Gray Matter

by Gary Braver

The first five questions were the usual throwaways.

  In no time, Lincoln Cady had reached the $32,000 mark without having to use a single lifeline.

  “Do you read a lot?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good for you. You have remarkable recall.”

  “Thanks.”

  “What do you hope to study at Cal Tech next year?”

  “Computer engineering.”

  Regis nodded. “You did so well on the medical questions that I’d think you’d be interested in studying medicine.”

  Lincoln raised his eyebrows. “I’m more interested in machines than people.”

  Regis smiled. “I have days like that, too.”

  The audience laughed, and they went on to the next question, which he got, then the next.

  Throughout the exchange, it struck Martin that the boy didn’t appear to blink.

  The next question: “What was the occupation of Albert Einstein when he published his theory of relativity: (a) teacher; (b) mathematician; (c) office clerk; (d) student.’”

  The kid deliberated a bit, but Martin was certain that he had been told to draw things out in order to heighten tension. Then he said, “Office clerk.”

  “Is that your final answer.”

  “Yes.”

  Regis Philbin cocked his head. “You got it for a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars.”

  The audience exploded. The boy smiled and fixed his glasses calmly. There was more perfunctory chitchat then the next question.

  “Who hit the first Grand Slam in World Series history?” The choices were: (a) Charlie Peck; (b) Eddie Collins; (c) Frank Baker; and (d) Elmer Smith.

  Martin had no idea what the answer was, and Lincoln Cady said he did not know sports and would have to call a friend, a classmate at his school named Robert. Philbin called, Cady read the question, and the young male voice at the other end said, “Elmer Smith.” Cady offered that for his final answer, and Philbin congratulated him for reaching the $250,000 mark.

  After the applause and more small talk, they moved to the half-million-dollar question. When Philbin asked him what he was planning to do with whatever money he won, Cady said he would give it to his parents to help pay off some debts, then put the rest toward college. Philbin liked that, and the audience approved.

  The next question lit the screen: “When three celestial bodies form a straight line, what is the phenomenon called?” And the answers listed were (a) syzygy; (b) string theory; (c) Lineation; (d) synapogee.

  Cady still had two lifelines left, but he said he didn’t need them.

  Syzygy, thought Martin.

  “Syzygy,” said Lincoln.

  “Is that your final answer?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “You just won yourself half a million dollars.”

  “YES!” shouted Martin, and the audience went crazy.

  There was a cut for a commercial break, and Martin turned off the audio, thinking how in grade school he was a stutterer. He remembered vividly all the shit—how they had called him “Muh-Muh.” The running joke was: Hey, Martin, try to answer this in under an hour: “What’s your name?” In English class when they got to poetry, they said Martin was an expert on alliterations.

  He supposed it was funny, looking back. But at the time it was hell. People thought that stuttering meant you were stupid. He could still recall the raw humiliation, the mortification he felt when he couldn’t get out what he wanted to say, just a vicious staccato of syllables—“Wha-wha-wha-wha …” At that age, kids are brutal. Once they see a spot of blood, they will peck at it until you’re bled of self-esteem.

  He was not going to put his own son through that. Life’s hard enough … but …

  (go ahead! Say it …

  it’s harder when you’re stupid)

  Suddenly his mind was a fugue.

  He heard Rachel: But he won’t be the same person.

  Then another voice: Maybe not, but he’s not the same person he was with pigeontoes. He’s better, more capable. Look how high he was when he slid home yesterday. Imagine his ego growing up without a mental handicap.

  And Rachel again: What about accepting him as he is?

  Not if we can do better for him.

  But what if he loses his interest in music and sports? Or if his personality changes?

  Not going to happen. Malenko said so. Look at Lucinda. Look at all the nameless enhanced kids in Harvard at fifteen. Look at this kid on the screen. Calm, cool, collected. Brilliant.

  Martin glanced at Dylan lying on the couch, his eyes drooping. He hated that mushroom haircut. It made him look like a young Bluto. But it was what all the kids on the team sported. And Dylan wanted to be like them.

