chapter thirty-six

I headed out of the Lotus Eaters parking lot with more than cherry-vanilla steam clouding my thoughts. I’d driven around for several minutes without really tracking where I was going, my foot as heavy on the accelerator as a steel diving boot.

My conversation with Lee’s employer came back to me as I turned onto Vine. Maclaren had told me how difficult it was for scientists to get viable embryos for genomic research. Dr. Lee had been an ambitious man, and he was under enough pressure to produce results that he needed a sabbatical for nerves.

My own research showed he’d also cut some ethical corners in the past. Say Mercedes was on the level and Sandy Rose had provided Lee with a way to cut through that bureaucratic red tape. She’d furnished him a hassle-free and virtually endless stream of viable blackmarket eggs he could use in his Alzheimers X research. Sandy would charge a hefty fee on top of the other expenses, and Lee was a man with a gambling addiction and money problems. Enter Britney undercutting her employer with a discount side deal.

If Sandy, or the people she ran with, had found out that one of her girls and a client had cut her out? Some people would kill for a lot less than that.

Then Britney had taken that step too far, blackmailing Lee. More pieces started to fall into place.

I pulled onto the 101 South and headed back towards Nokia PD.

The green and white off-ramp sign for Benton Way had just flashed by when my call to Shin went through.

“Bad news,” Shin said before I could update him. “We’ve gotta cut Raymond Lee loose.”

My foot came off the pedal. The car hiccoughed until I eased my foot back down on the accelerator. “Pink recanted in the line-up?”

“Suddenly all Asians look alike,” Shin said, pulling a face and nodding. “We can sweat him, but the D.A. doesn’t think any jury would convict Raymond on Pink’s word at this point. Even with the nano-bot info and the Green Ice we found in his room.”

“Let Raymond go for now,” I said. “We’ve got a new scenario to consider.”

Shin stared at me, head cocked, eyebrows raised so high they almost brushed his hairline. “I’m all ears.”

“Maybe the reason it’s so hard to make the pieces fit is that we’ve been looking at the picture from the wrong angle. What if Britney wasn’t blackmailing Lee about an affair at all?” I filled Shin in on what had gone down in my interview with Mercedes Delblanco.

He sat there cracking his knuckles as he took it all in. “So Britney goes against Sandy to make this side deal with Lee,” Shin said when I’d finished. “Then she turns around and uses the deal to blackmail him. So he kills her.”

“Or he turned around and came clean to Sandy Rose,” I said, “and she took care of the problem.” I remembered the gang tats on Sandy’s security personnel. “Mercedes said Sandy ran with a rough crew. Once Britney was dead, Sandy figured everything would go back to normal; Lee has learned his lesson, and she holds the whip.”

“Only the scientist is so shaken up,” Shin said, “he panics and runs.”

“Or makes a bigger mistake,” I said. “Tells Sandy he’s gonna come clean to his employer and the police.”

“O-kay,” Shin said. “But how does that tie in with Harvey Pink, Raymond, Lee, and the nano-bot detonator?”

“Somebody had to take the fall. Harvey’s tailor-made for the job. And she can use him to implicate Lee’s son Raymond. That gives her even more leverage over the Lees. You’ve got to hand it to Sandy. She’s a strategic thinker.”

“So, tell me,” Shin said. “Is all this just a hunch, or do you have actual proof?”

“When you put it that way, it sounds mildly insulting.”

He sighed. “Looks like another long night researching Sandy Rose and the Baby Mine clinic. Let’s make sure this Delblanco girl isn’t pulling our chain.”

“I trust you to handle it in your usual excellent fashion,” I said, turning off the freeway.

“Me? Where are you going?”

“To see a girl about a file.”