Duncan slowly rose and went to her desk. She flipped through a notebook, scribbled on a piece of paper, and handed it to Nora, then sat back down as if on autopilot.
“And he always goes to the same place?” Nora glanced at the address, then put the paper in the back of her notepad.
“It’s his second home. Why would he go anywhere else?”
A regular schedule. Criminals loved habits. They were easy to monitor, giving stalkers and others valuable information about their prey.
She quickly sent an email to the Lake Tahoe satellite office asking them to check out the address as a possible crime scene, giving them basic info on the case.
“Do you know if he arrived in Tahoe?” Nora asked.
She shook her head. “W-what happened?”
There was no use sugarcoating the truth. “The fire was arson.”
“Arson? You mean on purpose?” Suddenly her eyes flashed, anger layered over grief. “Is it the same people who burned down Langlier? And the lab at Sac State?”
“On the surface, it appears to be a similar M.O.,” Nora admitted, “but we’re still in the early stages of our investigation. We have the best people gathering evidence-”
“That didn’t do you any good with the other fires!” She jumped up and paced. “Langlier was nearly two years ago. What are you people doing? How could this happen? How could Jonah be dead?”
Nora would forgive her outburst-this time. She herself was intensely frustrated with the slow pace of the biotech arson investigation. That Nora believed someone affiliated with Professor Leif Cole’s group was involved meant nothing. Until she could tie him to the crimes, she couldn’t compel him to turn over anything, or even force him to talk to her.
But she would continue to push him. Homicide gave her a fraction more weight behind her. And if Cole was true to the anarchist’s creed, then he would be repulsed that someone died. Maybe-finally-he would talk to her.
A small consolation to Jonah Payne.
“What about security?” Dr. Duncan continued. “Duke was there? What happened to his fabulous, foolproof security system? Someone get in? The bastard. Jonah felt
Nora resisted the urge to defend Duke Rogan. She had no idea if his system had failed or was hacked or simply never turned on, but she’d seen the pain in his face after he’d recognized Jonah Payne. He blamed himself, and there was no doubt in her mind that right now Duke was working on finding out exactly how the security failed.
Nora doubted it had been Duke’s fault if there was a security failure. She’d worked with him too often to believe he wouldn’t have triple-checked any system he put his name on.
But Nora needed to figure out how the arsonists got into the lab to start the fire. Plus, where they’d released the animals-if there’d been any on the premises. Every anarchist or radical environmental group Nora had investigated avoided killing people or animals. At the heart of the movement were politics, and they knew that murder would turn public sentiment against them. Any deaths were unintentional, which made the Butcher-Payne arson doubly interesting, based on the M.E.’s assertion that Payne had been incapacitated prior to the fire.
Nora avoided Duncan’s rhetorical question about security and asked, “How long have you worked for Dr. Payne?”
“I’ve been there for five years, since they opened the new lab. I have a Ph.D. from USC in biochemistry and master’s degrees in both human biology and wildlife biology.”
Nora made notes as Duncan spoke. “How many people work at Butcher-Payne?”
“All of Butcher-Payne? We have two divisions. Jim’s group is all about media and fund-raising. They have ten, twelve people on staff. The lab has six full-time people, plus a vet who comes in twice a week.”
It seemed from her tone that Dr. Duncan didn’t like Jim Butcher very much, or at least didn’t like the public focus of his division. “How was Dr. Payne’s relationship with his partner?”
“They were best friends,” Duncan said flatly.
“But you don’t like him?” she pushed.
“He’s a spinner. He doesn’t care about what we’re trying to do. He has a degree in human biology, but his master’s was in business. All he cares about is bringing in the money. And that’s important, I know it is, but it feels icky.”
Icky? “How so?”
She shrugged. “Jim isn’t a bad guy, but he’s not Jonah. He’d bring in money that required us to work on specific projects, and so we had to put aside our primary work because the special projects funded our operations. And Jonah did it. He wasn’t always happy, but he did whatever Jim wanted.”
“What was your primary focus?”
She took a deep breath. “Jonah was on the verge of curing the bird flu-not by inoculating humans, but by genetically engineering birds predisposed to be carriers. By manipulating their genes, we inhibit their ability to contract the virus, which in turn prevents them from passing on the virus to other birds or humans. Influenza kills approximately half a million people worldwide every year. If we can’t find a way to stop the eventual pandemic from avian flu, that number will grow exponentially. Six months and we would have been ready for broad testing and trials. We’ve already started our internal tests. Now it’s all gone. It’ll take years to re-create. And without Jonah … I don’t know.” She squeezed her eyes closed.
Something Duncan said tickled the back of Nora’s brain, but before she could formulate her question, Pete asked, “Have Butcher-Payne or Dr. Payne received any threatening letters? Visits?”
“What day don’t we get them? Ask Jim, he’ll have them. No one even knew or cared what we did in the lab until last year when Cole’s idiot group protested outside the building.”
“Professor Leif Cole?” Nora asked.
Duncan scowled. “Yes. They should have all been arrested. They blocked traffic and harassed our employees, not to mention putting up disgusting pictures of dead and bloody animals they claimed were from animal testing. That’s not how we operate. But just because we are using gene therapy on birds, they attack us!”
Nora said, “This group has indicated through their graffiti and subsequent letters sent to the media that they’re anti-biotechnology, not an animal-rights group like ALF.”
Duncan waved her hand and sniffed. “They’re all the same nuts.”
Perhaps, but the arsonists were specifically targeting biotechnology companies or, in the case of Sac State, bioresearch. Not all of the targets used animals in their research. Nora knew ALF wouldn’t have gone after the Sac State lab because it didn’t engage in animal testing. The lab was solely involved in agriculture bioengineering, genetically manipulating plants to grow in areas with limited water.
The only commonality between all four entities was their involvement in biotech research. Langlier, Nexum, and Butcher-Payne used animals; Sac State didn’t. Unless there was another reason the arsonists targeted the college.
“From my experience,” Pete said, “extreme environmentalists tend to come together over multiple issues. There’s a lot of overlapping.”
Nora concurred. She turned back to Duncan. “You said Jim Butcher has the threatening letters?”
“Bobbie-Roberta Powers-would keep the correspondence. She’s Jim’s personal assistant. If it was overtly threatening, we’d have sent it to the sheriff.”
“Has Dr. Payne fired or let go any staff in the last year?” Pete asked.
“You can’t possibly think that anyone from Butcher-Payne had anything to do with arson and murder.” It was a statement.
“You’re a scientist,” Nora said. “You may have a hypothesis, and in your gut know that you are right, but you need to prove or disprove your theory, and that requires extensive research. For us, it requires a lot of investigation. Including asking questions we don’t necessarily think are going to give us the right answers. But if we don’t ask all the questions, our investigation won’t be complete.”
Duncan relented, but mumbled that it was a waste of time.
Nora said, “The biohazard team went through the scene and determined it safe enough, but the arson investigator noticed that one or more cages may have been removed.”
“Cages? Our birds are kept in a secure room.”
