Always Love a Villain on San Juan Island (19 page)

Hang on, lady. First you have to get the child born. And that ain't going to happen by sitting in an office staring at a screen.

No cigarette. Oh well. You've got a job to do, right? Do it.

Noel was fascinated. Conferences where they—who were the “they”?—discussed plagiarism. International conferences. One coming up soon in Bordeaux. He read through the list of papers to be presented. Lots of work on computer assisted plagiarism detection, the sort he'd already tried on Beck's papers and novella. The databases used for comparison must be enormous. Lots of talk about thresholds—how to decide what phrases and sentences to compare, where did research reach negligible value. So not only computer assisted detection, lots of human judgment involved as well. A relief, he thought.

And here was something from
Nature News
: seems that scientific publishers have whole new methods for detecting plagiarism, something called CrossCheck, participated in by over three thousand commercial and scholarly publishers. “So far, 83 publishers have joined the database, which has grown to include 25.5 million articles from 48,517 journals and books.” Wow! One of the journals reporting claimed they had to reject nearly 10 percent of the submitted articles because some of the material had been plagiarized. Then there was self-plagiarism, where an author lifted material from a previous article and submitted the “new” article under a different title. If accepted, the author has yet one more entry on his curriculum vitae. A world Noel was glad he didn't inhabit. Whatever his weaknesses as an investigative reporter, like getting things wrong, at least he'd never stolen the work of others.

He listened, but didn't hear Peter. Regrouping in his brain, Noel figured. He'd be back.

Driving from Everett down into Seattle took Laurence Rossini the full hour and a half to cover forty miles. The traffic was slow enough for him to cogitate safely and still keep his eyes on the road. His conversation at the Faculty Club with Peter came to mind, the last part of it, all that business about hiring a private investigator to get to the root of the possible plagiarism case. Likely a good idea, but Peter had been using the story to create a state of mutual confidence, to penetrate Larry's lab and discover what the Project was about. The notion of a discreet investigation wormed its way into the center of his thoughts. If anything needed both discretion and discovery it'd be Susanna's kidnapping and her being held captive. The Project in trade for his daughter. Obscene.

He exited the I-5 at Mercer Street and mazed his way toward the hotel. Yes, this was a large idea, an important idea: if the investigators Peter had hired were as good as he seemed to think, and if they really could be circumspect, he might hire them. They couldn't do less well than Sheriff Marc and Undersheriff Charlie. He should question Peter further.

Larry noted the hotel on his right. He drove by. Seeing Toni suddenly took second priority to deciding about the investigators. He pulled into a space beside a fire hydrant—no problem, he wouldn't leave his vehicle. He took out his cell phone and called Peter Langley.

Noel heard Peter's phone in the living room ring. Peter picked up. “Oh hi . . . sure, long as you need . . . yeah, they're working away . . . hang on a minute, okay?” Noel heard Peter walk away and close a door behind him.

And here was Wikipedia on plagiarism. Something called fingerprinting, working with “a set of multiple substrings . . . to represent the fingerprints . . .” And something called “bag of words analysis” and another, “stylometry,” and more. Noel looked up from the screen. Delilah was back on the sofa, having a wash. Did he have to know all this to figure out if Beck had stolen his sentences from somewhere else?

He felt his Blackberry vibrate. He glanced at the screen. Washington State area code. He didn't recognize the number. “Hello, Triple I, Noel Franklin speaking.”

A slightly familiar voice said, “Hello, Mr. Franklin. We met this morning. This is Laurence Rossini.”

“Yes, Professor Rossini. Have you heard from your daughter?”

“No, afraid not. But look, there's something I'd like to talk with you about. Could we meet, you and your partner and me? Tomorrow around noon would work for me.”

“What would this be about?”

“The possibility of hiring your services.”

“Hard to say if that could work. We're in the midst of an investigation at the moment.”

Rossini made an explosive sound that might have been a sigh. “I do understand. Our conversation wouldn't last long. You could tell me if my proposal was out of line.”

“All right, let's talk. You want to meet earlier? Later this afternoon?”

“No, I'm not available till tomorrow. I'm off campus at the moment.”

“Okay, tomorrow. But early.”

“You mind coming to my home? You know where it is. About noon, okay?”

