rule out Doctor Weller as a person of interest and move on if we can, to more productive leads.”
Cyrus and Avakian soon were left alone with the IT manager, a young man who looked like he’d borrowed someone else’s shirt and tie for the meeting. He explained how their logs worked: after 6 P . M . and on weekends all medical school employees had to swipe their ID cards on entry and exit at the security desks located at each of the Longwood complex research buildings. And 24/7 all internal card swipes were recorded at sensitive areas such as biohazard labs and animal facilities. The printouts on the table were records, sorted by calendar day, of Dr. Weller’s building for the past two months. And to make their task easier, he’d had Dr. Weller’s personal data outputted in red. He appeared quite proud of this software feature and Cyrus heaped praise on him for the convenience, making the young man as happy as if he’d pinned an honorary FBI badge to his lapel.
Cyrus wanted to key on four dates: the presumptive nights on which Thomas Quinn and the three prostitutes were murdered. Avakian donned thick-rimmed reading glasses and tackled the first two. Cyrus took the more recent killings. They dug into the binders while the IT guy took out his laptop and did his own thing. Half an hour later, they were done.
“I got nothing,” Avakian grunted. “Weller’s a goddamn workaholic. He was in the lab both nights from 7 P.M. or so till 5 or 6 A.M. when he clocked out. He’s in and out of the animal rooms a lot but there’s probably nothing unusual about that.”
“Same for my nights,” Cyrus said, closing his binder. He turned to the IT manager. “Is there any way of doing a sort, say for the past six months, to see if pulling all-nighters is unusual for him?”
“Sure, I can do that. Give me a couple of days.”
Cyrus had a thought. “Is it possible to sneak out of the building without going past the security desk?”
“I wouldn’t know,” the young man answered. “Never been over there. I hang out in a server room miles away.”
“What about CCTV over in his building?” Avakian wondered.
“The quadrangle’s covered pretty well, but inside the buildings, not so much. I think it’s in next year’s budget but I could be wrong.”
That was it. They had no more on Weller than at the start. Cyrus pressed the elevator Down button.
“What next?” Avakian asked.
“I’ve got a real interest in attending a salon next weekend.”
“A salon?” the big man asked, screwing up his face. “You want to go to a beauty parlor?”
“Nope. It’s the kind of place where eggheads slap themselves on the back and drink white wine.”
“You’re on your own, partner,” Avakian said, stepping heavily onto the elevator cab. “My weekends are for football.”
Thirteen
There wasn’t enough, not nearly enough.
Alex had thought there’d be plenty of pumpkin girl’s fluid to do the necessary structural studies but he was wrong.
He was making progress—undeniably. The mystery peak at 854.73
m/z
was slowly yielding to the brute force of his science. Structural analysis of unknown compounds wasn’t his field but he couldn’t very well blithely hand out samples from a murder victim to academic collaborators. So he taught himself the techniques and borrowed time on machines he didn’t already possess within his own lab.
This much he had learned, and this much was certain: the fraction was a peptide, a shortish chain of amino acids—but which ones, and what was their sequence and configuration? He’d need more of the mystery peak, more precious liquid to carry on.
And beyond the incumbent needs for analytical chemistry he
wanted
more for other reasons that burned inside him like molten metal, unquenchable fiery ingots impossible to ignore.
So, as if captive to a restless dream, he found himself once again riding around the dark empty streets ofthe city during one of the first sustained flurries of the
Cyrus and Avakian soon were left alone with the IT manager, a young man who looked like he’d borrowed someone else’s shirt and tie for the meeting. He explained how their logs worked: after 6 P . M . and on weekends all medical school employees had to swipe their ID cards on entry and exit at the security desks located at each of the Longwood complex research buildings. And 24/7 all internal card swipes were recorded at sensitive areas such as biohazard labs and animal facilities. The printouts on the table were records, sorted by calendar day, of Dr. Weller’s building for the past two months. And to make their task easier, he’d had Dr. Weller’s personal data outputted in red. He appeared quite proud of this software feature and Cyrus heaped praise on him for the convenience, making the young man as happy as if he’d pinned an honorary FBI badge to his lapel.
Cyrus wanted to key on four dates: the presumptive nights on which Thomas Quinn and the three prostitutes were murdered. Avakian donned thick-rimmed reading glasses and tackled the first two. Cyrus took the more recent killings. They dug into the binders while the IT guy took out his laptop and did his own thing. Half an hour later, they were done.
“I got nothing,” Avakian grunted. “Weller’s a goddamn workaholic. He was in the lab both nights from 7 P.M. or so till 5 or 6 A.M. when he clocked out. He’s in and out of the animal rooms a lot but there’s probably nothing unusual about that.”
“Same for my nights,” Cyrus said, closing his binder. He turned to the IT manager. “Is there any way of doing a sort, say for the past six months, to see if pulling all-nighters is unusual for him?”
“Sure, I can do that. Give me a couple of days.”
Cyrus had a thought. “Is it possible to sneak out of the building without going past the security desk?”
“I wouldn’t know,” the young man answered. “Never been over there. I hang out in a server room miles away.”
“What about CCTV over in his building?” Avakian wondered.
“The quadrangle’s covered pretty well, but inside the buildings, not so much. I think it’s in next year’s budget but I could be wrong.”
That was it. They had no more on Weller than at the start. Cyrus pressed the elevator Down button.
“What next?” Avakian asked.
“I’ve got a real interest in attending a salon next weekend.”
“A salon?” the big man asked, screwing up his face. “You want to go to a beauty parlor?”
“Nope. It’s the kind of place where eggheads slap themselves on the back and drink white wine.”
“You’re on your own, partner,” Avakian said, stepping heavily onto the elevator cab. “My weekends are for football.”
Thirteen
There wasn’t enough, not nearly enough.
Alex had thought there’d be plenty of pumpkin girl’s fluid to do the necessary structural studies but he was wrong.
He was making progress—undeniably. The mystery peak at 854.73
m/z
was slowly yielding to the brute force of his science. Structural analysis of unknown compounds wasn’t his field but he couldn’t very well blithely hand out samples from a murder victim to academic collaborators. So he taught himself the techniques and borrowed time on machines he didn’t already possess within his own lab.
This much he had learned, and this much was certain: the fraction was a peptide, a shortish chain of amino acids—but which ones, and what was their sequence and configuration? He’d need more of the mystery peak, more precious liquid to carry on.
And beyond the incumbent needs for analytical chemistry he
wanted
more for other reasons that burned inside him like molten metal, unquenchable fiery ingots impossible to ignore.
So, as if captive to a restless dream, he found himself once again riding around the dark empty streets ofthe city during one of the first sustained flurries of the
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