We’d both finally finished the transcript from Houston, the RPD was investigating Jake Powers’s murder, and the problem of locating his horse, dead or alive, was also theirs, I decided. I could focus on Matt. And MC, in her grief over Jake Powers’s death. And the microchip problem that had brought Nina Martin to Revere. Not too bad a workload.
I thought how different our conversation probably sounded, compared to that of other couples—normal couples, I meant—on their way to X-ray.
“It’s just like a regular microchip, with an integrated circuit coil,” I explained, as we turned corner after corner, avoiding the yellow triangles and green squares that would have sent us off to obstetrics or orthopedics. “The only difference is that the IC—the integrated circuit—for an identification implant would be in a container that’s biofriendly.”
“Is that a real word, ‘biofriendly’?”
“I don’t think so. I made it up just for you.”
“I’m flattered. I thought I’d been reading about this for years, though. Don’t they monitor railroad cars with the same kind of device in the track?”
“You’re right. Remote sensing of passive identification isn’t new.”
“Is that what I said? I’m smarter than I think.”
I loved Matt’s jovial mood, his normal self. I loved thinking the time he’d spend under an X-ray machine would be a tiny blip in his day, not affecting his positive outlook and his sense of humor.
I smiled and nodded. “What’s different is the miniaturization that’s possible with new materials, and also the fact that we now have sealants like biocompatible glass to encase the device. I’ll know more after I talk to Dr. Schofield.”
I’d managed to convince Berger that I was the best one to talk to Dr. Schofield since he wasn’t officially a suspect in anything—his name had come up only in the parallel constructions Matt and I had made from the horse/vet/buckyball equation we derived from the Houston transcript. I also shaded the truth a bit by letting Berger think “Scho”—the nickname Daniel Endicott used for him—and I were buddies.
When a nurse appeared and called Matt’s name, she seemed to be out of context. Weren’t we at home or in a car, at one of our usual tutorial sessions? Either from Matt to me about some new police protocol, or from me to him on one of the elements of the periodic table. I’d forgotten we were in a hospital waiting for Matt to climb into his custom-fit Styrofoam mold and be pummeled with high-energy electromagnetic radiation. Just as well.
Matt left me for what was billed as a fifteen-minute procedure, but was closer to forty minutes. I hoped the X-ray event itself took up only a small fraction of that time.
I’d left my own reading material in the car, so I flipped through out-of-date, sticky magazines. Fortunately, there was no story I cared about enough to miss the torn-out pages. I scanned a women’s publication. Better than auto racing, fishing, professional sports. At least there were interesting recipes. I read the ten best fashion tips for the long-gone summer season, a reported coupling between celebrities that had probably been dissolved by now, a review of a movie that featured famous human voices coming out of animated animal bodies, and the progress of sextuplets that arrived courtesy of a fertility drug. I wondered who subscribed to this kind of periodical at home, when there was Scientific American, Technology Review, Discover.
“Done,” Matt said, re-entering the waiting room.
“Good. We’re on our way,” I said, meaning many things.
Dr. Schofield was most accommodating, agreeing to meet me on short notice on Monday afternoon. His office had fewer animal pictures than Lorna’s, I noticed. During the few minutes I had to wait, I availed myself of yet another stack of “foreign” waiting-room magazines. Veterinary Forum, Veterinary Industry, DVM News, and Compendium—Continuing Education for the Practicing Veterinarian.
I glanced at an article on a new technique for removing a horse’s ovaries and an ad for an analyzer of what were euphemistically termed “canine, feline, and equine veterinary samples.”
I’m going to have to start carrying around Physics Today, I thought.
Dr. Schofield ushered me into his office. In his white lab coat, he could have been a spectroscopist, like me—not that he would be flattered by the comparison. What Dr. Schofield did not look like was a murderer, especially standing in front of a coffee grinder in his office, the mark of a gentleman. But I’d learned that even murderers might dress well, have nice smiles, and be fussy about their coffee.
