by Jon McGoran
I followed him outside and closed the door behind us.
“Looks like the Padulla woman was doing her nails,” he said, as we stepped outside. It took me a moment to realize he was talking about Julie Patchouli. “Knocked the bottle over and the stuff caught fire. She didn’t get out in time.”
“Think that’s what really happened?”
“Looks suspicious as hell to me, but I’m suspicious by nature. What do you know about it?”
“There’s serious shit going on.”
He laughed. “You think? Even apart from all the shooting you seem to be attracting, Katama’s like a war zone between all the corporate security Rambo wannabes and the crazy-ass protesters coming in from off island. Serious shit? Tell me something I don’t know.” He laughed again, then cut it short for effect. “Seriously. Tell me something I don’t know.”
“This thing with the bees. There’s something fishy going on.”
“I already know that. Big fishy, too, involving all sorts of big fish. What’s this got to do with Annalisa?”
“She’s been poking around,” I said, lowering my voice for some reason. “Trying to figure out what’s going on.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Last night Annalisa logged onto their computers using Julie Padulla’s user ID. A couple of hours later, we get our midnight visitors.” I hooked my thumb back the way we’d come. “This morning that happens.”
“Jesus.”
“What about Teddy?”
“What about him? He brought his stuff down on himself.”
“What about him still being in jail?”
He shrugged. “Bail was set and he didn’t post it.”
“Is that part of the pressure you’re talking about? Is someone keeping him there on purpose, keeping him out of the way?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“You think I could get in there to talk to him again?”
“Why?”
“See if a couple of days inside has given him any fresh insights.”
He thought about that, then said, “Yeah. I’ll call them on my way in, tell them you’re coming. Just say you’re a friend of the family, okay?”
I nodded. “So who do you think it is, applying all this pressure, anyway?”
He looked at me as he opened the car door. “Stoma, I assume.”
We paused, thinking about that.
“You think they’re safe up here?”
“No one’s going to find them up here.”
“I want to go out and do some leg work. Try to figure out what’s going on.”
He thought about that. “Just make sure no one follows you back.”
I nodded and turned to go back inside.
“Hey, Carrick,” he called out. “One last question.”
I stopped half inside my car.
“So what were you doing over there last night, anyway? At Annalisa’s house.”
“Why you asking?”
“I’m just asking.”
I saw a look in his eyes I hadn’t seen before and I smiled. “I was just sleeping on the sofa, in case something like this happened.”
* * *
By the time I got back inside, Annalisa was standing with her thumbnail wedged between her front teeth, staring at the papers spread out over the dinner table.
Nola tilted her head and beckoned me over to the sofa. When I sat next to her, she looked at me with a sad little smile. “It feels like I haven’t seen you in a long time.”
I smiled back at her, rested my hand on her thigh.
“I’m trying to get a picture of all this stuff that’s going on,” she said. “I think there’s some things I don’t know about. So I need you to tell me, what the hell is going on here?”
I took a deep breath and gave her the full version, almost. I felt bad laying it all on her.
“Jesus,” she said breathlessly when I got up to the part where she was pointing a shotgun at me.
“I don’t know how, but I have a strong feeling whatever Teddy was up to is somehow related.”
Annalisa had stopped working and was listening. Her eyes were wet, and I realized she’d been reliving the traumatic events. Nola turned to look at her.
“Are you okay?” Nola asked.
Annalisa nodded, sniffing back tears. I wanted to comfort her, but I couldn’t, not in front of Nola. I was relieved when Nola did.
They disappeared into the bedroom, and I could hear the soft sound of women reassuring each other. I tried Moose again, but there was still no answer.
A few minutes later Nola came back into the living room and sat down across from me, studying me again. “Sounds like she’s been through a lot.”
I nodded.
“How about you? How are you doing?” she asked.
“You know me,” I said. “I’m fine.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“I’m fine,” I repeated.
A moment later Annalisa came out. “Sorry about that,” she said, flashing an awkward smile and gesturing toward the papers on the table. “I should get back to work.”
Within seconds she was immersed, staring intently at the numbers on the table.
“What is she looking for?” Nola asked quietly.
I told her about the gene sequence that showed up in the mites, and the possibility that the genetic material was unstable and had jumped from the bees to the mites. “She’s looking for evidence of that, but she’s also trying to find the data that was replaced, thinking if they went to that much trouble to hide it, it must tell us something.”
“Oh.” She looked over at Annalisa with new respect.
“So here’s the thing,” I said. “While Annalisa’s going at this from the scientific angle, I have some other things I should check on. I asked Jimmy and he thinks you’re safe here. Are you two going to be okay?”
I wasn’t entirely comfortable leaving Nola and Annalisa alone, for their safety in case the bad guys figured out Annalisa was there, and for mine in case the two of them got to talking about me. But I needed to figure out what was going on.
“I think so, yeah. Are you going to be okay out there?”
I smiled. “Of course.”
