Page 143 - Labelle Gramercy, Detective

Airtight

for naught. They were just scraps of paper in a folder to be stapled
together and filed away.”
“Did you kill Dr. Reath?” demanded Blanche.
Waldo coughed out a dry little laugh. “You might think so, and I
wouldn’t blame you. But, no, I didn’t. I had no reason to kill her. You
all know that, don’t you?”
Ray had something to say on that subject, but Larry Kapil
intervened. “We most assuredly do, Waldo. And if I may quote the
Bible, ‘let he who is without sin cast the first stone.’” He flashed a
look of disapprobation at Ray. “It appears that several lapses in
judgement have occurred during the course of the experiment, most
or all of which have quite innocent explanations.”
Waldo shook his head again. “Mine does not look innocent at all.
Chemical pesticides were strictly forbidden inside the dome. If
Semotech, for instance, were to find out about this, the whole trial
would be in question. So why did I risk it, why did I pack the damned
thing in my supply box and try to hide it in the tool shed? I’m glad
Toro isn’t here to hear this. He’d probably break my neck for being
such a fool. He had confidence in his methods of controlling
parasites with organic remedies. I did not. I guess I’m just old-
fashioned, paradoxical as that sounds: too much faith in the
technological fix. So I wanted a back-up, in case some resistant larvae
managed to hitch a ride into the dome despite all our efforts. I was
prepared to come out during Toro’s sleep periods and dust the
crops.”
“Oh, my God.” Ray clutched at his receding hairline. “You’re as
bad as I am, Waldo. And all the time I was looking up to you, the
man who had seen the stars from the upper atmosphere, the man
who would take our biotechnology into the twenty-first century.”
Waldo didn’t get it. “As bad as you, Ray? I’ve never seen anyone
so conscientious about record-keeping.”
“We can go into that later,” said Larry hastily.
“Anyway, I did it. Once it was inside the dome with us and I saw
how effective Toro’s techniques were, I had plenty of time to repent.
I couldn’t get rid of the damned thing, of course, so I just bided my
time until the end of the year, when I intended to sneak the bottle
out just as I had sneaked it in. I swear I never even opened it, much
less sprinkled it in Dr. Reath’s Ovaltine.”

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