Cockran took the elevator back down to the Donovan firm’s offices. He didn’t much like being a lawyer right now. Last week, the lawyer in him had kept Bobby Sullivan from killing Wesley Waterman. Tonight, the lawyer in him wouldn’t even look after Mattie’s safety as she sought evidence which might save the lives of ten, no, make that twelve innocent people.
When he entered his office, Cockran noticed on his desk an unopened envelope marked “Personal” and postmarked Long Island. Curious, he slit it open and removed copies of hotel bills from the Hotel Cleveland and the Phoenix Hotel in Findlay in the name of Mr. & Mrs. Theodore Stanhope Hudson, IV, along with several room service chits signed by Mattie. Cockran laughed and threw the papers in the trash. Just how dumb did Hudson think he was?
Looking back to his desk, he saw the large file folder that Sarah Steinberg had left for him earlier in the day. The file was thick and the label on it read “Waterman — Nonprofit Holdings.” Seeing the file there made him feel better. It reminded him that he had a client — a vulnerable client — to whom he also owed an obligation right now. It helped him clear his conscience. Tonight for his client; tomorrow for Mattie. In the morning, he would visit the New York Public Library and find out all he could about eugenics and twins to share with Mattie.
He opened the file and began to read. Two hours later, Cockran leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. One more folder to go. “Leases.” He picked it up and began leafing through it. Waterman was the sole member of a string of non-profit corporations dedicated to the science of eugenics. Each non-profit was a subsidiary of the Waterman Foundation and all were headquartered in the I.C.E. building. Moreover, a good 25% of the non-profits’ considerable endowment came from the National Institute of Health in Washington. Government money.
Cockran came to the last clip of documents in the lease file and he instantly became alert. All the balance sheets on the non-profits had shown rental income, which was not out of the ordinary. There was no reason non-profits could not own and lease real property. But the actual leases were something else entirely. All the leases were for property in Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island. He quickly scanned through them. American Eugenics Society, Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences Biological Station. Cockran chilled. Wesley Waterman owning anything in Cold Spring Harbor was not good.
Cockran stared in disbelief at the next lease. The Carnegie Institution for Experimental Evolution. The employer of Mattie’s confidential source! He picked up the last lease in the folder but he already knew what he would find. The Eugenics Record Office! The place where Mattie’s confidential source worked. The place where Mattie McGary would be tonight. The last sheet of paper in the file contained a schematic of Waterman’s Cold Spring Harbor holdings. Cockran looked at it. Six buildings on the northeast side of Cold Spring Harbor were all contiguous and all owned by Wesley Waterman’s non-profit corporations.
It all fit together perfectly, Cockran thought, as he felt the hair rise on the back of his neck. Waterman regularly hired Owney Madden’s thugs and, apparently, ex-MID agents to do his dirty work. More ominously, one of Madden’s men and an ex-MID agent had tailed Mattie and attempted to kill her in Ohio. Mattie was going to be trespassing tonight on property owned by a man who didn’t hesitate to hire hit men to take out his adversaries. Not good at all.
Cockran looked at his watch. It was 10:05 p.m. Too late for the 10 o’clock train to Long Island. The next train wouldn’t get him there in time. Mattie would enter the buildings around 11:00 p.m. after arriving on horseback. That added to her cover story, she had said. A late night ride under a hunter’s moon was not an uncommon sight on Long Island’s north coast.
It was a long shot but Cockran quickly placed a call to the Cedars and let the phone ring fifteen times before he hung up. He looked out the window. Visibility was good. He called the sky port on the East River below Wall Street where he rented a hangar for his autogiro.
“Joe? Bourke. I’m going to Long Island in twenty minutes. Prepare a flight plan and gas up the Celtic Princess.”
“Sure thing, Mr. Cockran, but come sooner if you can. There’s a front moving in fast.”
