Administration occupied the third floor, while computers and research facilities claimed the second. The first floor was mostly classrooms and sump pumps. No one had been in the basement for years.
Homer Thorndyke’s door was open, but a bank of files blocked most of the office from view. The hiss of a ventilator was accompanied by a sliding noise, then a thump. The sweet smell of ether made Plato slightly nauseated.
Cameron knocked hesitantly. “Dr. Thorndyke?”
“Yes?”
Slip-thump.
“Come on back here, please. I’m rather busy at the moment.”
Around the corner, Homer Thorndyke sat in his wheelchair, fiddling with something like a paper cutter. Or a tiny guillotine. A rush of disgusting animal lab memories swept over Plato. The sheriff stepped around the corner before his partner could warn him. On the counter beside the sink, eight rat bodies formed a neat line. Eight tiny heads were stacked in a gruesome pyramid nearby. A ninth subject slumbered beneath the blade.
Slip-thump. This time, the blade failed to make a clean slice. Instead, the animal squirmed sluggishly, like a sleepwalker with nightmares.
“Damn!” Thorndyke slapped the blade up and down again, driving it home. He tossed the severed parts into a waste can like a master chef who’d found a bad mushroom. “Cheap Japanese blades. A clean kill is essential to this experiment. I just sharpened them, too...”
Still ignoring his visitors, he packed the sixteen specimens into a plastic casserole and stuffed it in the freezer. Gloves and goggles were tossed away, and he slid his wheelchair over to the sink.
While Thorndyke washed his hands, Plato glanced at the sheriff. He was down in a chair, eyes glazed, skin grayer than fish scales.
Surely, Plato thought, Ian has seen worse during his long career. “Are you all right?”
His voice was a thin squeak, and his Scotsman’s brogue thickened. “I hate rats. I keena why, but they make me sick as a dog.”
Thorndyke finally glanced at them. Dressed in a white coat, with pale skin and chalky hair, he resembled one of his subjects. A thin mustache drooped over his upper lip.
“The county sheriff.” He smiled mockingly. “How good of you to come. Has the Animal Protection Fellowship requested another tour of the dog lab?”
“No, Dr. Thorndyke. This is about something completely different.” Cameron bobbed to his feet like an underinflated balloon. But his voice was steadier. “It’s about your father.”
“My father?” Thorndyke shrugged. “Then I wouldn’t say it’s very different at all. We’re all animals, sheriff. Some more than others.”
“Then it wouldn’t surprise you to learn that your father was murdered.” The sheriff watched Thorndyke through narrowed eyes.
The reaction was disappointing. Another shrug. “No. I assure you, surprise would be my last reaction. I was at the party myself, you know. And I heard from the hospital. Are you planning to indict the caterer?”
From the boredom in his voice, his level tone, the researcher might have been discussing the Gram stain with a pair of high school students.
“Hardly.” The sheriff retrieved his pipe, gestured at the refrigerator with it. “Your father was poisoned, just like one of your friends there. He didn’t die from spoiled mayonnaise. We think the food was intentionally contaminated, in order to cover the real poisoning.”
Homer whistled appreciatively. “Brilliant! Author, author!”
“You mentioned that you were at the party—” Cameron said. He struck a match and dipped it to his pipe bowl.
“Yes, I was. Along with about seventy-five others. Have you questioned them?” His smile faded. “Oh. By the way, I wouldn’t light that if I were you. Unless you want to blow us all to kingdom come.”
The match was quickly extinguished. “I’ve checked on most of them already. But no one else has a very good motive, I’m afraid.”
“Unfortunately for you, I don’t have one, either. It’s very unlikely that I’m mentioned in my father’s will. But we keep up appearances.”
Plato opened his mouth at last. “The two of you weren’t close?”
Thorndyke’s eyebrows raised imperiously. “And who are you?”
“Dr. Plato Marley,” Ian answered. “Representing the coroner’s office in this case.”
Thorndyke harrumphed and turned to his bench. Red spray patterns marred the white linoleum surface. With a damp rag, he scrubbed vigorously while he talked. “Close? Never. But there was no animosity between us. In fact, there was nothing at all between us.”
He looked up, met Plato’s gaze with pale pink irises. “If you’re asking if I killed my father, the answer is no.”
With both hands, he lifted a thigh and shifted it in the canvas seat. “I wish I had. Arsenic would be an excellent technique. Painful, too. The trouble is, I don’t have enough feeling left to have killed him. Gentlemen, good day.”
Cameron stopped with one hand on the door. “The wife, of course, is the obvious suspect.”
After a long pause, the researcher replied. There was warmth and bitterness in his tone. “Jan? I don’t think she’s capable. Besides, she and my father were very... close.”
“There are rumors about your father and the Martinez woman. She died last night as well, you know.”
“Yes, I heard.” For the first time, there was a tinge of regret in his voice. “Such a shame. So you think that perhaps Jan poisoned them both? Out of jealousy? Ridiculous!”
“How long was Miss Martinez with your father?” the sheriff asked. They stepped back inside the office.
“Five years or so. Since just after Mother died.” He considered. “Perhaps there was something between them at first. But when Jan came along, everything changed. More likely, Felicia killed my father out of jealousy.”
“Clumsy of her to kill herself as well.” Cameron sucked absently on the unlit pipe. “How about work? Your father’s company was very successful. Might he have made some enemies along the way?”
“Mardyke Pharmaceuticals? Successful?” The microbiologist snorted. “At selling health foods and vitamins, maybe. But they’ll never make it in the big league. With the lousy researchers they have, it’s a miracle they’ve survived this long. But somehow they’re already showing quite a profit. Martin Callahan must be one sly businessman.”
“Callahan?” The notebook came out again.
“That man could squeeze carrot juice from a stone. He was in health foods when he conned Father into investing.” Thorndyke sighed wistfully, picturing grant dollars and pharmaceutical research sponsorships. “Two years ago, they tried coming out with a new drug. Synthetic painkiller/anti-anxiety combination. Called Hypnocose. But it was a little too successful.”
“Too successful?” Plato asked. This was a new concept for him.
Thorndyke nodded. “People liked it a little too much. Know what I mean? The FDA squashed it. Let me tell you, the market’s tight for new products right now. The FDA approval process is amazingly tortuous, especially for drugs like Hypnocose.”
He glanced down at his watch. “Two thirty! I’m already half an hour late.”
As they backed out the door, Cameron apologized. “Sorry to have taken so much time, doctor.”
“Not at all. If you have any more questions...”
Plato stopped Ian in the hallway. “Wait. I want to look for something.”
After navigating the maze of corridors from several decades of building additions, they stopped. The bulletin board read:
A number of articles were tacked to the board, including a paper by Homer Thorndyke, Ph.D. The work was titled, “Response of Staphylococcal Pneumonia to Gamma Globulin in the Splenectomized Rat.”