Warming Trend (13 page)

“The notes weren’t in the kit when it was removed.” The dean’s expression didn’t lighten. “And they weren’t left behind. So they came back with someone.”

“Everybody else was searched before they left here. You were gone so quickly…” Professor Tyndell met Ani’s gaze for no more than the briefest of glances.

“Unless my friend has brought it in, my pack’s still in the back of her van. I took a bath and went to sleep. My clothes are all still there. My outergear I think is still in her van, too. I’m not sure.”

The dean left with Eve’s address in hand, and Ani said to Monica, “Do they really think I did it? Why would I do that? I can’t publish them. Everyone would know.”

Her voice a little shaky, Monica said, “Conventional wisdom is that if the notes are gone there’s no competition for the methane study grant.”

Ani frowned, then followed the train of thought. “So I did it to scuttle their chances.”

“And…”

“What?”

“Well, to curry favor with me.”

Ani knew she sounded defensive, but she couldn’t help herself. “I know this is egotistical, but I’ll have no trouble with the dissertation when the time comes. You know that.”

“It’s not about your degree. It’s about us.”

Ani blinked. “Huh?”

“Yeah. Well, we’re both queer and queers stick together

and/or you have a crush on me and want me to be more than your prof. Take your pick.” She collapsed into her desk chair, fingertips massaging her temples.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t take them. Should I tell the dean about Eve? I mean, we’ve been together a year. I’m not in…there’s no crush, you know.” Well, if there was, it was a small one, Ani thought. Maybe before Eve it might have been bigger. But there was only one woman who could make her blush with shyness and lust with ferocity all in the same moment.

Monica looked up. “I know that. No one will want to believe it. I’ve pissed off plenty of people in my day.”

So it’s about her, and people thinking she’s an uppity dyke, and they can’t get her on her science, so they use this instead. “Well, how do they know one of Kenbrink’s people didn’t toss them away on the way up to the plateau?”

With a rueful smile, Monica said, “Do you think any of them could actually destroy those notes?”

“No, but someone did it. Why not one of them?”

“It was their entire survey results, and they can’t do it again this year—we’re out of days for comparison. If they had them, Kenbrink’s assistant back at Toronto would be able to work with what they had. No, they have no reason to do this.”

Ani moved toward the door. “I guess I better call Eve.”

“Why don’t you do it from here? You probably shouldn’t leave. I mean, I’ll be able to say you didn’t.”

Her misgivings rising, Ani told Eve that there was someone coming to get her stuff.

“Is there some kind of problem?” Eve sounded as if she’d gone back to bed. Ani wished she were there, soaking up all that soft warmth.

“Just a misunderstanding. Leave everything where it is.”

“Okay. You sound funny.”

“Sorry.” Ani was acutely aware of Monica, who was trying to look as if she couldn’t hear every word.

“Is someone there?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh. Call when you can?”

She assured Eve that she would and hung up the phone, feeling dazed.

Monica gave her a worried smile. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah. She’s as confused as I am.”

“Well, I’m sure this will all work out. I’m so tired. I never thought I wouldn’t be able to go home right away.”

Ani realized she had no idea if Monica lived with someone. She was openly lesbian, sometimes a flirt at parties, but still very private. “I was really glad to take a bath. Then I slept until like six or so. Eve had made me a scrumptious dinner, so I had it for breakfast.”

“She’s a good cook, isn’t she?”

“A fabulous one.”

“She should have a restaurant or something.”

Ani nodded. “It’s a dream.”

There was an awkward silence and Monica abruptly said, “Let me clear that chair off so you can sit. I didn’t do it for the dean because—don’t tell—I didn’t want him to hang out.” She started the process of moving piles of papers and journals off one of the side chairs that flanked a small table. Some went to the bookcase behind her desk, others on the floor.

She was almost done when she froze in place with a sound of distress.

“What?”

Monica dumbly angled a field notebook toward Ani, all color drained from her face.

