Lab Notes: a novel

by Nelson, Gerrie

  Her friends had compiled a list of winter-term job openings, which now lay beside her computer in her home office. She’d begin the hunt soon.

  Her cell phone rang. She knew who it was before she looked at the screen.

  Maxine’s tone was somewhere between a plea and a demand. “But you have to come. You’re the guest of honor—that’s classified information by the way.”

  Diane frowned. Obviously Maxine didn’t buy the “I have a headache” beg-off message she had left a few minutes earlier.

  “To what do I owe the honor?”

  “According to Raymond, you saved his life last month.”

  Diane pictured Bellfort’s baseball bat and cringed. She should have let the chimps work him over a little longer. “But David’s the one who administered first aid.”

  “You’re being modest. You need to come and accept your just rewards. Besides, it’s not good for you to sit home alone on a Saturday night. We’re concocting margaritas that’ll cure any headache.” Her voice softened. “And any heartache for that matter. So come on. You’ll enjoy it.”

  Before they hung up, Maxine extracted a promise that Diane would show up at the Enterprise by 7 p.m.

  Diane leaned on the deck railing and watched five mallards waddling along the bank below. With a start, she realized she envied the small family of ducks. It had been over four months since Vincent sailed off, several weeks since Woodwind washed ashore; she needed to get out among people.

  She glanced at her watch. The party started in two hours, time enough to compose an email to Tung Chen. Apparently, after Vincent asked her about Tung Chen on the jogging trail that morning months ago, he had contacted Tung asking for information. This morning she had read his response.

  Diane remembered Tung as a gentle soul who was fastidious about his work station in the lab, most unusual for that crop of grad students. In his email, he apologized to Vincent for taking so long to respond. He also offered regrets that his research had not been productive thus far.

  Per Vincent’s request, Tung had some colleagues in Taiwan check pharmaceutical companies for any connection to Peruvase or BRI. So far, Tung’s spy network had come up empty handed, but they were not giving up their search.

  Tung had been successful, however, in finding an archived Hong Kong newspaper article about the mugging death of a scientist named Harry Lee. He had emailed it sometime in July and asked if Vincent had received it.

  Diane carefully worded her response to Tung. She knew he would be stunned by Vincent’s death. She gave him a brief account of Vincent’s disappearance at sea, avoiding the hit and run aspect.

  She assured Tung that she was doing fine and thanked him for his efforts on Vincent’s behalf. She ended with: “I haven’t seen the newspaper article about Harry Lee. If it’s not too much trouble, could you please email me a copy?”

  A three-man mariachi band strummed guitars and sang on the upper deck, creating a fiesta atmosphere.

  In the main salon, a rainbow of frozen margaritas heightened the party spirit. Colorfully clad senoritas, senoras and senores feasted on a lavish buffet featuring chicken and beef fajitas.

  The mariachis took a break, allowing conversations to resume. Diane and the Wentzels stood in the forward corner of the salon. Jerry and Connie Wentzel had been abroad on a month long vacation. They reined in the effects of the margaritas long enough to ask how Diane was getting on and to invite her to dinner the following weekend. Diane told them she was doing well and accepted their invitation.

  A tray of fresh drinks came by, and Diane traded her empty pink glass for a full green one. The Wentzels followed suit.

  The mariachis returned with more instruments and struck up the Mexican Hat Dance. Connie Wentzel implored Jerry to give it a try.

  Looking apologetic, Jerry turned to follow his wife to the dance floor. Then a thought crossed Diane’s tequila-addled mind. She tugged at Jerry’s sleeve and leaned toward his ear. “Did Harry Lee ever mention that he was hard of hearing?”

  Jerry looked puzzled. “As a kid he had a medication-induced deafness, but it was corrected later on. Why do you ask?”

  Diane shrugged and laughed. “I don’t know.”

  Jerry’s wife dragged him toward the music.

  After dessert was served, the band switched to ballads. Maxine stepped behind the bar and called everyone to attention with a hand bell. “Time for the ‘Chimp Awards,’” she announced.

