“He alerted us early this morning that something was wrong here,” Amos said. “That’s why I came to the city now. He’s been keeping an eye on you and your friends—your guardian angel—since you got back to New York City. I’m sorry that I upset Jenna…”
“It’s OK.” I said. Jenna was safe and sound in our apartment now, with officers stationed outside just in case. “So what did you learn from Stefan?”
“His people were smarter than all of us, you know.”
“How so?”
“I mean the original Neanderthals,” Amos said. “They had bigger brains, more room to store wisdom about nature.”
“Brains don’t necessarily work that way—connections count more than raw storage capacity.”
“More room for connections, then,” Amos said. “And our ancestors—your ancestors and my ancestors—we killed them. Our peoples killed them. Because we envied their wisdom. That may be what these murders are all about.”
“Stefan told you that?”
“Not exactly that,” Amos replied. “He didn’t know about the murders. I didn’t know until you just told me. Our watch-cats tell us with their eyes when there is trouble—they don’t actually speak to us.” He smiled, I guess at the absurdity of a cat relating specific descriptions. Cats travelling hundreds of miles to communicate turmoil with their eyes—that was old hat to these people.
“What connection could these murders have to the Neanderthals?” I asked.
“I believe the people who first wiped out the Neanderthals are the same people who plagued us with their Mendel bombs, who killed Laurie’s father. They are a prehistoric people. They are responsible for the Neanderthal corpses in your cities, I’m sure of it, though I don’t understand why they did that. But they kill people—with illness if possible, with weapons if they must—who get in their way. You’ve already seen some of their handiwork in Pennsylvania.” He touched his abdomen. “I felt the cold kiss of one their knives—fortunately I was wearing this safety-weave.” He stroked his shirt, moss green.
“I’m glad you’re OK,” I said. “You should have told me about this connection to the Neanderthals sooner.”
“It’s just a theory—as you would call it,” Amos said. “We probably know less about the Neanderthals than you know—we have no access to their remains around the world. All we’re going on are our old stories, passed down from father to son, uncle to nephew, oldest to youngest brother.”
I sighed.
“I wish I had more butterflies,” Amos said. “I should tell John Lapp about the murders. He should be alerted about the danger. He doesn’t use a phone—like I do. He knows to look at the sky.”
“You were using those butterflies to send back a message to John Lapp?”
“Yes, they’re very dependable.”
“Those butterflies can fly from here to Pennsylvania?”
“Oh yes,” Amos said. “Monarch butterflies fly every year from here to Mexico, with pinpoint accuracy. These were bred to fly right to the butterfly bush in the back of John Lapp’s garden.”
“You came here how—by train?—with a cage of butterflies?”
“No, by bus. It’s OK for our group to ride by bus, as long as we don’t drive it. I could’ve brought some butterflies along in a bunch of envelopes—they travel just fine that way, as long as you don’t sit on them. But I figured I’d need a lot of butterflies for this, so my friend brought them down to me from Union Square—I saw him on my way down here. He runs an Amish bakery-stand there.”
“Yeah, I think I’ve had his bread. It’s delicious,” I said. “Don’t worry about letting John know about the murders—I’ll call someone in Lancaster and he’ll figure out a way of getting John the message.”
“OK, thanks.”
“Butterflies,” I said, and looked at the sky. “Even if you’d saved a few, how in the world would they be able to carry a message that two people were murdered?” If cats couldn’t talk, how the hell could butterflies?
“It’s all in the way they land—which butterflies set down first, and where on the bush. I have to let them go in just the right order—it took me years to learn. We can spell out all sorts of things that way. It’s a pattern—a code—each pattern of landings stands for a different letter. It takes a lot of butterflies, but ours are bred to land and take off and land again as many times as needed to spell out the message. We call it ‘moth code’—we had it long before Morse had his. It’s ancient. Maybe he got his idea from us.”
And what code was causing all of this to happen?
PART
FOUR
THE
SILK
CODE
FIFTEEN
“Nothing but a few dead moths and two past-due bills in the mailbox.” I closed the flimsy front of the box. Would that the DNA codes we were trying to crack had been as readily revealing of their contents.
“Is that your idea of a joke?” Mallory asked. He was over here for a “consultation” with me, the wheels of UK funding having finally ground around and come up with the “requisite bob,” as he put it, that he had requested from his superiors months ago for this trip.
“I wish it was,” I replied, “but we get lots of moths in these kinds of brownstones in the summer.” I looked at my watch. “It’s 12:50. Let’s go over to the Yorkville for some lunch.”
We walked to the restaurant. Mallory handed me a sheaf of papers, after we’d seen ourselves to a table. “First, here’s the report I was telling you about.” You could always tell a British report or a letter from an American—even before you looked at the words. British paper was about a quarter-inch slimmer and three-quarters of an inch longer. Sometimes I found the difference pleasing, sometimes irritating. Today—
“So you’ll see the summating data beginning on page 20,” Mallory said. “Our boys found some real differences in Dave Spencer’s DNA.”
