The Violet Crow (28 page)

Mrs. Wales gave them a big moony smile and stroked the nearest cat.

“Who were her friends in Gardenfield?” the Chief persisted. “Where could she be staying?”

“I really don't know.” Mrs. Wales sighed. “I suppose if it's something devious it might involve some friend of Icky's.” She thought about the funeral and shivered. “Of course, I'm not nearly as judgmental as Dr. Murphy.”

“Of course not.” The Chief decided to try another tack. “You know the key to this case may be what we've been calling the Quaker connection. You're a Quaker, aren't you? Why do you think Alison would bring a body to the meeting house?”

“I really don't think that was Alison. That sounds much more like something Icky would do. You know they both attended Gardenfield Friends in elementary school. I think they met in third grade. Teacher Mildred's class. She lives in a retirement home, now. Over by the mall. Which reminds me. Have you heard the news about Master Quentin?”

No, they hadn't.

“He had another relapse of his old illness. It's something he picked up at the time of the Vietnam War. He and Dr. Fischer used to have such big disagreements back then. They wanted to read Dr. Fischer out of meeting …”

“Read him out of meeting? What does that mean?”

Mrs. Wales frowned. “It's a Quakerism. It just means ‘kick him out.' Give him the old boot. We Quakers aren't always that gentle, you know.”

“Why would they kick someone out of meeting?”

“There are all sorts of reasons. Usually it's for not participating, either by showing up to meeting or making a financial contribution. But with Manny Fischer it was different, because he was doing that research and, you understand, Quakers believe something like biotech is tampering with the order of things—it's not peaceful, if you see what I mean. When word got around that Fischer's work involved messing around with the genetic code … a lot of people got upset.”

“So that's when they—what do you call it—read him out of meeting?”

“There was a lot of discussion. But they never did read him out.”

“No? What happened?”

Mrs. Wales sighed. She seemed to have run out of energy. “I don't know. Maybe he wrote a big check or something. I don't think Master Quentin was too happy about it.”

“When did all of this happen?”

“Whenever Fischer launched his company here. I can't remember what year that was.”

“So it couldn't have been anything Alison was involved in?”

“Of course not, are you crazy? I was signing her up for pre-school, for goodness' sake. I remember talking to Master Quentin about the school and wondering whether the rumors about him and Fischer were true. How could Alison be mixed up in anything when she was four years old?” Mrs. Wales broke down. She was sobbing violently. “You're trying to blame my Alison for everything. But she didn't kill anybody. She couldn't. She's a gentle, loving girl.”

Chapter 57

First thing Bruno did when he got home was to check in on Alison. She was banging Prince Harry.

Next, he picked up the phone to call Dr. Fischer. Chief Black wanted to find out more about the connection between Fischer and Quentin and, because he was busy with some kind of training, he asked Bruno to take the lead on the Fischer angle.

Bruno said he'd be happy to do it. However, he was terribly let down when a different receptionist answered the phone. “Dr. Fischer will be extremely
hawd
to reach during the run-up to
owr
annual meeting,” she cawed. But her accent could not compare to Rhonda's delicious nasalizations. “Try
cawlin'
back after May 26. Or would you like to speak with Dr. Jurevicius?”

“This is a personal call for Dr. Fischer. Tell him Bruno X, Psychic Detective, wants to speak with him.”

He didn't expect to hear back, but at noon the next day Bruno received a call. It was Dr. Fischer, inviting him for a drink at his home around five that evening.

Why not the office, Bruno wondered? Was this a set up? Dr. Fischer lived in Garden Acres, the most exclusive—and most remote—neighborhood in Gardenfield. Was he luring the detective out to this lonely area in order to dispatch him?

Bruno drove over early to avoid any chance of getting stuck in rush-hour traffic. As always, Garden Acres felt a bit like a theme park or a museum. Every house sat back from the street on a comfortable five-acre lot and there were never any people visible. Each house had a different architectural style. As you drove down the lane, it was like an encounter with a different culture—the Tudor mansion, the Russian dacha, the Swiss chalet, and the mid-century modernist glass-and-concrete bunker.

