The Stones Cry Out

by Sibella Giorello

  I parked in the Falcon driveway and walked to the door. Janine Falcon answered, holding a toddler on her left hip. They both had pale blond hair, and the boy's eyes were green jade like his mother's. But his square face resembled his late father.

  "May I help you?" she asked.

  I introduced myself, showing my ID, and saw several emotions register before her face went blank.

  "I’m sorry,” I said, “I just wanted to ask a few questions, if you have the time.”

  The living room was furnished with oversized chairs upholstered in denim, and it connected to a small dining room where the table was full of floral bouquets. Somber arrangements. Funeral arrangements.

  Mrs. Falcon sat on the sofa and placed the boy on the floor at her feet. "Did you know my husband?" she asked.

  "No, ma’am."

  Her eyes went to the boy. He was standing now, navigating the living room floor. It looked like a Fisher-Price obstacle course.

  "From what I've heard, your husband was a very dedicated detective."

  Her green eyes remained on her son. "Mike hated working crowd control. I loved it. One day of not worrying." She looked at me. "That's what I can't understand. Why it happened this way."

  After my father died I read a newspaper story about a meteorite that landed in upstate New York. The stone weighed 26 pounds and was hurled toward earth by the asteroid belt located between Mars and Jupiter. The same rocky belt express-delivered tons of geologic material each year to earth, but most of it landed in the oceans, unnoticed. But this stone, burning through the atmosphere at thirty-three thousand miles an hour, hit a car. A direct hit. It killed the woman behind the wheel and the child in the back seat. The reporter found the grieving husband but all he could say was, "Why?"

  Over and over. "Why?"

  "I'm so sorry for your loss," I said. As usual, the words sounded totally insufficient.

  Her face went blank again.

  And here was something else I knew about sudden violent loss. When “why" didn't have an answer, every emotional reaction came on time delay. We were like shell-shocked vets trying to process life.

  Finally she said, "M.J. keeps asking, 'Where's Daddy?'"

  The boy turned his blond head. He stood at the other end of the room, near the dining table smothered with flowers. “Daddy?”

  "No, honey." She smiled wanly, waiting for him to return to his toys. "I don't mean to be rude, Agent . . . ."

  "Harmon."

  "Agent Harmon. If you didn't know my husband, why are you here?"

  "The FBI has opened a civil rights case and I --"

  She stood. "M.J.” Her voice was tight. “How about a video in Mommy’s room?"

  The boy’s chubby legs raced for the hallway. "Elmo!" he cried, "Elmo, Elmo!"

  She followed him, not saying anything to me.

  I gazed around the room. The beige wall paint seemed unusually bright, the way paint does in houses that haven't seen much daily life. A white fireplace mantel held framed family photos. A heavy-set man in sunglasses, hair graying at the temples. Detective Falcon’s strong features suggested that under the flabby layer he was once handsome. The next photograph showed Mrs. Falcon. Holding the blond boy, they smiled wildly, the wind disheveling their pale hair. The boy also wore a blaze-orange life preserver. It obscured everything except his face and forearms. I picked up the frame.

  "That was taken on the boat, just a few weeks ago,” she said, coming back into the room. "Mike’s dream was to fish for a living."

  I put the photograph back in the lineup, restoring the order. "He must have been very proud of you two."

  "M.J. was his life. He wanted to find a better job, something nine-to-five. I keep thinking, what if...."

  Her eyes were red.

  Right after "why," the next question was “what if." What if my dad stayed home that night? What if my mother didn't suddenly ask for cookies that she usually claimed were nutritional poison? What if I wasn’t in DC and had been living with them, with plenty of junk food cookies in the carriage house? What if, what if, what if.

  "Mrs. Falcon, nobody has a good answer for why your husband was on that roof Saturday."

  "It’s simple." Her voice was almost shrill. "He was doing his job. Trying to protect people. And now my son doesn’t have a father."

  "I'm sorry."

  "Well, sorry won't bring him back. What am I supposed to do, what about my son?"

