by Linda Lovely
Not keen on making open-ended promises, my reply wasn’t instantaneous. “I understand, but I’m not promising to help.”
The FBI agent bit her lip, nodded. “That’s fair. Jolbiogen and other researchers have been using a common cold virus to deliver drugs that target specific genes inside the body. It’s a promising way to switch off rogue genes specific to illnesses like cancer. However, the military recognized the research had its scary side.”
“Good God, are you saying the process could be reversed and used to activate rogue genes?”
Weaver’s head bobbed in ascent. “Just let me finish. Imagine what might happen if our enemies adapted the technique to deliver viral or bacterial pathogens—ones targeted to kill people with a shared DNA sequence? Let’s say we’re fighting in the Middle East, our enemies could unleash a virus with fatal pathogens programmed to activate only if the host bodies had a DNA sequence common to people of European descent.”
The little hairs on my neck quivered. “They can do that? Decode ancestral DNA to target specific populations?”
“Yes,” Weaver answered. “Each person’s DNA provides a key to his ancestry. Research with African populations proves it’s possible to use DNA to pin ancestry down to the tribal level. The Nazis would have had a field day. No need to round anyone up.”
My stomach clenched. Good Lord, no wonder the military engaged. “So what kind of contract did the military give Jolbiogen?”
“They asked the company to build a portable detection system that uses DNA samples to identify any pathogenic agent and the gene sequence set as its target. Three weeks ago Jolbiogen discovered a security breach in the lab where Darlene’s daughter works. The missing research described its prototype detection system. It also listed formulas for a group of deadly pathogens the prototype had been unable to detect.”
My jaw dropped. “You’re saying someone could use those formulas to concoct a virus cocktail designed to wipe out selected ethnic populations?”
She nodded. “Right, and our inability to quickly determine the nature of the attack could cost thousands of lives.”
“Where does Jake fit in?” I asked.
“I’m convinced Jake discovered the thief. The day he died, he called and asked for an urgent face-to-face meeting in Spirit Lake. He refused to say more on the phone.”
The FBI agent paused to scan the landscape, added recognition of our chat’s covert nature. No wonder she was nervous. Conversations like this weren’t in any FBI playbook. I had no need to know. I couldn’t tell a viral pathogen from pine pollen, and I’d never laid eyes on Darlene’s daughter, Julie.
How did Weaver and General Irvine expect me to help?
“Okay, you suspect Jake’s death is linked to the theft. Surely no one believes Darlene and Julie are bioterrorists. They certainly wouldn’t have killed Jake.”
Weaver didn’t answer for several seconds.
“That’s the theory my boss is pushing. Jake caught Julie selling secrets so mother and daughter murdered him. I’m not buying, but Quentin Hamilton’s more persuasive than I am. His company handles Jolbiogen security, and he’s heading the internal corporate investigation. The theft was definitely an inside job, and Hamilton likes Julie for the crime.”
It wasn’t hard for me to picture Hamilton pontificating. “The fact Hamilton’s pushing the theory tells me it’s bullshit. The guy’s a snake—always looking to slither for cover. His theory’s a red herring, meant to distract from the fact the theft occurred on his watch. Does he claim to have any actual evidence?”
Weaver shook her head. “Only a shaky motive. Thrasos conducts heavy-duty background checks on all new hires. A grad school classmate of Julie’s blabbed about the young woman’s affair with a fifty-year-old professor, a left-winger, who’s since dropped out of academia. He now works for some European think tank.”
The agent huffed out a breath. “Hamilton contends Julie stole for her radical lover, who’s gone psycho. I think it’s a crock. By all accounts, the short-lived affair ended two years back. There’s no indication Julie shared the guy’s worldview. Plus, why would she pull a stunt like that when her mother was marrying Jolbiogen’s founder? From all reports, mother and daughter are quite close.”
“So why tell me? What do you want?”
“Just keep your eyes and ears open. If you learn anything connected to Jake’s murder or the theft, call General Irvine or me. Though I don’t like coincidence, I can’t rule out the possibility Jake’s murder isn’t connected with the theft. Someone might have killed him for a different reason.”
Weaver handed me a card with two private cell phone numbers scrawled on the back—hers and General Irvine’s.
