The Many (17 page)

6

“The library will be closing in fifteen minutes. Please bring any items you wish to borrow to the circulation desk.”

Dawn didn’t need a reminder – the library hours were etched into her brain. Monday closing was a miserly 6 p.m. She much preferred late-night Tuesdays and Wednesdays when she could read until 8, head out for dinner at a café or pizzeria, then take the long way home. She could obliterate half the evening that way, heading straight to bed after drinking a glass of wine and checking Facebook. If she’d kept busy enough during the day, she could sometimes manage four hours sleep.

She leaned back and rubbed her eyes, wondering if the afternoon’s reading marathon would be enough to send her to sleep. Unlikely. She was physically exhausted, but her brain was buzzing with information. She’d be up all night, thinking of ways to track down Leach.

The meeting with Karl had been just the spark she needed. As soon as he mentioned human drug trials, it was like a light bulb going off in her head. She’d always suspected that drugs had played a role in Isobel’s breakdown, either directly or indirectly, and the connection to Leach tied it all together.

Dawn was relieved to know she wasn't alone, too. She hardly knew Karl, but he was easy to talk to and best of all, he
understood
. When he left the coffee shop, she even wished he could've stayed a bit longer. 

After drinking a second mocha and pondering what Karl had just told her, Dawn headed straight for the library. This time she wasn't going to re-read Amy Winehouse’s biography and flick through the latest gossip magazines. She had a purpose.

Dawn found a seat in the computer lab and Googled Ivan Leach. The first page of results was full of articles about Leach’s trial and conviction. The human guinea pig story had been front page news in Portland and was even picked up in Seattle and San Francisco.

She read through the courtroom coverage with rising disgust. Leach’s sanctioned research involved using stimulants to control addiction and other behavioral problems. However, the complex behavioral changes he hoped to monitor couldn’t be readily monitored in rats or mice. He needed human subjects, people he could question and test, but he was too impatient to go through the appropriate channels. So he used his four research assistants instead, convincing them that pure science shouldn’t be constrained by rules and this was their chance to be part of a groundbreaking study. All four assistants spoke of Leach’s smooth, controlling manner, claiming they felt powerless to refuse him.

The assistants started taking daily injections and Leach monitored them meticulously, looking for subtle shifts in mood and behavior. He didn’t tell them exactly what they’d been injected with or what he hoped to observe, only that everything would become clear in good time. He said it was important for the experiment’s legitimacy to keep them in the dark during the testing phase. And the assistants went along with it because they didn’t feel any different. They thought either the drugs were ultra-mild or Leach was experimenting with the placebo effect.

But then things got weird. During their daily interviews, Leach began slipping in advice and bogus facts among the questions. He ordered one girl to break up with her boyfriend because he was wrong for her. Another girl he warned would catch AIDS the next time she had sex. They followed Leach’s advice without question, always keeping his role in their decision-making a secret. They believed he was helping them.

Leach’s mind fucking might’ve gone unnoticed if it hadn’t been for the side effects. The injections were an exotic blend of stimulants and hypnotics, designed to maximize compliant behavior while minimizing any outward appearance of being doped. But Leach’s subjects started acting erratically. They were fine in the controlled environment of the lab, where Leach could direct them, but in the unpredictable outside world, they frequently became confused. They lost their grip on reality.

It was only when one of the girls slashed her wrists in front of her ex-boyfriend that the college discovered what going on. And once the other assistants were off Leach’s drugs, they realized how horribly they’d been manipulated. One of the guys, who’d eaten himself from a normal weight to obese after Leach told him he was emaciated, described the experience as far more troubling in hindsight than when he was actually going through it. He said it was like having a stranger operate the levers in your brain for a while.

As disturbing as the stories of the violated students were, what really set Dawn’s teeth on edge were the photos of Professor Leach. He had a thin, humorless face and a cross-eyed stare that was both repellant and hypnotic. They were just photos, but when he was looking directly at the camera, his eyes felt like they were reaching out of the computer screen. Seeing her in real time. And she had a horrible feeling she’d seen those eyes before. In her nightmares, perhaps.

Dawn spent the rest of the afternoon in the Science section on the second floor, devouring Leach’s controversial book,
Psychoactive Drugs in The New Millennium: Working Towards Healthier Brains.
The warning signs were there in black and white. “We have a choice,” declared Leach in his opening chapter. “Accept undesirable human behavior as an entrenched part of modern society, or seek to correct that behavior through the controlled use of psychoactive drugs. In other words, do we strive to make our society better and stronger, or do we simply throw up our hands and sigh, incapacitated by our blinkered defense of individual rights?”

