The Arms of Death

by Maggie Foster

  There were things the novels didn’t take into account. Character, for instance, and breeding, and honor. Did he have any of those things? She had just met him. Even Himself didn’t know the man, only the boy he had been.

  He had followed her. Why? Was he learning her routines? She had heard that a predator watched first, so he could pounce when the victim was the most vulnerable, or the least likely to be missed for the time needed to commit the crime.

  She wanted to exclude him. She wanted to believe no one she knew, no one she had liked, could possibly be a murderer. It dismayed her to think she couldn’t trust her instincts.

  She had promised Hal she was giving up the investigation, had meant it when she said it, but the only way to exonerate Jim was to find the real murderer. If she could not do that, doubt would haunt her for the rest of her life.

  But it’s not your job. The small voice was back. Leave it to the police.

  Leave it. Ignore the implications. Go back to work and try not to wonder whether Jim was a killer.

  The police were investigating Professor Craig’s death. They had manpower and databases and official access. Let them do their job. Trust them to find the murderer, to stop him before— Ginny felt the air leave her lungs.

  Before another genealogist died.

  The whole thing was just too close to home. Her patient. One of the clan. A genealogist, like herself. Was it Jim or Hal who had warned her that she might know the killer? She could not sit idly by. She might not be able to break the case by herself, but she needed to give the police any help she could. She owed it to the patient she had been unable to protect.

  She reached over and picked up the phone, dialing Alex.

  “Ginny! How’s it going?”

  “I need your help.” She explained about the window of opportunity problem. “Is there anyone there at the CDC who can tell me when this virus was most likely introduced? Is that something you can do?”

  “Well, we can make an educated guess. We’ve been studying that bug ever since it came to light and we’ve learned a lot more about it.”

  “Like what?”

  “Ever since CRISPR we haven’t needed a virus to move the DNA fragments. So all the labs working on virus vectors shelved those projects and moved on, but they didn’t destroy the viruses or their records.”

  “And?”

  “We’ve got Patient Zero identified. His name was Asa Campdon. He was a lab tech who accidentally stuck himself with the virus. It was his death that triggered the investigation your boyfriend ended up on.”

  “Wait. What?”

  “Hal Williams investigated the death of Patient Zero.”

  Ginny’s mouth fell open. She had forgotten Jim’s accusation. What had she been doing? Suppressing a fact she didn’t want to face? She swallowed hard.

  “Hal was there, on site?”

  “Yes. His company sent him in as consultant to identify the safety breach.”

  He hadn’t told her. Hal hadn’t told her. Jim had. She pulled herself together.

  “Can you send me that file?”

  “Sure.”

  Ginny had the oddest sensation of watching herself from the outside, dream-like, calmly gathering data that destroyed all the carefully built up foundation for her belief in Hal. He had been on site and failed to tell her about it. What else had he omitted? Omitted? Maybe misrepresented? It was Hal who had given her all those damning details about Jim.

  “Ginny? Are you still there?”

  “Yes.” She licked dry lips. “Do you have a comprehensive list of the researchers?”

  “People who worked in that lab?”

  “Yes, and students and visitors. Anyone who would have had access to that virus.”

  “What time frame?”

  “From the date of that first death to now.”

  “Okay. Last five years. Who are you looking for?”

  Ginny went down the list. “Elaine Larson”

  Ginny waited while Alex searched the document.

  “Nope.”

  “Fiona Campbell.”

  “No.”

  “Samuel Adams.”

  “Yes. He’s signed in as a visitor about once every other week.”

  Ginny nodded. He owned the place after all. One more name.

  “Jim Mackenzie.”

  There was no delay this time. “Dr. Mackenzie? He’s not here.”

  “How do you know? You didn’t even look.”

  Ginny could hear Alex shrug all the way from Atlanta. “Full disclosure. He’s been working with Chip on this investigation. We had to know if he’d been in that lab. He hasn’t.”

  “Not ever?”

  “Not even once.”

  If Ginny hadn’t already been sitting down, she would have done so now. It was Hal who had told her Jim did a two week rotation at GeneTech. Hal had lied.

  “Ginny?”

  She took a careful breath. “I’m still here.”

  “Are you all right?”

  A lot of people had been asking her that question recently.

  “Yes. How soon can you have that calculation done?”

  “Tomorrow, latest. The files I can send now.”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Ginny, you’re sharing this stuff with the police, right?”

  “Do I have the CDC’s permission to do so?”

  “I’ll get it in writing, but yes, you do.”

  “All right. I’ll make sure Detective Tran has all my latest suspicions.”

  “Me, too. Send me your files.”

  “Okay. Just let me update them. You’ll have them this afternoon.”

  “Ginny?”

  “Yes, Squirt?”

  “I love you. You know that don’t you?”

  Ginny felt her eyes misting and a lump form in her throat. Alex was not the demonstrative sort.

  “I love you, too, Squirt.”

  “Take care of yourself. Love to Mom.”

  “Bye.”

