focusing. Though his fingers were constrained, he was rocking his hands on the desktop. His mocha-colored hair was thin and combed to one side, a small strand resting on his forehead. Reed glanced at his clasped hands, then looked up.
"How can I help you?" Before they could answer. Reed went on, "Perhaps I should say, how can you help me? First Lilah, now this terrible... I'm..."
Reed's voice held the remnants of a refined British accent.
Decker said, "I'm sorry for your loss."
"I'm... devastated" Reed said. "Simply..."
"Were you and your brother close?" Marge asked.
"Close?" Reed tapped his folded hands on the desk. "I wouldn't say close... but I was closer to him than I was to anyone else on the maternal side of my family. We had our professions in common; we used to meet for lunch and at staff meetings. We attended some of the same hospitals. We weren't exceptionally close, but Kingston was still... I just can't believe..."
He took a deep breath, got up and walked over to the water machine. "Can I offer you two any coffee or tea?"
"We're fine, Dr. Reed."
Reed played with a paper cup, then filled it with water and drank. "I... I don't know anything about..." He crumpled the corrugated container and threw it into the garbage. "I don't know how I could possibly help you. With Lilah as well. I'm... I'm not at all close to her. I don't..."
He sank back into his desk chair.
"When was the last time you saw your brother?" Decker asked.
"Saw him?" Again Reed folded his hands. "I don't remember. A few weeks ago. My girl would know. She makes my appointments. Kingston and I never met spontaneously. It was always... arranged. Either he'd call or I'd call. That sort of thing— Can I turn the recorder off? It's making me feel quite uneasy."
Decker turned off the machine, then pulled out his notebook and held it up. "You don't mind this?"
"Not at all," Reed said. "The recorder is just so... dehumanizing."
"Indeed it is," Decker said. "Were you in contact with Kingston after Lilah was attacked?"
"Contact?" Reed bit his lip. "I don't... oh, he... called me, of course. He was very upset. I was upset as well. I'm not close to my sister, but... I felt terrible]"
"Did you visit Lilah in the hospital?" Marge asked. Reed looked down. "No, I... didn't. And I suppose that seems a bit callous. I did call. We spoke very briefly. I asked her if she needed anything and she said no, Mother and Freddy had everything under control. Which was the way it usually was when I spoke to Lilah. She has always... shut me out so..." He exhaled. "So, I suppose I stopped trying. Not that my life... has been empty without her, without any of them. My family is... very difficult. I do much better when there's minimal contact."
"But you had contact with Kingston," Marge said.
"Yes, professional mostly. But personal as well."
"Do you happen to know if you talked to him just prior to Lilah's attack?" Decker asked.
"Perhaps."
Decker waited for more, but Reed wasn't forthcoming. "Did
Kingston sounded unusual?" "In... what way?" Decker shrugged. "Agitated, depressed, more cheerful than
usual."
"Kingston was never cheerful," Reed said. "He was a very driven
man."
"Did he seem unusually driven lately?"
"I... yes, to me, King did seem more driven of late." Reed sighed. "He called me about a week... before Lilah was attacked. He needed money."
"Why?" Marge said. "Didn't he have a thriving practice?" "Several of them in fact," Decker added. "You know about his place in Burbank?" Marge asked. Reed looked up sharply. "Yes, of course. Not that I approved... not that I disapproved... of abortion, that is. Just... he was making money, but that was only part of it." "Part of what?" Decker added. "Of why he had his place in Burbank," Reed said. "It was the fetuses," Marge said. Reed grimaced. "So you know everything." "It was a guess," Marge said. A damn-good educated one, Decker thought as he wrote in his
notebook.
"What was he doing with the fetuses?" Marge said. Reed blew out air. "What he was doing wasn't legal."
"Go on," Decker said.
"He was doing research using embryonic tissue. Research has been King's passion since medical school... since we were young children actually. King always wanted to be a scientist, but Mother wanted him to be a doctor. She wanted all of us to become physicians."
"So I've noticed," said Marge.
"Mother was quite explicit about her wishes. And Mother has a way of getting what she wants. Not that I'm sorry I went to medical school. But afterward I wasn't about to devote my life to Mother's needs. She's an incurable hypocondriac and now poor Frederick bears the brunt of her neurosis. I've often urged him to break from her, but..." He bit his lip. "Where was I?"
"Kingston wanting to become a scientist," Decker said.
"Yes, Kingston was very adaptable. So he selected medicine as his science of choice and forged ahead with his research. Nothing could dissuade him from that."
Decker said, "I'm not familiar with Kingston's professional history. Was he affiliated with any research institution, any university?"
Reed shook his head. "No. He dropped out of academia early on—too petty, too controlled by rules and regulations, too much game playing to get proper funding."
"Your brother wasn't much of a game player, was he, Doctor?" Decker said.
