The Camelot Gambit

by A. J. Scudiere

  "Mice. Lab mice. Sadly, tons of them. I occasionally had to sacrifice turtles in college. We did vivisections, and that was the worst. I’ve killed lots of frogs for neuro labs. I can't tell you how many, only that I had a guillotine. But the rats and the bullfrogs, they're the largest things I've ever sacrificed."

  Donovan heard her odd wording, but it made sense to him. She didn't kill Marat or Johanna and she had sacrificed lab animals. When he was an undergrad, he'd been in labs like the one she had. It didn't strike him as odd, luckily for her.

  Eventually, they'd sworn the woman to secrecy about their jobs and their goals in town. They let her know that—given her age—if she let on to anyone who or what they were, it would mean a lifetime in jail for her.

  The problem that was keeping him awake now was that, though she'd answered most of their questions clearly, she'd fudged her comments on what she and Marat were working on. So when he and Eleri left, they'd wracked their brains trying to figure it out.

  They'd left Jivika Das at home, but he lay there on the couch now looking up at the stars and his heart felt heavy because he knew something was wrong, even if he couldn't put his finger on it.

  38

  Eleri had the house to herself that morning. Donovan had, once again, gotten up early and gone to the clinic to see patients. Though she knew that was his position and his cover, she couldn't help but feeling that she'd been left behind to clean up all the mess of the night before.

  The feelings were pointless, she reminded herself. It was all part of the odd job they both did. So she started with a call to Marshall Bennett and had him send Kate to set the Rychenkov-Schmitt house to rights again. They had to get the glass replaced in the back window, and it had to be non-obvious to anyone walking by that the place had been broken into.

  Eleri suggested Kate put the FOR SALE sign out, in hopes that it might spur their intruders to come back. The fear that the house would get cleaned out soon might press the intruders to try again to find whatever they’d been missing. Eleri was relatively certain—though not one hundred percent—that Jivika Das was not one of their previous intruders.

  Jivika had been in the house for something else, and she'd been heading upstairs. Eleri could only assume the woman was aiming for Marat's office. She wondered if Jivika had been after the notebooks. Eleri wanted to believe that, because that would mean Jivika was connected to the crime. It would also mean that Eleri now held the item the killer wanted. But she wasn't sure, and she knew she couldn't trust the desire to have cracked at least one portion of this case.

  It was just as possible that Jivika was there solely to figure out why her friend had been murdered, and Eleri held exactly zero cards. She didn’t know.

  Once she'd cleared things up with Bennett, she'd taken a deep breath and made her second call to SAC Westerfield. He'd answered on the first ring with his gruff, and normal, "What do you have?" eschewing all semblance of a polite greeting.

  Eleri desperately wanted to answer with, "Exactly jack shit, but luckily more shit than yesterday's shit, sir." However, she'd told him about the run-in with Jivika Das. As she spoke, the vision came to her of him putting his head in his hand, his phone propped on the desk in front of him, speaker phone broadcasting her small voice, while his other hand fidgeted, a shiny quarter walking across the back of his knuckles. She wasn't sure if that was just what she knew from the time she’d spent with the man, or if it was an actual physic vision of what was occurring right now.

  Though the vision itself was interesting—maybe she hadn’t lost everything—she couldn’t give it any attention. She just wanted to get through this phone call with her emotions intact. She had to tell her boss that they’d fucked up.

  "So you broke cover again?" he asked.

  "Yes," Eleri replied, not adding, and this time it was without permission, because that part was pretty obvious.

  "You patted her down? She didn't take anything from the home?"

  "Yes. And not that we could find, sir." This was the way the phone calls went when she had exactly jack shit. She let Westerfield lead with his questions.

  "Do you need backup?" he asked.

  "What would you give us? We already have Wade and we can barely communicate with him as it is." Though they could e-mail, being forced to use FBI servers meant that constant contact was virtually impossible. The fear of being hacked was ever present.

