Coming of Age

by Timothy Zahn

  The woman, Cam Mbar, smiled. “Actually, he was handling five projects at once long before the department gave him this much room. He just gets all of them finished faster this way.”

  “What are all these animals for?” Tonio asked, drifting sideways through the air as he scanned the rows of cages with obvious fascination.

  “They’re used in various experiments,” Ramsden told him. “If we’re working with a new drug, say, we have to test it on animals to make sure it’ll be safe for people to use.”

  “What happens if it’s not?”

  “Well, we do more testing and research to try and—”

  “I mean what happens to the animal,” Tonio interrupted, still gazing into the cages.

  Ramsden exchanged a quick glance with Cam. “Well … usually the animal dies, I’m afraid.”

  Slowly, the preteen settled back to the floor and stepped back to Tirrell’s side, his face set into an expression that was simultaneously hard and blank. Forcing his eyes back to Cam, Tirrell broke the awkward silence. “I wonder if we could go to the doctor’s office now and ask you a few questions, Ms. Mbar.”

  “Certainly,” she nodded with evident relief. Tirrell glanced once at Tonio’s face as they all filed out of the animal room, but the other’s expression hadn’t changed. The righthand’s reaction worried Tirrell a bit, and he made a mental note to ask about it later.

  The office was considerably smaller than Ramsden’s had been, but once Cam had sat down at the cluttered desk and Tonio had drifted up over everyone’s head, there was enough room for everyone to breathe simultaneously. “Have you ever seen this woman before?” Tirrell asked Cam, handing her the picture of Miribel Oriana.

  Cam gazed at it, shook her head. “No. Sorry.”

  “Okay. Do you happen to have a picture of Dr. Jarvis available?”

  She blinked at the request. “Uh … I think there’s one on the jacket of his latest book.” She scanned the bookshelves. “That’s one—end of the shelf, gray cover.” She pointed past Ramsden.

  “Tonio?” Tirrell said, and the book slid out and flew into the detective’s hands. The picture was on the front inside cover, and he studied it for a long moment in silence. It could be Oliver’s face, he decided; but, then again, the description they had was so limited that nothing conclusive could be drawn from it.

  “Cam? Louden? Anyone home?” a voice said from outside in one of the labs.

  “In here, Dr. Somerset,” Cam called.

  A bluff, friendly looking face peered around the door jamb. “Whoops. Didn’t realize you were having a party here. I just brought in the latest prostaglandin test results. He stepped in and leaned past Tirrell and Ramsden to hand Cam a piece of paper. As she took it, his head twisted sideways, and he gestured to the photo still lying on the desk in front of her. “Where’d that come from?”

  Tirrell had caught the head movement and was already picking up the photo and turning it right side up. “Do you recognize this woman, Doctor?” he asked.

  “Sure—Matt was going out with her a few years ago.” He focused on Tirrell’s face. “Why do you ask, Mr.—?”

  “Tirrell, Detective First Tirrell of Ridge Harbor.” Tirrell’s heart was doing rapid flip-flops in the center of his chest. “Do you remember how long ago this was?”

  “Uh …” Somerset hesitated, looking questioningly at Ramsden.

  “Tell him anything you can, Kelby,” the other affirmed. “This concerns a very serious matter, and I’ve promised the departments full cooperation. Detective, that must be why she looked familiar to me—I must have seen her in the building with Matt.”

  Somerset still looked uncertain. “Is Matt in some kind of trouble?” he asked.

  Tirrell hesitated a split second, decided to give the most favorable interpretation that wasn’t an outright lie. “At the moment, we’re just trying to locate this woman or find out as much about her as we can.”

  “Well, I doubt that Matt would be much help with that,” Somerset said, still sounding reluctant. “I haven’t seen her around for at least … oh, at least five years; probably closer to six.”

  “I see. I understand Dr. Jarvis is on vacation at the moment. Do you know where he is?”

  “Sure—he’s out at his cabin.”

  “Where’s that?”

  Somerset shrugged. “I don’t know. Out in the woods somewhere. Cam, do you know?”

  The woman shook her head. “I was thinking it was somewhere due north of here, east of Banat perhaps. He’s got a radiophone up there, though.”

  Somerset nodded. “Yes, I’ve called him a couple of times since he left.”

