“Can’t tell you about that. I guess they’ll have children when they want to, any time they want to. You know she’s a novelist, writes these romance stories. I understand the people who read that sort of thing think they are very good, and I see them being sold everywhere.”
“I read one this morning,” Ryan replied.
“You read one this morning?”
“Not exactly rocket science,” Ryan muttered. Actually, he enjoyed the book, but he didn’t want to reveal that.
“Why did you read one of her books this morning? I don’t get this. What did you expect to learn from that? How are the Rosses involved in all this?”
“You know Esther Robinson, Stocker Robinson’s mother, works for them, cleans their home?”
“So?”
“I have reason to want to speak to all the parties concerned,” Ryan said without offering any more information.
McCalester squeezed his heavy eyebrows toward each other and curled in the corners of his mouth before sitting forward and putting his big arms on the small desk.
“Your questioning someone as important and influential as Mr. Ross and his wife about a murder in this community might be politically incorrect,” he said. “It’ll get around, and just questioning someone can taint him or her. Bertram Cauthers, the senior partner in Ross’s firm, is very connected. I’d be extra sure before I tapped on those doors.”
“I’m not running for any office,” Ryan replied.
McCalester smiled and sat back again. “We’re all running for office all the time, Detective Lee. I’m sure you’ve got your eyes set on some promotion, some higher goal.”
“I don’t compromise my investigations,” Ryan said sharply, “to ensure personal goals.”
McCalester’s smile wilted. “I don’t, either. I’m just trying to give you some sage advice. Take it or leave it. If you screw up here, one phone call from Bertram Cauthers will have you yanked so fast and hard you’ll end up investigating ice-cube thieves at the North Pole.”
Ryan stared coldly at him and had just started to stand when McCalester’s phone rang. McCalester pounced on the receiver.
As he listened, his eyes widened, and he nodded at Ryan, who paused and sat again.
“When? What have you done about it? Okay, we’ll get on it.”
He hung up.
“That was Ted Sullivan, the high-school principal. The Robinson girl is AWOL from school. Didn’t show up for her class, and her homing badge isn’t registering her in the building. They’ve gone through all their monitoring systems.”
“As far as I know about that security system, she couldn’t take her ID badge off and leave, or it would have sent an alarm to the central office, right?” Ryan asked.
“Right. Which means she must have found a way out. The question is why, and where did she go?”
He pressed a button on his console.
“Charlie, check the monitors and the tapes. We’re looking for Stocker Robinson. See if she entered the village during the last hour.”
“I’m going to her home,” Ryan said, standing. “I wanted to interview her mother again, anyway.”
“Let’s be sure she’s there first. She might be on a job,” McCalester said. He made the call, and Esther Robinson answered, telling him she had just arrived.
“What’s wrong now?” she asked.
“Is your daughter there, Esther?”
“My daughter? She’s at school. Isn’t she?”
“No. She made an unauthorized exit, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, damn. On top of all the rest! Mickey’s going to be beside himself,” she said.
“Let’s hope that’s the least of it, Esther,” McCalester said. “We’ll be right there.”
He cradled the phone and joined Ryan at the door.
“It’s not necessary for you to come along,” Ryan said without any belligerence.
“Hey, this is the most exciting thing to happen for some time. Besides, and this is a state secret, I haven’t much to do here, anyway.”
Ryan smiled and shrugged. “Suit yourself,” he said.
On the way out, they checked with Charlie Krammer, who had nothing to report.
“Might as well take my car,” McCalester suggested. “I’ve got to justify the gas allotment.”
They got into McCalester’s vehicle and shot away from the station. An increasingly graying sky had darkened, and small drizzle had begun. McCalester turned on his rain blowers which kept the drops off the windshield, and readjusted the braking system to prevent any planing on slick roads. There was no need to slow down.
“So, you’re tying this Robinson girl to the Rosses somehow, is that it?” McCalester asked Ryan as they turned off Main Street and headed toward the Robinsons’ residence.
The silent moments that followed made him think Ryan was just not going to answer.
Instead, he turned to him and said, “If you call Bertram Cauthers and tell him so, you’ll endanger this whole investigation.”
McCalester felt himself go crimson in the face and neck. “What makes you think I would do something like that?”
“We’re all running for office all the time,” Ryan replied. “Remember?”
McCalester glanced at him and then smiled. “I guess there’s something to all those myths about the high intelligence of the Asian, genetic engineering or no genetic engineering.”
Finally, Ryan Lee laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“What a dull world this would be if we lost all our stereotypes and prejudices, after all,” Ryan said.
A little more than an hour out of Sandburg, Natalie reached for a bottle of water and poured herself a glass. Her throat had become so dry she couldn’t swallow. Despite the television set and the availability of music any time she wanted it, she couldn’t help feeling claustrophobic. Her driver hadn’t said a word for nearly two hours, and the tinted window between them made it impossible for her to see him. She had the sense that he could see her whenever he wished, however.
