Kernel of Doubt: A Neela Durante Mystery

by Hillary Avis

  Neela zoned out while she was talking, thinking about what it would mean to leave the team and move to R&D. Cassie would be pleased to see her go, because she’d surely be promoted into the director position. She could bring in a whole new QA safety net. Chalk worked in both wings of the fourth floor, so she could still enjoy his curmudgeonly company. And Miles Hutto? Apparently he didn’t hate her as much as she thought. Maybe he wouldn’t be so bad to work with.

  The protein immunoblot was up on the screen now, as Cassie described her methods. Neela felt Mile’s foot jiggle the base of her chair. Gently at first, and then more vigorously until she turned her head to look at him. He gestured with his forehead toward the screen and she looked, really looked, at the Western blot results. She had only seen them on her phone until now, and on the large screen something was apparent that had not been on the small touchscreen. A wide dark band stretched across the top, identical to the one on 375’s blot, the same protein that had given her so much trouble for the past year.

  The blood drained from Neela’s face as she considered her options. A stolen glance at Miles confirmed he looked as grim as she felt. The others in the room hadn’t noticed. Art was doodling or taking notes on a yellow legal pad. Cassie stood with her back to the screen, so she wasn’t staring at the results in the face. Chalk was fussing with the AV equipment. She and Miles were the only ones aware, and she felt like the two of them were operating in a bubble away from the others.

  Neela couldn’t make sense of it. Was it a mistake? Contamination? Some function of R&D’s process that inserted genes at a specific location and caused this protein to be produced? Or was this something inserted into the genome purposefully that R&D understood to be harmless, like a signature? Were they intentionally keeping information from her team, or were they also unaware? Or—and she hardly let herself ask the question—was someone tampering with the plant’s genome to produce the protein for some purpose?

  The room was silent, and she realized that they were waiting for her to speak.

  “Art, I’ll have a report written up for you by Friday, finalizing my recommendations.” That was as far as she could realistically push it out, which gave her a little more than forty-eight hours to confirm the results on the screen. Art nodded and pushed his chair back, the universal sign that their meeting was over.

  She couldn’t even look Miles in the eye on the way out, afraid that a mutual glance might be too meaningful and draw the attention of the others. This needed a discreet, one-woman investigation. If she blew it out of proportion and ran to Art screaming about this protein, he might write her off as a lunatic. She had expended so much emotional effort on BE-375, and in the end, it was fruitless. She couldn’t go through that again without more proof that the protein was a problem. Or better proof. Or any proof.

  Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was a fluke, or the blots were contaminated, or it was a different protein altogether. Maybe it was someone playing an unpleasant joke on her. She narrowed her eyes at Chalk’s back as they left the conference room. He wouldn’t stoop that low, would he?

  Cassie and Art took the stairs up to their offices, and Chalk headed down to the basement. Neela and Miles shared a glance in the pale fluorescent hallway once everyone else had left.

  “I saw it—did you?” Neela almost hoped he hadn’t, that the dark band was a figment of her imagination, an image burned into her subconscious by the hours spent staring at 375.

  “It was right there,” said Miles. “Is it possible that it’s something else that size, some other protein?”

  “Not probable, maybe a one percent chance. It’s more likely that Cassie messed up the blot. Contaminated the gel, or accidentally ran the wrong vial, or mixed up the results and misfiled them in the system.”

  “Has she made a mistake like that before?”

  “Not that I know of, but maybe before you and I came on board. She has been here a few years.”

  “Who would know if something like this has happened before? Art?”

  “I won’t bring it to Art until I’m sure there is a real issue. Actually, I wanted to talk to Cassie about the animal trials from 375, so maybe I can kill two birds with one stone. I’d rather not have two conversations with her when I can have one.”

  “It’s just too much of a coincidence that 375 and 13X both have this protein,” said Miles. “I’ll do some digging and make a list of everybody who has touched 13X in any way. Cross-reference it with 375.” The elevator arrived, and they stepped inside.

