The Perfect Body, page 16
part #8 of Professor Molly Mysteries Series
The counter had a single shallow drawer at its end. You wouldn’t see it unless you were standing by the window. I pulled it open. The drawer contained three boxes of purple nitrile gloves: Small, medium, and large. Something made me pick up the small box.
Underneath was a black-and-white composition notebook.
I picked the notebook up. National brand. That’s a strangely generic name, I thought.
“Emma?” I called out, but remembered she’d gone to the bathroom.
“I’ll take that,” said a man’s voice from the doorway.
Dean Geoffrey Gunderson strode in, holding out his hand.
He was coming right at me. From Gunderson to me to the open window was almost a straight line. All he needed to do was pick up a little speed. The blinds were closed, but they weren’t much of a barrier.
This is what happened to Bee, I thought.
“Emma!” I yelled, as the weedy medievalist picked up speed.
Force equals mass times acceleration.
Why was my brain feeding me formulas from freshman physics, of all things? Gunderson didn’t have a lot of mass, but he did seem to be coming at me pretty fast.
Momentum equals mass times velocity.
“She was keeping two sets of books,” I blurted out.
“That is not your property, Professor Barda. Please give it to me.”
Gunderson kept coming closer.
“If this comes out…” I started, then trailed off. What would be the point of running my mouth? It would just make him want to kill me even more.
Geoffrey Gunderson closed the distance between us and reached his arm toward me. I considered darting around him, but I was blocked by a wall and a file cabinet.
“Emma. Emma!”
My chest ached. All I wanted was to be home with Donnie and baby Francesca. Curiosity killed the professor. Why had I agreed to look for the notebook? Where was Emma? I had to think fast.
And then it came to me.
I dropped the notebook at my feet. With my right hand, I pulled my shirt and bra up with a single, well-practiced gesture. With my left hand I pressed my engorged breast.
A needle-thin jet of milk drummed against Gunderson’s glasses, temporarily blinding him. As he clawed at his eyes, I saw Emma climbing up on the counter behind him. She looked around, picked up a large glass flask, raised it up, and brought it down hard.
“Ouch!” he cried, and rubbed his head. Which was not what we were expecting.
But Emma was not out of ideas. She snatched Gunderson’s milk-splashed glasses.
“I’m calling the police,” she declared, holding the glasses over her head.
“Yes, please do.” Gunderson pulled a handkerchief from the inside of his suit jacket and dabbed his eyes.
“And don’t you go anywhere,” she warned.
“I don’t suppose I can,” he said in her general direction, “until such time as my spectacles are returned to me.”
Emma stood on the counter and made the call while I put myself back together. We waited in uncomfortable silence until Detective Medeiros showed up.
Chapter Forty
If my fairy godmother came to me and granted me the power to erase only one memory, I would probably pick that afternoon’s interview at Mahina Police Department Headquarters.
Detective Medeiros herded us all into a single room with a small table at its center. I had always thought that witnesses were questioned one by one, but maybe Medeiros thought he could save some time with the focus group approach. He sat me, Emma, and Geoffrey Gunderson on one side of a scarred wooden table, and himself on the other.
“I’d like someone to tell me what’s going on,” Medeiros said. “Two people have died in that building, and now three Mahina State University professors are getting into a brawl and calling the police on each other.”
“It was self-defense,” Emma said. I nodded.
“These women were stealing university property,” Gunderson countered.
“He’s just saying that cause he killed Bee Corcoran,” Emma retorted.
Gunderson turned to stare at Emma. If he had been wearing a monocle, it would have dropped into his lap.
“Emma!” he gasped. “Are you saying I killed Bee? How can you even think such a thing?”
“Why would he do that?” Medeiros asked patiently.
“Maybe he killed her because he found out her research results were fake,” Emma said, “and he was afraid when it got out it would ruin his reputation. Cause he’s the one who got her the system life sciences award.”
