Splicer (A Thriller) Read online

  Otter looked at his wet shoes on the white carpet, felt helpless.

  "I'm sorry officer. But you have to expect this. The stupidest things just bring back some memory ... "

  "Don't apologize,” he said. He was using a different voice, not his cops aggressive bark. A comforting murmur. The kind he might use on his young son after seeing him fall from his bike on the driveway. He waited for her to continue.

  "He read me a list of things to get for him for his trip. Shaving lotion. Sunscreen. The new Patterson novel, which was his guilty pleasure. Batteries for his Nikon. Then, just as he's about to hang up, he tells me when he gets back, we're going to celebrate."

  "Celebrate what?"

  "The Splicer."

  "That's the machine you were working on. The breakthrough?'

  "The damn Splicer was everything he thought about. Scientists told him for years a machine like that couldn’t be built. Making it happen would allow Jeff to snub his nose at all of his critics. It wasn’t the money for him. The Splicer was all about being recognized. His chance for a Nobel prize."

  "You look puzzled."

  She started to answer, then hesitated as if she knew the explanation would be futile, but she tried anyway. "The last five years have been hell for Jeff. He was very hard on himself, very driven. Then everything changed and he started to feel close to it, close to getting what he wanted - with Malcolm Grieves, the coding prodigy onboard. He envied people like him, people who could make things, could invent things. He didn't act like it, but he was in awe of Grieves. Then when Grieves left, he reacted like a jilted lover. Enraged and despondent, he used to say to me. He must have picked that line up from some late-night movie. He would joke about it sometimes, but basically he went crazy. He also literally gave up. And then, out of the blue – he says they solved the big problems and Splicer was ready? Did you see Rosenblatt doing cartwheels?"

  Otter shook his head.

  "GeneFab has had the atmosphere of a funeral parlor for the past year. So what Jeff said just didn't make sense."

  "He must have known something no one else did,” suggested Otter.

  "Exactly. And now we'll never know what it was.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Quinn looked strangely out of place behind a slab of teak the size of a billiard table. The surface, unblemished by paper or phone or a gold plated pen, glowed with a dark impudence. David Quinn was small in stature with thick overly long gray-streaked hair. Jayne guessed about fifty, trying to look thirty-five. He wore a faded Adidas shirt, frayed at the sleeves, jeans and expensive track shoes. Quinn never worked Fridays, but he always appeared at his office dressed like some rich university student, holding court with his partners who sat across from him, feeling uncomfortable in their three piece suits and starched collars.

  Jayne stepped into his office through the open door and walked over to the wall of glass overlooking the lake. She watched a tug struggle against an easterly in the distance, two men up front huddled against the wind and spray of Lake Ontario. Quinn hung up his phone and turned in his chair.

  "Jayney. God, it’s great to see you again.” She turned to him, watched him finish with the laces on his runners.

  "Playing tennis with Shelby?" Shelby was one of Quinn's partners, a fat and balding corporate litigator.

  "No, as a matter of fact, with someone you should know about."

  "Great. I'll join you then."

  "Your desk is clear?" Normally he would have eagerly accepted her invitation. Today he was hedging. Jayne shrugged.

  "We like to stay away from the office on Friday afternoons. Keeps us away from the process servers."

  Quinn just nodded, pressed his lips together and sat up. He took a pen out of his desk and tapped it absently against his perfect white teeth.

  "So, who should I know about?" she asked.

  "Shay Redfield."

  Jayne tried to cover her surprise. "She's keeping his last name?"

  "Her maiden name is Zalakowski or Zaglakoski or… she likes the new name better."

  "Who's her lawyer?"

  Quinn glanced up quickly at her, then smiled innocently. Ahhh thought Jayne, your look of trust presentation. A good courtroom lawyer develops an inventory of glances and reactions designed to build rapport with a jury. But after a decade of theatrics, the looks become your own. They insinuate themselves into your everyday vocabulary of expressions. On one knows anymore where Quinn began and the defense lawyer ended?

  "I'm helping her out,” he answered cheerfully.

