The Girl in the Glass (24 page)

T
hat evening, Schell tracked down Stintson's number through phone information and called, pretending to be a reporter for the
New York Times
who wanted to follow up on the professor's writings in opposition to the ERO. Apparently Stintson was eager to discuss the issue and bring his concerns to a wider audience. He invited Schell to visit him at his home the next day. I would accompany Schell and act as his assistant and photographer.

Early the next morning, as we tooled along Lawrence Hill Road, Schell told me, "I still haven't called the Barneses back to discuss the séance. I have no idea what to tell them. They're looking for answers, and this thing just keeps getting more complex with zero payoff."

"Do you think Greaves had anything to do with it?" I asked.

"I doubt it," said Schell. "We're grasping at straws, focusing in on him. But he's all we've got at the moment. Granted, he's not likeable, he was on to our con, and he belongs to an organization that, as Emmet reported, and more than likely Dr. Stintson will corroborate, is practicing a rich man's subtle genocide on the weak, the lame, the hungry, and the foreign, but that doesn't mean that he murdered Charlotte Barnes. I'm afraid we've pretty much reached the end of the line with this."

"That's not going to look good for us, is it?" I said.

"Not if Barnes gets on the blower to his cronies and tells them we failed at what we have advertised as our expertise. No, that's going to be a direct hit on our business. Barnes probably knows every wealthy truebeliever on the Gold Coast of the North Shore. We may have to relocate. I've always thought Hollywood might be a good venue for us. Movie stars seem as if they'd be easy marks."

"I suppose this is a lesson in taking jobs for free," I said.

Schell shrugged, "Not the greatest policy, but we're still the richer for it."

"In what way?"

"You've found Isabel, and I've found Morgan. Money is not the only manifestation of good fortune." There was something definitely wrong with Schell. It wasn't the sodden depression of a few weeks earlier, before the Parks séance, but this optimism was completely unexpected. Was Schell becoming a romantic? I found it nearly as disturbing as the more mordant condition that preceded it. I mulled it over for a few minutes and was about to mention it to him, when he pulled up to the address Stintson had given him.

Stintson was a vital-looking older gentleman, who sat ramrod straight in his chair as he poured us coffee at his kitchen table. He had about him a kind of energy and a can-do attitude that, frankly, I found wearying. It was a certainty he'd been up at sunrise thinking intricate thoughts. Still, he was not at all averse to speaking with us as long as the conversation didn't flag. When I asked him to pose for a photo, he became exasperated at what he considered to be a waste of time.

"We wanted to find out about the ERO," said Schell, beginning the interview. I took out my pad and pen and began scribbling.

"Yes," he said. "I understand."

"Have you worked there long?"

"Well, Mr. Schell, I don't spend much time there anymore. I still have a membership, so to speak, but…my interest has cooled over the years."

"Why's that?"

Stintson winced. "I found I was working at cross-purposes with the leaders of the organization. You see, many of us who worked there hoped that our research would eventually lead to cures for inherited maladies. But as time went by I began to realize that the intended mission, of those who were supporting it that is, was to disenfranchise, to persecute, to
play God
instead of help people. I still believe the research could lead somewhere positive, but not now, not in this climate."

"Doesn't it all just fit into Darwinian theory?" asked Schell. "Survival of the fittest?"

"Yes," said Stintson. "But who or what is the fittest? It's Nature's purview to make that selection. There are so many factors, both seen and unseen, that go into that selection; it's not humanity's job. Some of my colleagues there bring an almost religious zeal to it, definitely a subjective zeal. They never consider the fact that what might seem to them to be aberrant may, in the larger scheme of things, be the next rung on the evolutionary ladder—a solution of survival for our species."

Schell nodded, and I could tell he was truly contemplating the doctor's comments and how they fit with his worldview of marks and cons, predators and prey.

I could see Stintson was getting a little restless, so I put my hand on Schell's arm to draw his attention.

"The photo," I said.