Natalie appreciated the need for secrecy and the importance of protecting everyone involved, especially Preston, but she wished she could have a little more control of her destiny. At the moment, she felt like one of those poor astronauts who had lost their lifelines to the mother ship when repairing a satellite. They drifted off, out of control, counting down the minutes to the end of their oxygen supply and their impending death. With so much time to consider their plight, did they panic, or were they stoical? The messages they sent back were kept secret out of respect for them and their families. If any had panicked or died screaming for help, it was surely to be kept classified. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, they were the best of the best, and any human weakness had to be kept hidden.
What was her attitude supposed to be? Was she to keep her eyes closed and be patient, calm? Was she simply to obey every order, or could she exert her will, express her feelings, have some say, no matter how small and insignificant, in her own immediate future? Would she embarrass Preston? Compromise his efforts? Put him in any danger if she didn’t do everything she was told?
This wasn’t meant to be a picnic, Natalie, she told herself. It’s the path you and Preston have chosen to take. Grin and bear it. Swallow down your panic and your anxiety, Natalie Ross. You’re an astronaut of sorts. You’re dangling in space, and the lifeline is very fragile. Believe that.
“Is it much longer?” she finally dared to ask.
“Another half hour,” the driver replied. “Are you comfortable?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, then,” he said. It sounded like Why the hell are you bothering me, then?
She closed her eyes and lay back. Less than a hundred years ago, a pregnant woman was a proud and happy woman. People smiled at her and asked her how she was. Soon-to-be grandparents were excited and eager. Her husband doted on her, cherished her. Together they planned and dreamed of their future as parents. They enjoyed sorting through names. They t
alked about ways they were going to make life better for their child than it had been for them.
They weren’t fugitives.
They didn’t have to be clandestine.
Why was it so difficult for everyone else to see the beauty in all that?
Today, the natal lab created a child to order, molded and carved his or her very being. The child’s future was clear. There were even programs to help choose a name that was appropriate. Once the decision had been made to apply for parenthood, the rest was predetermined. The husband and wife didn’t even talk about the child until it was time to retrieve him or her. She had seen enough instances of that. At least 95 percent of the mystery of life was gone. It was like reading the end of a detective story before it was begun. People walked about with smug confidence. They knew who the future doctors, lawyers, teachers, and scientists were. They knew who had talent and who had other attributes.
They went to sleep with confidence. No one tossed and turned in a sea of anxiety. But even though she didn’t enjoy all this, Natalie was confident, too. She was confident that there was still that strange tickle, that ongoing question running continuously behind the mask of their complacency. Something was missing. They surely sensed it. Something wasn’t right.
What?
What, indeed, Natalie thought. She smiled to herself. She knew, and she had chosen the way not only to find the answer to the question, but to stop the question to find a greater satisfaction.
Just a little more time, she thought. Just a little more effort, and I’ll be happy.
We’ll be happy, so happy the others will sense it and try desperately to understand why and how they could be as happy as we are.
They can’t.
She drifted into a restful sleep, cradled in contentment until she heard the driver’s voice.
“We’re here, Mrs. Ross,” he said.
She heard the whir of an electric motor, and the metal window covers began to rise, revealing a plush green roll of lawn. Behind it, dark patches of elm, birch, hickory, and oak trees filled the horizon. She spotted a white-tail deer feeding in the tall grass, lifting its head to gaze their way and then returning with nonchalance to its dinner. A tall wall of hedge came into view. It loomed at least eight or nine feet high and was very impressive. It seemed to run for a good half a mile along the roadway until they reached a gated driveway and the limousine turned in.
The chauffeur reached over and inserted a white card in the sentry box. It read the card and spit it back out. He took it, and the gate began to slide open. The windows of the limousine were still up. All of them were triple-layered and well insulated from sound so that to Natalie everything looked as if it were happening in the world of the deaf.
They started up the drive. She looked back and saw the gate closing much more rapidly than it had opened. It looked as if it slammed shut. Along the driveway were beautiful patches of flowers, fountains, stone and wooden benches, sprawling weeping willows, and here and there a small pond in which ducks floated aimlessly, looking more like the imitation birds she had seen often. Their wings fluttered. They made calls and sang in voices impossible to distinguish from the real thing, but they left no droppings and lived forever in an eternal spring, albeit a false spring.
How much of what she was looking at was real? Even the flowers were too perfect, their colors far too vibrant. She half expected to see a camera crew. This looked more like the set of a film.
The limousine wound around the circular drive and came to a stop in front of a grand, stone-faced, three-story structure. All the windows had elaborately faced, round-topped arches over them and over the porch supports and entrance. There were many windows, but the glass in all of them was recessed and tinted, turning them into a myriad of mirrors that caught the now nearly cloudless blue sky and the surrounding grounds but, more importantly, permitted no view of the rooms inside.
The masonry walls had rough-faced, squared stonework. She saw two round towers with conical roofs. There was a set of three parapeted and gabled wall dormers with eyebrow windows between them.