Reluctantly I pocketed it. “Okay, but I’m damned uncomfortable. This cloak-and-dagger crap makes it all too easy for Hamilton and his dunderheads to ruin reputations without a lick of evidence.”
“We’ll share information with local authorities in a couple of days,” Weaver replied. “General Irvine flew in as soon as he heard about Jake’s death. The general isn’t convinced Hamilton’s investigation is on track. Once the computer forensics work’s finished at Jolbiogen, we’ll brief Sheriff Delaney.”
The agent’s eyes locked on mine. “I hope we haven’t made a mistake confiding in you. My head will roll if my boss finds out. I think he’s bucking for a lucrative consulting gig with Hamilton’s company when he retires.”
“I don’t break promises.” We shook hands. “And I don’t betray friends.”
***
My head throbbed. I wished I’d followed May’s lead and taken a nap. My trip to the mailbox killed any illusion I’d soon return to a relaxing family vacation.
I changed into suitable attire for my afternoon sympathy visit—beige silk blouse, loose peasant skirt and sandals. I heard May stirring. Naptime complete.
I caught her pawing through her purse. “I’m almost late for my weekly hair appointment. You can drop me by the beauty parlor and take the car. I’ll walk home. It’s only two blocks. Ross will drive me to dinner if you’re not back in time.”
Newly cataract-free, May had zero problems driving in daylight if she didn’t have a willing chauffer. Nighttime was a different matter. Nonetheless, I declined her offer of the Buick and insisted she take the car. The woman would never fork over money for a two-block taxi ride and I didn’t want her schlepping home in a thunderstorm.
She turned at her front door. “You be careful now, Marley Clark.” She fixed me with a stern stare. “Stay long enough to be polite and skedaddle. I expect you for dinner.”
When it suited, Aunt May reneged on our adult relationship and treated me like a willful child. My reaction was equally predictable. At age fifty-two, I’d simply learned not to say the words out loud.
I’ll do as I damn well please.
SEVEN
“Hot diggity. Do I get to drive through the gates?”
My destination tickled my cabbie.
“Maybe.” I shrugged. “They’ve battened down the security hatches to keep reporters out. I may be asked to walk in from the gate.”
And I might get soaked.
Ominous black clouds massed on the horizon like army troops readying an attack. It wouldn’t be long before thunder growled its battle cry.
As the first fat drops splashed on the windshield, a Thrasos guard scanned an approved visitor list. He instructed the cabbie to drop me at the mansion and return at once. He sounded like a bored automaton reading a Monopoly card, “Go to jail. Do Not Collect $200.” Regardless, he made my driver’s week.
Harvey, the consummate butler, opened the carved oak door and rumbled a greeting. “Mrs. Olsen is in the great room. She asked me to show you right in.”
The Mrs. title warned me—Darlene had company. Down the corridor, strident voices echoed from the great room. My nose twitched at the cloying aroma of the sympathy bouquets crammed in the entryway. Wonderful.
“This is preposterous,” a loud voice asserte
d. “You were married to my father less than a week. Talk about motive. This ridiculous document will never stand up.”
I hung back, queasy about entering the verbal melee. Harvey trudged onward. I attempted to mimic his unflappable demeanor. The volume of the conflagration lowered. Had they heard our footsteps? Once we breached the great room’s entry, conversation halted.
Darlene rushed to hug me. “I’m so glad you came. Let me introduce you. Marley Clark is a dear friend from college days. You probably know her cousin, Captain Ross, or maybe you’ve met her aunt, May Carr—she’s a legend at Spirit Lake’s hospital.”
After dispensing with my pedigree, Darlene introduced the room’s occupants, starting with daughter, Julie. Wearing raggedy jeans and a faded University of Okoboji T-shirt, she looked like a carbon copy of her mom at twenty—a green-eyed, blonde bombshell with attitude. On cue, she popped up with a hundred-watt smile and a firm handshake.
Jake’s daughter Gina came next. Lanky beige hair framed her jaundiced face, while loose flab creased in folds around knees that unfortunately poked beneath a too-short skirt. I knew Gina was in her early forties. She looked older than her step-mom. When introduced, she blinked rapidly and wheezed a tad louder. No other sign of intelligent life. It wasn’t necessary to smell the brine to know the lady was pickled.