Cockran hailed a taxi outside the Chrysler building and headed up to his place on Fifth Avenue. In his bedroom, he stripped off his coat and tie but otherwise didn’t change clothes. There was no time to waste. He put on his leather flying jacket, his skin-tight leather driving gloves and placed three extra clips for his Colt .45 in the jacket pocket. Then he stopped. Would that be enough? He hesitated, then opened the door to his closet and, using his pocket knife, pried up two floor boards in the right rear of the closet. He reached inside and pulled out a bulky package covered in cloth. A large Webley revolver, a shoulder holster and two cartridge boxes of heavy .455 caliber shells. Michael Collins’ parting gift to him ten years earlier. He headed back down to the waiting taxi. He rarely took out the Webley revolver. Only when there might be dirty work at the crossroads. Like tonight.
The wind was at fifteen knots with gusts up to twenty-five by the time Cockran arrived at the sky port. He filed his flight plan and, minutes later, fired up the Wright Whirlwind engine and lifted the autogiro into the sky. He was still kicking himself for not having read the Waterman non-profit folder earlier. It had been there since lunch.
Cockran shook his head at the irony. Earlier that evening, he had been concerned about committing trespass and a technical breaking and entering. Now, armed to the teeth, he was prepared to violate any number of laws in order to keep Mattie safe from harm.
Cockran felt strangely calm yet his adrenalin level was high. He knew that, but for the war, he would never have discovered this dark side of himself. Being his father’s son, it always bothered him because it made him feel less like his father, who believed life and death were matters that belonged to God. But his father had never fired a weapon in combat. He had never killed a man. The same could not be said of his son.
37.
The Names Matched
Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island
Tuesday, 24 May 1932
MATTIE pulled in the reins on Heather, her favorite chestnut mare, as they reached the edge of the woods and the open lawns of the Carnegie Institution for Experimental Evolution campus which Helen had described. Mattie had taken the 6:30 train to Sands Point and then had driven the Auburn fifteen miles from The Cedars to Cold Spring Harbor to determine the best way to approach the buildings. Once that was done, she had swung past Stanhope Hall on her way back to the Cedars and briefed Ted Hudson on her plans for that evening. She tied the mare’s reins to a tree and, staying in the shadow of the woods, walked a hundred yards.
Mattie was dressed for riding. Dark tan jodhpurs that fit her like a second skin, polished brown leather boots which came up to just below her knee and a dark wool navy blue watch sweater with a dark cotton turtleneck beneath. She had a large leather camera bag slung over her shoulder within which was an electric torch, her Leica camera and a flash attachment.
She sighted Hudson’s maroon Cadillac parked on the street, a block away from the main building. The complex looked like a college campus. Brick buildings in a Georgian style, six in all, two stories high, surrounding a four-story administration building where the Eugenics Record Office was located, as well as the Carnegie Institution laboratories.
Hudson saw Mattie and approached her, his smile as wide as ever. They embraced warmly and exchanged a kiss. Against her better judgment, Mattie had reluctantly agreed to Ted’s suggestion that, in case someone was watching, it was best they appear to be lovers out for a stroll. She was reluctant because, after that damn nightcap and its aftermath, she sure as hell didn’t want to give Ted the wrong impression again.
When they reached the front of the building, they veered away from the main entrance, which had a long, wide expanse of brick stairs. Helen had told Mattie that was not the place to enter the building. Instead, they walked along the left-hand side down half the length of the building until they
located the door recommended by Helen. It was a secluded alcove with a stairwell leading down to a basement door. Ted would wait here to provide cover for her retreat if she needed it.
“Wait a minute, Mattie,” Hudson said. “What about Cockran?”
“What about him?”
“Your boyfriend didn’t want you coming here tonight. What if he shows up? What then?”
“He won’t,” Mattie replied.
“Maybe. He always was something of a pussy in MID but what if he does? What’s your Plan B?”
Mattie frowned. She didn’t need this. They were wasting time. She had to get into the building quickly. Cockran wasn’t coming. “Look, if Cockran shows up, be civil. Explain you’re my back-up and try and persuade him not to do anything foolish.”
Hudson grinned. “You got it. I can be real persuasive when I put my mind to it.”