They had indeed. The DNA from the three original corpses had been spliced, diced, measured, tested, inserted, all with the same result—it was stable, predictable, hadn’t done anything unusual since its initial recovery from the corpses months ago. Same for Stefan Antonescu. But Dave Spencer’s DNA, or whatever the hell it was now, seemed to be a work in progress. Inserted into rat cells, it went off in all directions—a Fourth of July of bizarre combinations, none of which were survivable. So far…
“They call it ‘hypermutability,’” Mallory said. “There’s a similar effect known in some E. coli genes.”
“Yeah, I know about the E. coli,” I said. “Our analyses of Dave’s post-mortem DNA coincide completely with yours. What I’m wondering is how long Dave’s DNA will retain the Bombycidae sequences.” I had filled Mallory in on Lum’s theory.
“I’ll tell our lab boys to keep an eye on that,” Mallory said. “My superiors have become very interested in this.”
More than mine, I thought. “Is that why they finally sent you over here?”
“Look, I don’t really give a rat’s scrotum about my superiors,” Mallory said, “except insofar as they can help me do what needs to get done. You know that. I’m here because I’m concerned about this case—and about you.”
I looked at Mallory. “Michael, we have a problem here. A body was found in Washington Square Park the same day as the double murder. His prints match some partials found in Debbie’s apartment. He might have been the guy who knifed me at Heathrow—I can’t be sure, but he looks familiar. He died of a drug overdose, but no one thinks for a minute that he was a junkie—no needle tracks on his arm, nothing else to indicate he was a user. He was likely killed by whoever it is who is really calling the shots here. Now I didn’t tell you this before, because I can’t be sure that it isn’t you—whoever or whatever it is that is behind this seems to know lots of information about lots of things. So: I don’t trust you, you don’t trust me. Where does that leave us?”
“Look at this from my point of view,” Mallory replied. “It’s not a question of trusting you—actually,
I do—but perhaps you are being victimized, under the control of forces you’re not even aware of. All the action’s taking place here, in your town. Yes, you were knifed in Heathrow, but for all I know you staged that to throw us off—you yourself have said more than once that there’s always occasion to doubt attempted murders, wounds that are less than fatal—they make great smokescreens for their ‘victims’. And after the initial corpses turned up, just about everything else has been happening here, hasn’t it. Antonescu reappears, Dave Spencer dies and turns Neanderthal, and those two ladies murdered. I would be one lousy investigator if I didn’t suspect you of something more than you’re letting on here, wouldn’t I?”
“I understand,” I said. “Except I know what I’ve really been up to in this case, I don’t really know what you’ve been up to—so, as far as I’m concerned, everything that you just said could be so much more smoke, however logical, to divert my attention from you.” And of course that very argument, from Mallory’s point of view, could just be more clever argument by me to throw him off. There was no way we could settle this now—every argument, every bit of evidence, could point both ways. Like that scene in The Bridges of Madison County I once told Jack Dugan about. Meryl Streep watches Clint Eastwood drive away at the end of the movie, after they’d agreed that parting was the best thing. If he really loves me, Streep thinks, he’ll keep on driving, he won’t turn around. And Eastwood does just that. But what if Eastwood keeps driving not because he loves Streep so much, but because he never loved her that much in the first place? In that case, driving away is not that difficult, no act of blistering self-sacrifice for love. But how then can we tell, from just that one act, what’s really going on in Eastwood’s soul? The one act, Eastwood’s driving away, supports two contradicting hypotheses. Just like each facet of this damn case Mallory and I were rehashing…
“Phil, Phil…” Mallory began. I’d taken my eyes off of him while I was deep in my thought. Now in the corner of my vision I suddenly saw his hand dip down below the table—
I reached out and grabbed it, pitching a glass of orange juice off of the table. It smashed loudly on the stone floor—
“Phil, for crissakes, I was reaching for a handkerchief—take it easy.”
I held on tightly to his wrist, allowing him to fish out whatever it was he was taking from his pocket.
It was indeed a handkerchief—silk, and embroidered. Not blue.
“I’m sorry…” I shook my head.
“Is it all right with you if I blow my nose now?”
“I’m sorry,” I said again, dumbly. “Maybe whoever, whatever, is behind this isn’t on the inside. But they sure seem to know a lot about what we’re doing and thinking. Now I know it isn’t me. So I start looking at you and Lum. And I’ve gotta like you more for this. Lum doesn’t seem to have the energy—I know, I suppose that could be an act too. Jeez, once you get on this slope—”
“Forget about Lum. It isn’t him,” Mallory said.
“Well, look, if it isn’t you and it isn’t me, we have to start thinking about Lum. He could easily have been involved in the Gerry Moses death—”
“Listen to me,” Mallory said, his face white with intensity. “It isn’t Lum. He died this morning.”
Mallory would have to be crazy to bald-facedly lie to me about something like this, but I had to check it out anyway.
“Stay right here,” I told him as I stood up. “Please.” I had no right to order him to do anything, but he nodded.
I walked to the front of the restaurant, and a pay phone attached to the wall—I’d absent-mindedly left my phone at home. I punched in my credit card and hunted down Lum’s number in Toronto, keeping my eyes on Mallory, who was coolly pouring a cup of tea from the pot.
