When I stepped out into the hall I almost collided with one of the Canadians, who was standing at the top of the stairs and peering down into the hall. She uttered a small yelp, then put both hands over her mouth and shot a glance downstairs.
“If you’re looking for Ian, he’s made himself at home in the dining room this morning,” I said. “And if you’re hoping to avoid him for any reason—”
“Why would I do that?”
I mentally called up the cheat sheet I’d had Kristyn make, and managed to retrieve her name. Rhea. She was a tall, thin young woman whose age was hard to guess. From her looks, and the fact that her hair was dyed a soft violet, I’d have said she was in her twenties, but it was always possible that she was older. She was almost always in the company of two other AcerGen staffers, Angela and Maeve, who were in their forties and fifties, respectively. It seemed like an odd friendship. Then again, maybe it was a friendship born of being thrown together here in Caerphilly.
The faint lines on Rhea’s face suggested that she normally spent more time smiling than frowning, but right now she was visibly tense and anxious.
I came to a sudden decision. I was going to stop pretending I didn’t see how things worked in AcerGen.
“Why would you do that?” I echoed. “Because Ian gets cranky whenever he sees one of his employees not sitting at her desk and working like a dog. Which is a rotten way to treat people who are putting in the kind of hours he seems to expect. So if you want to avoid him, I can go down first and make sure he stays put. Distract him if he opens the door. If you leave through the library, there’s no chance he’ll see you.”
Her face relaxed slightly.
“That would be kind of you.”
I went down the stairs, noting with relief that Mother had made the changes I’d requested to the decorations there. A couple of days ago I’d come home from a long day of errands to find all the handrails thickly wrapped with garlands made of prickly holly and metallic gold ribbon. It was all quite beautiful, but completely impractical if anyone actually needed to use the banister for security or support—and this dangerous addition to the décor had appeared on the eve of the arrival of the first visiting relatives, some of whom were old enough to need the handrail. The holly garlands were now woven through the newels, with most of the prickly bits on the outside, though anyone wearing panty hose or other easy frayed clothes would probably need to keep their distance. When I reached the bottom, I stood just outside the dining room door until Rhea could scurry past me and reach the hall end of the long corridor that led to the library. I was about to head for the kitchen when—
“Um … could I … I mean.”
I turned again.
“What can I do for you?” I asked.
“Ms. Langslow, may I ask you something?” Her normally pale, thin face was pink, so I deduced she was about to ask something embarrassing like, could I recommend a good local gynecologist?
“Just Meg, please,” I said. “When I hear ‘Ms. Langslow’ I assume someone’s trying to call one of my aunts. What’s up?”
“Um … there’s a book in the library. I only went in there because Ian was there and I had a message for him, and while I was waiting for him to get off his phone I happened to notice that you seemed to have a very large collection of R. Austin Freeman’s Dr. Thorndyke mysteries—including several I’ve never been able to find. Would you mind if I read one of them? I wouldn’t take it out of the library, of course, and I completely understand if you don’t want anyone handling them, and—”
“Good heavens,” I said. “Read as many as you like, with my blessing. And never mind staying in the library—as long as you don’t drop it in the bathtub, you’re fine. We’re readers, not collectors. And may I tell my dad you like the Thorndyke books? He adores them, and he doesn’t often get a chance to talk to a fellow Golden Age mystery fan.” Especially one who had not only heard of but liked a writer as relatively obscure as Freeman.
“Oh!” Her face broke into a slight, shy smile. “Of course. There are a couple of us who like mysteries—especially the classic ones. And I’m not the only one who’s running out of reading material. For some reason our home library doesn’t let us check out e-books from down here.”
“Pillage our library, then,” I said. “And if there’s anything you’ve been wanting to read that we don’t have, let me know and I’ll sic Ms. Ellie on it—Caerphilly’s head librarian. If a copy of a book exists anywhere on this planet, she can arrange an interlibrary loan. And if you want to use our local e-book collection I’m sure she’d set you up with temporary library cards—we’ve arranged it for visitors before. And she makes deliveries to shut-ins and people who can’t make it to the library during normal operating hours—which could be useful, given the schedule Ian’s got you folks on.”
