by Mary Feliz
“I’m picking up Linc Sinclair’s dog,” I said, hoping Walt hadn’t heard of Linc’s arrest.
“I’ll take you straight to his lab. We work on the same team, Linc and I.”
“Team?” I didn’t know there was a team. Sarah had told me it was Linc’s research that caught the attention of the Nobel committee.
Walt apparently didn’t feel the need to answer my question. I nodded my thanks as he held open the door to Linc’s building. I waited as another professorial type came toward the door in a rush just behind us, screeching to a halt to admire and pat Belle. We chatted briefly about how golden retrievers are the best dogs. Belle thumped her tail in agreement and nudged the professor’s hand with her nose.
He laughed, wiped his hands on his jeans, and strode down the hall.
“Harrumph,” said Walt, his face contorted as though he’d been sucking on a lemon. “He’s an upstart. A junior professor. Thinks his research is more important than anyone else’s. He’s dying to nudge us—Linc and me—out of the way and dazzle the Nobel committee with his whiz-bang formula to—” Walt waved his hands in front of his face as if brushing off a cloud of pesky mosquitoes. “Never mind what he does. It’s not important. Not compared to our climate-change solution.” He paused at a door marked Global Climate and Energy.
“Here we are.” He opened the door to Linc’s lab and office. “Linc? You in here, buddy? You’ve got a visitor.”
Walt’s words indicated he’d expected to find Linc in his lab. That meant he hadn’t heard about Linc’s arrest. I knew better than to assume that Apfel and Paolo hadn’t picked the professor up, but I was glad to know that at least so far, Linc had escaped becoming the subject of widespread campus gossip. I hoped to keep it that way.
A student working at a lab bench was the only one inside. He turned and held up one finger, indicating that we should wait. After a few deft movements with a soldering iron, he set aside his instruments, and walked toward us.
“What can I do for you?” he asked. “Linc’s not here right now.”
“Slacking again?” Walt laughed. But I had the sense it wasn’t a joke. The student winced almost imperceptibly and turned to me, tilting his head and raising his eyebrows.
“Sorry,” I said, reaching to shake his hand. “I’m Maggie McDonald. My husband and I are friends of Linc’s. I’m here to pick up Newton. He’s staying with us while . . .” I couldn’t make myself finish the sentence.
“I’m Allen Zander, Linc’s lab tech and one of his grad students.”
Before I could reply, the jovial professor we’d run into earlier emerged from the back of the lab carrying a steaming mug and what looked like a sack lunch.
“So glad to see you again,” he said. He put the mug and bag down on a lab bench and held out his hand. “Keenan Barnaby.”
“Maggie.”
“And this lovely girl?” he asked, kneeling in front of Belle.
Belle thumped her tail and licked his face. Keenan seemed honored by her attention.
Walt, however, looked disgusted. “What are you doing over here, Keenan? You’ll never be promoted from assistant professor if you don’t spend more time in your own lab.”
Keenan turned to Walt as though he’d just noticed the older man was in the room. “Oh, hey, Walt. You forget that we all can’t fit in the cushy digs in this building. I’m over in the shared annex, remember? We can’t all be on the fast track like you. Congratulations on your promotion to associate, by the way. At this rate, you’ll make full professor by the time you hit seventy.”
Walt puffed up when Keenan mentioned his promotion, but immediately deflated at Keenan’s well-aimed barb.
Walt stepped back. “Well, I’ll leave you in Allen’s excellent hands, Mrs. McDonald. It was delightful to meet you.” Had he been wearing a hat, I was sure he would have doffed it. While his accent held a hint of Texas, his manners had an Old World formality.
“Bastard,” Allen said under his breath as the lab’s hallway door swung closed behind Walt. “Who is Quintana to accuse Linc of slacking?”
“Never mind, Allen. He does that to everyone,” Keenan said, opening his lunch bag or, considering the hour, I guessed it was more likely his dinner. He pulled out an enormous sourdough roll stuffed with meat I couldn’t identify.
