in his field of view. He paused to jot something down in a notebook sitting open by the microscope, but didn’t take his eyes off the oculars.
“Yes.” His voice was abrupt, not really rude, but preoccupied.
“Morgan O’Brien from the National Council for Science and Technology. We spoke on the phone.”
The slide stopped abruptly. Then it started to move again. He wrote something else in his notebook. It looked like he was hurrying to finish up a measurement, and that gave me a minute to scan the room. Dr. Edwards was obviously another highly organized mind. Papers and equipment were strewn everywhere, and, while the lab had all the requisite equipment — hood, freezers, water baths, drying ovens, centrifuge — all of it looked slightly out of date, like last year’s model. The exception was the massive apparatus at the back of the lab: a gleaming stainless steel tube about two metres long that lay horizontal on a chest-high pedestal. With a viewing portal at each end, it looked like some kind of robotic submersible for deep-sea exploration, except that it was firmly anchored by a tangle of wires and tubes to a bank of monitoring equipment — digital counters, oscilloscopes, and a PC scrolling “Gone Fishing” in large crimson letters against a backdrop of aquamarine.
I heard Edwards push himself out from the bench, and when I turned back he had swivelled around and was examining me. I didn’t avert my eyes, just stood there and waited, taking equal time in examining him. We were like two male dogs on their first encounter; suspicious and wary, but curious too.
I’d expected an urbane young professor in loafers and gold-rim glasses, but Edwards looked like a turn-ofthe-century prospector just back from the Klondike. Even sitting I could tell he was huge: a solid six-foot-two or -three, blue-black hair and beard, and hazel-green eyes. The hair and beard were shaggy, but beneath the lab coat his jeans were clean and nicely fitted, his plaid shirt was tidy, and a pair of red suspenders complemented the colours of the shirt. I glanced back up at his face and was suddenly aware of what I hadn’t picked up on the first take. Hidden beneath all that hair was an alarmingly handsome man: high cheekbones, a strong, definitive nose, and full lips. With a little trim and dressed in Armani, Dr. Jonathan Edwards could easily be on the cover of GQ, and I could see why Elaine had fallen for him. That, and his voice: a low, soft bass that resonated through my body as a pleasurable hum.
“Your mass spectrometer?” I said, nodding at the tube.
“My baby,” he answered. “What do you want?”
I put my briefcase on the counter, opened it, and pulled out Connell’s publishing record. “Take a look at this.”
He was surprised, but pulled the papers toward him. As he read, his eyes became wide. He reached over, switched off the music, and glanced back at me. “Have a seat.”
I pulled a lab stool over and sat down. Five minutes later he hadn’t said anything direct, but I’d followed his index finger down the margin and knew he was studying the thing entry by entry. I heard him mutter in disbelief more than once. When he got to the bottom he tossed the list on the bench and stared at the wall for a full minute. He was obviously shaken. Finally he turned to me.
“Where’d you get that?”
“Doing my job. Remember? The one you told me to go and do?” He had the decency to look chagrined. Good. I continued. “Do you recognize any of the work?”
“Is it for real?”
“You mean did he really publish that stuff? He sure did. It’s all out there.”
He pulled the sheet onto his lap again and poked at one entry. “That’s mine.” He looked up. “It’s ‘in press,’ part of a larger paper. Graham’s never done any work like that. It has to be mine.”
“Initial it. I’ll get you the paper and you can check it out.”
He pointed to another. “That’s Elaine’s. I’m sure of it. She’s a prof in Zoology — ”
“I know Elaine. Any others?” “Hell yes. Hadley from Nanaimo. Westergarde from Dalhousie — he’s a graduate student. This one could be Dickinson at the Freshwater Institute. Jesus, he’s an eclectic little bastard. How’d he get hold of all this data?”
“I was hoping you’d tell me.”
Instead of answering he stared at the wall behind me, processing. His foot tapped rhythmically on a leg of his stool. Since I had the distinct impression he was not going to make me party to his conclusions, I interrupted him.
“Why did you leave Zoology?”
He looked startled, then his eyes narrowed. “That’s none of your business.”
“It’s not related to your complaint against Riesler?”
He hesitated, then came out with a definitive “No.”
I let the silence fill the room until I could see Edwards squirm, then I fired another question.
“Could it be Connell who’s embezzling Network funds?”
“Madden’s in charge. I’m not going back on my accusation, if that’s what you want.”
“Fine. Then let’s talk about Madden.”
He looked at me for a second, then stood up abruptly. “I need a coffee. You want one?”
Good diversion, but it wasn’t going to work. “Sure. With milk or creamer if you’ve got it.”
He walked over to the side counter and poured two mugs of coffee from a carafe thermos that was sitting near the back, then he bent down and opened a little half-fridge beneath the bench. I tried not to look inside. I didn’t want to know what might be leaking its juices into the carton of milk. I’d read one of his papers where the analytical technique called for “liquefying the tissue” before running the test. That meant throwing a whole fish into a food processor and blending it up like a milkshake. When he handed me the coffee I surreptitiously examined the surface of the liquid, looking for anything suspect — a fish scale, a little chunk of cartilage, a few fin rays — but decided that I needed the caffeine enough to take a side order of sushi.
The coffee was excellent: strong and very fresh. This guy couldn’t be all bad. I noted that he had dumped about four tablespoons of sugar into his. I guess he wasn’t planning to sleep any time in the next twelve hours either. When we were both settled with our coffee I went back to it.
“Madden,” I said firmly.
“What’s to talk about? My lab was supposed to get two hundred thousand dollars this year, and I haven’t seen a penny.”
“That doesn’t prove a thing. Maybe Riesler decided that somebody else could do the work better than you. It’s within his rights as project manager.”
“There isn’t anybody else. There are only three researchers in the world who can do these kind of tests and interpret the data. Me, my Ph.D. advisor in California, and my graduate student here on a good day. There is no other lab, not to do this work anyway.”
I thought about that. The government gives a principle researcher almost total discretion in the distribution of funds, trusting that he (and it usually is a he) knows best how to get the work done. Riesler did not, however, have the