  We can change that for him. A chance of lifetime.

  It was time for the million-dollar question. Philbin and the audience were charged. Lincoln Cady looked as if he might start yawning. The kid was remarkably impressive. Cool incandescence.

  “Okay, here goes. For one million dollars.”

  The screen lit up with the question and the four choices: “What 1959 novella was the basis for the 1968 movie Charly?”

  The four answers given were: (a) Odd Man Out, (b) A Case of Conscience, (c) Flowers for Algernon, (d) The Duplicated Man.

  Cady nodded as he scanned the answers. He hesitated as the music played up the tension. Then, after several seconds, he said: “The answer is (c) Flowers for Algernon. Final answer.”

  Regis Philbin looked teasingly at the camera then back to Cady. Then he beamed: “You just won yourself one million dollars.”

  And the audience went wild. Lincoln Cady smiled thinly and shook Philbin’s hand as the applause continued and confetti rained down on the set.

  Dylan had slept through the whole drama.

  Martin muted the set and dialed Rachel on her cell phone. She answered on the third ring. “Did you see the show?”

  “Some of it. The nurses had it on. And in case you’re interested, my mother’s doing fine.”

  “Great. Give her my love. Jack, too. So, what did you think? I mean the kid—Lincoln Cady. Is he a whiz, or what? I mean, talk about photographic memory.”

  “He was very impressive,” Rachel said.

  “Impressive? That doesn’t come close.” Her lack of enthusiasm was so typical.

  “He also looked as if someone had shot him with a tranquilizer dart.”

  “What does that mean?” Martin couldn’t disguise his defensiveness.

  “Just what I said. He looked stiff, robotic.”

  She was purposely downplaying a spectacular performance, and Martin was getting more irritated by the second. “How about it was just cool confidence. I mean, the kid’s a genius.”

  “Martin, can we change the subject, please?”

  Christ! he thought.

  “Because she’s doing so well, I’ll probably be coming home Tuesday. How’s Dylan?”

  “He’s fine.” There was a pause. “Rachel, you’re aware that Dr. Malenko has got to know pretty soon.”

  “I know that,” she snapped. “We’ll talk about it when I get back.”

  “Well, I’m just saying. He’s pressed for time.”

  “Look, stop pressuring me. This isn’t something I’m going to rush into.”

  “We’ve been thinking about it for weeks. I mean, how much more time do we need?”

  Her voice tightened. “I don’t want to talk about it right now. I’ve got enough on my mind.”

  Shit! “Well, think fast because he’s leaving the country in a couple weeks.”

  He looked across the room at the sleeping figure of his son. It struck Martin just how much he looked like him when he was young. In fact, he could have passed for seven-year-old Martin on a pony in the photograph sitting on the fireplace mantel.

  “Then if we do it, it’ll have to be when he gets back.”

  Martin did not say anything more about it.

  According to Malenko there would be a three-to-four-week re
covery period, which meant that if they waited too long, Dylan would miss the first weeks of school in the fall. But if they did it soon, he could stabilize and miss nothing. Then over the next few months, he would begin to show signs of improved cognition. It would be subtle and progressive, which meant that by next year at this time, Dylan would have begun to plateau. Then by the fall of that year, they could enroll him in a different school where nobody would know his academic history, which, in this state, was confidential—a fancy private school whose entrance exam he’d ace. Not like what he did on the Beaver Hill qualifiers.

  As Malenko had said, he would by then have grown into his own new mind.

  And what happens when he’s suddenly brilliant and Uncle Jack, Aunt Alice, and Granny come to visit? How are you going explain the fact that Dylan’s a little whip? How he’s reading Dr. Seuss on his own when just last year he couldn’t get through the alphabet? Whatcha gonna tell them, huh? That his new tutor is something else? Or that the school he’s attending has some great new breakthrough strategies on learning? Or that they put him on an all-ginkgo biloba diet?

  None of that.