Allen looked at me and blushed. “I’m sorry you had to hear that. I’m tired of Walt—his snide remarks and his determination to convince the university and the Nobel committee that he should be recognized for work that Linc did on his own.”
“Can he get away with that?” I asked. “What does Linc say?” Allen hadn’t mentioned that Linc had been picked up by the police and I wasn’t about to mention it. Besides my desire not to fuel gossip, I wasn’t sure I could talk about it reasonably. The mere thought of the professor’s arrest made me as steamed about Detective Awful as Allen was about Walt Quintana.
Allen looked at me and pushed up the sleeves on his lab coat. “Mrs. McDonald, would you like some tea? Keenan and I were about to take a break.”
“I can split my sandwich with you,” Keenan said. “Do you like pastrami? You aren’t vegan, are you?”
“Does Newton need a walk first?” I looked around the lab but didn’t see the enormous wolfhound.
“No. I just took him. He was upset when . . .” Allen looked around the room and his face flushed.
“It’s okay, Allen. I know already. That’s why I’m here.”
“And I’m up to speed too,” Keenan added. “I saw Linc when he was leaving with the police. He asked me to put away some of the papers he’d been working on.”
Allen’s shoulders lost their tension and he let out a long sigh. “Word will get out soon enough, but I don’t want to add any fuel to the fire.”
“I feel the same way.” I shook my head as Keenen offered me half of his sandwich.
“Newt’s such an old softy, but I was afraid he was going to take a chunk from the rump of one of the detectives who came to get Linc,” Allen said, rubbing Belle’s ears.
I could picture the dog’s reaction easily. “Good for Newton.”
“I put him back in Linc’s office,” said Allen, rising from his lab stool. “Newt has a bed there and feels more secure. I think he’s asleep.”
Allen grabbed a wheeled office chair from a desk-level counter that was home to an electron microscope and other lab equipment I didn’t recognize. “Have a seat, Mrs. McDonald. If Linc trusts you enough to leave Newton with you, I know I can trust you implicitly. What kind of tea do you like?”
“Something caffeinated, please.”
Allen walked across the lab to a small counter and washed his hands as if he were going to perform surgery. He plugged in an electric kettle, selected two mugs from a rack above the sink, and turned toward me. Keenan chewed his sandwich, closed his eyes, and didn’t comment, but I didn’t think he was missing a word of what Allen and I were saying.
“Thanks for coming. I live in an apartment and didn’t know what to do with Newton. I love that guy almost as much as Linc does. I would have crashed here with him if I’d had to, but Officer”—Allen reached into his pocket, pulled out a business card, squinted, and read—“Paolo Bianchi. He said that you’d take Newton.”
“I’m happy to do it. Newton and Belle are old friends.” At the sound of her name, Belle thumped her tail.
“Thanks for not mentioning Linc’s arrest to Walt,” I said to Allen. He nodded and blew on his tea.
“How is Linc?” I asked. “You were here?”
“That jerk told me not to say anything,” Allen said.
“I know who you mean. Gordon Apfel. I call him Detective Awful.”
Allen snorted, in danger of spraying tea across the room. “He was also here yesterday looking for evidence and asking lots of questions about security. I assume they’ve looked at key-card records and security cameras.”
I remembered Paolo’s cryptic words as he was leaving my house. Something about comings and goings.
Maybe he’d been hinting that I should be looking at security in Linc’s lab.
Allen sipped his tea and stretched his arm toward the bottom drawer of the desk next to us. He pulled out a sleeve of chocolate-covered British biscuits and offered me one.
“So, the police?” I asked.
Allen thought for a moment. “They spoke to all of us.” He looked at Keenan, who nodded agreement. His mouth was full of a large chunk of Delicious apple.
Allen went on. “Their questions were all over the map. Who was where and when? Who could account for the whereabouts of anyone else? What kind of security systems do we have? Who hated Linc? Was Linc happy with Sarah? Did they have problems? It was what you’d expect from watching a TV show.”
I chewed my cookie and swallowed. “Do you have any ideas about what happened?”
Allen didn’t answer, but lifted the tea bag from his tea and dropped it in a nearby trash can.
