Dead Air (Sammy Greene Thriller) (22 page)

Restless, she rose from the sofa, went into the bathroom, and washed her face. Her fatigue was visible in the reflection. She ran a finger through her frizzy copper-colored curls, shaking her head at its self-determination — no matter what, it would never be straight.

The phone’s shrill jangle brought her back into the living room. “Yes?” she asked, picking up the receiver on the third ring.

“Miss Greene, this is Mr. Brewster. Sorry to call so late.”

“Oh, no, that’s okay. What’s up?”

“Well, I was working in the darkroom this evening and darned if I didn’t find a few of the pictures you’d brought in.”

“That’s great!”

“Don’t get too excited. I’m afraid they’re pretty underdeveloped. That’s why I must’ve laid them aside. Probably got interrupted by one of your schoolmates coming in the store. Always in a hurry.”

Sammy smiled at the old man’s characteristic surliness.

“If you come by tomorrow, you can have them.”

“Thanks. By the way, did you notice a man with a mustache in any of the shots?”

“Nope, can’t say that I did.”

“I appreciate your calling, Mr. Brewster. I’ll be there before noon.”

“Eh yup.”

Hanging up, Sammy walked over to the window and stared out at the velvety layers of darkness. A peaceful facade, but somewhere out there was a man who had tried to run her down. Yesterday, she was willing to consider her near miss an accident. Today, she was certain it was intentional. Why? Obviously the man had followed her to the photo shop and claimed her photos. There must be something — or someone — in the pictures of last week’s demonstration worth killing her for.
My God
.
Could Reverend Taft be behind this?
She always knew he was evil. But was he really capable of murder?

As she settled into bed, she acknowledged that without solid answers, no one would listen to her claims — not Larry Dupree, not Dean Jeffries, not Sergeant Pappajohn, not Reed, probably not even Professor Osborne. She closed her eyes, overwhelmed by exhaustion. Tomorrow, she intended to really start digging.

It took her a long time to fall asleep and when she did, it was a restless slumber punctuated by bad dreams. In the middle of the night, she got up to check that the door and windows were locked.

W
EDNESDAY

Harvey Barnes was hunched over his counter studying the
St. Charlesbury Gazette
and sipping steaming black coffee from a Styrofoam cup. The young pharmacist looked up when he saw Reed. “Jeez, I thought I’d have a few moments of solitude before the stampede.”

Reed smiled at his friend. “I’m the one who should complain. I’ve been up for more than twenty-four hours. You just spent the night in a nice warm bed — with a gorgeous lady, I might add.” Reed had been a guest at Harvey’s wedding two months earlier. Carolyn Barnes was indeed beautiful.

Harvey leaned back and grinned. “You could drop medicine for a saner profession, you know.” He waved his arm at the bright rows of organized medications behind him.

“Too late. I’m in the home stretch,” Reed took the pill bottle from his lab coat pocket and placed it on the counter.

“So, what’s this?”

“You tell me. My friend asked me to find out what’s in there.”

Harvey grabbed the vial, uncapped it, and shook out the two tablets into his palm. He held one up, turned it over and over, looking for some kind of telltale marking. “Well, it’s not anything on patent,” he said. “Could be a generic. Anything specific you were thinking about?”

“Maybe an antidepressant. Something in the barbiturate family.”

“Hmm.” Harvey frowned at his hand.

Reed knew his friend well. He was smart and he was competitive. The two had taken organic chemistry together — a difficult course that Harvey had aced with ease. “I know you’re busy, if you want me to ask someone else —”

Harvey waved away the challenge, never taking his eyes from the mystery white tablets. “Interesting.”

“Appreciate your help.”

Aware that patients were beginning to push through the open doors, Harvey slid the tablets back into the bottle and stashed it under the counter. “Looks like the rush is on. I’ll get on this when my shift ends.”

“No hurry.”

“Hey, it’s fun doing a little research for a change. Counting out pills all day can be a drag,” the pharmacist admitted. “If it’s a simple ID, I’ll have an answer for you tomorrow. If I have to do a chemical analysis, it’ll be Friday at the earliest.”

“Popping those like candy today aren’t you?”

