Cast of Shadows - v4 (12 page)

“Confidentiality doesn’t apply inside the Ten Toad Saloon, apparently.”

Big Rob laughed. “We were just talkin’. Anyway, that case got you so worked up when we were on it, I thought you’d think that was funny.”

Yeah, some crazy old man looking for snapshots of five-year-old boys. Hilarious
. “This Colleran guy isn’t serious about taking the case, is he?”

“Sure he is. Why wouldn’t he?”

“What if somebody’s casing a kidnapping? What if the client’s a child molester?”

“Nah, pedophiles take their own pictures. Or they buy them on the Internet. Besides, Scott checked him out. Says it’s on the up-and-up.”

“Good. Scott Colleran checked him out. I guess the children of Chicago can walk the streets safely.” This was the sort of sarcasm Sally’s mother hated.

“Come on. Colleran’s all right. Like I said, he vouches for the guy.”

“I told you there was something unholy about that Finn case, Biggie,” Barwick said. “This is all related.”

“Relax. It’s probably just a run-of-the-mill custody deal.” He paused and Sally could hear him take a bite of something crunchy over the phone. “So do you want the job, or what?”

“What do you mean?”

“Same as Philly, Gold Badge has more work than they can handle. This is what I’ve been talkin’ about: an office in the burbs. Anyway, I knew you had a hard-on for the Finn case so I told Colleran you were a first-rate shooter and looking for some extra work. The job’s worth four hundred to you, minus my commission. Four-fifty, if you can get it done without turning it into a conspiracy. Or worse, a moral dilemma.”

Sally knew this was a horrible idea. She also knew she couldn’t say no to a chance to snoop around the Finn case. “What sort of pics are they looking for?”

“Close-up. Face only. Nothing for the raincoat crowd. Front and side. Mug shot deal, or as best you can get without being noticed. You’ll need a telephoto.”

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Biggie.”

“That offer of four-fifty is for a limited time, hon.”

This was a test of sorts, she realized. Big Rob was alternately encouraging and skeptical about her long-term prospects as a private investigator. He was clearly fond of her, but he also wondered if she (or any woman) had the constitution to do competent work for questionable clients.
Information is morally neutral,
he’d say.
You have to be as well
. “Yeah, yeah. You know I’ll do it. You’ll get me the address?”

“Got it right here.”

Three mornings later, Barwick sat on a man-made slope overlooking a soccer field, casually snapping photos through a long lens. The sky was Chagall blue with a single Magritte cloud. The air was comfortably cool and dry. Below, boys and girls chased one another across a truncated field. There were nets and lots of uncalled hand balls and, occasionally, even goals, but no one kept score. It was difficult to tell who was on what team, with kids in both jerseys tending to gang up on the one closest to the ball. First-year players, teenies they were called, were still finding their way in the game.

Through the lens, Barwick found and lost Justin a dozen times, snapping the shutter when she could catch him between the back-and-forth and the up-and-down. She recalled Eric Lundquist’s face, kept fresh in her memory by a recurring dream, and tried to match it against the boy’s, almost two years older than when she took on the earlier case. She supposed Big Rob might have been right. Lundquist could be the donor. There might be an explanation for the birthmark. Maybe the old woman had forgotten. Maybe she was lying. Maybe it was some sort of genetic quirk. Sally had known identical twins in high school and she could always tell them apart. Their ears were a little bit different. Maybe one had a birthmark and the other didn’t. What did she really know about genetics, anyway?

On the job, Barwick wished she could be more like Big Rob, wished she could keep her curiosity on a leash. But how could she watch this kid through the camera, violating him with each exposure, and not wonder who was paying for this and why? She’d been trying to think of an explanation that didn’t churn her stomach, and to this point she’d come up with nothing.

“Which one is yours?”

Barwick brought the camera down between her knees and turned toward the voice. She was sitting about six feet to Sally’s left: petite, pretty, not as old as most of the other moms. She’d brought a picnic basket, a cardboard carton of juice with a straw, and a home magazine.

“Oh, no,” Barwick said. “I mean, none of them are mine. I’m a student at the Art Institute. This is for midterms. Big show. You know —
Innocence of Youth
.” She laughed. “It’s a whole big theme or something.”

“I
thought
you were a little young for the mom thing.”

