Bee Conspiracy, page 5
The two men walked up the steps of the building and inside the front door. At the end of the hallway was a door that read:
Department Chair: Entomology
Gordon Lund walked through the door. He was met by the chair’s personal assistant. “Is he in?” Lund asked without any niceties.
“He’s in a meeting. Do you have an appointment?” the assistant asked.
Lund barged right through the anteroom into the main office suite. The chairman pored over some charts with a pretty graduate student in a polka dot dress. He got up from behind the desk. “Gordon, I wish you had called.”
“No time. I need to get into Howard’s office. We need the prototype for the contract manufacturer.”
“I thought you had the prototype?” the chairman inquired.
“We don’t. It must be in his office. We have to get in there as soon as possible. The production run depends on it. As you know, the university’s cut depends on the success of this venture.”
“You found a buyer? I thought everyone had passed on the technology.”
“You let me worry about the buyer,” Gordon replied cryptically.
“Sharon let’s take this up later,” the chairman offered to the graduate student in polka dots. He grabbed a ring of keys off a hook near the bulletin board and led Lund and Tan out and down the hallway.
They paused at a door that read Howard Skulberry, PhD and the chairman started to fumble through key after key to see which one would fit. Lund tapped his foot on the ground impatiently. Finally, a key fit. The door finally opened. Gordon Lund and Mr. Tan burst in. They proceeded to ransack the shelves and drawers of Howard Skulberry’s desk in search of this missing prototype.
***
Duke lived on a quiet street in a district of Los Angeles called the Carthay. Its anchor was a traffic circle lined by quaint shops called Carthay Circle. The site was the location of a historic palace movie theater until they tore it down to put up a generic office building in 1969. Two blocks away from this building lay Duke’s house. It was a small, modest structure in the Spanish revival tradition so common in Los Angeles, beneath a willow and magnolia tree. The landscaping and the exterior of the home were well maintained. Duke prided himself on it.
Kelso’s RV sat in the middle of the driveway. Its solar panels reflected the sun as it set in the West. Duke walked around the Winnebago and noticed it was leaking oil on the concrete. He immediately banged on the door of the vehicle. Kelso emerged eating a burger and French fries. “You’re leaking oil on my driveway!” he barked.
“Sorry. I just filled up,” Kelso answered.
“You filled it with oil?”
“French fry oil. The engine runs on biofuel. I couldn’t find any at the gas station so I asked your local burger joint for a few bottles from their fryer. By the way they make a really good burger. Have you tried them?”
“Yes, I am familiar with their burgers!” Duke replied.
“Sorry about the oil. I’ll clean it up. I’ve got some biodegradable cleanser somewhere in here. You want to see the menagerie?”
“No, I do not want to see your menagerie! Whatever that is!”
“It’s a zoo.”
Duke didn’t even reply. He doubled back and walked into his house. The phone was ringing and he picked it up quickly. Duke was one of those people who still had a land line. His cell phone was good for only texting and voice calls. No emojis. Duke would not ever be caught dead using an emoji. “Hello?” he barked.
“Duke, it’s J.D.,” a voice on the other end replied.
Duke looked from side to side to make sure no one was within hearing distance. “What’s the word?”
“You was set up. They told the kid his initiation was to grab that girl as soon as you left the tavern. They knew you would have a couple of beers in you.”
“But how did they make me off-duty?”
“You wear those khaki cargo pants with the blue polo shirt. You might as well put a big bullseye on your back.” Duke looked at himself in the mirror. Since getting home he had changed into his favorite lounge wear: the very same khaki cargo pants with a blue polo.
“Do they know where I live?” Duke asked.
“Nah. Don’t think so. They just know your drinking hole.”
Duke looked out the window. The RV was still dripping French fry oil on his driveway. “I want you boys to do me a favor.”
“Anything for you, Duke.”
“I’ve got someone that needs an unwelcome mat to Los Angeles.”