"If you knew my mother, you would understand why," Reed said. "We were all pawns in Mother's games—constantly competing against each other for Mother's attention. Kingston had no tolerance for compromise. Even as a student, he used to complain how regimented the hospitals and medical schools were. He always said he was never going to rely on grants for his research. So he... he went into private practice and funded his own research."
Reed took a breath.
"It took everything out of him. He never married, never... never bothered with social niceties. My wife and I... we tried to... I don't know, make him realize there was another world outside, but he... research was his life."
"Even if it meant bending a few rules and working illegally on aborted fetal tissue," Decker said.
"Yes." Reed nodded. "Yes, he bent rules—broke rules. But
that was King. Once he had a bug in his brain, he was unstoppable."
"What was he doing with the tissue?" Marge asked.
"Specifically?"
"Yes," Marge asked.
"He was grinding it up, running the cells through a French press to shear them open, precipitating the DNA, and protein-purifying the enzymes in an attempt to locate and isolate embryonic enzymes that might be distinctively beneficial in host-rejection of implant
patients."
"I had to ask," Marge said.
"Fetal tissue—especially at the early stages of development—is nonspecific," Reed said. "The cells have the remarkable ability to grow anywhere without being rejected... am I making myself... perhaps I should give you an example." "A short one, please, Doctor," Decker said. "Yes, of course." Reed cleared his throat. "Let us say you need a kidney and I have a kidney to donate. But that doesn't necessarily mean your body will take my kidney." "It has to be compatible," Marge said.
"Exactly!" Reed said. "Fetal tissue is unlike your tissue and my tissue. 1 can inject it anywhere in your body and... chances are your body will not reject it because it will not be seen as foreign material. It's nonspecific. We all start out as a single cell—a zygote. During gestation, in some sort of process we don't fully understand, cells differentiate even though they all have the same DNA complement. Cells are told to become brain cells or skin cells or kidney cells. Now, if you inject nonspecific fetal tissue into an organ system, it will become part of whatever system you inject it into. What is it about embryonic tissue that allows our bodies to accept and incorporate it? That is—was what King was working on."
Marge looked at Decker. "I understood most of that. I feel pretty
smart."
&nb
sp; Reed said, "It sounds more complicated than it is. I'll simplify—"
"Doctor Reed, it's not necessary for us to know all the medical
details," Decker said. "Suffice it to say. Dr. Merritt had been
working illegally with embryonic tissue. How long had he been
doing his research?"
"Years. He has made some incredible discoveries! But he couldn't
publish his findings because his research was illegal."
"So why was he more driven of late?" Decker asked. "Did he feel the heat breathing down his back? Was he getting angry letters from some right-to-lifers?"
"No, no... at least I don't... there's always some hostility when you do abortions, but..." Reed sat back down. "It was money. He didn't just need it, he was desperate for it. Research is expensive—the machines, the chemicals, the animals he had to buy. It was draining him. But even that was not unusual. King was always running his science on a shoestring. But he felt he was onto something very important. He needed more money to make it work. He called me up for a loan."
"And you gave him something?" Marge said.
"Yes, I did. Twenty thousand dollars to be exact. But... but it wasn't enough." Reed shook his head. "I will be totally honest. Money wasn't the sole reason for his call. He wanted to sound me out. Mother had a proposition for him."
"What kind of proposition. Doctor?" said Decker.
"That... I don't know. Frankly, as soon as I heard that it was from Mother, I advised King to stay clear of it. I have always followed that advice and found it very suitable. Mother can be quite wicked... playing us off against each other. King told me it could lead to quite a bit of money... more money than she had ever given him."
Decker said, "Your mother was giving Kingston money all this time?"
"Bits... a thousand here, a thousand there. But from the way Kingston was talking, I had a feeling he was expecting something more—a big payoff."
Decker remembered Davida talking about padding her sons' wallets. But it never seemed to be enough—the carrion eaters.
Reed continued, "I told King that if it came from Mother, it would be nothing but heartache. I don't know whether he listened to me or not."
"But you have suspicions," Decker said.
"Yes, I do." Reed clasped his hands. "As soon as King told me about Lilah... about the robbery, I was suspicious. Not that King would ever hurt Lilah, but the robbery... I wondered if he had... was... involved..."
"Did you ask him?"
"No." Rccd shook his head. "No, I didn't ask him. I... I didn't want to know. But King was clearly upset. He would never harm Lilah. He adored our little sister. Lilah had always looked to him as more of a father than a brother. Certainly Mother wasn't much
of a parent."
"Do you think he might have stolen something from-Lilah's to
please your mother?"
"I really don't know what to think."
Decker asked, "When you spoke to Kingston, did he mention anything about Hermann Brecht's memoirs?"
Reed seemed genuinely puzzled. "I wasn't even aware that Hermann Brecht compiled memoirs."