"Oh, yes," he said and held up the photograph from Parks's place. "Does this look familiar to you, doctor?" asked Schell, laying the picture on the table so that the professor could study it. He took a look at it and smiled. "Probably one of the informal gatherings at ERO," he said. "That's me, looking somewhat younger, right there," he said, pointing. I looked and it was true—a more youthful Stintson, darker hair, fewer wrinkles, stared up at us from the static tableau.

"How about this gentleman?" asked Schell, pointing.

"That, I believe, is Mr. Parks. He was a contributor to the cause. A wealthy man, who, if I'm not mistaken, recently met with a grisly end."

"You don't say," said Schell.

I saw a look of suspicion flash across Stintson's face, but Schell obviously noted it also and pushed on.

"And did you know this fellow, Greaves, here?" he asked.

Stintson bent forward to get a better look. "I know him, but his name isn't Greaves."

"What?" asked Schell. "I was told he was a Doctor Greaves."

"Why exactly are you asking these questions?" asked Stintson, suddenly cold. "I don't think I'll be answering any more."

"We're simply curious," said Schell.

"A chimpanzee is curious, a cat is curious," said Stintson. "What are you after?" He pushed back from the table and began to stand up, no doubt to show us the door.

"Have you heard the name Charlotte Barnes?" asked Schell.

Stintson stopped midway in his ascent and returned to his seat. "The girl who was found murdered," he said. All of his good humor had vanished.

"Yes," said Schell. "We're investigating her death, and I think this fellow either knows something or was involved in some way. Now you don't have to help us, but an innocent man, or a man innocent of this particular crime, is going to take the rap for it and that girl's murder will have gone unavenged."

"You're not with the
Times
, I take it. Are you police?" he asked. "Federal agents?" He looked at me as if the thought of me working for the government would be a bizarre revelation indeed.

"We're working for Barnes, and I can assure you we're the furthest thing from police as one can get," said Schell.

"Can you prove it?" asked Stintson. "Say I call Barnes?"

"Barnes won't admit that we're working for him. He's promised me that. We've told him we're spiritual mediums. He thinks we're communicating with the dead to find out who killed his daughter. Actually we're con men, but I swear we aren't taking any money from him."

"That sounds fairly preposterous," said Stintson.

"Do you have a deck of cards?" asked Schell.

Stintson went to a drawer in the kitchen and brought forth a deck of cards. Schell had them out of the pack and was putting them through their paces in a flash. Stintson smiled as he watched the incredible display. When Schell was finished with the cards he set them down, waved his left hand in the air, and a monarch butterfly appeared above the table. "Lean over here and shake hands with me," he said to the doctor. Stintson warily did as he was asked. They gripped hands briefly and then the old man pulled away.

"As I said," said Schell, "we're not cops." He pointed with his left index finger at his right wrist, where Stintson's watch now resided.

The doctor's eyes focused, he looked down at his wrist, and broke out laughing. "Okay," he said. "I'm convinced you're not federal agents. That's what I was worried about."

"Why would you worry about that?" I asked.

"The man you pointed to isn't named Greaves. His real name is Fenton Agarias, and one thing I know about him is he has mysterious connections to some very powerful people, some wealthy, some in the government."

"Is there anything else you can tell us about him?" said Schell.

"He's mad," said Stintson.

BLOOD

Y
ou mean like frothing at the mouth?" asked Schell. "When I met him, he didn't seem any worse than a crank." "No, no," said Stintson. "I'm talking about the work he was doing at the ERO. Agarias was sold—lock, stock, and barrel—on the whole concept of thinning the
unsavory elements
from the country's breeding stock. A true zealot. We tried to force him out of the organization, because his practices were so blatantly immoral. He was doing some experiment that involved the interbreeding of fraternal twins. He'd found these test subjects somewhere in Pennsylvania—second-generation twins, born of an incestuous union between twins. We believed that he either paid or coerced this particular pair to mate. I never found out for sure, but it was rumored that this union resulted in yet another pair of twins—also fraternal, brother and sister, whom he'd adopted. I had a hard time believing it, for even though there is always a certain percentage of a chance that twins will result from a pregnancy, the chances that it would occur in this same family seemed infinitesimal."