Dr. Fischer lived in the Spanish eclectic hacienda with stucco walls and red tile roof. Bruno drove up the circular drive and parked under the ornate portico that protected the main entrance. Fischer came to the door, dressed in jeans and a worn oxford cloth shirt. He seemed agitated. His rumpled gray hair was out of place. Bruno looked around. Instead of the arrases, suits of armor, and blunderbusses he'd expected, the home was simply decorated with an interesting collection of contemporary landscape paintings.

Fischer was drinking a gin and tonic and he offered to make one for Bruno.

The psychic tried to decline. “Thanks, but I'm really here on business.”

“I invited you for a drink and conversation. I thought I made that clear on the phone.” Fischer mixed a drink and handed it to Bruno. “I genuinely want to help your investigation in any way I can. But I see it as a personal matter. So I prefer to discuss it at home instead of the office. And I'd appreciate your discretion, as much as possible.” He lifted his glass and proposed a toast: “
L'chaim
.”

Bruno winced. Fischer sure was laying it on thick. “
L'chaim
,” he echoed, touching glasses.

Fischer led him into his study. It was a comfortable room, lined with bookshelves holding, primarily, medical texts and journals. Bruno looked around and chose to sit on the leather recliner. It looked like it might keep him from falling on his face—in case the cocktail was spiked.

“I'll come straight to the point,” said Bruno, leaning forward to propel his question with greater impact. “Do you know Alison Wales?”

“Who?”

“She's a college student. Comes from a local Quaker family. In fact I was just speaking with her mother yesterday. Rebecca Wales.”

“Never heard of them. The name sounds familiar but I don't know them personally.”

“We think Alison may be mixed up somehow in the nameless girl's death. It's possible she transported the body to the meeting house.”

“That's terrible.”

“Yes it is. Personally, I don't see Alison as a murderer. But why the meeting house?”

“Why are you asking me? I told you I don't know her.”

“You are a prominent member of the meeting …”

“Hardly.” Dr. Fischer rose from his chair and paced back and forth behind his desk. “I think I'm catching on to your line of reasoning. This Rebecca Wales must have told you some of the old gossip that people used to say about me.”

“She told me that they wanted to read you out of meeting.”

“Right.” Dr. Fischer grimaced. “When they found out what NewGarden does, they started labeling me as another
Dok-tor Frankenshteen …
” He said it with a German accent, holding his arms stretched out in front of him à la Boris Karloff. “And they brought out, point for point, all of the standard misconceptions about biotechnology. I think there must be a manual out there that all of them read.”

Bruno took a sip of his drink. Fischer seemed in the mood to talk. Bruno wanted to encourage him. “Dr. Jurevicius explained all the counter-arguments when we met in your office. He was very convincing …”

Fischer nodded in acknowledgement. “I suppose Mrs. Wales must also have said something about my relationship with Quentin Richards?”

“As a matter of fact, she did.” Bruno raised his glass, as though toasting Fischer's mind-reading abilities.

Fischer barely noticed. He had the bit in his teeth and was off to the races. “I met Quentin during the Vietnam War. We served together in Fort Detrick. That's in Maryland. Nice town, Frederick. Ever been there?”

“No.”

“You like soft-shell crabs?”

“Sure. Doesn't everybody?”

“Then you'd like Frederick. And you know what goes on at Fort Detrick?”

“Enlighten me.”

“USAMRIID,” said Fischer, pronouncing the word as if it were deadly. “The acronym stands for U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. It is our main facility for biological and chemical weapons research. Fort Detrick has the world's most sophisticated containment facility, which makes it the ideal spot for the U.S. military to do most of its testing.”

“But …”

“You were about to say that the United States gave up producing bio and chemical weapons a long time ago?”

“Right. I thought …”

“You thought we discontinued our offensive weapons programs in 1969? You are most definitely right about that.”

Bruno nodded. He was annoyed at Fischer's interruptions and his habit of putting words in his mouth. He was about to take another sip, but all of this talk about biological weapons renewed his suspicions. Didn't the drink have a strange chalky undertaste?

