“We found blood on its claws and fur,” he replies, then points to a toolbox, not too different from one I use, sitting on the tailgate of a truck. “Tested it. Are you familiar with hemoglobin field kits?”
“Ah, of course.” He’s referring to small testing vials that contain agents that change color if they’re in the presence of human blood. It’s a quick way to tell if a blood sample is human or some other animal. He’s probably got several in his kit for other types of blood. It’s one of the ways they catch poachers.
I head back to my SUV and sit there for a few minutes staring at the crowd still standing over the body of the bear.
I’m trying to process everything that’s happened.
When I woke up this morning and walked to the ice machine, the last thing I expected was to be part of a drama involving a dead girl and the hunt for a killer bear.
It’s all over, and I’m still reeling and confused.
Reeling from what happened and confused by my own actions.
I let the fingers of my right hand loosen from their tight grip and stare at what I’m holding. Looking at it doesn’t give me any answers. Only questions.
Foremost among them: Why did I feel the need to steal a sample of Juniper’s blood?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE PHILANTHROPIST
When I wake up, the vial of blood is on my nightstand next to three empty cans of beer. I know I should give it back. Even though there weren’t any serial numbers, or a list itemizing the contents of the envelope, someone might notice it’s missing.
I’m pretty sure this counts as tampering with evidence, even if there’s no longer a murder investigation.
Why did I take it?
I’d like to think it’s because collecting samples is second nature to me. I teach a whole class on how to improvise field kits from Scotch tape, pen casings, and anything else you can find lying around.
My lab is a magpie collection of random things. Some are immediately important; others don’t strike me until later on.
Curious holes in a caterpillar cocoon I came across helped explain why a flower grew in one environment but didn’t catch on just a few hundred meters away over a hill. An entomologist colleague recognized the holes as termite bores. Not exactly natural enemies, but in this instance, whenever a caterpillar tried to cocoon on a tree branch, this species of termite tore open their tiny home, allowing in harmful parasites. The caterpillar died, never making it to the next stage where it could flap around, spreading pollen.
Absentmindedness is the most innocent explanation of my actions. Bio-kleptomania is at least understandable. The rest are a bit ghoulish.
A mistake we make too often in science is thinking that having a name for something is the same as understanding it. A skeleton in a museum or a drop of blood can only give you part of the picture. Juniper’s blood is just that—one pixel of the image.
You could probably tell more from her discarded dental floss. At least I would know what she had for dinner, her dental health, and possibly the DNA of the last person she kissed.
I put my motivations aside and get up to use the toilet. At midstream, my phone rings.
I wash my hands with only symbolic thoroughness and check the caller ID.
It’s Julian Stein. He’s the philanthropist behind the foundation that gave me my grant. Despite the rather sketchy nature of my application, he’s the one that pushed it through, like he’s done for me in the past.
Julian is fucking brilliant. He was a child whiz who sold his first software company when he was seventeen. He went on to become a venture capitalist and rich as hell.
For a guy that has it made—house overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, New York penthouses, and red-carpet walks from the indie films he’s helped produce—I can’t tell you the number of times he’s told me how much he envies me.
It’s a funny thing. When I’m worried about whether the university is going to pick up my contract and how I’m going to pay my rent, it seems ridiculous that a guy who’s flown presidents on his private plane would look at me with envy.
But when I’m out in the field, or even on my computer, and discover something exciting because I had the free time to do it, I understand.
I came to his attention when WIRED magazine did a story on an oddball discovery of mine. I discovered a way to use a local phone book or mailing list to anticipate which cities were going to see flu outbreaks first. I made a list of predictions based on a couple of factors. The biggest one was the number of people in a city who shared a last name.
People who share last names tend to be related and get together more often for meals and are less guarded about eating off one another’s plates and exchanging germs. This creates pockets of infection over weekends that soon extend to schools and work. The presence of convention centers added to the calculation.
It wasn’t a hard rule, but it had some useful explanatory power. It remains to be seen if it’s just a theory that fits the available data.
Julian called me after reading the article and encouraged me to do more research along those lines.
I’d hesitate to call us friends. He lives his life in five-minute chunks, and you’re keenly aware that as soon as this conversation ends, he’s going to go to the next name on a very long list of people he talks to.
I answer the phone with a slightly froggy voice. “Hey, Julian.”
His voice is somber. “Theo. I heard. How are you holding up?”
I hesitate to ask what he heard. About my arrest—well, it wasn’t an actual arrest—or about Juniper. With Julian, there’s no point in wondering how he found out so quickly.
I decide to say the thing a slightly less self-interested person would say. “Poor girl.”
“Did you know her well?”
“Not really. I hadn’t talked to her in years. I didn’t even know she was working near here.” Did I just try to state my innocence a little too forcefully?
“I gave her a grant a while back.”
“You did?” To be honest, other than an occasional conference I go to that Julian throws, I have no idea who he’s funding.
“Not much. But when I heard she’d been one of your students, it was an automatic yes. She’s actually cited you a few times.”
Damn, she would have been better off never knowing me. “I had no idea. I only knew her as an undergrad.”
“I’m looking through her Facebook page right now. A lot of outpouring for her. She must have been something special.”
I wish I knew. I put Julian on speakerphone so I can try to find her on my laptop. The first link is her Twitter profile. I click on it, and a photo pops up.
It’s her. She’s smiling.
I haven’t seen that face or that smile in years. It comes back vividly.
She was a pretty girl. Not in any conventional way. I think I remember now—her father was Irish and her mother was from Haiti. She could pass as Brazilian or any other beautiful mélange. She was one of a kind.
I steal a guilty glance at the vial of her blood next to me. At least we still have her DNA . . .
It’s a perverse thought. Even for a biologist.
“I’ve heard they caught the bear.”
“Yeah. I saw it last night.”
“I guess that’s good.”
“You guess?”
“They took me in for questioning,” I say, half confessing.
“That doesn’t surprise me.”
“Maybe not. But for a little while they thought I’d killed her.”
“That’s fucking scary.”
“No kidding.”
“Thank god they got to the bottom of that one quickly enough.”
“Yeah . . . ,” I reply slowly.
“Yeah? You’re not instilling confidence in me.”
“What? I didn’t kill her.”
“I never doubted you,” he says sharply.
“It’s just . . . you know the thing about first impressions? Often they’re an element that’s spot on.”
“Theo, you’re losing me here. What are you saying?”
“I don’t know. It’s just, well, the one detective I spent time with. He was smart. Street smart. I don’t think he’s the type to go off on wild tangents.”
“But they realized it was a bear and found it.”
“Yeah. Yeah.” I pick up the vial and rotate it around in the beam of sunlight streaming through the gap in the door. Something reflects back.