Chapter Six
Gordon Lund’s search of Howard Skulberry’s office had not turned up anything so far. The desk was a lost cause, filled with paper clips, reams of paper, file folders and a few packs of chewing gum. Lund emptied the drawers of the bureau next, revealing a selection of rare butterfly photographs, some beetles and moths encased in amber and a few boxes of tissues. There was no sign of any prototype. In the back of the room was a wardrobe. Mr. Tan turned his attention to that, thinking he would find some coats inside.
But it turned out this was not a wardrobe after all. Inside the doors were stacked drawers. On top of the drawers there was a dehumidifier. Tan opened one of the drawers and found a row of black mahogany boxes with glass fronts. You could see rare butterflies of various kinds and scarab beetles that looked like jewels. Mr. Tan showed one of them to Gordon Lund. “It’s an insect specimen box. Open it,” he ordered.
Mr. Tan complied. He opened the case, revealing fragile desiccated butterflies and beetles. He fingered each one, making sure they were authentic. Most of the specimens crumbled in his fingers.
“Please don’t do that!” the department chair begged. “They will all be ruined!”
But Mr. Tan grabbed another specimen box and opened it. He in turn fingered each of those samples. Beautiful butterfly wings disintegrated. The chairman of the department winced. “What makes you think that it would be with the butterflies?” he asked.
“I will leave no stone unturned,” replied Lund as he barreled through another specimen box. “The prototype belongs to us. We provided the majority of the seed money for this project.” Other small, rare insects fell on the floor as he searched each compartment of the display box. Lund grabbed another box.
The chairman was mortified at the callous disregard for these rare museum quality specimens. “Let me! Let me! Those are vintage dragonflies! There’s no reason he would have put the prototype there.” He wrenched the box from Lund’s hands and carefully opened it, doing his best to preserve the specimens. He lifted each specimen carefully and showed Lund that there was nothing behind them. “You see? Not here. We’ve now been through this entire office!”
“He hid the thing somewhere,” Mr. Tan replied.
“What about his lab?” Lund asked.
They went down to the basement where Skulberry’s lab was located. It was a small, sterile two room space containing a couple of microscopes, light boxes, a spectrometer and drawer after drawer of dissection equipment. Gordon Lund was losing patience. He started to empty each drawer on the floor in order to speed up the search. Mr. Tan did the same.
The chairman merely threw up his arms in a gesture of surrender. “Sometimes these things happen when people die unexpectedly,” he offered.
“That’s not good enough. We have a lot riding on this prototype and you had better hope we find it.”
“What about the schematics?” the chairman asked.
“The schematics are missing too,” Lund replied. “Why do you think the prototype is so important?”
“He was always secretive but I had no idea he took the schematics,” the chairman retorted.
“They weren’t his to take,” said Mr. Tan. “We have a large ownership stake in the IP.” The men continued rifling through every drawer in Howard Skulberry’s lab.
***
The sun rose over Carthay circle, silhouetting the tall palm trees that bordered the neighborhood. The real estate developers of the 1920s and 1930s lined the major streets of their tracts with Mexican fan palms to define them. Here in 2023 the mature trees remained, tall as ever, keeping watch over the homes below. Duke looked out his kitchen window at the lush leaves and poured himself a cup of percolated coffee. He was not a cold-drip or latte man, he just liked a good black coffee brewed in an electric percolator. Like his mom had made every day before she went to work in the college cafeteria kitchen.
He was interrupted from his trip down memory lane by a knock at the front door. It was Kelso. Duke reluctantly answered. He noticed Kelso’s clean, freshly pressed uniform. He carried a box of cereal, a banana, a bowl and some crumb donuts. “May I borrow a cup of milk?” he asked.
Duke grunted an unenthusiastic assent and Kelso slid through the door. He placed the box of donuts on the table. “Help yourself,” he said.
“I’m on a fitness program,” Duke averred.
“Sorry,” Kelso said. “I should have asked.”
