The River Killers (26 page)

She looked at me and I looked helplessly back. “I really don't want anything to do with it. I want to pretend none of this happened.” She wiped her hands on her skirt though they weren't dirty . . . yet. “But I suppose I have to pay for my sins—or
DFO
's. Where's the computer?”

“We have it here, and unfortunately, because it may be primary evidence, we can't release it. It's asking a lot but could you work on it here? Evenings, perhaps?” Louise was showing some sympathy for Bette and that buoyed me somewhat.

“It's Friday tomorrow. Can I come in on the weekend?”

“Absolutely, and thank you for doing this. I know it's tough when the organization you work for screws up. My bunch has stumbled pretty badly on occasion. An organization often becomes more like your clan or tribe, or extended family. When they fail, you take it personally. But you shouldn't. You can't always be your brother's keeper.” My thoughts exactly, and I was grateful to Louise for allowing her humanity to overcome her professionalism.

Bette stood up and I gave her a half hug, side-on with one arm around her shoulders. She gave an ironic little smile and I squeezed her shoulder gently. “One more favor, Bette. I'd like to organize a wake for Alistair. We'll get all the guys from the science branch who used to work with him. None of them were Crowley's close friends but it's an excuse to drink good scotch. And I guess there's professional respect as well. Can you let everyone know to drop by the lab tomorrow afternoon. Threeish?”

She nodded. Louise and Tommy reached across the table and shook her hand. She left, considerably more burdened than when she'd arrived. Tommy left us alone, and I went over and kissed Louise. “Thanks for being gentle with Bette. She's suffering.”

“Well, it's pretty obvious she's a good guy. Your instincts were right, Danny. As they often are.”

“They're right about a lot of things,” I said, nuzzling her neck. “I plan to be having sex later on. Care to join me?”

“Why don't you practice on your own for awhile? I'm going to get my beauty sleep. We'll make a fresh start in the morning.”

“I wish we really could make a fresh start. Unfortunately, I can't resurrect corpses.”

The next morning I resolved to scrutinize Crowley's logbook and try to rationalize the two days he had fished before the opening. I allowed Louise to assist me. I took the logbook over to her desk, opened it to the May 6 entry and commenced perusing. Louise sat beside me, massaging the nape of my neck more than perusing, but I was used to carrying the load. I took a sip of coffee and flipped forward a few pages. I took another sip and then flipped back a few pages.

“Go back to May 6.” I did. “May 7?” I turned the page. “Flip ahead slowly. Okay, now back to say, April 30.” I followed her instructions. “I've noticed something a little odd. Look at the times given for May 6 and 7. They're quite precise, to the minute. But times for all the other entries are given in fifteen-minute increments, like they're just approximations. What's so special about those two days that Crowley decided to note everything more accurately?”

I thought about that very, very hard. “What I'm thinking is this. Those two days don't really exist, at least not in the prawn-fishing sense. They were before the opening. I think Crowley just made them up as a cover for something else, something he was trying to tell us. Those numbers are a code.”

“Where's your magic decoder ring?”

“I gave it to Sandra Delaney in Grade 6.”

“See where your romantic impulses get you?”

“I'm hoping they'll get us into a more clothes-free situation.”

“That's not romance, that's lust.”

“There's a difference? I just said that because you're so cute when you roll your eyes. You did it again. The
RCMP
or Van City police must have some top-notch code guys, or are they all in
CSIS
?”

“Ha ha ha. There must be someone who specializes in codes. I'll ask around.”

“This afternoon, I'll be skulking around Crowley's wake. Partly because I enjoy a good skulk, but mainly because all those guys knew Crowley, worked at the lab, and must have some knowledge of what was going on.”

“Our bad guy may be there. Be careful!”

“I'll just look for someone pallid. Mind you, they're probably all pallid.”

Later on, I took a taxi to the West Vancouver lab. I got out and stood for a minute in the lukewarm spring sun. A burst of laughter came from behind the main building and I directed my steps along the asphalt pathway that circled it.