Barwick waved her hand. “I’m not as young as you, am I?” The woman blushed. “I’m Sally.”

The mother put her juice down and stretched her body close enough to extend a hand. “Martha Finn,” she said.

Barwick thought immediately of the different ways Big Rob might tell her she’d blown the case. Sarcasm was the most likely approach, but he could just as well choose a violent tantrum. He could decide she was unreliable. A flake. He could stop calling with work.

Still, have a spaz now and she’d no doubt make things worse.

“Nice to meet you,” Barwick said.

“Do you mind?” Martha asked, lifting her basket and making a motion with her shoulders in Barwick’s direction.

“Please,” Barwick said and the two scooched closer together.

“You’re a photographer?”

“A student. Someday I’d like to call myself a photographer.”

“Are you getting anything good?”

“Yeah,” Barwick said. “The sun’s a little bright. There’s such a thing as too nice a day when you’re taking snaps. Lots of shadows.”

“Taking snaps,” Martha said. “I like that.”

They watched the game and chatted for a while until Barwick realized that Martha probably expected her to take pictures, so she pointed the camera toward the field and took a few hastily focused pics of the other kids.

“Hmmm,” Martha said. “Could I ask you a favor?”

“Sure.”

Martha pulled a cheap digital camera from her bag. “You can’t get a decent shot from the sidelines with one of these. Would it be too much to ask you to take a few photos of my son? I’ll pay for all your film.”

Barwick giggled and Martha joined her. Everyone friendly. She hadn’t blown the case after all.

“Of course,” Barwick said and raised the camera to her eye. Another critical mistake, almost. She pulled it back down and smiled. “Which one is yours?”

It took about ninety seconds for a nurse to inform Dr. Burton that Dr. Moore’s black Volvo had pulled into its spot, and another minute or so for Joan to say good-bye to her contractor, who had called with a few questions regarding the tiling she’d selected for her new bathroom. Following that, it was a ten-second walk from her office to his.

“Can I talk to you, Davis?”

Davis looped his collared jacket over the top of the wooden coat stand, caught the whole thing as it toppled, and then wrestled coat and rack until they were in balance. Joan Burton looked fantastic. Under her smock, the silk shirt she wore billowed in the right places. Her hair was pulled back today, and the elastic at the back of her neck strained to contain it. He imagined the band snapping and waves of dark hair crashing around her face, hiding and revealing it like a dance of veils. At first, he didn’t even notice she was upset.

“Sure, Joan. What’s up?”

“You know Justin Finn?”

Davis was certain his face didn’t betray panic, but he quickly slid into his chair, where his knees trembled unseen. “Sure. Something wrong?”

“Yeah, I’d say so.” Joan shut the door and perched on the edge of the chair nearest his desk. In one hand, she held a large gray binder with a white sticker running down its spine. The label said
XLT-4197,
which was the office code for Justin Finn. Of the dozens of clones who had been conceived in his clinic, it was the only code number Davis had memorized. “Is he okay?”

“The kid’s fine. It’s our control that’s gone to hell.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I just did his five-year checkup,” Joan said. “There’s been a colossal screwup, and when I report it, you’re gonna take the heat. We all will, actually, the whole clinic, but mostly you.”

Christ. The five-year. Davis knew this was coming; Martha Finn had even mentioned the appointment when he saw her at Starbucks. Somehow, this morning, he hadn’t been ready for it. “Tell me,” he said. He hoped something would occur to him. Sometimes solutions make themselves. Not often in Davis’s case, unfortunately. He was a plotter. A plan-aheader.

Voice lowered, Joan said, “This kid isn’t who we claimed he is. His DNA doesn’t match the donor. Hell, he doesn’t match any donor on file. I don’t have the slightest idea where he came from.”

Davis said nothing. She’ll keep talking, he thought. Joan hates silence. Since the day she had joined the staff at the clinic, Davis had often counted on her to answer her own questions when others were slow to respond.

“This is a nightmare. How do you think it could have happened?” she asked. “I have a theory, and the disciplinary committee might let us off with a slap and a fine, but who knows what the parents might do? If they decide to sue… Do you remember that couple in Virginia last year? Jesus Christ. Anyway, I was looking back through the files, and around the time the Finns were being prepped for implantation, we fired this young admin after a long list of screwups.” She turned pages on a legal pad. “Tardiness, bad reviews, poor attitude, complaints from the nurses, complaints from patients. About six months later he was brought up on drug charges in McHenry County, dealing designer drugs to teenagers or some shit. I don’t remember him that well, but I recall Pete having to testify at his trial. Do you remember that?”