Mattie rolled her eyes and headed for the building. Once inside, Mattie quickly made her way to the third floor. By entering the left side of the building, Helen Talbot had assured her, Mattie would pass through the wing of observation rooms where the twin studies were conducted. It was just as Helen had told her. She visited two of the rooms and they were identical. Each room had a long mirror covering half the wall. The wall itself was covered with flowered wallpaper containing colorful, oversized black-eyed susans with the lens of a motion picture camera hidden in the middle of one of the flowers. Helen had explained that the mirrors were one-way and, together with the cameras, permited scientists to observe their subjects being put through a series of tests where they were in various stages of undress and might otherwise be embarassed by having strangers observing them.
Mattie walked down to the middle of the building and took the main staircase up to the joint offices of Davenport and Laughlin. A large door, its top half pebbled glass, carried the legend in large black letters. “Eugenics Record Office.” She got out her copy of the keys, found the right one and unlocked the door. She was in a reception area where Talbot’s desk was placed in the middle of the room. On either side of the door through which she had entered were several hard back leather-cushioned armchairs where visitors could wait.
Helen had warned Mattie that both Davenport and Laughlin’s offices were locked, as were the file cabinets inside. The originals of the Project Gemini records were all kept in Dr. Davenport’s office. The file cabinet would be easy to spot. It was the only unmarked file cabinet in the room. Mattie unlocked Davenport’s door and let herself in, keeping the torch by her side, pointed downward to minimize its being seen from outside.
After adjusting the wooden blinds to keep light from escaping, she got out her keys and tried several before she found the one that unlocked an unmarked file cabinet. She opened the top drawer. It was empty. Strange. She opened the second drawer. Empty also. This wasn’t looking good. You normally filled a file cabinet from the top down, not the bottom up. The last three drawers were empty also. Had they removed the records after her story?
Mattie walked out to the reception area and stood there. Helen had clearly said that Davenport’s office was to the right and Laughlin’s to the left. She had gone to the office on the right. Wait a second. Whose right? Her right or Helen’s? Helen’s desk was in the middle of the room facing the door. Mattie had gone to her right. Perhaps she should have gone to Helen’s right. She moved across to the other office, quickly found the key and entered. The two offices were identical. She turned around and looked at the wall beside the door. Several framed photographs and diplomas were arranged there. She apprpoached them and raised the torch. Yes! Dr. Charles Davenport, Ph.D., Harvard University. She walked to the file cabinets.
The unmarked file cabinet in this room was right in the middle. She unlocked it and pulled open the top drawer. Inside were files neatly arranged chronologically. PG-1 through PG-8. She pulled out PG-5, opened it and drew a deep breath. James Roger Miller. The Findlay-born Cleveland engineer. She pulled out PG-6. His twin sister, Elizabeth Ann Miller. She closed the folder and chilled. She hadn’t noticed it on PG-5, but stamped across the front of the PG-6 folder was the ominous legend “CLOSED.” She quickly skimmed PG-1 through PG-4 and PG-7 through PG-10. They were all stamped “CLOSED” as well. Mattie knew the names. They all had been in her story. The second drawer was only half full and ended with PG-9 and PG-10, the Neumann sisters. She went through the third drawer where there were ten more folders, PG-11 through PG-20. The names matched with the ones Helen Talbot had given her.
The fourth drawer was only partially full as well. PG-21 and PG-22. But the other files contained several sheets with background information on each twin compiled by the Eugenics Record Office. PG-21 and PG-22 were different. No information. Simply handwritten names in ink in the same neat, precise block letters that appeared on the folder. A brother and sister, presumably twins, named Johansson. No addresses, no other identifying characteristics.
Mattie stood up. She had to photograph these files. Not all the papers but the top sheet in each one of the murder victims’ files. How in the hell would the E.R.O. and the Carnegie Institution explain that? She placed the files on the pristine desk top so that the “CLOSED” was visible on all ten. She took five photographs with her flash, two folders per photograph. Then she took the top sheet out of each file folder and arranged it on top. One photograph per folder now, so that the PG-6 stamp was visible beside the name of Elizabeth Ann Miller. She did the same with all the other folders before she returned them to the file cabinet and relocked it.
Mattie sat back down in Davenport’s desk chair and tugged at the drawers of his desk. They were locked as well. She fished the key ring out of her handbag and tried different keys to unlock it. None of the keys fit. Which only piqued Mattie’s curiosity. Helen Talbot was allowed a key to the file cabinets but not Dr. Davenport’s desk. Why? Mattie didn’t want to advertise that she had been here, but the locked desk was too great a temptation. Mattie knew how to pick locks. Cockran had taught her.