No signs, no plaques, nothing identified the structure or the grounds. She saw no one, either working on the grounds or enjoying the ponds, fountains, and benches. No one came to the door when they arrived, either. In fact, the building looked deserted. A pocket of cold anxiety formed in the base of her stomach. There was no feeling of maternity here. This didn’t look like a place to be born in; it looked like a place to haunt. However, it did have a sense of secrecy about it. It was surely the perfect place to keep yourself out of the prodding and suspicious eyes of the world around you.
She heard a click in the doors of the car and realized that during her entire ride from home, she had been locked in the limousine. The chauffeur came around and opened the door for her.
“Were these doors all locked?” she asked, her tone demanding now.
“For your own safety, Mrs. Ross.”
“We may be carrying this precaution a bit too far,” she quipped.
He didn’t even wince. Was he real?
“I simply follow prescribed procedure, Mrs. Ross.”
“Don’t we all,” she muttered. If he heard it, he didn’t show any reaction. She might as well be talking to herself, she thought.
“I’ll get your things, Mrs. Ross. You can just go into the house.”
“Some house,” she said, and started for the stairs. Why wasn’t there anyone to greet her? Surely, they knew by now that someone had arrived. Glancing about, she saw the video cameras on the sides of the structure. It wouldn’t surprise her to see them attached to some of the trees.
When she was a little more than halfway up the stone steps, the front door finally opened. The ten-foot-high doors looked as if they were made of steel but faced to resemble hickory wood. They had such thickness and width they made the full-figured, bluish-gray-haired woman look diminutive in the entrance. She had bright, friendly aqua eyes set in a round face with soft cheeks but firm, rosy lips. There was a slight dimple in her right cheek. She was dressed in a milk-white uniform and wore what looked like oversized white shoes. Her stockings were only slightly tinted white but went well up under the hem of her skirt.
“Hello, dear,” she said, extending her hand as soon as Natalie reached the portico. Her fingers were surprisingly short and muscular, firmly gripping Natalie’s palm. Her wrist was also unexpectedly thick. In fact, now that Natalie was only a few inches away, she could see that the softness in her face belied quite manly, powerful-looking shoulders and arms. “I’m Mrs. Jerome,” she said. “Welcome.”
“Thank you,” Natalie said.
The chauffeur’s steps behind her turned their attention to him.
“Let me show you right to your room so you can rest and be comfortable,” Mrs. Jerome said.
“You must be hungry. Was it a long trip for you?”
Natalie looked at the chauffeur. “I don’t know. What would you say, driver?”
He stared coldly.
She looked at her watch as if she had out-smarted him.
“Looks like nearly three and a half hours,” Natalie told the smiling woman, whom she imagined to be at least sixty despite her remarkably smooth complexion.
“I wish we didn’t have to be so off the beaten track,” Mrs. Jerome said, turning. “But, for obvious reasons, we have little choice.”
“What a big building this is,” Natalie remarked now that she had stepped into the circular entryway and could see the height of the ceiling in the vestibule. It rose to the very foot of the first tower. Directly in front of them was a circular staircase with a rich mahogany balustrade.
“Yes. Can you believe that at one time it was owned by one man? Fortunately for us, he donated it.”
She leaned toward Natalie, and Natalie caught a whiff of lightly scented rubbing alcohol.
“He was sympathetic to our cause,” Mrs. Jerome whispered, her eyes glancing at the chauffeur, who stood back, looking bored and impatient.
“I thought my home was big. I guess I could put three or four of them in here.”
“Most likely,” Mrs. Jerome said, laughing. “Please, just follow me.”
She led the way to the stairs.
“You have the first room on the left. Walking the stairs can only do you a world of good. Exercise is so important now, contrary to what some people believe. There is so much misinformation when it comes to this condition, so much misunderstanding. But, like anything alien to one’s experience, it can easily be wrongly depicted.”
She glanced back once, and Natalie nodded and smiled at her.
“Absolutely,” she said.
The steps were wide and deep. They were covered in a softly woven, dark gray carpet and had a spongy feel beneath her feet. What struck her immediately and continued to impress her, however, was the silence in the house. She wondered how many people were here and where they could possibly be. She felt herself breathing faster, her heart thumping when they reached the second landing and paused. Some of it could be attributed to her anxiety, she thought.
Mrs. Jerome turned to her about ten feet to the left. She opened a door and stood back.
“Your room,” she said.
Before Natalie reached it, the chauffeur stepped past and into the room. He was obviously in a hurry to get back, she thought.
It was a big room, even wider and a little longer than her and Preston’s own bedroom. The bed, however, was a state-of-the-art hospital bed with voice-recognition controls that would raise or lower it into a sitting position for its inhabitant.
Like a modern hospital room, this one had an otherwise warm decor with its light pink and white wallpaper, its light mauve cotton curtains, and its light maple dresser, vanity table, and armoire. There were a half dozen small framed pictures of fruit, birds on a lake, and a sky of blue with marshmallow-white clouds floating toward a gentle ridge of mountains on the horizon.
The Baby Squad Page 15