The Carbon Murder(85)

“Maybe,” I said, with a clearing of my throat that was meant to be another reminder that Dr. Schofield’s own name was on Lorna’s payroll.

“Yes, well, but still I don’t see the point of it. My guess is that they’re using horses to test a brand new drug and/or a new drug delivery system.”

“Some experimental variation of bute, then?”

“I suppose. Why are you so bent on bute as opposed to a new drug?”

“It’s hard to explain, but it has come up as another element of the scam. The alleged scam.” A fine time for me to begin expressing myself as a careful police consultant.

“I can give it some thought, certainly. See if I can think how you’d change the composition of bute enough to result in a drug worth testing.”

“Thanks. I’d appreciate that.”

“Uh, Gloria, I just want to say … as bad as you think we’ve been to allow ourselves to be manipulated with the chip costs and so on, we … I think I can safely speak for Dr. Evans … we would never, never willingly participate in the kind of fraud you seem to have uncovered. For one thing, we would never do anything that could potentially harm an animal.”

To say nothing of the human murders that may have resulted also.

“I believe you,” I told him.

Rose had been patient through the call, satisfying herself with cleaning up the crumbs from the coffee table, stoking the fire, and gesturing meaningfully that I should sip my coffee, for instance, or take a bite of cookie. Now she burst forth with her questions.

“Are you going to tell Matt your theory?”

“Not until … he’s well.”

“Of course. Are they going to arrest the woman at the lab? Women these days, really.”

“I’ll have to call George Berger and see how he wants to proceed, based on what I have. I’m ninety-nine percent sure Alex Simpson is involved also. So they’ll have to call the Houston PD.”

“Do you think the drug companies are involved?”

“I doubt it, but that’s something to investigate. Big sponsors like that don’t usually take such chances in my experience. From what I’ve seen the biggest dollar amounts in Lorna’s program are federal agencies of one kind or another.”

“You mean it’s easier to fool the government.”

“Afraid so.”

“I’ll bet there’s a lot of money at stake.”

“Ultimately there might be a lot of money for pharmaceutical companies any time a successful drug is developed. But there’s a lot of initial cost also, for the research. The Charger Street scientists don’t work for the drug companies, however, and they would not be profiting financially in general.”

“So you say.”

“I know this sounds strange but scientists would rather have a unit named after them.” Or a molecule, I thought. “Like Newton, Roentgen, Fermi, Volta.”

“Volts is someone’s name? Like a six-volt battery, that’s someone’s name?”

I nodded. “The volt is named after an Italian scientist, Alessandro Volta.”

Rose shook her head. “The things you know.”

“What’s most important for a scientist like Lorna Frederick or Alex Simpson, who are on the cutting edge, is to keep their research going. Of course, they also want Nobel Prizes and recognition. They want to have breakthroughs and meet milestones before the people in Japan or Germany, but not for the money. More for the fact of doing it, getting into the science books of the future. They don’t want yachts or mansions so much as the glory that comes with transforming the world.”

“Better living through science,” Rose said. “As long as it’s my science.”

“You’ve got it.”





CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

After Rose left, I went back through the reports. Often, I could hear Lorna’s voice as I read the narrative in the research summaries she’d submitted to her sponsors.

A single nanotube can be ten to one hundred times stronger than steel. We’ve demonstrated that these tiny tubes can be opened, and filled with a variety of materials, including biological molecules, she’d written.

It was almost a clue, I thought—filling nanotubes with biological molecules—and I should have seen it sooner. But who would think that science as full of marvels as nanotechnology could be the vehicle for an elaborate fraud?

It bothered me deeply that a woman scientist would betray her profession. That she might also be a murderer left me unable to sleep.

I was so sorry Matt had to miss all the excitement, and hoped at least he was sleeping soundly and on the road to the relapse-free life Dr. Rosen predicted. I thought of the drugs he’d been given. He’d had a bad reaction to some of them, but ultimately it would be drugs and therapy that would help restore his health.