  Well, you see, we found out about this secret little brain operation that jacks up IQs?

  Not that either, because Dylan was still young. And because Jack and Aunt Alice and Granny knew little about his cognitive status. Rachel had mentioned how Dylan hadn’t passed the Beaver Hill entrance exams, but she hadn’t gone into detail. She had not told anyone his IQ. It wasn’t anybody else’s business, even family. So all they knew was that Dylan was a sweet, handsome little boy who hit a mean T-ball and who sang like a bird. Sure, he had some language problems, but many kids do. And he just grew out of them like millions of other slow starters, that’s all. Like his old man, for instance.

  After they hung up, Martin walked over to the couch and looked at his sleeping son for a long moment. Even his profile resembled Martin’s. Like father, like son.

  Yep, just grew into his own mind.

  52

  It was almost too easy how Greg found the Nova Children’s Center.

  He got the name from information and discovered that it was located in Myrtle, Massachusetts, just twenty minutes northwest of Hawthorne.

  Around noon on Monday, he drove to the place, which was a grand old Gothic Revival building with turrets, a dunce-cap roof, and fish-scale slate shingles. He wouldn’t have known that from Disney, except that Lindsay had been interested in architecture.

  He went inside, uncertain what he was looking for, uncertain if he was pursuing a bona fide lead or more white rabbits. His only certainty was his suspension if Lieutenant Gelford learned he was here. And that was the reason he didn’t contact the local police. If he asked the investigator on the Watts case to keep their exchange quiet, that would make the officer suspicious of Greg’s credibility.

  The receptionist said the person to speak to was Dr. Denise Samson. However, she wouldn’t be back until after lunch, about one. That was cutting it close, since it would take him almost two hours to get back to the office, and for this week he’d been rescheduled to start at three because of vacation absentees. Unfortunately, he’d be about half an hour late.

  So he sat in the waiting room and thumbed through magazines. At onethirty, Dr. Samson called the secretary to say she’d be late. That made Greg’s stomach leak acid. With the traffic, he wouldn’t get to the department until after four. That would not look good.

  At two-fifteen, Dr. Samson came up the stairs. She was a tall stately woman with short reddish hair and dressed in a moss-green dress. He asked to speak with her in private, and she led him to her office.

  He did not tell her about the skulls. Instead, he mentioned how one of his cases involved a child who had been evaluated on a SchoolSmart test, and wanted to know about that.

  “Well, in addition to offering tailored learning programs, we have a diagnostic service that designs, administers, and evaluates tests used in different school systems nationally. SchoolSmart is one of them and is sponsored by private benefactor organizations as well as some colleges and universities that offer scholarship incentives to extremely gifted children from low-income families.”

  Greg noted that on his pad.

  “As you can imagine, many such kids either quit school at sixteen to work or, if they graduate, they take the first job that comes along and almost never go on. What SchoolSmart offers is full-tuition scholarships for select students if they remain in school through the twelfth grade. And we administer the tests as early as the first grade.”

  “An incentive to remain in school.”

  “Exactly, and a just reward.”

  “And the only qualifications are smart and poor.”

  Dr. Samson smiled. “That’s putting it bluntly, but yes. And that they complete their schooling,” she said. “But I should add that our tests are not the standardized group intelligence tests, but ones specially designed as individualized evaluations for young children identified by their teachers as gifted. They’re more accurate, and we make certain they’re administered by licensed psychologists.”

  She would have gone on, but Greg cut to the chase. “I’m wondering if you could check your database for a Grady Dixon.”

  Her fingers flew across the keys. “Grady Dixon … Yes, from Cold Spring, Tennessee.” And she gave the date of his evaluation.

  Greg felt a little electric thrill run through him. He was tested just three months before he was kidnapped. “Can you tell me where exactly he was tested and who administered the test?”

  The woman looked a little flustered. “Well, I can tell you he was tested at his school, the Michael Lowry Regional, and the local psychometrician was Dr. Maxwell Barnard from Signal Mountain, Tennessee.”

