God Project (16 page)

Wiseman stared at the number, frowned slightly, then looked up at Malone. “Do you know what this is?”

“It’s just a code number,” Malone replied. “It refers to a survey being done by a group in Boston, the Children’s Health Institute for Latent Diseases.”

“And they were surveying Julie?” Sally asked. “What for?”

Malone shrugged. “I don’t really know. In fact, I doubt they’re sure themselves.”

“I don’t understand.” Sally moved back to her chair, and faced the two doctors. “This group—”

“It’s called CHILD,” Malone said.

“CHILD is studying children, but they don’t know why?”

“It’s what they call a random survey,” Malone began. He started to explain it to Sally, but she held up a hand to stop him. She knew very well how such a survey operated. She had, indeed, designed several of them herself.

Basically, it involved the use of a table of random numbers to select a small fraction of a population that would accurately reflect the population as a whole. Sally herself had helped the Health Department design a survey of the population of Eastbury a few years back, to determine the incidence of swine flu in the town. It had boiled down to a matter of choices: either survey the entire town, or use a computer to assign everyone in town a number, then employ a table of random digits, itself devised by the computer, to choose a cross-section that would accurately reflect the whole.

To a layman, Sally knew, it sounded like hocus-pocus, but she also knew it was a statistically correct and absolutely accurate method of surveying a population for practically anything. And the beauty of it was that as the size of the population to be studied grew, the proportion of the population that actually would have to be surveyed grew smaller.

In Eastbury, for instance, only a few hundred people had needed to be surveyed in order to project the exact incidence of swine flu within the town.

“I know how studies like that work,” Sally said. “But what’s the study about?”

“As far as I know, it’s just a general survey,” Malone replied. “Apparently their computer constantly scans the records in our little computer—and a lot of others too—and randomly chose Julie for the survey. I think they were planning to track her right through her first twenty-one years.”

“And you let them do that?” Sally asked. She was all
too familiar with computers and their ability to pry into people’s lives. “You let them simply invade your records? I thought medical records were supposed to be confidential.”

“But they are,” Wiseman told her as Malone glanced at him helplessly. “I’m sure the Institute assured us when we agreed to the survey that even they wouldn’t know the names of the subjects. Otherwise we wouldn’t have gone along with it” He glanced down at Julie Montgomery’s records once more and smiled at Sally. “All they know about Julie is that child number nine-six-eight-two was a victim of SIDS, plus her medical data. They don’t know her name, and they don’t care about it. Studies like this go on all the time, Sally. You must know that And you also must know that the computers make their selections, then are programed to forget the names of the subjects as soon as they’ve been assigned numbers.”

“And you believe this?” Sally asked, her voice suddenly growing bitter. “How do you think they keep track of their subjects? If no one knows who belongs to what number, how are they going to keep up with their subjects? People move, you know. And someone has to put the data into a computer somewhere, along with the numbers, so that your Institute’s computer can get it out again. My God, Julie’s number—which you yourself just said is supposed to be confidential, is right there on her records for anybody to see!” Wiseman started to interrupt her, but Sally plunged on, her anger growing as she talked. “You’re doctors, both of you, and I won’t question your knowledge of medicine. But I’m a computer expert. I’ve been trained to use them, and I know what they can do. Do you? Do you know how easy it is for computers to talk to each other, to go through each other’s files? Anybody in this country can find out anything about anybody else if he knows how to use a computer and can get the access codes. And if you’re good enough with computers, you can program them to give you the codes that are supposed to hide the secrets.” Sally was on her feet now, pacing the room. “Why
wasn’t I told about this survey?” she demanded. “I’m Julie’s mother. If someone was watching my child, I had a right to know about it.”

“Sally …” Malone began, but she ignored him.

“Maybe there
was
something wrong with Julie. Maybe they knew something was wrong with her!”

Now Wiseman, too, stood up. “Sally,” he said firmly, “I want you to sit down and listen to me.” Her eyes glazed with indignation, Sally stared at him and he thought she was going to bolt from his office. Then, as he and Malone watched, she forced her anger back and sank once more into the chair next to the desk.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just that I can’t get over the feeling that something happened to Julie—something terrible.”