“You say her results were fake?” Medeiros wrote on his tiny notebook and looked up at Emma. “Do you have evidence of this?”
“Detective,” Gunderson pleaded, “From what I know of these two ladies, they are good, kind people at heart. But they appear to be in the grip of a folie a deux. I can think of no other explanation for this fanciful slander, to say nothing of the…”
Gunderson turned to stare at me.
“… assault upon my person!”
“Assault, ah?” Medeiros wrote in his notebook. “And how, precisely, did Dr. Nakamura assault you, Dr. Gunderson?”
“Me!” Emma exclaimed.
“Oh, no, it wasn’t Emma. It was Molly here. I caught her taking property from the lab and asked her to hand it to me. And she…ahem.”
Medeiros looked at me in a sort of appraising way, and then at Gunderson, and then back at me. As if he were struggling to reconcile the accusation of physical assault with the pencil-necked weaklings sitting in front of him.
“Well. You know she’s from the business school,” Gunderson added gratuitously, as if that were sufficient to explain my antisocial behavior.
“I was acting in self-defense,” I said. “I thought he was going to push me through the window. He was coming straight at me. And I thought when it was happening that that’s what probably happened to Bee Corcoran.”
“And what did Professor Barda do to you, Dr. Gunderson, that you would characterize as assault?”
“Well, she… she …er…the truth is, I didn’t quite see everything that happened. She knows what she did.”
All eyes turned to me.
“Would you like to explain, Professor Barda?” Detective Medeiros asked.
I flashed back to the sight of Gunderson’s eyes widening with astonishment, just before the jet of milk blasted his bifocals like a hose turned on a window...
“No, Detective, I would prefer not to explain, if it’s all the same to you.”
Then I realized I had a way to change the subject.
“I know about the conversation at the Maritime Club,” I blurted out. “About pinning the blame for Stephen’s murder on my husband. Geoffrey Gunderson was there.”
“With all due respect,” Gunderson said, “you have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Gunderson’s words were confident, but I could sense a rise in his anxiety level. I might have been picking up a subtle odor of flop sweat.
“Professor Barda?” Medeiros prompted. “Let’s stick to the subject. Why does Professor Gunderson say you assaulted him?”
“I didn’t touch him,” I said.
“Well if you won’t tell ‘em, I will.” Emma then provided an unnecessarily-detailed account of the incident, which I see no need to reproduce here. As she elaborated on her story, piling on the prurient details, Medeiros put the heels of his hands over his eyes. Just the way I do when I get those stabbing pains on the side of my head.
“Okay, now we got that out of the way,” Emma declared, with the brisk air of someone dusting off her hands. “Molly, tell ‘em about the conversation at the Maritime Club.”
“Yes, why don’t you do that?” Medeiros set his pad down and leaned back in his chair.
I had to proceed carefully. I knew prosecutors worked closely with the police. Accusing Pang outright might be risky. I would tell the story, but leave the prosecutor’s name out.
“Stephen Park died after a fall at the donor dinner,” I said.
Medeiros nodded.
“He went out onto a lanai area adjacent to the dining room. There were no barricades or signs saying to keep off.”
“It was a donor dinner,” Gunderson interrupted. “We couldn’t exactly put out orange traffic cones and flashing warning signs.”
“Not even if it could have saved someone’s life?” I said self-righteously.
Gunderson gave an indignant little sniff.
“The area was poorly lit, and the railing was too low to be safe,” I continued, as Medeiros scribbled in his tiny notebook. “Stephen’s parents are suing the university because they believe those unsafe conditions led to their son’s death. But Dr. Gunderson tried to steer the investigation so that Stephen’s death would be blamed on something or someone besides the university. My husband, Donnie Gonsalves, made a convenient scapegoat because years ago I was romantically involved with Stephen Park. Accusing my husband seemed like the path of least resistance. If Stephen was killed by a jealous husband, that would reduce the university’s exposure.”
