“That’s very kind of you. It is nice to have someone here who actually appreciates my cooking,” she said, shooting a sharp, yet playful glance in the direction of her husband as she placed another entrée next to the last.
“Watch it, Seth, she’ll expect you to clean your plate and you haven’t even tasted it yet,” Pedro warned, smiling fiendishly at his wife.
“I’ll take whatever you don’t finish, partner,” Leo said, his voice hopeful as he sat to Seth’s left. “It’s the least I could do.”
It was apparent that the table had been prepared with special care that evening. The settings were laid out with precision, along with the plated food circling the ornamental vase in the center of the table. Wine glasses were placed in front of each adult as they chose a place to be seated. A single wine glass already sat at the head of the table, Pedro’s customary position. Marc and Lita rushed to seats on either side of their mother, acting as if they hadn’t eaten in days.
“Marc, elbows off the table,” said Michelle, and Marc quickly complied.
Leaning close to his daughter, Pedro whispered in her ear. “It’s your turn to say grace sweetheart.”
Without hesitation, Lita leaned forward, closed her eyes, and clasped her little hands tightly under her chin. She opened one eye to peek around the table to make sure that everyone else was following suit, which they were. “Dear God in heaven,” she started. “Thank you for the day and this food we are going to get to eat, and my teddy bear out in the car,” she continued as her mother stifled a smile. “Also, thank you for bringing Uncle Leonardo and Mr. Alexander safely to visit us.” She opened her eyes for a moment and gazed up at her father, who squinted down at her, wondering what the delay was about. “Oh, and help daddy to be less grumpy....Amen,” she finished with a flourish.
Agreeing with the sentiment, Leo showed his support. “AMEN little sister!” His exclamation earned him a mildly annoyed glare from Pedro.
Greedily surveying the lavish meal that had been laid out, Seth realized that Michelle could not have had more than just a few hours’ notice in which to prepare. “You shouldn’t have gone through all of this trouble for us.”
“What do you mean? You don’t think I do this every night?” said Michelle, watching her guest squirm awkwardly.
Not even pretending to play along, Pedro took Seth off the hook immediately. “Oh man, I wish!” ladling a heap of glistening black beans onto his place, he recalled recent, less appetizing meals. “Yesterday we had Burger King, and the day before that, now that I think of it.”
She knew he was joking, but Michelle wasn’t going to let a crack like that go unanswered. “Well then, guess what you’re having tomorrow?”
“Leftovers?” After more than a decade of marriage, Pedro learned to have a good one-liner at the ready.
Prying the bowl of black beans from his brother’s hand, Leo grabbed the serving spoon like one child taking another’s new rattle. “Leftovers? You don’t get no stinking leftovers,” he quipped in an extra-heavy Mexican accent as he created his own mound of beans in the center of his plate.
Though they didn’t understand the reference, the children giggled at the conversation as they waited eagerly for the adults to finish serving themselves.
Still trying to take in the array of delicacies spread around the table, Leo found what he’d been truly waiting for. “Oh! You weren’t kidding about the mango salsa!”
Careful not to spill any of the gorgeous yellow, red, and green salsa, Michelle passed the bowl to Leo. “I know better than to kid around with you when it comes to food.”
Scooping a sizable portion next to his beans, Leo passed the bowl to Seth. “Wait’ll you try this stuff partner, it’s gonna blow your mind, bro.”
Watching the others dig in, Seth looked at his plate as if overwhelmed. “It all looks so wonderful. Where do I start?”
Mumbling through a mouthful of food, Leo pointed to his friend’s plate. “Start with the Queso Fundido.”
Seeming even more confused, he used his fork to move items around like a surgeon conducting an exploratory procedure. “Uh, which one is that?”
In his wheelhouse as a culinary tour guide, Leo described what to look for. “It’s the one with all the cheese on top. It’s got chorizo, a type of Mexican sausage, in it. It’s one of my favorites!”
