Author's note: a couple of you have asked about the term 'an also ran'. This is an old slang term, possibly from horse racing. It referred to a horse that didn't win, place, or show, but still performed well. It has come to mean, in common parlance, someone who performs adequately at their assigned task but is not a leader in their field or even a top notch performer, someone who is second class. Thanks to everyone who reviewed! OughtaKnowBetter
"The research lab." Still stiff. Still pissed. Rosa Nogales barely came up to Don's shoulder but he recognized the wiry strength in that lithe body. This was not a mere figurehead filling out this position; this was someone not afraid to get her hands dirty. He glanced at her hands: no, no dirt but no manicure, either. No long, artificial nails with gleaming gems and artistic pictures. And the long black hair was coiled up into a twist to keep it out of her way. Flats to run in when needed, not high-heeled shoes, despite the height disadvantage. There would be large sums of money floating around somewhere in this case, that he was convinced of, but where ever the money was, it wasn't being spent on baubles for Nogales' fingers. On the other hand, this was a woman who, if she thought she needed to do it, would take out anyone and anything in her way. Don resolved to question David and Colby about the sniper's nest: any possibility that it had contained a woman? Don would just bet that Nogales could shoot the wing off a housefly at thirty paces. He trusted his gut on this one. Oh, yeah, he should question Rufus, too, as well as David and Colby. Rufus was part of the team for now.
This tour was necessary, but boring. Don looked inside through the corridor windows into the laboratory proper. Figures in white coveralls scurried here and there, pouring fluids from one beaker to the next, pipetting solutions into massive steel-colored machines for analysis. He blinked; he wouldn't recognized one machine from the next. This sort of science was beyond him, and he really hoped that understanding wouldn't be necessary to crack this case. It was hard to tell one worker from the next, bundled up as they were in white.
"It's a clean room," Nogales explained. "In order to get in there, you have to go through a decontamination chamber, to remove any foreign particle that might screw up the process for weeks." The tone of her voice suggested that she thought that Don would likely be bull-headed enough to do just that on general principles. "You change into clean room attire before going in. Our people check each person going in and coming out."
"For decontamination? Is that a security issue? I thought it would be a bio-hazard type of thing."
She looked balefully at him, all but accusing him of stupidity. "We work with precious metals as part of the process. We check for pilferage. Gold, platinum, things like that. Those are precious metals," she added, as if Don didn't know.
All right, one last chance for this woman to establish a working relationship with the visiting agents. The Ice Maiden routine was getting old. "Tell me about Dr. Halligan," Don requested, keeping his temper in check. "What files do you have on her? Any chance that this might not be related to work?"
Another liquid nitrogen glance. "Dr. Halligan had no life outside of her work."
"None at all? No friends, no family?"
"Single. Spent an average of twelve hours at her job, including Saturdays. Sundays she would come here to the research facility, borrow one of the horses, and go riding in the back country."
"Ah. Anybody know where she went in the back country?"
"No. The horse was ridden well and properly cared for. The one time her mount came up lame, she walked it back."
"Hm." A clue to Halligan's character. She cared about her animal, wouldn't put it through unnecessary discomfort for her own convenience. Don approved, but it didn't seem to be adding anything toward solving this case. "You knew her well?"
"Nobody knew her well. She kept to herself."
"Okay." Note to self: have someone back in L.A. run a background check on Alyse Halligan along with the suspects. "I'll need to get into her place, take a look around. Just in case," he added. "Not that I expect to find anything, but it keeps the reports tidy. You have her address in your files?"
"Of course." And, wonder of wonders, she added, "I also have a spare key you can borrow."
The ice melts! "Thank you." Don stopped there, not willing to push his luck on that topic. "What can you tell me about the murder scene?" Equal to equal. Trying to offer non-verbal respect.
"Single shot to the heart, long range sniper from the hills behind the research facility. She was dead before she hit the floor." Nogales looked away. "She never knew what happened."
But Don caught it. "You liked her."