Behind the grey concrete offices, a green lawn bordered the blue water of Burrard Inlet. Two card tables had been set up to hold a collection of bottles and paper cups, and perhaps sixty people stood in small groups, laughing and talking. The vibe was three o'clock Friday afternoon, definitely
school's out
but not quite
yay,
summer holidays
.

I helped myself to a paper cup and decided it needed something in it. Scotch is the drink of choice for
DFO
scientists and there was an assortment of very respectable single malts. I poured three fingers of someone's Glenfiddich and added a few drops of water. It burned pleasurably down my gullet and I surveyed the scene. Pete Van Allen was talking to a couple of bearded types, so I wandered over.

“Danny! Good to see you. Do you know Sam here? He's invertebrates, and Markus is cetaceans.”

“Hi, guys. It's nice to see everyone remembering Alistair in the proper spirit, and with the proper spirits.” They laughed, and one of them, Markus I think, asked if I knew Alistair. “By reputation only. But I was working out of Shearwater when they found his body.”

“What in heaven's name was he doing there?”

“Good question, and some might ask what, in heaven's name was he doing here?” They looked uncomfortable and sipped their drinks defensively.

Pete gestured to the upper floors of the building. “You'll notice none of the brass are here. They don't like to acknowledge that Alistair even existed, much less worked here.”

“Well, chickens come home to roost like salmon come home to spawn, or at least like they used to.” Sam and Markus looked even more uncomfortable and drifted unobtrusively away.

“Better put the stabilizers out,” Pete laughed. “Danny's rocking the boat again. What's bothering you now?”

“Pete, it looks like Alistair was murdered and whoever did it has some connection to the work they were doing here back in the 1980s. Is there anyone here who was part of all that?”

“Jesus, that was never my scene. I only stopped in here once in a while to check something in the library. But Gary Masters, that guy in the Tilley hat over there, he's a geneticist. He'd know something about it.”

I looked in the direction Pete had indicated and saw a tall, slightly stooped man listening to someone who looked vaguely familiar.

“Take me over there and introduce me, Pete. Tell them I was the one who recovered Alistair's effects. We'll see how popular it makes me.”

“Why don't I tell them you're a loyal and dedicated
DFO
employee who has nothing but the best interests of the organization at heart?”

“I don't want you to go to hell for lying,” I replied.

He grimaced. “Better that than for wasting an entire life in the service of a dysfunctional bureaucracy.”

“Bitterness is the first sign of insufficient alcohol consumption.” I tried to cheer him up. “Once the ice is broken, and they've decided to like me, you might want to wander away.”

“I'll keep my eye on you from afar.”

“I'll be okay,” I demurred.

“Presumably, Alistair thought the same thing.”

We followed the game plan and were soon exchanging pleasantries with Tall Tilley Hat and the guy I was still trying to place. His name was tantalizingly close to recall but hovered just out of reach. Then I remembered: Reginald Sanderson. He'd been at my going-away party in Ottawa, the guy Bette had warned me was Griffith's weasel.

I addressed myself to Tilley Hat. “Genetics. Fascinating field. Wish I'd picked it myself, but I don't know
DNA
from
RSP
s. Huge potential, though. Did you work with Alistair when he was here?”

There was a pause while he tried hard not to look at Sanderson. “I was here at the same time as Alistair, but we were not colleagues. My work is more theoretical.”

He was about to explain the class distinction between the lab rats like Alistair and the formula floggers like himself when Sanderson intervened. Placing a hand in proximity to my shoulder, but without exactly touching me, which would have forced me to not recoil, he led me out of earshot range. Tall Tilley Hat was left standing like a lonesome pine on a desert mesa. He appeared to be comfortable with that.

Sanderson leaned close enough so that I had to make an effort not to step back. “So, Danny, you got to see all Alistair's stuff after the, uh, after his death. Did he have like a whole library full of records and data?”

