I looked back and forth between the two detectives. “Whatever he’s doing, it’s a short-term solution. Obviously, the OrganKnit experiment was only a partial success. Lawrence continues to need fresh cells to replenish himself.”
“Why would he target the Bellows?” Vanderburgh asked again. “Revenge?”
I shook my head. “Maybe he thought Tim had more of the compound, or knew how to reverse the experiment.” I sighed. “Unfortunately, my father never shared the secret with anyone.”
Hollingsworth pulled out his cell phone and, stepping away, made a call.
Waving his hand around to encompass the room, Vanderburgh asked, “So do you have an explanation for what caused all the damage in here? Surely, it wasn’t the skin roots. Phil Bellows would have been unconscious when Lawrence brought him up here, and even if Tim put up a fight, he wasn’t in the best shape. It looks like a battleground in here.”
Once again, I looked around the bedroom at the cracked ceiling and walls, the shattered lamps, broken windows, and the ripped-up hardwood floor.
The state of the room reminded me of the lab after Lawrence’s attack, as if there had been a centralized earthquake limited to the confines of the small area. I thought it had been a product of my imagination last night. No one else seemed to accept that as an explanation, and I doubted Hollingsworth or Vanderburgh would believe a quake had affected just this one bedroom, leaving the rest of the house untouched.
I shook my head. “I have no idea.”
Hollingsworth finished his call. He said, “I just checked with dispatch. There was a report of a dead body in an alley a few blocks away from the university, a homeless man. The responding officer described white vegetation around the victim similar to this.”
It confirmed my earlier supposition.
I felt a sinking sensation deep in my gut as I asked myself the question a moment before Hollingsworth did.
“So, what’s Lawrence looking for?”
There was something in the compound my father had created he hadn’t revealed to me. Whatever the mystery element was, it was needed in order for the OrganKnit to function. All my computer simulations showed the compound failing; yet, somehow, my father had made it work.
Lawrence thought we had the solution. Obviously, however, neither Tim nor his father had what Lawrence needed.
And what was it he needed? What was that unknown element in the compound?
For the life of me, I couldn’t think what it could be, but there was only one way to find out.
“I need access to my father’s research.” I looked at Hollingsworth. “You said you’d confiscated the files from his office.”
“Yes.”
“Then that’s where we’ll find our answer.”
Chapter Ten
Leaving the forensics technicians to finish with the room and take the bodies back to the medical examiner’s, Hollingsworth drove me back to the university in his old sedan. Vanderburgh followed in his own vehicle, a new model SUV.
As we got closer, I felt my level of anxiety rising.
Less than twelve hours ago, my father had died there, and I had barely managed to survive Lawrence’s attack and the aftermath of the localized tremor—no matter what anyone else believed, I had experienced it.
The parking lot was full with fire trucks, police cars, and bomb squad and forensics vans. Two news vehicles from local stations were on hand, but the reporters and camera operators weren’t allowed past the barricades cordoning off the area.
Hollingsworth pulled up near the main walkway to the building but made no move to get out of his car.
“You’re not coming in?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I’ve got a briefing with my supervisor. Vanderburgh will go with you.”
As he said it, I became aware of the younger detective waiting beside the car. I got out. Before I closed the door, Hollingsworth said to Vanderburgh, “If he figures something out, call me on my cell.”
“Will do, boss.”
He motioned with his head for me to follow him, and together we approached the barricade in front of the building.
After flashing his badge, Vanderburgh led me directly to my father’s office. From what I could see, every hall and room had an officer or forensic tech looking for anything that might give them a clue to the whereabouts or true identity of Lawrence.
“You’re sure you can figure out what was in that compound that drove him insane?” Vanderburgh asked.
“I’m not sure that it caused a psychotic break,” I said. “Hollingsworth said they were still running a background check on him.”
“We’ve got a few officers out canvassing leads. Unfortunately, we only have your description to go by.”
“How many six-and-a-half-feet tall, three-hundred-pound men are there in Chicago?” I asked aloud.
Vanderburgh let out a short huff of breath. “You’d be surprised. We’ve got an officer going through the database singling out anyone over six-five. Of course,” he added, “if he doesn’t have a record…”
We made it to my father’s office, and I hesitated before going in. A part of me expected to see him sitting behind his desk, a distant smile on his face. It seemed surreal that he was dead. There’d been so many wasted years where we’d barely spoken to each other, so many times I wondered if he had any feelings about me one way or another. I’d always thought he was less interested in me and more interested in his research, but when I was at my lowest, he’d come through with a helping hand. For that reason, I’d started to reevaluate how I felt about him over the past few days and what kind of relationship we would have in the future. Now, however, that future was nothing more than what-could-have-been.
“What is it?” Vanderburgh asked, looking past me into the office.
“Nothing,” I said, and took a deep breath before I went in.
