CHILLER

by Gregory Benford

  “I want to do some thinking, too, Bob. We were so frantic, I never thought to call the police about that man.”

  “Yeah, we got plenty of cleanup to do on this one.”

  She sat looking at her hands, and slowly blocks of logic collided in her mind. “Wait a minute, Bob. Have you filled out the death certificate? The VS-9 form?”

  “No, I’ll get to it. We’ve got three days to file.”

  “Don’t.”

  “Huh?” He lifted a startled face from his hands.

  “Alex died the same way Susan did—a fall. And I saw that man. The police will autopsy Alex.”

  Bob thought, nodded. “Of course. Finding him out there, it looked like a simple fall.”

  “I let you believe that.”

  “Look, we were rushed. I didn’t really process what you said about the man. How could I have been so dumb?”

  “Not dumb—just busy.”

  “Doesn’t matter which. We’ve got to stop cooling Alex.”

  “Why?” she asked carefully.

  “The coroner will want him. There’s nothing we can do.”

  “We can’t let them have him. That’s—that’s Alex.”

  Bob looked puzzled, then annoyed. “But we have to file in three—”

  “We can’t file at all. Don’t you see? They’ll take him.”

  “Listen, Kathryn, I’m a physician. Well, not quite, I’m not through my internship yet. But I have legal obligations.”

  “What about your obligations to Alex? This is his only chance.”

  “Look, this man you saw, it being another fall—it all points to murder.”

  “Of course it does,” she said crossly. “I’ve known that since last night.”

  “I didn’t put it together, I guess.” He straightened up, gazing off into the distance. “If I had, I wouldn’t have gone through with the suspension.”

  She felt a spark of irritation. Men, always getting on their high horses about principles and laws, when people are what matters. She made herself say calmly, “But you did the suspension. That’s a felony, I believe.”

  “What? What felony?”

  “Concealing evidence in a capital crime. Interfering with a murder investigation.”

  Bob’s mouth formed an O in shock. “But I didn’t think there was a—”

  “With so much to suspect? The sheriff won’t buy that.”

  Bob scowled, muttered. His hands fidgeted. He had the classic look of a person who doesn’t want to face a fact, Kathryn thought. She knew the symptoms well.

  “If I just go in, tell them all of it—”

  “They’ll get you for conspiracy, too,” Kathryn said.

  “Conspiracy? To do what?”

  “To hide Susan’s body, and now this.”

  “I did that for Susan without knowing there was any murder. This time, as soon as I—as we understand there was a crime here, we’ll come to the sheriff and—”

  Kathryn smiled without humor. “And they’ll get Susan and Alex and all the evidence they need for a big, delicious media crucifixion.”

  Bob’s head slumped onto his chest, and she felt a pang of guilt at being so cruel with him. The sheriff might not go that far, but she thought it was a good bet. No matter. She wanted to scare Bob, and it was working. He was the weak one, she had always suspected that. He had every reason to be, too. He had seen close up what the medical profession had done to Susan, and Bob was at the crucial moment of his career, the time that decided whether he even had a career. He was already deeply embroiled. Anything further would destroy any of his remaining dreams. He would be lucky to end up working as a hospital orderly. Or maybe, if he was properly contrite and turned state’s evidence, a dialysis technician.

  “I don’t see any way out,” Bob said vacantly. “No way.”

  “So you have to dive in deeper,” Kathryn said mercilessly.

  “Deeper?” He still seemed dazed.

  “Don’t file a death certificate on Alex. No VS-9 for interment of remains either.”

  “That’s another crime.”

  “Right. Failing to report a felony.”

  “This is—this is awful. If I do the right thing, I’m finished.”

  “Felony jail time,” Kathryn said coolly.

  “But if Alex is gone, they’ll search for him.”

  “You and Alex and Gary have grand jury indictments hanging over you. So Alex simply skipped town. That’s what the sheriff will believe.”

  “And us? Gary and me?”

  “Without Alex, I think they might drop charges. He’s the one they want.”

  He shook his head. “No, they’ll keep after us.”

  “It’s worth a risk. Their evidence against you isn’t nearly as strong.”

  “Do you really think so?” he asked earnestly.

  The note of hope in his voice wounded her. She cared very little about Bob’s prospects right now. Grief drove her, not charity. Inside her burned a deep urge to hold on to something of Alex, any hope at all.

  Fairy tales ended with “and so they lived happily ever after.” But everybody knew that nobody lived ever after, happily or not. It was a vast, unspoken lie.

  In all the times she had thought and talked about cryonics, she had never felt this massive emotional need to believe it, to grasp at anything. In the end, cryonics was about love, not death.

  “Sure. Sure I think so.”

  4

  GEORGE

  Dr. Lomax stepped from the shadowed recesses near the study door. A long silence lay heavily on the still, cool air of early morning. A Victorian lamp high up along the Reverend’s Wall of Respect cast a blade of pale blue light across Lomax’s face, bringing out creases and folds in his pale skin, a web of lines tightened with annoyance.

