is printing and documenting the scene, but I don’t think they’ll find anything. The arsonists also blocked the camera.”

“How?”

“Simple. Put on a mask and tape a piece of cardboard to the camera lens.”

“You’d think,” Nora said, “that in the twenty-first century we’d find a better way of surveilling remote locations.”

“There is,” Pete said as he knocked on Duncan’s door. “But city government is behind the curve.”

Melanie Duncan came to the door in a robe, her wet, dark red hair dripping down her back. Other than the simple black-framed glasses over bright blue eyes, Duncan was completely antithetical to Nora’s image of what a female researcher should look like. She was tall, voluptuous, and attractive.

“It says no solicitors,” Duncan snapped when she opened the door.

Nora showed her badge. “Special Agent Nora English. My partner, Pete Antonovich, FBI. Melanie Duncan, correct?”

She frowned, a typical expression when confronted by government agents.

“What do you want?”

“May we come in?”

“What do you want?” she repeated, not opening the door any wider.

“There was a fire at Butcher-Payne,” Nora said. She watched Duncan carefully. First reactions were the most difficult to fake, except for the most accomplished pathological liars.

“A fire?” She sounded skeptical, her brows drawing together. “Why are you here? The—” She glanced at Pete, then back at Nora. “The FBI?”

“Ms. Duncan—”

“Dr. Duncan,” she replied automatically. She stepped away from the door, and Nora and Pete entered. “I need to call Dr. Payne,” Duncan said. “I don’t see why you didn’t call him, or why the FBI is involved with a fire. Our lab isn’t a government facility. We have a grant, but—”

“Dr. Duncan, why don’t you have a seat?”

She remained standing, door open. Nora pushed it closed. “Jonah Payne died in the fire.”

She blinked. “Died.” Her voice was flat. “A fire at Butcher-Payne? No, that’s not possible — he’s in Tahoe.”

Nora raised her brow and glanced at Pete. Pete said, “I spoke with Jim Butcher this morning. He didn’t tell us Dr. Payne was supposed to be in Lake Tahoe.”

“Jim? Jim’s in L.A.” She rubbed her forehead and walked over to the adjoining kitchen, where she poured herself a cup of coffee. Her hands shook, Nora noted, and she was clearly dazed. Possibly a very good actress, though Nora didn’t think Dr. Duncan was acting.

“Dr. Payne’s body was found in his office. The fire started at approximately one-thirty this morning.”

“Jonah is in Lake Tahoe,” she repeated emphatically. “He went up there Saturday afternoon. He’s driving back right now.” She picked up her cell phone, which was charging on a small secretary desk in the makeshift dining area.

“Dr.—” Pete began, but Nora put her hand on his arm and shook her head once.

It was clear after a few seconds that voice mail had picked up. With a catch in her throat, Duncan said into the phone, “Jonah, it’s Mel. Can you call me, please? It’s important.” She slowly closed her phone. “He’s coming back this morning. We have a ten a.m. staff meeting.”

“Why did he go to Tahoe?” Nora asked.

“He goes the last weekend of every month,” she said.

“Every month?”

“As long as I’ve been working for him. He has a cabin. It helps him think. He works seven days a week…” Her voice trailed off. “Are you certain? I mean, if there was a fire, maybe it’s not Jonah.” Her voice cracked.

“Duke Rogan, security consultant, identified the body, which was discovered in Dr. Payne’s office.”

The scientist sat heavily in a chair. Her bottom lip quivered and she bit it. Tears welled in her eyes but didn’t spill over.

Nora glanced at her watch. It was just after eight in the morning. Gently, she asked, “When did you last talk to Dr. Payne?”

“Friday when I left work. It was after seven. Told him to enjoy his weekend…” Her voice cracked again, and she looked at the wall beyond Nora.

“Do you have the address for his cabin?”

Duncan slowly rose and went to her desk. She flipped through a notebook, scribbled on a piece of paper, and handed it to Nora, then sat back down as if on autopilot.

“And he always goes to the same place?” Nora glanced at the address, then put the paper in the back of her notepad.

“It’s his second home. Why would he go anywhere else?”

A regular schedule. Criminals loved habits. They were easy to monitor, giving stalkers and others valuable information about their prey.

She quickly sent an email to the Lake Tahoe satellite office asking them to check out the address as a possible crime scene, giving them basic info on the case.

“Do you know if he arrived in Tahoe?” Nora asked.

She shook her head. “W-what happened?”

There was no use sugar-coating the truth. “The fire was arson.”

“Arson? You mean on purpose?” Suddenly her eyes flashed, anger layered over grief. “Is it the same people who burned down Langlier? And the lab at Sac State?”

