The Scientist (Max Doerr Book 2)

by Jay Deb

  Chapter 2

  It was nine fifteen p.m. when Doerr reached his two-bedroom apartment on Seventy-First Street. He unlocked the door, and as he entered, he saw Gayle sitting in front of the TV with sleepy eyes. She stood up as Doerr gave her an empty stare. When he came back to the living room after changing his clothes, Gayle looked ready to hit the bed.

  “How was your day, hon?” she asked.

  “Okay,” Doerr said with an expressionless face. “Nothing special.”

  “I have the day off tomorrow.”

  “Nice.” He sat down on the sofa.

  For a minute, they watched the news on TV. “Now that you talk so little, I don’t know what I’ll do, sitting home alone the whole day.”

  “Go to the mall or something.”

  “No, I don’t like shopping anymore. Should I go to the police station and see if they’ve made any progress?”

  “No,” Doerr said. “I’ve already been there three times this week. I think we should let them do their job. You look sleepy. Perhaps you should go to bed.”

  A few minutes later, Gayle heeded his suggestion and headed for bed.

  The next morning, Gayle woke up in Max’s arms. It was nine a.m. and unusual for her to wake up so late. She was an early rising girl; her routine included getting up at seven, dashing through the bathroom, and then rushing to the train station to catch the 7:35 Line Six train to Grand Central. Once there, she would then switch to a Line Two train and be at her cubicle by 8:45. The IT job often forced her to work unsocial hours.

  But today was different. She shifted down a little and pressed her head against Doerr’s shoulder, waking him up. “Morning, Max,” she said.

  “Morning.” Doerr lifted his hand to massage her breast. “Sorry, I’ve been a little cold lately.”

  “It’s okay.” She caressed his back. “I know what you’re going through. I feel bad too. Billy was such a good kid.” She choked.

  AFTER DOERR HAD left for work, Gayle settled down with a book. Her phone rang. It was her mom.

  “I have some news for you.”

  “What is it, Mom?”

  “Are you ready?”

  “Yes.” Gayle knew her mom liked to create drama, so she patiently waited.

  “Okay, here it is. Max was not Billy’s father.”

  “Come on, Mom,” Gayle said. “I know you don’t like him. But to make up something like this…”

  “I’m serious, Gayle. I checked with Health Department. Billy’s father is someone called Jeff Donarski.”

  “Are you sure you searched for the right Billy?” It didn’t seem right to Gayle. Doerr never wanted to discuss his first marriage, which she understood. He had told her that he had personally cared for Billy for years, since his first wife had died twelve years back.

  “Yes, Billy Donarski,” her mom replied, “date of birth April third, 1990. Later, his name was changed to Billy Doerr.”

  “How can it be?”

  “I know how it can be, he’s a liar. Maybe he has a life insurance policy on Billy tucked away somewhere.”

  “Mom!”

  “I think you should confront him tonight.” Her mom gave her verdict. “If you want, I’ll go there and ask for myself.”

  “There’s no need, Mom. I’ll ask him when the time is right. He’s going through a lot.”

  A few minutes later, Gayle hung up. She looked outside and watched the cars and buses passing by. Gayle thought about what her mom had said all day; she couldn’t shake the topic from her mind.

  When Doerr came home late, she was still vacillating over whether to confront him. “How was work today?” she asked curtly.

  “Nothing new,” he said as he took his shirt off.

  “Let me take that.” She took the shirt and threw it in the hamper.

  She looked at his tired face and decided to postpone the confrontation for another day. Like many nights, Doerr went in the bathroom and Gayle hit the bed; she had to go to work early the next day.

  AFTER FINISHING HIS dinner, Doerr wiped his face with a white paper towel and decided to join Gayle in bed. Since Billy’s sudden death, he had been in so much distress that he hadn’t had a really long talk with her for a while. He entered the bedroom, and without turning the light on, he slid under the blanket, wrapped his long arms around her and asked, “Enjoy your day off?”

  “Sort of.” She sounded sad. “I had a lot of things to do.”