“Nazi,”
Dawn whispered, her hatred burning onto the page. What undesirable behavior had Leach hoped to cure Isobel of? Lesbianism? And what about Stacey – from Karl’s description, she used to be a party girl. Had Leach tried to de-sex her? Giving her the chemical equivalent of a hysterectomy?

Dawn was only speculating, but the more she read of the icily written book, the more she believed she was on the right track. Leach was careful not to define “undesirable behavior”, but it was easy to read between the lines. He wrote of insatiable addictions, unnatural sexual desires, criminal tendencies and genetic personality defects. Basically, it sounded like he wanted to medicate everybody on the planet who didn’t comply with his narrow view of normal behavior. Gays, smokers, thieves and high-school sluts – Leach clearly believed there were drugs to “cure” them all. Dawn was amazed the book had found a major publisher. Controversial didn’t even begin to describe it.

“The library will be closing in ten minutes….”

Dawn chewed her bottom lip, annoyed she still had sixty pages to go. She was eager to finish, but she was also reluctant to take the book home with her. There was no way she’d find the nerve to read Leach’s concluding thoughts while she was home alone. She didn’t even want the book in the house – not with Leach’s creepy picture looking out from the back sleeve.

She would finish it tomorrow, she decided, reading a dozen more pages before pushing back her chair. She returned to the Chemistry aisle and slotted the poisonous book back on its shelf, Leach’s eyes snatching a final look at her before disappearing into the row of spines. When Dawn left the aisle, she noticed her hands were shaking.

The library had already cleared out, and she walked to the grand marble staircase in silence, her heart jumping every time she passed an aisle. She half expected a gaunt man with cold, crooked eyes to step out from the shadows, jabbing her in the arm and then hauling her back to his lair.  

She was relieved when two elderly women emerged from an aisle ahead of her, heading towards the exit. Dawn hurried along a few paces so she could trail their calf-length hemlines down the stairs. It was just her stupid paranoia, she told herself. No one in the library was out to get her. In fact, she was safer today than she was yesterday. For one, she had an ally in Karl, so she wasn’t completely alone. And for another, she now knew who the real enemy was. Not Maxine, who was only a bit player, but Ivan Leach, the vile professor on a quest to clean up humanity

Dawn was glad she knew who was pulling the strings. She just wished she could forget his face.

7

“Virgil, it’s Walt. I need you to send me everything you found out about Adam Reynolds and Maxine Salinger. Don’t tell the kid ‘cause he’ll assume I’m on the case, and officially I’m
off
the case, if you catch my drift. Fuck, it’s too confusing to explain over the phone. Just call me when you get this.”

McElroy hung up and tossed his cell on the passenger seat. Straight away he winced. It was possible his phone calls were being monitored. He shouldn’t have mentioned names on the voice-mail.

The nervous feeling in his gut was throwing him off his game. He should’ve waited until he could see Virgil in person, when he could stress the importance of keeping everything on the down low. The last thing he needed was for his superiors to find out he was investigating Maxine Salinger’s involvement in Isobel Flint’s death. McElroy couldn’t trust his superiors. He couldn’t trust anyone.

McElroy wanted to believe it was just an old boys’ club protecting its own. Maybe Maxine was fucking one of the old boys, and in exchange for her ongoing silence, she was being protected from any wrongdoing against Isobel Flint. McElroy wouldn’t have lost sleep over a one-off cover-up like that.

But the similarity to the Stacey Morgan case pointed to something far more sinister. There was a pattern. A degree of pre-meditation and planning. And if a top cop like Captain Vance was involved, McElroy had to tread very carefully.

That’s why he’d suggested that Karl and Dawn meet each other. No one would begrudge a couple of kids asking questions about the untimely deaths of their loved ones. Let them make all the noise, and McElroy could investigate quietly in the background. As soon as he had something concrete, he’d take the information to the Feds.

McElroy turned the engine on his unmarked Impala and eased into Portland’s downtown traffic. He was on his way to Dr. Reynolds’s house, just to see how he lived. You could tell a lot about a person from their house, he reckoned. It showed you who they wanted to be.

