Cutting Edge: A Novel of Suspense Read online

  Kevin Barry looked up from marking his maps and said, “Can we identify them from their bands?” He specialized in birds, and Nora had immediately sensed his competence when first talking to him.

  Nora said, “Most likely, the arsonists would have cut off the bands. They don’t want the ducks recaptured.”

  “They should have thought about it before they released them,” Barry said.

  Duncan was within earshot, and the researcher hurried over to where they stood in the staging area on the far side of the parking lot. “Release?” she balked. “How do you know the ducks were released? Why wouldn’t they take them home?”

  Nora explained. “Animal-rights activists rarely, if ever, keep research animals as pets. Twelve mallard ducks? Where would they keep them? In their swimming pool? When the news gets out about the missing birds, neighbors and relatives could become suspicious and turn them in. In addition, they don’t believe that wild animals should be in captivity, by researchers or even themselves.”

  “But you said they weren’t animal-rights nuts. That they were opposed to genetic research.” Duncan’s tone was accusatory.

  “Yes,” she said, “but the fact that they took the ducks would suggest that they’re involved in more than one political cause.”

  “Why do they think they can get away with it?”

  “By cutting off the bands, the twelve ducks blend in with the thousands in the area. They’ve given them a chance of freedom.”

  “You sound like you agree with them!” Duncan said.

  Nora didn’t need to explain herself to this semi-hysterical woman, though she well understood Duncan’s anger. Nora was angry, too, but she didn’t have time for social niceties. In a clipped voice, she said, “Part of my job is to think like them, to understand their motivation and their goals. Their goal is to liberate the birds, not keep them as pets.”

  Barry interjected, “Well, they’ll be neither free nor captive after we find them. They’ll be dead.”

  Duncan panicked. “Can’t you return them to me?”

  Barry shook his head. “Gotta kill ’em. Them and any duck in the area. We can’t possibly risk this virus spreading. And after, we’ll have to sample birds in a wider area, make sure we got them all and the virus didn’t spread.”

  Duke leaned over to Nora. “Is that true?”

  She nodded. “I hope we find them all quickly.”

  Duncan resumed pacing, then glanced up at a van whose driver was showing credentials to the deputy manning the entrance. “Finally!” She strode over to the car that had just been waved through by the deputy.

  Nora assumed it was the veterinarian and said to Barry, “Are you ready to go? I think that’s the vet with the equipment.”

  “Almost.” Barry pulled a map from his pocket. “These nuts could have taken the birds anywhere. Do you have any idea which direction they’d go? Looking for a dozen ducks in the Gold Country is harder than finding a needle in a haystack.”

  Nora considered what she knew about how these people operated. “Maybe not as hard as you think,” she said slowly as she looked at the map and the areas the Fish and Game staff had already marked. “First, they’re not going to keep the ducks for too long. They left here between one-thirty and two in the morning. They wouldn’t take the ducks anywhere near their work, school, or residence. That would increase the odds that someone they know would see them releasing them.”

  “And you know where they live?” Barry asked sarcastically.

  She ignored his comment and put herself in their shoes—easy to do, since she’d learned from one of the best animal liberators: her mother. “They won’t take them to the closest lake—they’d assume that’s where we’d go.”

  She remembered the times she’d freed research animals with her mother. When she was little she thought she’d been doing the right thing, the humane thing. But she’d learned far too quickly that freedom didn’t mean safety, at least not for animals who were raised and cared for by people.

  If Nora had taken the ducks, she would have found a place for them where people came to toss bread crumbs. A place with a lot of water, so the ducks could escape little kids who didn’t know better when they chased them, and teenagers who did. But people were a must, because anyone worth their salt in the animal-rights movement knew that captive animals would have a difficult time fending for themselves. These birds needed food, water, safety.

  “They won’t be able to tolerate any quacking, thinking they were hurting the animals by caging them,” Nora said. “And the ducks would have been crammed tight in the cages they took—they can’t hold more than four ducks each. The arsonists would be nervous as well, having evidence in their possession.”