  Amid cheers and laughter, Maxine presented awards recognizing the contributions of those who helped round up the chimpanzees the night of the break-in.

  Raymond received the “Fearless Leader Badge” for single-handedly taking on two aggressive male chimpanzees.

  Wilbur and Officer Conway good-naturedly bowed to hoots and jeers while accepting their “Bent Dart” awards. Officer Sabbatini received a “Purple Butt” ribbon.

  King, Kong, See, Speak and Hear got special mention and a meal of ribs and fries delivered to the primate house.

  Diane accepted David’s “Shirt Off His Back” award for him; he had phoned and said he’d be arriving at the party late. He received a gift certificate to replace the shirt he shredded to provide swabs and a tourniquet for Raymond’s bleeding wounds.

  Diane took the grand prize: an air pistol engraved with her name and a wall rack to display it along with a gold-plated (painted) tranquilizer dart.

  Raymond approached Diane as she took her bows. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes glazed. “Let me help you with those things.” He reached for the gun rack. “We’ll stow them in my office for now.”

  He turned and swayed up the stairs toward his on-board office. Diane followed, carrying the gun and dart.

  Raymond spoke over his shoulder. “I’ll have someone from maintenance hang it on your office wall. Or would you like it in the lab?”

  She didn’t want it displayed anywhere. “I… surprise me.”

  Raymond set the rack on the corner of his desk, and Diane placed the gun and dart beside it.

  “Sit down. Sit down,” Raymond said, motioning toward the tufted leather sofa across from his desk. “We haven’t chatted in a while.”

  Diane settled onto the couch. Raymond sank into his desk chair and reached forward and patted the air pistol. “I don’t know of any way to adequately express my appreciation.”

  Diane waved off his thank you for the fifth time that evening.

  Raymond persisted: “If there’s ever anything you need—would you like a drink?”

  “No thank you. I think I’ve had—”

  “How about champagne?” Raymond heaved himself to his feet and stepped to the bar.

  Diane shrugged helplessly.

  Raymond popped the cork, poured and handed Diane a tall flute. “To the chimps. Bless their fuzzy hearts,” he said.

  Diane tipped her glass and wet her tongue.

  Raymond took a gulp, then returned to his desk chair. “Now where were we?” He finished off his champagne, then faced his computer screen.

  “I’ve been thinking, Diane. You should take some time off to relax and so forth.” He turned back to her, his face wreathed in an eager-to-please smile.

  Diane studied his face, scars now a dull pink. He seemed genuinely concerned about her—even paternal.

  “Work keeps my mind occupied,” she said.

  “I see. Ahh… a plant-collecting trip could accomplish both business and pleasure. Maybe Gabriel can arrange something. How are you two getting on by the way? Is the South America project going well?” Raymond interlaced his fingers and leaned forward.

  “I haven’t been able to plan a trip since Quito.” She shot him a significant look.

  “Yes, yes, of course. But now I think it would be good for you to get away for awhile.”

  His tone was oh so mellow. Diane suddenly sobered up. Across the desk sat a man full of tequila, champagne and appreciation—a truth potion if ever there was one. She shifted direction. “Do you have someone in mind to develop Chimeron
?”

  “Well, that’s another point of discussion isn’t it? When you’re comfortable with it and so forth, you can start interviewing biochemists. No pressure understand.”

  “And later, will you sell Chimeron and keep the buyer a secret?”

  A shadow passed over his eyes. He took a deep breath. “In the past, when all transactions were transparent here at BRI, I lost some damn good scientists who chose to follow their projects to the new owners. So… ahh… I tried to prevent that with contracts.

  “Then, when contracts didn’t serve as a deterrent, the question became: ‘How much time and money did I want to spend taking them to court?’ So, I changed my policy. Confidentiality became the watchword.”

  “Do you think Vincent would have chased Peruvase to Asia if he knew the drug’s new owner?”

  “Ahh, Peruvase. That’s a different can of worms isn’t it?” He loosened his collar, cleared his throat and spoke again in the direction of his monitor. “Sometimes, particularly in Asian countries, there’s a ‘face-saving’ factor, I’m told.

