by Brad Parks
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I tried.”
CHAPTER 36
After we finished that big heartbreaking loop to nowhere, we drove back to Hanover.
I didn’t speak for most of the ride. Neither did anyone else.
Sometimes, there’s just nothing to say.
As we neared town, Sheena announced she needed a change of clothes and a shower. She was just afraid to go home and do it. Those Chinese men were still out there.
She suggested that Webster could just take her back to her hotel room, but no one liked the idea of her being alone.
Eventually, we arrived at a plan. Webster drove us first to Sheena’s house. With Beppe and Webster keeping watch outside, Sheena and I approached her front door.
She keyed in her code, which I couldn’t help but see: 4-3-2-1.
It reminded me of something Matt would do. He could solve a multivariate equation in the time it took me just to read one, yet when it came to ordinary things—like a door’s pass code—he couldn’t be bothered. Half his passwords were password.
Once Sheena had packed a bag, we hitched a ride with Webster back to my house.
From there, we split up. Detective Webster was taking Beppe back home, then going to find David Dafashy now that Beppe had put him onto the correct address.
Emmett’s final instruction to me was to call 911 if I saw anyone or anything that looked remotely suspicious approaching the house.
Truly, I didn’t need the encouragement.
It was a half hour later by the time Sheena emerged from the shower, dressed in clean jeans and a sweater. She had toweled off her hair and left it down to air-dry.
The cut at her hairline looked a little better. The bruise under her eye was worse.
Morgan had returned from school by then. He took one look at Sheena, and I could practically read the thought bubble forming over his head—Is that what my daddy looks like right now?—before he excused himself to play in his room.
Aimee, back in hostess mode, had made a sandwich for Sheena, who objected, saying she wasn’t hungry. Except she was already two bites in by the time I joined her at the table.
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
“Forget about me,” Sheena said, between bites. “How are you?”
“I’m not thinking about that right now.”
Sheena nodded and chewed. Aimee had sat down with us.
“I’m still trying to get my head around so much of this,” I said. “Do you mind if I ask you some questions?”
“Not at all,” Sheena said.
“When you said maybe Matt didn’t want to be found—”
“That was just speculation. I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m sure—”
“No, wait,” I said. “I was thinking while you were in the shower. Let’s say, for sake of argument, that Matt really doesn’t want to be found. He’s running away from something—or someone—and he had good reason to think this someone or something is a significant threat. What if he staged his own abduction?”
“Brigid, honey,” Aimee said. “Maybe you shouldn’t—”
“Hear me out. You were actually the one who opened this door for me when you asked the question about how those EMTs knew to arrive right when he was having a fit. Detective Webster thought they drugged him. But what if Matt was faking it or . . . or if he had finally gotten so he could predict when he was going to have a fit? That would explain the timing. You said it was an inside job, and you were right. It was really the ultimate inside job.”
“I don’t know, Brig,” Aimee said. “I just can’t see Matt doing something like that to you and Morgan. Don’t you think he would have at least told you what was really happening so you wouldn’t panic?”
“No, because he needed me—and all of us—to act like it was real. Whoever he’s running from needs to be convinced, and part of that convincing is his family acting the part. And maybe he will find a way to contact us and let us know he’s all right—just not yet.”
I liked that part of the theory best. Sure, I would be temporarily furious with Matt for putting us through this emotional turmoil.
But it was still so much better than any of the alternatives.
“So let’s go back to February,” I continued. “He starts having these fits. Maybe he didn’t know at first it was connected to his work, but after the second one, he sure did. That the virus was capable of infecting him meant he had finally succeeded in having the breakthrough he had been working toward for years.”
Sheena was shaking her head. “I don’t think he had, though,” she insisted. “I’m in the lab with him all the time, and I never saw anything or heard anything that made me think he had interfered the virus.”
“And yet aren’t you living proof that he did?” I asked.
She had no reply to that.
“Okay, so he knew something big was happening. And he worried that once the news got out, it would catch the attention of . . . someone. Someone he feared. I don’t know who, obviously. It was someone scary enough he decided he needed to disappear. And to make it look really convincing—like he didn’t have a choice in the matter, so the people who he was afraid of wouldn’t come after him—he faked his own abduction. Maybe he just needed to disappear for a while so he could finish working on this, then publish the paper? I don’t know. The thing he didn’t expect was that you would have been infected by this virus, too, and that you would then develop this connection. That’s been the unexpected wrinkle in his otherwise perfect plan.
“But it doesn’t change the fundamental question, which is who is he afraid of? And why is he running from them?”
Having thrown out the question, I leaned back. My face was flushed.
Sheena had lapsed into a thousand-yard stare, almost like she had left the room.
Aimee was drawing circles on the table with her finger. Without looking up, she said, “Not the Chinese.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because if it was the Chinese, he would have gone to the Department of Defense and said, ‘Hey, guys, can you help me? I think I’m in trouble here.’”
“Maybe he did, and the DOD just isn’t telling us. Maybe that’s why the DOD is right now camped out in Wilder, because they need to make it look real too. In reality, they helped Matt disappear, and he’s told them to protect the lab from whoever he’s afraid of.”