  Her questions echoed the questions I heard from Mrs. Holmes. But I would never tell her that.

  "Did your husband talk to you about his work?"

  "No. I didn't want him to. I wanted him to quit."

  "So he never mentioned his cases?"

  She gave me a hard look. "Are you trying to find out if Mike did something wrong?"

  "I'm trying to find out what happened on that roof."

  "Well, I knew him better than anybody, and my husband would never, ever, do what these people are accusing him of. Throw a man off a roof? Not in a million years. And if you knew my husband you'd know how sick those accusations are. That's what they are -- sick."

  I waited. "Did he keep any work here, at home?"

  "Not his police work."

  "He had other work?"

  "He was trying to start a business. We bought this house because it has an office. So he could work from home, spend time with M.J." Her lip trembled. "We just bought this house.”

  "May I see his office?"

  In the small space next to the laundry room, Detective Michael Falcon had set up a computer, printer, and fax. On the wall above the desk he’d hung various certificates and commendations from the police department. And I could see he was a graduate of Virginia Tech. A Hokie banner hung above the door.

  "Mom-eee!" The boy was calling.

  Mrs. Falcon hesitated.

  "Momm-eeeeeee!"

  She looked at me. "Promise me you won't take anything?"

  “May I look?"

  "Momm-eeee!"

  She nodded and ran from the room. I walked over to the small file cabinet. The folders inside were labeled for household bills, receipts, taxes, medical expenses. The Falcons filed joint tax returns and took a huge medical deduction two years ago for treatment at a fertility clinic. Mrs. Falcon quit her job last year, and payments were due on two vehicles, both fairly new. But the boat was paid for, so were the moorage fees. And another folder was labeled "Horizon." The top page was a typed proposal outlining a business plan. For a private security firm.

  Mrs. Falcon walked into the room, brushing her blond bangs over her eyes. They looked even more bloodshot. Her skin was blotchy. "I’m letting you look because Mike would tell me to. Because he's innocent. He would want everything out in the open."

  I stared at the folder. It was difficult to look at someone holding in so much pain. "Your husband put some serious thought into this security firm."

  “He was eligible for early retirement this year, but we decided he should stay with the department, because, you know, benefits and all. Our son...."

  She didn’t finish.

  I could hear what-ifs running through her mind.

  "I don’t want to disturb you. May I borrow some of the files? Just to get a more thorough look?"

  She frowned. "I don’t know. That feels kind of odd to me."

  I took out my card. "You can verify who I am with the Richmond police chief. I've spoken to him."

  "It's not that." She stared at my card. "It's just..." She looked up. Tears pooled in her green eyes.

  I did know.

  Underneath my bed was a plain shoe box with David Harmon's cheap Timex watch, the crystal smashed. His favorite tie was in there, his favorite book of poetry. His Bible. A larger box beside it held the legal papers and notes I gathered from his desk the day after his murder. Just before Father's Day this year, I saw an identical Timex on sale at the local drugstore. And the papers maybe were nothing special. But I saw my own irrational sentimentality on Janine Falcon’s face -- the
thing that kept me from throwing out a cheap watch.

  She knew he was innocent, she said. But she wanted to know—needed to know—that her husband once lived and breathed even in the most mundane ways. Especially in mundane ways. What made people real were the simple and ordinary things. These papers proved her husband had a plan, a way out of police work. He just didn't get the chance.

  I needed evidence.

  But she needed evidence too.

  Chapter 19

  Monday morning Eric Duncan's mineralogy report hit my desk. I read it over then called the lab.

  "I'm not too excited about green sand,” I said.

  "You're a geologist. That report says ‘glauconite.’"

  "And some pyrite-bearing sediments in the clay. Wow-wee."

  "You're not impressed? Fine. Did you read my notes about gray forms, disseminated acid, the clay? We're talking very fine grains, Raleigh. Less than two microns."

  One micron was roughly the thickness of a fingernail, about one one-thousandth of a millimeter.

  "I'm not questioning your work," I said. “But in this part of Virginia finding green sand is like saying you saw a lobbyist on Capitol Hill."