  “You what?” Ramsden snapped. “Blast it, Kelby, he’s supposed to be on vacation out there.”

  “Funny, that’s what he said,” Somerset said blandly. He looked back at Tirrell. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind coming back for a few hours to talk to you, Detective. I can get a radiophone link from the phone here, if you’d like.”

  “No, that’s all right,” Tirrell said, his mind racing. “There’s no need yet to interrupt his vacation. It’s possible we can get all the information we need from other sources, especially if Dr. Jarvis hasn’t seen Ms. Oriana in several years. I would, however, like to ask you and Ms. Mbar some questions about Dr. Jarvis’s recent work, if I may.”

  “What sort of questions?” Ramsden asked guardedly. “I don’t mean to be rude, Detective, but you’ll understand that some of the work here has important commercial applications, and we can’t afford premature disclosure of sensitive details.”

  “I don’t expect to need any sensitive details, and any I do will stay with me,” Tirrell told him. “But it may very well prove vital for me to know of the existence of such details. I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say more right now.”

  For a moment the others mulled that over, while Tirrell crossed his fingers and prayed for Tonio to keep his questions to himself. “Well …” Somerset said, glancing at Ramsden, “of course we’ll be happy to cooperate as much as possible.” He paused, but Ramsden didn’t interrupt, and he continued, “I have an important appointment in five minutes, but I could probably cancel it if absolutely necessary.”

  Tirrell shook his head. “No, you can go ahead. Ms. Mbar can give me all the help I’ll need for a while. Just come back as soon as you can and don’t mention any of this to anyone else.” He shifted his gaze. “That applies to you and your secretary, too, Dr. Ramsden. Thank you for your time and help; I’ll let you know if I need any further assistance.”

  Ramsden nodded and, correctly interpreting the comment as a dismissal, squeezed past Somerset and disappeared. “I’ll be back in about an hour,” Somerset said and followed his colleague.

  “If you don’t mind, Detective,” Cam said, rising from her chair, “I have to get something out of the autoclave before we begin. It’ll only take a minute.”

  “Go ahead.” Tirrell nodded, pressing himself back against the wall to let her by. Tonio dropped back to the floor as she left, took a quick look out the door, and turned to face the detective.

  “You going to let me in on this game?” he asked in a low voice. “What does Jarvis’s recent work have to do with anything?”

  “If he’s like most scientists I’ve known, he’ll have all his lab book entries dated,” Tirrell said. “Ramsden said he was often here on Saturdays; if we can prove he wasn’t here on the days Colin’s sitter and playmates remember seeing Oliver in Ridge Harbor, we may be able to persuade the Barona police to authorize our using direction finders to locate Jarvis’s convenient little hideaway.”

  Tonio frowned. “Why do we need to persuade them? He’s a material witness or something, isn’t he?”

  “Not really—all we know is that someone else says Jarvis once knew Oriana. That justifies our calling him and asking him to come in for questioning, but if he is involved in the kidnapping, that would tip him off and might even spook him into deeper hiding. And if Colin is still with him …” He left
the sentence unfinished.

  An odd look flickered across Tonio’s face, but before Tirrell could ask about it, he heard the sound of returning footsteps. A moment later Cam appeared with a half-dozen thick binders. “Here are Dr. Jarvis’s lab books, Detective,” she said, sidling past him back to the desk chair. “What would you like to know?”

  Tirrell glanced back at Tonio, but the preteen seemed all right. I’ll ask him about it later, the detective decided, turning his attention back to Cam. “Let’s start with the first of March,” he told her, “and look at which Saturdays Dr. Jarvis was working.”

  The session took nearly an hour and a half, and by the time Tirrell and Tonio left, Barona’s four o’clock rush hour was already in progress. Fortunately, the city building wasn’t too far from the university campus, and they arrived with Tirrell’s temper still in good shape. Passing the front desk and the loungelike duty room, they went up the stairs to the third floor; but instead of going to the cracker-box office the Barona police had assigned them, Tirrell went to another office a few doors down.

  Hob Paxton, Detective Second of Barona, was not amused by the report. “Do you realize who you’re talking about, Tirrell? Matthew Jarvis. Probably Barona’s greatest claim to fame. I can’t let you go invading his privacy on the basis of some dates in some lab books.”