“That would be wonderful.”
“We’re very good book enablers here,” I said, which produced another smile from her.
Another thought struck me.
“By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask—are any of your crew bird-watchers?” I asked.
“Yes,” Rhea said. “Several. I’m only a duffer at it myself, but Angela and Maeve are quite passionate. In fact, that’s why I asked to switch rooms with Angela a few days ago—my original room had a good view of your backyard feeders, and she was longing to be able to watch them.”
“Heck, if there’s anyone else whose room doesn’t have a view of a feeder, I can arrange to have a few more installed, so all sides of the house are covered. Actually, I was asking because my grandfather is planning to lead a few owling expeditions sometime soon, and anyone who’d like to go would be welcome.”
“He’s an owl expert, then?” She definitely sounded interested.
“He certainly thinks he is. Dr. J. Montgomery Blake, the naturalist and environmentalist. You might have seen him—he shows up regularly on all the nature channels.”
Her eyes grew wide.
“Oh, my!” she said. “He’s your grandfather? How wonderful! And yes, I think several of us would be very interested.”
“Just don’t let him talk you into volunteering at his zoo,” I said. “Unless you really want to. Give him an inch and the next thing you know he’ll have you bottle feeding orphaned koalas.”
“That actually sounds like fun,” she said. “Oh!” She glanced down and patted her pocket in the familiar modern gesture of someone whose phone, though silenced, had just summoned her with a vibration. “I should run or I’ll be late.”
“Hope you have a good day,” I said.
“Thank you!” She rushed off—but she looked a lot more cheerful than she had when we first started talking. In fact, I couldn’t remember when I’d seen any of the Canadians look quite so happy. I’d probably made more progress toward improving their average morale in the last five minutes than in the whole time they’d been here.
So, while I was thinking about it, I pulled out my phone and called my grandfather.
“What’s keeping Caroline?” he snapped in lieu of hello.
“No idea,” I said. “I don’t know if she’s even arrived yet.”
“From what I can see she hasn’t even taken off yet, and she was supposed to be here by noon.”
“Life happens,” I said. “And I’m sure you wouldn’t want her to leave before making sure all the animals at her sanctuary are doing well. Didn’t she say yesterday that one of her leopards was off his feed?”
“She could leave that to her vet.”
“She could,” I said. “But she won’t, and you wouldn’t either if it was one of your leopards, so stop fretting. If she’s here, shall I tell her you are eagerly awaiting her arrival?”
“Yes, dammit. I’ve got all kinds of projects I need her help with.”
A good thing Caroline liked spending time over at Grandfather’s zoo.
“I’ll tell her,” I said. “Meanwhile, are you planning on doing any of your owling expeditions anytime soon?”
“Why—are you suddenly interested in owls?”
“I’m not,” I said. “Well, no more than usual, and my interest will keep till the weather’s warmer. But some of our houseguests are avid birders, and I think they might enjoy one of your birding walks.”
“Just as long as they’re not weather wimps,” he said. “Nothing worse than trying to educate people about the world around them and having them spend the whole time whining about how cold their feet are getting.”
“They’re Canadians, remember,” I said. “They’re used to this kind of weather, and know how to dress for it.”
“Hmph. I hope they’re more knowledgeable about birds than they are about DNA,” he said. “Last night over dinner I tried to have an intelligent conversation with a couple of them about some of the new developments in the field—like using massively parallel sequencing instead of capillary electrophoresis for example—and they had absolutely no idea what I was talking about.”
“Well, neither do I,” I said. “Does that mean you’re going to disown me?”
“I wouldn’t expect you to know anything about it,” he said. “You’re not a biologist.”
“Neither are any of them,” I said. “Except for the two genealogists, they’re all programmers and analysts. Computer experts. They’re not analyzing DNA—they’re building a website to help people understand their DNA test results and connect with their genetic relatives.”
