"Post," Remo said, tone bored as he repeated his alias. "Investigating the theft of the cookouts last night."
"Of the what?" Orrin asked, perplexed.
"Those animal jobbies in the paper," Remo said, himself confused. For a moment, he thought he was in the wrong lab. "Didn't you build them here?"
"Oh," Orrin said. "The BBQs. " There was an angry snort from behind a distant closed office door. "That's not their real name," he said, pitching his voice low. "And Dr. White doesn't approve of the nickname."
"She's the one who was here when they were stolen?" Remo queried, jabbing a thumb at the door. Orrin nodded. "Thanks."
Remo headed for Dr. White's office.
"Uh...I don't think you want to see her," Orrin said, hurrying up beside Remo. "Guys? Help?" He glanced around for support, but when Remo's purpose became clear, the rest scattered from the room like frightened cockroaches. Orrin was left alone with the agriculture man.
Remo was steering a beeline for the door.
Orrin had to leap across a desk to get in front of him.
"You really don't want to see her," he insisted.
Remo stopped. "Why not?"
Orrin shot a worried look at the door. He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "For one thing, she's a drug user," he confided. "Heroin, I think."
"The director of this lab uses heroin," Remo said skeptically.
"She shoots up after hours. Some of us have seen her. So far it hasn't affected her work." Orrin considered. "Although I guess it could account for her mood swings. Sometimes she's a real B-I-T-C-H, if you know what I mean."
"Nope, I don't," Remo said. "But then, spelling's not my strong suit. After ten years with the department, I still spell agriculture with two Ks."
"There's a whole psychiatric textbook back there," Orrin whispered, nodding to the door. "Aside from the drug use, she exhibits strong antisocial tendencies and, as far as anyone here can tell, she is one hundred percent, completely and totally amoral. Possibly sociopathic, as well."
"Doesn't sound like the woman who's going to cure world hunger," Remo said.
Orrin bit his lip. "There's some good in everybody, I guess. Dr. White might be a lot of things, but she's also a genius. Maybe she's just misunderstood."
"I'll be sure to put that in my report to the undersecretary for husking and threshing," Remo said. He sidestepped Orrin. Despite frantic gestures from the microbiologist, Remo knocked on the closed office door. Orrin was across the lab and out the front door before Dr. White even had a chance to respond.
"Hurry up and come in already!" a gruff female voice barked in response to Remo's knock.
After the impression he had gotten from the young scientist, Remo wasn't sure precisely what to expect beyond the door. When he pushed the door open, any preconceived notions he might have had melted in a stunned instant.
Dr. Judith White was beautiful. Her black hair was long and full around her face, shaped vaguely in the tousled, confident manner of a lion's mane. Her nose was aquiline, her dark red lips full and inviting. The teardrop shape of her green eyes was vaguely Asian.
As far as her body was concerned, the parts Remo could see as she sat behind her desk would have turned a Playboy model green with envy. When she stood in greeting, he realized that the same model would have gone from green to blue before dropping dead from terminal jealousy. In Dr. Judith White, the female form had achieved a level of physical perfection unheard-of on Earth.
When she smiled, a row of dazzlingly white teeth gleamed brilliantly, framed between perfect lips. The smile was not one of politeness. It was more a perturbed rictus.
"What do you want, Mr. Post?" Judith asked. Remo was confused at her use of his cover name.
"Have we met before, Dr. Boobs?" he asked absently. He was staring at her ample chest.
"What?" she said, voice icy. Her eyes could have cut diamonds.
"Hmm?" Remo asked. He pulled his gaze up to her face. It was an effort. They liked it where they were.
For some reason, Judith seemed annoyed. She scowled as she retook her seat. "I heard you mention your name to Orrin, the Dweeb." She waved a hand toward the lab. "These morons haven't figured out yet that I can hear everything from this office."
Remo looked through the open door to the spot where he had spoken to Orrin Merkel. It seemed too far for her to have heard his conversation with the microbiologist. He was frowning when he turned back to her.
"Washington sent me to investigate the theft of your BBQs," Remo said. He took a seat before her desk.
Cluttered bookshelves lined the walls behind Dr. White and to her left. To the right, half-raised miniblinds opened on the well-tended grounds of BostonBio.
She shuddered, closing her eyes with overemphasized patience. "Please don't call them that," she said.
"Isn't that what everyone's calling them?"
"Everyone's wrong. They are Bos camelus-whitus. BCW would be more accurate than that other ridiculous appellation."
"But nowhere near as lunchbox ready," Remo pointed out.
His smile was not returned.
"Yuck it up, Post," Dr. White said, flat of voice. "In the moment it takes you to chuckle, hundreds of human beings starve all around the world."
"If the alternative's getting mauled by one of your Boss cactus-whiteouts, maybe they're better off," Remo suggested.
Dr. White snorted. "That bookstore owner, right?" she said skeptically. "I'm sick of hearing that one, too. I don't know who killed that guy, but I can guarantee you it wasn't one of my BCWs. They literally would not harm a fly."
She was passionate about the animals, Remo could see. And that passion was possibly blinding her to the fact that the animals she had created might actually be killers. He chose to drop the subject. "Any idea who might have taken them?"
"I already told the Boston police who did it," Judith said crisply. "But in case you didn't know, the mayor in this town is about as dumb as a WB sitcom. He's barred the cops from looking where they should. All because of stupid political correctness. The world is going to starve because of PC politics."
"I'll bite," Remo said. "Where do you think they are?"
This time Judith White's smile was sincere. "HETA," she announced.
Remo frowned. "Where have I heard that before?"
"It's a wacko animal-rights group," she explained, sinking back in her chair. "Humans for the Egalitarian Treatment of Animals. They have an ad campaign on TV I'm sure you've seen. They sponsor all sorts of animal-adoption stuff, fight animal testing in labs, that kind of thing. Celebrity endorsers line up around the block for them."
"Oh, yeah." Remo nodded. "What makes you think they're the ones who stole your animals?"
"Someone in this lab has loose lips," Judith said. "Whoever it is must have bragged about my breakthrough. Since the birth of the first Bos camelus-whitus eight months ago, HETA has been stepping up activity against BostonBio."
"Maybe it's a coincidence," Remo suggested.