  “Like what?” he asked jokingly. “Shopping for dresses and lipsticks?”

  “No, I didn’t go shopping…I was busy.”

  “I can’t believe that. You didn’t go shopping on your day off? It’s like me not logging in to the Internet on my day off. What else did you do?”

  She said nothing for a few seconds. “My mom called.”

  Doerr sighed. He had not gotten along with his mother-in-law from the very beginning. He knew she had been against Gayle marrying him. After their marriage, the relationship between Doerr and his mother-in-law had only deteriorated. “What did you guys talk about?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?” He drew her closer and laughed. “How is that possible?”

  “Not much, I guess.” She paused again. “Let me ask you, Max. Have you always been truthful to me?”

  “Of course, what kind of question is that?” He raised his head. “What’s wrong, dear?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Oh, I know. She said something bad about me. Didn’t she?”

  “Don’t talk like that, Max.” She moved her hand over his back, up his neck and massaged gently.

  “Sorry.”

  “How are you dealing with everything? Is work okay?”

  “It’s fine.” Doerr sighed. “Every day someone seems to be getting murdered in the city. I don’t know when NYPD will find the bastard who killed Billy. I don’t know if they will find the man at all.”

  “I know you’re very sad. But don’t worry.” She patted his hair. “They will find Billy’s killer. It’s only a matter of time.”

  “I don’t know, dear. As the days are going by, my hopes are receding. In 2009, the NYPD solved only fifty-nine percent of all murders, which means nearly half the killers got away.”

  They lay on the bed for a few minutes, in a loose embrace. “How is your work?” Doerr asked gently.

  “My work? Every day poses a new problem. The Indian guy at work keeps harassing me, and the Russian guy questions everything I do. But enough about my work.” She raised her head and pressed her lips against his.

  He moved his head away. “Sorry. I’m just not in the mood.”

  She sank her head back into the pillow. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “Was there a life insurance policy for Billy?”

  “No. I thought of getting one many times, but I never quite had the time.”

  DOERR WOKE UP to a bright sunny day; the temperature was just a shade above eighty. Gayle had left for work already. While brushing his teeth in the bathroom, he saw Billy’s toothbrush. Painfully, he gathered Billy’s stuff – his brush, razor, deodorant and his fragrances – and put them in a bag and tucked the bag under the bed in Billy’s room. He had already given away all of his son’s clothes and shoes to a Goodwill store and had dropped Billy’s books at the local library.

  Doerr warmed up the coffee Gayle had left in the pot, smeared cream cheese on a bagel, and ate it. He put on his office clothes and headed for the NYPD Nineteenth Precinct office, which was located eight blocks from their apartment.

  There, Doerr talked to the male receptionist and was soon seated across from Matt Miller, the detective assigned to Billy’s case.

  “Any progress with the case?” Doerr asked.

  “Yes.” Miller put one hand next to the laptop he glanced at from time to time. “We identified a tall white man. Forensics has confirmed from the security tape that the man exited the building right around the time Billy took his last breath. The surprising thing i
s that there is no sign of him entering the building. He either lived in the building or he made an entry through somewhere other than the main door.”

  Doerr knew that the killer could not be living in the same building. It was too cockamamie to be true. “Can I see the picture of the man?”

  “That’s the other thing, Mr. Doerr. That man wore a large cap and kept his face down. The visuals are almost useless. Then there is another suspect. There is a man who has been reported to be stalking young boys in the area. He is missing, and we are trying to locate him.”

  “That’s all you have?” Doerr asked rudely.

  “Yes.” The officer’s face became expressionless. He straightened up on his chair and picked up the water bottle from the table. “Do you suspect anybody?”

  “Not really. But there was this guy – his name is Jamie. He picked fights with Billy many times about some girl. He threatened to kill Billy a few times, if he ever spoke to her again. A paranoid boy, it seems.”

  “Okay, we’ll check him out,” Miller said.

  Doerr looked at Miller. It did not appear to him that Miller would be doing whole lot to go after Jamie.

