Always Love a Villain on San Juan Island Read online

  Peter said, “Good,” sighed quietly and looked embarrassed.

  Now Noel felt self-conscious. Peter’s discomfort both moved and irked him. Oh well, he thought, take the bull by the horns. As if he, Noel, were any kind of expert. Peter needed a little help here. Was this devious intent on Noel’s part? Whatever it was, let it be. “Look, Peter, it’s not easy, you know.”

  “Huh?” Peter squinted at him. “What isn’t?”

  “What you’re trying to do.”

  “What am I trying to do?”

  “Let someone else know how you feel, or might be feeling, or think you might be feeling.”

  “About?”

  “About someone else.”

  “Who?”

  “Shall I stop?”

  “Yes. No—” He stared at the ground. “I, uh, don’t know what you mean.”

  “Yes you do. If I were a woman, and you were a straight man, and you found yourself feeling, or thought you might be feeling, attracted to her, maybe you’d be a little more direct, right?”

  Peter said nothing for maybe a quarter of a minute. Then: “I guess so.”

  “So. Want to start over?”

  More silence. Then, “I don’t think I know how.”

  “You were okay talking with me about you being maybe gay, telling your wife how you felt.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But this is different.” Noel knew only too well Peter was about to get into a whole other thing. “Right?”

  “Yeah,” said Peter. “Different.”

  “Telling someone that your sexual proclivity is different from what you’d been pretending involves only you. But you remain you. The past is still there, even if you have to look at it in a new way. There may be hurt, but leaving your wife behind was an extraction from a situation. Considering an intimacy with a new person opens up a whole new kind of future. At the same time, closing down other kinds of future, sure—but the important part is, you’re proposing a new kind of relationship. And that involves someone else’s psyche. Someone else’s self. And that can be kinda scary.” Now there was a speech. Wow.

  After a bit, Peter sniffed. “Noel. Once again, thank you.”

  “I’m just saying what I think you’re thinking—what you’ve been thinking about for the last few months. Maybe for years.”

  Peter fumbled around in his pocket, brought out a tissue, and tamped his nose. “Sorry about that.”

  “Nothing to be sorry about. Except about not saying what you’re thinking, and feeling.” Easy, Noel, don’t push him.

  Peter pulled his shoulders back, stretched, and stood. He walked around the room and glanced out of each of the windows as if looking for—what? Some kind of strength, Noel guessed. Then he stepped behind Noel’s chair, reached over and laid his hands on Noel’s shoulders. They lay wholly still for a few seconds. Then, with a light pressure, Peter began to massage the side of Noel’s neck, the tops of his shoulders.

  Noel let his head fall limply forward. Years since he’d had someone kneading his nape. Felt good, he had to admit. He knew too well that when he had been describing Peter’s psychic situation, he had also been talking about himself. What was he letting himself in for? He had no time for a relationship. And certainly not one of international scope. He knew nothing about Peter Langley beyond his role at Morsely and a little about his marriage. Or about his son. Did he want in any way to become emotionally involved with someone? Soon as he’d asked the question, he knew part of the answer was, Yes! But how large was that part? He realized Peter’s hands had stopped moving. Now pressure on the top of his head, through his thinning hair.

  At the corner of his glance, movement. Then a flash of black and white and the cat, Delilah, landed on his lap. “Oop!” said Noel. The cat was purring.

  Peter rounded the chair and reached for Delilah. “Come on, girl.”

  “It’s fine,” said Noel.

  Peter backed off. “She takes too many liberties with people.”

  “Maybe that’s a good thing,” said Noel. The cat leapt to the sofa, turned around and settled in. “And thank you for the massage. It felt good.”

  “I didn’t quite finish.” He walked around to the back of the chair, hands again on Noel’s shoulders, then up the sides of his nape to under his ears. He sensed something else from Peter, and then again that pressure on the top of his head. A kiss. Slowly, slow. He waited for Peter to raise his lips.

  Delilah watched as if fascinated. Or jealous?