“But then why would Matt make it look like the Chinese were the ones who abducted him?” Aimee asked. “The Chinese would know they hadn’t sent their own people to do it. The gig would be up too fast. It has to be someone here in America, someone who would be fooled by the China ruse.”
“Then it’s the government itself he’s running from,” I said. “Maybe he was afraid the military wanted to use this new quantum virus for some frightening new weapon or something else he didn’t want to happen, and that’s why the DOD is all over his lab. The military is right now trying to find whatever secrets Matt was keeping from it.”
Aimee had stopped drawing circles.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve never been a huge fan of government conspiracies. Have you ever worked with the government? Individually, there can be some good people. But collectively, they can barely get out of their own way. I don’t see where they’re smart enough to carry off some grand conspiracy.”
“Then it’s David Dafashy trying to derail this sexual harassment allegation and save his miserable career?” I asked. “Detective Webster seems to think it’s possible. Maybe it really was just bad timing that the kidnappers happened to leave right as we got there.”
We lapsed into silence.
Then Sheena seemed to rejoin us.
“I think I have an idea about how we might find Matt,” she said. “Ever since I became aware of the feeling—the compass, or whatever you want to call it—I’ve been feeling it slowly weakening. It’s almost like it’s a radioactive element with a short half life, constantly decaying. But if I can get back into the lab and work
with the virus the way Matt did, maybe I’ll be able to reinfect myself. It’ll refresh the feeling, and then I can find him again.”
“That would be great,” I said, “except the lab’s closed.”
“What if I can change that? Beppe was saying Dartmouth could go before a federal judge and make the claim the lab needed to be open, but only if there was a compelling public interest. What if finding Matt is that public interest? What’s more compelling than rescuing a father and husband who has been abducted?”
I didn’t know if it would work.
But I was absolutely willing to try.
At that point, I would have tried anything.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s call Beppe.”
CHAPTER 37
Emmett could feel his brow lifting with incredulity as he surveyed the hovel that was David Dafashy’s apartment.
It had been slapped onto the back side of an ancient house in Hanover, almost like a lean-to, having probably been added long ago when someone’s mother-in-law needed a place to die. Its windows looked like they leaked out whatever warmth managed to accumulate inside.
The whole house would likely be torn down whenever the current owners sold. But, for now, the back portion was being rented out to whoever was desperate enough to need it.
Emmett knocked on the battered front door, which was soon answered by a man with curly dark hair who was wearing a heavy, rough-hewn mackinaw. Probably on account of the windows.
“Can I help you?”
“David Dafashy?”
“Yes?”
Emmett introduced himself.
“What can I do for you, Detective?”
His accent was ever-so-slightly English. Emmett thought it sounded affected.
“I wanted to talk to you about Matt Bronik.”
“Absolutely,” Dafashy said, then stood aside. “Come in, please.”
Emmett looked around for a place to scrape his boots. There was none. Only wall-to-wall carpet worn in the middle by about fifty years of foot traffic.
“Sorry about the condition of the place. I’m just renting it while my wife and I take a little break. It came furnished, so I took it,” Dafashy said. “Have a seat, please.”
He pointed to a blue easy chair that was in the corner of the living room, opposite a plaid couch. In the middle was a coffee table with inlaid plastic tiles.
Emmett hadn’t seen the rest of the place, but even as temporary lodging, it was a pretty hard fall for a tenured Dartmouth professor.
Dafashy seemed pleased that Emmett had dropped in, like this was a social call. There was nothing wary in his demeanor. He probably believed he could talk his way out of this.
Which was fine. Let him try.
Emmett pulled out his notepad.
“How can I help?” Dafashy said.
“Well, let’s start with yesterday afternoon,” Emmett said.
“Oh, right. Well, yes, I was there.”
“In Wilder?”
“Yes. I didn’t see him on the staircase like some of the others did. But I might be able to give you a list of names of the people who did see him, if that helps. I’m not sure if anyone really got a good look at the kidnappers. From what I understand, they were wearing masks. Everyone thought it was some kind of medical thing. It didn’t occur to us there was anything underhanded going on. Matt had been having these attacks, as I’m sure you’re aware, and we thought this was just another one. To think those men who had him on that stretcher weren’t what they seemed, it’s deeply unsettling.”
“How long did you stay in Wilder?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Until five thirty or six? None of us had any idea there was anything amiss.”
“And where did you go next?”
“Here. Well, I stopped to get takeout, but then I came back here. I didn’t know what happened to Matt until I saw it on the news. That was, what, ten o’clock? Ten fifteen? Then I went online to read about it, because I thought maybe the TV newspeople were, I don’t know, mistaken or something. I couldn’t believe it.”
“So you were here all evening?”
“Yes.”
“Can anyone verify that?”
Dafashy opened his mouth to answer, but then his face changed, like it had suddenly occurred to him that Emmett wasn’t just making conversation.
“Oh, wait, you think I . . . these are merely routine questions, right? You’re asking everyone this?”
