Bug Man Suspense 3-in-1 Bundle (128 page)

“What is it?”

“I have to go,” Nick said. “Can you take a cab back?”

“With two dogs?”

Nick took two twenties from his wallet and dropped them on the table. “Then call Kathryn to pick you up.”

“Call Kathryn to pick me up from my date with you? Are you out of your mind?”

“I have to go,” Nick said. “You work it out.” He hurried toward the door.

Alena pushed her plate away and slid Nick's plate in front of her. As she sawed into the steak the anxious-looking waiter returned.

“Is anything wrong?” he asked.

She took a bite and chewed. “How much time do you have?”

“Can I bring you anything else?”

“Yeah,” she said, tapping her wineglass with her knife. “A lot more of this.”

32

N
ick knocked again—still no answer.

He looked at the driveway; a sleek black Porsche was parked with the top still down.
Somebody must be home.
He pulled a slip of paper from his pocket and checked the street number again. It was the right address—the one he had scribbled down from the entomology department's records. The house was of moderate size, but it was elegantly appointed with custom millwork and immaculate landscaping—the kind of house an older well-to-do couple might downsize into. It was undoubtedly an expensive place—at least until property values fell through the floorboards a year ago.
Pricey car, pricey house
, Nick thought.
Things sure have improved since I was a grad student.

He knocked once more—firmly, steadily, insistently.

Finally a light went on and the door opened. Pasha Semenov was standing with nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist.

“Dr. Polchak.” Pasha glanced at his wrist but was wearing no watch.

“I know it's late,” Nick said. “Have you got a minute?”

“Perhaps in the morning. I start early, remember?”

“It's kind of important.”

Pasha nodded to the back of the house. “I'm . . . not alone.”

“It'll only take a minute. I promise.”

Pasha relented and swung the door open, motioning for Nick to enter. He gestured to his meager outfit: “I hope you don't mind.”

“No problem,” Nick said, stepping into the room. “I'm a casual dresser myself.” He took the opportunity to look Pasha over. His hair was red and coarse and it gathered into a rust-red tuft that stuck out over his forehead. He was lean and muscular with large hands like a wrestler. His shoulders were thick and rounded just slightly; his carved abdomen was so flat that it gave his torso a slight concave appearance. His skin was milky white and hairless; the only blemish Nick could see was a faded blue tattoo on the right side of his chest.

The living room was furnished with two plush sofas on opposite sides of a long walnut coffee table. Nick took a seat on one sofa and Pasha sat down across from him.

Nick pointed to his tattoo. “Those are very popular now—all the kids here get them.”

“In Russia too.”

“No offense, but I think you paid too much for that one.”

“You don't know how much I paid.”

“Is there a story behind it?”

“Too much vodka—end of story.”

“Is that your car in the driveway?”

“Yes.”

“Nice car. Nice house too.”

Pasha smiled. “You are wondering why a graduate student has so much money.”

“Things must be looking up in Russia.”

“For some—not for most. Very much like your country, I think.”

“Is your family footing the bill?”

“My government funds my education. My family provides a stipend for living expenses.”

Nick looked around the room. “Pretty generous stipend.”

“I purchased the house. This is a very good time to invest in American real estate. I will make a profit when I sell it. When I return to Russia I will sell the car too. A Porsche holds its value very well. I will lose a little to depreciation, but the profit from the house will make up the difference.”

“You sound like a shrewd businessman,” Nick said.

“I am a farmer—I have to be.”

“Are you a shrewd entomologist too?”

Pasha paused. “Excuse me?”

“You helped me rear those blowflies—you fed them and recorded each stage of their development. Are you sure your records were accurate?”

“I recorded each stage just as you instructed me. I noted the temperature and humidity settings as well. It was all in the logbook I gave you.”

“Yes, it was.”

“Is something wrong?”

“I'm not sure. The flies you reared for me were collected from the body of a murder victim.”

“Yes, you told me. A farmer, you said.”

“That's right. I used the data you gave me to calculate a postmortem interval—to determine the exact time the victim died. The problem is, the postmortem interval indicates a time when no one was around to commit the murder.”

Pasha paused. “How do you explain this?”

“There are only two possibilities: Either the PMI is correct and the police need to expand their list of suspects—or the PMI is wrong.”

“Could it be wrong?”

“It's possible. A couple of things can throw it off. If the maggots were fed improperly, it could have delayed their development.”

“I fed them just as you told me.”

“I know. I checked the cups every morning when I came into the lab. If I misidentified the species, that would definitely throw it off—I'd be using the wrong timetable to make the calculation.”

“Is that possible?”

“No—I don't make that kind of mistake. There's only one other thing that could throw it off.”

“What?”

“Temperature—insect development depends entirely on temperature. The rearing chamber allows the temperature and humidity to be precisely controlled. The goal is to reproduce the exact conditions found at the crime scene. If the rearing chamber is too warm, the insects will develop too rapidly—that would make the PMI too short. If the rearing chamber is too cold, the insects will develop too slowly—that would make the PMI too long.”