  The pressure on his pate remained firm. He didn’t want to move; it felt good. Like the intention behind it. He slowly let his head droop further, and the balance of the previous few seconds fell away. Peter’s head straightened. Noel turned and looked up at him. On Peter’s face, the embarrassment had returned with the tinge of a flush. He wouldn’t meet Noel’s eyes. Noel said, “That was nice.” Pretty weak, but anything stronger could be too much.

  Still looking to the side, Peter said, “You’re not angry.”

  “Why should I be angry?” He turned to Peter and slowly brought his face close. They leaned lightly toward each other and their lips brushed, held for a moment, and Noel pulled back. “We’ll see,” he said.

  “Good,” said Peter.

  “I’d like a glass of water, please.”

  “Easily done.” Peter left the room. To the cat, Noel said, “Kyra sends you greetings, Delilah.” He could hear water running. The cat flicked her ears. Peter returned with two glasses of water.

  “Thanks,” said Noel.

  “What would you like to do?”

  Was this a complicated question? Noel would not treat it that way. “I need to know more about plagiarism, but my battery’s low. Where can I plug in my computer?”

  “Oh.” No response for a couple of seconds. “The kitchen table okay?”

  Kyra closed the files containing Beck’s essays. Clever but not exactly heavyweight. Certainly might have come from the mind of an intelligent twenty-seven-year-old. She made a couple more notes, found Beck’s novella, brought it to the screen.

  She read one page, another, another. Page five, and she realized she’d not grasped a single sentence. She’d been good with the essays, kept her mind trained on them. But her attention had dissolved. She hated thinking of herself as unfocused—which of course she wasn’t, just that the focus had gone elsewhere. Here she sat reading and minutes passed, half an hour. Time she’d never get back, time that drained her body of energy and health, time that aged her womb and the cell-sized egg follicles within it. She needed to allow her biology to do what it naturally wanted to, and right now!

  Stop it! Focus on the goddamn work! You’ll talk with Noel in a few hours. Figure out if the kid stole these words, okay?

  She stared at the screen. “Piper Blues.” Something about a bus—no, a van—guy’s going to drive it somewhere—

  How the hell should she know if this creep had made up this stuff by himself or if he’d stolen it? Establishing plagiarism or the lack of it wasn’t Triple I’s sort of work. They dealt with real people turned into victims, their job to find perpetrators and bring them to justice. Whatever kind of justice. This plagiarism stuff, it’s an abstraction. Who gets hurt if someone plagiarizes, anyway? Some construct like The Common Good? Triple I was no bleeding-heart agency, right? Damn Noel for taking this assignment seriously. He should’ve told Langley immediately they couldn’t work on a case like—like—like somebody maybe stealing words. Words, for shitsake! Who cares!

  Okay, Kyra. Cool out. What’re you on about anyway?

  She wished she still smoked. If ever there’d be a time for a cigarette, now was it. She wondered if Peter Langley had a pack hidden in a desk drawer. She shouldn’t invade his privacy. Even if she found a pack, she shouldn’t go back to smoking. Not after the battle she’d fought—and won! But would a single cigarette throw her off the wagon? She didn’t believe that. Couldn’t hurt just to pull a drawer open. She got up from the chair, still holding the iPad, walked to the de
sk. A thin middle drawer right below the computer, two deeper drawers on each side. She opened the drawer at her waist. Paper, pencils, marking pens, scissors, staples. No butts. On the left, top drawer—a toaster, a coffeemaker; neither bread nor coffee. Bottom drawer, a blanket and a pillow; yeah, Noel did say Langley and his wife had split up, maybe sleeping at the office. Top right—hmm, a picture frame, upside down. She lifted it from the drawer, turned it. Photo of a boy’s beaming face. Masses of blond curls, full cheeks, wicked green eyes, small peg of a nose, dimples, and a huge grin. If Peter had separated from his wife and had to leave this kid behind—If Kyra ever had to leave a little boy like this behind—What? She’d be in total despair. Yes.