Ani knew it, even from a few feet away. The polypropene notebook cover was electric blue, bearing a coded label that ended in GP2008—just like any of the ones from their expedition would be. But it was the large, block-lettered “Kenbrink” that left Ani feeling faint. She’d seen that notebook in the man’s hand, open while he wrote in it, and closed with the clasps fastened, just as it was now. “But…but…how did it get
there
?”

Monica shook her head. She stared down at the notebook almost as if she didn’t see it.

“Show it to the dean when he gets back. It’ll have somebody’s fingerprints on it.”

“Everybody’s. His assistants all handled it and now I have.”

“But you just found it. I saw you find it.”

“We could be making it up. To cover our plan. Me covering for you. Or you to cover me. I was alone with him. I could have taken them while he was…” She looked as if she would pass out. “While he was dying. No one will believe I just found them right now.”

“Someone planted them.”

She nodded tightly. “Thinking they’d be found when they started a serious search.”

Ani was trembling. “This isn’t right.”

“Everything I’ve ever researched would be…I mean, even if we convince Malmoat, there will be so many who won’t want to believe it. But there’s nothing else for it.” After a hard swallow and a long shaky breath, Monica put the notebook on her desk. “Wait here, okay?”

After Monica left, Ani wondered who would have done such a thing. One of Kenbrink’s people might have, she guessed. It would give them better chances now of winning the grant. Maybe one of them thought Monica could have saved him, though Ani simply didn’t see how.

It might have been one of the other grad students—Shannon Dell had never seemed happy and Ani thought her grasp of science a little weak. Maybe Shannon hoped Monica would get fired and she’d fare better with someone else. Still, that seemed weak. Shannon’s dissertation was complete and would be accepted, even if she wasn’t the most brilliant scientist—she had nothing to gain from having her advisor suddenly replaced. Plus, she
cared
about proving Monica’s thesis on methane gas and the ticking time bomb it represented. They all did.

Her mind racing, she sat and thought for the next few minutes.

Monica would give the notebook to Malmoat, who would want to believe his own faculty. But he would have to assure the people in Toronto he hadn’t been biased. The Kenbrink folks would never believe Monica hadn’t taken it. Or they would think Ani had taken it, returned it and Monica was taking the fall for a grad assistant. A
lesbian
grad assistant, like her. Throw in a hint of hanky-panky and it would get very sordid—the kind of gossip people loved to repeat.

Monica came back, still very pale. “Malmoat’s on his way. I had to relay a message, just that he needed to see me right away.”

“What if you never said it had been found?”

“You mean…put it back in the pile and let them find it?”

“No. Like…it’s never found.”

“The idea… You mean like…this went into the boiler? No.” Monica gave her a firm look, though she was clearly frightened. “No, the data can’t be lost.”

Ani wasn’t really sure what she was arguing for. “But it’s not going to be used well. You know his theory is wrong.”

“It’s still a researcher’s work.” Monica lowered her voice. “I found it. And I have to take
my
lumps. Someone’s out to get me. But it won’t stop me using my data to prove my point about measuring climate change. Glacial deterioration will be faster and worse than we thought.”

“I know.”

All the while, the notebook in the middle of Monica’s desk glowed as if it were some kind of malevolent artifact. “But if you’d never found it here in your office, it wouldn’t change anything. What if it were found…elsewhere?”

“People will always think you took it, then. Everyone else was searched, thoroughly. Intrusively. The sleds were dismantled, all the supply bags and tent packs examined. If it’s found here, then clearly someone stole it. It’s not back at the site.” Monica paced the tiny area behind her desk. “Who would do this to me?”

“It’s not fair.” Ani couldn’t help the note of panic in her voice. “If they find it here, in your office, you get blamed. And that takes out the whole project. Your whole thesis. The hope of getting some real action before it’s too late for the entire region.”

“I can fight it, Ani. It’s not fair, but it’s not over.” Monica paced a rapid circuit around her office. “Look, I’m going to go find Malmoat and drag him back here. He can decide on the next step.”

“Do you think he’ll support you?”

Her expression grim, Monica said, “Honestly, I don’t know. I bring in the money. But he’s passed me over for a few opportunities. I’ve always thought he was a closet case homophobe and I had to watch my step. Damn. I
do
wish to hell it would disappear off the face of the earth, if I was going to have to pay this kind of price.”