  "Not concerned about a conflict of interest?"

  Quinn winced. "Shay has spoken to me in confidence about a matter that involves you."

  "I'll bet."

  "Jayne ... do you know more about what I'm about to tell you than I do? But then, wasn't that always the case? What do you know about Shay Redfield?"

  "I have a report that you and her are ... involved."

  Quinn's facial muscles tightened. "What a cliché. That report is incorrect."

  "It comes from the ex-husband."

  "Rusty's reading something into this that he shouldn't?"

  She looked ready for a fight, her hands knotted into fists. Then she relaxed her shoulders. "Look, I really don't care, David. It's none of my business. What's this meeting really all about?" She dropped herself into a dark green leather sofa and smoothed her skirt. Quinn marveled at her lips again - deep red, child-like, pouting.

  "Shay ran into someone a few days ago. Wednesday actually. Malcolm Grieves."

  "She ran into him?"

  "It's a figure of speech, Jayne. She saw him on the street. Their eyes met. He scurried off to his den. She's definite it was Grieves. And he was carrying something wrapped in a greasy brown bag. Under his arms. Why haven't the police questioned him?"

  Jayne gave him a look that said Good Question. "Dimbrowsky told me that Grieves wasn't a suspect. He was released on parole three weeks ago. He checked into his parole office in White Rock - apparently that's where he lives now. Parole officer met with him on the morning of the murder and Grieves checks in every week until his parole is up. He's being a good boy."

  "Ludd was killed at approximately eight o'clock in the evening. The flight from Vancouver to Toronto is what?"

  "Do I look like a travel agent?"

  "Jayney, you look stunning as usual. Is that what a travel agent looks like? Anyway, the answer is four to five hours. And with the time change?”

  She looked up to the walnut covered ceiling. "I'll play along. Another three hours. He'd have to leave Vancouver before noon."

  "And when did he meet with his parole officer?"

  "I'm not sure... 9:00 or 9:30?"

  "There was an 11:00 AM flight that morning from Vancouver. And Grieves is here now."

  Jayne digested that. Why hadn't the prosecutor’s office told her about this? Did they even know? It will be easy to check. "Do you think Shay is frightened? Of Grieves?"

  "She says she never trusted Grieves. He's got a list of priors and if you check you'll find things that aren't on his criminal record."

  "Like?"

  "I can't do all your work for you, Jayne."

  "Thanks, Quinn... I think." She got up to leave, which disappointed him. "I'll have to catch you on that tennis game some other time."

  "You name the time, Jayney."

  At his door, she stopped. "Tell me, Quinn. What's the proper etiquette on the court when you're playing with a guy who's a lot older than you are, not a very good athlete, someone who's always playing boss, and thinks they are God's gift to women?"

  Quinn smiled slowly. "Simple, Jayne. Short shorts. Tank top. Bend over a lot. Lose."

  She smiled. "Well, now I know what works for Shelby. But tell him he can pass on the tank top. It does nothing for him."

  CHAPTER 16

  The two detectives sat in their unmarked car, the windows open. A light breeze was blowing across the parking lot of their favorite donut shop.

  "You know what a h
oney wagon is?" asked Kozak, finishing his third cigarette of the break.

  "A limo full of hookers?" answered Otter. Kozak barely cracked a smile. Otter smacked the dash with his right hand. "You almost let your guard down that time, buddy. Would it kill you just once to laugh at one of my jokes? Just once ... like an act of charity?"

  Koz blew out a shaky lung full of nicotine-enriched smog. "When I was a kid we used to spend the summers at the lake. Every cottage had a shitter way at the back of the property by the lane. This is before Greenpeace and the Pollution Police. Every week this old beater one ton would roll down the lane and clean out the biffies. We called it a Honey Wagon."

  "Cute. I think I'll pass on those honey glazed crullers."

  Kozak coughed, some pain visible on his face. "Couldn't hurt. You're starting to look like a goddamn cruller."

  Otter ignored the shot. "So?"

  "So what?"