Pappajohn put down his almost empty roll of antacids, and bestowed a grumpy stare upon his gray-haired secretary who’d just returned from a two-week vacation. “Well, don’t count on resting now that you’re back. Nitshi is turning into a nightmare.”

“Don’t worry. The rent-a-cops will be here by eight.” The secretary pulled out a folded paper and smoothed it out on the desk. “Did you make any changes?”

“Some. I added two or three more stations. They’re in red.”

Edna frowned. “Don’t you think we should have at least four men around the podium?”

“I don’t have four men. I’m stretched to the limit already. We’ve got eight up at North Campus. We’re expecting up to two thousand at last count.”

The secretary’s eyebrows went up. “And the Nitshi Building?”

“They promised their own security. We’ll have to live with that.”

“The place is a fortress already.”

Nodding, Pappajohn looked at his watch impatiently. Seven fifteen. Time for another antacid.

“Mr. Brewster, you’re a lifesaver.”

The crusty Vermonter accepted the compliment with his usual noncommittal “eh yup” and handed Sammy a pile of black-and-white prints from the animal rights demonstration. Out of the original twenty-four, Brewster had only been able to salvage seven.

Sifting through them, Sammy located a shot of Taft. Her flash had caught the Reverend head-on, and just as she’d been that day, she was struck by the raw fire in his dark eyes. Two black-red orbs floating in the underdeveloped ghostly face.

Sammy drew herself away and skimmed through the other pictures. Brewster had been right — no man with the mustache. Instead there were a couple of views of the lone tech trying to stop the demonstrators and several profile and face-on shots of students she didn’t recognize. The exercise wasn’t futile, however, because two faces were familiar — the young woman who had leaked plans for Taft’s next demonstration to Sammy after the Sunday service and, standing just behind the short, stocky, older-looking fellow was Luther Abbott.

The cadre of campus police and contract security officers crowded into the small office. Pappajohn faced his troops like a drill sergeant. Behind him was a rickety portable blackboard with a roughly drawn facsimile of a campus map.

“The chancellor, Senator Joslin, and Mr. Nitshi. We’ll move the crowd around the press area down the brick path to North Campus. We’ve got cones up to reroute the traffic toward Lot Nine.”

The phone on Edna Loomis’s desk rang as one of the security officers raised his hand. Pappajohn nodded at the guard.

“You expecting trouble from the Tafties?”

Pappajohn’s indigestion was reflected in his expression. “Not
with the coverage we’ve set up, but I want everybody online.” He tapped the walkie-talkie on his belt. “Just in case.”

“Chief, sorry to bother you.”

Pappajohn turned to see Edna standing beside him.

“Call from Senator Joslin’s office. Seems he’s gotten himself a touch of the flu — won’t be flying up after all.”

Pappajohn returned to his blackboard. “That should save us about a half hour of hot air. Let’s be ready to move them out by quarter to one.”

“Reverend, when do we go?”

“Right after Senator Joslin,” Taft instructed the placard-carrying group of young men and women. “Move out in front of the press area. Keep the signs facing the cameras. We’ll start the chanting slowly and pump up the volume as soon as Ishida gets to the podium. Try drowning him out as much as possible.”

“What about the cops?” asked a short-haired girl.

“Let them come after you. Don’t resist. Just collapse and let them do all the work. Pappajohn’s Boy Scouts’ll have trouble carrying anything bigger than a donut.”

Several of the students chuckled at Taft’s remark. He continued, very seriously. “Remember, no matter what happens, make sure it’s on camera. We want a record of their interference with our First Amendment Rights.”

The Office of Contracts and Grants was tucked away in the basement of the university library. Inside the newly remodeled space, five full-time and three part-time personnel provided administrative support for all university research projects. Their salaries came from the forty-two cents of indirect costs added to each dollar government and private agencies paid Ellsford University. All excess monies went into the university’s general coffers. It was a tidy sum. Each year Ellford professors managed to bring in well over one hundred million dollars.

Silence greeted Sammy as she pushed through the double doors. Where was everyone? She wandered down several rows of cabinets before she noticed a young man with a ponytail carrying a stack of files. His ID badge read: J
ON
-E
RIK
S
CONYERS
, S
TUDENT
A
SSISTANT
.

