The Heirloom Murders - Kathleen Ernst [108]
“Roelke!” Chloe glanced over her shoulder before ushering him inside. “We were, um, just sitting down to breakfast. Want some granola?”
The thought of munching granola across the table from Meili made Roelke want to puke. “No thanks. Some stuff got wrapped up last night. I figured you’d want to know.”
They all settled in the living room. Chloe brought Roelke a cup of coffee, and he took a bracing sip. He wasn’t sure how much Meili knew, so he started by summarizing what he’d learned about Guest’s and Sabatola’s childhoods from Roxie. “They both had hard times as kids. Sabatola’s mother abandoned him to his step-father. Guest and his mother were homeless for a while.”
Alpine Boy crossed his arms. “Is he using poverty as an excuse for what he did?”
“I’m just telling you what I know. Guest was heavy into science stuff, but couldn’t afford college. Sabatola got a job in his step-daddy’s company, and hired Guest. The two caused a lot of trouble together, but once the shit hit the fan, both of them shoveled dirt on the other as fast as they could.”
“Nice guys,” Chloe said bitterly.
“Roxie was part of the Sabatola-Guest gang when they were all kids,” Roelke added. “I don’t know if Simon still went to her bar once a week to relax, or to remind himself of how far he’d risen. Anyway, I saw them arguing at Bonnie’s funeral. Roxie told me later that she’d asked for a five thousand dollar loan so she could go to cosmetology school. That’s chump change for Sabatola, but he wouldn’t do it. When I threatened her with prosecution for helping run me off the road, she started telling tales pretty quick.”
Chloe shuddered. “It’s all so creepy.”
“Back to Guest,” Roelke said. “He’s been doing research about old-time plants.”
Chloe and Markus exchanged a glance. “We got that part,” Chloe said. “But why?”
“Alan Sabatola is expanding his chemical division to include plant genetics, and—”
“Of course!” Meili exclaimed. “Alan is buying into the agrochemical revolution. There’s no way Simon and Guest could beat him at his own game, so they decided to do the exact opposite!”
“Looking to the past,” Chloe added, “instead of falling in with the chemical corporations’ vision of world monopolies!”
“It’s a brilliant strategy,” Meili mused. “Completely unexpected.”
Meili and Chloe had just grasped a scheme that Roelke was still struggling to comprehend.
“Some of the board members evidently have qualms about Alan’s approach, which involves engineering crops that are dependent on pesticides AgriFutures is already making,” Roelke said. “It’s just like you were telling me, Chloe. Guest and Sabatola wanted to impress the board by coming up with something new, something that moved into Alan’s area of expertise, and something that sounded more ethical than Alan’s empire-building plan.”
“I finally guessed they were after those rare Swiss flower seeds,” Chloe said, “but I still don’t understand why. The flower is pretty, and the old Swiss people used it to make cheese that had medicinal properties. But AgriFutures can’t transport cheese to the Third World!”
Meili frowned. “And how did Guest know about the plant anyway?”
“After Mr. and Mrs. Burke were killed in that car crash, Bonnie took her mother’s garden journals home,” Roelke said. “Guest found one and read about that Swiss plant—”
“Käseklee,” Meili supplied.
Roelke forced himself to unclench his jaw. “Käseklee,” he repeated. “Someone in Eagle gave seeds to Mrs. Burke’s great-grandmother years ago, and she recorded how they’d been used. Guest was intrigued by accounts of the healing properties of this special cheese—”
“Grünen Schabzieger,” Meili said. This time Chloe gave him a tiny frown.
“—and he developed this theory about the whey,” Roelke continued doggedly. “I even heard him discussing it on the phone once, but I didn’t realize what he was saying.” That’s not the way I want …, Guest had said. And, We can’t apply for the patent until I’m sure that this is the way I—” Except Guest had been saying whey, not way.
Meili—once again—nodded with instant comprehension. “For years whey was