  * * *

  Chapter 35

  Tuesday

  Ginny rose from her chair needing a drink. She made her way down to the kitchen. On careful consideration, she settled for sugar, rather than alcohol. Her birthday was coming up and her mother had asked what sort of birthday cake Ginny wanted. It was always the same, spice cake with fudge icing. The cake had not yet been made, but the icing was on the shelf. She took down the can, found a spoon, and dug in.

  It didn’t take much to satisfy her craving, and the milk made a nice counterpoint. Ginny snorted to herself. Reverting to childhood, was she? Well, she had some excuse. She’d gone from a hopeful romance with Hal, to two men vying for her attention, to no trustworthy boyfriend in less than a week. Men! Can’t live with them…. Her mother was living without one. Maybe she should do the same. She’d gotten along fine so far. It was just that she didn’t really want to. She put the chocolate away.

  Set emotion aside and focus on the facts. How you faced facts was determined by your character and upbringing. Hers had been rather stern. The Scots brooked no cowardice.

  Ginny closed her eyes and took a deep breath. There were facts to be faced and she was a Scot. She made her way back upstairs and settled into her chair. There was another name to add to her Suspects list.

  Means. Hal had access to the virus. Opportunity. Unknown at present. Motive? Was there anything there? Those missing documents he was so worried about, maybe?

  She dug out the thumb drive she had loaded with Professor Craig’s files and opened it up, navigating to the folder that held Hal’s documents, opening each one and reading it carefully.

  Hal was petitioning the York Herald to confirm a grant of arms that had been given to his ancestor, based on a genealogy and service to Great Britain from before the Revolution. How the first Mr. Williams had managed to persuade the York Herald that an American should be granted arms on a dormant British line, the file did not say. The grant existed. Hal was just nailing down the fact that he was the heir.
r />   Dead end.

  More as a way to give her brain a rest than that she really cared, Ginny clicked on the family tree files and found herself looking at Hal’s ancestors. If she married him — and it looked unlikely at the moment — any children they had would share this ancestry. She worked her way backward, becoming engrossed as the generations rolled by.

  The files were full of facts. Names, dates, places, events. Good genealogies were proved by documents that recorded facts.

  It got harder, of course, the further back you went. Records became spottier and one had to make do with what mattered to those involved, usually the transfer of wealth.

  One of the things she and every other good genealogist did, was note the source of the data, the type of source, too. Was it a sworn testimony? A Bible record? Made at the time or recorded later? Translated? Recopied? By someone who would know? The best records were made at the time of the event, by the people present, and with the assumption that they were telling the truth.

  Her eye fell on a note next to Hal’s Revolutionary War ancestor. Adopted father, biologic mother. She stopped.

  Adopted. The child had been adopted. That did not necessarily mean the child was not related to the father. It might be an orphan nephew, or cousin, or something else. Except the mother was the biologic mother and the adopted father was her husband. Ginny dug a little deeper.

  Second wife. The first had died and the man had three small girls at home. A very good reason to marry again. The child was born two months after the wedding. That meant he had married a pregnant woman and the adoption indicated he was not the biologic father.

  Well, that, too, was not unknown. He needed a wife. She needed a father for her unborn child. The only problem was—

  It hit Ginny like a thunderclap. The only problem was that it blew Hal’s ancestry out of the water. He was NOT, after all, descended from that armigerous Brit. He was descended from an unnamed man who had gotten that girl pregnant and then abandoned her. Hal wasn’t entitled to those arms. Hal wasn’t descended from the immigrant.

  She sat back in her chair, her lips forming a silent whistle. This would be a terrible blow to his ego. He’d been raised to think of himself as landed gentry. Mrs. Williams had been quietly proud of having a son who could be considered a gentleman.

  But, in the modern world, did it really matter?

  Ginny wrinkled her forehead. How did the Heralds handle legal adoptions? Did it destroy the line? Not when the succession was orderly. She knew of at least one case where a man had married into a family, hyphenated his name with that of his wife and adopted the plain arms. So, probably, it would make no difference.

  She opened the source note and looked at the description. There were two citations, a private correspondence between Honoria Cabot and Prudence Sells [both neé Allen] and the 1775-1778 medical log of Patrick Battle M.D. Ginny looked at the last modified date on the file. Last month. So Professor Craig had changed this file last month and the descriptions sounded very much like the two primary source documents Hal and Elaine were looking for.

  Ginny felt her pulse rising. Primary sources! Discovered, or at least seen, last month. And they changed the lineage. To a genealogist, this was pure gold! Real evidence, written by those who were on the scene at the time (the doctor’s log) and had reason to know details (a family letter). Was there more?

  She dug into the files, searching for anything that might be tied to Hal’s name. There were no images, but there was a file in the Publications folder. She pulled it open and read avidly.

  It was all there. Professor Craig had been hired by Hal to confirm his lineage. The York Herald had asked for proofs all the way back to England. In the process of doing that research, Professor Craig had stumbled upon this bombshell. His excitement showed in every line. How often did a genealogist get to see past the polite lies to the naked truth behind an arranged marriage? To see how kind the older man had been to this unfortunate girl and her unborn child.

  Ginny could imagine the widower’s pain, and the girl’s, in that time and place. A good bargain for both, but it would have needed discretion as well.