  Hang on, lady. First you have to get the child born. And that ain’t going to happen by sitting in an office staring at a screen.

  No cigarette. Oh well. You’ve got a job to do, right? Do it.

  Noel was fascinated. Conferences where they—who were the “they”?—discussed plagiarism. International conferences. One coming up soon in Bordeaux. He read through the list of papers to be presented. Lots of work on computer assisted plagiarism detection, the sort he’d already tried on Beck’s papers and novella. The databases used for comparison must be enormous. Lots of talk about thresholds—how to decide what phrases and sentences to compare, where did research reach negligible value. So not only computer assisted detection, lots of human judgment involved as well. A relief, he thought.

  And here was something from Nature News: seems that scientific publishers have whole new methods for detecting plagiarism, something called CrossCheck, participated in by over three thousand commercial and scholarly publishers. “So far, 83 publishers have joined the database, which has grown to include 25.5 million articles from 48,517 journals and books.” Wow! One of the journals reporting claimed they had to reject nearly 10 percent of the submitted articles because some of the material had been plagiarized. Then there was self-plagiarism, where an author lifted material from a previous article and submitted the “new” article under a different title. If accepted, the author has yet one more entry on his curriculum vitae. A world Noel was glad he didn’t inhabit. Whatever his weaknesses as an investigative reporter, like getting things wrong, at least he’d never stolen the work of others.

  He listened, but didn’t hear Peter. Regrouping in his brain, Noel figured. He’d be back.

  Driving from Everett down into Seattle took Laurence Rossini the full hour and a half to cover forty miles. The traffic was slow enough for him to cogitate safely and still keep his eyes on the road. His conversation at the Faculty Club with Peter came to mind, the last part of it, all that business about hiring a private investigator to get to the root of the possible plagiarism case. Likely a good idea, but Peter had been using the story to create a state of mutual confidence, to penetrate Larry’s lab and discover what the Project was about. The notion of a discreet investigation wormed its way into the center of his thoughts. If anything needed both discretion and discovery it’d be Susanna’s kidnapping and her being held captive. The Project in trade for his daughter. Obscene.

  He exited the I-5 at Mercer Street and mazed his way toward the hotel. Yes, this was a large idea, an important idea: if the investigators Peter had hired were as good as he seemed to think, and if they really could be circumspect, he might hire them. They couldn’t do less well than Sheriff Marc and Undersheriff Charlie. He should question Peter further.

  Larry noted the hotel on his right. He drove by. Seeing Toni suddenly took second priority to deciding about the investigators. He pulled into a space beside a fire hydrant—no problem, he wouldn’t leave his vehicle. He took out his cell phone and called Peter Langley.

  Noel heard Peter’s phone in the living room ring. Peter picked up. “Oh hi . . . sure, long as you need . . . yeah, they’re working away . . . hang on a minute, okay?” Noel heard Peter walk away and close a door behind him.

  And here was Wikipedia on plagiarism. Something called fingerprinting, working with “a set of multiple substrings . . . to represent the fingerprints . . .” And something called “bag of words analysis” and another, “stylometry,” and more. Noel looked up from the screen. Delilah was back on the sofa, having a wash. Did he have to know all this to figure out if Beck had stolen his sentences from somewhere else?

  He felt his Blackberry vibrate. He glanced at the screen. Washington State area code. He didn’t recognize the number. “Hello, Triple I, Noel Franklin speaking.”

  A slightly familiar voice said, “Hello, Mr. Franklin. We met this morning. This is Laurence Rossini.”

  “Yes, Professor Rossini. Have you heard from your daughter?”

  “No, afraid not. But look, there’s something I’d like to talk with you about. Could we meet, you and your partner and me? Tomorrow around noon would work for me.”

  “What would this be about?”

  “The possibility of hiring your services.”

  “Hard to say if that could work. We’re in the midst of an investigation at the moment.”

  Rossini made an explosive sound that might have been a sigh. “I do understand. Our conversation wouldn’t last long. You could tell me if my proposal was out of line.”

