Poison Most Vial (20 page)

“Where?”

“Can't tell; signal gets strong when you get closer. We got to move.”

“Campus police right down the hall,” Rex said. “This is their job—you just got your computer jacked. That's a crime, too. C'mon.”

Luck again: Officer Cain, the man on duty down the hall, knew and liked Ruby's father. He took their complaint seriously, called it in, and nodded to Sharon. “OK, young lady, let's see if that gizmo works. Track away.”

Sharon hurried toward the library first, stopped, U-turned,
and started the other way, back toward the main campus. Down one hall, the five of them hit the stairs half running.

“Let's get outside; it works better sometimes,” Sharon said.

Sunny and cold, a quiet late-fall morning. The group ran in front of DeWitt, out across its great lawn. The farther toward the university side they got, the stronger the signal became.

“We got someone at the parking garage. Come in,” Officer Cain said into his radio. “Sanchez. Good, good. No one drives out, man, got it? Check. We're on our way.”

At the entrance to the underground garage, Ruby saw an officer (had to be Sanchez) standing outside the parking kiosk, arguing with a driver. Now patiently explaining; it looked like one of the older professors.

Another car pulled up just as Officer Cain and his escorts arrived. A white SUV, it pulled around to the other side of the kiosk and tried to pass.

“Easy does it, hoss.” Officer Sanchez was blocking the way; now Officer Cain approached the driver's door. Ruby, Rex, and their friends stood back as a group, near the kiosk. The glare off the windshield obscured the driver.

Ruby looked at Sharon, who mouthed,
Got it
.

“All right, all right, very sorry to detain you, sir,” Cain was saying. He pulled a laptop with a purple stripe on it from the car. Sharon's.

Now the two officers were stationed on each side of the car. “I'm very sorry,” Cain said again, “I'm sure it's a misunderstanding, but I'm going to have to ask you to step out of the car, Dean.”

And there he was, out in the sun.

A bell chimed in a distant recess of Ruby's memory. Back in the lawyer's office, her father mentioning in passing that Dean Touhy and Rama both had heart problems due to diabetes. Touhy. Dean Tubby. Touhy saying that her father would be cleared because he, the dean, knew that someone else in the lab had actually tried to poison Dr. Rama . . . Roman.

Touhy, who had absolute power over Roman because he could drop both Lydia and the poor janitor from DeWitt with a wave of his hand. No wonder the old janitor sounded so scared in that argument with Lydia in Davenport Towers.

“Oh,” Ruby said. “That was him in the morgue, Rex. The man.”

“Tubby, Tubby, Tubby,” said Rex, shaking his head. “You a bad man, ain't you?”

“No wonder he was frantic when they found the body, throwing himself down on the floor,” Ruby said.

“Trying to get his vial back,” Rex said. “Little did he know it was buried in the bushes.”

Ruby smiled at the others as the dean stole a look back at
them. Touhy apparently knew when Rama took his shot. But he did not know, nor could he control,
where
he took it. The real smoking-gun vial was almost certainly back in that hole in the wall in the little bathroom.

“But,” Ruby said, “why?”

“Desperation and money,” Mrs. Whitmore said when the four friends met her for lunch (they got a short day, because of the excitement).

“Now, we cannot prove it, of course, but remember that Rama died just before he was going to make an announcement on the Robert Pelham case. We know that DeWitt had money invested with Mr. Pelham, and we know that the university somehow was repaid after the man's business began to collapse. Many other investors did not get their money out.”

She sat back, looked around the group of four students, now gathered closely around a table at Paulette's.

“So how is that a motive?” Simon said.

“It's more like a trade gone bad, I think. DeWitt gets its money back, and Mr. Pelham gets his freedom. Touhy knew how to contaminate the evidence discreetly; surely he knew that Rama would be on vacation. But when the famous V. S. Ramachandran began nosing around what happened, Touhy knew that he was in grave danger.”

“Couldn't the dean just say it was a mistake?” Rex said. “Or get a lawyer and argue, you know, that he didn't do it?”

“He could have, Rex,” Mrs. Whitmore said, after taking a sip of coffee. “But the bad publicity alone would have taken him out of that job, at a minimum. To have his credibility questioned, especially his credibility in forensics—well. Imagine the headlines: ‘DeWitt Scientists Linked to Evidence Tampering.' DeWitt would have moved swiftly. And Dean Touhy knew it.”