Nogales lifted her chin. "She was always fair to me. And she was good to the horses. You can tell a lot about people by the way they treat their animals."
Don nodded. "That sounds like not everyone around here does that. And that not everyone is happy with your Security Department."
Nogales snorted. "We do our job."
Which was why some people weren't happy with the Security Department. No help there. "I'd really like to know where Dr. Halligan went when she went riding," Don mused. "Would you know which animal she usually took?"
"How will that help?" Testing.
"I'm not about to tell you that I'm any expert, but maybe if I give the horse its head, it will lead me along her favorite paths." Don cocked his head. "You think?"
"Maybe."
Ha. Another icicle melted. Give him a hundred years and he might even win this woman over and get her full cooperation. Of course, if she was the sniper, she would be leading him down the garden path. Somehow Don didn't think she was. He'd been wrong before, and would undoubtedly be wrong again in the future, so he wouldn't leave her out of the possibilities, but…
Didn't have time for that right now. He needed more direct routes. "I'm also going to need access to Dr. Halligan's office," he requested. "I'll throw my experts in and see if they can come up with anything."
"They won't. I've already been through her effects."
"I believe it, but a fresh pair of eyes—"
"Whatever you want. Mr. Stewart said full cooperation."
Damn. Icicles re-froze.
"I can touch stuff, right?" Charlie was almost afraid to pick up any of the papers on the late Dr. Halligan's desk.
"Go right ahead, Charlie. This area's already been scanned by the locals," Rufus told him. "Don't have to worry about fingerprints or anything like that. Wouldn't have to anyway; this is not where she was killed, and any fingerprints here won't help us. They'll belong to the staff. This is not the crime scene itself."
"Oh. Good." Charlie moved forward, looking at the papers left on the researcher's desk. It contained notes, data that she would never follow up. Sad, he thought. How would he himself feel if he never had the opportunity to return to his work on Paget's Theorum, or the really cool variation that explained the wiggles in queing theory? Not enough time. "How old was she?"
"What?"
"How old was Dr. Halligan?" Charlie asked.
"I don't know. Forty something, I think. Why?"
"No particular reason. Just trying to get a mental picture of who she was," Charlie said. He gestured at the papers on the desk. "This tells me part of it. Pictures tell me other parts, what she looked like and such."
"How will that help?"
"I'm not sure that it will."
"Okay." Rufus nodded his head slowly. The doubt was clear. He picked up one of the papers. "This looks like some of the yield statistics on the process. Pretty good; they were getting a ninety three percent yield on the final product of Formula K-19."
"Ninety three percent? That is good. Astoundingly good." Charlie picked up his own selection of papers. "This looks like a partial from some computer files. Think they'd mind if I went hunting in the computer?"
Another strange look from Rufus. "Charlie, we're the FBI, and this is a homicide. We can go looking where ever we damn well please."
"Oh. Right." Charlie pecked tentatively at the keyboard. "I need her password."
"You want me to hack it?"
Charlie winced. "I was thinking more along the lines of asking the IT department to release it. Cooperation, and all of that."
Rufus grinned. "Spoilsport."
"I'm sure you'll have plenty of opportunities to go chasing after criminals in cyberspace," Charlie told him. "I hear that Internet fraud is on the rise."
"True. But that's handled out of Langley. Local offices don't get to see much of it, although I wouldn't mind getting stationed in L.A. Nice place, lots of friendly girls. Hello," he finished up, surprised, as Charlie's fingers danced over the keyboard and something significant popped up. "That wasn't under protection."
"Actually, it was," Charlie disagreed.
"You hacked it? That was fast. I thought you were going to call IT."
"Didn't need to." Charlie pointed at a white board that had been fastened to one wall. There were neat black equations all over it, carefully partitioned off into geometric squares. "I knew that I liked Dr. Halligan. She was a woman who was very careful with her data."
"What do you mean?"
Charlie indicated a black square that had slash lines in a tidy border around the contents. It looked like an equation of some sort, numbers and letters, tacked onto the bottom of the white board. "She was concerned that she'd forget her password."