  I’ll have to go after Jamie myself, Doerr thought and left the NYPD office.

  IN THE AFTERNOON, Doerr was busy with work.

  He decided to call Billy’s school to get Jamie’s phone number, the boy who used to harass Billy. Doerr had seen Jamie before – on the basketball court and the football field. He was a strong boy who always had an angry posture.

  The school said they could not give out Jamie’s number, a privacy issue, but the school was having a sports event next weekend, and Jamie was certainly going to be there.

  “Thank you.” Doerr hung up and looked vacantly through the window.

  Doerr remembered the days when Billy had lost his mother and Doerr’s CIA job had kept him away from his son, leaving Billy with Doerr’s aging mother.

  Doerr felt a burn in his chest thinking about those days, when Billy had come running to him at the sound of his homecoming. He had always tried to spend as much time as possible with his son, knowing very well that their time together was fleeting. Always, though, he had to return to his assignments. He had placed work ahead of everything else.

  But what had he received in return?

  THE NEXT WEEKEND, Doerr attended the school sports event where he knew Jamie would be present, a football game with a rival school. More than a thousand spectators gathered around the field, ready to scream and cheer for their favorite team. Doerr saw Jamie warming up at the far end of the field. With all the padding and the white and green silky jersey, he looked even bigger than he really was.

  The game started. Jamie was a wide receiver but could hardly hold passes thrown at him. At halftime, his team was trailing ten to twenty-four. Doerr saw Jamie spit on the field on his way out.

  Doerr rushed over and stood in Jamie’s path. When he was close enough, Doerr called, “Hey, Jamie.”

  Jamie didn’t recognize Doerr.

  “Remember me?” Doerr stepped in front of Jamie and asked. “I’m Billy’s dad.”

  “What do you want?” Jamie asked rudely and continued to walk.

  “Where were you on July fifteenth?” Doerr asked.

  “Why you ask?”

  Jamie was walking away, and Doerr stepped in right behind him. “That’s when Billy was killed. July fifteenth. You threatened to kill him so many times.”

  Jamie turned around. “You mean to say I killed Billy somehow?”

  “Yes, that’s what I’m saying.”

  “You gotta be kidding.” Jamie took his shoulder pads off and continued to walk.

  “Answer the question, Jamie. Where were you on the night of the fifteenth of July?”

  “Actually, Mr. Doerr, I don’t remember where I was that night. Maybe I was with a girl. Maybe I killed Billy.” Jamie raised his helmet. “What are you going to do about it? Huh?”

  “Bastard. I’ll take you to the police and put you in jail.” Doerr grabbed Jamie’s neck, and he felt like choking him.

  Just then, Doerr felt somebody’s hands on his own neck, and the man pulled him away from Jamie. Doerr looked behind him. It was a middle-aged, burly man. A handful of other folks were staring at him as well.

  “Dad,” Jamie said as he kicked the ground, “this man was harassing me, says I killed Billy. Then he grabbed me. This man is crazy.”

  The burly man released Doerr and stood in front of him. “You like to rough up young men? Next time you touch him I’ll kill you.”

  “Your son might have murdered my son, and he won’t say where he was that night!”

  “And you think that makes him a killer! You know I can have you charged with assault right now?”

  Doerr knew the man was right. Exhaling heavily, he walked away.

  Chapter 3

  Gayle returned home from work in the evening. She pushed through the door and could not wait to get out of her pants suit. The summer was hot, and by the end of July there were many hundred-degree-plus days. Her whole body was sweaty from walking to and from the train stations. After switching into shorts and a sleeveless top, she headed for the bathroom. On the way, she heard the beep from the phone. There was a message. She ignored it, continuing to the bathroom to wash up. While checking her face, she noticed a wrinkle on her forehead. Was that due to age, tension, what? She rubbed her hand over it and tried to straighten it out. It came back as soon as she released it. A sigh followed. Things seemed to be going downhill for her. After Billy’s death, Max had changed a lot. He hardly talked; he didn’t want to go out, not even on weekends. He had immersed himself in his books, newspapers, and magazines. He had been cutting out pieces from newspapers and magazines and storing them in a manila folder. She had seen him doing that before, but now he was doing it almost compulsively.