  "The soil speaks; I don't speak for it." He sounded wounded.

  "Sorry, Eric. I'm just frustrated."

  "I can hear it. Did you read to the very end?"

  "Acrylamide, I saw it. Refresh my memory."

  "Synthetic."

  "Still not ringing any bells."

  "When I say, 'dirt diamonds,' do any bells go off?"

  "You mean that white stuff in potting soil?"

  "Yes," he said. "Except this acrylamide didn't come from potting soil. And it's not in situ either."

  “Not in situ” meant it didn't originate on the roof.

  Acrylamide, he continued, was used to manufacture plastics. Water treatment facilities also used polyacrylamide polymers to settle turbidity in drinking water. And paper mills used acrylamide to size their products.

  "You might want to cut down on your beloved French fries,” he said.

  “What’s that got to do with this?”

  “Starches fried at high temperatures manufacture acrylamide. It's a known carcinogen."

  "Thanks for the health tip, but I doubt my suspects were enjoying a Happy Meal."

  Ignoring my jab, he continued with the brick and mortar samples. “The brick is distinct but not unique.”

  "How distinct?"

  "Enough that I could match color and composition, if I had another sample to compare it to."

  I told him the comparisons would be there soon, even if I had to make an express run to the lab. “As soon as the cops release the material evidence, I’ll get it to you. Thanks for this quick turnaround, Eric.”

  "But Raleigh?"

  "Yes."

  But he didn't say anything else.

  "Hello? Eric?"

  "Somebody asked why we closed the door." His voice sounded muffled, as if his palm cupped the receiver. "They were curious what we were doing in here."

  "What did you say?"

  "I said you'd been lusting after me for years."

  "That'll throw them off the trail."

  "I'm not as brave as you are.” He sighed. “I told them we had an important matter to discuss. In private."

  "That's the truth."

  "Yes," he said. "Yes, it is the truth."

  But there was only more hollow silence.

  "Thanks again," I said.

  "Sure, good luck with the case."

  "You know I don't believe in luck."

  "Yes,” he said. “I know.”

  Then he hung up.

  Chapter 20

  The world's first synthetic ruby glittered to life about two hundred years ago, when a French chemist melted aluminum oxide at 2,200 degrees Celsius, tossed in some chromium, and voila—dazzling red gems that didn’t require a mining permit.

  Over the next century, chemists learned to create other synthetic gems, such as emeralds which could come from beryllium oxide boiling in an alkaline solution at 800 degrees Celsius. And today the laboratories could churn out thousands of synthetics, from opals to diamonds, with only a trained gemologist able to recognize the fakes. They also created minerals which didn't appear in nature, such as my newest puzzler, acrylamide.

  But since those first rubies, gemstones were no longer the only amazing thing coming out of test tubes.

  When I walked into the Richmond Reproductive Clinic in the city's West End, the women in the waiting room didn’t look up from their magazines, even when the door closed with a loud clunk. And they continued reading as the brawny red-headed receptionist practically yelled her greeting.

  "Hello, dear! We're behind schedule today, so be patient!"

  I opened my identification, laying it on the plastic counter. "I need to ask Dr. Chivigny some questions."

  All the women looked up.

  The receptionist had painted eyebrows. They cinched down on her forehead into an almost clownish frown. "What's this about?" she said.

  I decided it was time to use the Official Investigator voice. "I need to ask the doctor some questions." I hoped my tone would keep me from having to say, Just get the guy.

  And it did. She exited through a side door.

  When I turned around, the fierce expressions on the women’s faces almost scared me.

  Women with concerns. Women with worries. Women who had been denied the most basic right of being a woman: motherhood. They were women who had to come to a laboratory for their precious gems, when all around them other women received rubies as if wishing were all it took. And now I was casting a pall. Questions? their faces seemed to say. What kind of questions?

  I took the chair nearest the exit and stared at the Berber carpet. It is blue. Baby blue. The women returned to their magazines, stealing glances, until a short bald man wearing a white lab coat appeared. "Dr. Chivigny" was embroidered above the chest pocket. In baby blue thread.