“Milk is in the fridge,” Duke said as he pointed to the stainless steel side by side in the corner. Kelso opened it and found the carton. The fridge was poorly stocked, although there were several bottles of flavored vodka in the door.
Kelso poured some cereal into his bowl and then topped it off with the milk. He stared at a can of Raid on the windowsill. “That stuff kills you, you know,” he opined.
“What?” Duke asked. He had his nose in the newspaper now.
“The ant killer?” Kelso said. He pointed at the aerosol can of pesticide. “The poison lodges in your fatty tissues.”
“Good thing I’m not fat,” Duke retorted.
“So you’re okay with a slow death, then?” Kelso asked.
“Life is a slow death. I prefer mine without ants crawling in my kitchen.”
“You can fix that by simply removing the crumbs and food that attract them.”
“Are you saying my kitchen isn’t clean? After I just gave you a glass of my milk?”
Kelso sighed and looked out the window as he took a bite of his cereal. There was a small guest house in the backyard. It had a quaint porch with some green hanging plants swaying in the wind. Next to them was a one-hundred-pound Everlast heavy bag. Duke’s thirty-one year old daughter, Beryl Ann Wayne, emerged out of her front door in workout gear. A headband held her silky hair back and the end was tied in a pony tail. She placed some neon colored boxing gloves on her hands and earbuds in her ears.
Kelso tried not to stare but he couldn’t look away as this woman put a left jab to the bag, right jab to the bag, then a short dance move. Then she did the same with her kicks. She popped a left kick, right kick, then did a twirl. She did a hook kick, then a crescent kick, then two uppercuts. Topped it off with an electric slide. Kelso took another bite of his cereal. He was smitten. Duke, watching this, shook his head and cranked open the window to let in some fresh air.
Beryl wound down the workout and walked off her porch into Duke’s backyard. She sniffed a couple of fluffy white roses and smiled. The smile was short-lived. She noticed several dead leaves and shriveled rosebuds around the stems of the plant and frowned. She sighed with a shoulder shrug and walked straight through Duke’s back door.
“The roses are covered in aphids. I kill every plant I touch,” she announced to no one in particular.
Duke barely looked up from his newspaper. “Good morning, Beryl,” he said in a bored tone, as if he had her this complaint many times.
“Morning, Daddy,” she replied, calming down slightly.
Duke went to the percolator and poured himself another cup of coffee. “I bought you some of those energy drinks you like. They’re in the fridge.”
She walked across the kitchen, paying Kelso no notice. She opened the refrigerator door and grabbed a bottle of super-juice energy concentrate. “Can you pick me up tonight around six?” she asked. “My car’s going to be at the mechanic.”
Duke nodded. “Sure, Punkin.”
Kelso cleared his throat to make sure Beryl saw he was there. She finally took notice. “Who’s your friend?” she asked her father.
Kelso stepped forward. “I’m Special Agent Kelso Bagley of the department of U.S. Fish and Wildlife.” He was almost standing at attention, like his commanding officer had walked in the room.
“Stand down, soldier,” Beryl replied. “I didn’t ask for your rank and serial number.”
“Your dad and I are on assignment,” Kelso informed her. Duke sighed and stayed behind his newspaper. Beryl suddenly noticed something. A large beetle was on Kelso’s shoulder. It had a black shiny body with yellow wings.
“Stay still!” Beryl warned. She grabbed a fly swatter on the windowsill and lifted it high in the air, cocking her wrist back to flick it.
“No!” Kelso cried. He put his hand up in defense of the insect. “This is one of my specimens! It’s a rainbow leaf beetle! They’re very rare.”
“You brought that in here on purpose?”
“Yes. They eat fruit scraps!” He held up his half-eaten banana. “I am going to give it my peel after I finish!”
Beryl was disgusted. “Get. That. Thing. Out. Of this house. Now.”
Kelso did not waste any time as she still held up the fly swatter which could easily deliver a lethal blow to his mascot. He skulked through the door and walked outside.