  “When companies invest in intellectual properties, they want them to be seen as their baby, conceived in-house and so forth. I use brokers to serve as middlemen in such deals.” Rubbing his chin pensively he muttered under his breath, “Need closer scrutiny there.”

  He spoke up again. “Payments are arranged through numbered accounts. I don’t even know who’s doing the buying sometimes.” He glanced at Diane for validation.

  She looked at Bellfort in awe; even drunk he was quick on his feet. What’s more, he seemed to believe his embroidery of the truth. She nodded as if fully accepting his explanation.

  Raymond’s phone rang. Diane stood up and signaled that she’d see him down below.

  Stepping over to the stairs, Raymond checked to make sure Diane had closed the door behind her, then returned to his desk and inserted his ear buds. “What’s up?”

  “Vincent Rose may be gone, but someone is still lookin’ for Peruvase and some of the other technologies. My people are getting upset, making threats. She’s got to be the one initiating these searches. Who else could it be? She must know somethin.’ Is she still at the party?”

  Raymond glanced down at the top of Diane’s head moving along the port deck. “Yeah.”

  “Since I’m here in the neighborhood, I’m going to go check the house. I have a key. Keep her there for at least an hour.”

  “I really don’t think that’s necessary—”

  “You had your chance. Now it’s my turn. I’ll identify the source and deal with it—one way or another. Maybe I’ll hang around ‘til she gets home. The widow should be pretty horny by now.”

  Bellfort propped his elbows on his desk, closed his eyes and massaged his temples. How did things get to this point? Originally, out of necessity, he had become the puppet of a tyrant, then later, the pawn of a madman—two masters working at cross purposes. And for years he had managed to maintain a blind zone between them. But lately…

  He dropped his head in acquiescence. “Be careful; she has a large dog that has the run of the house.”

  “You’re forgetting that I’m the original dog whisperer.”

  Diane stepped along the side deck to avoid the thundering revelry in the main salon. The night air was surprisingly cool, but dripping with humidity.

  Walking toward the bow, she saw Maxine and Colton on the opposite side of the boat. Colton was talking on his cell phone.

  “It’s a good night for it,” he said. He tucked his phone into his pocket and turned to Maxine: “It’s done.” Then they spotted Diane.

  After a surprised greeting (as if it was the first time they were seeing her that evening) and some overlong conversation about damp night air, Maxine and Colton retreated toward the stern of the yacht.

  Diane leaned on the bow rail and pondered her meeting with Bellfort. She realized that she’d been itching for a confrontation with him all evening—ever since she read Tung Chen’s email. Now she wished she had pressed the issue about Peruvase and watched Bellfort repeat the lie about it being sold in Taiwan.

  She was jolted from her musings by the sound of an outboard motor. She turned and saw a wooden runabout with two people on board enter the harbor. The boat made a slow circle inside the marina. One of the passengers, a woman, spotted Diane and waved. Diane waved in return. The boat darted back out into the bay.

  μ CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR μ

  Returning home Diane discovered that, in her absent state of mind, she hadn’t locked the downstairs door when she left. But that didn’t dim her after-party glow. At about the time she was ready to leave the “fiesta,” David had shown up, downed two margaritas then convinced her to try the Mexican hat dance with him. It had been fun, a reminder that life still held its pleasures.

  Climbing the steps from the ground level to the first floor, she suddenly realized that Huck hadn’t charged down the stairs to drown her in welcome home kisses. She called to him. But he didn’t show up.

  She peeked into the living room and dining room, then headed up the curved staircase toward the second floor. “I bet you’re sacked out in the middle of my bed, you scoundrel.”

  Anxiously, she glanced around for signs of her dog. She didn’t think she could bear losing him too.

  Huck’s father, Buster Brown, had brought Diane and Vincent together. When she was a graduate student and Vincent was lab chief, Buster had been donated as a research animal. He was just a puppy then.

  For a week, he had followed her around the lab with his hound dog eyes. Then one day, on her way out, she grabbed him from his cage, placed him in her giant shoulder bag and ran to the elevator. A clean getaway, she thought. But just as the doors were closing, Dr. Vincent Rose—her boss—jumped onto the elevator.