  "So what about the honey wagon?"

  "This Rosenblatt character reminds me of the guy who used to drive that truck. Big smile, big operator. Big smile on his fat face. But he still smelled like shit. Call it honey. Call it Hagen Daas. Call it anything you want. It's shit. And he's in the shit business no matter what he tells you."

  Otter picked a crumb of donut off of his lap and popped it into his mouth. "So you think that he hired Redfield? Or are you just saying that he did it - in your very poetic way?"

  "I'm sayin’ I don't like helpful suspects. I don't trust helpful suspects. Doesn't this guy know we’re lookin’ up his rear end? And he just keeps smiling. Even if he didn't do anything more than steal paper clips, it makes me feel like he's whacked off in my coffee or something."

  Otter frowned. They had paid one more visit to Rosenblatt. To confirm the story about the phone call on Tuesday from Redfield. There was pressure from the Prosecutor for more hard evidence, of which there was an interesting shortage. They were upping the budget on this case too, despite the recent cutbacks. And they were in a hurry too. Why?

  "Interesting change of heart, bud. I thought you figured this Redfield character was open and shut."

  Koz flicked the butt of the cigarette into the parking lot. "I don't like being pushed especially when I don't know who's doing the pushing. Let's go visit our friends over at the lab and see if they've finished up yet. Then let’s pay a visit to the Grieves residence. See if Mrs. Grieves has heard from hubby yet."

  Otter crushed the cardboard coffee cup in his hairy hand. "You're starting to spend more time at the lab than with your wife. I didn't know you were into the hard sciences."

  "Hey. You know what they say. The harder the better."

  "I don't think they were talking about test tubes."

  Koz started the car. "And now that you mention it - it was Rosenblatt who first put me on to this. We were talking about DNA - and this machine they make, that Splicer. He made a comment about DNA fingerprinting. Asked me if I used it much. Said we didn't. He gave me this long speech about it being better than blood serum testing or traditional fingerprinting. But he should know."

  "Why should he know? He told us just a few days ago that he's just an ops manager."

  "How many managers do you know that pull down a million a year?"

  Otter shrugged. The amount was too large for him to digest. "So what do we expect to find at the Lab?"

  "Find? A match. We took a blood test off Rosenblatt, Redfield and Ludd. I want to see if they can tell us who's been in that car. Since we've got the budget now, might as well go to town."

  "Funny how the department purse strings just popped open like the stomach sutures on a Sumo wrestler," wondered Otter out loud.

  "Enjoy it while you can, partner. Someone with pull is pulling. This is just startin' to get interesting." Otter was curious about Koz's definition of interesting - some poor guy slipping in the blood on the abattoir floor most likely.

  CHAPTER 17

  Avril Ludd stood in the shower, ice water pulsing against her temple.

  She peeled back the dark hair from her forehead, felt the liquid, cool as ethyl alcohol, run down over her swollen eyelids, her sallow cheeks, across her chin and then down the narrow valley between her breasts. With her other hand on the spray control, she slowly cranked up the water temperature until the spray became a steamy torrent that made her lungs ache and her skin turn crimson. She wasn't sure how long she stood there, focusing only on the tiniest of sensory experiences - the tentative rivulets running down her back like hot wax.

  She held her breath then let it out in gasps. She was afraid to open her eyes - as if reality would intrude. She didn't want to think or remember. Just feel the nerve endings jump and recoil. Jump and recoil. She absently touched her breast, her stomach. She felt a pang of guilt. But she had mourned too long, felt desiccated from days of crying. How long would it be before she would allow herself to be touched again? Ever? She lowered her hand again resolved to think only of the sensations. Her mind went blank and she exhaled a breath hot with pain and fear.

  After, she sat in her newly re-built kitchen, alone, a white terry cloth robe wrapped tightly around her. It was Jeff's robe, but it smelled of her perfume - he never wore clothes to bed. She sipped her coffee and stared out over the carefully landscaped yard that spread out into a thick stand of poplar at the rear of the property.