  “I guess I’m on that list,” Neela said quietly as the elevator moved upward.

  He nodded in agreement. “We both are.”

  FORTY-EIGHT HOURS. The first order of business was corralling Cassie before she left for the night. Neela ran up the stairs two at a time and caught her in the hallway, waiting for the elevator.

  “Can I talk to you in my office? It will only take a minute.” Neela met her eyes and smiled as warmly as she could, which was not very.

  Cassie looked irritated and switched on her phone to look at the time. “Fine.”

  In Neela’s office, Cassie plopped down in the chair opposite the desk, a blue-gray industrial number without much in the way of comfort or character.

  “Did I do something wrong?” she asked. “I know we’re not besties but it’s not my fault Dr. Campbell wants me in your role. I mean, I didn’t push for it. Or criticize you behind your back. I think you’re well aware of my criticisms. I’ve worked hard in this department for five years, and I deserve the promotion.”

  “What? Oh. No. it’s nothing about the possible staffing changes,” said Neela. “I wanted to talk to you about the animal trials for 375.”

  “You’re still stuck on that? The trials were trials, my methods are described in the reports, and the results speak for themselves.”

  Neela took a deep breath. “I noticed in the autopsy reports that the ruminant deaths during the trials were due to MCF. Where did we acquire the sheep used in the trial? Have you found out whether other sheep in his flock have experienced MCF? I’m concerned that this may affect other animals.”

  Cassie pulled up a file on her handheld. “It was the Parker Ranch over in Sonoma County. I can contact Mr. Parker if you like. Should I take them off the list as a supplier for future trials?”

  “Yes, on both counts, please. We can put them back on the list if their flock has been healthy. Do me a favor and check with the local USDA inspector to see if there have been any other outbreaks of MCF in sheep in this county.”

  Cassie nodded and tapped some notes into her phone.

  “Did you notice any symptoms in the test subjects in the days before they died? Discharge from nose or eyes, bloody urine, high fever, anything like that?”

  Cassie shook her head, appearing more and more contrite as Neela posed her questions. “No, they seemed fine. One of them had trouble breathing for a few hours before it expired. Otherwise, nothing. Maybe the infection was subclinical.”

  “Were you there for the autopsy? Who determined it was MCF?”

  “Johnson did it.” Johnson was a veterinarian from Springfield who did many of the large animal consults when they ran ruminant trials.

  “Do you think the autopsy was sound? I mean, was it a good diagnosis?”

  Cassie nodded. “Johnson was more meticulous than anybody I’ve ever seen. He puts me to shame, and you know how anal I can be.”

  Neela grinned openly at her, at perhaps the first genuine piece of communication they’d ever had. “Oh, I do. It’s your best quality.”

  Miles texted her with the list of people who worked on 13X so soon after Cassie left that the office still smelled like her perfume. Neela sighed. Everyone from the fourth floor was on it, Neela and all of her team, Miles and the rest of R&D, plus Chalk, Art, Demetrius and a couple of other greenies, animal care techs, Johnson the veterinarian, An-Yi and the data scientist who supervised her. The list went on and on. Basically, everyone at the Sunflower Springs Research
Center had access to some part of the development or testing of the plant.

  There was no way she could talk to everyone in the next two days. Her efforts would have to focus on running the tests again to ensure there was no contamination or error in the results before she took the whole shebang to Art. Maybe, maybe, maybe it was all a mistake. A huge, preposterous, ridiculous coincidence.

  A voice came from behind her. “Quitting time?”

  Neela’s adrenaline spiked, nearly taking off the top of her skull with a rush of fear and surprise. She whirled around. “Yikes, I didn’t expect you to be here!”

  Demetrius smirked. “Uh, you didn’t expect me to come by your office when it’s time to head home, as I do every day of the week? Ooo-kay.”

  “Just on edge. Some craziness going on. I told you I have to work late tonight.”

  “Neela, whatever it is, it can wait until tomorrow. We work with corn plants. Plants are patient. They will forgive you eight hours of sleep.”