Someone answered the phone—not Lum’s usual assistant—what the hell was his name? I identified myself and asked to speak to Lum.
“Just a moment, Doctor.”
I was shunted to three different numbers, each of which was voice mail. Mallory was on his next cup of tea.
On the fourth shunt, I got to speak to a live person again, and this time explained my reason for calling.
“I’m sorry, Dr. D’Amato, I can’t release any information about H.-T. Lum at this time.”
I guess that confirmed Mallory’s story—why else would this factotum refuse to talk to me—but I pushed the issue anyway. I told him: Lives are at stake, cooperation between our two great countries, lives are at stake, we have a long history of sharing information on things like this, lives are at stake—
“I’m sorry, Dr. D’Amato. We do like to share information, but everything has its limits. We believe in freedom of speech up here, but we don’t worship it.”
“What in bloody hell does freedom of speech have to do with this—”
The factotum hung up on me.
Great. I was even beginning to talk like Mallory already, but obviously lacked his facility for coaxing information from these people. Damn Canadians, damn Brits—neither knew the first thing about freedom of speech and the First Amendment anyway…
I calmed myself and looked at Mallory sipping tea.
I made a decision.
“So you believe me now about H.-T. Lum?” Mallory asked, as I rejoined him at the table.
“More or less. The guy on the phone didn’t say much. Can’t you call him up and order him to tell me about Lum? Canadian money still has the Queen’s face on it, doesn’t it?”
“That’s not the way it works, Phil.”
I signalled the waiter for another pot of tea. “All right,” I said. “Here’s how I see things: Assuming Lum is dead, that indeed most likely means that he was not the one behind the killings. Logically, that just casts further suspicion on you or me. But if we go that route, if we follow that logic, then there’s little sense in even continuing this conversation—we would do better each of us to just place the other under arrest, if we could. So let me propose something else.”
“I’m listening,” Mallory said.
“If we start from the premise, however unlikely it now seems to each of us about the other, that neither of us is the ultimate miscreant here, we’re still left with the fact that people who were involved in this case, or knew a lot about it, are dying in alarming proportions—Gerry Moses, Dave Spencer, Tesa and Debbie, and now Lum. Plus an attempt was made on one of my Amish friends, and on me.”
“Right,” Mallory said. “That brings us, again, to why we have reciprocal suspicions.”
“Yes. But if we take you and me out of this, just for the sake of argument, what does it tell us about where to look further? The most likely way that someone could know so much about this case, and not be seated at this table right now, would be if that someone were close enough to at least one of us to pick up that information.”
Mallory made a face. “You want, what—I put a tail on Jenna, and you do the same for my wife?”
“Not quite—here’s what I’m suggesting,” I said. “You and I call a truce. We combine our forces and go over all the people associated with each of us. You look at my people, I look at yours. You can stay right here and do it yourself, if you like, or put someone else on it. I’ll go over to England again myself. If things point to someone in Canada, we can go up there together.”
Mallory brought the cup of tea to his lips.
He eventually extended his hand.
I took it and shook it.
“Of course, if either one of us is the next one to die, that would pretty well clinch it that the survivor is the killer. Not that that would do the casualty any good,” he said.
SIXTEEN
Mallory assigned a special British agent to the American side of the case—Amanda Leonard, who worked undercover over there at the BBC. I couldn’t imagine that happening over here, but maybe I was naive.
Her BBC cover as an investigative reporter did have the advantage of opening some extra doors to her. She looked more than the part with her jet-black hair and violet eyes
.
I pushed through the revolving door at Bobst Library. Amanda followed.
“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice,” she said, and extended her hand to Stefan Antonescu, after we had made our way to the lower floor, where he was at work.
“You mean, ‘thank you for seeing me on no notice’,” he replied. “Mrs. Delany told me only forty-five minutes ago that you were coming down here, and wanted to talk to me. Other than leaving this task right in the middle,” he gestured to the refuse bin he was wheeling around, half filled with paper in various states of crumpledness, “I had no choice but to remain here and entertain your visit. I did insist that Dr. D’Amato join us—I have nothing but distrust for the media.”
I smiled as engagingly as I could. “I’ll just be the fly on the wall here, and stay out of your conversation.”
Amanda smiled as engagingly as she could—which was engaging indeed, full wattage. “And I thought we Brits were supposed to be the sticklers for exact use of the language. It’s good to see there’s such concern for it on this side of the Atlantic as well.”
“My kind transcends the Atlantic, madam, as you no doubt already know.”
“Yes, and that’s what I was hoping we might talk at least a little about,” Amanda said.
“As long as you do your part, and pick up a piece of paper from the floor from time to time as I make my rounds, I have no objection,” Antonescu said. “It’s possible that the bright light of publicity might be good for my survival, keep away the cowards who lurk in the shadows. Maybe that’s the reason I’ve managed to survive these past few months.”
Amanda bent over and picked up an announcement of last week’s special events, festooned with footprints. Antonescu took in the view.
“Is it true that you’re three hundred years old?” she asked, after lodging the announcement in the bin.
“Should I give you my personal impressions of Louis Napoléon, or Frederick the Great? Would that convince you?”
The Silk Code Page 22