“Try some of the black beans, too,” recommended Pedro. “She makes them with cumin and piloncillo. They’re rather sweet.”
Lifting an opaque green bottle, Michelle offered to fill Seth’s empty glass. “Would you care for some wine? It’s a red mission wine from Mexico. My brother brought it to us on his last visit from Baja.”
Enticed, Seth handed her his glass. “I’d love some. Thank you.”
Filling the wide, round bowl halfway Michelle handed it carefully over Lita’s head and back to Seth.
For the next few minutes, the room was silent save silverware clanking against ceramic plates as everyone savored the fine meal. Even the usually boisterous Marc was content to shovel in food rather than try to talk between bites.
Pedro looked around at his family, clearly amused. “I haven’t heard that in a while.”
“What’s that?” asked Seth as he savored the spicy flavors playing on his unaccustomed palate.
“Silence,” Pedro stated seriously. He took a big bite of mango salsa and smiled.
Laughing in unison, the entire dinner party happily enjoyed the remainder of the meal.
It turned out that Leo was correct: There would be no leftovers for Pedro this time.
Chapter 10
Whispers in the Dark
Madison, Wisconsin
University of Wisconsin
LONG AFTER DARK, the halls of this area of the University Hospital were quiet except for cleaning personnel and the occasional orderly checking on patients and restocking supplies. The lower levels of the building were even more deserted. As it was on most days, the computer lab remained open to provide a quiet place for any graduate student to study or grade papers for the professors who were already settling down to sleep for the evening. Two such students sat across from one another at a large desk in the otherwise deserted lab. The conversation of the young man and woman could be easily heard echoing down the vast, empty hallways.
“What’s wrong with him?” asked the young man from behind round-rimmed glasses.
“He’s just not my type, Kevin. Can we get back to work here?” pleaded the flustered young lady, her green eyes flashing.
“C’mon, Erin! What’s wrong with him? He’s smart, funny, and he’s not freaked out by gingers,” smiled Kevin, only half-heartedly attempting the sell.
Wrinkling her nose in distaste, Erin offered an alternative. “Great, I’ll lend him my ‘I Love Lucy’ collection.”
“Don’t worry about it, I told Scott you were already taken,” winked Kevin. He laughed, “I’ll tell him about the DVD counter offer you made though!”
Smiling, Erin reached her hand across the table to touch Kevin delicately on the wrist. “So you told him we’re dating? How did he take it?”
With a quick wink, Kevin allayed any concerns she might have had about hurting their friend’s feelings. “You know Scott, he popped open another beer and asked if your sister was available.”
“I hope he likes middle school girls….Wait…I can’t believe I just said that!” said Erin, shivering in disgust.
“Ya, I won’t mention that to him. You just never know how desperate he is,” Kevin agreed, laughing at his girlfriend’s devilish sense of humor.
Attempting to redirect the conversation, Erin turned her attention to the reason they were in the lab in the first place. “We really need to get these figures set for our review next week. After last time, I don’t think we can afford to just wing it.”
“I know, I’m just so burnt out on all of this genetics junk,” said Kevin as he rubbed his bleary eyes. “I think I’m going to clone myself and then go on vacation.”
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“I can see it now, you and Kevin 2.0 sitting on the deck of a cruise ship sipping little umbrella drinks and ogling every woman who walks by,” she teased. “Of course, that would free me up since you wouldn’t need a girlfriend anymore.”
“That’s true…Hey, wait a minute!” said Kevin, playing the innocent fool routine to perfection. “I meant for Kevin 2.0 to stay here while we went on the cruise.”
“Why on earth would I take Kevin 1.0 when there an updated version to be had?” she said laughingly. “By the way, let me help in the sequencing, I have a few upgrades in mind.”
Feigning sadness, Kevin shook his head slowly. “Ok, Kevin 2.0 is no longer an option. Good job Erin, you killed him already.” Pausing, curiosity got the better of him. “Uhh, What upgrades?”