  That did not seem helpful. “Can you run a database cross-reference to see if this Dr. Maxwell Barnard conducted tests on any other SchoolSmart candidates?”

  Dr. Samson started the search when she suddenly stopped. “I can do that, Officer, but I’d like to know why you’re asking. I’m concerned that we’re going to violate a contractual agreement with our clients.”

  He saw that coming. “Dr. Samson, I’m looking into a possible connection between some past kidnappings and children who might have been tested by your organization.”

  Dr. Samson looked worried all of a sudden. “You mean a criminal investigation?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I’m sure you understand, but I would have to consult with the directors before I can divulge any more information—unless, of course, you have a court order.”

  He didn’t, and he had her against a wall. Without a warrant, any more nudges could push her behind a legal blind. “Of course, but maybe you can tell me if his files contain any record of neurosurgery?”

  She seemed tentative. “Well …” she began.

  “Doctor, Grady Dixon has been dead for three years and it’s presumed he was kidnapped and murdered.” He was hoping the drama of that would override protocol.

  “I see. Neurosurgery?” She glanced at the screen. “Well, no, nor would we have any record of that sort unless he had been a patient of ours. That’s a completely separate entity from what we do on site. Besides, I’d imagine the parents would have consulted neurospecialists in Tennessee.”

  “Of course. And just who are the neurosurgeons here?”

  “Actually, we have two: Dr. Stephen Kane and Dr. John Lubeck.”

  He took down the names. “Is there a Julian Watts in your database?”

  “Julian Watts. Why is that name familiar?” she asked. Then her expression contorted. “He wasn’t the boy murdered by his mother last week, was he?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Oh, how horrible. I read about that.”

  “Can you check if he had taken a SchoolSmart test?”

  She slowly turned to the computer again and tapped a few more keys. “Oh, my! He’s in the database … but he was not a SchoolSmart candidate.” She hit a few more keys. Then s
he sat back and stared at the screen, a look of surprise on her face. “He’s listed as a patient of Dr. Malenko.”

  “Dr. Malenko?”

  “Yes, he’s one of our neurologists. Dr. Lucius Malenko.”

  “Do you have any idea why Julian was seeing Dr. Malenko?”

  “I don’t, but even if I knew I couldn’t give you that information. Besides, Julian was one of his private patients.”

  “Private patients?”

  “From his private practice.” Then she glanced back at the screen. “I’m just surprised he didn’t mention the boy’s … what happened.”

  Greg filed that away. Then he pulled out the schematic and showed her. “Any idea what kind of neurological procedure would have produced these holes?” He briefly explained the origin of the drawing.

  She shook her head. “I’m a psychologist, not a neurologist.”

  “Could they have been the results of some surgical treatment of epilepsy?”

  “I suppose.”

  The woman looked as is she were becoming uncomfortable with the interrogation, knowing full well that she didn’t have to proceed without a warrant. “One more question, if you don’t mind,” he said, without giving her a chance to respond. “How many people here have access to your database?”

  “The entire professional staff.”

  “I see.” He thanked her and left.

  On the way out, he stopped at the reception desk again. “I’m wondering if I could speak to Dr. Malenko.”

  “I’m afraid he’ll be out of town for a few days. Would you like to make an appointment?”

  “When do you expect him back?”

  “Next Thursday.”

  “Do you have a number I can reach him at?”

  “I can give you his other office. You can leave a voice message.”

  “That’ll be fine.”

  She jotted down the address and number on the back of the center’s card and handed it to him.

  As he returned to his car, he noticed the slot for L. Malenko. Greg wasn’t sure what he had: two dead six-year-olds—one from Tennessee, the other from parts unknown. Two teenagers—one dead known teenager, one alive unknown teenager—both from the North Shore of Massachusetts. Except for the live one, they were all murder victims, one by his mother. The only commonality was their gender and the fact that each had neurosurgical bore holes in the skull. Two were connected to Nova Children’s Center. And two points determine a straight line.