  “Oh, come on.” Tirrell brought a finger down hard on the notebook resting in front of the other. “Every single day that we know Colin’s kidnapper was in Ridge Harbor Jarvis was out of his lab—and they were the only Saturdays he was out. What more do you want?”

  “Evidence that he was in Ridge Harbor on those days would help a lot.”

  “All right,” Tirrell said. “Get me a records-check authorization and I’ll try and find out when he charged up his car around the critical weekends.”

  Paxton shook his head. “That’s almost as bad as the radiophone trace. Forget it. Besides, all that could get you is how many kilometers he drove, not where he went.”

  “It wouldn’t even get you that much if he recharged at the other end of any long trips,” Weylin Ellery, Paxton’s righthand, put in.

  “If he was spying on Colin Brimmer, he wouldn’t risk leaving a record of his presence that way,” Tirrell said shortly. His dislike of Weylin had begun about five minutes after their first meeting and was still growing like a healthy weed. The preteen combined a subtle self-righteousness with the irritating air of semi-private amusement kids in secret hive clubs often displayed to the rest of the world.

  “Well, it’s a moot question, anyway,” Paxton said. “We simply can’t do anything like that without more proof, Tirrell.”

  Lips pressed tightly together, Tirrell got to his feet.

  “Perhaps we should go see Chief Li directly about this.”

  Paxton’s brow darkened just a bit. “If you want to do that there’s no way I can stop you; but I can tell you right now the answer’ll be the same,” he said coolly. “I don’t know how you do things out east, though, but in Barona a visiting policeman usually doesn’t threaten to go over his liaison’s head.”

  “Out east we’re more interested in solving crimes than in carving out political hierarchies,” Tirrell countered. “Thanks for your time.” Turning, he stalked out of the room, Tonio on his heels.

  “What do we do now?” the righthand asked when they were behind the closed door of their own office.

  “We’re going to find Jarvis ourselves,” Tirrell said, still fuming. “Even if he built that cabin with his own hands, he had to buy the materials somewhere, and he may have dropped enough clues along the way to give us a rough idea of where he is. Once we’ve got that we can scour the area on foot if we have to.”

  “You’re really sure he’s got Colin, aren’t you,” Tonio said, that odd look on his face again.

  “I’m eighty percent convinced of it,” Tirrell said. “In a couple of days that number may go up.” He tapped the book he’d borrowed from Cam. “I want you to take this picture of Jarvis back to Ridge Harbor tonight. You’ll ask Macvey to put a beard, glasses, and gray hair on it and then show it to Colin’s sitter, and you’ll also show it as it is to the hospital people who remember Oriana’s visitor. Better make the picture part of a lineup in both cases—Macvey will know how to handle it.”

  “Okay.” Tonio took the book, gazed at and through the picture. “Stan … what would Jarvis want with Colin? I mean, there’s no reason for him to have set up a six-month vacation if he was giving Colin to a fagin, is there?”

  Tirrell shook his head. “I can’t think of one. I frankly don’t know.”

  “Do you suppose he’s doing some sort of experiment on him? Like they do on all those little animals?”

  Tirrell studied the other’s face. “That really got to you, didn’t it?” he asked.

  The preteen shrugged uncomfortably. “I used to go to the library and watch animals like those playing around in their cages,” he said. “I didn’t know people did things like … that … to them.”

  “It has to be done,” Tirrell said, trying to remember his own reaction to that revelation when he was in school. But it was buried too deeply. “There are lots of things we have to do to animals to live. All the meat we eat comes from animals; so does leather and furs—”

  “I know all that,” Tonio interrupted impatiently. “I’m not a child. It’s just that … cows and trehhosts aren’t so small and friendly looking. Or so defenseless.”

  “I understand.” Tirrell let the silence hang in the air a few seconds, and then gestured minutely toward the book. “I’d like that picture in Macvey’s hands as soon as possible.”

  Tonio looked up and managed a faint smile. “Okay, I get the hint. You want me to phone the results to you or just fly them back?”

  “Better hand-deliver them. Paxton’s point about Jarvis being a civic landmark is well taken. I don’t want to risk any leaks until we’ve got a solid case. There’s that twenty percent chance he could be innocent, after all.”

