Gray Matter

53

“Going back up there is outright insubordination, and you know that, Greg.”

Because of the traffic, he didn’t return to the office until nearly five. And the dispatcher said that Gelford wanted to see him in his office immediately.

Again, Gelford was not alone, but flanked by Chief Norm Adler and Internal Affairs Officer Rick Bolduk. Something told Greg that they were not here because of tardiness.

Gelford, of course, was ripped because Greg had gone against his notice to drop the Sagamore Boy case— which meant that this was a mano a mano thing—a personal offense against his supervisor who prided himself on running his ship on uncompromised discipline. But Gelford would hear him out first.

“I realize that, but I’m telling you, there’s a connection. What I need is a court order for that database.”

“And what’s that going to do?”

“It’s going to let me cross-reference missing children from three and four years ago with kids who were part of the SchoolSmart program.”

“Because one of your skull kids happened to take a test?”

“Yeah, and because three dead kids had similar holes in their skulls and two of them are linked to the Nova Children’s Center. And two of the three kids were very smart, and a fourth unknown and still alive has the same kind of holes. And I want a court order to obtain his identity and check his medical records. He too could be in their files.”

“Before you go banging on some judge’s door, you’ve got to have evidence that a crime’s been committed,” Rick Bolduk said. “All I’m hearing is circumstantial evidence.”

“I’ve got the testimony from two doctors who are convinced that these kids might have undergone some experimental procedure. And one of those kids, Grady Dixon, was kidnapped and possibly murdered. So was the Sagamore kid. That’s evidence enough for me.”

“They’re not our jurisdiction. None of them. We don’t own them,” Gelford said, his face turning red again. “One kid’s from Tennessee. The Sagamore kid is from God knows where.” He picked up the schematic of the North Shore boy’s X rays. “And this kid’s still wearing his head. There’s no goddamn crime.”

“There’s one more thing,” Greg said. “Two neurophysicians say that these patterns trace the areas of the brain associated with intelligence and memory.”

“So?”

“It’s possible some kind of experiment is being done on kids’ brains, maybe tampering with intelligence or memory. I don’t know, but I think it’s something nasty and should be investigated.”

All three of them stared at Greg as if he had just reported the landing of Martian spaceships.

Gelford, who was nearsighted, removed his glasses and picked up a fax lying on some other papers. “While you were gallivanting around the North Shore today, a Reed Callahan was severely beaten up and hospitalized by Mr. Ethan Cox. And in case you don’t recognize the latter’s name, he was assigned to you last week on the school break-in, and had you done your job and questioned these kids and brought him in as you were supposed to, Cox would have been behind bars before he tried to shut up the Callahan boy who’s now in the ICU of Cape Cod Hospital with a fucking concussion.” Gelford’s face was purple with rage.

“I got held up in traffic.”

“Maybe you were, but something tells me your distraction with this skull shit has compromised your attention, your efforts, and your abilities to fulfill your assigned duties. This Callahan kid may not come out of his coma. He might also die because Cox took a baseball bat to him, and you could have stopped him because he’s got three previous assaults on his record and two B and Es. He’s a fucking animal, and you didn’t go after him but flew off to Cape Ann to look for skulls.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not as sorry as I am, because you’ve disobeyed orders and turned a blind eye to everything else on your desk, and a kid’s in a coma as a result.”

Gelford then opened his desk drawer and pulled out a letter and handed it to Greg.

Greg felt his heart slump. He didn’t have to ask its contents. He was being suspended.

“I wish it didn’t have to come to this,” Gelford said. “But you were put on notice, you were given a verbal and written reprimand, and you chose to violate department policies.”

“How long?”

“One month with pay until a hearing on a determination of guilt.” Then Gelford added, “As corny as it may sound, we live by discipline in this department, and you pissed on it.”

Greg looked at the letter, aware that they probably viewed him as a crazy man on a mission, a cop who saw things that they discounted as patently foolish. It was possible that they even suspected that he had made it all up about the doctors and Nova Children’s Center.

Technically, Gelford was right: They were not bound to crimes in another jurisdiction, especially when it was questionable that a crime had been committed. His lone hunches weren’t enough. The long and the short of it was that he was no longer credible or reliable in their eyes. Possibly even psychotic.

“Sorry, Greg,” said Chief Adler. “You have a right to a hearing, of course, but in the meantime I must ask you to clean out your locker and turn in your badge and weapon.”

Greg got up. He unstrapped his weapon and his badge and laid them on the desk. He felt half-naked.

Gelford rose to his feet. “I think this might be for the best,” he said. “I think you need to decompress, maybe get away for a while. Get off this thing. Chill out.”

Greg nodded.

“And I think in the meantime you should see somebody—a professional. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

Greg nodded again and headed for the door with his suspension letter in hand.

“One more thing,” Gelford said. “I need not tell you there are laws against impersonating a police officer. Furthermore, if you keep bothering those people up there, you could be arrested for harassment and disturbing the peace.”

Maybe that’s how it would end, Greg thought. He thanked them and left.

54

Brendan was thinking about love and death when the phone rang.

“I have to see you.” It was Nicole.

Brendan felt mildly shocked. The last time he saw her, she all but wished him to disappear. “What’s up?”

“I’ll tell you when I see you,” she said. Her voice was its familiar neutral.

“C-can’t it wait? I’m in the middle of something.”

“I’m going back to camp tomorrow. It’s about the stuff you told me last week. We have to talk.”

“Can’t you tell me over the phone?”

“No. It’s too important. Please.”

Please was not a Nicole word. Brendan felt his resolve slip. “W-w-where you want to meet?”

“In the parking lot on Shoreline Drive at eleven.”

That was just outside Hawthorne, about eighteen miles from Brendan’s house. He had no desire to jump in his truck and drive all that way. Maybe she had some information about all this. Maybe she remembered stuff. Maybe she had decided to fess up.

“Okay.”

He hung up and stared at his hands for a long moment.