With mild annoyance, Erin tilted her head. “Off-task behavior is where I’d start. Can we look at these figures now?”
“Ok, ok, let’s look at your blessed figure…s,” he stammered deliberately.
“Alright, let’s start with the repeated anomalies you found in the seventy-seventh sequence of sets eleven through twenty-two.” Though flattered, she ignored his puerile comment. “I’m sure it’s just a software glitch or perhaps a contaminated run of samples.”
Pouring over the spreadsheets strewn across the table in front of him, Kevin tilted his head to one side as he thought. Shuffling deliberately through the pages, his motions slowed as his energy turned to deciphering the pattern within.
“Erin, I don’t think this is a glitch. Most of these case codes indicate that they were processed at the campus lab, but four of them show that they went to the independent professional labs in Washington, D.C. for quality checks.” Like finding the edges of a complex jigsaw puzzle, they tried to rule out the obvious before getting into more complex issues.
“You’re right. That rules out contaminated samples, but what about a software glitch?” asked Erin, still skeptical.
“Not possible,” assured Kevin, certain that he was right. “The labs in D.C. were all upgraded last year. Don’t you remember how I was drooling over the specs of their new hardware? I also read that an independent company created new software, which would make it virtually impossible that we would see the same glitch across two different analysis programs.”
“Oh, I remember now! Your geek was hanging out for all to see on that day if I recall,” Erin poked.
Exhilarated at the prospect of discovering something unusual amongst heaps of otherwise mundane data, Kevin’s voice echoed across the empty lab. “I think we’ve found something here, Erin! Something that isn’t supposed to be here.”
“Something publishable?” asked Erin hopefully as she double checked his findings. “Having our names on a good journal article won’t hurt with the job hunt after grad school.”
Not thinking quite that far ahead, Kevin contemplated their next steps. “You never know, but we have to get this info to Professor Shukla before we do anything. She’ll know for sure if we’re on to something.”
Looking him over suspiciously, Erin didn’t share Kevin’s urgency to go see their professor. “You just want to talk to Doctor Shukla because she’s hot.”
“She’s like thirty or something,” said Kevin as he quickly denied the accusation and gathered the data together in a tidy pile. “Let me just input our results to the server so we don’t lose—” Before Kevin could finish his thought, the lights went out with a loud, snapping bang that made both him and Erin jump up from their lab stools.
“Uhhhh Kevin? It’s a bit dark in here. I don’t just mean dark, I’m talking black hole, absence of all light…dark.” Erin tried hard to let humor mask the high level of anxiety that had gripped her in the moment.
“Yeah, why do the student labs have to be in the basement anyway? A window would have been nice,” said Kevin as he, too, tried to calm the slight quiver apparent in his voice. “Shouldn’t the emergency lights have kicked on by now?” he wondered aloud.
“Do you hear that?” asked Erin worriedly.
“No, it’s too dark,” quipped Kevin in an attempt to further lighten the mood.
No longer trying to cover her anxiety, Erin unleashed a panicked whisper. “Shut up! I seriously heard something.”
At that moment, the two students became acutely aware that they were indeed not alone in the small lab. A blast of air whooshed past as something large moved swiftly nearby. Seconds later they heard a distinct scraping sound followed by a few deep, lightly audible grunts. After a few more seconds of commotion, the phantom moved past them in the opposite direction. Suddenly, they were once again just two students standing in an impossibly dark lab. Neither Kevin nor Erin could find the courage to speak, but their laborious breathing spoke volumes about what they had just experienced.
After another minute which felt like an eternity, the emergency lights came to life, spilling dim, welcome light over the students’ frightened faces.
Her throat tight, Erin barely got her next words out. “What the hell just happened?”
Turning to look behind him, Kevin’s heart sank. The only thing missing from the lab was the main computer tower. It had clearly been ripped from the counter, leaving a mess of tangled cords and a wall socket pulled completely away from its anchor. He had been backing up data on this computer’s hard drive for weeks but failed to connect to the school’s mainframe to upload the results to a secure location. “Call campus security. I’m going to go see if anyone saw anything…as soon as the hallway lights come back on, that is,” said Kevin, still struggling to find his courage.