  “If you don’t want to get a ride with An-Yi, you can take my truck and bring it back in the morning.”

  “No, no, no. I am not leaving you here in this building with those creepy security dudes all night. Bring your computer and work from home or something. Not that I advocate working in your off-hours, but if you have to do it, at least do it somewhere friendly.”

  It was impossible to say no to Demetrius. “Fine, but I have to come back early tomorrow,” she warned. She wedged her laptop into her backpack and zipped her coat before slinging the bag over her shoulder.

  “So what’s going on?” Demetrius said on the ride down, their arms touching even though there was plenty of room in the elevator to spread out.

  Neela leaned her head over and rested it on his shoulder. “Something showed up in 13X that shouldn’t be there. I think. I noticed it in the middle of our wrap-up meeting. I don’t want to make a fuss about it until I know for sure, and I only have until Friday.”

  “Have you talked to Art?”

  Neela shook her head. “No, just Miles. He’s going to help me look into it. I don’t want to tell Art until I have an answer for him about—” She broke off, realizing she hadn’t told Demetrius about either of her looming deadlines, neither the divorce papers nor the move to the R&D group.

  Neela burst into tears, and Demetrius pushed the stop button on the elevator. He wrapped his arms around her like the grapevines that once lifted the roof off her father’s porch. Demetrius smelled like the greenhouses, earth and chemicals, a little bit of home. She pushed down her sobs as far as she could, until she was no longer crying but hiccupping in big spasms. By the time she could speak again, the elevator was moving, and when the doors opened on the ground floor, two security officers were waiting for them.

  “Glitchy,” one said. Neela kept her head down and nodded as Demetrius escorted her to the door.

  When she put the key in the truck’s ignition and turned, she expected it to cough and roar to life, but it didn’t. There wasn’t even a click when she turned the key the first time—nothing. She looked at Demetrius across the bench seat where he was watching her struggle with the key.

  “Teo is filing for divorce,” she said abruptly.

  “Oh. I’m really sorry, Neela. It’s not a surprise, though, is it? I’ve never even met the guy, and you and I have been...friends for over a year.” Demetrius paused for a millisecond before saying “friends,” which made Neela’s heart leap into her throat. “Maybe you can move forward now?”

  “I can’t move forward because this stupid truck won’t start!”

  Demetrius opened the door. “Sounds like a bad starter.”

  “How do you know? It didn’t even click.” Neela’s chin wobbled.

  “Yup, exactly. If your battery was bad, it would have cranked at least once.” He made a sympathetic face. “I know you don’t need this right now. I’ll leave a message for the garage in Sunflower Springs, but they probably won’t send a tow truck until the morning. We need to either get a ride or sleep inside.”

  “If we stay here, I have to call the Sawyers and ask if they’ll feed Molly. And then Burt will offer to come get us, and he won’t take no for an answer.” Neela grimaced. “We’ll have to ask security if one of them will drive us home. Maybe I can borrow Lily’s car in the morning.”

  “Let me pick you up for once,” said Demetrius.

  Neela nodded, less than eager to ask a favor from her landlords. “Come early. As early as you can.”

  DEMETRIUS came through on the ride and was at her door well before seven o’clock. A bright red vintage Vespa, one of the many scooters that lived a charmed life in his garage during the winter months, was parked in the driveway behind him. The sun was just up, and the sky was still streaked pink in some places, but Neela hardly noticed it as he handed her a helmet. She fastened the chest strap of her backpack and climbed onto the scooter behind him.

  “Which one is this?” she asked.

  “This is Sally. They only made these Rally 200s in the ’70s, but you can still get parts for her so she runs the best. She’ll get us there.”

  “I get it, Rally Sally. She’s a beauty. A redhead,” Neela said.

  “I’ll give you a lesson on her sometime,” Demetrius said over his shoulder, as he eased Sally over the gravel driveway. “That way you can borrow one of my bikes if your truck breaks down again.”