"Apparently he did."
Reed shrugged.
Decker said, "Doctor, what can you tell me about Hermann
Brecht?"
"1 remember Hermann as a slight, pale, morose, sullen man who took my mother away from my father. I realize my parents' marriage was probably in trouble long before Hermann came along, but I was a child and viewed Hermann as an interloper. After Mother and he married, I refused to live with them. I went back to London and lived with my father until my majority. A most wise decision."
Reed appeared lost in thought.
"My most vivid memory of Hermann was at the birth celebrations for Lilah. My mother and he were living in a prewar mansion in West Berlin—one of the few that hadn't been bombed in World War II. It was right after President Kennedy had visited and had given his famous speech—Ich bin ein Berliner." Reed looked at Marge. "Before your time, Detective." Marge smiled. "Go on, Dr. Reed."
"I was flown into Germany," Reed said. "It was the early sixties. Even though I was young, I have good recollections of the West German people because they couldn't get enough of America or Americans. And my mother was not only American, but a famous American. After Lilah was born. Mother was besieged with attention from the press and played it for all she was worth. It was one party after another, Mother absolutely radiant and jubilant, kissing everyone, laughing all the time, floating through the masses like.a swan. I remember that image because she wore a different-color flowing peignoir every day."
Reed thought for a moment.
"Hermann, on the other hand, had balled himself into a corner drinking the entire time, refusing to talk to anyone, especially Mother's other children. Kingston and I absolutely were personae non gratae to him. Of course, Mother was too busy with her admirers to notice Hermann or her sons. I remember this nightmarish sense of being dropped into an alien world—Felliniesque, if you will."
"If your mother ignored you the whole time, why did she bother flying you in?" Marge asked.
"Because I was Davida Eversong's son," Reed said. "I had to be there for appearance's sake."
"So Hermann wasn't the partygoing type," Decker said.
"Not at all... so unlike Mother." He let out a sad laugh. "When I think of all the postpartum mothers I've attended, I can't honestly... recall any of them being as energetic socially as Mother had been that week. Of course, Mother was pampered from head to toe. She had a private nurse for herself. And the baby had two nurses—a wet nurse feeding Lilah and a primary nurse who did general care. Neither nurse would allow me... or even Kingston... to see our baby sister."
"Why do you say 'or even Kingston'?" Decker asked.
"I had deserted Mother for Father, but Kingston was still living with her. It was bad enough for me to be rejected, but I wasn't really part of the family, was I? Kingston, on the other hand, was furious. During one of Mother's many parties, Kingston became so fed up, he whisked the baby out of the nurse's arms. That enraged Hermann. The two of them became embroiled in a massive fistfight. It was broken up quickly, but not before both of them had bloody noses. King was only sixteen at the time, but was strong and scrappy. And Hermann was drunk, so he wasn't... it was horrible."
"How old were you?" Marge asked.
"Just under fourteen. Too young to endure a week in Berlin with a drunken stepfather. I kept a very low profile until I was mercifully flown back to England. When Mother had Freddy... or rather adopted Freddy, she wanted to fly me in again. I refused to go and my father, God rest his soul, respected my decision."
Marge said, "During your stay in Berlin, Doctor, did you and Hermann Brecht ever have words or come to blows?"
"No, 1 toed the line. Actually, I never did sec Hermann Brecht
again except in the open coffin at his funeral. Pity for anyone to die so young, but that didn't mitigate my hatred for the man. He was a depressive drunk who stole my mother from my father and made bloated, pretentious, cynical movies and called them art."
"You have no idea what he might have said in his memoirs?" Decker asked.
"I don't know... and I don't care."
M.
arge steered to the right lane and merged onto the 605 freeway. Traffic was smooth—no overturned diesels, no fender benders. The sun was strong. She could feel the heat through the rollcd-up window. Pulling out a pair of bargain sunglasses, she slipped them over her eyes.
"Are you ready for Dunn's insight of the week?"
"The excitement is killing me," Decker said.
"Lilah was adopted."
"Bingo, Margie, you win the microwave."
"Your thoughts, too?"
"Yep." Decker took off his jacket and tossed it in the back seat. "I've been thinking about Davida's age. Back then, very few women over forty were even allowed by their doctors to continue the pregnancy."
Marge took in his words. Not tha
t her biological clock was even close to expiring, but it was nice to have more leeway in that department. "Times do change. The wonders of medical science—fifty-year-old mothers."
"I don't know if that's a blessing or a curse."
Marge laughed and knuckled her glasses up her nose. "You know, I didn't even consider Davida's age. I was thinking about her energy level after she supposedly just gave birth to Lilah. Hosting one party after another, gliding around like a swan with no signs of exhaustion."
Faye Kellerman - Decker 05 - False Prophet Page 30