“Surely you’ve thought about it,” I prompted.
“Of course,” Allen said. “I’ve worked for Linc for two years and we’re here at all hours checking on our tests and data.” He blushed. “It’s natural to consider, just for a moment, whether you’ve been working with a murderer, right?”
I nodded.
“I also thought about whether, with Linc arrested, I’ll be able to continue my research. I’ve wondered who I’d work with, where I’d find funding, and what would happen to Linc’s funding. We’re supposedly using scientific principles to solve the problems of the world. But you’d be surprised how much time we waste chasing after grants and worrying about where our research money will come from. I’m convinced that’s why we’re not flying around in solar-powered cars, really, because of the paperwork and time required to lock in funding.” Allen shrugged and smiled.
I nodded. “I sometimes think I’d make a deal with the devil if only my paperwork would vanish. Of course, helping people manage their paperwork is my job, so I shouldn’t complain.”
Keenan, who had finished his apple but seemed hesitant to join the conversation, slid from the counter. To Belle’s delight, he sat on the floor beside her and began stroking her ears.
“I’d love to have a dog like you,” Keenan said to Belle. “But I’m afraid you wouldn’t have much fun in my tiny apartment. Belle is such a good name. Much better than Newton.”
I thought the Newton comment was an odd non sequitur, but Allen laughed.
“I asked Linc about that. He said he named his dog Newton because the wolfhound looked like a canine reincarnation of Sir Isaac. They shared the same long snout and sixteenth-century wavy, unkempt hairdo. Linc had no worries about the scientists who put forth the notion that Sir Isaac was a self-centered jerk. His dog, the professor said, had a strong sense of his own identity.”
Keenan chuckled. Allen smiled and continued recounting the story. “He said if I felt uncomfortable with the name, I could pretend the dog was named after the cookie.”
Belle’s ears perked up at the word cookie, and Keenan pulled a dog biscuit from his pocket. “Do you mind if I give her one?” he asked.
Belle scooted forward, thumping her tail. “Thanks,” I said. “You know the way to a golden retriever’s heart.”
We watched Belle destroy the cookie and fall more deeply in love with Keenan.
Then Allen leaned forward. “Linc said he was talking to someone named Maggie about coming in here and streamlining the paper flow. Was that you?”
“Yes,” I said as I rummaged in my purse for my business cards. I handed one to him and another to Keenan.
I sipped my tea while they examined my cards. Normally, at that point in a conversation, I’d launch into a short pitch for my business. But I wanted to get back to discussing Sarah’s death.
“Can either of you think of any reason that someone would have wanted to kill Sarah? Or implicate Linc?”
Allen shook his head. “I don’t think anyone around here knew Sarah very well. Aside from a few awkward department holiday parties, we don’t get together much outside of work.”
He turned to Keenan. “You’ve got a family, right? I’ve never met them.”
Keenan rubbed his chin in a gesture I’d often seen in men with beards. I wondered if he’d ever had one. “Allen’s right, come to think of it. We aren’t a very social group.”
“What about Linc? Could anyone have wanted to kill him but killed Sarah by mistake? Maybe that Walt Quintana? You said he was nipping at Linc’s heels, begging to get in on the Nobel work?”
Keenan nodded. “I wouldn’t put it past him. That guy is no good. All caught up in his own career path and how he can sabotage everyone else.”
Allen shook his head and looked at the ceiling. “Linc told me that Walt’s research was really promising, maybe ten years ago, but he spent all his time going to conferences, presenting papers, and promoting the work he’d already done. He didn’t spend enough time in the lab or snagging grants so he could take his work to the next level. Now, instead of going back to his original research, he bounces between our lab and another one. He figures one or both teams will be nominated for one of the other big prizes. He wants a piece of that.”
“But isn’t science collaborative?”
“Of course,” Allen said. “In fact, the first part of any project is researching what others have already accomplished. But there’s a protocol to research and papers and snagging lab space. It’s cutthroat, but seldom dishonest. Walt’s actions lean toward what could be called . . . maybe not dishonest or unethical, but not squeaky-clean, either.”