I managed to conceal my distaste for his proximity. “Oh yeah, he had stacks of journals, logbooks and there was a computer found under the floorboards of his shack.” And then the devil made me do a bad thing. “The cops didn't want any of it, so I've been hanging on to everything. It's bound to be really interesting when I get a chance to go through it all.” I'm sure he was dying to ask where I was keeping everything, but he was much too subtle for that. But I knew the message would get back to Griffith and then, if there was a link, our bad guy and then . . . I hadn't thought that far ahead, but I was sure something would happen. And I was right.

I circulated a bit more, sipping scotch and seeking someone who would 'fess up to working with Crowley on Project Chimera, but no one would admit to as much as having heard of it. At about five o'clock, with the sun low over the water, Bette put in an appearance. She spoke to a few of the more senior-looking people, ignored me, and left after about twenty minutes.

I gave it five minutes and then walked around the building to the parking lot. Bette was just getting into her car so I slipped into the passenger seat. I looked behind us but the sun was glaring in my eyes. Hoping no one had seen us, I slid down in the seat and gestured to Bette to drive.

Heading east on Marine Drive, Bette looked down at me. Not, hopefully, down
on
me. “Danny 007. This is so exciting. When do we get to blow something up?”

“I didn't want Reginald Sanderson to see us together.”

“He's harmless,” Bette replied. “He's just going around leaning on people to keep their mouths shut about anything that happened in the eighties.”

“Including Spandex?” Bette looked, no doubt about it, down on me. I forged ahead. “Sanderson may be harmless but he's a conduit to Griffith, and
he
is highly toxic.”

She considered this. “Fleming is a backstabber and an assassin, but that's in the world of bureaucracy. I can't see him killing anyone in real life.”

“I don't think he recognizes the difference. And he doesn't have to get real blood on his hands. He just has to set things in motion.”

She braked for a light.

“Do you live around here?” I asked.

“Back in Ambleside. But I'm on my way to see your Staff Sergeant Karavchuk and take a look at Alistair's computer.”

“Hey, I'm going there too. It's a good thing I jumped in with you.”

She gave me a quick glance. “You're working very closely with Ms Karavchuk. Just how closely?”

“We're quite fond of one another.”

“Fond of one another? I'm fond of my cat. Do you tickle her tummy?”

“Only if she doesn't scratch the furniture.”

“Congratulations, Danny. She's a very intelligent woman. I hope everything goes well.”

“Thanks, Bette. We need to nail the bastards who're responsible for this mess and then we can concentrate on our relationship.”

“Good luck. When the war is over, we can all go home.”

The police building hadn't moved. I took Bette inside and Louise met us in the lobby.

“Thanks for coming, Ms Connelly. We've set up a room where you can work.”

“Thank you. And please call me Bette.”

“All right, Bette. And I'm Louise.”

Louise led Bette down the hall and I headed for her office. I was deep in thought when Louise came in and shut the door behind her. “How was the wake?”

“Good scotch. Griffith's right-hand man was there. Reginald Sanderson. He was warning everyone not to talk about Alistair and Project Chimera. But I had a brilliant idea.” She looked at me anxiously. “I told Sanderson I had all Crowley's stuff, journals, computer, and everything. I've set a trap and baited it with me.”

“For Christ's sake, Danny,” she said, groaning unappreciatively. “You need to discuss stuff like this with me before you do it. You've put yourself in danger and we're going to have to expend a lot of resources to protect you.”

“The idea just popped into my head and I acted on it. We were dead in the water, so I had to do something. Anyway, I'm worth it.”

“Tommy's going to freak. We better go consult.”

But Tommy didn't freak. He was enough of a strategist to see that we had been facing a stalemate and he was prepared to sacrifice a valuable piece (I was at least a Bishop if not a Queen) in order to make progress. And I assumed that the use of the word “sacrifice” was purely figurative.

“At the very least, Danny,” he said, “this will clarify some of the relationships. You've always assumed there was a connection from Griffith to our bad guy, maybe through Sanderson. Depending how this plays out, we may be able to confirm that link.”