  “Well—how many miles?”

  “I’m not sure, but not more than thirty minutes away. They wouldn’t risk being pulled over if someone called in the arson quickly and the police were looking for a specific vehicle. A body of water off a freeway—preferably a protected area.” That reminded Nora to check with Sanger about the canvass his men were doing earlier and if they had tracked down any potential witnesses.

  “Hmm.” Barry pondered his map.

  Nora looked at the map upside down. If she had a dozen semidomesticated waterfowl and wanted to give them the best chance of survival in the wild, what would she do?

  Steady supply of food. Lots of water. A park.

  Finding such a place would be secondary to getting out of the vicinity, so they would pick a place along their escape route. She speculated that the route would be in the opposite direction of their final destination.

  Barry said, “There are several ponds in this area. Some are seasonal and dry now, but—” He pointed to three less than two miles away. There wasn’t anything special about them—no parks, no people. They bordered industrial areas. No, the arsonists would be concerned about toxins in those ponds.

  She shook her head.

  “How about Lake Arthur?” Barry pointed to a larger pond—hardly what Nora would call a lake—east of their location, right off I-80.

  That was a possibility, ideal for escape. So was a group of man-made ponds in Newcastle, about ten minutes west. Except there wasn’t a nearby park. It was also a new development near a light industrial area. Less pollution from business, convenient to dump the ducks, but it wasn’t good enough for the animals. Nora would never have left them there.

  “Here.” She pointed to Lake of the Pines. “That’s it.”

  “There’re at least a dozen locations just as good that are closer.”

  The more Nora thought about it, the more convinced she was that she was right. The other locations just weren’t as good. Lorraine would have chosen Lake of the Pines. Nora thought it ironic that she was thanking her imprisoned mother for lessons learned.

  Nora said, “From Lake of the Pines they can head up Highway Forty-nine to Highway Twenty and cut across to Maryville, then head north to Chico or south to Sacramento. It’s longer than going virtually anywhere via I-Eighty, but it gets them out of the area and they don’t have to backtrack past the scene of the crime.”

  “You’re amazing,” Duke said.

  Surprisingly she’d forgotten Duke was standing next to her. He usually wasn’t so quiet. “Thanks.” She was trying to be sarcastic, but it came out differently, almost as if she cared what he thought of her. Which she didn’t.

  All right, she did. But she wasn’t about to admit that to him.

  “This is a huge recreational area,” she continued. “There are people, pets, kids—the ducks will be well fed. They’ll be concerned about that. They don’t want the ducks to die of starvation, and that’s always a risk.”

  “Well,” Barry said, folding up the map, “they’ll be dead any way you slice it. And all the other ducks on that lake. We’re talking hundreds of ducks. I hope you’re wrong.”

  Nora’s heart thudded in her chest and she felt sick. It pained her that innocent animals had to die, but the risk of the virus getting in
to the duck population was far too great to chance it. Thousands of wild ducks could die, species decimated from Canada to Mexico, and there was the additional risk to humans if they didn’t quickly eliminate the threat.

  “We’d better go now,” she said.

  “I hope you’re wrong,” Barry repeated as he folded his map.

  “Me, too.” But Nora knew she was right. “I’ll meet you there. Take Dr. Duncan and Dr. Thomsen with you. They’ve agreed to assist.”

  “It’ll take us a bit to set up, and I hope Dr. Thomsen’s reader works. I’ve never heard of one working more than a couple feet away from the source.” He walked off to dispatch his team.

  To Duke, she said, “Did you see Pete?”

  “He’s talking to Jim Butcher across the street.”

  Duke followed her. He’d seen the worry on Nora’s face. He was hugely impressed with her analysis, and not a little curious how she came up with it. He’d always admired Nora’s intelligence and quick thinking, but this was different. It was as if she could read the minds of the anarchists. But of course that was silly. And Duke knew, from working with Kane, that good soldiers became great warriors when they could put themselves in their enemies’ shoes and anticipate their every move.