Apparently this came as a surprise to Grandfather. He was silent for a good thirty seconds—digesting the news, I supposed. Then he gave a heavy sigh.
“So when are they going to bring down their DNA experts?” he said.
“I don’t think they have any,” I said. “They send the DNA out to an actual lab for processing.”
“Blast,” he said. “And here I was looking forward to showing off some of the new things my DNA lab has been doing. Remember how Chief Burke was complaining that it takes so long to get DNA results that the police end up letting dangerous criminals go?”
“Sounds familiar.” Although I wondered if Chief Burke had come up with this complaint on his own or if he’d been getting his hopes up after listening to Grandfather’s diatribes about the direction forensic science needed to take.
“Well, I issued a challenge to my DNA guys. And gals. Come up with something that lets the police run a quick test so they can see if their guy’s in CODIS before they let him go. I figured it shouldn’t be that hard—CODIS only uses a couple dozen markers. We’ve come up with something that can do it in six hours.”
“That’s fabulous,” I said.
“We need to whittle the time down, though,” he said. “There’s another lab out there that claims to be able to do it in four.”
“Still, I bet the police can manage to keep a suspicious character around for six hours if they really want to,” I said. “Of course, that only works for police departments like ours, that are within easy driving distance of your guys or the lab with the four-hour turnaround.”
“No, what my crew have come up with is a gizmo that a smart forensic examiner like Horace can learn how to use right out of the police station,” he said. “Kind of like a DNA testing lab built into a special computer chip. It’s turning into an interesting project.”
I found myself wondering how much influence Dad was having on Grandfather’s forensic DNA projects. Grandfather had originally acquired his DNA technology for zoological purposes. He was passionate about rescuing endangered species and figuring out how to get them to breed in captivity so large numbers could be released into the wild. In addition to the animals on display for the public, the hidden reaches of the Caerphilly Zoo supported large populations of such rare creatures as black-footed ferrets, red pandas, golden-rumped tamarins, wild yak, several kinds of lemur, and woylies, small Australian marsupials also known as farting rats. His DNA lab helped him limit the dangers of inbreeding. But given Dad’s fascination with reading mysteries and helping solve real-life ones, I should have guessed it would only be a matter of time before Grandfather took a keener interest in human DNA.
“Getting back to the Canadians,” I said. “It’s not really their fault that they’re not DNA-savvy. We still want to keep them happy—and maybe even improve their minds. How about if I ask Caroline to help you figure out when would be a good time for some birding walks or owling expeditions? And then I’ll tell her you’re waiting impatiently for her arrival.”
“Good! I’ll be in the Small Mammal Pavilion.”
With that, we hung up.
“Heaven help the small mammals if he’s that cranky,” I murmured. I thought for a moment, then called Kristyn again.
“Hey, Meg,” she said. “Still got that envelope.”
“I’ll be by a little later,” I said. “Quick question: Are the AcerGen staff working in that big open room on the ground floor? The one right behind you?”
“You mean the Pit—yes, there, and in those couple of glass-fronted offices along the side of it.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’m going to arrange a little surprise to boost their morale.”
“Great,” she said. “Because right now they’re about as cheerful in there as a flock of buzzards with no carrion.”
I thanked her and hung up. And then I jotted an item in my notebook. The Pit, as the Mutant Wizards staff called it, was actually a pleasant place to work if you had no need for privacy or peace and quiet. It was a big, double-height open room with plenty of natural light, thanks to a wall of windows along one side. If I set up half a dozen bird feeders right outside those windows, the Pit would be a bird-watchers’ paradise.
So, I’d just taken steps to make the readers and the bird-watchers happier. Which meant at least three of the Canadians—maybe more. With luck, and a little inside scoop from Kristyn, maybe I could figure out similar ways to brighten the lives of the rest of them. Make their Yuletide at least a little more cheerful.
Time to check up on what Mother and Cordelia were planning.