He’d already driven by Maxine’s apartment building. It was just as he’d imagined – swanky and in the fashionable part of town. Despite her flirtatious manner and glamorous looks, Maxine wasn’t interested in sex. That much was clear from Lila’s account of their date. She used sex as a weapon, a way to get what she ultimately wanted. And women like her usually wanted one thing.
Money.

Dr. Reynolds was harder to read. Salary.com said the average ophthalmologist in the US made about $240k a year. Not bad for a glorified optometrist. It wasn’t surprising he could afford a house in the West Hills.

Driving up the narrow, curling roads into ever-more exclusive neighborhoods, McElroy was already getting an idea of the man’s character. It wasn’t an obvious place for a thirty-something bachelor to be living. Dr. Reynolds should’ve been more suited to an apartment like Maxine’s – modern, low maintenance and close to the action. But he obviously saw himself differently. The doctor preferred stately trees, empty sidewalks, and an air of quiet arrogance. He was someone who was proud of his success, but only cared if rich people noticed.

McElroy brought the car to a halt on the opposite side of the road, peering up the slate rock stairs to the entrance. Dr. Reynolds obviously enjoyed looking down on the world. The English were absurdly class-conscious, so maybe the doctor had brought some of those hang-ups over to America. He probably got a hard-on every night after work, walking up the two-dozen steps to his front door.

Money definitely wasn’t his motive, McElroy decided. Dr. Reynolds had too much to lose to roll the dice on a life of crime. He must’ve been driven by something he couldn’t control. Like sexual urges …. 

McElroy’s attention was drawn back to the house when the front door swung open and a neatly dressed man walked out. It wasn’t the doctor – this guy was short with thinning hair and owl-shaped glasses. A blonde woman followed, and then a young kid, jumping around and chanting something indecipherable. The kid started running down the stairs, but the couple milled around the entrance. House guests of the doctor?

A young guy with slicked back hair then emerged, grinning from ear to ear. He closed the door behind him and said a few words to the couple before they all followed the kid down to the road. Virgil noted the young guy’s shit-eating grin and tight-fitting suit. Real estate agent, he had to be. There was no advertising to indicate the house was for sale, but that wasn’t uncommon in the ritziest neighborhoods. No signage added to the impression of exclusivity.

Virgil waited for the family to roll off in their Audi before getting out of his car and strolling over the road. The young agent was scribbling notes in a black folder, occasionally using a palm to flatten his ridiculous hair.

“Hi, there,” McElroy said.

The agent lifted his eyes and gave McElroy a once over. “Can I help you?” he asked, not even trying to sound sincere.

“Yeah, I was wondering – is this house for sale?”

The agent looked pointedly at McElroy’s Impala, as if to say –
really?
“Yes. You can find the details online,” he said without bothering to mention his company.

“Right, but since I’m here, can I ask why the owner is selling?”

“No,” he scoffed. “That’s private information.”

“Oh, right. Well, I guess I can contact him directly. See, my son works for Goldman Sachs in New York, but he’s moving back in May to run the Portland office. He wanted me to check out neighborhoods in the West Hills to see what’s around.”

“I see,” the agent said, grinning again. “Coming home, eh? Does he have a family?’

“Wife, three kids.”

“Wonderful. What sort of price range is he looking at?”

“I don’t think he has a price range,” McElroy laughed. “He just wants a big house in a nice neighborhood. That’s why I’m interested in the owner’s reasons for selling. Y’know, if this is such a good area, why leave?”

“I assure you it’s not because of the area,” the agent said. “This is the most sought neighborhood in the West Hills – you won’t find a better mix of seclusion and….”

McElroy held up his hand. “Like I said, I’m curious to know why he’s selling. But I can just contact him directly….”

“
No,
” the agent said, his eyes twitching with alarm. Clearly he was worried about being cut out of the loop. “No, that won’t be necessary. I’m sure my client won’t mind me saying – he’s relocating to Nashville. Dr. Reynolds is an ophthalmologist, an eye specialist, and he’s taking up a senior position at Vanderbilt. He was very reluctant to leave his home because he absolutely loves it here, but the job was too good to pass up. There are lots of medical professionals in the area, actually. So if your son or his family ever get sick, you know help is never too far away.”

McElroy didn’t bother laughing along with the agent. He already had what he needed. “Right, that’s interesting,” he said, turning to leave.

“Wait, can I give you my card?” the agent asked.

“That’s okay. Like you said, the details are online.”