"The Transgenic Falcon"

Nobody likes to be bossed around, told their way of doing things is not good enough, and that there is a new way of doing things which will be followed. I’m no exception, but my annoyance at being shoved through the fine mesh of a process improvement grid was nearly completely offset by the fact that it was working. Not that I was ever going to tell Belinda that.

In the last two hours the investigation had swung into high gear with the irresistible assistance of my old girlfriend and the scratch team of helpers she’d whistled up. Downey and Chatham were about what you’d expect from a pair of ‘quants’. Nerdy looking datavores with a special sauce of OCD that made them want to put every scrap of the data they had in the right box. They were so enmeshed in their work they were better thought of as intuitive peripherals to the databases they trolled than actual people.

They started right in on my list of lists, only ever coming back with questions of how fine to slice the data. They were great at what they did, clearly, but I had to keep pushing back on their desire to make the info so granular that it would be impossible to coordinate in my poor wet-ware of a brain.

Lynn Delfore was different. To start with she was homely. I don’t mean that in the common US sense of ugly, but the older meaning, as in comfortable, unsophisticated. She stood five foot five inches in her comfortable brown shoes with almost no heel. Long brown hair, starting to show the streaks of gray from middle age, topped her flattish oval face. Her figure was a bit of a mystery, as she wore a long skirt in muted green and a long sleeved cardigan, of a brighter green. The retro look was completed by the glasses with elongated cat-eye lenses. On another person it would be a statement, but on Lynn it was just who she was. I briefly wondered if it was all a calculated front, designed to lull the viewer into a sense of familiarity and trust. Urban camouflage for the gossip hunter on the move.

I’d had a chat with each of the quants about the need for complete discretion, then sat down with Lynn. I’d explained the whole situation, which I was getting good at given the repetition. When I got to the request for her to spill the gossip we ran into a problem.

“I’m really not sure how I can help you, Mr. Hunt.” Lynn told me.

“It’s my understanding that you are the go-to person for inter-office, ah, unofficial information. I’d like your help in that capacity.”

Lynn shook her head, and gave a nano-second flick of her eyes to where Belinda was standing behind my shoulder. “I don’t think I know anything like that,” she demurred.

I had sat back and rubbed my hands over my hair, putting it in new, but still mussed state. I turned to the problem in the room, “Belinda, I could really use a hot tea, is there any?” I knew the office was equipped with a coffee maker, but nothing for tea. “I could really use a mint tea, peppermint if it’s possible. Could you get me one?”

I’d caught Belinda flat footed with the request. Odds are no one had asked her to do something like that since a week after she graduated.

“It’s a process thing,” I said, having a quick flash of brilliance, “If you want me driving on all batteries, I’m going to need some tea.” It must have worked, since she shrugged and left the room.

As soon as we were alone, I turned back to Lynn. “How long will it take her to run down some tea?”

“She’ll have to go to the main dinning hall on this level. Call it ten minutes round trip,” Lynn answered promptly.

“Then we have that long to talk privately. Why didn’t you want to speak in front of Ms. Morris?”

There was a new twinkle of intelligence in Lynn’s eye that had been missing in the interview up until now. I pushed the odds of her look being planed up another ten percent.

“You’re asking me to do something dangerous, and I need to be sure I am not going to suffer for it.”

“I think the odds of the killer coming after you are pretty low,” I started.

Lynn laughed, it was a good laugh, it pulled half a decade off her apparent age. “That’s not what I am talking about! I mean you are asking for the dirt on a large number of people. Important people here at G-T. I need to know I won’t be retaliated against if I tell you what I know.”

“Look, Lynn, I don’t care about all the dirty little secrets people have, except in how it impacts my finding a killer.”

“Oh, I think you do, Mr. Hunt. No one would become a detective if they didn’t like to be the man who knew where all the bodies are buried.”

Well, she had me there.

“Fair enough, but I still don’t see the problem.”

“It’s like this,” Lynn said and leaned forward, “Even though I have a reputation for being a gossip, I know a lot more than I tell. It’s the only way to get people to tell you things. If Ms. Morris hears the dirt I know on people, she is not going to be able to ignore it. And when the shit hits the fan everyone will know who told. I’d be shunned and never get a juicy secret ever again.”

“So, you won’t help? Please understand that I am not making a threat here, but I doubt it will be a good career move to say no to the CEO’s fixer. I don’t have to tell you what her nickname is and how she earned it.”

Lynn sat back and thought for a moment. We were burning our time before Belinda and my tea came back, but you have to let people process when you are pushing them, if you move too fast they lock down and it’s all over but the shouting.