Gina’s amorphous bulk provided a startling Jack Sprat contrast to her husband’s anorexic frame. An iron-gray moustache punctuated Dr. Robert Glaston’s hawkish face, while a surgically-precise pink part divided his sooty hair. The good doctor mumbled a “nice to meet you.” Light glinting off his wire-rimmed bifocals made it impossible to see his eyes.
Gina’s son Eric was absent. Thank God for small favors.
Kyle Olsen sat beside his half-sister, Gina. Gray streaks accented his styled chestnut hair. The racing stripe color shift made his waspish face look narrower. A sloped forehead kept his eyes in shadow, a natural cavern.
He held his head still like a cobra poised to strike. I stifled an intense desire to shudder. Kyle didn’t offer to shake hands. “Quentin Hamilton warned me about you. This is a family meeting. You’re not welcome.”
“I invited her,” Darlene snapped. “This is my house.”
I braced for fireworks when another member of the tableau jumped up. “Delighted to meet you, Marley. I’m Duncan James. Darlene told me how much your friendship means. We had family business, but it’s finished.”
I wanted to kiss the stranger even before my brain kicked in with a what-a-hunk report.
The man sandwiched my hand between his warm mitts, and gave an encouraging squeeze. “I’m pleased to count your cousin as a friend, and I’ve met your captivating aunt.”
Ross had told me the lawyer was in his fifties. There were few signposts of age. Little crinkles bookmarked dancing blue eyes. I surmised his curly hair had been cheeky red before a sprinkling of silver toned it down to copper. Devilish seemed the best adjective to describe his grin.
The movie “The Sting” sprang to mind. As an impressionable teen, I’d mooned over actor Robert Redford. Duncan reminded me of the film’s cocky scoundrel a few decades down the road. A damn shame Eunice hadn’t arranged that blind date.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. James.”
He smiled. “Please, it’s Duncan.”
Kyle leapt to his feet. “We didn’t come for social hour.” I could practically hear his teeth grind. “Darlene, you’ll hear from our lawyer. Gina. Robert. Are you coming?”
“Yes, yes of course,” Dr. Glaston stammered.
As Glaston levered his wife out of her chair, Gina swayed. When her heavy ballast finally shifted, the woman wobbled forward. He trailed his wife, carrying her respirator.
No one uttered a word until the threesome vanished. I expected the massive front door to bang. The whisper-like snick signaled Harvey had shepherded them out. Maybe there’s a role for a butler—or bodyguard—if you have relatives like Kyle.
“Thank God, they’re gone. What an afternoon.” Darlene collapsed in an easy chair. “I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m ready for a drink.” She laughed. “Marley, you’ll think I’m a lush, but whenever Kyle enters or leaves a room, it’s Miller time.”
Harvey materialized to take drink orders. After Darlene requested a rum and Coke, I added a why-the-hell-not ditto. Julie asked for a Coors Light, which prompted a “me too” from Duncan. No one seemed able to summon the energy to be inventive or terribly sociable.
Duncan crossed to the wall of windows. “Looks like we’re in for one crackerjack of a storm.”
Sprinkles freckled the glass. Sheet lightning pulsed in the distance, and bright reflections flowed down the windows like light in a lava lamp. Though the pyrotechnics ignited too far away for audible thunder, I felt sure Ross had radioed the Queen’s captain to haul his keister back to Arnolds Park. He was terrified the tour boat might be damaged in a pop-up thunderstorm.
Darlene sighed. “Any storm will be anticlimactic after Sheriff Delaney’s bombshell. I can’t believe someone murdered Jake. With eye drops no less. Delaney said the M.E. concluded the cyclogel killed Jake because he suffered from MG. Since I’m the only one who admits knowing about his illness, I’m—taa daa—the lone suspect.”
“That’s ridiculous.” I tried to inject astonishment into my response even though the FBI agent had given me a preview of coming accusations.
“Tell Marley about the search,” Julie prodded.
Darlene gnawed her lip. “Sheriff Delaney asked to search our house. Said he didn’t have a warrant but wanted to keep things quiet. I agreed. I had nothing to hide. ’Course I didn’t plan on his deputies cleaning out my medicine chest. They even confiscated my hormone replacement pills. If my hot flashes return before I get a refill, they’ll get to see true homicidal rage.”