We started on a friendly note, commending each other for our work with Revere High students, discussing how important it was to get young people interested in science. We’d both read an article about resources teachers could use to bring the science classroom to life.
“I’m interested in knowing more about your project with Daniel Endicott’s students,” I told him once we were settled with excellent espressos. “I’d like to see the microchips you use to track the coyotes.”
“I doubt it,” he said, with a satisfied grin.
“I, uh …” Caught. Clearly, Scho—he’d asked me to use his nickname—wasn’t one to waffle. I felt my face flush, and tried not to squirm to add to the pitiful sight.
He smiled, but not offensively, even though he’d exposed me as a poor excuse for a detective. “Lorna Frederick phoned me over the weekend and told me to expect you. It seems we’re both suspects in a murder.”
Two murders, maybe three, I noted. Dr. Schofield’s—I abandoned the notion of calling this imposing gentleman “Scho”—pleasant tone and demeanor said he wasn’t worried a bit. I wondered if Lorna was.
I stared past his bald head to an anatomy chart of a horse, noting with interest where the various organs lay. I wondered if I could stall by asking the resting pulse of, say, a thoroughbred.
I cleared my throat. “Well, you know what the police say—everyone’s a suspect until the killer is found.”
“Nicely put. Are you the police?”
I laughed. “Not quite, but I am a consultant, and since you brought up the most unfortunate subject of murder—did you know Nina Martin or Jake Powers?”
I watched for signs of guilt, as if I had an infallible list of symptoms. In any case, Dr. Schofield was calm, sure of himself.
“Not Nina Martin, I’m afraid, and Jake Powers was just a passing acquaintance. I met him once or twice through Lorna.”
“And Lorna knew him through equestrian activities.”
“That’s my understanding.”
“Did you by any chance implant a microchip into Jake Powers’s horse?”
“Hmm.” Dr. Schofield went into a modified Thinker posture, elbow in hand, and seemed genuinely pondering the question. “If I did it would be in my records. I must admit often my technician does the actual insertion.”
“Can you check your files, if they’re handy?”
“Not a problem.” Dr. Schofield’s records were as well-kept on the inside as the outside, and he quickly pulled a printout from a folder in his desk drawer.
Listed were the horse’s name, the owner, an ID number for the chip, the location, the breed, and a column for comments.
We read down the list and stopped at a line near the bottom.
“Here it is,” Dr. Schofield said.
SPARTAN Q POWERS 87&541*27 MA APPALOOSA NONE
If he knew that Spartan Q was dead, he gave no indication. I didn’t know why I didn’t tell him my suspicions about the dead horse at that moment, except that I felt I’d get more information if I withheld that fact.
I wondered about the state of health of the other horses on the list, and whether one of them might be the horse whose death PI Nina Martin was investigating.
“May I have a copy of this list?” I asked, aiming my tone halfway between casual and authoritative. If you don’t give it to me, I tried to imply, someone more official will be by later with a court order.
Dr. Schofield’s confident, almost fatherly presence intimidated me, and strictly spe
aking I had no authorization to ask for an alibi or question him further about the murders. I’d told Berger I’d restrict myself to learning about microchip ID technology so we could understand better if Ms. Trumble in Houston had a case.
“I’ll bet Houston PD doesn’t have a consultant like you,” Berger had told me.
I bet they did, especially since nanotechnology was commonly thought to have been born in that city, but I’d accepted the compliment graciously.
Dr. Schofield weighed my request only a few seconds, then buzzed his secretary and asked her to have a copy for me before I left.
Too easy, I thought. It was time for a technology lesson from Dr. Schofield.
I gave him an open, honest smile. “I really do want to know about microchip ID technology. Unless Lorna has advised you not to talk about it?”
He laughed. “Or my attorney? No, I’d be happy to talk to you about the new chips. I’m afraid it might be boring, given your background.”
I shook my head and ran the fingers of my left hand over the back of my right hand. “My expertise ends at skin level. I’m out of my league with biological sciences.”