Wiseman returned to his place behind the desk, but kept his eyes on Sally, searching her face carefully. He could see the signs of stress behind her makeup—the dark circles lurking beneath her eyes, the high color of her cheeks, the strain in the set of her mouth.

“Sally,” he began, his baritone voice filling the room with its soothing tones. “I want you to understand something. There was nothing wrong with Julie. Nothing at all.” He could see her body stiffen and knew she was resisting his words. He turned to Malone for assistance.

“It’s true, Mrs. Montgomery,” the pediatrician agreed. “There was nothing wrong with her, and there was nothing in her records—
anywhere
—that could lead anyone else to think anything was wrong with her.”

Now Wiseman picked up the thread. “As for CHILD, they’re a highly respected institution. They’ve contributed a great deal of knowledge to the field of medicine, particularly with regard to children. To think that there was anything”—he searched for the right word, and finally found it—“anything
menacing
about the fact that Julie was a subject of one of their surveys is simply beyond reason.” Dr. Wiseman’s voice dropped, and even through her anger Sally began to feel that he was patronizing her. “Now, what I’m going to do is this,” he went on. “I’m going to give you their address, and I
want you to go to them and find out for yourself just what the survey was all about, how Julie was selected for it, and what’s being done with the data they’re collecting. All right?”

Sally smiled at Wiseman, but the smile was cold. “Dr. Wiseman, did you really think I wouldn’t do all that on my own?” She rose to her feet, picked up her bag, and went to the door. Then she turned back to face the two doctors. “Something happened to my daughter. I know you both think I’m a hysterical woman, and perhaps you’re right. But I’m going to find out what happened to Julie. Believe me, I’m going to find out.”

When she was gone, Arthur Wiseman switched off the CRT, then turned to Malone.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I wish none of this had had to happen, but with cases like this, you just can’t avoid it.”

Malone smiled at the older man. “It’s all right, Arthur. Part of the job.”

Wiseman nodded and returned to his desk. He picked up a medical journal, a clear signal for Malone to leave the office. But when he was alone, Arthur Wiseman’s thoughts stayed on Sally Montgomery. Her adjustment to the loss of her daughter was not proceeding within the parameters that he considered normal. Sally, he was sure, was beginning to exhibit obsessive behavior, and if it continued, something would have to be done.

He turned the matter over in his mind, examining it from every angle. Finally, sighing heavily, he picked up the telephone and began to dial.

   Sally moved swiftly down the corridor toward the entrance of the clinic, her emotions roiling. Wiseman’s manner—his insufferable calm in the face of her tragedy and his patronizing attitude—infuriated her. It seemed to her that there was an arrogance about the man that she had never seen before.

Never seen, or chosen to ignore?

She emerged from the clinic and paused, letting the spring air flow over her, breathing deeply, as if the warm breeze could clear away the feeling of oppression
that had come over her in Wiseman’s office. She could still hear his voice, resonating in her mind, as he rambled on about “accepting reality,” “going on with life,” and all the other platitudes that, she suddenly realized, had been flowing from his lips for the last ten years.

From now on, she decided, she would be on her guard when she talked to Dr. Wiseman.

Chapter 14

S
ALLY MONTGOMERY GLANCED
at the clock on the dashboard It was a few minutes past three, and Eastbury Elementary was only a block out of her way. She made a left turn on Maple Street and pulled up in front of the school Maybe she’d treat Jason to an ice cream cone on the way home. She waited in the car, still trying to calm the anger she was feeling from her talk with the two doctors.

And yet, as she thought about it, she realized that her anger really shouldn’t be directed toward them. It was that group in Boston—CHILD—that was doing the snooping. And snooping, Sally was sure, was exactly what it was. That was the trouble with computer technology: It had turned the country into a nation of gossips. Everywhere you turned there was information stored away on tapes and disks and dots, much of it useless, most of it forgotten as soon as it was collected, but all of it stored away somewhere. And why? Sally, over the years, had come to the conclusion that all the data collecting had nothing to do with research. It was just plain old nosiness, and she had always half-resented it.