  “All right, let’s talk. You want to meet earlier? Later this afternoon?”

  “No, I’m not available till tomorrow. I’m off campus at the moment.”

  “Okay, tomorrow. But early.”

  “You mind coming to my home? You know where it is. About noon, okay?”

  “Could we make it earlier?” Only one ferry a day back to Sidney. “I do need to get back to Vancouver Island and I’d like to be on the ferry that leaves just before ten.”

  “I’m afraid I won’t be back by then. I’d very much appreciate talking to you. And of course I’ll pay you for a day of your time whether you deal with my problem or not.”

  Noel didn’t need the money; he had the comfortable income Brandon had left him. But Kyra didn’t have that luxury. “All right then, noon it is. See you then.” He ended the call. Something seemed off about the man. Like when they’d left him so he could get to his lab. Slowly now, slow. What had he seen? They came driving to his house, he’d been outside beside his SUV, he loaded in a suitcase, he talked to them. His daughter, could they talk to her? He’d like to talk to her as well, not reachable by phone, yes she had read some of a friend’s writing. Then he’d seemed upset, made it clear he had to go to his lab, he took their card, they drove off. He didn’t get into his SUV immediately. Not in that much of a hurry. Noel had noted in his rearview mirror that Rossini had gone back into the house. Last they saw of him. Suitcase, Susanna not reachable by phone, upset, hurry to the lab—

  Did he need a suitcase to go to the lab? Maybe that’s the way he transported papers, files, whatever? Maybe. But strange.

  He realized Peter was watching him. “Oh. Hi.”

  “So? You going to take the case?”

  “What case?”

  Peter chuckled. “Whatever it is that Larry wants you to do.”

  “Huh?”

  “Didn’t he just call you?”

  “How do you know?”

  “He called me before he called you, told me he’d get right in touch with you.”

  A tiny world, this Morsely University. “Ah,” said Noel.

  “What’s he want you to do?”

  “We haven’t talked yet. But even if we had, I wouldn’t be able to discuss it with you.” He smiled. “Sorry, Peter.”

  “Could you talk about it with Kyra?”

  “We talk about everything.” He edited himself. “All our cases.”

  “Sorry, Noel. Didn’t mean to intrude.”

  “Since I didn’t tell you anything, no intrusion.”

  “I’ll let you get back to work.”

  “Thanks. I’ll just be a little longer.”

  Peter left the kitchen. What was all that about, with Rossini? And where had he gone, with his suitcase?

  Larry Rossin
i tapped the phone number listed below deBourg in his contacts. Toni answered, “You’re here. Wonderful.”

  Hearing her voice was wonderful. Oh, how he loved her. “Just need to park. A few minutes.”

  “Three oh seven,” she said, and disconnected.

  He left the car in a lot around a corner from the hotel. Would she be wearing that scarlet negligee? Surely not in the middle of the day. Though she had in Boston. He made his way to the front entrance, noted the elevators and took one to the third floor. Maybe that peach silk dress that left very little to the imagination. No, she had so many clothes it made no sense to imagine her in anything specific. He found her door ajar, rapped on it twice and pushed it open. “I’m here.” He closed the door behind him and secured the safety bolt.

  A lightweight dark-blue business suit, the skirt down to her knees, and black heels. Very smart. Very little lipstick. Her eyes shone. They walked toward each other, both with large smiles, arms apart then about the other, and they kissed deeply. A minute later their shoes were off, her suit, his shirt and trousers, their underwear all on the floor, abandoned for the sheets of a king-size bed.

  Afterward they lay still with their arms about each other, saying little, kissing every few seconds. After a while she said, “Have you had lunch?”

  “Just you,” he said.

  She giggled. No more words till she said, “How are you?”

  “With you, very well.”

  “I mean, about Susanna.”

  “Nothing’s changed.”

  “It’s already two weeks plus, Larry.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m very worried for you.”

  “There’s still five days to find her.”

  “You’ve given them everything they need. Surely they’ll let her go then.”