I walked over to the dining area, where Annalisa was standing over the table, deep in thought.
“I’m going out for a little bit,” I said.
She looked up, distracted. “Oh,” she said. “Okay,” as in, “Now go away and let me get back to my work.”
Nola followed me to the door, but no farther. I stepped out, then turned to face her. Against my better judgment, I leaned toward her, but she stepped back and smiled, letting me know that wasn’t going to happen. Not yet.
I smiled as well, despite myself.
She looked me in the eye. “Be careful,” she said quietly.
“You, too.”
59
The windows were dark at Darren Renfrew’s house, but the sense that there was no one home came from something deeper than that. I knocked on the door and rang the bell but there was no answer. I gave it a good two minutes, trying three times with the bell and three times with the knocking.
As I was walking back down the driveway a voice called out, “You looking for Renfrew?”
I turned and didn’t see anyone at first. Then I looked up and saw that same sniper up on the roof. Scoping me.
“Yeah,” I called up to him. “Is he home?”
“He might be. He doesn’t live here anymore.”
“Seriously?”
He lowered the gun a bit. “I know. Crazy, right?”
“You work for him, right?”
He took a sip of coffee from a thermos lid. “Used to. I work for the company, and it’s not his company anymore. Same thing with the house. Owned by the company. They kicked him out, changed the locks, told me to shoot him if he came back.” He laughed and shook his head. “I mean, don’t get me wrong: the guy is a class-A asshole, but seems a little harsh.”
“You know wh
ere he’s living?”
“No idea.” He took another sip of coffee. “I imagine a guy like that, he’s probably got houses in other places. Then again, I wouldn’t have thought he’d do something like put the house in the company’s name. But there you go.” He put down the coffee and raised his gun again. “Anyway, you should get going. Technically, I should have shot you by now.”
* * *
The guy at the jail was friendly and polite and I thought once more that the place was too nice for Teddy Renfrew.
Then they let me in to see him, and I thought maybe he’d had enough. His cell was a concrete and cinder block box with a cot and a toilet. He was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall and his head on his knees. When he looked up, his face was pale, the rings under his eyes were dark, and his nose was running.
“What do you want?” he said when he saw me.
“You’re still here,” I said.
“No shit.”
I felt a little better about it. “Why do you think that is?”
He gave me a sneer, but I guess he couldn’t think of anything snotty to say.
“You know about the bees, right? Stoma has brought theirs in all over the island.”
He looked away from me.
“You know they bought Thompson Company, right?” I lowered my voice. “Teddy, there’s something going on out here. Stoma is up to something big. I’m trying to stop it.”
Nothing.
“You know anything about Benjy?”
He looked around. “What about him?”
“He’s disappeared. I was wondering if you knew anything about it.”
He rolled his eyes. “I heard he went to visit his mom.”
“He never got there.”
Just for a second, the fear behind his eyes spilled out, then he looked away again.
“If you know anything that can help me, now is the time.”
He kept his eyes down and let his middle finger do the talking.
I drove through Katama on my way back, to see if I could find Moose. Jimmy had told me where it was, but before I got within a quarter mile of the place, I had to pull over. Traffic was completely stopped. Up ahead, I could see plenty of black SUVs and a perimeter of hard-core Darkstar types, all shades, earpieces, and biceps.
Lined up in front of them were the protesters. Some seemed peaceful, a lot more didn’t, and there were plenty of signs and placards, like SAVE THE BEES and HELL NO, GMO. I found Moose helping a guy hold up a sign that said FRANKEN-FUCK YOU, TOO.
“Doyle,” he shouted over the sound of the crowd. “What are you doing here?”
“I need to talk to you,” I shouted back.
He seemed disappointed to be giving up his great spot, but he followed me to the fringe of the crowd.
“What’s up?” he said in a normal voice.
“Have you heard anything from Benjy?”
He shook his head, his eyes suddenly sad.
I put my head close to his. “Things have gotten violent. One of Annalisa’s coworkers is dead, and two gunmen broke into Annalisa’s house last night.”
He jerked his head back. “Oh my God, are you serious? Is she okay?”
“She’s fine. But we’re all a little scared. She and Nola are hiding out in a house in the woods.”
His face was deadly serious, then he let out a barking laugh. “Annalisa and Nola are in a hideout together? No wonder you’re scared.”
I smiled. “I know. I need to get back there. I’m thinking maybe you should come with me. For safety’s sake.”
He shook his head. “No man, I’m good. I need to make my voice heard, right here with my peeps.”
“Okay. Be safe.”
“You, too.” He gave me a quick hug, then turned and headed back, joining in with the unintelligible chants of the crowd as he disappeared into it.
60
When I got back, Nola met me at the door, but I got the feeling it was more out of boredom that anything else.
“Did you find out anything?” she asked. I shook my head.
Annalisa was still at the dining room table, studying the pages and typing on her computer.
“Anything new here?” I asked.
