Bernadette slid behind the wheel of the SUV, and Woodhead got in on the passenger’s side. They both kicked the snow off their boots, closed their doors, and stared into space.
Bernadette glanced at him. “Is everything all right?”
“Organizing my thoughts,” Woodhead mumbled.
“Do you think the priest did it?”
“I’m withholding judgment until I have more facts.” Woodhead put his seat belt on. “I suspect the reverend and her companion wish to avoid the police confiscating their stores of ceremonial iboga bark. Beyond that, I haven’t formed an opinion.”
“Were you able to, uh, find any clues in the house?”
Woodhead folded his arms and was silent.
Bernadette rolled her eyes as she started the engine. “Smells. Did anything smell strange?”
“I didn’t smell the unusual freshwater fish smell that I recognized in the chapel, if that’s what you’re referring to.”
“What about iboga bark?”
“Yes. But faintly—like the smell of marijuana when someone returns from a concert, not from when someone is growing the plant in the next room.”
“I think she’s got a greenhouse in the back.”
“It’s possible. I didn’t smell tabarnanthe iboga at the front of the house or inside, but it’s possible.” Woodhead shifted in his seat. “If she had killed Thompson, I’m confident I would have detected trimethylamine oxide in the entryway.”
“The fish smell?”
He set his mouth in a line. “In layman’s terms, yes.”
“And you didn’t?”
“No.”
Bernadette drove out of the parking spot. “Suzanne Thao said she was with her. But what if they were at Thao’s place and not Roundhouse’s? She could have cleaned up and changed clothes there. That might have gotten rid of the smell.”
Woodhead nodded. “Perhaps.” He sank down into his seat and rubbed his chin, his eyes focused on the road.
Bernadette glanced at him, then turned her attention to the road as they drove back toward downtown. The minutes ticked by; the evening had turned dark, and the sky threatened snow. “Anything jumping out at you yet?”
“Why move Thompson’s body to the chapel and arrange it in that fashion?”
“There must be significance to the body placement.” Bernadette rested her hand on the gearshift. “We need to look at both of those women—Roundhouse and Thao. They’re each other’s alibi, and they know enough about Anne Askew and the church to put Thompson’s body in that position.”
“You’re making a bold assumption that they’re lying,” Woodhead said. “You’re also focused on a single issue at the murder scene, ignoring others.”
“Like what?”
“The murder weapon placed next to Mr. Thompson, for example. A syringe wouldn’t stay in his arm. Why not leave it where he was killed, or better yet, dispose of it? Why place it next to the body?”
Of course. “Because the killer wanted the ibogaine to be found.”
Woodhead nodded. “There’s no other explanation that makes sense so far. It occurs to me that the killer may be throwing the blame onto someone else.”
“Or maybe they’re trying to send a message to Agios Delphi,” Bernadette said. “After all, the M.E. found traces of ibogaine in the hub and barrel. Since that’s technically the same ingredient that causes hallucinations in iboga root, it could be a warning.”
“Like what?”
“Like… I don’t know. Stay out of our iboga bark supply chain, maybe.”
“Iboga bark supply chain? Are you suggesting the existence of an organized ibogaine distribution organization powerful enough to kill someone—yet so small as to be threatened by a fifty-member church in Milwaukee?”
Bernadette was silent.
“Ridiculous,” Woodhead said. “Besides, didn’t you say that Roundhouse likely had a greenhouse to grow the tabarnanthe iboga herself?”
Bernadette pressed her lips together and tightened her grip on the steering wheel. “It’s one possibility.”
“Turn back toward the river,” Woodhead said. “Mr. Thompson spent much of his time at the laboratory. We should visit there again. This time, we may be able to search Mr. Thompson’s desk.”
“We can go to the Freshie tomorrow.”
“I believe we would gain an advantage by going this evening.”
“This evening? It’s after seven, and I haven’t had dinner yet.”
“You heard Detective Dunn. The police haven’t yet cordoned off the laboratory. If anyone there has evidence to conceal, don’t you think they’d be working late or erasing files?”
Bernadette hesitated, then nodded.