“I remember, yeah.” Davis did remember the kid. That had seemed like a big deal at the time. There were lots of nervous meetings between the partners. New Tech’s reputation was on the line. Their license had been threatened. But Joan was right. That was nothing compared to this.

“Anyway, I can’t prove he had anything to do with it — not yet — but if we dig around a little bit, we might find he had access to the samples, and that might be enough to build a case against the guy. I have a feeling.”

Davis stared at her, thinking, trying to forge a blank look that would hold the silence but also provide emphasis no matter what he said next. Joan was offering an answer of sorts. She had tried to solve the mystery with a story that turned out to be more plausible than the truth, and now that he’d been caught, Davis felt stupid and lazy for not leaving a trail of lies to a likelier culprit than himself. Now he was tempted by the opportunity to put the blame on a punk kid who was already in prison. The repercussions for a doctor found guilty of illegal cloning could be devastating: loss of license, possible jail time, shame. To a convicted drug dealer, however, the consequences of the sort of negligence Joan was suggesting would be, well, negligible.

There would be an investigation, though. Perhaps a trial. Testimony. Controversy. This story made sense to Joan, and others might believe it, as well. Still, the last thing Davis needed was scrutiny, and this had the low rumbling of a rolling snowball gathering size.

“Joan,” Davis said, his hand on the back of his neck.

“What?”

“It wasn’t any admin with access to the samples.”

Joan’s face twitched as her fragile denial shattered like blown glass and fell away. “Oh, God, Davis. Do not tell me. Do not tell me you’ve known about this.”

Davis nodded.

“Goddammit!” she screamed. The legal pad bounced off his desk and landed sprawled on the floor. “Do you want us all to lose our goddamned licenses?”

“Let me explain.”

“Can you? Really? Can you explain how a fuckup like this happens and you don’t tell anybody? How long have you known?”

“I’ve always known, Joan.”

She glared.

“There wasn’t any fuckup. Justin was born of the same DNA I had scheduled for the procedure.”

Joan’s voice dropped to a croaking whisper, the result of nausea, he supposed, acid reflux. “What are you saying? This is some sort of experiment? If you’ve been conducting live trials on your own, there’s going to be a shit storm, and the disciplinary committee is just the start of it.”

Davis hoped Joan would be able to read his lack of expression.

“Well, who’s the donor, then?” Joan asked.

“I don’t know. I cloned him to find out.”

Davis explained it more like a lawyer than a doctor, beginning with Joan’s own assault and her frustration with the law. He told her that on his daughter’s seventeenth birthday, AK had taken him aside and apologized for years thirteen through fifteen, inclusive. They had laughed over that and sat on the cedar steps of the deck behind their house, leaning on each other and staring out into the yard. He told Joan about the providence in a vial the cops had delivered by accident, and about the Finns and their healthy baby boy. About the paperwork he faked and the sample from the donor of record, Eric Lundquist, he destroyed.

“This is insane, Davis,” Joan said quietly. “Insane. What did you think you were going to do with this child?”

“I’m not going to do a thing with him, Joan. He’s going to enjoy his life and I’m going to wait for him to grow up.”

“And then?”

“And then I’ll be able to look into the face of AK’s killer.”

“He won’t be her killer,” Joan said.

“No, no, he won’t. But I’ll know what he looks like.”

“Is that important?”

“It was,” he said. “Yeah, it still is.”

“You’ll be arrested, if they find out what you did.”

“Maybe.”

“
I’ll
be arrested, unless I go to the committee with this right now.”

Davis made a quarter turn in his chair. From the beginning this was the part that had troubled him most. Of course, he had hoped Martha Finn would choose Dr. Burton as her son’s pediatrician because he wanted to keep the boy close. It was always likely he’d have to involve Joan down the line and he had never come to terms with it, even now, as he was about to bully her into keeping her mouth shut. “You never wondered what you’d be capable of if you ever again came face-to-face with the asshole who attacked you?”