“But you set the temperatures yourself.”

“Yes, I did—but I showed you how to do it too.”

Pasha paused. “You think I changed the temperature settings?”

“Did you?”

“Why would I do such a thing?”

“It could have been a simple mistake. You were the last one to check on them at night and the first one to see them every morning. You could have accidentally bumped the dial one night and not noticed until the next day. You might not have thought the difference was important enough to mention. Did that happen?”

“No. I would have told you, and I would have recorded the change in the log.”

Nick nodded. “Good answer.”

“What do you mean?”

“Adjusting the temperature for just one night wouldn't be enough to throw off the PMI—the change would have to happen night after night. If you had said you accidentally changed the temperature, you would have told me you were hiding something.”

The bedroom door squeaked open a crack and a woman's voice said, “Pasha?”

He glanced over his shoulder. “In a minute.”

The door closed again.

Pasha looked at Nick again. “You were trying to trap me.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“To see if you have anything to hide.”

He shrugged. “Obviously I don't.”

“Obviously.”

“If the data I recorded is correct, then the calculation you made must also be correct.”

“It would have to be.”

“Then—as you said—the police must look for other suspects. Are there any?”

“Just one.”

“Who?”

“The farmer's wife.”

Pasha paused. “His wife.”

“She's the only one who had access to him during that time.”

“Well—then you have a suspect.”

“No. She didn't do it.”

“How do you know?”

“I know the woman. I trust her.”

“You have more respect for women than I do.”

Nick glanced at the bedroom door. “I guess I do.”

“Is there anything else, Dr. Polchak? If not . . .”

Nick got up from the sofa. “Sorry to bother you so late. I'm dying to figure this thing out, and I had to know if there could have been an error on your part. I hope I didn't sound too suspicious.”

“No problem. I understand.”

“I suppose there could be a simple explanation for it. The janitor maybe—he might've come into the lab at night and saw the rearing chamber still running. Maybe he figured somebody just left it on and powered it down to save electricity.”

“Then I would have found it that way in the morning.”

“Hey, that's right—so much for that theory.”

Pasha opened the door for him.

Nick pointed to the faded tattoo again. “Where did you get that, anyway?”

“From a friend.”

“Some friend,” Nick said.

“Good night, Dr. Polchak.” He closed the door.

On the way to his car Nick took out his cell phone.

33

N
athan Donovan groped for the belt on his bathrobe but couldn't find it, so he left the robe hanging open as he shuffled into the brightly lit kitchen. He found his wife seated at the kitchen table.

“Did the baby wake you?” he asked.

Macy placed a hand on her bulging abdomen and gently rubbed. “She kicks like a mule. I think that she's got your feet—and your disposition.”

Donovan poured himself a cup of decaf and pulled out a chair across from his wife. In front of her was a small bowl of lettuce and a half-empty bottle of Italian dressing. She slowly chewed with a faraway look in her eyes, moaning as she savored each bite.

“That's just not right,” Donovan said in disgust. “I should lose you to a younger man, not a salad.”

“It's the vinegar,” she moaned. “I could drink the stuff.”

“I think you love that dressing more than me.”

“I love you,” she said. “I just don't crave you.”

“Why can't you have normal cravings like other women?”

“Why should I? I don't have a normal husband.”

Donovan pointed to a stack of papers on the table beside her plate. “A little light reading?”

“Nick's notes,” she said. “Have you had a chance to look them over yet?”

“His
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
theory? Yeah, I looked it over.”

“What do you think?”

“I'd think it was crazy if it wasn't from Nick.”

“But it is from Nick.”

“Yeah—and Nick has an annoying habit of being right.”

“I sent it over to the USDA for a threat assessment.”

“What did they say?”

“They don't buy it. They think Nick's theory is just too far-fetched. They don't consider tomatoes a likely target for an agroterrorist attack.”

“I have to agree.”

“I also ran it by the National Counterterrorism Center over in Dulles.”

“What does the NCTC think?”

“They said the same thing—tomatoes are just not an economically significant crop.”

“Then I guess that's that,” Donovan said.

Macy paused. “I'm not so sure.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nick got me thinking . . . He asked me if an agricultural weapon had ever been tried before. I told him about the Soviet Union's old biological warfare program and the anti-crop weapons their Ministry of Agriculture had developed. The NCTC keeps a watch list of all those old Soviet scientists, just to keep tabs on who they're working for these days. Just out of curiosity I asked them to check that list, and guess what? The Ministry of Agriculture's top scientist was a man named Nikolai Petrov—he was a specialist in virology and plant pathology. Petrov went missing a couple of years ago and nobody knew where he went—then the NCTC spotted his obituary in
Pravda
.”

“He must have been a pretty old guy.”

“He didn't die of old age, Nathan—his obituary said he died about a year ago in a ‘farm-related accident.' The NCTC was curious, so they tracked down Petrov's autopsy report. Get this: The autopsy report listed the primary cause of his death as
suffocation
—and Petrov's lungs contained kernels of raw corn. How in the world could you manage to get corn in your lungs?”