My father had never been one for organization. Paperwork was a hassle. A necessary evil. He had several filing cabinets, but it was a rare occasion that any of his file folders actually found their way into them. For the most part, my father would either stack the folders on top of the cabinets, or on the floor. He’d never hired a secretary, and even if he had, they would never be able to comprehend the system he’d developed over the years. To anyone else, any paperwork was in a completely random placement; my father could always find exactly what he was looking for, though, as if his mind held the index cards to this incomprehensible filing system.
“This is going to take all day,” I said, putting my hands on my hips and sighing. “I thought Hollingsworth said you had an officer go through these files last night.”
Shrugging, Vanderburgh said, “I don’t think it was an in-depth search. Besides, the officer probably didn’t know what he was looking for.” A moment later, he asked, “What are we looking for?”
“Anything that mentions ‘OrganKnit’.”
Vanderburgh nodded. “I’ll give you a hand.”
Grateful for the offer, I said, “You can go through the computer files. It’s a long shot; my father always preferred to keep handwritten research notes, but Tim was in the process of transcribing them. We might get lucky.”
“Will do.” Vanderburgh, as if used to such monotonous tasks, dug right in.
One of the police computer techs had scanned the computers to make sure there weren’t any data-wipe programs on it—not that my father would have considered adding that level of security. There wasn’t even a login password on the machine.
“Oh,” Vanderburgh added, clicking the mouse as he navigated through the file directory, “and if you see anything about Lawrence, let me know. We really need more on this guy.”
Setting my mind to the task, I examined every piece of paper in every folder. There was no telling where my father filed things. While I did that, Vanderburgh searched the files and emails on my father’s computer.
With him helping, we were able to go through the office in just under three hours. There were plenty of fol
ders detailing some of the other research projects my father was working on, but there wasn’t any mention of OrganKnit anywhere.
I did find something, however. There was one slip of paper filed under an expenditure claim from the campus cafeteria the officer must have missed last night. It was a meal for two patrons dated a week ago. On it, in my father’s scrawling handwriting, was a single word: ‘Lawrence.’
When I showed the slip to Vanderburgh, his eyes lit up. “Maybe the cafeteria has security cameras. If they have a recording of that date, we might be able to see something that could help us track him down.”
He had taken his suit jacket off halfway through our search and draped it on the back of the executive chair. He reached into the inside pocket, pulled out his cell phone and made a call.
When he was done, he said, “We’ve got an officer looking into it.”
Though he seemed happy that we’d found that one small lead, Vanderburgh frowned that we hadn’t discovered any other reference to Lawrence or any idea where the research for OrganKnit was.
“So, where would he keep his research, then?” he asked.
“The only other place I can think of is his house.”
“We had a few officers go there this morning. They didn’t report that they found any paperwork or files.”
I nodded and smiled. “When my mother was alive, she never let him bring his work home with him. She said the house was for family, not work.”
Vanderburgh made a face while he waited for me to get to the point.
“My father was stubborn. He made a little office in the attic where he worked late at night after my mother went to bed. I came across it one day when I was looking for something we’d put in storage. It’s been fifteen years since my mother passed away, but it’s possible he never moved his home office out of the attic.”
With a quick nod to me, the young detective got on his cell phone again to the officers at my father’s house. A minute later, he smiled. “They found it. Let’s go.”
* * *
The one good thing that resulted from going back to the university was recovering my car, which I’d left behind when the paramedics had taken me to the hospital in the ambulance.
Vanderburgh followed me in his SUV, and we arrived at my father’s house twenty minutes later. A squad car and a forensics van were parked out front.
Though my father’s house was only ten miles from where Andrea and I had lived, I hadn’t visited him more than once a year. Every time I returned, a painful wave of memory pierced through me. I didn’t associate the house with my childhood; it only reminded me of the year leading up to my mother’s death.
When we got inside, Vanderburgh spoke to the tech who’d been going through the house.
“Aside from the office in the attic, we haven’t found anything of significance here. It’s almost as if he only came back here to sleep.”
That sounded like my father, the workaholic. I’m sure he spent more than one night at the university, sleeping on the narrow couch in his office.
I headed down the hall to the attic ladder and quickly ascended, Vanderburgh following.
Despite the autumn chill, the attic was very warm. Well-insulated, I guessed.
There was a small student-sized desk pushed up against the back wall, and a cushioned stool in front of it. A two-drawer filing cabinet stood to the side. On top of the desk was a small banker’s lamp, a laptop and a printer.
Vanderburgh sat on the stool and turned on the laptop. As with my father’s computer at his office, there wasn’t a password. Why would there be?
While he waited for it to boot, I took a quick look in the filing cabinet but only found household paperwork: utility and phone bills, mortgage and bank statements, receipts for yard work and seasonal maintenance, income tax returns and insurance policies.
“Nothing here,” I said. “Just personal files.”
“We’ll put an analyst on them,” Vanderburgh said. “You never know.”
“Anything there?” I asked, noticing Vanderburgh using a desktop search feature to scan the files.