The Freshie was off campus, directly to the east on the bank of the Milwaukee River. The SUV turned onto Highland Avenue. The street was nearly deserted, and snow began to fall.
“Looks beautiful,” Bernadette said.
Woodhead grunted. “The beauty is only temporary. Within a fortnight, the snow will melt, then freeze again. Then some sodden-witted fool will be late to meet their compatriots for a night of debauchery; he shall tumble to the sidewalk and break a limb, then litigate against the city for two million dollars.”
Bernadette rolled her eyes.
“This scenario is not hyperbole.” Woodhead folded his arms. “It’s happened before. Why do you suppose all the medium-sized American cities are going bankrupt?”
“Do you believe the moon landing was faked, too?”
“My scenario is not a conspiracy theory. It’s a loophole in American law designed to fleece the American taxpayer.”
Bernadette turned left on Old World Third Street, next to a large brick building with the Kilbourn Tech Freshwater Sciences logo. She pulled into the parking lot, with only a few cars parked at the edges, and a black sedan parked close to the entrance.
Dr. Woodhead got out of the SUV and stared at the sedan, snow piled on the hood and roof. “This car hasn’t moved in a while; I’d wager it’s been in this very spot all day. I believe it belongs to Professor Jude Lightman.”
Bernadette nodded. Thompson’s boss was on their interview list, and Woodhead’s intuition might very well save them time. She turned her back on the building and looked across Old World Third. The Wurst of Milwaukee, with a neon sign of an anthropomorphic bratwurst, beckoned to her. Her stomach grumbled; she hadn’t eaten anything since lunch. She looked up; light streamed from all the Freshie’s second-floor windows.
They walked to the building entrance. The sign next to the double glass doors gave no clue as to what was done on each floor. Bernadette pulled with an ungloved hand; the metal door handle was freezing to the touch, but the door didn’t budge.
“Closed,” Woodhead said.
“We could get Lightman’s number from the university directory,” Bernadette said. “Maybe he’d let us upstairs.”
“I obtained the professor’s contact information while we were en route,” said Woodhead. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, tapped the screen, and held it to his ear.
“Yes, Professor Lightman, good evening. This is Dr. Kep Woodhead, a special investigator with the Controlled Substances Analysis Bureau.” His tone, unlike his dealings with the detective or with Bernadette, was jocular, friendly, fun—as if he were asking Lightman to go out for a beer rather than interview him for a murder that had been committed the night before.
He paused, listening.
“Ah, yes, I’m aware that you’ve already spoken to the Milwaukee Major Crimes Unit, but we’re now leading the investigation. We’d like to talk with you, but it appears the downstairs door is locked.”
Another pause.
“I realize it’s late.” Another pause. “Certainly. We can come to campus tomorrow during one of your classes.” A beat or two. “I understand. We’ll meet you here, tomorrow afternoon, in front of your co-workers. They’ll see you’ve been visited by two law enforcement groups on two separate occasions, but I’ll explain it to them so they won’t get the wrong idea.”
A short hesitation.
“Of course. Uh huh. Thanks. Yes, the front entrance. See you shortly.”
He ended the call and put his phone back in his pocket, and immediately his smile fell away from his face.
“That was—” Bernadette struggled to find the right word. Masterful sprang to mind, but given the cautious state of affairs between the two of them, she didn’t want to use anything that would sound like she was mocking him. “Very effective,” she finished weakly.
He nodded curtly and put his hands in his coat pockets. “I left my scarf in my suitcase in the hotel,” he grumbled. “Don’t let me forget it tomorrow.”
“Oh—uh, sure. Will do.”
They stood there in silence, the snow floating down on them. It was getting late in D.C. and Bernadette wondered if Sophie had done all her homework, or if Olivia had been a bad influence. Sophia was supposed to call before bedtime, too.
It felt strange. This was supposed to be Bernadette’s week with her daughter.
Bernadette stared at the fading trails of footprints between the front door and the parking lot, and the two fresh tracks she and Woodhead had made. A faint humming from inside the building might have been the elevator. Then from inside the hallway, a man emerged, tall and slender, but with somewhat broad shoulders. Late thirties—a little younger than Bernadette. He had olive skin, as well as curly black hair, ruffled and artfully unkempt, as if he couldn’t be bothered to get a haircut.