Nola shook her head, but Annalisa looked up and said, “Maybe.”
We both walked over to her and she pulled two sheets of paper from the top of one of the piles, each one covered with columns of numbers, and each with a large red circle around a chunk of those numbers.
“I found the original data,” she announced.
“That’s great!” I said. “What does it say?”
She looked up at us. “I’m working on that.” Then she was reabsorbed into her work.
Nola brought me a coffee. I sat on the sofa and took a scalding gulp, then another one. I figured I should let it cool for a minute, so I put it down on the coffee table and rested my eyes. Just for a moment.
* * *
I awoke with a start, wondering how long I’d been asleep. The light coming in from the window was still overcast and gray. My body felt achy and stiff. My coffee was cold. I sat up and drank it anyway.
Nola and Annalisa were sitting at the table, talking quietly. Nola leaned back in her chair so she could see me.
“You’re up,” she said.
I nodded, drinking more coffee. “What did I miss?”
Annalisa got up. “I hit a wall,” she said quietly, walking into the living room and dropping into an armchair. “I have the missing data, but I don’t have enough other data to know what to make of it. There are similar trends during the two events, steep elevations in certain markers, building to some kind of event and then dropping steeply back to the baseline. The events are consistent with each other, but I don’t know what they are, and I don’t have enough data to figure it out.”
“So does this mean that whatever happened when Claudia Osterman died is the same thing that happened when the other girl died?” Nola asked.
“Lynne. And probably, yes. And in both instances they faked the data and covered it up.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I didn’t find anything that might tell us one way or the other if the splice is unstable. I should have just stayed there and run the searches on the computer. I panicked.”
“It was probably encrypted anyway, right?” Nola said. “If it’s that sensitive?”
Annalisa smiled. “With a little time, I’m sure I could get past whatever they have in place.”
I shrugged. “We still have Julie’s card.”
Annalisa’s eyes went wide at the thought.
“You can’t go back,” Nola told her firmly. Then she looked at me like I was some kind of animal for suggesting it.
Annalisa shook her head, her eyes fearful. “No, I can’t. I don’t know if the card even works anymore, but after what happened to Julie, I can’t risk being seen by them. I don’t know what I’ll do for the rest of my life, but right now, I need to be invisible.”
“Of course you’re not going back,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I am.”
Annalisa shook her head. “Doyle, you don’t have the skills to get through the encryption. And I don’t even know what it would look like so I can’t tell you. What would you do when you got there?”
“I’ll take the whole goddamned server and bring it back here.”
Nola was still shaking her head when the expression on Annalisa’s face told her she was taking the idea seriously. Unfortunately, by the time Nola bought in, Annalisa was shaking her head, too.
“It’s too dangerous,” she said. “We should just go to the authorities.”
“I don’t know what authorities I trust, other than Jimmy Frank,” I said. “And right now, I don’t think he trusts any, either. Sorry, but to me that says we need to figure this out on our own.”
Nola shook her head. “No,” she said. Simple and final.
“We need to know what’s going on, right?” I said. “They’re hiding something big, something big enough to kill people over
—”
“Exactly,” Nola cut in. “And you’re not going to be next.”
“The place has probably been cleaned out already,” I said. “But if it hasn’t been, if the server is still there, it won’t be for long. That e-mail said operations are being moved to Katama, so I need to go now and check it out.”
“It will be crawling with security,” Annalisa said.
“I don’t know, the Katama site is crawling with security, and mobbed with protesters. They might have all hands on deck there. If I can’t get in and out safely, I’ll turn around and come back.”
“And then what?”
“And then we’ll figure out something else.”
61
I drove past the place doing sixty, head straight, eyes barely glancing over. Five minutes later I came back the other way doing twenty-five and took a good long look.
My plan had been to create some sort of diversion, but there didn’t seem to be anyone there to divert. The gate was closed and locked, but the place looked deserted. No guards, no protesters. No one.
I parked across the street behind Annalisa’s lab and walked the same route through the woods as the night before, crossing the road and doubling back. Another layer of clouds had moved in, lower and darker, but I still felt exposed in the daylight. The twigs breaking underfoot seemed louder than before, and without the cover of darkness, it felt silly trying to sneak in at all.
The fence appeared up ahead, and through it the lab units. I listened silently for five minutes, but it was quiet. Even the wildlife seemed to have gone, and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stirring as vague dark scenarios played out in the back of my mind.
Finally I pulled myself up onto the fence, trying to keep the clanging of the chain-link against the poles to a minimum. The tools in my front pocket dug into my leg as I climbed over the top.
When I dropped down to the other side, I pulled the Glock out of my ankle holster and paused, listening. Then I stepped quickly and quietly to the nearest trailer.
I laid my hand on the painted wood exterior. I couldn’t feel the vibrations I’d felt before, and I wondered if the bees were gone. That would explain the lack of guards. I was troubled by the implications but relieved as well.