My friend’s flash of sass signaled she was far from cowed.
Darlene sighed. “They fingerprinted Julie and me. Said they needed our prints to exclude them from any unidentified prints in our bedroom or bath.”
Harvey dealt out the drinks. Now that the Olsen offspring had departed, he’d reverted to his fond uncle persona. “They fingerprinted me, too.” He laughed, then rolled his eyes. “I suggested that any notion that ‘the butler did it’ was a true cliché.”
Darlene chuckled. “Join us, Harvey. Bet you could stand a drink.”
“Thanks, just the same. I’ll have mine later. And I won’t be toasting that prick Quentin Hamilton.”
“Yeah, sorry you got caught in his crosshairs,” Darlene said. “Hamilton reprised his grand inquisitor role after the sheriff left. Badgered both Harvey and me about documents. I told him to take it up with the sheriff, who’d already searched the house stem to stern.”
She ran a finger around the rim of her glass. “Hamilton’s decided I’m too stupid to have killed Jake all by my lonesome. He’s hinted Julie’s the brain behind some devious plot. He grilled her about work. I warned Julie not to answer the dickhead. He’s evil. She wouldn’t listen.”
“Oh, Mom.” Julie groaned. “I confirmed what the bastard already knew. He hoped I’d lie. So I told him, yes, I have access to cyclogel. And, yes, security is loose as a goose for all kinds of substances in our lab. We stock lots of nasty concoctions—stuff far more deadly than cyclogel—and I could waltz out with samples any time.”
Darlene sighed. “Did you have to add it would be tough for a stranger to steal cyclogel from your lab?”
Julie bit her lip. “It’s true. We don’t display cyclogel, snake venom extracts or mushroom toxins like produce at a fruit stand. A thief would have to know where to look. He’d better know what he’s doing, too. I won’t touch puffer fish toxin without double gloving.”
Darlene shuddered. “I hate this. How safe can it be?”
Her daughter rolled her eyes in an exasperated pantomime.
Darlene shrugged. “Hey, if condoms break, so can rubber gloves.”
“Too bad I didn’t arrive sooner,” Dun
can said. “I’d have put an end to the questioning.”
“Well, at least you were here to keep the other heirs from skinning me alive.” Darlene raised her glass in a salute. “I still can’t believe Jake signed a new will the day before we married.”
Good grief. I’d walked in on the reading of the billionaire’s last will and testament.
A smile tugged at the corners of Darlene’s mouth. “Boy, was Kyle steamed. Gina may have been pissed, too, but it’s hard to peer through her alcoholic haze.”
My jaw dropped. Given the bitter protest, it appeared Darlene hit the inheritance jackpot. Though it was none of my business, I was dying to know how all the heirs fared.
Duncan interrupted my higher math speculations. “Marley, you can let Ross know the Maritime Museum is a beneficiary. Jake bequeathed the old cottage on the estate plus funds to feature it in a new museum wing. He also established a trust for capital improvements, acquisitions and operating funds.”
I grinned. Wow. “Ross will be thrilled. I can’t wait to see it. My cousin’s sure enamored.”
“Want to take a look now?” Darlene asked. “If so, better head out before it starts raining in earnest.”
“Mind if I join you?” Duncan asked. “I’ve been curious about it ever since Jake told me he was leaving a ghost to his favorite nonprofit.”
I glanced out the window. Wind gusts bent the large bur oaks like reeds. “We’d better be quick. Anyone else interested?”
After Darlene and Julie begged off, Duncan and I hustled out the French doors and onto the sun porch. I staggered as a gust of wind caught me full force.
Duncan took my arm. “Steady there.”
We scurried across the flagstone patio and down the cottage path. “Do you have a key?”
“Don’t need one,” Duncan replied. “Jake never locked it. The estate’s patrolled and, from what I hear, there’s not much to steal.”
I was glad we walked side-by-side. The wind literally whistled up my fanny, ballooning my loose peasant skirt above my derriere. My figure’s not too bad, but the skirt-over-head look is seldom chic. I wasn’t eager to model my Hanes cotton undies for just anybody.