Ah, one of those. He tries too hard to look like he doesn’t try too hard.
As they introduced themselves, Lightman’s eyes raked over Bernadette from her boots to her face. He wore thin wire-rimmed glasses, his pullover half-zipped over an Oxford shirt. His khakis weren’t pressed, but neither were they unbearably wrinkled.
The whole package: handsome, intelligent. And from the way he carried himself and smiled coyly at Bernadette, he was aware of what his package could offer.
He pushed the door open with one hand. “I don’t know where the time went,” he said. “I called my wife and said I would be home by six o’clock, and here it is, past seven, and I’m still working.”
Dr. Woodhead gave the professor a wide, fake smile. “If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life—am I right?” As the two men shook hands, Woodhead clapped Lightman solidly on the left shoulder, as if they were old friends.
“That’s the truth,” Lightman said, nodding.
“Shall we go up to your lab?”
“Oh—well, it’s not exactly in a great state for you to see it.”
“I’m sure,” Woodhead said, “with all the work you do, getting it cleaned up for company isn’t at the top of the list. But I’m afraid we’ll need to see Kymer Thompson’s work area.”
“I don’t know,” Lightman stuttered. “I’m not sure the university would be okay with that.”
“Our lieutenant has coordinated everything with the campus police,” Bernadette said. She wondered if Maura had, in fact, okayed this visit, but Lightman seemed like he was stalling.
Woodhead’s grin broadened. “Again, we can come back tomorrow—with a proper warrant. Your staff can stay out of the way while we search, can’t they?”
Lightman hesitated. “I’ll be happy to talk with you down here.”
“We’re looking into the death of your grad student, Mr. Lightman,” Bernadette said. “Dr. Woodhead might be too polite to say this, but I don’t want to wake up a judge.”
“Give me a second.” Lightman turned and pulled his phone out of his pocket. After speaking on the phone in hushed tones, he turned back around. “I suppose we can do this without a warrant.”
“There you go.” Woodhead clapped Lightman on the shoulder again. “That’s my preference, too; I hate disrupting people’s workdays. It’s much easier when we can be ourselves around each other, am I right?”
“Are you the only one in the lab tonight, Professor?” Bernadette asked.
Lightman turned, a touch of uncertainty in his gait, and pushed the button for the elevator. “The boss always has to be the last employee to go home, right?” The elevator doors opened, and the three of them stepped inside.
The professor leaned over and pushed “2,” and the doors slid closed. The elevator crackled to life, jerking, then whined as the elevator lifted them to the second floor.
“Holy mackerel,” Woodhead said. “This elevator sounds like it’ll drop us all into the fiery pits of hell.” He laughed loudly and turned to Lightman. “Is it always this noisy?”
“Yeah,” Lightman said, “this is the way it’s always been. I admit, I noticed it too at first, but I guess I’m used to it.”
“I tell ya, it sounds like something out of a horror movie.” The elevator stopped, the “2” illuminating. The doors opened.
Woodhead screamed at the top of his lungs.
Lightman jumped sideways and banged into the elevator wall.
There was nothing outside the elevator.
Woodhead erupted into peals of laughter.
“Aw man, I’m sorry,” Woodhead said, wiping his eyes and catching his breath as his laughter devolved into chuckles, “but the way that elevator creaked and moaned, I would’ve sworn there’d be an axe murderer standing at the door when it opened.”
Lightman stared at Woodhead, unsure how to proceed. Woodhead looked at Bernadette, angling his head toward Lightman.
So this was a game. Had the blunt, forward questioning of Vivian Roundhouse been a game, too? Bernadette felt a headache coming on.
But she could play too.
“What the hell is wrong with you, Dr. Woodhead?” Bernadette shouted, smacking him on the arm. “I’ve been up since four this morning, and you have been a pain in my ass since the moment we met. This man opened the office up late at night for us, and now you repay his kindness by giving him a heart attack?” She flinched. “Oh—shit—sorry, that’s too soon, I know it is, mentioning a heart attack—Mr. Thompson died of heart failure. I apologize for my choice of words.”