  She was alone again. She had more this time of course - more real estate, more clothes, many more pairs of shoes. But she was still alone. She had met Jeff at the age of twenty-one, both parents deceased, an MIT graduate in artificial intelligence. He was her only family. He refused to have children. So she had completed a cycle somehow.

  As a young girl all she wanted was a closet full of clothes, a bright colored sports car, money to travel. She didn't envision a lover in her teenage dreams. If she did, he was a presence without a face, like an apparition. Now she had what she dreamed of - including the ghost. She felt somehow that she had done something basically wrong by not fixing Jeff in her fantasies. She had let him slip away.

  She poured more coffee and sorted through the index cards on the table in front of her - ten of them, cut from a light orange stock, filled with Jeff's meticulous script. Jeff loved index cards. He made notes on them, sent letters, made phone messages, documented his exercise regime and his daily caloric intake.

  These particular cards she had found tucked behind his weights in the family room. Family room? she thought, touched by the irony. She paused to take in the emptiness of the huge house. Why would he hide them there? He was so clever, so aware of everything around him. He was not a man who easily made mistakes or allowed others to repeat theirs. And she had found nothing else. Not a single surprise other than these ten carefully scripted cards. It was almost as if he expected her to find them.

  Each index card was headed with the name Kim Soo, then a number. A page number. Kim Soo 1 - had a sub-head. LIKES. He had initially written CHARLIE in red ink. She assumed he meant the perfume, but she could be wrong. Then he wrote PEARLS - SMALL. Under that CRYSTAL ANIMALS. There were several other gift ideas, all equally banal to Avril. Kim Soo - 2. was headed - DISLIKES. It listed, in several colors of ink, implying entries over a period of time.

  DEMOCRATS

  PIZZA

  TEXANS

  ANIMAL RESEARCH

  COMPUTER GAMES

  WATER (PHOBIA)

  The other cards listed trivia about this woman called Kim Soo including a guess at her weight, 105-110 pounds, origin; languages she could speak (several) and a number of names, none of which she recognized. Jeff was very plain about one thing on several of the cards. Dates. All the times he had traveled to Vegas. There were over a dozen trips over the space of a year.

  Avril knew there were business trips involved, at least the first was part of a technology show. That was obviously where they met. She had assumed before that he gambled on the other trips. Jeff had no hobbies other than his constant battle with his baby fat. And gambling seemed to make sense; the mathematical n
ature of it suited Jeff.

  All the trips were to the Galaxy Hotel, a place he spoke of as gigantic, gaudy and noisy. Like an acre-wide grown-up tilt-a-whirl. She had been invited on the first trip, which she turned down because her charity work involved so many weekends. He never asked her again.

  She struggled so many times over the past week with the same basic question. Why did someone want Jeff dead? She knew there were people in the biotech industry who didn't like him - who resented his restless energy and his monetary success. But enough to want him dead? She shuffled the cards again then angrily threw them to the floor. The puzzle frustrated her.

  She remembered one summer, a few years after Jeff and her were married. The company was still small, but starting to turn a profit. Jeff, aimlessly seeking out another hobby that he would shortly discard, bought a boat. A 38-foot cabin cruiser. A weekender, they called it. Completely out of character for him.

  One Saturday the two of them set out on Lake Manicatogan, north of the city where they kept it harbored. They roared across the quiet body of water feeling like teenagers playing hooky. At the center, they dropped anchor and both of them leapt over the sides, naked. They made love in the cool lake water - a memory of Jeff's naked back covered in goose flesh, something she would always remember.

  But she remembered something else. A hint of what their life would become.

  At the center of the lake, only her eyes above the waterline, the distant shore seemed to disappear. She dove down, pulling herself through the inky coolness, then turned and broke the surface. Seeing the boat from that vantage point, solid and white against the sky, caught her breath. The world seemed to expand away from her to infinity - she at the center. So low to the dark surface, her chin on the edge of the world, she felt diminished, swallowed up by the sheer size of the universe. The lake felt bottomless and cold and seemed to vibrate.