Only half, because Sally was also well aware that she was part of that snoop-culture, and while she had often questioned the uses to which computers were put, she
had always been fascinated by the technology. But today, she realized, the chickens had come home to roost. That incredible ability to invade an individual’s privacy had been turned on her own child.

In her head she began to speculate on how CHILD might have been planning to track Julie for twenty-one years. Just through hospital records? But what if Julie had grown up to be as healthy as Jason? There would have been no hospital records.

And then it came to her.

School records.

Sally got out of her car just as the school bell rang and children began to erupt from the building. She spotted Jason in the crowd, waved to him, and waited as he ran over to her.

“I thought I’d pick you up and take you out for an ice cream cone,” she said. Jason grinned happily and scrambled into the car. Sally started back around to the driver’s side, then changed her mind. “Wait here a minute,” she told her son. “I have to talk to someone.” Without waiting for Jason to reply, she walked purposefully into the school.

   “Miss Oliphant?”

The nurse glanced up, trying to place the face. Not a member of the school staff, therefore a parent. She put on her best welcoming smile and stood up. “Guilty.”

“I’m Sally Montgomery. Jason Montgomery’s mother?”

“That explains why I didn’t place you,” Annie Oliphant replied. “I know the mothers only of the sick ones.” Then the smile faded from her lips as she remembered what had happened to Jason’s sister. “Oh, Mrs. Montgomery, I’m sorry. What a stupid thing for me to say. I can’t tell you hoto sorry all of us were to hear about your baby.”

“You know about Julie?” Sally asked, relieved that at least she wouldn’t have to try to explain Julie’s death to the nurse.

“Everyone in town knows. I wish there was something I could do. In fact, I wondered if I ought to talk to
Jason about it, but then decided that I’d only be meddling. I’ve been keeping an eye on him though. He seems to be handling it very well. But, of course, he’s a remarkable little boy anyway, isn’t he?”

Sally nodded distractedly, wondering how to broach the subject she wanted to discuss with the nurse. “He’s out in the car waiting for me,” she said at last. “And since I was here, I thought I’
d
ask you a question.”

“Anything,” Annie said, sinking bade down into her chair. “Anything at all.”

“Well, it might be a dumb question,” Sally went on. “It has to do with an organization in Boston, one that studies children—”

“You mean CHILD?” Annie interrupted, her brows arching in surprise.

“You
do
know of them?”

“Of course. They’re surveying some of our students.”

“Surveying them? How?” But even as Sally spoke, she answered her own question. “Through a computer, right?”

“You got it Every few months they request an update. It’s some kind of project that involves tracking certain children through a certain age—”

“Twenty-one,” Sally interrupted.

“Oh, you know about the project When I talked to Mrs. Corliss the other day, the whole thing seemed to come as a complete surprise to her. I’d always assumed the parents of the children knew all about the study, but Mrs. Corliss hadn’t even known it existed.” Then her expression clouded. “It’s such a shame about Randy running away, isn’t it?”

Sally’s mind whirled as she tried to sort out what Annie Oliphant had just told her. She lowered herself onto the chair next to the nurse’s desk and reached out to touch the other woman’s arm.

“Miss Oliphant—”

“Call me Annie.”

“Thank you. Annie, I just found out about this study today.” She told the nurse what had happened that afternoon and how she had come to ask the question that
had started the conversation. “But what you just said sounded as though I should have known about the survey all along.”

Annie Oliphant frowned. “But I thought you
did
know,” she said. “Jason’s part of the survey too. Jason, and Randy Corliss, and two younger boys.”

“I see,” Sally breathed. Suddenly she felt numb. What was going on? And what had Annie just said about Randy Corliss?

“He seems to have run away,” the nurse answered when Sally repeated her question out loud. “Except that his mother thinks he was kidnaped.” She shook her head sympathetically. “I suppose she just can’t accept the idea that her own child might have run away from her, and she’s trying to find some other reason for the fact that he’s gone. Some reason that takes the final responsibility off herself.”