  Westerfield continued interrogating her. What did she pick up? What did Donovan smell? And in the end, he concluded that while they hadn't done the right thing, they'd chosen the only valid option available at the time. At last, Eleri hung up the phone, glad that unpleasant task was over.

  She next headed out the front door, gathering the mail left in the box from the day before, as was her routine. Luckily, this time she saw Marshawn. As she waved to him, she thought again that Westerfield had put them in the right place. The house next store was relatively busy, even if her visitor wasn't LeDonRic.

  "Hey, Marshawn," she called out.

  "Eleri!" the big man called back. He was taller but thinner than his brother. Marshawn James had a wide smile and an easygoing demeanor.

  "Are the girls here?" she asked with a frown on her face, as it was the middle of a weekday.

  "Nah, my girls are in school," he told her, and then pointed to the front door of the house. "Left my jacket and my favorite sunglasses the other night."

  Eleri didn't ask why he had a key. It was his brother's home. They lived in the same town. Instead, she asked for his help, always a winning move with friendly people.

  "Can you do me a favor? Donovan said he wanted me to pick up some ‘lightning tree corn’ today. He had some ready when I first moved in. I’m supposed to go back and get more. It was phenomenal."

  "Oh, yeah," Marshawn replied. "That stuff is amazing."

  "Okay. But what is it? I thought most of the corn grown around here was for livestock. Definitely not fit for human consumption."

  "That's true," Marshawn told her, coming part way across the lawn, even though he seemed to have unlocked his brother's door already. The people here, Eleri had noticed, were relatively trusting. It made sense, given that there was little crime—until now, when they were dealing with two murders.

  "So what happened,” he explained, “is this family had a small plot where they grew their own food grade corn for themselves. They operated a small roadside stand. Like most, the vast majority of the farm produced livestock corn, like you're talking about. But they had a big, old tree in the middle of it that they didn’t want to cut down, so it was the right place to do a little crop that was hand-harvested. So they planted some sweet corn around the tree."

  "And then the tree got struck by lightning," Eleri guessed.

  "Exactly. What they noticed was that the scorched soil grew the best corn. They've been going out and re-electrifying the tree stump ever since, to keep the lightning corn flavor."

  "What?" Eleri asked. "Are you serious?"

  "Oh, yeah. Don and I went out and did it with them the year before last. Apparently, what they'd been doing wasn’t quite up to par with the original lightning flavor. See, the first year, they burned the tree stump. It didn't give the corn the same taste. Don had been out buying the corn, and he commented that it was good, but not as good as before. So—you know Don—he asked, did they need fertilizer? And they told him about it, so next thing you know, he and I are out there with some crazy ass, homemade batteries, hooking up this tree and zapping it. Eventually, we put a lightning rod into it, so it gets struck naturally more often, and the corn's been pretty good. They’ve been selling it going on five years now."

  "Wow. There's a story you don't hear every day," she said. "Okay, so the next thing I need to know is: how do I get to there?"

  He gave her instructions. "Heading toward Beatrice on Homestead, take a left at Pickrell, at the huge, white farmhouse. The one with the blue shutters." As Eleri had learned, apparently the shutter color was the only thing distin
guishing many a white Nebraska farmhouse from another. Then he added, “It has four silos on the processing plant."

  “Got it."

  "And then, of course, once you get on the right street—it’s gravel—you'll see the Lightning Tree Corn stand there on the right. And you'll see what’s left of the lightning tree itself." He grinned at her.

  "Well if you guys go back out with your batteries, then I want to go with you," she smiled.

  "I know. It should be a party, right?"

  She laughed and thanked him and watched as he headed back inside his brother's. Her agent brain couldn't help but wonder if he was doing something nefarious inside. She stayed near the mailbox, flipping through the mail, sorting the junk mail to the back, and even opening things as she stood there. The weather, though turning colder, was still at least decent enough that she could pretend this was a normal activity.

