“What about the card in Nina’s pocket?”
Matt shrugged. “Nothing they know about. They’re saying she probably met someone in a bar and the guy happened to work for the FDA and gave her his card. There wasn’t a particular person’s number on it, just the general FDA switchboard number.”
“If it was a bar pickup, wouldn’t the guy put his own extension? Or give his home number?”
Matt shrugged, as if to ask, What did he know about bar pickups? “FDA offered to give us their telephone directory in case any of the other people on Nina’s list are their inspectors.”
“So the lack of interagency cooperation in the US is not a myth?” MC asked.
“Afraid not. What we might get, though, is something from the Houston PD. They promised to give us transcripts of any interviews.”
“I wonder if Wayne Gallen knows about any of this, if it has anything to do with why he thinks MC is in danger.”
“I’m in danger from Wayne Gallen himself,” MC said, going through the hands-in-sleeves routine.
I looked to Matt for assurance that the PFA would be in effect soon, but he’d fallen asleep again.
MC scrolled up and down her email list. “Here’s the only one from Alex that has a reference that’s even the slightest bit mysterious.”
I peered at the monitor.
From:
[email protected]
To:
[email protected]
Subject: Trouble
There’s good news and bad news. Our contact sees no problem delivering the package, but one unfortunate outcome—the bute that’s not bute—might bring trouble.
Hardly that mysterious. Who doesn’t have research troubles?
“The only strange word is ‘bute.’ Another Texas word?” I asked.
MC laughed. “I don’t think so.”
“Is it a chemical term?”
MC tapped her fingers together. “Maybe short for butane or butyl, but I’ve never heard it used that way.”
I pointed to the To line. “It’s even addressed to you.”
MC screwed up her mouth and moved her lips as if she were literally chewing on the matter. “Ah,” she said, giving me a thumbs-up. “It must have been meant for Wayne Gallen. See, the first three letters are the same. I had a mailbox at Houston Poly. If Alex wasn’t paying attention and just hit a return after the gal and then clicked on send, it would come to me. I’d be first alphabetically.”
“Then later he might be looking at his sent mail and realized what he’d done. Good call, MC.”
“Well, at least we know why I received it, maybe. We still don’t know what it means.”
“Maybe we should just hit reply and ask Alex what he meant.”
MC’s eyes widened. “You don’t want to mess with this guy. He’s so two-faced. He’d always make fun of people, like two minutes after they gave him a million dollars.”
“Not very nice.”
“‘Well, sure, y’all,’ he’d say. ‘Ah will be happy to give you some of mah millions for your most wah-thy research.’ That was Alex. He did a pretty good Texas accent, even though he was from the Midwest. He thought the staff was laughing with him, but mostly it was at him.”
“How did you get to know Alex so well?”
“Supposedly I was interning, sort of, to learn some research techniques from his group, since I’d been in the field for so long.”
“So you don’t want to hit reply?”
MC shook her head, apparently not enjoying my teasing. “No, Aunt G.”
“I was just kidding anyway.”
A quick search of the Internet got us to the Isle of Bute, off Scotland, and Bute County, North Carolina.
I heard Matt’s light snore. I studied the fleshy, gentle face of my—my what? POSSLQ? Person-of-the-Opposite-Sex-Sharing-Living-Quarters was what the IRS dubbed it a few years ago. As if it mattered right now, I wondered if there were a more up-to-date term. “Partner” sounded like a same-sex arrangement or a business relationship. “Boyfriend” seemed misleading, conjuring up images of sixteen-year-olds.
MC caught my gaze.
“He’ll be fine, Aunt G,” she said, and reached over to hug me.
I hoped so.
Before we left the mortuary building, Matt, who claimed to be completely refreshed from his time-out, checked all the downstairs’ windows. I knew MC was locked in on the third floor, her alarm set, but as we pulled away, I had an unsettled feeling. I scoured the area for Dr. Wayne Gallen, whom I’d still never met.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Andrea Cabrini took me through a labyrinth of no-frills, uncarpeted, unadorned corridors at the Charger Street lab. As we rounded a corner and entered the area where her cubicle was, I snagged my purse in a nest of wires and coax cables that hung from the ceiling.