"That wasn't her password. Passwords don't contain plusses and minuses."
"Solve it." Charlie grinned.
"What?"
"Solve it," Charlie repeated. "Solve the equation."
"It's in three variables and only two equations. I can't solve it without some way to factor out the variables."
"Solve it in terms of x," Charlie clarified. "Once I did that, I tapped in the results of x equals 6y43z. Simple and elegant. Really nice way to create a password reminder. I knew that I liked her," he mused. "Hah. What do we have here?"
"Spread sheet of some kind."
"Yes, but what kind?" Charlie hit the print button.
"What are you doing?"
"I work better when I can see the numbers," Charlie explained. "Don't you?"
"Never thought about it," Rufus admitted. "Usually I plug in the formulas and pop out the answers."
"What if you don't have the formulas? What if the formulas don't fit?"
That set Rufus back. He covered by pulling the sheets from the printer as they emerged, scanning the data before handing them to Charlie. "We can cover more territory if we split up the work. You're already on the computer; you want to stay there?"
"Actually, if you don't mind, I'll let you handle that," Charlie said. "I've always liked the feel of paper in my hands, and I'd like to think that Dr. Halligan felt the same way. I'll go through her hard copy."
"Have it your way." Rufus was clearly relieved.
Don took David with him, getting directions to the townhouse that Dr. Alyse Halligan had called home until recently. It was in a nicer section of town, definitely upscale; as Barry Stewart had said, Caldwell paid its senior researchers well. A gardener looked up idly as they passed in Don's Suburban, raking the autumn leaves into a pile.
"Azaleas," David commented.
"Pardon?"
"Azaleas," David repeated. "She had four of them. She must have liked them."
"Or they were a convenient sort of bush to keep around," Don thought. "They flower in the spring, right?"
"Right." David inserted the key into the lock of the front door and turned. It opened without complaint, letting them into a marbled foyer. Three coats hung on the tree, the occupant too tired to hang them up and now too deceased to ever do it.
The place had a designer 'don't touch' look about it. Halligan seemed to have hired someone to decorate the place and then only lived in a small portion of it: the computer room. That room was a cluttered mess, papers scattered and books tossed onto the floor to be re-shelved at a more opportune time. A small picture of two older people and another of someone who looked similar enough to be a sister hung on the wall. Don found this room to be the more accurate portrayal of the victim. Halligan had a secret vice: computer solitaire. Somehow it made her seem more real.
There were still dirty dishes in the sink and a dishwasher that had been run and not yet unloaded. He and David went swiftly through the rest of the place, noting and discarding everything. The bills had been paid, with the exception of the few that had accumulated over the last few days, and the trash had been taken out the night before the researcher had been murdered. Clearly Alyse Halligan had not anticipated her imminent demise.
Something kept drawing Don back to the computer room. It wasn't the computer itself; David had run through that and had told him that if there was anything suspicious hidden there it would take one of their L.A. experts to drag it out. No, there was the feeling that there was something in plain sight, some clue that would let him know why she had been murdered.
Don shook himself. Dr. Halligan hadn't been the target. It had been Dr. Bostwick, one flight up. Bostwick had called Halligan to his office for a conference about Formula K-19, and they had stood by the window, gazing out over the fields that Caldwell owned. The crops were growing well, courtesy of K-19. There was a flash of light on the hillside, Bostwick said, the glass shattered and Halligan fell to the floor. The sniper had missed, had failed to account for Rufus Gordon's ballistics approach. Halligan had been in the wrong spot at the wrong time, and it had been sheer bad luck that the bullet had struck her chest instead of flattening itself against a wall. Bostwick had escaped with nothing more than a panic attack. And there was nothing here in Halligan's home that would lead them to the killer because Halligan wasn't the intended victim.
"Waste of time," he told David, wondering if he was making a mistake.
"Had to be done."
"Waste of time anyway. Let's get back, see what we can find out about our killer."
"I'll call L.A., see if they've come up with anything on the list of competitors."
"Do that. I'll check on Charlie and Rufus."
