W is for Wasted (Kinsey Millhone 23)

“Did you report it to anyone above him in the chain of command?”

“I couldn’t see the point. The director of the grants program is the one who hired him in the first place. He thinks Linton is a star, especially since he’s bringing money in.”

“Actually, I talked to Dr. Reed yesterday.”

“And how did he strike you? Is he a buffoon?”

“No.”

“Did he sweat? Did his hands shake? Did he hesitate?”

“Once. At the end of our conversation.”

“Well, trust me. He was either doing it for effect or trying to figure out an angle before he opened his mouth.”

“When we shook hands at the end of the interview, his were like ice.”

Her brows went up. “What the hell did you say to him?”

“I was asking questions about Dace. I thought he was being candid. He didn’t seem tense or guarded. I know he was bullshitting on one point, but it was minor and I didn’t want to press.”

She laughed. “That’s our boy. Mr. Slick. I’m surprised you picked up on it.”

“There has to be a way to shut him down.”

“Don’t look at me.”

“Who better?”

“Not to sound too cynical, but what makes you think anyone would listen to me? I’m the one he jilted. That’s according to the rumor he’s been spreading around. The first day I showed up for work, word was already out. His claim was we had an affair as undergraduates. That much was true. The way he tells it, I was needy and neurotic. I was jealous of his success, so he broke off the relationship. Now if I say anything at all derogatory, it looks like sour grapes. A woman scorned.”

“What’s the real story?”

“I broke up with him. He cribbed a paper. He stole my work. That’s the kind of guy he is. He diddled with the title, added five coauthors, two of whom I swear to god he made up out of whole cloth. Then he sent it off to a scientific journal. When it appeared months later, I confronted him. Big mistake. You know how many papers I have to my name? Six. He’s probably had fifty published in this year alone. That should be another little clue to the higher-ups. With that many, how does he have time to do his work?”

“Why did you apply for the job?”

“I screwed up. Big time. I knew it was his lab, but I’d forgotten how crazy he is.”

“But he’s a bright guy. Why’s he doing this?”

“Why does he do anything? Because he’s high ego and he’s a narcissist. Dangerous combination. He’s not a man who deals well with stress. Something happened in Arkansas a few years ago. I don’t have all the details, but a patient died and the error was traced to him. He couldn’t face it. He suffered a total nervous breakdown and had to be carted off to the funny farm.”

“It didn’t affect his career?”

“Not his career; his residency. Check his CV and you’ll see the gap. That’s when he moved from surgical oncology to research.”

“And if it happens again?”

“I hope I’m not around. This turns sour on him, then what? You want my best guess? He’ll have a computer crash and lose everything. That way they’ll never nail him. Imagine all the sympathy he’ll get. An entire year’s work down the drain when he was doing so well.”

“I thought even with a crash, there were ways to restore the files.”

“He could spill a cup of coffee down his CPU or the lab might catch fire. He could go in and change a few numbers. The data could be sitting right there, but he’d be the only one who’d have access because no one else would know the magic key strokes.”

“If I told you I had the charts in my possession, would that help?”

“It might. Look, I’m not the only one aware of what’s going on. There’s a postdoc in the lab who’s seen the same things I have. Little signs of Linton’s cooking, little things that don’t quite add up.”

“Would this postdoc agree to talk to me?”

“No. He’s married and has kids. You think he’d risk his livelihood? I can promise you he won’t. Even if he did agree, you wouldn’t have any idea what he was talking about.”

“Isn’t there anything I can do?”

She smiled briefly. “You can do what I’m doing. Pack a bag and flee.”

After I left, I sat in the car as usual, making copious notes. Altogether, I was looking at two full decks of index cards, but this was new. Something had gone wrong in Arkansas. Linton suffered a nervous breakdown and because of it, he switched his career path from surgical oncology to scientific research, which looked like a nice safe place to land. Then Sebastian Glenn had died. Once things started going wrong, he was back in the same place he’d been, only now he was married and had more to lose.