  Good cops weren’t much different.

  They stopped outside the building where Jim had set up temporary shop.

  “We’ll find them,” Duke said.

  “The ducks or the arsonists?”

  “Both.” He reached out and touched her chin, lightly, but he couldn’t help himself. She was so sad. “Chin up, Nora.” She was so drained. Not a surprise; she’d been up since before dawn.

  “Jonah Payne was murdered.”

  “I know. We—” He stopped. “You mean he was intentionally murdered? That his death wasn’t an accident?”

  “Pete and I came here from the autopsy,” she said. “Dr. Payne was dead long before the fire started—six hours or more. And based on the evidence, he was killed somewhere else.”

  Duke tried to wrap his mind around what Nora was saying. He spoke almost as if to himself.

  “It’s far too coincidental that someone disconnected from the arson killed Jonah and dumped his body in his office the same day that a group of anarchists came to burn down the lab and free research animals.”

  “That’s exactly what I thought. But this behavior is completely out of character from what I know about anarchist terrorist groups. And I know quite a bit. This is more like the work of a psychopath.”

  Duke frowned. “How was Jonah killed?”

  “It’s inconclusive, but the M.E. believes he died from massive blood loss. There were multiple shallow cuts on his arms and torso. No major arteries were hit, but when Dr. Coffey dried his jeans there was a substantial amount of blood.”

  It sounded like torture to Duke. He couldn’t figure out why—Jonah was a scientist. A bit absentminded maybe, but brilliant and dedicated.

  Nora said softly, “I just don’t understand. Everything about this case is textbook perfect for a standard environmental extremist group. The arsons, the spray-painting, the messages they sent. Everything … except premeditated murder.”

  “You said this sounds like a psychopath. Are anarchists exempt from being psychopaths?”

  Something changed in Nora’s expression. “No. I knew one a long time ago.”

  Taken aback by this admission, Duke wanted to ask her about it, but Nora abruptly entered the building. Again, he followed her. He’d make certain she’d tell him later.

  CHAPTER

  EIGHT

  Under other circumstances, the beautiful Lake of the Pines community—predominantly populated with the vacationing and the retired—would have enticed Nora into a long walk along the shore, or renting a paddle-boat to soak in the sun, or taking a cold swim. Though it was a popular spot for picnics and outdoor recreation, the area was well maintained, with numerous garbage bins encouraging people to throw their trash where it belonged. For the most part, people complied—probably driven to comply by the signs prominently posted advertising the steep fine for littering.

  A light breeze cooled the heat from the day, and Nora remembered why she loved Indian summer best. The remnants of summer during the day, the hint of winter at night, warm colors and vibrant life surrounding her wherever she went. The time for harvest, the cycle of life, the greens and golds, reds and browns. Autumn was a time for reflection, of celebrating the end of one year and anticipating the next.

  It was late in the afternoon, nearly five, and early commuters had stopped at the sight of police activity. The media had arrived; there was no stopping them from reporting. Fish and Game and the CDC had come up with a statement that bordered on the truth: Several ducks had turned up with a deadly virus and in order to prevent the spread of the disease, they had to destroy the infected ducks.

  Dr. Ian Thomsen showed Kevin Barry how to use the prototype scanner. “It’ll read fifty feet away, provided there are no obstacles.”

  “Fascinating.” Barry looked at the model. “The ones we use you have to be practically on top of the animal to get a beep.”

  “The company making this one is going into mass production next year. Part of the difference is the implanted microchip itself.”

  Thomsen and Barry started their walk around the lake with the microchip reader to see if it picked up a signal while everyone else waited at the staging area that had been cordoned off. Nora stood rigid, watching the men and not the ducks who swam up to them or waddled along the shore, looking for food. So trusting. If Nora’s hunch was right, all these animals would be killed.