“On the surface, it appears to be a similar M.O.,” Nora admitted, “but we’re still in the early stages of our investigation. We have the best people gathering evidence—”

“That didn’t do you any good with the other fires!” She jumped up and paced. “Langlier was nearly two years ago. What are you people doing? How could this happen? How could Jonah be dead?”

Nora would forgive her outburst — this time. She herself was intensely frustrated with the slow pace of the biotech arson investigation. That Nora believed someone affiliated with Professor Leif Cole’s group was involved meant nothing. Until she could tie him to the crimes, she couldn’t compel him to turn over anything, or even force him to talk to her.

But she would continue to push him. Homicide gave her a fraction more weight behind her. And if Cole was true to the anarchist’s creed, then he would be repulsed that someone died. Maybe — finally — he would talk to her.

A small consolation to Jonah Payne.

“What about security?” Dr. Duncan continued. “Duke was there? What happened to his fabulous, foolproof security system? Someone get in? The bastard. Jonah felt
safe.”

Nora resisted the urge to defend Duke Rogan. She had no idea if his system had failed or was hacked or simply never turned on, but she’d seen the pain in his face after he’d recognized Jonah Payne. He blamed himself, and there was no doubt in her mind that right now Duke was working on finding out exactly how the security failed.

Nora doubted it had been Duke’s fault if there was a security failure. She’d worked with him too often to believe he wouldn’t have triple-checked any system he put his name on.

But Nora needed to figure out how the arsonists got into the lab to start the fire. Plus, where they’d released the animals — if there’d been any on the premises. Every anarchist or radical environmental group Nora had investigated avoided killing people or animals. At the heart of the movement were politics, and they knew that murder would turn public sentiment against them. Any deaths were unintentional, which made the Butcher-Payne arson doubly interesting, based on the M.E.’s assertion that Payne had been incapacitated prior to the fire.

Nora avoided Duncan’s rhetorical question about security and asked, “How long have you worked for Dr. Payne?”

“I’ve been there for five years, since they opened the new lab. I have a Ph.D. from USC in biochemistry and master’s degrees in both human biology and wildlife biology.”

Nora made notes as Duncan spoke. “How many people work at Butcher-Payne?”

“All of Butcher-Payne? We have two divisions. Jim’s group is all about media and fund-raising. They have ten, twelve people on staff. The lab has six full-time people, plus a vet who comes in twice a week.”

It seemed from her tone that Dr. Duncan didn’t like Jim Butcher very much, or at least didn’t like the public focus of his division. “How was Dr. Payne’s relationship with his partner?”

“They were best friends,” Duncan said flatly.

“But you don’t like him?” she pushed.

“He’s a spinner. He doesn’t care about what we’re trying to do. He has a degree in human biology, but his master’s was in business. All he cares about is bringing in the money. And that’s important, I know it is, but it feels icky.”

Icky? “How so?”

She shrugged. “Jim isn’t a bad guy, but he’s not Jonah. He’d bring in money that required us to work on specific projects, and so we had to put aside our primary work because the special projects funded our operations. And Jonah did it. He wasn’t always happy, but he did whatever Jim wanted.”

“What was your primary focus?”

She took a deep breath. “Jonah was on the verge of curing the bird flu — not by inoculating humans, but by genetically engineering birds predisposed to be carriers. By manipulating their genes, we inhibit their ability to contract the virus, which in turn prevents them from passing on the virus to other birds or humans. Influenza kills approximately half a million people worldwide every year. If we can’t find a way to stop the eventual pandemic from avian flu, that number will grow exponentially. Six months and we would have been ready for broad testing and trials. We’ve already started our internal tests. Now it’s all gone. It’ll take years to re-create. And without Jonah … I don’t know.” She squeezed her eyes closed.

Something Duncan said tickled the back of Nora’s brain, but before she could formulate her question, Pete asked, “Have Butcher-Payne or Dr. Payne received any threatening letters? Visits?”

“What day don’t we get them? Ask Jim, he’ll have them. No one even knew or cared what we did in the lab until last year when Cole’s idiot group protested outside the building.”

“Professor Leif Cole?” Nora asked.

Duncan scowled. “Yes. They should have all been arrested. They blocked traffic and harassed our employees, not to mention putting up disgusting pictures of dead and bloody animals they claimed were from animal testing. That’s not how we operate. But just because we are using gene therapy on birds, they attack us!”

Nora said, “This group has indicated through their graffiti and subsequent letters sent to the media that they’re anti-biotechnology, not an animal-rights group like ALF.”