“Why that’s—” Gunderson sputtered.
“Professor Barda,” Medeiros cut him off. “Do you have any evidence of this conspiracy to obstruct justice? Because that’s what it sounds like.”
“Yes. At a recent event at the Maritime Club, Dr. Gunderson was overheard in conversation with…another party, discussing pinning the blame on Donnie. My husband.”
“Who was the other party?’” Medeiros asked, going directly to the question that I was hoping not to have to answer.
“I believe it was someone from the prosecutor’s office,” I said.
“Is it true, Dr. Gunderson?” Medeiros asked.
“Er,” he said. He looked pale, and his fingers twitched. “Detective, might we continue our discussion in private?”
Medeiros looked at each one of us in turn.
“This is simply an informal interview,” he said, finally. “You’re free to go at any time.”
Emma and I got up so fast we practically knocked our chairs over.
“You know the way out,” Medeiros added.
“Molly will forward you the recording,” Emma called back to Medeiros as we exited into the fluorescent-lit hallway.
“Recording? Of wha…yes, the recording,” I repeated.
“Why did you tell him there was a recording?” I whispered as we hurried down the hallway toward the exit sign.
“Nah, it was good. It’s gonna keep Gunderson honest if he thinks there’s a recording.”
We emerged from the police station into the hazy afternoon. Steam curled up from the puddles in the parking lot. I felt my bag vibrate, and pulled out my phone.
“Ooh,” I said. “I have a few messages from Honey Akiona. She wants me to come to her office right away. Darn it, I was hoping to go home finally.”
We approached our cars. Emma’s unlocked with a chirp when she rested her hand on the door handle.
“At least you figured out a way to get rid of your milk,” she said as she climbed into the driver’s seat.
“Emma,” I said. “We will never speak of this again.”
“Maybe you won’t.” She pulled the door shut, backed out of her space, and zoomed off.
I drove back to Honey Akiona’s office, wondering what she wanted. She couldn’t possibly know what had just happened.
Except that she did know. She had a police scanner, and friends in Mahina PD. She debriefed me, followed up with some pointed questions, and explained (at length) the importance of leaving crime investigations to the professionals.
After I swore to her never, ever, to interfere with any investigation ever again, Honey rewarded me with a morsel of good news about Donnie’s case.
I drove home feeling chastened but encouraged. Despite everything that had gone wrong that day, at least one thing had gone right. Bee Corcoran’s lab notebook was tucked under the floormat of my Thunderbird.
Chapter Forty-One
“How did it go with Honey?” Donnie asked, when we’d gotten seated at the kitchen counter. I knew it wasn’t right to keep secrets from my husband (to say nothing of the general futility of trying to keep anything secret in Mahina). I tried to think of the best way to present the day’s news. Positive first, I decided. Then I could hit him with the visit to Bee’s lab and the subsequent trip to the police station. There wasn’t going to be a better time. The baby was fed, and we were about to dig in to plates of tasty Drive-Inn leftovers. Tonight it was Spam fried rice, chicken katsu, and potato mac salad.
“The good news is, Honey says they’re having trouble building a case against you,” I said. “She thinks Pang might give up soon if they can’t get anything solid. Yes, he wants to bank a favor with the university, but he doesn’t want it so badly that he’s willing to do something risky like plant evidence or bribe witnesses. Also, you contributed to his campaign, so Honey thinks that helps a little.”
“Maybe not,” Donnie said grimly. “If he wants to make a show of being tough and principled, what better way than to bite the hand of one of your donors?”
“Well. That’s my good news, anyway.”
Donnie dug into his potato mac salad. “Hm. A little heavy on the mustard. What do you think?”
“Do you want to hear the rest of my news, or not?”
“I don’t know. Is it good?”
I wrinkled my nose and shrugged. I was proud that I’d managed to secure Bee Corcoran’s notebook, even if I couldn’t decipher anything inside it except her initials. And I was looking forward to going over it with Emma tomorrow. But I doubted Donnie would feel as positive about it as I did. He’d probably just focus on the fact that I’d stolen something that belonged to a possible murder victim.