“Don’t worry about everyone else,” Emmett said evenly. “Just answer for yourself. Can anyone verify your whereabouts?”
“No, I . . . my landlords are in Florida. They’re retired. They don’t come back until April.”
“What about anyone else? Did anyone stop by?”
“No,” Dafashy said. “I was just here all evening. By myself. I ate the Thai food. Then I reviewed an article for an editorial board I sit on. And then I just watched television. I . . .”
Even as Dafashy’s voice trailed away to nothing, Emmett remained mute. Suspects who kept talking often said far more than they ever intended. And Emmett was going to avail this man of that opportunity.
Dafashy laughed nervously. “You can’t possibly think I . . . I would do something like this to Matt. We’re . . . it might be a stretch to say we’re best friends, but we were hired within a year of each other. I mentored him through tenure. We’re very close. Ask anyone. Why would I want to harm him?”
Emmett glanced down at his notepad before looking back up again. Time to turn up the heat a little.
“Professor Dafashy, I know about the accusation Sheena Aiyagari made against you.”
“That’s what this is about?” Dafashy said.
The accent had dimmed. There was now a snarl in his voice. “That little . . . did she tell you to come here? Did she tell you I had something to do with this? She’s lying. She’s flat-out lying. And in any event, how could her . . . her preposterous claims have anything to do with Matt?”
“He was going to testify against you at the hearing on Friday, wasn’t he?”
“He was going to testify, yes. But I wouldn’t say he was going to testify against me. When I saw his name on the witness list, I confronted him immediately. He said he had no idea why Sheena asked him to appear. I asked him if he thought I had harassed Sheena and he said no. As far as I was concerned, Matt was a good witness for me. He was going to clear my name.”
Which, conveniently for Dafashy, was impossible to disprove as long as Bronik was missing. But to Emmett it seemed unlikely Sheena would put Matt Bronik’s name on her witness list unless he had seen or heard something that would help her cause. Emmett would have to ask her about that.
“So you deny ever coming on to Sheena,” Emmett said.
“Absolutely. Categorically. The whole accusation is fallacious.”
“Fallacious?” Emmett repeated.
Dartmouth professors and their fancy words.
“Yes. Listen, I’m not sure how I’m going to articulate this at the hearing, because I’m afraid I’ll get excoriated by the PC police. But I don’t go for dark-skinned women, okay? I’m not attracted to them, physically. So for Sheena to go inventing this fantasy that somehow I’ve been trying to get her into bed? Yes, it’s fallacious. A logical fallacy.”
Emmett wasn’t sure how to reply. It was certainly a novel defense: I couldn’t have committed sexual harassment because I’m actually a racist.
Dafashy continued: “You’re looking at me like I’m abhorrent, and maybe I am. You don’t know what it’s like to grow up Arab in the suburbs of Virginia. Thank God I don’t have a particularly Arab-sounding name. My brother and I were the only nonwhite kids in the neighborhood. It wasn’t so noticeable in the winter, but in the summertime, at the pool? We’d get so dark kids actually teased us that we were black. They called my brother Cleotis Jamal. They called me Theotis Tyrone. They tortured us. I spent my whole life trying to be white. I would check white or Caucasian in boxes on standardized tests or college applicati
ons. Part of that was dating white girls and I guess it became . . . well, a preference. So I can assure you I didn’t make any advances on Sheena Aiyagari.”
“What about Leonie Descheun?” Emmett asked. “She’s white. Did you make any advances on her?”
Emmett saw a flash of rage pool inside Dafashy for a moment before he succeeded in swallowing it.
“You’ve talked to my wife, obviously,” Dafashy said stiffly.
“Yes. Is she lying to me too?”
“No. I wouldn’t say she’s lying. I would say she has an overly active imagination. And you can tell Mariangela I said so.”
“So you didn’t sexually harass Leonie.”
“No. Absolutely not. I was professionally cordial with her, the same way I was professionally cordial with Sheena. I never laid a hand on either of them.”
“Sexual harassment isn’t necessarily about touching someone,” Emmett said.
“You know what I mean. I’m not stupid. I know where the line is. I didn’t cross it with either of them. What happened with Mariangela is going to follow me for the rest of my career and obviously it’s put a target on my back for this sort of thing. But if anything, that’s made me more careful. Not less so. And if you don’t believe me, if you want to believe my wife or Sheena, well, I guess there’s nothing I can do about that. But it has nothing to do with Matt. There’s no connection.”
“Except the same people who took Professor Bronik away on the stretcher also attempted to take Sheena,” Emmett said. “So the Bronik abduction and the failed Aiyagari abduction are very much connected. The only difference is she got away.”
Dafashy narrowed his eyes at this. Emmett couldn’t fully read the expression, but there was something going on behind those eyes.
“She saw these men?” Dafashy asked. “The people who kidnapped Matt?”
“She did.”
“And let me guess, they were Chinese, am I right?” Dafashy asked.
Emmett wasn’t going to answer the question. He wasn’t comfortable sharing details of his investigation with a suspect.
But Dafashy didn’t wait for confirmation. He didn’t seem to need it.