In fact, Cockran had once proudly showed her his own set of MID issue lock-picking tools which she had surreptitiously borrowed this evening from his library. She had thought about asking him but, given his opposition to her plans for tonight, she already knew how he would have reacted to that. Hell, she knew how the police would react if they found her with lock-picking tools. Wasn’t even possession of them a crime?
There was nothing in the center drawer, so she picked open the bottom right-hand drawer where she saw a number of file folders. One was openly labeled “Project Gemini — Bavaria — Correspondence.” Intrigued, she pulled it out and opened it. On the left-hand side was a typewritten list with all twenty names. Two more names had been added in ink at the bottom—the Johansson twins. The right side of the folder contained correspondence bound at the top with two prongs. She quickly leafed through it. There it was. Letters between Dr. Otmar Verschuer and Dr. Charles Davenport! What caught her attention most, however, was right on top, a trans-Atlantic cable addressed to both Drs. Davenport and Verschuer:
TEN SUBJECTS ARRIVED SAFELY. STOP. WILL ATTEMPT TO FIND OTHER TWO. STOP. EARLIER SPECIMENS PRESERVED. STOP. ARRIVAL BAVARIA 19 MAY. STOP. EXPERIMENTAL EVOLUTIONI TESTS BEGIN AT CLINIC 20 MAY. STOP. AUTOPSY PROTOCOLS BEGIN 3 JUNE. STOP. REGARDS JM. STOP
They’re alive, Mattie thought. All twelve were still alive! But they wouldn’t be alive for long. Autopsy protocols? June 3 was less than two weeks away. How the hell do these people expect to explain all this? Leaving the folder open on the table, she took out her Leica and froze when she heard a noise in the hallway outside. She switched off her torch and put it, the Leica, and the correspondence file in her camera bag. She walked softly to the door, stopped and listened. Someone was out there trying to open the locked door to Laughlin’s office. The footsteps came closer and the person tested Davenport’s door also but Mattie had locked it as well. After a few moments, the footsteps receded.
Mattie waited for several minutes until she could hear nothing more. She st
epped into the reception area, locked Davenport’s door and was suddenly struck by something hard in the back. She stumbled and fell to the floor. She quickly twisted over in an effort to see who or what had attacked her but all she saw was a big club of a left arm encased from wrist to elbow in plaster of Paris cast come crashing down. She put up her arms in a vain effort at self-defense, but the arm crashed through them and pain shot through her head as the arm hit her in the side of her face, her head bouncing hard off the polished wooden floor.
38.
A Gentlemen Never Tells
Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island
Tuesday, 24 May 1932
COCKRAN feathered the autogiro to a landing at the Cedars around 10:45 p.m. He still might be in time, he thought. He took off the Colt .45 and its shoulder holster and replaced it with the Webley and its holster. He put the .45 inside his waistband in the small of his back.
Moments later, Cockran was in his Auburn speedster headed out of Sands Point, turning left onto Northern Boulevard. He hit the North Hampstead Pike and opened the Auburn up, hitting seventy-five miles per hour until he had to slow down for East Norwich. He slowed again as he passed Oyster Bay Cove. At the end of the pike, he turned left into Cold Spring Harbor.
Off to his right, he came across the grounds of what had to be the Carnegie Institution complex. Georgian style brick buildings, manicured lawns, tall elm trees, all owned by a Wesley Waterman nonprofit. He pulled two blocks past the campus and drove the Auburn into a stand of trees so it was hidden from the road. As he got out of the motorcar, he heard a horse whinny. He walked toward the sound not ten yards away and found Mattie’s own chestnut mare, Heather, her reins tied to one of the trees. The mare recognized Cockran and shuffled her hoofs, pleased that Cockran had come to interrupt her boredom. He stroked her mane for a moment to calm her, thinking that Mattie must have been gone for a considerable amount of time if the mare was this restless. He gave her a gentle pat and headed off toward the campus.
The Gemini Agenda Page 21