"Dr. William Bostwick," David read from the file that had been sent by the home office. "Fifty three years old, Ph.D. in biochemistry from MIT, four major patents and a host of smaller ones to his name, most registered with Caldwell International. Married, two adult children with a grandchild and a half."
"Half a grandchild?"
"Due in April," David clarified. "Well respected in the community, regular contributor to a host of charities. Fond of sponsoring starving artists that he thinks have promise. Wife is the society type, attending a bunch of functions with the same charity theme."
"Real pillar of society type," Colby opined. "Plays golf?"
"Plays golf. Every Sunday at the Eastchester Country Club. Pretty exclusive place. Hefty club dues."
"How'd I guess?" Colby complained, moving on. "Didn't I see something about the head of security in those files you got in, David?"
"You did, Colby. Rosa Nogales, born in Texas, moved here as a kid with her family. Her dad was in the military but was lucky enough to be stationed in one place while she and her seven brothers were growing up."
"Seven brothers? No wonder she's as tough as nails. Had to keep up with them."
"Yeah," David acknowledged. "That's not half of it. Went into the military herself, won base competitions in both martial arts and marksmanship. Honorable discharge, tried to get into law enforcement but couldn't pass the height requirement. Settled for a job with Caldwell and worked her way to the top of the security totem pole within a year." He shrugged doubtfully. "I talked with some of her staff. It may be sour grapes, but a couple of 'em implied that she slept her way up. Wouldn't say any more than that. Except that she likes nice things. Expensive things."
Don frowned. It didn't feel right. "So Nogales is a suspect. She could have been the sniper. She has the skills to do it, she's in the right place, and we have a possible motive: the competition who hired her for a boatload of money. David, do some digging there. See if you can find out anything about her finances, recent transfers of large sums, that sort of thing. What about this competition, the guys who don't want Caldwell International to succeed?"
"There are a few," David acknowledged, scanning the information. "Trouble is, we can't go after them without a little more to go on. We need to track down our killer first and establish a link."
"Getting anywhere with the tire tracks?" Rufus asked.
"Nope. Common type, used to see 'em with a blimp."
"Anyone new in town? Place this size, someone might notice."
"Too busy minding their own business," Colby said. "I talked to some of the Security guys; they checked out that angle. They were conducting their own investigation before Stewart called us in."
Don frowned. "How about the locals? This was a murder, after all. They should have notified the police."
"They did, but this town has a department that numbers all of sixteen, and the patrolmen double as detectives when detecting is needed. Good folks, but an investigation like this is beyond them."
"So why did Stewart tell his own people to back off?" Don asked.
They looked at each other. Colby shrugged.
"I think a little more discussion with Security Chief Nogales is in order," Don decided. "Did we get that file on Stewart himself yet? No? David, that's your baby. Run it down. Anybody got anything else? Charlie? Rufus?"
"Not much—" Rufus started to say but Charlie interrupted.
"Dr. Halligan left some data that needs crunching, some numbers on a couple of spreadsheets. It's not clear yet what it's demonstrating, but I'd like to take a crack at figuring it out."
"You think it's pertinent?" Don asked.
"I won't know until I figure it out. But it was under her password, and in a separate file." Charlie scrunched his eyebrows. "I don't know why I think so, but I think she's trying to tell us something."
"We've got the other stuff to go through," Rufus objected. "There's the K-19 process that they were working on, the one that made Dr. Bostwick a target."
"You work on that," Charlie directed, surprising Don with his directness. "It's mostly chemistry, anyway, not math. I wouldn't be of much use there…" He let his voice trail off, thinking.
"Charlie?"
"Steps," Charlie muttered, still deep in thought.
"Steps?" Rufus started to push forward, but Don put a restraining hand on his arm.
"Hold off," he advised. "Charlie?"
"There were a lot of steps to the process," Charlie mused, his attention clearly elsewhere. He blinked. "Something like fifteen? Find out, Don."
"Important?"
"It could be very important."
Don shrugged, looking at Rufus. "You heard the man. Find out."