  “Right.” Sliding the jacket off the book, Tonio carefully flattened the paper and buttoned it inside his shirt. “See you in a couple of days,” he said and disappeared out the door. Swiveling his chair to face the window, Tirrell gazed out, and a minute later saw his righthand rising rapidly into the eastern sky.

  But he’s not innocent, the detective told himself. One way or another, Jarvis is involved. And that certainty made something very unpleasant crawl around in the pit of his stomach … because he had no answer for Tonio’s question.

  What the hell did Jarvis want Colin for, anyway?

  All the logic Tirrell was trying so hard to build into his case tottered dangerously around that point. For a moment he wondered if Tonio had been right, if Jarvis was Colin’s father and simply wanted some time with his son. But Jarvis was surely smart enough to have tried legal channels before resorting to kidnapping if that was his goal. No, it had to be something else entirely … and two facts abruptly clicked together in Tirrell’s brain.

  Jarvis was an endocrinologist, who had done extensive work with the glandular role in teekay.

  Colin was at the age where teekay was just starting to become significant.

  Tirrell shuddered as the picture of small animals in cages flicked through his mind. Picking up the phone directory, he turned to the business section and began making lists of builders, building supply stores, and renters of building equipment.

  Chapter 10

  AS USUAL, LISA DROPPED to the sidewalk a good four blocks away from the Lee Intro School. It was nearly six o’clock, an hour past sundown, and even with the streetlights shining brightly she had no problem finding a doorway dark enough for her to surreptitiously stuff the two wads of tissues into the training bra she’d borrowed from Sheelah’s dresser. Daryl had always seemed nervous about being seen with her until she’d hit upon this way to make herself look older. It had helped, but only for a while, and over the last couple of weeks he’d started acting a little funny again. Di
stant, sort of. Hopefully, though, the few drops of perfume she’d managed to scrounge would help bring him back around. Sniffing at her wrists, she checked to make sure the flight hadn’t blown the scent away.

  Daryl was waiting by their usual bench when she arrived, turning the latest book nervously end over end. Playfully, she used her teekay to freeze it suddenly in midair. His eyes bulged for a split second before he looked up at her with obvious irritation. “Knock it off, Lisa, he hissed.

  “Hello, Daryl,” she said demurely, releasing the book.

  “Hi,” he grumbled. “You have the other one with you? Good—give it here. All right, now, this one shouldn’t have any new words that you can’t get from the pictures; if there are any you can’t figure out, mark them and we’ll talk on Friday. Okay?’ He took a step back toward the school.

  “Wait a second,” Lisa said, puzzled and alarmed. “What’s the rush? Anything wrong?”

  “Of course not,” he said, a little too quickly. “I just can’t stay out here all night.”

  “All night? It’s only—”

  “Lisa, I’ve got to go,” he interrupted brusquely, and for a second she was a kid again, standing in front of her preteen overseer. “I’ll see you on Friday; don’t be late.”

  Numbly, she watched as he strode back toward Lee Intro, his figure alternately clear and indistinct as he passed under the row of streetlights. The abruptness of his manner had scared her down to her toes—something was wrong, and she had no idea what it could be. Had he been caught passing her books? After her library experience she could easily imagine such a thing’s getting him in trouble. Perhaps someone had been watching tonight’s meeting—maybe that was why he’d left so quickly. Frantically, she looked around, but she couldn’t see anyone.

  Or else …

  Daryl was nearly a block away by now. Carefully, trying to match his speed, Lisa set off after him, a new suspicion growing in her mind. He passed Lee Intro without pausing and continued on the three blocks to the Paris Introductory School. He went in the front door while Lisa, not wanting to hang around in plain sight, found a dark tree midway between two streetlights and flew up into it. She didn’t have long to wait; a moment later Daryl reemerged, accompanied by a teen woman, and together they headed toward the commercial area near the two schools. Their voices carried distinctly in the still air, and though Lisa couldn’t catch many of the words, it was clear they were having a good time. They passed under a light, giving Lisa a glimpse of the teen’s long blonde hair, and she noticed for the first time that they were holding hands as they walked. Laughing and chattering, they rounded a corner and disappeared from sight.