“Do you think he’d stoop to murder?” I asked.
“Hmm. Probably not. But even if he did, why would he kill Linc’s fiancée? And why do it at Linc’s house? Walt has access to the labs here. Linc spends all his time here. It would have been easier to fiddle with this equipment.” Allen pointed to safety signs posted around the lab. “There are very strict rules about lab safety here. We don’t let in the undergraduates. They have their own labs and are always supervised. Graduate students have to take a weeklong class before they start work and if they’re caught making any mistakes or cutting corners, they’re out.”
“Is it really that dangerous?”
“Not if you follow the rules, but how easy would it have been to stage an accident and cover it up by saying that Linc had been working long hours and was distracted because of his upcoming wedding?”
Pretty easy, I figured, so I tried another tack. “So what’s the story with the key cards? Linc said he was here almost all night on Sunday. Or rather Sunday night going into Monday morning. Surely there are cameras or key-card records that could verify that.”
Keenan laughed. “It was pouring rain that night. Everyone entering the building would have looked the same.” He demonstrated: “All hunched over with their hoodie pulled up.”
I looked from Allen to Keenan. He had a point. Both young men were dressed in jeans, running shoes, gray T-shirts, and dark hoodies.
“Were either of you here that night?”
“Part of the night,” Allen said. “But as your Detective Awful pointed out, time of death isn’t an exact science. Sarah could have died before or after the time that I can vouch for Linc.”
“And the key cards?”
“The detective got excited about that but—”
Keenan shook his head and interrupted Allen. “Key cards are useless as evidence. We’re nerds here. The absentminded professor is a stereotype, but every stereotype has a basis in fact. My lab annex is in a building about a half-mile from here. If I forgot to bring my card with me, it would be ridiculous to waste time going back to get it when I could just have someone let me in. If Linc forgot his, but needed to run out to his car to get something, he’d grab my card. We’re always swiping someone else in or propping the door open. It’s a major breach of campus security rules, but we’re engineers and we’re stereotypically pragmatic. Security hates us.”
He took a sip from his mug and added, “For t
hat matter, key cards aren’t that hard to clone. Almost anyone in this building could turn a plastic hotel key into a key card. I’m not saying this to implicate anyone, but I don’t think the key-card data is as strong a clue as that detective thinks it is.”
“Linc’s lawyer ought to make short work of that evidence,” I said.
“I tried to tell the detective that,” Allen said, looking miserable. “But he didn’t listen.”
“He never does,” I said.
Belle decided she’d been patient enough with this tea business. She sat up, sniffed the air, and barked. Newton let out an answering woof. Belle strained at the leash, pulling my wheeled chair a few feet away from the counter. Newton stood on his back legs and planted his front paws on the wired-glass windows of Linc’s office.
“I think that’s my cue to go,” I said.
“Do you need any of his stuff? Food? Bed? I can help you carry it to your car.”
“Newton’s spent some time at our house. He’s not too picky, so I think we’re good. Do you know where his leash is?”
“It’s in the office. Let me get him. I don’t want him to run out and bounce around in here. He’s usually pretty good, but with Belle here and Linc missing, I’m not sure how reliable his safety protocol will be.”
Allen got Newton ready. He was a little squirrely, so I took Allen up on his offer to walk with me to the car.
“Nice to meet you, Keenan,” I said.
“Same here. Nice to meet you too, Belle.”
Belle wagged her tail and we followed Newton and Allen out the door.
As we left the building, I noticed that the door was propped open with an old tennis shoe.
“Is that the sort of security breach Keenan was talking about?” I asked, pointing toward the shoe. “Is it really that common? I would have thought that with the dangers you mentioned in the lab, you’d all want to be a little more safety conscious and restrict access.”
Allen shrugged. “Keenan probably overstated the situation. Linc’s absentminded about some things, but never about safety. And allowing unlimited access to this building isn’t safe.” Allen looked over his shoulder, back at the door to the lab, and shook his head. “For that matter, I’m not sure that I believe Linc asked Keenan to look after his papers. Linc took the time to lock up everything securely in his office before he left with the police.”