"So you and some of the others questioned him?" asked Schell.

"We went above his head, to our boss, Davenport, and told him we wanted Agarias out. They either wouldn't or couldn't relieve him of his position, but soon after he got a grant, private money, and a lot of it, to build a facility elsewhere, all on his own, and continue his research."

"When was this?" I asked.

Stintson thought for a moment. "About…1918 perhaps, maybe even earlier. I've seen him since then, but he doesn't speak to me. He's been at the ERO on occasion, for instance the gathering in that photo. He still has an office there, and I heard that he also opened a private medical practice, catering to wealthy families here on the North Shore, although I doubt he needs the money. I don't know anything more about his present circumstances."

"Can you tell us anything more about the research he was doing?" asked Schell.

"His specialty was hematology. That I remember. He had an insane notion that racial difference was found in the blood, which has no scientific basis. It's like something out of the Old Testament. Unfortunately, the people supporting him also cull their science from the Bible.

"One other thing, and this will explain to you why I was so cautious. One of my ERO colleagues insisted on investigating Agarias on his own. He wound up dead. Shot through the back of the head while kneeling on his living room floor. Coincidence? Maybe. Then again, maybe not."

"An execution," said Schell.

"The police report called it a robbery, but according to his daughter, nothing was missing from the house. After that, no one asked about Agarias any further."

"How do I find out more about Agarias without getting shot in the back of the head?" asked Schell.

"I wouldn't confront him," said Stintson. "But you might take a look through his office. He still has one at the ERO."

"Locked up, I imagine," said Schell.

"Are you a con man, or are you a con man?" said Stintson.

We eventually said our good-byes to Stintson after getting a hand-drawn map from him depicting the layout of the ERO, in particular the location of Agarias's office and the security guard's station. His parting remark was a plea not to ever mention that he spoke to us. On the drive home, Schell admitted to me that things had finally broken open in his mind and were beginning to become clear to him. He wasn't quite ready to share his theory, but he predicted that after our trip to the Eugenics Record Office and a look at Agarias's papers, if we should find them, we'd know the full story.

"In a few hours we've gone from abandoning this goose chase to being on the verge of solving the whole thing," I said.

Schell smiled, ruefully it seemed. "Remember you were saying I never made mistakes? Well I was completely wrong about Greaves/Agarias. He seems to be the guy, though, or at least a part of it, I'm sure of that," he said.

"I see the connection between him and what the coroner told us about the death of Charlotte Barnes. Blood and transfusion," I said. "But why was Parks murdered? I don't get that."

"Think about when it happened," said Schell. "Directly following Charlotte Barnes's funeral. I'm betting Agarias, in his guise of Doctor Greaves, showed up at the funeral or the wake or both. Parks probably recognized him, tried to remember where he'd seen him before, and eventually put it together. That's why he had the photograph on his desk. As a friend of Barnes, perhaps he wanted to figure out what kind of scam Agarias was pulling, using an assumed name. Parks might have remembered that some of the other researchers had wanted to drum Agarias out of the ERO."

"So they killed him and two of his employees?" I asked.

"Agarias is covering his trail. Like Stintson said, the guy's a lunatic. And if what I'm thinking about the rest of it is even close to true, we're going to see that he's crazier than we could ever imagine." When we reached the house, before getting out of the car, Schell put his hand on my shoulder and said,

"Listen, I'll fill Antony in, but don't say anything to Morgan or Isabel about what we learned." I nodded.

For the rest of the day, Schell was very quiet. He told me he was planning how we would gain access to Agarias's ERO office the following day, but I could tell there was something else on his mind as well. Isabel and I packed a lunch and took a walk through the trees to sit by the sound. The day was very cold, threatening a first snow, but we huddled together against the wind and watched the choppy water. In the course of our conversation she admitted to me that as soon as things blew over and Schell thought it was safe for her to leave the house, she would find a way to go back to Mexico.

"Come with me," she said.