"Murder In The Solid State" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mccarthy Wil)

"No, Your Honor," the assistant DA echoed, less quickly and with considerably less enthusiasm.
"Very well then. Bailiff, will you please uncuff the suspect?" He turned once more to David. "Mr. Sanger, we're going to return you to the police station, where your personal effects will be returned to you. Be aware there's some paperwork involved in outprocessing, particularly since the investigation is still open."
"Thank you, Your Honor," Bowser said, elbowing David in the ribs as he rose from his seat.
"Thank you, Your Honor," David agreed. He did not say, "It's been a pleasure."




CHAPTER SIX

Hey, don't get mad at me," Mike Puckett was saying. "You don't like the paperwork, I'm sorry. We'll be charged penalties if we don't keep the proper records, and I am personally committed to seeing that doesn't happen. Hey, if you go wrong with those papers I need to know about it. We are asking for it for the law, because we need to know the information. You are the law, OK? You and me and everyone else, let's try to make it work."
"That's a nice speech," Bowser said. He was still looking around, still amazed at the splendor of the hotel's lobby. Bowser didn't amaze easily.
"Twenty pages of forms does seem a little excessive," David muttered. "I wonder what you need with all that information."
Puckett shook his head. "Just be glad they let you come back here. They didn't have to, you know." "They sure as hell did," Bowser said, bristling.
This time, it was David's turn to wave Bowser to silence. Enough. Enough.
He'd emerged, squinting at the late-afternoon sunlight, from Baltimore's Druid Lake District PD, and had vowed at that moment to put the whole affair behind him. He'd traded handshakes and small talk with Henry Chong, who had waited there patiently all day, forgoing the all-important AMFRI conference in his concern for David's safety, and then he and Henry had climbed into Bowser's Jeep and returned, as instructed, to the conference hotel.
It bothered David that the police could "instruct" him where to go, but of course he was still a murder suspect, still required to check in with the investigating officer, still required to log his movements and activities.
"I'm glad you're here," Puckett confided, to David and Henry Chong both. He waved a thick document at them. "I need a hand with this nanotechnology stuff. Someone gave me a copy of the conference proceedings, but I still have no idea what's going on here."
"How can we help you?" Henry asked.
Puckett waved the proceedings in the air again. "Some of these people were the victim's enemies, or detractors, or rivals. Some of these people are working in areas related to the victim's research. Some of these people stand to profit handsomely now that the Sniffer King is dead, and I'd like you guys to tell me who they are."
" 'Simplifying Assumptions in Gene Sequence Programming,' " Bowser read from the document's back cover as Puckett waved and pointed with it. " 'Proteins and Polymers, a Trade Study. Prevention of Ribosome Dissolution in DMSO-Based Suspensions.' Yeesh. David, is this really what you do for a living?"
Henry Chong nodded his head at Puckett. "This murder is a tragedy, Special Agent, and a disgrace on our profession. We will be happy to assist you in any way we can."
"Here, wait," David said, pulling a pen from his shirt pocket and clicking it to highlighter mode. "Give me that book, and we'll go through it. Can we use your table?"
"Absolutely," Puckett said. "Security is setting up an office for me on the second floor, but for the moment, mi mesa es su mesa." With a flourish, he stepped aside, letting David set the book down and spread it out at its contents page. Henry crowded in next to him.
"Once more," Henry said quietly, "let me say I'm relieved to see you free. I never doubted your innocence."
"Uh, thanks." David shrugged uncomfortably. Then, he spied something on the page in front of him. "Fiske. Robin Fiske."
"Ah," Henry said, nodding.
David ran his highlighter over the name, and the title of the associated paper: "New Avenues in Enzyme Switching." "Cool," he said after checking his watch. "Presentation is in forty minutes. Last show of the day. This looks good; I want to go."
He looked up pointedly at Mike Puckett. "If it's OK with you." His tone betrayed his resentment. He hadn't spent two hours on the crowded, run-down train from Philly to get in any swordfights, to get arrested, to spend his time as a murder suspect or an FBI informant. He'd already missed dozens of presentations, including two of his own, but he was here in Baltimore as a scientist, damn it, and it was high time he looked at some science.
"Who is Robin Fiske?" Puckett asked neutrally, not visibly fazed by David's ire.
"She is a scientist, inventor," Henry said, looking up from the conference proceedings. "Do you know the word enzyme?"
Puckett frowned slightly. "That's like a hormone, isn't it?"
"Similar," Henry agreed. "An enzyme catalyzes a chemical reaction. It, uh, speeds up. Sometimes inside a living organism, sometimes in the laboratory or the factory. One type of reaction, only, per enzyme. You understand this?"
"I guess. How is Robin Fiske connected with this?"
"Fiske invented switchable enzymes. Two shapes, sometimes three, to catalyze different reactions without changing solution."
"And Otto Vandegroot stopped her," Puckett said, catching on.
"Blew her off the map," David mourned. "It sucked; we really needed that stuff."
Henry nodded. "Switching was accomplished with chemical triggers. The American courts ruled that this broke, uh, violated Vandegroot's sniffer patents."
"Wait a minute," David said, suddenly uneasy. "What happens now? We've given you her name; does that make her a suspect? Are you going to take her downtown?" And chain her to a wall? he did not say.
"We just want to talk to her," Puckett said mildly. "I'll put her name on the interview list. And yes, you can go see her presentation, if you finish helping me with this list first."
"Wow, thanks," David said. "Can I make a phone call, too?"
"Sure," Puckett agreed, his smile crisp with professional courtesy.

"It's the jailbird," Marian said with some surprise. "Are you out? Are you OK?"
"Well, I'm out," David said.
"Did they find the killer, then?" Her expression was alert, interested. Things like this did not ordinarily happen, and perhaps that had awakened the reporter within her. Too, there was likely some genuine concern for his welfare. Marian felt things, he suspected, rather more deeply than she let on.
"No," David said, "they just released me for lack of evidence. Not that they didn't try."
She quirked an eyebrow. "You are innocent, I hope?"
"Yes." He felt no more than a flicker of outrage. Why did everyone keep asking him that?
Marian slipped him an easy grin. "The killer is still at large, then? Wow, I bet that livens up the conference a bit. You were right, I should have come with you."