  Marshawn came back out in just a few moments, jacket in hand. He waved at her as he headed back to his car, which was parked in front of the house.

  She smiled and called out, "I was up way too late last night, and I saw an infomercial for what I think was your mop."

  He grinned and headed over to chat again. They talked for a few more moments, and she told him that Emersyn had told her about her dad’s inventions. “She’s really proud of you. So what are you working on now?" she asked, still trying to be casual.

  "Can't tell. Top secret." He grinned, white teeth flashing, and put a finger to his lips.

  His answer made sense. Still, she wanted to ferret it out. She wanted to rule him out as a possible killer. For a moment, she thought about how to find out what his new project might even be.

  And that was the problem right there. When they had no leads, everyone was a suspect.

  39

  Though her interaction with Marshawn had been pleasant, the rest of Eleri's day had been a slog. She'd headed into the Up N Atom and ordered yet another new coffee. Though she was out of the house for the sole purpose of interacting with Curie residents, she managed to see exactly no one of any relevance to the case, at least that she could tell.

  However, her brain was still turned to suspicion mode and she was evaluating everyone who came through the door. Had Kaya Mazur come in, she would not have felt comfortable sitting at the table with Eleri—not with the looks that were likely crossing her face.

  While she drank her coffee and nursed another egg pastry, Eleri found herself watching well over an hour of a four-way split screen, showing the security footage from the Rychenkov-Schmitt home.

  Once again, everything came up empty. She started from the time when the two of them entered the home, encountering Jivika, and worked her way through every camera angle, all the way up to live feed of the current time. The only intruders she found were Kate setting out the FOR SALE sign, and the glass repairman she let in who put the back door to rights.

  Kate sweeping the glass off the floor was the most interesting thing Eleri had seen on the video. But Kate had left the home several hours before, and even with the glass repaired and the sign like a beacon out front, no intruders had come.

  The only upside was that no one had come between the night before when Jivika had entered and now, when the glass was repaired. So if the intruder came back, at least there shouldn't be a flag that someone else had been there in the meantime.

  Eleri closed the laptop. Out of the shop and on her way, she’d driven almost aimlessly around Kangaroo Court, though Jivika was at work. She'd decided it was worth risking a hacker knowing what she was looking at to keep track of her one good lead. So she checked the tracking device on Jivika Das's car and found that the car had gone to work in the morning and stayed there in the parking lot.

  Eleri had no reason to believe that Das had found the tracker. Still, she also had no reason to believe that Das hadn't. With nothing necessary in her plans for the day—which was as depressing as everything else—she found that she spent the afternoon doing small tasks. She trekked out of town and bought Lightning Tree Corn, then she re-watched the videos from Rychenkov's USB. Once again, she saw nothing of major value.

  They'd handed copies of the videos over to the analysts at the FBI, but so far, no one had called them back with any news, good or bad. So she dove into the notebooks again, trailing her fingers along the words, and noticing only the same things she'd found before.

  It did appear there were indentations in the pages, but far from being a code or secret message, Eleri discovered that when she followed them, they were merely where the pen had pressed from the page before. Neither the videos nor the notebooks turned up anything of value, at least not that she was able to read. It was frustrating, because she was certain the answer was right under her nose. She'd looked again at the words in the notebook—if they were indeed words—and tried once more to crack Rychenkov’s system.

  The shortest “words” were two digits, which seemed unusual, as “a” and “I” should clock in at one. And the “words” themselves were longer than average English words. Eleri knew it was possible that he'd not only converted to code but written in a different language. It was her understanding that Rychenkov had grown up speaking Russian. Like many immigrants, he also spoke several other languages. French was apparently in his repertoire as one of his high-fluency languages.