“It’s fine,” Lightman muttered.
“You,” Bernadette said, pointing in Woodhead’s face, “get to do the grunt work for that little escapade. Let’s have you start with going through Kymer Thompson’s desk. Once you assess any—”
“Hang on, hang on,” Lightman said, “Tommy worked with some proprietary material. I’ll need to make sure anything confidential is properly secured before you go through his desk.”
“Oh,” Dr. Woodhead said, hanging his head, “I understand. I’ll wait out here, then, while Ms. Becker asks her questions.” Woodhead’s eyes darted between Bernadette and the professor, and suddenly, Bernadette got it. Lightman didn’t want to talk to Woodhead—he wanted to talk to Bernadette. Her black suit and puffy coat weren’t exactly va-va-voom material, but maybe Lightman liked his women fit and muscular even under layers of winter clothes.
“Professor,” she said brightly, “is there somewhere we can put our jackets?”
“Oh, the coat rack—” Lightman began, then stopped.
“Something wrong?” Bernadette paused, half out of her puffy purple coat.
“It’s fine,” Lightman said. “I’ll take them and hang them on the rack in my office.”
“We can do it ourselves.”
“Nonsense. I insist.”
Lightman took both their coats and opened the door to his office, walked in, and a moment later returned, leaving his door open.
“Thanks, Professor. Is there a conference room where we could talk?”
He turned his head to a darkened room with the blinds pulled. “I, um, don’t really see the reason for that. There’s no one else in the building. We can talk right here.”
“Or in your office, if you prefer.”
“Not necessary. This won’t take very long, will it?”
Out of the corner of her eye, Bernadette saw Woodhead nod slightly, and then she noticed his chest expanding—he was taking a deep breath, getting a good sample of all the smells of the lab.
“Let’s see how these first few questions go,” she said. “What was Mr. Thompson working on?”
Lightman smiled sadly. “We all called him Tommy, Ms. Becker.”
“Sorry. What was Tommy working on?”
Lightman nodded. “Six years ago, we got funding to research the effects of different freshwater-based organic matter on a variety of cancer cells. The specific target was lung cancer, though it’s been expanded to cover breast and bone cancer too.”
“God’s work,” Woodhead cut in, smiling broadly, without a trace of irony.
Lightman tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Yes, I suppose that’s how he saw it. You know, he was quite committed to his church. Maybe he felt that the work he was doing here was saving people’s bodies and the work he was doing in the church was saving their souls.”
“Are you a member of Tommy’s church?” Bernadette asked.
“Me?” Lightman scoffed. “I’m afraid I’m too grounded in reality for faith-based systems to hold much sway over the way I look at the world, Ms. Becker.”
“But you didn’t object to Tommy’s religion?”
“On the contrary,” Lightman said. “He was one of the few authentic people I knew. Lived what he preached—and that’s uncommon. His worldview made him a better scientist.”
“How so?”
“He made our big breakthrough.”
“He did?”
“One particular combination of organic matter and an existing medication showed promise. It was a combination that Tommy discovered—it’s absolutely brilliant, I must say, although the idea of combining organic matter and existing drugs had been proposed before.”
“How did Tommy discover the combination? Was he running experiments in a lab?”
“No, no,” Lightman said. “He was in charge of maximizing the organic matter.”
“‘Maximizing the organic matter’?” Woodhead asked. “I’m not familiar with that term. Can you elaborate?”
“I can’t reveal the details of the research,” Lightman protested. “I’m sorry, but if this got out, the grant money would disappear. We’ve been working too hard on this, and we’re closer than we’ve ever been to starting a clinical study.”
“Oh, I see,” Woodhead said. “Your funding came from a pharmaceutical company.”
“I’m not at liberty to—”
“Come now, Professor Lightman, I wasn’t born yesterday. If funding had been provided by a public agency or a nonprofit, they’d be willing to share this information with law enforcement. Only a pharmaceutical company would be so—”
“I still can’t reveal the source.”