  Is he going crazy? She asked herself. Losing a kid is hard, even harder if it’s the only child.

  She knew he wouldn’t go to a shrink to talk about it, so trying to talk him into it was pointless.

  She came out of the bathroom and opened the fridge to make a sandwich, the phone still beeping. She put the bread and the mayo down on the kitchen counter and hit the play button on the phone. It was a message for Max, from a man who introduced himself as Samuel. And the message was strange too. “I’ve got a job for you that will make a lot of people happy. The pay is very good. Call me.”

  The caller id was ‘unknown.’ She kept wondering – who was this guy? What was the job? She had never met a friend of Max named Samuel. In fact, she had met very few who Max called friends. On their wedding day, only two of his friends had shown up, and one had left embarrassingly early.

  Gayle made her sandwich, sat on the sofa, and started eating. Outside, it was getting dark.

  She had met Max three years ago at a friend’s place. “What do you do?” she had asked after small talk.

  “I work at the CIA,” he hushed.

  “Yeah?” She had been sure it was a joke. “What are you working on right now?”

  “We aren’t supposed to say. Maybe I’m working on you,” Doerr had said and flashed a cocky smile.

  From the way he had talked and behaved, she had been sure he did some kind of professional job. By the time their relationship got serious, she knew he was working as an editor, working mostly on crime stories, of which there was no shortage in the city.

  One day she had visited him at his newspaper office. He sat in a tiny cubicle; three phones, two computers and a pile of papers lay on his table. Numerous pieces of papers and pictures were pinned to the fabric panel of the cubicle wall. But he never wanted to talk about his work.

  “What is there to talk about? My job is all about killers and thieves,” Doerr had quipped once. “Let’s keep them out of our lives.”

  WHEN DOERR GOT out of the sports arena, it was already eight thirty. He took the subway train on Line Six. The city duelers were carrying themselves back to their houses, apartments
and condos on tired legs, to bury the frustrations of the day and hoping for a better day to come. For Doerr, it would take another forty minutes to get home. Gayle’s sleeping face swam in his head.

  The lumbering train reached his destination; the station was empty, except for the people who had just got off, and they left as quickly as the departing train. Sauntering across the platform, Doerr found himself alone, and it felt good. Most people would feel uncomfortable to be in a deserted New York station at this hour, but not him. Empty places gave him security. Solitude was not only longed for, its security was trained into the intelligence recruits right from the beginning. Solitude meant no shadow, no shooter, no follower – no nothing.

  As he walked down a narrow road that could barely accommodate one sedan, he remembered how his job had started. He had been in his senior year at Cornell University. On a rainy day, he had been practicing for his hundred-meter track race, alone. He had run four laps when a man appeared. The man looked odd, a little short, wearing a shiny suit. The size of his barely contained belly was exceeded only by that of the umbrella he was holding.

  Doerr stood up from his crouching position, curious, maybe a little cautious, but certainly not afraid. He had no reason to be. He was a strong, muscled man, who many in his class feared. The bulky man had walked up to him and introduced himself. “Hi, young chap, I’m Ted. I’m a recruiter from the CIA and looking for able men like you to serve our great country.”

  AS HE KEPT walking toward his apartment, he felt the ache in his chest again. Billy’s death crushed him from inside. The killer might well have been an old enemy from his former profession, and there was no shortage of enemies in his previous work. He had stepped on so many thugs, terrorists, agents, politicians, and lobbyists. He thought it was best not to divulge the details of his past work to Gayle, to protect her. Hiding things in his marriage was painful to him.

  Words reverberated from one side of his heart to the other. He could never tell Gayle the details of how many men he had killed, how many could be looking for him. It would scare her; their relationship might change. It could dry the core of her love, but holding so many details inside himself was painful too.