The Genesis Code

by John Case

  ‘Do you want that as a printout or mailing labels?’

  ‘A printout’s fine,’ Lassiter replied. He handed her a hundred-dollar bill and then three tens (to cover the cost of expediting the request).

  ‘You can pick it up in the morning, anytime after ten.’

  Which left him with a day to kill, and he murdered half of it on the road, driving nowhere in particular. He liked Maine. There was something about the rocky land and the snow and the pine trees that seemed particularly clean and spare. And while franchised America and shopping malls were still too plentiful for comfort, he passed through a dozen small towns and villages that seemed to be organized around ice rinks and newsstands, boatyards and bookstores. These were towns that seemed as if they had soda fountains in them. And if some of them were blighted by empty buildings or restored to an artificial quaintness, he still felt a connection to them. It might be false nostalgia, but these places seemed a much better bet for sustaining civilized life than the subdivided sprawl replicating up and down the coast.

  It was five o’clock and dark when he got back to his room. Settling into an armchair, he tilted back and, with his feet up on the desk, began reading from a handful of articles about Callista.

  He’d been working his way through the collection of papers provided by the P.R. agency in reverse chronological order. By now, he was all the way back to 1986. Instead of churning out the usual avalanche of personal details, with a parade of past-life relatives and friends weighing in with self-important anecdotes, the ten-year-old coverage of Callista Bates consisted of wild speculation about who she was, where she’d come from, and why she was so secretive about her past.

  She’d burst/exploded/emerged on the Hollywood scene in 1984, with the release of a remake of Lost Horizon, a ‘little’ movie that unexpectedly took off. Most thought its surprising success due to the captivating and unknown actress who’d played the female lead. Simply put, she lighted up the screen. The movie might easily have been a kind of hokey, new-age melodrama, with soaring music and idealized landscapes, but Callista’s mischievous persona rescued the film from its perpetrators, revealing the casting director to be a genius.

  By the time she disappeared, in 1990, the star’s resolute stance on not talking about her past was accepted; no one really bothered about it anymore. But in 1986, of course, it was still grist for the tabloids’ mills. The actress was quoted to the effect that there was a fine line between freedom of the press and the right to privacy, and those who crossed it would no longer have their calls returned. Reactions varied widely. Some publications took her at her word and avoided questions about her background, while others took the opposite tack, assigning reporters to investigate her past. It was all a front, anyway, they reasoned: Without publicity, her career would die on the vine.

  She said okay, that was fine, they had their work, she had hers – and if they chose to dig into her past, that was okay, too. Just don’t expect her to be complicitous or forgiving. Soon afterward, Piper was released, and when it went nova, a tabloid called Startrak! published a rumor, based on an interview with Callista’s private secretary.

  CALLISTA’S SECRET TRAGEDY: SHE’S AN ORPHAN!!!

  The actress never denied the story – and neither did she confirm it. She simply dismissed her secretary and told her successor that calls from Startrak! were to be ignored.

  It took a while for the tabloids to realize how serious she was. For two or three years speculative pieces continued to appear, hinting about a youth so wretched that the actress couldn’t bear to recall it. At least a dozen parents came forward to claim Callista as their only child, while rumors zipped through the grapevine like so many Pachinko balls: there were rumors, some of them published, of a tragic childhood in which she’d drowned her baby brother, starred in pornographic films, and suffered convictions for mail fraud, shoplifting, and arms-dealing.

  One magazine went so far as to put Callista’s photograph on a Wanted! poster. There was a hot line with an 800 number, and a series of eccentrically morphed photos that purported to reverse the aging process, depicting the actress as she might have been – at sixteen, twelve, eight, four, and birth.

  A headline asked: DO YOU KNOW THIS LITTLE GIRL? while another begged: CALLISTA’S MOMMY – WHERE ARE YOU?

  It was ridiculous, annoying, and hurtful. And eventually it backfired. The New Yorker made her the centerpiece of a twelve-thousand-word essay on the ‘metastasis of celebrity’ and its malignant effects on the private lives of public figures. Other journals followed suit, applauding Callista’s stance even as they quoted Andy Warhol on the inevitability of it all.