Bernadette thought for a moment, then reached out and gently touched Jude Lightman’s elbow. “What if we sign an NDA? We have a murder to solve. We’re not interested in disclosing intellectual property.”
“Even if I wanted to,” Lightman said, “I couldn’t. Not without a subpoena.”
Woodhead grunted. “This murder affects you, Professor. If one of your other grad students or employees killed him, you want to know. If Tommy sold your intellectual property to a competitor or on the black market, you want to know. If your research is compromised, you want to know. I suggest you think of ways you can help us move our investigation forward. If you lose your funding because you hid valuable information, you’ll have only yourself to blame.”
Lightman’s head swiveled from Woodhead to Bernadette and back, and finally he sighed. “I can show you some aspects of our research. If anyone asks, I didn’t allow this. Follow me.”
Lightman strode toward a dark hallway. The overhead lights turned on as he walked through, Bernadette on his heels, Dr. Woodhead behind her a few steps. Bernadette found herself at the top of a metal staircase, and walked down the narrow steps behind the professor, her boots clanking on the steel.
At the bottom of the stairs, Lightman turned to a metal door, unmarked, punched in a code on the keypad next to the doorframe, and the light turned from red to green. He opened the door, letting Bernadette through first.
Inside the room, eight clear acrylic tanks, each roughly five feet wide, came into view. The tanks lined a single wall, and low blue lights were the only illumination in the room. Bernadette stepped closer; the tanks were half-full of silt or mud. No fish were visible in the tanks.
“Clear tanks? Aren’t industrial tanks usually opaque plastic?”
“For breeding and fish farming, yes. But we need to view the ammocoetes.”
“The what?”
“Sorry—the scientific name for the larvae. They’re in the mud.”
Bernadette stepped closer and peered through the acrylic. She thought she saw movement in the silt, like wriggling worms, and a chill went down her spine.
“There they are,” Lightman said. “Do you know anything about lampreys?”
Bernadette shook her head. “Only that they’re a kind of fish.”
“I should have known,” Woodhead mumbled. “Lampreys.”
“A primitive fish,” Lightman replied. “They’ve been around for millions of years. Before fish evolved jaws.”
“Native to the area?”
“These kind are. Silver lampreys. Not the sea lampreys you might have heard about.”
“They’re parasites,” Woodhead said.
“As adults,” Lightman quickly added. “Yes, they latch onto other fish and derive nutrients from their blood. But not the ammocoetes. They’re fed a special diet of sargassum and gracilaripsis, along with salmon and trout parts.”
Bernadette stepped closer to the tank, trying to see the larvae. “You said sargassum and—”
“Gracilaripsis. Types of spirulina algae,” Woodhead said. “Those are two types of exceptionally iron-rich algae, if I’m not mistaken. Why the high iron concentration?”
Lightman hesitated. “Well—we, uh, harvest the adult lamprey livers because of the high amino acid content.”
Woodhead nodded enthusiastically. “Ferritin.”
“Oh—you’re familiar with ferritin,” Lightman said, his face brightening. “This is a different type of ferritin, though. Tommy discovered it.” Lightman began to talk with his hands, his eyes sparkling and animated. “And the livers from this type of lamprey produces more of this type of ferritin than—well, anything else in existence. Feed the ammocoetes an iron-rich diet and we can double the ferritin.”
Bernadette rubbed the side of her nose. “Why do you need this specific kind of ferritin?”
“Excellent question.” Lightman beamed, in full professor mode. “This particular molecular structure interacts with the—uh, other medication, resulting in a compound that destroys cancer cells without triggering an immune system overreaction.”
“Wait—you’re saying that you’ve cured cancer?” Bernadette asked.
“That’s a vast oversimplification,” Woodhead said.
“Well, not by that much,” Lightman said. “The test results have exceeded our expectations.”
“How soon will it be available?” Bernadette asked.
“It takes a few years for ammocoetes to mature,” Lightman said, his face more serious, “and we can’t harvest their livers until they become adults. The first batches of ammocoetes are maturing now. With any luck, we’ll be in clinical trials in six months, and if the human trials are promising, we could go to market in three years. I expect enormous demand—this could potentially treat the two most common cancers in the world.”
