C-G -
C-G A1 Poly end
[104] Turow glanced over the figures, then carried the paper over to his desk. With a few keystrokes on his SPARC-station 10, Turow could access information from thousands of databases. If the Omega-9 did not have the information he sought, it would automatically dial into the Internet and find a computer that did.
Scanning the printout more closely, Turow frowned. It must be a degraded sample, he thought. Too much unidentified DNA.
A-T Unidentified A-T Hermdactylus
A-T - T-A turcicus
A-T - C-G cont’d
A-T - T-A *
A-T C-G *
A-T - T-A *
T-A - G-C *
G-C - G-C *
G-C - G-C *
A-T *Hemidactylus G-C *
T-A turcicus G-C *
C-G * G-C *
G-C * G-C *
G-C - G-C *
T-A * G-C *
C-G * G-C *
A-T * G-C *
[105] He stopped flipping the pages. Here was something truly odd: the program had identified a large chunk of DNA as belonging to an animal named Hemidactylus turcicus.
Now what the hell is that?thought Turow. The Biological Nomenclature Database told him:
COMMON NAME: TURKISH GECKO
What?thought Turow. He typed, EXPAND.
HEMIDACTYLUS TURCICUS: TURKISH GECKO.
ORIGINAL RANGE: NORTHERN AFRICA
PRESENT BIOLOGICAL RANGE: FLORIDA, BRAZIL, ASIA MINOR, NORTHERN AFRICA.
MEDIUM-SIZE LIZARD OF THE GECKO FAMILY, GEKKONIDAE, ARBOREAL, NOCTURAL, LACKING MOVEABLE EYELIDS
Turow flicked out of the database while the information was still scrolling by. It was pure nonsense, obviously. Lizard DNA and human DNA in the same sample? But this wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. You couldn’t blame the computer, really. It was an inexact procedure, and only the smallest fractions of the DNA sequences of any given organism were known.
He scanned down the printed list. Less than 50 percent of the matches were human—a very low proportion, assuming the subject was human, but not out of the question in a degraded sample. And there was always the [106] possibility of contamination. A stray cell or two could ruin an entire run. This last possibility was looking more and more likely to Turow. Well, what can you expect from the NYPD?They couldn’t even get rid of the guy who sold crack openly on the corner across from his apartment building.
He continued his scan. Wait, he thought, here’s another long sequence:Tarentola mauritanica. He punched up the database, entered the name. The screen read:
TARENTOLA MAURITANICA: WALL GECKO
Give me a break, Turow thought. This is some kind of joke. He glanced at the calendar: April first was Saturday.
He started to laugh. It was a very good joke. A very, very good joke. He didn’t think old Buchholtz had it in him. Well, he had a sense of humor, too. He started his report.
Sample LA-33
Summary: Sample conclusively identified as
Homo Gekkopiens, common name Gecko-man ...
When he finished the report he sent it upstairs immediately. Then he went out for coffee, still chuckling. He was proud of how he’d handled it. He wondered where in the world Buchholtz got his gecko samples from. Probably sold them in pet stores. He could see Buchholtz blending up sample cells from two or three geckos in the ultrablender with a few drops of his own blood. Let’s see what our new man Turow makes of this, he’d probably been thinking. Turow, returning with the coffee, had to laugh out loud. He found Buchholtz waiting for him in the lab, only Buchholtz wasn’t laughing.
= 18 =
Wednesday
Frock sat in his wheelchair, dabbing his forehead with a Gucci handkerchief. “Sit down, please,” he said to Margo. “Thank you for coming so promptly. It’s dreadful, just dreadful.”
“The poor guard,” she replied. Nobody in the Museum was talking about anything else.
“Guard?” Frock looked up. “Oh yes, quite a tragedy. No, I mean this.” He held up a memorandum.
“All sorts of new rules,” said Frock. “Very inconvenient. Effective today, staff are only allowed in the building between ten and five. No working late or on Sundays. There will be guards stationed in each department. You’ll be expected to sign in and out of Anthropology each day. They are asking everybody to carry IDs at all times. Nobody will be allowed to enter or leave the Museum without one.”
He continued reading. “Let’s see, what else ... ah, yes. Try as much as possible to keep to your assigned section. And I’m supposed to tell you not to go into [108] isolated areas of the Museum alone. If you need to go somewhere, go with someone. The police will be interviewing everyone who works in the Old Basement. Yours is scheduled for early next week. And various sections of the Museum are being posted as off-limits.” He pushed the memo across the desk.
Margo saw a floor plan attached, the off-limits areas shaded in red. “Don’t worry,” Frock continued. “I note your office is just outside the area.”
Lovely, thought Margo. Just outside where the murderer is probably lurking. “This seems like a complicated arrangement, Professor Frock. Why didn’t they just close the whole Museum?”
“No doubt they tried, my dear. I’m sure Winston talked them out of it. If Superstitiondoesn’t open on schedule, the Museum will be in deep trouble.” Frock held out his hand for the memo. “Shall we consider this discussed? There are other things I wish to talk to you about.”
Margo nodded. The Museum will be in deep trouble. It seemed to her that it already was. Her office mate, along with half of the Museum staff, had called in sick that morning. Those who did show up were spending most of their time at the coffee machines or photocopiers, trading rumors and staying in groups. If that wasn’t bad enough, the Museum’s exhibit halls were nearly empty. The vacationing families, school groups, shouting children—the normal visitors—were few and far between. Now the Museum attracted mostly ghoulish rubberneckers.