With that, she left Ani alone again. The notebook continued to gleam at Ani, almost as if it were blinking. If it’s never found, Ani thought, I’m no worse off than I was when I got here this morning. I didn’t steal it from Kenbrink. It was someone else’s ill will that removed it from Kenbrink’s team. And it really sounded as if…Monica couldn’t come right out and say it…tell her to…

The next few minutes were a blur. She picked up the notebook and sealed her fate. It took only a moment to slip it under her shirt, tucked into the top of her jeans. The polypropene cover immediately stuck like glue to her sweaty skin.

When she hurried through the corridors her first thought was the boiler, as Monica had said. Burn it up, make it forever gone. It would be simplest. Even as she considered it, she realized there was no way she could bring herself to destroy research. It was evil to take knowledge out of the world. Maybe she could simply hide it where it would be found easily. Everyone would think she’d taken it, gotten scared when the search started and dumped it, but they wouldn’t be able to prove it. All the fuss would die down, though, because the notebook had at least been found, and would go back to Kenbrink’s research partner.

You just put your fingerprints on it, fool. So she’d wipe it clean. Fingerprints were only bad news for her and Monica, the two innocent people. With academic gain or sordid lesbian affair as a motive, her fingerprints would prove she was guilty, but fingerprints from any of Kenbrink’s people wouldn’t be proof of anything. So she’d wipe it clean. It didn’t hurt anything. God, she wanted it all to go away.

Monica knew the truth and Monica would make sure that her doctorate, her future, didn’t suffer for this. She had to trust that, even as she was starting to think she might regret this impulsive decision.

She passed the auditorium, the cafeteria, encountering only a few people but no one she knew. Where could she stash them that wouldn’t attach blame to someone else? She didn’t want anyone else in trouble. There were security cameras at the parking lot, the main entrance and the back doors. The dorm wing was equally covered with cameras, but the classroom wing… She changed course and took the next set of stairs down a half-level to the facilities area. There was no way she could exit the building without being recorded, but she might be able to get the notes out, thanks to a fellow classmate who smoked. The entire facility was smoke-free, including the dorm rooms. The rarely used secondary loading dock had a window that slipped open where smokers would go if the weather was so foul they couldn’t countenance using the outdoor smoking area. Even better, it was not much farther than the boiler room.

The dock was empty, as usual, and she sprinted up the ladder to the catwalk. The window wasn’t designed to open except for emergencies. The safety latch had been worn down—Ani suspected it had been “helped” to do so—and without breaking the other seals, would open not quite a foot.

She flipped the latch and pushed, then experimented with how far she could get her arm out the window. To the left, down a slope, was a concrete-lined drainage ditch that sometimes carried spring runoff. It wasn’t that far, and even if she didn’t make it, it would look as if someone had panicked and at least tried.

Which was pretty much what had happened, she mused. She hesitated. If she did nothing, they were going to blame her
and
Professor Tyndell. If she screwed this up, they’d only blame her, and the people who had set up the professor wouldn’t get what they wanted. And this might work, and she might get clear enough, with Monica’s support, to put all of it behind them both.

Using her shirt she scrubbed at the notebook cover as hard as she could. From top to bottom, the spine, the clasps, around and around. Realizing she’d get prints on it once again, she doffed her shirt and used it as a glove. Once she was satisfied that all fingerprints were at least smudged beyond recognition, she slipped the notebook to the other side of the window and did her best attempt at a slow pitch to heave it toward the drainage culvert. It landed face down, several feet above the ditch, but skittered across the firm ground to teeter on the edge. Ani watched in disbelief as it wavered in the eddies of wind. Finally, after a few seconds, it went over the lip, out of her sight. From the other direction, the culvert was visible from many of the faculty offices in the other wing. Someone would see the bright blue, especially when everyone knew what was missing.

She pulled her shirt back over her head, and lost no time getting out to the corridor, running past the boiler room and back up the stairs.

She had only made it around one corner before they found her. She knew it sounded lame, out of breath and flushed, to say, “I had to go to the bathroom.”