“Could we make it earlier?” Only one ferry a day back to Sidney. “I do need to get back to Vancouver Island and I'd like to be on the ferry that leaves just before ten.”

“I'm afraid I won't be back by then. I'd very much appreciate talking to you. And of course I'll pay you for a day of your time whether you deal with my problem or not.”

Noel didn't need the money; he had the comfortable income Brandon had left him. But Kyra didn't have that luxury. “All right then, noon it is. See you then.” He ended the call. Something seemed off about the man. Like when they'd left him so he could get to his lab. Slowly now, slow. What had he seen? They came driving to his house, he'd been outside beside his SUV, he loaded in a suitcase, he talked to them. His daughter, could they talk to her? He'd like to talk to her as well, not reachable by phone, yes she had read some of a friend's writing. Then he'd seemed upset, made it clear he had to go to his lab, he took their card, they drove off. He didn't get into his SUV immediately. Not in that much of a hurry. Noel had noted in his rearview mirror that Rossini had gone back into the house. Last they saw of him. Suitcase, Susanna not reachable by phone, upset, hurry to the lab—

Did he need a suitcase to go to the lab? Maybe that's the way he transported papers, files, whatever? Maybe. But strange.

He realized Peter was watching him. “Oh. Hi.”

“So? You going to take the case?”

“What case?”

Peter chuckled. “Whatever it is that Larry wants you to do.”

“Huh?”

“Didn't he just call you?”

“How do you know?”

“He called me before he called you, told me he'd get right in touch with you.”

A tiny world, this Morsely University. “Ah,” said Noel.

“What's he want you to do?”

“We haven't talked yet. But even if we had, I wouldn't be able to discuss it with you.” He smiled. “Sorry, Peter.”

“Could you talk about it with Kyra?”

“We talk about everything.” He edited himself. “All our cases.”

“Sorry, Noel. Didn't mean to intrude.”

“Since I didn't tell you anything, no intrusion.”

“I'll let you get back to work.”

“Thanks. I'll just be a little longer.”

Peter left the kitchen. What was all that about, with Rossini? And where had he gone, with his suitcase?

Larry Rossini tapped the phone number listed below deBourg in his contacts. Toni answered, “You're here. Wonderful.”

Hearing her voice was wonderful. Oh, how he loved her. “Just need to park. A few minutes.”

“Three oh seven,” she said, and disconnected.

He left the car in a lot around a corner from the hotel. Would she be wearing that scarlet negligee? Surely not in the middle of the day. Though she had in Boston. He made his way to the front entrance, noted the elevators and took one to the third floor. Maybe that peach silk dress that left very little to the imagination. No, she had so many clothes it made no sense to imagine her in anything specific. He found her door ajar, rapped on it twice and pushed it open. “I'm here.” He closed the door behind him and secured the safety bolt.

A lightweight dark-blue business suit, the skirt down to her knees, and black heels. Very smart. Very little lipstick. Her eyes shone. They walked toward each other, both with large smiles, arms apart then about the other, and they kissed deeply. A minute later their shoes were off, her suit, his shirt and trousers, their underwear all on the floor, abandoned for the sheets of a king-size bed.

Afterward they lay still with their arms about each other, saying little, kissing every few seconds. After a while she said, “Have you had lunch?”

“Just you,” he said.

She giggled. No more words till she said, “How are you?”

“With you, very well.”

“I mean, about Susanna.”

“Nothing's changed.”

“It's already two weeks plus, Larry.”

“I know.”

“I'm very worried for you.”

“There's still five days to find her.”

“You've given them everything they need. Surely they'll let her go then.”

“I don't trust them. If I could only figure out where they have her.”

“Are the police continuing their search?”

“Discreetly.”

She sighed. “I still wish you hadn't gone to them.”

“What, and sat on my hands till the three weeks were over?”

“If they should learn that you've not done as they told you, they said they'd—hurt—Susanna.”

“
Kill
is what they said.”

“You're gambling, Larry. With Susanna's life.”

He kissed her long and hard. He drew away. “Toni—” He had to tell her. She'd approve of this. Maybe. “I'm about to raise the stakes.”

She pulled back from him. “What do you mean?”

“I'm going to hire an independent investigative firm.”

“Oh, Larry. That's so dangerous.”

“These two apparently take discretion as their credo.”

“How do you know that?”

“A colleague. He's hired them and he's very impressed.”