  From an investigative standpoint there was nothing to be learned from any of the stories. Callista might be an orphan or she might be a quint. There was no way to tell. The tabloids’ sources were either anonymous or suspect, and usually both. But one thing was abundantly clear: when the time came, Callista Bates was not going to thank him for tracking her down.

  That night he went to a place called the Muddy Rudder, where he washed down a lobster with a bottle of Pilsner Urquell. ‘They’re sweetah in the wint-ah,’ the waitress enthused. It took him a minute to understand she meant the lobsters.

  At ten P.M. he was back in his room, reading the Boston Globe. The big stories were mostly old news – things he’d overheard on the radio while driving along the coast that afternoon. There was an update on a plane crash, an update on Bosnia, and stories about interest rates, the primaries, and counterfeiting in the Middle East.

  He usually skipped the local news when he was traveling – what did he care about political maneuvers in Boston, or welfare fraud in Foxboro? Even so, there was an interesting story in the Globe about a writer named Carl Oglesby. Turning to the jump page, where the story was continued, Lassiter was stunned to see a picture of Silvio della Torre, smiling out at him.

  The accompanying article was headlined: OVERFLOW CROWD HEARS LATIN MASS

  BROCKTON – Despite treacherous roads and temperatures near zero, more than a thousand worshipers flocked to Our Lady Help of Christians Catholic Church Sunday to hear Father Silvio della Torre recite the mass in Latin.

  With his back to the congregation, the traditionalist leader addressed the altar in a powerful voice that rang through the church, moving many to tears. While some praised the ‘power and beauty of the ceremony,’ others spoke of an almost mystical bond to generations of Catholics who have celebrated the mass in this same, ancient language.

  In his sermon, the English-speaking della Torre called for ‘a more muscular Catholicism,’ while urging the assembled to ‘stand fast against the abominations of science.’

  The traditionalist leader is the Italian head of the rapidly expanding lay order Umbra Domini. He arrived in Boston Friday for a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the group’s new hospice in Brookline.

  Umbra Domini’s charter rejects many of the changes imposed by the second Vatican Council, while affirming the rights of Catholics to worship in the traditional way. The doctrinal variation was approved by the Vatican some years ago.

  A spokesman for the group said that della Torre’s American itinerary is ‘flexible and open-ended.’

  Lassiter read the article with a racing heart, and when he was done, he read it again. Then he poured a scotch from the minibar and, gazing at the priest’s photo, downed it in a gulp.

  In the morning, Lassiter drove to the DMV with his eyes half closed, squinting against the flat light that came off the snow. The sky was dense with clouds, and while the temperature was higher than the day before, so also was the humidity. The result was a raw cold that reached inside your clothes and made you think about Florida.

  The clerk at ‘Information Services’ handed him a manila envelope. He took it to a long table against the wall, where a blond girl with bad skin was filling out a form, using a pen attached to the table by a short chain.

  The printout was about ten pages long and listed every VW van, circa 1965–75, registered in
the state of Maine. The information was alphabetically organized and included the owner’s name, address and date of birth, the license plate number of the vehicle, and its year of manufacture. The DOB was particularly important because Lassiter could use it to narrow the list to women in their thirties.

  Callista had been born in 1962.

  He’d anticipated a tedious process. Once the men had been eliminated, and the list narrowed to women of a certain age, he’d visit them one by one – and doorstep them. Moving through the list, from to A to Z, he’d put checks next to seventeen names. And then he saw it:

  Sanders, Marie A.

  DOB: 3–8–62

  P.O. Box 39

  Cundys Harbor, Maine 04010

  Volkswagen (van): 1968

  EAW–572

  The first thing that jumped out at him was ‘–62’ – and then Marie. He stared at the entry. March 8. Was it March 8? He was sure it was.

  Jesus Christ, he thought. I’ve found her.

  He slammed his fist onto the table, and the girl with the bad skin turned and stared at him with a look so sour it startled him. Shoving the list into his jacket pocket, he ran out to the car, nearly losing his footing on the ice.

  It had to be her. What were the chances that there were two women named Marie in the state of Maine who’d been born on March 8, 1962, and owned an old V W van?