He didn’t reply, but a moment later he made a sound of exclamation as the search pulled up a folder named ‘OrganKnit.’
Quickly, Vanderburgh and I changed places, and I opened the folder, looking at the titles of the fifteen folders within. They were labeled by year. Each folder contained twelve documents, one for each calendar month. It was a diary of my father’s earliest experiments with regeneration, the first one dated a little less than a month after my mother died.
In the root folder, there was a small file called ‘NoteFromTim.txt’. I opened it. The timestamp on it was two days before I’d come on board the project.
“Professor, Chase.
“Here are the transcriptions I’ve completed of your research journal. I should have the last three months ready for you once I get your scanner fixed.
“Please review the entries; sometimes the character recognition software makes errors.
“I left out the introductory entry. I wasn’t sure if you intended for me to see that…
“Once everything is in digital, I’ll make a copy to include in the presentation to Enoch.
“Tim.”
It would take me hours to go through the files, maybe even days for a thorough examination, but I skipped the first fourteen folders and opened the last one, hoping there was a mention of the final, successful, formula for the OrganKnit compound.
While I skimmed the documents, I heard Vanderburgh’s cell phone ring.
“It’s Hollingsworth,” he said. “Probably wants an update.” He took a few steps away to answer it, and I promptly put him out of my mind when I read the last document in the folder, dated three months ago.
* * *
A partial victory…
Somewhere deep inside, I knew it was the only solution, though I feared the truth of it. I must, somehow, accept the reality and work toward it.
I must keep the final ingredient my secret, however; there can be no written record of the formula. If the true nature of the compound were revealed, the scientific community would never allow me to use it for its intended purpose. It pains me to know there will not be enough OrganKnit to help every patient who needs it, but so long as the blood continues, lives will be saved.
Phil Bellows has set up a meeting with Enoch Enterprises, who, he says, is willing to fund my research until I can perfect the formula. They can also provide distribution. He assures me they can be trusted to be discreet.
Should I let Kyle know about his legacy? After all, he might be the only one who can continue my work. I suppose I will not live forever.
Perhaps I will wait until he sorts out some of his personal affairs…
* * *
Many of the following entries for that month consisted of the minutiae of his daily tasks.
Another entry mentioned that he decided he’d finalized the optimal ratio for the OrganKnit solution, though he didn’t mention what the mixtures were.
One sentence that caught my attention read: “There must be a way to speed up the stem cell cultures…”
It confirmed for me that the solution involved stem cells. He hadn’t led me astray on that point. I remembered one of the questions I’d had after the beginning of the experiment, and finding that lunch receipt confirmed there was a timeline issue.
My father and Lawrence had met a week before the experiment. As far as I knew, stem cell cultures took anywhere up to four weeks before they were viable. The only way it made sense was if my father harvested the stem cells from himself, or from another donor.
I skimmed the document again, looking for any other mention of OrganKnit, but found nothing.
I needed the missing journal pages. Where would they be? We’d already checked my father’s office at campus, and Tim’s office only contained department financial records. The investigators had not found any other files, physical or digital, at the house Tim had shared with his father.
>
I tried to extrapolate from what I already knew. The first thing I thought of was that, before the experiment, when I’d first met Lawrence, he seemed quiet and reticent. Those behaviors were in direct contrast with how he’d been afterward. The extreme violence he’d displayed made me wonder if it was the result of whatever was in the OrganKnit compound. Whatever it was, it accelerated skin growth. It could affect other organs; perhaps a side effect included overstimulation of the hypothalamus, which can heighten aggression.
Lawrence could have been suppressing his true nature all along, and the chemical reaction in his body had broken down his behavioral inhibitors. These were the effects my father needed to study before releasing OrganKnit to the open market.
I noted that it was the second time I’d come across the name of Enoch Enterprises. There might have been more entries I had missed while skimming. Hollingsworth and Vanderburgh would certainly find it interesting. It was possible that company could shed some light on Lawrence.
The thing that got me thinking furiously, however, was that whatever stem cell culture my father had used, it hadn’t been harvested from Lawrence. Whose stem cells had they been? Were they my father’s? Was that why he was experiencing liver failure? As long as I’d known him, my father was the epitome of health. Perhaps there was something in his DNA that served as a natural immune system booster.
Was that the mysterious factor that made OrganKnit work?
Lawrence had only been injected with a little of the compound, enough to heal a very small area of his arm. Now, he needed more to complete the process. Was that what Lawrence was looking for? More OrganKnit?
Since my father was dead, he’d gone after Tim. It was likely Tim didn’t know anything, and Lawrence had killed him in a frustrated rage.
His next logical step was to come after me.
Alarmed, I turned to Vanderburgh. “My home address is in the phone book,” I said.
He looked at me peculiarly, as if that was the last thing he expected me to say.
“Lawrence might think I know how to manufacture more OrganKnit. He’ll go to my house…”
Vanderburgh was already placing a call to send some officers there.
The Complete Book Of Fallen Angels Page 47