“… but we continued our
defensive
weapons programs,” Fischer droned on. “You see, you can't test your
defensive
capabilities without having some
offensive
weapons to put them up against. And where were we going to get the
offensive
compounds needed for the tests? Buy 'em on the black market?”

Fischer sat down again. He was pleased with his joke, and that seemed to relax him. “Things were different when Quentin and I were there in the early '70s,” he recalled. “The Fort was transitioning out of weapons production, but that was happening at a different part of the facility. We were involved with a program that continued a line of experimentation that had been going on since World War II. You see, after Pearl Harbor, there was a great need to learn more about fighting in the tropics: What kind of rations should you send up with pilots who might get shot down over the Pacific? Was it or was it not a good idea to drink seawater if you were stuck on a raft and that was your only option? These and a thousand other things you wouldn't normally think of.”

Fischer retrieved the bottles. Bruno assumed he was preparing to refresh his drink.

“A critical issue was malaria.” Fisher held up the bottle of tonic water for Bruno's inspection. “Quinine was the most effective remedy, and the Japanese controlled access to its principal sources. Thus, the U.S. military had to conduct extensive experiments on how to protect the troops from malaria. These experiments required human subjects and, believe it or not, people actually volunteered. They allowed themselves to be bitten by malaria-carrying anopheles mosquitoes. Now that takes courage, does it not?”

“Who were these volunteers? Did they really know what they were getting into?”

“Yes, they knew. Some of them were conscientious objectors, wanting to prove they weren't cowards. Others were prisoners, hoping they'd get time off for helping out. It wasn't like what happened in the 1950s, with MK-ULTRA and the radiation experiments. In those days, they'd even experiment on each other. Turn your back and they might put a huge dose of mescaline in your drink.” Fischer winked. “By the way, you look like you need your drink freshened up.”

Bruno shivered and tried to pull his glass away. Nevertheless, Fischer refilled it. “They would have loved to experiment on you, back in the '50s.” Fischer chuckled. “With your psychic powers. They'd want to examine your brain to see if they could understand how it works. But, I digress. Where was I?”

“Malaria experiments.”

“Correct. During World War II, two medical breakthroughs enabled us to save countless lives. Penicillin and DDT. Sounds funny, doesn't it? DDT is very effective against mosquitoes. It enabled us, first, to protect our soldiers in the tropics, and then to virtually eradicate malaria in the U.S.”

“But it is so carcinogenic,” Bruno protested.

Fischer shrugged. “Drinking coffee is 50 times more so. Drinking one of these per day,” he held up his gin and tonic, “carries more than 2,000 times the cancer risk of DDT. You choose your poisons. Where was I?”

“DDT.”

“Right. They banned it. 1972. Nixon created the EPA and what's the first thing they do—ban DDT? Don't get me wrong. I remember walking by Logan Pond 25 or 30 years ago and seeing soapsuds blow across the surface like tumbleweeds. You could choke from the exhaust of unleaded gas. And people would throw cigarette butts and beer cans out of their car windows and not think twice about it. Things have clearly changed for the better. But malaria still kills millions of people around the world each year—and it's preventable. That bothers me.” Fischer looked at Bruno. “Can I get you another drink?”

“Do you have any … bottled water?”

“Always the quick wit.” Fischer toasted Bruno and took another drink. “I'm sorry this is taking so long, but the story won't make sense without the background: In the '70s, one of the larger programs at Detrick was Operation Whitecoat. They had a whole contingent of Seventh-day Adventists who agreed to be subjects in experiments for a variety of infectious diseases. I was working in a parallel program. Since I'm a Quaker, they put me in charge of an experiment using Quaker volunteers. We were targeting malaria.

“Basically, we had to resume where they'd left off back in 1945, and that's where I met Quentin. He was a quiet man. One of the few black Quakers, despite the Friends' longtime opposition to slavery and their championing of civil rights. Well, we don't sing in church, what can I say?”