  He yanked open the glove box, pulled out the map, and glanced at the index. Cundys Harbor: K–2. His finger skated through the empty pinkness of Quebec, across the border into Maine, down through a tangle of lakes and towns, coming to rest finally on a small dot next to the coast, a little south and east of Brunswick.

  An hour later he passed through the pines of Bowdoin College (thank you, Dicky Biddle), and turned right at a sign for

  ORRS ISLAND

  Even under the lowering sky the landscape was appealing, with slate-gray boulders and dark green pines stark against the clouds. There was a special richness to the light, an intense gray that hinted at the nearby sea. As he followed the road on the map, he passed one business after another that was closed for the winter – a shore restaurant, a shack advertising lobster rolls, a gift shop. The road forked to the left, becoming narrower as it arced toward a dead end in the hamlet of Cundys Harbor. Seeing a flag, he headed for it, and pulled into a small parking area next to a post office that doubled as the general store.

  There, he saw a blue VW van, and even without looking at the plates, he knew it was hers. One bumper sticker read FRODO LIVES, and the other VISUALIZE WHIRLED PEAS. In between the two was the license plate itself:

  EAW-572

  Now what? he asked himself, standing on a ledge of rock next to the little building no more than a hundred feet from the sea. He had to assume Callista . . . Marie was in the store. She’d been stalked, she’d been followed. He didn’t want to spook her.

  And while she might recognize him from Kathy’s funeral, that wasn’t necessarily positive: the connection might unnerve her. Lassiter wandered down to the water’s edge, thinking about what to do. He’d been concentrating so hard on finding her that he’d never even considered what his approach would be. And so he stood beside the water, stranded with indecision, staring out to sea.

  Cundys Harbor was a postcard, but it wasn’t a museum piece. It was an old fishing village where the men still went to sea. There were barnacle-encrusted wooden wharves, stacked with lobster traps and other equipment, and a motley collection of boats riding at anchor in the snug harbor. A rusting trawler, bristling with winches; some funky old lobster boats; a couple of shiny new crafts with center cockpits.

  At the moment, the tide was out and the expanse of mud flat and rocks and yellow seaweed was littered with ice that had formed on the surface, and then lay fractured and cracked where the receding water left it. The sky was streaky and getting darker, and when the raw wind kicked up a notch, Lassiter couldn’t stop shivering. He really ought to buy an overcoat, he told himself. Or get inside.

  The post office/general store was an antique tinderbox with racks of dry goods and groceries, and an old-fashioned cooler holding milk, eggs, and beer. A gray-haired woman looked up from her newspaper as he came in. ‘Howdy,’ she said, pronouncing the word as if it were a warning. Lassiter smiled, and went directly to the wood stove, where he warmed his hands and looked around. The store was packed with tidal charts, maps, fishing lures, pocketknives, flashlights, groceries, penny candy, electrical supplies, Hostess cupcakes, newspapers, and pretzels. Along the opposite wall was a miniature post office with a slot for mail, a counter, and a bank of fifty little bronze mailboxes.

  But there was no Callista Bates, and no Marie Sanders.

  Finally, the gray-haired woman spoke up in a thick Maine accent: ‘Can I help you, dee-ah?’

  What the hell. ‘I hope so. I’m looking for Marie Sanders.’

  She made a little clucking sound. ‘Oh dee-ah,’ she said, with a stricken look that sent Lassiter’s own mood plummeting.

  ‘Isn’t that her car outside?’ Lassiter asked.

  ‘Ay-uh! That’s it, all right. But she isn’t he-ah. You a friend of hers?’

  Lassiter nodded. ‘When do you expect her?’ he asked.

  ‘Month. Six weeks, maybe.’

  Lassiter shook his head, perplexed and disappointed. ‘I thought she lived here,’ he said.

  ‘Well, of course she does. Not he-ah, but he-ahbouts.’

  ‘So . . . is she traveling, or –’

  The woman’s pale blue eyes widened behind her glasses, and then she giggled – a surprising sound that made her seem almost like a teenager. ‘My lands,’ she said. ‘I must sound like I’m talking in riddles. Let me show you.’ She shrugged into a huge blue sweater, and beckoned for him to follow her out the door, which she closed with a thrust of her hip.