“Excuse me? Do you work here?”

“Yeah, whatcha need?”

“Well, my T.A. asked me to check sources of private funding for a prospective project.”

“Yeah. In what?”

“Molecular genetics.”

“You’re lucky. We just put everything on computer.” He led her to a walled-off cubby and pointed to a PC on the desktop. “All the medical and science contracts and grants since eighty-three. To retrieve the data, just type in the field.” He flipped on the screen. “If you need help, holler.”

“Thanks.” Sammy sat down in front of the computer and typed in “Molecular Genetics” on the keyboard. The word “Searching” appeared in a corner of the screen, followed rapidly by “Forty-five Entries.” She called them up. Immediately the screen filled with research projects. Scrolling through, she squinted at the tiny, green luminescent print, most of the titles far beyond her understanding: “Hypothesis for the dual control of CFTR by PKA and ATP,” “Effects of MPTP and Gm1 Ganglioside Treatment on TH Immunochemistry of the Squirrel Monkey Putamen,” “Triplet Repeat Mutations in Human Disease,” “Cloning and Expression of Recombinant Proteins in Bacillus Systems,” “Site-directed Mutagensis and DNA Sequencing.”

Beside each was the funding source and the name of the researcher. But it was difficult to find, and at this rate, she might be here a while.

Jumping up, Sammy sought out the student assistant still filing away hard copies of old grants. “Excuse me?”

“Yeah?”

“Is there any other way to get to the funding sources besides the field itself?”

The ponytailed student nodded. “Sure. Everything’s cross-referenced by government institution, private organization, and principal investigator.”

“Oh. Good.”

“I did some of the programming myself.” Sconyers smiled with obvious pride. “Need help?”

“I think I’m okay now.” Returning to the cubby, Sammy quickly keyed in “Conrad, Barton.” Within seconds, she was staring at a long list of projects headed by the genetics professor. The most recent seemed to be funded by government agencies like the NIH and NSF. Money for work done three to five years before, however, came mainly from private sources.

She jotted down the names: Biotech Development Corporation, Virology Research Foundation, and NuVax, Inc. — none familiar to her. Beside each she wrote the project title and grant award. Several corresponded to journal articles she’d found at his home. When she was done, she had a list of five grants totaling close to a quarter of a million dollars.

Remembering that Yitashi Nakamura’s name had also been on several of the journal articles, she typed in “N-A-K-A-M” and waited for the program to produce his sources of project capital. Not surprising, the same three private companies that funded Conrad had supported Nakamura’s work as well. The older scientist had a prodigious output — twenty-three grants over a five-year period, each amounting to more than one hundred thousand dollars. The largest, however, was for one million. Sammy scanned through the scientific jargon until she found the financier: Nitshi Corporation.

Interesting, she thought, tilting back in her chair.

And then she remembered.

She pitched forward onto her feet.

Nitshi Day! Her Swatch read quarter to twelve. Switching off the computer, she hurried out the double doors, and headed toward North Campus. If she raced like crazy, maybe she’d make it in time.

• • •

As Sammy ran, she noticed cars parked along all the side streets leading to North Campus. More than a few had out-of-state license plates — especially New York and Massachusetts. As she got closer, she had to slow for people walking in groups — not only students, but also locals and their families. There were enough youngsters that Sammy surmised the schools let them off for the event.

Yesterday’s storm clouds had vanished, along with the little snow that had stuck to the ground, leaving a spectacularly clear fall afternoon, a perfect backdrop for a carnival. Just behind the Nitshi Research Institute were a half dozen game and food booths along with a mini Ferris wheel and a house of mirrors. Facing the striking modern four-story, glass-and-steel structure, a grandstand seated several hundred. It was already filled to capacity, with a large spillover crowd standing in front and around the sides. A small wooden stage with a speaker’s podium had been erected in front of the institute. Seated behind the podium were Chancellor Ellsford and a distinguished looking Asian man who seemed vaguely familiar. Several newspaper photojournalists hoisted cameras, while more than one television crew set up equipment nearby.

Sammy scanned the crowd until she located Larry Dupree standing to the right of the platform. Or, rather, pacing.

“For God’s sake, Sammy, where have you been? They’re going to start any minute.”