  George dragged himself up from the rug where he had toppled. He grunted as he rolled into a sitting position. The steady, throbbing pain in his belly was like a separate, sluggish heartbeat. He looked down and was relieved to see that the stain in his sweatsuit had not spread further. His crystal cross dangled from its golden thread, and he watched it pulse as though with its own inner life, facets winking with his ragged breath.

  Holy soldier. Endure. He glanced up plaintively at the Reverend Montana. “You called him?”

  “Alberto Lomax is a generous man who has had a long-standing concern for your welfare, George. He has a right to know if you are in distress.” Montana’s wary gaze swung between the two men.

  “I came immediately.” Lomax’s voice was gravelly, the vowels sharp. He wore a pair of flannel slacks and an olive windbreaker. “You promised me that you were going home to think things through, George.”

  “What? No, I—I—” George moved unsteadily on the thick carpet, unsure of his balance, using his arms to brace himself.

  “You look awful. Have you slept?”

  “No, I did go home, I did what you said. It all came clear. The bleached bones of Ezekiel, God’s necessary condition.”

  “The what?”

  “Holy soldier duty. I studied on it. Read my Bible.”

  “Look, I only suggested things to you. That’s all.”

  “I went to the chiller place, and I found their lair. I used my God-given talents. I got into their MedAlarm system, slick as you please. I traced the Cowell fellow with their own satellite locator system. I did it.”

  The Reverend’s voice was leaden. “He killed Cowell.”

  “Damn. So soon, they’ll connect it with the Hagerty woman. How?”

  George was puzzled at the lack of surprise in Lomax’s face. He tried to think about that, but his mind was churning like a great singing merry-go-round, the bright faces of the painted horses zooming by beneath slanting orange lights, veering toward him and then away, their shiny wooden faces grinning, always grinning. He shook off the sudden vision, tried to focus on the still silence in the study. Answer. They were waiting for an answer. “I… threw him off a steep drop.”

  Lomax’s face twisted. �
�You repeated your method! The police will know now.”

  “Know?” The Reverend was still standing rigidly beside his broad desk. His red silk robe made him look like an opulent Christmas package.

  “That it’s the same killer, of course,” Lomax snapped impatiently. He slammed his foot into an armchair and kicked it over onto its side, letting out an exasperated grunt.

  “He told you about his killing? Last night?” the Reverend asked.

  Lomax’s thick white eyebrows lifted in slight apology. “I was going to go into that with you later. Too chancy to bring it up on the phone.”

  Annoyance flickered in the Reverend’s face. “You only said he had broken in, killed one of your dogs, and that you had calmed him down.”

  “That was all you needed to know,” Lomax said sternly.

  “I have a right to—”

  “You couldn’t have done a damned thing with him. Only I can—and this.” Lomax held up the silver cylinder.

  A shiver of icy dread coursed through George at the sight of the cylinder. It brought the room rushing in on him again, whirling, the merry-go-round with its blaring glare and painted wooden horses, grinning with mad, empty eyes. He managed to choke out, “I don’t remember—I want to know—”

  “I’ll say you don’t remember,” Lomax’s rough voice was cut through with sarcasm. “No, not your strong suit, George, never has been. But no fault of your own. You lost a lot of it way back there, and if you’re smart, you’ll leave it lost.”

  “Lost? I have trouble, can’t remember—”

  “You’ve done plenty you better forget.”

  “Who are you to—”

  Lomax waved away the words with a curt jerk of his hand. He looked at the cylinder, then put it in a pocket of his slacks. “I won’t need this. You seem in reasonable control of yourself.”

  George felt a radiating power in Lomax. His analytical self struggled to understand. Could this feeling come from that cylinder? A chemical this man could wield like a whip? That implied that Lomax had resources George could not fathom. He felt a seething resentment of so much power in such hands—but before those emotions could rise into his tight throat, he felt another impulse. His other half. A bubble of remorse formed in his throat, pressing away all other thoughts. He burst out, “I’m sorry if what I did was wrong. I truly am.”

  “I think you should realize that only through following God have you avoided this until now,” the Reverend said carefully. “The Lord contained your sin.”

  “Yes, yes, I do know.”

  “With a little help from your friends,” Lomax said sardonically.

  “Friends? The Reverend, yes, truly, but who else?”

  “Me, George.” Lomax’s rugged voice had taken on a mild, soothing quality now. Lomax walked over to one of the deep leather chairs and sat, but his body still bristled with contained energy. The high overhead light laid bare his vexed features, the high cheekbones like blades. “I’ve been your friend for a long time.”

  “I don’t remember you at all.”

  “Something led you to me. Recall Karen?”

  “Oh my God—yes… she was so soft… beautiful…” George suddenly saw Karen’s breasts, felt their supple wealth.

  “She said something, did something. You couldn’t tell me last night. Can you now?”

  “I—no… there was so much. So much.”

  “Try harder.”

  “I was sitting—the picture… she showed it to me.”

  “A picture? What of?”

  “Something… flat. Cold.”

  “Ah, I see.” Lomax’s rugged voice took on a note of brisk efficiency. “We’re getting somewhere. She showed you a picture of—”

  “Water, flat water. Cold. Blue.” The image seeped into his mind, a chilly surface that stretched away into the distance, ominous and hugely impersonal, as though it were waiting for him somehow. Then it dwindled into a smothering blackness.