  Pete and Jim Butcher were talking with the CDC representative, and Duke stood by her side. She was finding it hard to compartmentalize her feelings.

  “You don’t have to watch,” Duke said.

  “I’m not going anywhere. You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Try me.”

  How could Nora tell him anything when she barely understood it herself? It wasn’t that she felt responsible for what had happened at Butcher-Payne or what the arsonists had done with the ducks; it was a more ethereal feeling of helplessness and the need to be enraged in order to be more effective. She had to watch the end result of their stupidity to both hone her analysis and, perhaps, to punish herself. All the bad things she’d done in her past … not because she’d wanted to, but because she hadn’t known any other life.

  “Nora?” Duke said softly.

  “Not now.” Maybe not ever, but she couldn’t talk as she watched Thomsen and Barry walk toward her with the microchip reader.

  Beep.

  “Does that mean—” Duke began, but Nora put up her hand. She couldn’t explain, she needed to focus.

  It beeped again. The beeps were faint, but definitely audible. The two men continued walking along the shoreline; the beeping stopped. Barry turned and walked along an inlet filled with reeds. The beeping started again and grew stronger. As they approached, the beeping increased in both tempo and duration.

  They stopped and talked. Nora joined them, and Duke followed. She didn’t want to admit that she was glad he was with her.

  “What are these numbers?” Barry asked Dr. Thomsen.

  Nora glanced over. Numbers flashed across the device’s small display.

  Dr. Thomsen frowned, then nodded. “There’re several ducks—I’ve never used it in broad scan mode, only the individual scan. This may be a glitch, but it looks like the display is flashing all the numerical codes it’s finding.”

  Barry looked at the lake, then at the display. “Agent English, do you have that map I gave you?”

  Nora pulled out the map of the immediate area. He handed her the microchip reader and looked at the map, then talked into his radio. “We hit paydirt. Get the nets. No guns.”

  “You’re going to save them?” Nora asked, hopeful but unbelieving.

  Barry shook his head. “We don’t have a choice. They’ll be killed and sent to our lab. I don’t think we c
an handle this quantity, and I’m sure the CDC will insist we ship every one off to Madison.”

  “Wisconsin?”

  “Right. The lab there has everything. A regular animal CSI unit.”

  “But you said no guns.”

  “One shot and we get one duck, the rest will scatter. Then we’re screwed. They’ll go in all different directions. If all twelve are here, our job is done when we get every duck in this area.”

  Nora must have looked confused, because Barry added, “We’ll snap their neck. It’s instantaneous. Painless.”

  Nora’s phone rang. It was Quin. She didn’t want to be interrupted now, but Quin might be calling about the case.

  “Hi Quin. I’m kind of busy.”

  “Lance told me you’re with Fish and Game at Lake of the Pines. Why? Did you find the ducks?”

  “Yes. I have—”

  “What are they going to do?”

  Quin sounded panicked. Nora wished she had had the time to explain it to her sister earlier. “You know what they have to do, Quin.”

  “How can you participate in a mass slaughter?”

  “It has to be done or thousands of ducks are in jeopardy. You know that.”

  “I—I can’t think.”

  Lorraine had done a number on Quin. For some reason, Nora had never adapted to Lorraine’s way of life. She’d rebelled from an early age, knowing deep down what they were doing was wrong but not knowing how to stop. Quin had wanted their mother’s approval and attention so badly; she’d taken everything Lorraine said as gospel. It had taken Nora years to get Quin to think for herself and not spout out slogans and rants on every political subject under the sun.

  “Honey, it’s going to be okay. Are you done there?”

  “What? Yes, yes, for now. I’m coming.”

  “Go home. Call your boyfriend and have him take you out to a nice dinner.”

  “I can’t even think about eating when I know what’s happening.”

  Barry said to Nora, “We’re about to begin.”

  She nodded, and Barry motioned for his team to fan out.