As if on cue the primary fuse tripped and the lights in the corridor blinked slowly back to life.
“Stay here, Erin,” he said worriedly and ran down the hallway to find help.
Chapter 11
Ignorance Expert
WALKING TOWARD FAINT murmurs and beckoning aromas of breakfast preparations, Seth deduced that the guest room was located directly above the kitchen. These sensations proved an immeasurable step up from what he had smelled sporadically throughout the night, thanks to a constitution that was not well accustomed to authentic Mexican cooking. It was a good thing Leo slept on the couch downstairs. Nonetheless, he felt refreshed and was finally feeling good about being on a case that did not otherwise seem worth the time he and his partner Leo were giving it. After a quick shower and shave, he walked toward the heavenly smell of freshly ground coffee beans emanating from below. His hosts, Pedro and Michelle, were seated at the dining room table, already eating a meal of bacon, eggs, toast, and black coffee as they enjoyed the few precious moments before children burst onto the scene.
“Hey! Good morning, early bird,” said Pedro, noticing that the clock read just a hair past 7:30 am. “I thought you city folk turned to dust if the sunlight hit you before eight,” he chided, shrugging his shoulders as he took another mouthful of eggs.
Stretching out one arm, Michelle shoved her husband’s shoulder, causing him to drop his toast onto the table. “Maybe you’d be less of a grump if you got a little more sleep now and then too,” she said, knowing that her husband’s mood was more tense than usual.
Pedro made a huffing noise like a bull about to charge. “We’ll be lucky to see my brother drag his carcass out of bed before nine,” he mumbled, picking up the toast and taking a large bite.
“Good morning to the both of you,” said Seth in a chipper voice. His eyes were immediately drawn to a little disheveled figure peeking around the hallway corner. “Leo would sleep until noon if we let him, but I think you have the perfect alarm clock.”
Leaping to his feet, Pedro swept his sleepy-eyed, smiling daughter into his arms. “Lita! My little strawberry! Did we wake you up?” he asked, holding her upside down. Her long, wispy hair almost reached the floor.
“No!” she said, giggling hysterically. Trying to catch her breath, she explained, “Mama said she would take us to the beach today if I got up early and went to the store with her!”
Sw
inging her to an upright position, Pedro set her gently on a chair at the kitchen table. “Well then,” he said, and kissed her on the top of the head, “I suppose we had better get you and Mr. Alexander some breakfast.”
“Just coffee for me,” Seth requested. “My stomach is a bit unsettled and we have to drive back to Milwaukee today.”
“Oh? Was there a problem with my cooking?” said Michelle, raising an eyebrow as she pushed herself away from the table and stood up.
Taking a hasty step back, Seth wondered if a plate would soon be flying in his direction. “Not at all! If there is a problem it’s that my stomach was led to believe that a breakfast burrito at Burger King qualified for real Mexican cooking. It learned the hard way that, no...no, it does not.” Rubbing his stomach, he smiled apologetically.
Laughing playfully at his reaction, Michelle took her plate to the kitchen and placed it into the sink. “Don’t feel bad, I was just teasing you.” Raising her voice to speak over the sound of running water, she reassured him further that she truly understood. “Besides, the reason Leo isn’t up yet is because he was up at least three times last night using the bathroom—and he was raised on Mexican cooking!” Just then Leo dragged himself into the kitchen, right on cue.
“Uncle Leo!” yelled Lita as she clamored out of her chair. Running across the linoleum floor in bare feet, she clasped herself to the sleepy man’s right leg below the knee.
Without reacting, Leo moved toward the coffee pot, dragging his now much heavier leg behind him, and fumbled with one of the cups laid out on the countertop. “Coffeeeeee,” he moaned, like a zombie calling out for brains.
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