  On the highway it was too noisy to talk, and Neela was too self-conscious to hold Demetrius tightly, too distracted to wonder what he felt of her body pressed against his back. She was making mental lists of lab chores for herself. It had been a while since she ran a Western blot without an assistant doing most of the work, and it would take her all day and possibly part of tomorrow to complete all the steps.

  When Demetrius parked Sally in front of Broad Earth, Neela was surprised to see a car already in the lot. A line of white security SUVs were parked at the front of the building, of course, but there was another, too: Miles’s Audi, parked a few spaces away from her beat-up old Ford truck. She wondered if he’d been here all night.

  “See, I’m not the only one who sleeps at work sometimes.”

  “You wanna be like Miles?” Demetrius grinned, and Neela felt her stomach do a flip at the sight of his warm expression.

  She blushed and looked anywhere but straight at him, trying to shake the feeling of an impending crush. Still married, still married, still married, she chanted inside her head.

  “Hey, give me your truck keys. I’ll run them over to the garage before I clock in.”

  Neela unclipped her keyring from her backpack and handed it to him gratefully. “I owe you one.”

  “Nah, you’re just cashing in your karma-pool points. We’re square.”

  She grinned at his little pun, not wanting to bring an end to their conversation. A breeze picked up in the test fields beyond the parking lot, and the knee-high corn waved like important little flags in the weak morning sun. Something caught her eye. The wind had knocked the scarecrow over. No—there were no scarecrows at the Broad Earth test fields like there were at the Sawyers’ farm. It was something else.

  Neela grabbed Demetrius’s elbow and pointed. “Do you see that?”

  He squinted over at the field. “Are those shoes?”

  “I think it’s a person.”

  They looked at each other with dread and then dropped their helmets and ran toward the test field, arms pumping and backpacks bouncing. Demetrius pulled out ahead, but Neela did her best to keep up.

  “Hey, buddy, are you OK?” Demetrius called as they approached. The feet didn’t move, and as they neared, dread crept up Neela’s spine, and she slowed her pace. It was a person, just as she feared.

  Demetrius knelt beside the figure and pushed aside the corn plants to get a better look. Neela heard his sharp intake of breath before he said, “Don’t come closer. This is bad. He’s been shot, Neela. He’s cold.”

  “Who? Who’s been shot?”

  Demetrius s
tood up and brushed the dirt off his knees. “It’s Miles.”

  Chapter Three

  Neela froze. It couldn’t be. “Miles Hutto or another Miles?”

  “It’s Miles. Our Miles.” Demetrius glanced over his shoulder at the Vespa in the parking lot. “Listen, I should go. Just tell them what happened.”

  “I don’t know what happened! Don’t leave me here—I don’t know what to do!” Blood rang in Neela’s ears as she clenched her fists and willed her breakfast not to make a reappearance.

  Demetrius wrapped his arms around her and squeezed hard. “Hey. I’m sorry. There’s nothing to do here except wait for the police. Call Art, he’ll walk you through it. If I get stuck here talking to cops, I won’t be able to drop your keys in time. I have a couple errands to run, too.” He let her go and jogged back to the scooter, scooped up his helmet, and rode off before Neela could even call after him.

  He was probably right that Art would know what to do, but she felt utterly abandoned. Fixing the stupid truck and running errands seemed really unimportant when someone was laying there dead on the ground. She blinked back her tears and fumbled in her backpack for her phone, trying not to look at Miles’s feet sticking out from between the rows of corn. When she turned on the phone, it buzzed with an unread notification. Miles Hutto, voicemail, 11:15 p.m. yesterday.

  Why would Miles call so late? Why would he call at all?

  With trembling fingers, Neela found Art in her contacts list and called his cell.

  “Morning!”

  She couldn’t keep the tremble out of her voice. “Art, it’s Miles...Miles Hutto.”

  “Funny, you sound like Neela to me.”

  “Where are you? How fast can you get to work?” The wind picked up and rustled the plants, sending a chill down her back.

  “The Waffle Nook in Sunflower Springs, maybe fifteen minutes out. Why, what’s Miles doing? Is he harassing you about something?”