“So…how bad is it?” He asked carefully.
“I wouldn’t say bad exactly. Emma and I had kind of a little adventure today, that’s all. Everyone’s okay, and no harm done. Know what?” I stood up. “Before we get into all that, why don’t I get us some wine?”
Chapter Forty-Two
Donnie didn’t scold me, or yell at me, or even scowl at me. Instead, as I told him about the events of that afternoon, he sat very still. By the time I got to part where I was being interviewed by Detective Medeiros, I realized I’d been doing all the talking. But I could tell Donnie had heard me, if only because of his white knuckles and thousand-yard stare.
When I finished he nodded, stood up, and without looking at me or saying a word, walked down the hallway and went to bed.
Things were almost back to normal the next morning. Before he left for work, Donnie hugged me extra-hard, begged me to stay safe, and hugged me again. Then he offered to take the baby to work with him, so that I could get some rest. I assured him that the baby would be safe with me. He seemed skeptical. When he left, he promised to check in on us as soon as he could.
I didn’t tell Donnie this, but I was practically dancing with anticipation. Emma was going to come over and decipher the contents of Bee’s mysterious lab notebook.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t a matter of Emma walking in, cracking the book open, and instantly solving the mystery. The book was about three-quarters filled with handwriting that looked more like an inky scribble than like actual words. Emma sat at the dining table near the window to get the best natural light. She went over each page slowly, often flipping back a few pages. (This was very frustrating to me.) Frequently she would go to her phone to look something up.
Meanwhile, I walked the baby, brought Emma coffee, nursed the baby, drank about a gallon of water, refilled Emma’s coffee, set out crackers, cheese, and chocolates, ate most of it, changed the baby, emptied the diaper holder, refilled Emma’s coffee again, got the baby to sleep, and brewed more coffee.
“Anything?” I would ask Emma every so often.
She would shake her head as if shaking off an annoying bug.
Then, after an entire morning of this, Emma cried, “Oh!”
I came running over to the kitchen counter, holding Francesca. Francesca was wide awake at this point and in the mood to grab things. She reached for Emma’s hair and I pulled her out of range just in time.
“Hang on,” Emma stalled me again, “Let me just make sure.”
She continued to turn pages, muttering phrases like “milligrams per kilogram” and “tissue fibrosis” and something that sounded like “Sea Terminus.”
Finally, she snapped the notebook shut.
“Okay,” she said. “I figured it out.”
“The murders?” I asked excitedly.
“How she got her results,” Emma retorted, as if I should know that that was far more important. “I knew she was cooking the books. But now I know how she was doing it.”
“Okay,” I said, doing my best to hide my disappointment. “What does this have to do with her murder?”
“Molly. You wanna know what I found, or no?”
“Sure.” I put Francesca into her playpen, sat down next to Emma, and feigned interest. “How was Bee cooking the books?”
“Okay, let’s review. There’s a thing our body makes that keeps our muscles from growing too big or too fast. Bee was trying to figure out a way to counteract it. And so are a bunch of other researchers around the world.”
“I remember. Yeah, I probably have a double dose of it, whatever it is,” I said. “I can’t build muscle no matter what I do.”
“You never know until you try, Molly.”
“What do you mean? I have tried. Don’t you remember, you talked me into signing up for that—”
“You wanna hear what I found or not?” Emma demanded.
“Sure.”
“Okay. I’ll make it real simple for you. She set up three groups of rats. One group, she just let them live their rat lives. She didn’t give ‘em drugs or nothing. That’s what we call the control group.”
“Thank you, Emma, I know what a control group is.”
“The second group of rats got steroids, you know about those, yeah?”
“Yes.”
“And the third group got the treatment that’s supposed to suppress this muscle-limiting thing.”
