“This is the home of Kevin Hamilton. If you are calling from a touchtone phone and would like to hang up, please press one now. If you are selling something or asking for money, please press one now. Otherwise, leave a message and I’ll get back to you.” The beep sounded, and he heard Erica’s voice.
“Kevin, it’s me. Give me a call when you get back…”
Kevin ran into the bedroom and snatched up the phone. “Erica. I’m here.” He stopped the recorder as he spoke. “I’m sorry you missed the party last night.”
“Me too, but I had a, uh, personal matter that came up.” Her voice was cautious.
“What happened?”
“Money problems. I don’t really want to talk about it.”
“Me neither.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Are you all right?” Kevin asked.
“I’m fine,” she said, but she didn’t sound fine. She sounded as if she had been up all night, and Kevin knew that she wasn’t supposed to go on her ER rotation until this afternoon. He wasn’t going to press the issue.
“Do you want to get lunch?” he said.
“Maybe. I was going to try to get some more sleep before I leave for the hospital, but that may not happen. I was just calling because…Have you seen the news today?”
“You mean about Dr. Ward?”
“So it’s the same Ward you’ve told me about?”
“The one who fired me, yes.” Kevin went over to the printer and picked up the printout. “Funny you should ask. I just got an email from him.”
“What do you mean?” Erica said. “Today?”
“Just a few minutes ago. It was sent yesterday afternoon.”
Kevin read the message to her.
“That’s weird,” Erica said. “Are you going to call the police?”
“The police? I hadn’t gotten that far.”
“I heard something about arson on the radio.”
“They said they aren’t ruling out arson, but they always say that.”
“Do you know who Stein or Clay are?”
“I had a high school math teacher named Joshua Clay, but I don’t think that’s him.”
“Do you know what any of it means?” Erica asked. “What about that code?”
“It looks familiar, but I can’t put my finger on it. We never used a code in the lab. But I do know what NV117 means. It was an experiment we were doing for the Department of Energy on superconductivity using a new kind of chemical structure.”
“Superconductivity? Would somebody killed him for it?”
“I can’t imagine why. The experiment was a total failure. In fact, it was the one that got me fired. As far as I know, he stopped all work on it after the accident. Even if it wasn’t a failure like the message said, it wouldn’t have been groundbreaking. Certainly nothing worth killing for. We’re probably getting worked up over nothing. Some people in the department said he was a drinker. He was probably wasted when he wrote it.” He told her his theory about the cigarette.
“That’s certainly possible. I’ve seen three alcoholics in the ER who’ve burnt themselves with cigarettes. Still, the police should probably know about the message.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m just trying to avoid it because I also know it’s going to be a hassle. They might want me to go down to the station.”
“What about lunch?” Erica said.
“I’ll call you back when I know. In the meantime, try to take a nap. You sound beat.”
“Thanks.”
Kevin hung up, thumbed through the white pages, and dialed the number for police headquarters. There wasn’t really any reason to call 911.
He was put on hold three times as staff at the police station shuffled his call around to various departments. Each time someone new answered, he had to explain the situation all over again. As he waited for someone in Homicide to pick up, Kevin thought that at least his day couldn’t get any stranger.
Lobec and Bern listened as a female voice on the line said, “Homicide. Detective Chambers speaking.”
“Detective Chambers,” Kevin Hamilton said, “I hope I’ve finally got the right person. I have a message from Dr. Michael Ward-you know, the guy who died in the house fire last night?”
“What is your name, sir?” The voice was curt.
There was a pause. “Uh, my name’s Kevin Hamilton, one of Dr. Ward’s students. He sent me e-mail telling me that the same men who had killed Stein were after him. It seemed suspicious, so I thought I’d better let you know.”
“I don’t know who this Ward guy is, but Stein is Guy Robley’s case.”
There was another pause, this time longer. “You mean, there really is someone named Stein?”
“Herbert Stein was found Saturday morning in a vacant lot near the Astrodome. Shot twice and loaded into a dumpster. Look, Detective Robley isn’t here right now, but he should be back in about twenty minutes. Can he call you back then?”
“Wow. Okay. I’ll stay here.” He gave her the number. “Please have him call me as soon as he gets in.”
“All right.” Two clicks could be heard. Bern began to speak, but Lobec lifted his hand as another number was dialed. The LCD panel in front of him displayed the number of the girl named Erica Jensen, who they had already identified with their caller ID unit. The line was busy, and Hamilton hung up the phone. He tried twice more and then seemed to give up.
Finally, Lobec lowered his hand, and Bern spoke.
“We can’t let him talk to the cops.”
“You are correct. It’s unfortunate that we did not know of Hamilton’s involvement in NV117 previously.” Lobec pulled out his SIG Sauer P230, a compact weapon easily concealed and modified to accommodate a silencer. He chambered a round and replaced it in his shoulder holster. “It would have been so much easier.”
“We going now?” Bern checked his badge and identification and grimaced again when he saw his alias.
“No, that would be unrealistic. The police would never arrive so quickly. Even so, we don’t have much time. We will wait ten minutes. If anyone calls in that time, we will need to surprise him. Otherwise, we can introduce ourselves to him in the usual fashion.”
CHAPTER 7
After shaving and changing into more presentable clothes, Kevin tried calling Erica again. Busy. He laid the receiver in the cradle, put his slippers back on, and walked back to the living room, plopping himself on the couch. Headline News was into the next half hour, but he switched it to the local channel to see if he could find out anything about this Stein. Damn, he wished he got the paper.
Kevin was still confused by the events of the last two hours, and he played them over in his mind to see if any of it made sense, to try to put it together into some rational explanation. No. First, he needed to start with the facts. One, his professor and the professor’s wife were dead, supposedly from a house fire. Two, he received e-mail from Dr. Ward claiming-wait, change that-from Dr. Ward’s e-mail
Which left him with what? He looked at the printout again. He wished he could believe that this was all an elaborate hoax, that somebody owed him for a joke he had pulled at one time, but he was too much of a realist to believe it. Even the nerds in his chemistry department wouldn’t stoop to something like this.
That left a high probability that the message really was from Dr. Ward. Three dead people. Maybe all of them