“But how do you know all this for sure?” Sharon said. She had not taken her eyes off of Mrs. Whitmore.

“Honey, I don't. I cannot be absolutely sure. The trial will clarify some of these things. But I know that we—that you all, you four investigators—I sure know that you got the right man.”

“Why else,” Ruby said, “would a freaking dean swipe a laptop with a purple stripe on it?”

CASE 156724-1801: V. S. Ramachandran Murder

INT: OK, OK, let's finish the statement. I don't need you speculating any more about motive. I just needed to know how you came to flush out Dean Touhy.

SUBJ: Yes, well. Now you know.

INT: I do. And with that, I'll say thank you, ma'am, and remind you again that you have been under oath. Let the record reflect that this statement was closed at three in the afternoon, November fifth—

SUBJ: One thing, detective.

INT: Yes, ma'am.

SUBJ: So what did you find out about Paul Touhy? And about Roman and Lydia?

INT: Nice try.

SUBJ: Oh, what harm is in it? The charges will be public soon. I'm an old woman, detective. Is it too much to want to know if my instincts were correct?

INT: (audible sigh) You don't quit, do you? Yes,
this information will be public shortly, and you didn't hear it from me. It's between a detective and a forensic scientist.

SUBJ: As you say.

INT: Yes, I do say. It appears to have happened just as you and your junior investigators suspected. Roman tried to poison Rama after hearing—from Touhy—that Lydia was failing out. Lydia wanted no part of it, but by the time she saw Roman that night, it was too late. She chose to cover for her uncle and frame Mr. Rose, and she will face charges.

SUBJ: Oh my. And the dean?

INT: Our Dean Touhy did in fact tamper with evidence in the Pelham case. That's how it appears at this point. Ramachandran found out. Dean Touhy's choices weren't good ones.

SUBJ: (barely audible) Whose are, really?

INT: Now, I have a question for you. If you don't mind?

SUBJ: No, of course not.

INT: That drawing on the wall, above your couch. College Avenue and the Terrace Apartments. Did she do that?

SUBJ: She did.

INT: And that's you, is it, the woman sitting up in that ninth-floor window?

SUBJ: Oh. Well, I don't know, detective. But if it is, I must say, it's not very up-to-date. I hardly have time to sit by my window most days. I've been teaching Mr. Rose about toxins, you see, and I help out at Rex's apartment with the young ones. You know, what with Rex spending so much time with Simon, and Ruby at Sharon's, I'm starting to feel very, I don't know . . .

INT: Busy?

SUBJ: Well, yes, I suppose so.

INT: Huh. I could swear you said you were retired.

END TAPE
.

I would like to thank the small group of stand-up friends, colleagues, and allies who made this book doable. Start with Kris Dahl, my agent, who took on this book and another long-shot title in a genre that barely exists: children's science mysteries; Sheila Keenan, whose good cheer and excellent suggestions turned a good idea for a story into a complete tale, with real characters; Susan Van Metre, who has loved the whole idea of kids' science mysteries from the beginning, and this story in particular; Betsy Spratt, who made sure the forensic science was correct and the lab plausible; John Hastings, for being a friend, reader, and editor; Maria Middleton, for the superb book design; and Jason Wells and Mary Ann Zissimos, for putting the word out.

As always, thanks to Isabel, Flora, and Victoria, and to the Careys: Kate, Jim, Rachel, Simon, and Noah.

Benedict Carey is a reporter who has written about medicine and science in magazines and newspapers for more than twenty-five years. He graduated from the University of Colorado with a degree in math, and from Northwestern University with a master's in journalism. He now works as a science reporter for the
New York Times
. He lives in a suburb of New York City.

This book was designed by Maria T. Middleton. The text is set in 12-point Adobe Garamond, a typeface based on those created in the sixteenth century by Claude Garamond. Garamond modeled his typefaces on ones created by Venetian printers at the end of the fifteenth century. The modern version used in this book was designed by Robert Slimbach, who studied Garamond's historic typefaces at the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, Belgium. The display typeface is Insignia.