“Will there be enough lampreys you can use to meet demand?”
“We think so,” Lightman said. “Adult lampreys don’t do well in captivity, but there’s a coastal section of Lake Michigan north of Port Washington which is ideal for silver lamprey nests. The adults that don’t get harvested are released there—and we’re stocking the fish they feed on, too.”
Bernadette put her hands on her hips. “I thought the Freshwater Science department didn’t tinker with ecological systems.”
Lightman nodded. “That’s why our study is limited to a two-square mile area of the watershed.”
“That must cover quite a bit of coastline,” Woodhead said.
Lightman crossed his arms. “What’s your point?”
“There must have been groups who didn’t like what you were doing. Justice for Oceans, for one.”
“They were quite vocal at first,” Lightman admitted. “They don’t like us altering what they say is the natural population of the rivers and streams.”
“Any specific threats?” Bernadette asked.
“Not to my knowledge, no. Some obnoxious signs and chanting with a bullhorn a few months ago. But it’s toned down over the last few weeks.”
Woodhead pressed on. “There’s a fishing union protesting as well.”
“Yeah, the local one based in Milwaukee. Can’t remember the name.”
“Lake Shore Piscary Association,” Bernadette offered. “Any threats from them?”
“They’re losing the public relations war. We’re killing an ugly, parasitic fish to make a life-saving medicine. The fishermen are the ones destroying the ecology of all the lakes and rivers here.”
“Sounds like a great sound bite for social media,” Woodhead said.
“All’s fair in love and war,” Lightman replied. “Justice for Oceans has one huge disadvantage: lampreys aren’t cuddly or cute. Many people find them disgusting. When the public sees pictures of the silver lamprey’s open mouth and circular teeth, grotesquely bigger than the rest of its head, or sees one latched onto the side of a river trout or a Chinook salmon, suddenly donations dry up.”
“Sounds like the university’s PR people trained you well,” Woodhead said.
“This area of study—the lamprey livers, the high-iron amino acids—that was all Kymer Thompson’s idea?” Bernadette asked.
“The whole team contributed, but yes, Tommy first had the idea of combining the amino acids with ibogaine to create—”
“With what?” she interrupted as her ears perked up.
Lightman closed his eyes and swore under his breath.
“Ibogaine?”
“Forget I said anything. That’s one of the pieces of intellectual property—"
“Ibogaine is what killed Tommy, Professor,” Bernadette said. “Intellectual property or not, we need to know about the murder weapon. Do you keep ibogaine here on site?”
Lightman’s eyes darted back and forth between Woodhead and Bernadette, and he finally slumped his shoulders in defeat. “Yes. We have ibogaine here. We based our grant application on a study from the University of Montreal a few years ago about how animal proteins change the properties of benzos.”
“Benzos?” Bernadette said. “You were experimenting with medications like Valium?”
“Valium is in the class of benzodiazepines, yes. We didn’t use that medication specifically.”
“How did Kymer Thompson come up with the idea to use ibogaine?”
Lightman shifted his feet.
Bernadette took a step closer. “We know he’s a member of the Agios Delphi church, which uses iboga bark in their rituals. Did Thompson bring iboga bark one day to try it out?”
“I—” The professor straightened up. “He didn’t explain why he suggested it but adding ibogaine to the study didn’t add much to the cost. We tried different combinations. Benzos—and ibogaine—applied to various organic freshwater assets.”
“Assets? You mean fish livers.”
“There were many other organisms in our original experiments,” Lightman said.
“How often are people down in the aquarium?” Woodhead asked.
“The tank rooms? Quite often. We take water samples. We feed the ammocoetes four times a day. We try to mimic the sun as if they were still in the lake, and of course there’s a continuous wash of plankton and algae, so we space it out.”
“And what about the ibogaine?”
“The ibogaine?”
“It’s been illegal for purchase or distribution in the United States for decades, Professor. How did you get ahold of it?”
“Illegal?” He cocked his head. “No. What we have isn’t illegal.”