  For four long stories down, while her shoulder bag wiggled and whined, Dr. Rose nibbled on his bottom lip and stared at the floor.

  The next day Vincent invited Diane out to lunch, their first date. A couple months later he confessed he had fallen in love while riding down in the elevator with her and her whimpering shoulder bag.

  When Buster was eight years old, he was mated with a friend’s dog, also of questionable lineage. Miraculously, the coupling resulted in Huck, a short-haired hound—a clone of his father, but much larger.

  He was her only remaining immediate family member.

  Diane stood very still and listened for panting, scratching or paws ticking on wood or tile—anything that would direct her to Huck’s whereabouts. But all she heard was the house’s implacable silence.

  When she had returned to the treehouse from Vincent’s memorial Mass in Pittsburgh, the new silence that greeted her at the door was not quietude, but a void that could not be filled up with the air conditioner and the refrigerator running or the surround sound and TV playing or Huck’s bark or her own sobs or even the telephone ringing, because she knew it could never again be him calling.

  Now, in a high state of anxiety, Diane ran back down the stairs and into the kitchen. Huck could have gone out through the dog door. She flipped on the spotlights.

  She stepped onto the back deck and called to him. Then she headed for the screen door that opened onto the side deck. Huck had access though a hinged opening at its base. Maybe he went around to the front deck and couldn’t hear her, unlikely though. With his hearing he could detect a rabbit’s nose wiggling a mile away.

  Diane walked slowly along the side of the house, listening, afraid of what she might find. At first, all she heard was the slow ting, ting-ting of wind chimes and the lazy rubbing of pine branches.

  Then the thunder of big feet announced Huck’s approach as he rounded the corner from the front deck, tail wagging, and one knotted end of a large rawhide bone in his mouth.

  “There you are, you scamp. I should have known you were eating something—the only distraction that would keep you from greeting me.”

  She bent down to hug him and got a whiff of the rawhide clenched in his teeth.
It was beef-basted. She never bought those; they stained the rugs.

  She admonished him again. “Where did you dredge that up?” Vincent must have bought it months before. And Huck had hidden it, knowing she’d take it from him. But right then she didn’t have the heart to do so.

  After Diane took Huck for a walk, it was almost midnight. But she knew she wouldn’t sleep until she checked her emails.

  She went upstairs to her computer and found it booted up with the password prompt flashing. Either she’d left it on or it had rebooted itself in the midst of turning off. First, she had left the door unlocked and now this. She really needed to get her mind straight.

  She sat down and keyed in her password. Clicking open her incoming mail, she froze. Tung Chen had already sent a response.

  With anxious fingers, she clicked on his attachment. And there it was: Murder Suspected in American Scientist’s Fall. Diane’s heart throbbed in her ears as she read the article. Dr. Harry Lee—an American—had been pushed or had jumped from a viewing area on Victoria Peak in Hong Kong.

  In an interview, Harry Lee’s uncle Hu Lee, a Hong Kong investment banker, stated that his nephew was ecstatic about a new business venture, and he never would have committed suicide.

  Harry had left his uncle’s house, briefcase in hand, to sign up the deal. Harry had told Hu Lee that confidentiality was key. So Hu Lee had no idea who Harry was meeting that fateful night.

  Harry Lee’s wallet, credit cards, cash and his Rolex watch were all found on his body. The search continued for his briefcase.

  The newspaper article stated that an unnamed source close to the police department disclosed that forensics found marks on Harry Lee’s neck and sweater fibers and dog hairs on his jacket. When presented with the information, Harry’s uncle was baffled by the report of dog hairs. “Harry was terrified of dogs,”

  The Hong Kong police were working close with American authorities in the case.

  Diane jumped up from her chair and paced around her home office. In the short space of the past five hours, two items had been confirmed under the classification: Things Vincent Mentioned Regarding Harry Lee. 1) Harry Lee had been hard of hearing. 2) Harry Lee was murdered. What were you on to, Vincent?