  The wind was blowing just enough to make them lower their heads as they walked out onto the wharves. ‘There,’ she said, pointing out to sea where a chain of islands hunkered on the horizon. ‘They’re out on the last one.’

  Lassiter blinked. ‘They live out there?’

  The old lady cackled. ‘Ah-yuh! On a clear day, you can see the smoke from her wood stove.’ Then she shivered. ‘Come on inside, de-ah. I’ll make us a cup of tea.’

  Together, they returned to the store. ‘She must have a radio, or something,’ Lassiter said.

  ‘Cell phone.’

  ‘Well, then –’

  ‘Doesn’t work, though.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  The woman shook her head, and moved behind the counter to plug in an electric kettle. ‘No. Jonathan tried to raise her just before the last big storm. Got a lot of static, but that was that. Could be a battery problem – it’s happened befo-ah. Look he-ah,’ she said, coming around the counter to a large map that was posted on the wall. It was a mariner’s chart, the land mass a featureless blond expanse, the water dense with data and details about currents, depths, and features of the sea floor. She put a finger on a scimitar-shaped harbor.

  ‘We’re he-ah,’ she said, then moved her hand to one of three islands, out to sea. ‘And your friend’s way out to here.’

  ‘Sanders Island,’ he read. Sanders Island? That must be her real name, then, her family name.

  ‘That’s the name on the chart, de-ah, because when Cap’n Sanders bought the island – oh, a long time ago – he wanted that name on the charts, and by golly he got it. Still – you won’t find anyone here call it anything but Rag Island – which is the old name, going back to I don’t know when.’

  ‘Why’d they call it that?’

  She moved behind the counter and switched off the electric kettle. ‘Look at the shoreline. That island has more jigs and jags than you can shake a stick at. And right down from it – Dutchess Island – the shoreline’s so smooth, you can hardly find a place to tie up your boat.’

  Lassiter looked absently at a display of penny candy. Mary Janes, Tootsie Rolls, atomic fireballs.

&nb
sp; ‘Sugah?’ she asked. ‘Cream? Well, Half and Half?’

  ‘Both. Please.’

  ‘Just like me. Pale and sweet.’ After a moment she put two cups of tea on the counter, each in a delicate china cup resting on a saucer. ‘Don’t care for mugs,’ she confided.

  He devoted fifteen minutes to drawing out the woman (‘Maude Hutchison – and I’m nothing like that TV Maude, let me tell you’) on her likes and dislikes, how long she’d lived there (‘forever, dear’) and local history. While they talked, a couple of men came in for cigarettes, a woman to check the mail. By the time Lassiter brought up the subject of Marie Sanders again, he and Maude were on their second cup of tea. ‘So – Marie actually stays on that island all winter, by herself?’

  ‘Her and the boy.’ She stirred her tea. ‘First year – I don’t think anybody’d been to the place for twenty-five ye-ahs! ’Course I remembered Marie from way back when, not that I recognized her after all that time.’

  ‘You mean . . . you knew her when she was a child?’

  ‘Oh, show-ah! Knew both her parents. Used to be the whole family’d go out to the island. Even her brother, who was sickly. They used to wrap him up in blankets and carry him out to the boat. And old John Junior? He was quite the sailor. They’d be out there every weekend of the summer – and vacation, too. ’Course – she was just a twig of a thing. Maybe five years old. Now she’s out they-ah with her own boy.’

  ‘Do her parents live around here?’

  She shook her head. ‘Oh, Lord no. They’ve been dead for yee-ahs. Marie didn’t tell you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, it doesn’t surprise me. She’s one for keeping her business to herself, bless her heart.’ She drew in her breath sharply. ‘John Junior got to drinking down in Portland, and Amanda went to get him. Well, John Junior said he could drive all right, and I guess he did – for a few minutes. At least, until they got to the railroad tracks. Lawyers said the signal was broke, but they never proved that, and the truth was – John Junior was wicked impatient. I can just see him, racing the train.’ She shook her head. ‘Well, Amanda’s sister took Marie in. Lived down in Connecticut. Last we saw of her until –’