“I assure you, it is.” Bernadette paused. “Schedule 1 controlled substances have strict physical control requirements, Professor. Vaults or safes. Alarm systems. Surely you know all this.” She leaned forward. “You must have signed off on it. You’re responsible for making sure that any ibogaine is carefully audited.”
“Ah,” Professor Lightman said. “I see where the miscommunication is.” He laced his fingers behind his head. “Technically, what we have isn’t ibogaine.”
Bernadette folded her arms.
“Ibogaine is narrowly defined by the government,” Lightman continued. “Our substance is synthetically modified from a different iboga alkaloid than the ones listed in the official definition of ibogaine. It’s got almost the same molecular structure, but not the same family tree—quite literally.”
“You’ve found a loophole.”
“We’ve found a way to keep our research legal and save the university hundreds of thousands of dollars in storage and compliance costs. Plus, we might save millions of lives.” Lightman locked eyes with Bernadette. “Come on, Agent Becker. Some bureaucrat convinced Richard Nixon half a century ago that ibogaine was as dangerous as cocaine and ecstasy. Anyone who reads the studies knows that’s not true—it can successfully treat alcoholism and heroin addiction. Trust me, no one is breaking into our stash of chemically altered ibogaine to get high.”
Bernadette tilted her head. “Except that’s what killed Kymer Thompson.”
Lightman screwed up his face. “If Tommy had been killed with drain cleaner, would the feds show up at my door asking how I unclog my kitchen sink?”
“The fact is,” Bernadette said, “someone injected ibogaine—the kind that’s heavily concentrated, like your synthetic loophole ibogaine—into Kymer Thompson and murdered him. We’ll need the names of everyone who had access to your ibogaine supply, vault or no.”
Lightman wrinkled his nose. “I believe that crosses the line. We’ll need a subpoena for that.”
Woodhead was staring at the ammocoetes in the tank. “Professor Lightman,” he said, “let’s get back to who could have motive to kill your top graduate student in this program.”
Lightman nodded.
“You said Justice for Oceans hadn’t attempted intimidation tactics. But you failed to provide an answer to whether the Piscary Association issued threats.”
Lightman looked down at the floor. The pale blue lights above the tanks shone through the water, making shadows of waves on the concrete.
Finally, Lightman sighed. “I’ve got some friends in that group, and I know what fishing means to this community. I wouldn’t have authorized using that area as a spawning zone for silver lampreys if I’d thought we’d disrupt the local fishing industry.”
“But some members of the group disagree.”
Lightman nodded. “The president of the organization made a speech at the last meeting about how we can’t do this to their livelihoods, and he said we’d be sorry if we continued.”
Bernadette frowned. “You’d be sorry?”
“Well—I think his exact words were, ‘No one can mess around with our fishing lanes.’ They’d made up these T-shirts—Go for the gold, say no to silver, with a picture of the lamprey and a big X through it. But that doesn’t sound like inciting violence to me.”
“The president of the Piscary Association said that?”
“I don’t think he meant—”
“That’s Douglas Rheinstaller, correct?”
Lightman exhaled, long and slow. “Correct.”
Bernadette pressed on. “What about Tommy’s personal life? Did he have a lot of friends?”
“He was active in that church. His girlfriend went there, too.”
She frowned; her notes didn’t mention a girlfriend. “Her name?”
“Annika Nakrivo. An undergrad transfer student here. She’s an intern—helps out in the lab.”
Ah—she’d been listed as a co-worker in the file. “Great.” She stepped closer to Woodhead. “Maybe we need to do a wellness check on her, too.”
“Okay,” Lightman said, fidgeting. “Anything else you need down here?”
Bernadette looked at Woodhead; his eyes were closed and he was breathing in and out slowly.
“Dr. Woodhead?” she asked.
“Oh—sorry. The smell of cleaning products distracted me. I detect bleach in particular. Isn’t that a dangerous chemical to use close to the tanks?”
“The janitors wash the floors almost every night,” Lightman said.
“Have they been in tonight?”
“Uh—no, I believe they get here around eleven.”