“Tell me something Mr. Hunt, why take this case?”

I could have been glib, it is my primary move. But something warned me it was not going to help at this point. “Lots of reasons, I guess. A chance to see the inside of Gen-Tech, money, a chance for a big case, all that was there at the start.” I paused.

“And now?”

“Now? Now, all that is still true, but there is something more. Who ever killed Dr. Cho also killed six of the Eolin-I. They are just as dead as he is, but it bothers me more. Cho was human, there are billions of us, and we kill each other all the time. There were only forty of the Eolin-I in the whole world, and as far as I can tell they wouldn’t hurt a fly. So on top of all the things that were there at the start, I’m doing this to make whoever thought it was okay to casually kill twenty percent of a new thinking species pay for it.”

The little speech surprised me. It was like Delfore had punched a button and all of a sudden I was a crusader for justice. Still, as I said those words I knew they were true, I was angry, not because someone had killed Cho, but because they killed the little janitor people too. I like to think I’d be as pissed and motivated if the Eolin-I had been pre-adolescent kids, but honestly I can’t say for sure.

Lynn had turned her head to the side, like a dog will when it hears something new. She looked at me for a while then said, “I’ll help you, Mr. Hunt. But there are some conditions.”

“And they are?” I asked warily.

“I tell you, and only you, what I know. You don’t make any notes on what I say, you just remember it.”

“Lynn, I’m going to have to share things with Belinda and Johnny Round, it doesn’t work in an investigation to keep things secret.”

“That’s fine, this is about deniability. As long as I talk only to you, I can claim I never told you whatever comes back at me. When the case is over, you’re out of G-T and there is no one who can prove what I said, it’s all second hand.”

Now it was my turn to think things over. It would be a pain in the ass to work that way, but if her knowledge was enough to give me baseline behavior and maybe motivations as I defined suspects, it would be a huge help. On the other hand Belinda was going probably going to count in Mandarin again. In the end it was all about time and getting to the bottom of this case.

“If that is what it takes, I suppose I can live with it.” I got an agreeing nod from Lynn. “Now, since I have about three minutes before Ms. Morris comes in here and bites me in half for making this agreement, tell me about Dr. Cho, is there anyone you know of who’d like to see him qualified for a bone-yard certificate?”

Lynn took a moment to think, a good sign, it wouldn’t just be off the top of her head, “I don’t think so. There are lots of people who didn’t like him, for a lot of reasons, but kill the man? No one pops to mind, internally anyway.”

“Why didn’t people like him?”

“Well, let say the Doctor liked female company, a lot.” I waved my hand in a circle to let her know I was done pulling things out, and to get on with it. “This is really gossip but it’s from several sources, so I trust it to be true in general. Cho liked hot women. Not only hot as in sexy; he had a thing for women who were on their way up. If some Shelia was climbing the cooperate ladder, odds were good Cho would be on the make.”

“And?” I asked against my intent not to lead her.

“And, he was fickle with it. I know of one three month period where he wooed, then dropped three different women.” Lynn gave me a conspiratorial smile, “The really interesting part is that he dropped them because they all had their meteoric rise slowed.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere!” I said, “Who were these women, and when did it happen?”

Lynn shook her head sadly; “This was three years ago. Two of the women left G-T, one to another company, one is teaching at Stanford. The one still here is the second banana in acrology physical control.”

I was about to ask after the names of these women, when Belinda arrived with my tea. The more animated version of Lynn Delfore snapped off, and the bland office drone was back. Time to hold up my end of the bargain.

“Thank you Ms. Delfore, I appreciate the information. Now if you would, put together a briefing for me on Mick Taylor and Tara O’Neil. I’ve got interviews with them, so I’ll need it in about ten minutes, yes?”

“Yes, Mr. Hunt, I’ll be ready by then.” Lynn said and stood. She eased her way past Belinda and then through the door, shutting it behind her. Belinda set my mug (and it was a mug, no low class paper cups at Gen-Tech, thank you very much!) on the desk and gave me a bewildered look.

“Why didn’t she just tell you now?”

“Take a seat, Belinda,” I told her. There have been something wrong with the climate control in that office. I swear the temperature dropped ten degrees by the time she settled her perfect behind in the chair across the desk. I thought about offering her my tea, but only for a moment. I doubt I’d make as good an impression the people I needed to interview with second degree burns on my face. So, out of choices, I bit the bullet and explained what had happened in her absence.

Yes, there was counting, and yelling. But no blood or insurance paperwork, so that’s a win, right?