“Well, I’m sure you’re a quick study.” Dr. Schofield pulled a binder from a row of them lined up across the top of his fine oak bookcase. The dark blue binders were different sizes, but matched in color, with neatly typed labels, all in the same font. Not the eclectic mix of office supplies in my former labs. I figured it might be more necessary to give attention to décor when the public was paying directly for your expertise. My old lab, with constantly recycled, relabeled folders, wouldn’t have inspired confidence from outside visitors.
Dr. Schofield opened the binder to a page with a circuit diagram. A thing of beauty, compared to an anatomy chart. No messy blood flow, for one thing. No possibility of cancer, for another.
“We can skip the schematic, I’m sure,” he said, moving on to a specifications sheet for an EID, an electronic identification device. He followed the items down the page with his finger, summarizing the structure. “A tiny passive transponder, small enough to fit inside a hypodermic needle, is encapsulated in biocompatible glass. Each transponder is preprogrammed with a unique multidigit, unalterable alphanumeric code. Depending on the brand, there are billions or even trillions of possible combinations of strings, without duplication.”
Nothing new so far. Unlike a tracking circuit, which gave out a signal of its own, a passive circuit like the EID was closer to a bar code on a supermarket item, requiring a reader to scan it for the information.
“It’s like a bar code, only using radio frequency,” I said.
“Good analogy. When a reader is passed over the implantation site, a radio signal activates the transponder and the detector receives the ID, which the user sees as an LCD. With one phone call, the number can be traced back to the owner.”
“Very nice. Why doesn’t every horse owner do this? Is it very expensive?”
“No, not really. A lot of horse owners think their animals are in a secure location and don’t need one, or perhaps that their horses aren’t very valuable.”
“A little like the rationale for home security systems, isn’t it?” I said, thinking of the lack of an alarm in my Fernwood Avenue home.
He nodded. “Indeed. Also, there’s no standardization. Company A’s chips cannot be read by Company B’s equipment, so that’s a nuisance. What else is new, huh?”
I nodded and we chatted amiably about the drawbacks of the great American capitalist system with its lack of industry standardization—automobiles, computers, and even commercial nuclear power reactors.
I eased us back into the microchip industry.
“How do you implant the device?”
“With a simple hypodermic. The chips have a special coating so they don’t migrate through the animal’s body. We inject under the skin and very soon a layer of connective tissue forms around the chip and it stays there forever. It’s quick and painless. And of course we keep a record of which chip went into which horse, so it’s easy to track the horse’s medical history.”
I was ready for the big questions. The first one surprised even me. “Do you know Dr. Owen Evans in Houston?” The doctor who installed the chip into the Houston horse—it occurred to me that if there was some kind of scam going on, they’d all know each other. Scam Theory, by police consultant Gloria Lamerino. I was amazed I remembered the Texas doctor’s name.
Dr. Schofield leaned back and folded his arms. Uh-oh. “I’ve never met him, but I’ve seen his name.”
“Here’s another question I have, Scho.” Now that you’re squirming. “What exactly are you doing for the buckyball program at the Charger Street lab?”
Dr. Schofield rotated his expensive-looking pen around an axis perpendicular to its length. First one end hit his desk, then the other.
“Let’s say we’re an investment in the future.”
I didn’t budge. Try the Matt Gennaro technique, I told myself, and wait him out. Dr. Schofield came through.
“As you know, Lorna’s nanotechnology program is geared to smart medicines, and eventually will develop a small molecule drug that will need to be tested.”
I nodded but said nothing, maintaining an interested if noncommittal look.
“On animals,” Dr. Schofield said. “Now, they’re not ready for that quite yet—even that phase has to have FDA approval, of course. But eventually—”
Now I was starting to feel sorry for Scho and thought I’d help him out.
“Let me see if I have this right—you and Dr. Evans are on the nanotechnology payroll now, just for putting in EID chips, so you’ll be on board when the animal testing starts at some unspecified time in the future? Even though the chips really have nothing to do with any of the nanotechnology projects in Lorna’s program?”
