now, but they haven’t published yet.”
“What about the work?” “Hey babe, I only do titles and abstracts. Read the fine print.” Then she bent down, rummaged in her briefcase, and came up with a small pile of journal articles neatly bound with an elastic band and labelled Edwards.”But I do pull articles. Your bedtime reading. It beats a cold shower.”
I took the bundle and slipped it in my briefcase. “How would you know?”
“Ooh. Nasty. But I’ll take that as a compliment.” She looked like she was about to say more, then stopped, gave a small shake of her head, and got back to the topic.
“I can give you a snapshot, but don’t sue me if some error creeps in.” I nodded. “Edwards works on salmon — all these boys do — and Edwards’s schtick is stock identification. He’s developing some kind of technique to determine the stock of a salmon by removing a scale and zapping it with a laser. If it turns out that it works, you could tell, for instance, whether a particular salmon came from Canada, Washington, Oregon, or Alaska. Russia or Japan for that matter. Just by zapping its scale. In fact, if his recent stuff proves out, you could even go so far as to say what stream the fish hatched out in and when, which in salmon, tells you very precisely what stock it’s from. I gather Fisheries needs this kind of information to monitor endangered stocks.”
“But you could also use it to enforce quotas on particular stocks.”
“That’s an interesting interpretation.” She thought for a moment, then continued. “I’d say it’s too preliminary for that, but if it works… “ she let her voice trail off and leaned back in her chair.
I’d finished the squid salad, which was seriously spicy and wonderfully divine, when the waiter arrived with the noodles and curry. I ordered another beer. I motioned to Sylvia’s plate with the curry spoon, but she waved it away. “You eat, I talk. We’re on billable hours here.”
When I was about to protest, the eating, not the billable hours, she averted her gaze, so I let it go.
“What about Riesler?”
“He was fun. Must publish twenty papers a year, and he’s first author on every one. What a guy.”
I smiled. Both Sylvia and I knew that a man in Madden Riesler’s position spent about as much time in the lab as I did at the dentist, and I have good teeth. As the head of a large university research lab his time would be fully booked with teaching, committees, grant applications, and the endless paperwork generated by any large bureaucracy. So the science was coming from his students: a legion of post-docs and graduate students toiling away at lab benches in an almost medieval system of apprenticeship. The fact that Riesler’s name appeared first on all the publications told me a lot about the man. A more enlightened supervisor would have given the privilege of first authorship to the student who designed and carried out the work. It wasn’t as though Riesler needed the recognition. So he was either greedy, despotic, or insecure, none of which were particularly appealing characteristics.
“Anything else?”
“Not really, except he’s a splitter.” I looked confused. It was her turn to laugh. “He divides up his work into the smallest publishable increments. Say you run three experiments that all attack the same question but from slightly different angles. Normally you’d publish the results in a single paper. A splitter divides it up into three different papers. Three publications. It pads the publishing record, and publishing, as you know, is the name of the game.”
“But it’s acceptable?”
“Acceptable? Sure. Most people would never notice, unless they do a comprehensive search over several years. Let’s just say Riesler understands the game, and he’s damn good at playing it.”
“So our man is ambitious.”
She leaned over the table and lightly brushed my cheek with her fingers. “Ambition isn’t a crime, Morgan. Some of my best friends are ambitious.”
I knew what she was saying, and I didn’t like it. “But it’s another piece of the puzzle. What else?” She leaned back in her chair, examined me for a moment, then signalled to the waiter, who brought over another sherry. I could see a flush working its way up her cheeks. She took a sip then continued, in no hurry.
“He works on salmon migration and stock identification.”
I perked up. “The same area as Edwards.”
“Yes…” There was a noticeable pause. “And no.” I stopped in midbite and looked up. There was a glint of mischief in her eyes. She’d found something. “Same goal, to identify stocks, but totally different technique. Riesler pioneered the use of genetic fingerprints for stock identification. The theory is that all fish from a stock will share certain genetic characteristics. In other words, if you look at their DNA then you’ll be able to tell what stock they’re from. Sort of like the DNA fingerprinting they do in criminal cases. It’s turgid stuff, lots of blurry photos of DNA sequence data and endless descriptions of procedures and protocols. More your ballpark than mine…”
At this point Sylvia bent down and extracted another bundle of papers from her briefcase, this one at least four inches thick. On top were the search results, listing all of Riesler’s publications for the past twenty years. That alone was a tome. Underneath were journal articles. She handed the sheaf to me.
“… and they’re all yours. Thank you for using Canada’s National Science Library. By the way, I’ve just given you the review papers. Drop by tomorrow and I’ll pull whatever else you want. We can do lunch.”
I nodded to the pile. “So what’s your take on this?”
“On the surface, and that’s all I can give you, it looks to me like you got two guys in direct competition, and if these are commercially viable projects — if we’re talking patents and technology transfer — it’s more than just academic. You could be talking big money. Oh, you also asked about Jacobson.” I nodded. “They’re all in there.” She motioned to Riesler’s pile. “Must be Riesler’s Man Friday… or whatever. Everything he’s ever published is as second author to Riesler. The boy’s obviously got no life of his own.”
I packed Riesler’s stack of papers in my briefcase. That at least gave me somewhere to start. Sylvia and I chatted about her new life in Vancouver until the waiter came to clear the plates, then I checked my watch. Two beers, a jog, and a three-hour time change — I wasn’t going to last much longer. I also had one more item on my agenda that I couldn’t discuss in front of Elaine. I held off until the waiter was out of earshot, then I leaned forward.
“I have a favour to ask. A big one.” \
“And you need my permission? Since when?” “Can you trace a reference search?”
There was a pause. “What do you mean?”
“If I know the date and time that a remote search took place, and the number of minutes it took, could you tell me whose account it was charged to?”
“Legally or technically?”
“Technically.”
“I was afraid that’s what you meant.” She paused for a minute, analyzing the problem, then continued. “It could be done. I’d have to hack my way into the financial system, and that would be break and enter or trespass,