  He motioned to me, brusquely.

  The narrow hall was painted pink. Baby-girl pink. I counted five closed doors with plastic bins holding medical files. The doctor ushered me into the room at the end of the hall. His office. When I shook his hand, introducing myself, his fine-boned fingers said he was an efficient surgeon.

  "I assume this has to do with the Spatz case," he said.

  "Pardon?"

  "Spatz. Harriet Spatz."

  I shook my head.

  Relief immediately washed over his narrow face.

  "Oh. I thought...." He waited a moment. "I have a case pending with a patient. Former patient."

  "I'm with the FBI," I reminded him.

  "Yes, I know. But when my receptionist told me the FBI was here, I immediately connected you to the Spatz case. Since it's gone national. Federal. You know, the Spatz case?"

  "Sir, I have no connection to that matter."

  He crossed his arms over his chest. "Harriet Spatz. She alleges a drug taken while under my care deformed her baby. It's not possible, of course. Several clinical studies have proven Lupron does not cause birth defects. But personal injury lawyers aren't interested in facts, and now they've launched a nationwide search for women who took Lupron for fertility and gave birth to babies with physical abnormalities."

  I showed no reaction.

  “Then never mind.” He took a deep breath. “What can I help you with?"

  "I'm looking into something that involves a couple who came to your clinic. Michael and Janine Falcon."

  "Falcon? Falcon. No, the name doesn't have any association for me."

  "It was several years back." I read something in his keen gray eyes. "You do understand, doctor, that you're not part of my investigation. I just needed to confirm some facts. Your cooperation would be appreciated."

  He smiled then, and gestured to a chair near his desk. "Please, make yourself comfortable. I'll see what I can find."

  His desk was a remarkable thing. A thick tree stump, the flat surface h
ad been shellacked with a golden sealant that highlighted the tree rings. I wondered whether the doctor was capable of metaphor. An insinuation about life, family trees, but when he came back into the room, I decided against it.

  "Michael and Janine Falcon? Yes, they were patients of mine." He carried their file in his hands like a prayer book. "You'll have to excuse my not recognizing the name. I don't get to know my patients very well."

  "It seems like you would."

  "Yes, this does appear to be an intimate scenario, doesn't it? Helping couples conceive. But once a woman is pregnant, I am no longer her physician. She returns to her regular OB-GYN for the remainder of the pregnancy, sometimes after only a month of my care. Frankly the less I know about them, the better." He caught himself. "For their sake, of course."

  "Of course."

  "So let's see...." He flipped through the medical file. "The Falcons were, well, they were under my care for thirteen months. She conceived on the third IVF...."

  I didn't believe in luck, but Providence was definitely working in my favor. The doctor wanted goodwill points and believed that his help now would alleviate his other troubles. I wasn't about to set him straight. Not when Janine Falcon wouldn't release this particular file from her husband’s office. It was labeled The Richmond Reproductive Clinic. "She conceived on the third -- what?" I asked.

  "IVF. In vitro fertilization."

  "That's a complicated procedure, isn't it?"

  He almost shrugged but stopped, as though realizing he could undermine his reputation. "After harvesting the eggs, we fertilize them with the sperm, and implant them back in the woman's uterus. Then it's a waiting game. What was your name again?"

  I took out my credentials, handing him my card.

  He held it carefully; he might need it later. "Miss Harmon?" he asked.

  "Agent Harmon."

  "Agent Harmon, if this doesn't have to do with the Spatz woman, may I ask what these questions are about?"

  "Michael Falcon was a city detective. Last week he fell from a rooftop under suspicious circumstances. He’s dead."

  For one split second, the doctor grimaced. "I did hear about this, on the news. But I didn't pay attention to the details. And I honestly do not remember him. Most husbands never set foot in my office. Embarrassed, ashamed, their manhood challenged. There's a whole gamut of reasons. But I still don't see how I’m connected to this."