***
It was a picture-perfect day on the farm. Large fleecy clouds drifted in the sky. Albert Fossil sat on the porch rocking chair and puffed on his vape pipe as he gazed out towards the edge of the property. It was surrounded by barbed wire fences. Security cameras were mounted to almost every fence post. The hum of electricity could be heard. The barbed wire was electrified just in case anyone got the dumb idea to climb it.
There was a nondescript gate at the entrance to the farm. A Lincoln Aviator pulled up and several lights on poles automatically came on. The gate opened and the car pulled up the dirt road towards the house.
Fossil looked at his watch as the vehicle pulled up to the farmhouse. He had obviously been expecting this visitor. Gordon Lund emerged from the vehicle with Mr. Tan. “Don’t you look like Pa Kettle, sitting up there on your rocking chair, smoking your pipe?”
Fossil looked at him deadpan.
“It’s an old movie. Guess you never saw it.”
“No, I didn’t. Why the meeting?” Fossil asked. “I got work to do.”
Gordon Lund bristled. “The toy is missing.”
“You think he took it?”
“Most likely.”
“We already looked all through his office and his home,” Mr. Tan explained.
Fossil was not fazed. “So make another one,” he replied.
“There’s no time. Besides, we can’t find the schematics. Skulberry pulled them from the contract manufacturing organization without our knowledge.”
“When?”
“Obviously before he died!”
“What do you want me to do?” Fossil asked. “This is a ‘you’ problem.”
“There is no you in we. Remember that,” Lund gritted his teeth in frustration. “I want you to help find it.”
“I don’t have the time.”
“You will make the time. If we don’t have the toy, we don’t make the production run. If there’s no production run, we have no product.” He held up a small key and jangled it.
“What’s that?”
“We found it in his house. Looks like a safe deposit box key.”
“So go to his bank,” Fossil replied.
“It’s not that simple. Probate kicks in so no one gets access until his will is reviewed.” He handed the key over to Fossil.
“I can’t do it.”
“Oh I have confidence in you,” Lund replied. “You have many resources at your disposal.”
Fossil stared at Lund. He got the not-so-subtle hint.
***
“Don’t go getting any ideas about my daughter,” Duke warned as he and Kelso walked into the homicide squad room.
Kelso didn’t get a chance to answer before Detective Peters called him over from one of the workstations by the window. “Hey! Bagley! The HR people at the university gave us access to his emails! I’ve been going through some of them. Take a look at this. This lady keeps coming up.”
Duke wanted to strangle Peters. He was doing everything he could to put this fool’s errand to an end and Peters was encouraging it! “Why don’t you ease off and let us work the case, Peters!”
“Just trying to help out a fellow officer in need,” shrugged Peters as Kelso approached his desk. He showed off a photo of an attractive cosmetologist.
“Thank you, I appreciate it,” Kelso answered.
“Meet Alora Maxwell, she runs an expensive beauty clinic on the Westside. Get this. They market bee venom,” Peters dished.
“What?” Duke replied as he strode over.
Kelso nodded. “Yeah. It’s used as an alternative to Botox. The bee venom stimulates an anti-inflammatory response which causes the skin to manufacture more collagen.” This was old hat to him.
“She sounds pretty irate at our vic in several of these emails. Like fighting mad. She’s definitely got motive.”
“Are you kidding me?” Duke asked. “I’d be fighting mad too if I injected bee venom into my face.”
“We should have a word with her for sure,” Kelso replied as he skimmed her latest email.
“Wait. You want to go over there now? The traffic is going to be murder.”
“You’re on the clock,” Peters replied. “What else would you be doing? Cleaning the white boards? Polishing the Captain’s softball trophies?”
“Peters, you’re really trying to trigger me, aren’t you?”
“I want to see Bagley get his man. Don’t you?”
Duke marched over to the reception desk where he had been located since the ad leave. He muttered and grabbed his keys. “Come on, Westside it is,” he yelled at Kelso. Kelso grabbed his hat and they headed out.