He nodded—a flushed, embarrassed nod.
I sat back. Could this be it? Did Lorna kill Nina Martin in order not to expose this? I’d already ruled out Scho as the killer. I believed he didn’t know that Spartan Q was dead. In fact, even I didn’t know for sure that Jake’s horse was dead; we had assumed it from Jacqueline Peters’s statement. As far as I knew Spartan Q’s body hadn’t been found.
I wondered where and how horses died. Did they all turn violent like Ms. Trumble’s horse at the end? And how did you bury an animal that probably weighed more than half a ton?
I blinked my eyes, returning to Dr. Schofield’s office. I noticed increasing perspiration on his wide brow, a film that extended over his bald head to the back of his neck.
“You may think this is out of the ordinary, Gloria.” Fraud is what I was thinking. “But what we’re doing is not uncommon. It’s not as if we’re—”
“One more question, Scho.” I interrupted, not about to let a scientist, medical or otherwise, off the hook for even the slightest misconduct. If indeed that’s all this was. “Are you familiar with bute?”
Dr. Schofield relaxed considerably, as if this were his physics doctoral oral examination and he’d finally been asked an easy question, like “What are Newton’s Laws?” after a round of quizzing on Einstein’s Unified Field Theory.
“Bute—our shorthand for phenylbutazone. A nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drug and cyclooxygenase inhibitor. We give it typically for lameness, which might be the result of soft tissue injury, or muscle soreness, or bone and joint problems. Bute can be administered intravenously or orally and—”
“Thank you, Scho. That will be all for now.”
I stood and gathered my purse and briefcase. I picked up a copy of the microchip printout on my way out.
I didn’t even care what cyclooxygenase was.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
I hated impure scientists. But was Dr. Schofield a killer? Over a few dollars garnered to establish a relationship between himself and a laboratory? It didn’t fit.
The streets between Dr. Schofield’s office on Squire Road and the mortuary on Tuttle Street hadn’t changed much since I’d
lived in Revere during the first years of my life. Squire Road was dominated by a large outdoor strip mall and the unimposing entrance to the Charger Street lab. As I passed the road to the research facility, I thought of the scientists, engineers, and other staff I’d met since I returned to my hometown. Of all of them, Andrea Cabrini was the only one I’d maintained contact with. Of course, some of them were now in prison. Others were dead.
I passed Tomasso’s Restaurant and Coffee Annex and hoped our Tuesday Girls’ Night Out would be resurrected soon.
I tried to concentrate on what I’d learned from this interview. Dr. Schofield’s attitude and confession confused me. His connection to Lorna Frederick hadn’t posed any problems initially—he’d even joked about Lorna’s phone call and about being a murder suspect. He must have learned from her that I’d found his name on her payroll. My guess was that they’d discussed me extensively and decided what to let me in on, that he’d confess to getting paid for implanting chips for which his clients also paid him.
I got no insight into the murder of either Nina Martin or Jake Powers. Either those were entirely separate issues, or Dr. Schofield was holding back, perhaps under Lorna Frederick’s orders. Or I’m grasping at straws, I thought.
I reached for the notebook and pen I kept in my front seat console and scribbled at red lights. No law against that, I hoped, considering the growing number of states legislating against cell phone use while driving. With the pad balanced on the cup holder, I wrote in my personal shorthand.
EIDs con’ction to bucky?
Scho and Owens—Vet scam?
Bute?
My lists were starting to replicate each other. The same questions, and no answers.
I knocked on the door of my old apartment. I knew MC was home. Martha, Rose’s very observant assistant, had told me she’d seen MC looking out her bedroom window as Martha pulled into the driveway.
“I wanted to tell her how sorry I am about her friend’s death, but she’s not answering her door or her phone,” Martha had said, waving the can of air freshener that was as much a part of her look as her trendy jewelry. Martha typically wore a necklace, bracelets, and earrings—a matched set, as if they’d come as prizes in successive cereal boxes.
Carbon Murder, The Page 19