  She guessed he wouldn't keep his personal notebooks in a low fluency language, although the man apparently also could communicate reasonably in Spanish, Farsi, and Mandarin. She made a note to get the books checked against those languages, too. Just in case he hadn't been exceptional enough in life, the more she learned about him in death, the more it made her feel once again like the fool who'd been let into the city when she hadn't passed the test.

  Giving up on yet another task, she hopped in the car and managed to arrive at Jivika Das's home just before Das did. That had been her intent. With the tracker, she could see when the woman left work. If she arrived afterward, then it would be apparent that she was tracing the woman’s movements. Eleri was not yet willing to give away this secret.

  Though they'd not executed a search warrant, they had asked the woman if it was okay to search her home the night before. Jivika had waved her hand around and said, "Please look at whatever you like. If it helps solve Marat's murder, I'm all for it."

  Eleri could not detect anything in the woman's tone or expression that made her think she had anything to hide. In fact, even if she'd said no, they would have searched the home most likely anyway—either through logical bullying or an immediate search warrant. Eleri was glad the woman had agreed. She'd wanted the opportunity to warn Jivika and then watch her face, to play a game Jivika didn't know she was playing of “warmer and colder.”

  It hadn't worked. Though Eleri had sensed she was “warmer” in Jivika's office, she'd found nothing of value. So tonight, she came back and waited. Once Jivika arrived, Eleri made herself overly chummy and followed her into the home.

  When she asked, "What did you do today at work?" she was met with only, "My job."

  "What are your current projects?"

  "I have top-level national security clearance. I can't tell you any of that. I'm assuming you're testing me by asking me these questions, but I won't reveal anything until you have the proper paperwork and I’ve gotten word from my superiors to tell you."

  "You can tell me if they were related to Marat Rychenkov's projects."

  "No, they aren’t," Jivika said, clear and fast. Once again, not a lie. Eleri was hoping to insinuate herself in Jivika's life, interviewing her by brute force whenever possible, until the woman either cracked or slipped up, but tonight Jivika answered all the questions with clear, sharp responses.

  So, while Eleri had made headway, she couldn’t say she’d accomplished anything. She hadn't expected to make much headway, but as she drove back toward the Frank Lloyd Wright House, thoroughly disappointed, she had to admit that she had hoped.

  They were almost a week and a half out on Johanna's murder, wh
ich put them two plus weeks out on Marat's. They'd released Johanna’s body and a funeral was being held Saturday. That meant she and Donovan would attend and look for their killer at the ceremony, as almost certainly he or she would either have to come as a friend or would show up to see what they’d done.

  Still, Saturday felt like a long time away, and Eleri wasn't sure she could wait that long for a break in this case. The lack of progress was killing her.

  She headed home as discouraged as she'd ever been. And when she arrived home and checked her FBI laptop, she discovered a message from GJ, a very excited, "Call me!"

  Thank God, Eleri thought, something positive. Though with GJ Janson, it was hard to tell. Some things that GJ thought were pertinent might turn out to be useless.

  Then again, it was entirely plausible that GJ had figured out who the murderer was and, in an hour or two, Eleri would be making an arrest and leaving Curie. Though she'd be glad for the case to be over, she would admit to everyone that she was sad to be leaving the town.

  Curie would have been a fun place to hang out, to just be, and not have to be an agent. However, the same things she liked about the place meant she couldn't simply call GJ Janson back. A call like this, which they'd been avoiding as much as possible, required a secure line. They had a bag of burner phones, but Donovan kept them in his room, having brought them when he first arrived. Those phones were not traceable to the local box store or anything of the sort. Still, the signal would triangulate to the area and possibly to this house, depending on how well the cell towers were set up here.

  Again, she told herself, This is Curie, Nebraska. Don't put anything past them. So she grabbed one of the phones and drove thirty minutes out of town to one of the cornfield lanes. Though she was sitting in her car talking while she drove slowly down gravel roads kicking up dust, she was grateful to finally get in contact with GJ and hear the good news. At least the call wouldn't triangulate back to the house, if anyone came looking.