  “Good. I told that stupid girl not to try anything so intrusive. She got what she deserved.”

  “She didn’t deserve me,” George said with vacant despair.

  The dark feelings were welling up within him now, and he had to fight to keep them from clenching his throat, forcing the breath from him. He wanted to cry, to throw himself on the mercy of these men, these judges who alone could lift the seething guilt that would give him no peace.

  “Nor did I,” the Reverend said bitterly.

  Lomax’s head jerked up, steely, threatening. “You’ve done damned well. Stop bellyaching.”

  “You’re going to have to tell him,” the Reverend shot back.

  “So I will.” Lomax flexed his fingers together and crossed his legs, considering George with assessing eyes. “I’ll have to go all the way back to the accident. Remember it, George?”

  “Accident?”

  “Good. There are some traumas it is better that the mind erases. You had a severe accident, George, and I saved you.”

  “When?” George had always kept an interior image of time. It was a long scroll that slowly unwound, so that his early years were distant and slanted by perspective. Each year lay between neatly ruled lines on the scroll, so that he could judge time by the length between events. His mind rushed down this long, unfurled scroll, so scarred and littered with his life. He had often wondered if this was the way God saw time, all arranged before Him, each moment open to His inspection. George hurried through his memories, searching for some garish red mark that would be the accident, some trace of pain and anguish. But he found nothing. There were blanks that he could not see into, yawning stretches of gray nothingness, and he felt a hollow, seeping dread at what might lie there.

  “The accident was shortly before your twelfth birthday. You were—” Lomax searched for the right word. He had the precise look of a man who liked accuracy, yet there was about him a coarseness, a considered, brutal directness. “You were badly hurt. Your mind has blotted out the details. That’s good, really, because the accident isn’t important, except that it was how I came to know you. Your parents were both dead by then, of course, and you had not been working out well with those relatives who were taking care of you then. I paid your medical bills, through charity. I helped find you a foster home, working with state agencies.”

  The Reverend said, “Dr. Lomax was a generous man. He took a decisive hand in your recovery.”

  “Were you there, too?” George asked wonderingly. His past seemed to grow and unfold before his inner eye, mysterious events added to the scroll.

  “Well, no, but I know your case. I have seen the records of how Dr. Lomax helped relocate you. He thought it was best to start you over fresh, far from the place of your earlier troubles. It was he who placed you with the foster home in Arizona.”

  “Them. I hated them!”

  The Reverend looked offended. “That was not his fault, George. He acted out of a spirit of Christian charity.”

  “Those people only wanted the money. They didn’t care about me, treated me worse than that dog of theirs.” George ground his teeth and then smiled without humor. “That dog. I took care of it, all right.”

  George caught a quick, severe glance that passed between the two men but did not understand it. The tall, slanting room was warping, the towering bookshelves threatening to topple inward on him if he gazed up at them. He had to hold on to the carpet, digging in with rigid fingers against the sickening sway.

  Lomax said, “It was unfortunate that the home did not work out. Believe me, I tried. I like to remain anonymous, so I acted through intermediaries. That’s why you have not seen me, George. But I was there, in the background. I found you another foster home.” He sighed. “And then another.”

  Memories jarred George. He took a deep breath and the reeling room receded. “Them. They barely tolerated me.”

  “You don’t do them justice. You had severe adjustment problems. They tried to deal with those and failed,” Lomax said precisely, his clipped vowels clear and im
patient.

  “They were Godless,” George said, “Godless money-lovers.”

  “I tried to arrange better, believe me I did. But then the Arizona authorities found out about the arrangements I had made—better than they provided, of course, much better. But not done according to their bureaucratic rules. So they took you away from the home you were in—”

  “The Cranshaws.”

  “Ah, you remember well. Surprising, considering that you were only with them two months.”

  George’s chest was tight, and a stiffening ache stole slowing up into it. He breathed shallowly and with concentration could stop the room from spinning with slow, remorseless gravity, the shiny merry-go-round bringing the tall bookshelves whirling with stately weight around and around. But it was important to remember, to summon up facts, dates, faces. He knew this without question but did not know why. “Then—then the Randolphs.”

  “The Randolphs. Nasty people. They didn’t keep you for long after you killed their pet cat, did they?”

  George gritted his teeth and held on. How does he know?

  Lomax said sardonically, “After that little incident the state agency wouldn’t talk to my people at all. Not a word about where they had placed you. I honestly thought you might be dead.”

  The Reverend said, “Only the Lord looked after you. He brought you into the fold.”

  “Indeed,” Lomax said with a skating touch of dry sarcasm. “Only when you surfaced in that congregation in Phoenix did we pick up your trail again, nearly a decade later.”

  “Providence led you,” Montana said, glancing sternly at Lomax. “You had been a religious boy under your true parents, may they rest well. I suggested that the Lord would shelter a soul such as yours in the goodly community of a church. I was the one who found you, when Dr. Lomax asked for my help.”

  “That was two years ago,” George said.

  “You were hard to find.”

  “Why didn’t you come forward then?” George asked.