“I’m scared.”
Fear was replaced by fierce determination.
“I know, I know.”
“I was scared then.”
There was a long silence. “You’re right,” Lisa said at last. “Okay, I’ll do it.”
Jeannie suppressed a victory whoop. “How soon can you get there?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
“I’ll meet you outside.”
Jeannie hung up. She ran into the bedroom, dropped her robe on the floor, and pulled on black jeans and a turquoise. T-shirt. She threw on a black Levi’s jacket and ran downstairs.
She left the house at midnight.
SUNDAY
52
SHE REACHED THE UNIVERSITY BEFORE LISA. SHE PARKED IN the visitors’ lot, not wanting her distinctive car to be seen outside Nut House, then walked across the dark, deserted campus. While she waited impatiently outside the front of the building she wished she had stopped off to buy something to eat. She had had nothing all day. She thought wistfully of a cheeseburger with French fries, a slice of pizza with pepperoni, apple pie with vanilla ice cream, or even a big garlicky Caesar salad. At last Lisa drove up in her smart white Honda.
She got out of the car and took Jeannie by the hands. “I feel ashamed,” she said. “You shouldn’t have had to remind me what a friend you’ve been to me.”
“I understand, though,” Jeannie said.
“I’m sorry.”
Jeannie hugged her.
They went inside and turned on the lights in the lab. Jeannie started the coffee machine while Lisa booted up her computer. It felt weird to be in the lab in the middle of the night. The antiseptic white decor, the bright lights, and the silent machines all around made her think of a morgue.
She thought they would probably get a visit from security sooner or later. After Jeannie’s break-in they would be keeping an eye on Nut House, and they would see the lights. But it was not unusual for scientists to work odd hours in the lab, and there would be no trouble, unless a guard happened to recognize Jeannie from last night. “If a security guard comes to check on us, I’m going to hide in the stationery cupboard,” she said to Lisa. “Just in case the guard is someone who knows I’m not supposed to be here.”
“I hope we get enough warning of his approach,” Lisa said nervously.
“We should arrange some kind of alarm.” Jeannie was eager to get on with searching for the clones, but she contained her impatience; this would be a sensible precaution. She looked around the lab thoughtfully, and her eye fell upon a small flower arrangement on Lisa’s desk. “How much do you love that glass vase?” she said.
Lisa shrugged. “I got it in Kmart. I can get another.”
Jeannie dumped the flowers and emptied the water into a sink. She took from a shelf a copy of
Watching her, Lisa said: “What’ll I say if they ask me why I did that?”
“You didn’t want anyone to sneak up on you,” Jeannie replied.
Lisa nodded, satisfied. “God knows I have reason enough to be paranoid.”
“Let’s get going,” Jeannie said.
They went back into the lab, leaving the door open to be sure they would hear the glass breaking. Jeannie put her precious floppy disk into Lisa’s computer and printed the Pentagon results. There were the names of the eight babies whose electrocardiograms were as similar as if they had all come from one person. Eight tiny hearts beating exactly the same way. Somehow Berrington had arranged for the army hospitals to give these babies this test. No doubt copies had been sent to the Aventine Clinic, where they had remained until they were shredded on Thursday. But Berrington had forgotten, or perhaps never realized, that the army would keep the original graphs.
“Let’s start with Henry King,” she suggested. “Full name Henry Irwin King.”
On her desk Lisa had two CD-ROM drives, one on top of the other. She took two CDs from her desk drawer and put one in each drive. “We have every residential phone in the United States on those two disks,” she said. “And we have software that enables us to search both disks at the same time.”
A Windows screen appeared on the monitor. “People don’t always put their full name in the phone book, unfortunately,” she said. “Let’s just see how many H. Kings there are in the United States.” She typed
and clicked on Count. After a moment a Count window appeared with the number 1,129.
Jeannie was discouraged. “It will take all night to call that many numbers!”
“Wait, we may be able to do better.” Lisa typed
and clicked on the Retrieve icon, a picture of a dog. After a moment a list appeared on the screen. “We have three Henry Irwin Kings and seventeen Henry I. Kings. What’s his last known address?”
Jeannie consulted her printout. “Fort Devens, Massachusetts.”
“Okay, we have one Henry Irwin King in Amherst and four Henry I. Kings in Boston.”
“Let’s call them.”
“You do realize it’s one o’clock in the morning.”
“I can’t wait until tomorrow.”
“People won’t talk to you at this time of night.”
“Sure they will,” Jeannie said. It was bravado. She knew she would have trouble. She just was not prepared to wait until morning. This was too important. “I’ll say I’m from the police, tracking down a serial killer.”
“That has to be against the law.”
“Give me the Amherst number.”
Lisa highlighted the listing and pressed F2. There was a rapid series of beeps from the computer’s modem. Jeannie picked up the phone.
She heard seven rings, then a sleepy voice answered: “Yes?”
“This is Detective Susan Farber of the Amherst Police Department,” she said. She half expected him to say, “The hell it is,” but he made no response, and she went on briskly: “We’re sorry to call you in the middle of the night, but it’s an urgent police matter. Am I speaking to Henry Irwin King?”
“Yes—what’s happened?”
It sounded like the voice of a middle-aged man, but Jeannie persisted just to be sure. “This is just a routine inquiry.”
That was a mistake. “Routine?” he said tetchily. “At this time of night?”
Improvising hastily, she said: “We’re investigating a serious crime and we need to eliminate you as a suspect, sir. Could you tell me your date and place of birth?”
“I was born in Greenfield, Massachusetts, on the fourth of May, 1945. Okay?”