“So why is this floor freshly mopped?”
“It hasn’t been cleaned since yesterday.”
Woodhead shook his head. “No. The bleach smell hasn’t dissipated enough for that to be twenty-four hours old. With a regular strength bleach-based floor cleaner, I’d estimate that the cleaning was done this morning—not at midnight.”
Lightman scoffed. “You can tell by the smell?”
“I can.”
“Perhaps the janitors have already been in. I don’t schedule when the floor gets cleaned.” Lightman turned to Bernadette. “If you follow me upstairs, I’ll get Tommy’s girlfriend’s contact information.”
“Sure.”
Lightman let Bernadette go first, then stepped in front of Woodhead, who brought up the rear. Bernadette was on the last step from the top.
An alarm sounded, loud and echoing in the stairwell, and Bernadette clamped her hands over her ears.
“What the hell?” she said, spinning her head around. Lightman’s eyes opened wide, and his face was taut. Bernadette opened the door at the top of the stairs—and saw a short figure run by wearing an olive sutro jacket.
“Hey!” Bernadette yelled, and the woman turned her face slightly—a small nose, pale skin, large eyes—then turned and ran down a corridor.
Bernadette sprinted after her. The corridor was narrow, and the sound of a door opening echoed in the hallway. “Stop! Federal investigator!” Bernadette yelled, but the door slammed. Twenty feet farther and Bernadette pushed the door open quickly and had to grab the handrail to keep from falling down the stairs.
Another door opening, this one at the bottom of the steps. The woman was lengthening her lead.
Maybe in the open snow, Bernadette’s boots would serve her well enough to catch up to the woman. The door slammed shut below.
She raced down the stairs, pushed the door open, and kept running—
Her feet slid out from under her.
She hit the icy concrete sidewalk hard on her left hip, the shock reverberating up her side and down her left leg. It was so painful she barely heard the car door close. She tried pushing herself up, but her feet slipped again, until finally she pulled herself forward and got to her hands and knees. She reached inside her jacket—her holster and gun were still there.
A Subaru WRX across the parking lot turned on its lights and its engine roared to life. Bernadette scrambled to her feet, pulled her badge from her pocket, and sprinted across the lot, her hip shooting sparks of pain down her leg.
The Subaru backed out of the space, wheels kicking up ice and snow.
Bernadette sprinted to the car and launched herself onto the hood. She landed facing the windshield, her head toward the passenger seat. Pamphlets—was that a picture of a blue whale?
The woman in the driver’s seat was visible out of the corner of Bernadette’s eye. Blonde. A round face.
Bernadette felt the transmission shift. She banged the badge three times against the frigid windshield.
“Federal investigator!” she yelled.
The engine hummed, and the indecision hung palpably in the cold night air.
“You want to drive out of here with a federal cop hanging onto your hood? Not a good idea.”
Bernadette pushed herself back from the windshield and got a good look at the driver. Scared. Determined. A button nose and a cleft chin; large, wide-set gray eyes.
“Get out of the car!” Bernadette barked. If she accelerates, I’ll be thrown off. She hopped to the ground. “You have three seconds to get out!”
The engine turned off and the door opened. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” The woman’s voice was high and warbly. “I—I panicked. I’m sorry.”
“Out of the car.”
The woman stood, wearing the sutro jacket. About five-two. She held her hands halfway above her head.
“Turn and put your hands on top of the car.”
“I’m sorry,” the woman said, complying. “So sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Bernadette stepped forward and patted her down. No weapons. “What’s your name?”
“Cecilia.”
“You have a last name?”
“Carter. Cecilia Carter.”
“What were you doing in the building?”
“I—I—”
“It’s not a hard question, Cecilia. Do you work in the building?”
“Uh—no.”
“Why were you there?”
“I—I’d rather not say.”
“We’re investigating a murder, Cecilia. Do you want to rethink your response?”
Cecilia Carter bowed her head. Her breaths were coming short and quick. She hadn’t taken her hands down.
“I work—”
Silence.
“You’ll need to give me more than that,” Bernadette said.
“I work for Justice for Oceans.”