What had really happened to him up there in the woods? Had there really been someone with him that day? Had they shot the dart at the bear to try to save Diamond and jabbed him instead? Were they partners in some illegal scheme that forced the partner to move the body? Was there an illegal still up there in the woods, or were they poaching and didn’t want the police to find the evidence? Was that why the body was moved? And if so, how was this going to help me find my disks? I had to find out if there had been someone with Diamond when he died. If there was, I prayed they’d be able to lead me to my disks, if I played my cards well enough. Problem was, I wasn’t sure if I held any cards at all.
Clouds were rolling in from the west and it had started to rain as I pulled my car up in front of the barn and jumped out. Ryan’s motorbike was parked outside his studio, and the red light wasn’t on — he wasn’t in the darkroom. Great. I could try to get him to help me with the disk Shannon had given me. I took the metal stairs two at a time and rapped on the door before barging in.
Ryan gingerly took the disk from me and turned it over in his hands as if it was contaminated.
“Cordi, who else has this disk been conversing with?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Ryan, how would I know? You have a virus detector, don’t you? Besides, it’s a Mac.”
He grunted, and reluctantly pushed the disk into his hard drive. The computer hummed and hawed but no bells and whistles came up alerting us to some nasty infection being transported by the disk. When the disk’s icon, labelled “Stuff,” had mounted on the computer Ryan double-clicked on it. There was one folder on the disk, named “Logging.”
Ryan opened the folder. It contained files of all Diamond’s logging information, briefs, letters, and records of all logging events up in the Dumoine area for the past forty years. There was also a file that turned out to contain his calendar of events for the past year, some articles on data falsification, and some letters to colleagues.
“Let’s check his calendar,” I said, hoping something would jump out and make everything right again, but knowing it wouldn’t. Why couldn’t I be an optimist like Martha?
Diamond had been meticulous at keeping track of all his appointments, times and dates. Ryan went back to March and started scrolling from there.
“Ryan, stop!”
I took the mouse from him and scrolled back and forth, highlighting two separate entries a month apart. The first said, “Speak with Don re: paper. Is Roberta involved?” The second, a month later, said, “Clear day for Don and the Dean re: ethics, paper.” The second entry was scheduled for five days after Diamond died.
“What do you suppose that means?” said Ryan.
“Don Allenby and Diamond were collaborating on a paper together. Roberta told me Diamond had asked Don to postpone publication. He was very disappointed and so was Roberta because she will be one of the authors — quite a plum for a master’s student.”
“You think there was something wrong with the paper? Diamond’s got a folder here on data falsification and other illegal activities. Holy shit, that’d ruin Allenby’s career if he made up his data. Maybe it’s the student?”
Ryan clicked open the essay, which talked about how the public trust had been undermined by scientists faking their data, but that it was essential to be sure before accusing someone because their careers could be ruined.
“Jesus, Cor, if one of his students falsified data, no one would touch them again. That breast cancer study in Montreal by some guy — I can’t remember his name now. Remember how it played in the media? Data falsification is career-ending. If this guy’s student was doing something shady and Diamond found out, then his death has been very beneficial for her. Fake data. You’d be dead in the water.”
I took the mouse from Ryan’s hand and scrolled through the documents.
“He’s got stuff here on that fish in the Mediterranean,” I said. “The one they said was extinct, until some fisherman landed a live, breathing specimen.”
I continued searching the files.
“He’s got a whole folder on all his old papers. Jesus, he was prolific. Look: artificial insemination of captive cats, predator-prey relations, pregnancy in lynx, an overview paper on extinct and endangered species … Hey, here’s something on the Puerto Rican crested toad. They thought it was extinct, too, until a toad hopped out of a crevice one day. Remember that?”
I idly wondered how many more species, thought to be gone forever, would prove us wrong, just like the toad and the fish. I clicked on a file labelled “Lynx,” but the computer beeped and prompted us for a password.
“Wonder what’s so special about that one?”
Ryan shrugged, and I went back to Diamond’s calendar and began scanning all the months before his death.
“Take a look at this.”
I pointed at the screen.
“He had regular meetings with a guy named Jeff. Look at that — three, four times a month, but the entries end in May.”
“I thought you said his helper’s a guy by the name of Patrick, not Jeff.”
I reached for Ryan’s phone in my growing excitement, forgetting any fears I might have had about a cold call, and called Patrick, but I got no answer, so, since I was on a roll, I tried Shannon. She answered on the sixth ring.
I went straight to the point.
“Diamond was apparently going to meet with the Dean. He had an appointment five days after he died. It looks as though it had something to do with one of Don’s students. Do you know anything about it?”
“Um, I don’t know. I mean, I’m not sure. Jake was really upset about something — maybe it was Dr. Allenby. I don’t know, but whatever it was, I don’t think it was really great, you know what I mean? He wouldn’t eat my lemon meringue pie one night — can you believe it? He always loved it, but he said he was so angry about a paper he couldn’t touch anything.”
“Do you know what paper it was?”
“Paper? What? Oh. Oh, I see. He never told me much. Could have been any paper. He marked lots, and he wrote some stuff himself that got published in those magazines no one reads but the scientists. God, they’re really boring, but you see, I didn’t find his work really interesting, so I don’t really know.” She paused and then added sadly, “I guess I should have taken more interest.”
I made some reassuring noises and then asked her if she knew if Jeff was the same guy Patrick had mentioned to me.
“Yeah, sure. Jeff was a pilot friend of Jake’s. Actually, he introduced us. Jeff was an old flame of mine, sort of. I used to go up to his lodge near Dumoine and help with the cooking. I met Jake there. He liked to come and see Jeff’s birds and stuff.”
“Birds?”
“Yeah, Jeff bred wild birds — rare ones — and other animals, too. He had lots of land and Jake loved to go up there. He died last month, in a fire. Broke Jake up. Me too.”
“They were good friends?”
“Oh yes. They were real buddies, and Jeff also helped Jake with his biology stuff.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, being a pilot and all, Jeff took Jake out to kind of fly over where Jake wanted him to.”
“You mean aerial surveillance?”
“Yeah, that’s it. I think they’d fly over his study site looking for the cats with all this special equipment.”
“Did you ever go with him?”
“He never asked me. Not that I would have gone. I’m kinda afraid of heights, but he could have asked.”