  Professor Craig had included DNA evidence in his article, explaining that Hal’s did not match the DNA of a living male descendant in a collateral, proved line. Ginny examined the alleles. Not even close. Proof. Too bad they didn’t have the real father’s name, but that effort was in hand, too. With DNA it might be possible to identify the line. Ginny felt a small thrill at this use of new technology to solve old mysteries. What fun! What a coup! What a tale to tell her children!

  Except Professor Craig was dead. He would not be able to finish that research.

  Ginny came back to earth with a crash. Not just dead. Murdered.

  But, even if Hal lost the Grant of Arms, what did it matter? There was no money or land tied to it. Just ego. She flipped back over to the Suspects list and put a question mark under Motive for Hal.

  After a moment’s thought, she made one more modification to her spreadsheet. Jim might or might not have had access to this virus. There was no ‘smoking gun’, but he had resources. She put a question mark in the Means column for him, then closed the file, sent it on to Alex, and set off for the park.

  * * *

  Ginny sat on the picnic table and watched the wind ruffle the surface of the loch. She was hoping the fresh air would clear her mind and bleed off some of the tension.

  The investigation had started almost as a lark, something fun to do, an intellectual exercise. Well, and something to take her mind off dying. Now, with lives hanging in the balance, she was wondering if there was any way to validate her theories.

  Means. That virus was the key. Whoever had murdered Professor Craig had used that virus. So it was someone with access to that virus.

  Motive. Who cared? Okay, she cared, but her favorite fictional detective had been very clear. “When you know how you know who.” So ‘how’ was what she should focus on.

  Opportunity. Once she knew when he’d been attacked, she could cross-reference the had-access-to-the-virus list with the list of people who’d had-access-to-Professor-Craig.

  But, probably, it would all be a colossal waste of effort.

  The list of people who’d had access to Professor Craig, though extensive, was bound to be incomplete. Ginny knew how easy it was to walk into and out of the genealogy section at the library without being noticed. And the list of people at the genealogy conference? The sheer size of that task made her heart quail.

  Ginny frowned. This line of reasoning was getting her nowhere. She slid off the table and paced up and down along the water’s edge, trying to think.

  As she turned, a flash of color caught her eye and she followed it, seeing one of the rowing crews dart past, oars flying, the shell skimming the surface of the water. She’d seen them before. Some of the crews were associated with area schools. Others were pick-up teams, strangers who came together to compete in races held in the DFW area.

  Ginny’s mind focused sharply, her eyes no longer on the water. Came together. They made arrangements to meet one another at a specific time and place.

  If you wanted to murder someone, wouldn’t you need to be able to find your victim? At a time convenient to yourself, say, a time for which you had an alibi? So how did you make sure the victim cooperated? If he was a person who had clients, the kind that paid him for his professional services, the obvious answer was you made an appointment.

  Ginny could feel her heart beating just a little bit faster. It was possible the murderer relied on luck to make sure Professor Craig was at the library Wednesday afternoon. It was possible he (the Murderer) followed him (Professor Craig) from the convention center to the library. But it was also possible he had made an appointment. If she could get her hands on Craig’s appointment calendar, she could cross-reference the who-had-access-to-the-virus list with that.

  She grabbed her bicycle and set off again, still thinking.

  Ginny tried to put hersel
f in the murderer’s place. “If I was planning this murder,” she said to herself, “I’d want to make sure my name wasn’t on that calendar. That would mean not letting him write it down, which would be out of my control, or not making an appointment at all, or using an alias.”

  The problem with an alias was that it wouldn’t appear on the virus access list, since the murderer would have to use his or her real name at the lab. Unless it was a well-established alias, in which case she was seriously in over her depth. Damn, and it had been such a good idea. Well, she could still look. She finished the ride, got cleaned up, then jumped in the car and headed for the library, still thinking through the possibilities.

  If the murderer was really a murderess, and Elaine Larson, to be specific, there would be no need to put her name on the calendar. Elaine had access to the head librarian anytime she liked. But Craig might have jotted down the meeting anyway. If so, it would be prudent for the calendar to go missing after the attack. So, if the calendar could not be found, did that implicate Elaine? And if it could be found, did that eliminate her?

  If the murderess was Fiona Campbell, her name could be expected to appear on the calendar. Professor Craig knew her; knew her name, knew what she looked like. She couldn’t hide behind an alias. There were a lot of people who knew what Fiona looked like. Someone would have seen her. Someone would have recognized her. That would make attacking Craig at the library very dangerous indeed. Was that evidence she didn’t do it?

  Ginny pulled the car into the underground parking and hurried into the building, then stopped. She turned back and looked at the entrance. There were cameras covering the doors that led into the library from the garage. She made her way up to the ground floor. Here, too. Cameras covered the main entrance, at street level.

  As a matter of curiosity and because she was nothing if not thorough, Ginny visited each floor searching for cameras. There were no more. Just those two sets, covering the entrances. None in the elevators, none in the stairwells, none in the work areas. Interesting. Once inside, the murderer would not have to worry about being recorded. Ginny wondered if the cameras at the entrances could be hacked and the images deleted or changed. Another question for the police.