Dover Beach (7 page)

I slowed down as I passed MIT. A couple of mangy dogs barked at me from the steps of a gutted building. I fingered my Smith and Wesson, but they were evidently too sick to give chase. Cornwall had probably climbed those steps. Maybe he was better off dead, as Professor Costigan had implied—bulldozed into some pit with all the other nameless corpses. That was the only way he could escape the pain of looking at those steps, and remembering.

On the other hand, Professor Hemphill probably passed those steps every time he came into Boston. And Bobby Gallagher had his memories of MIT too, evidently. The two of them managed to keep on living; why not Cornwall? Everyone said it was easier to have been born afterward, to have been spared all the memories—that was why the kids at Northeastern looked so happy, I suppose. But people carried on in any case. It must be in the genes or something.

I pedaled through Cambridge.

Once upon a time the suburbs were the safe place to live, I am told—insulated from the dangers of city life and the rigors of country life. Times have changed. If you live in the country, you live behind barbed wire, like Mr. Fitch; or, at least, you can see strangers coming and prepare your defenses, if you think you need them. In the city, you have the rudiments of civilization once more—police and fire departments, neighbors who will look out for your property, businesses with security guards to protect themselves and you. But the suburbs are too built up to allow you the kind of protection Mr. Fitch has, and too spread out to allow you the kind of protection the folks in Louisburg Square have. They are a no-man's-land, inhabited only by the brave and the stupid.

And, of course, the sentimental, who are a little of both. It was hardly surprising that someone like Professor Hemphill would live in suburban Cambridge—he probably lived in the same house he had always lived in, and couldn't bear the thought of moving. The only surprise was that he was still alive. Of course, it was surprising that any of us were still alive.

I kept my hand on my gun as I looked for his house. His street had once been beautiful, I am sure. Now a couple of the houses were rubble. One had a side caved in; it looked as if it had been kicked by some enormous foot. Number 360 was a brick Colonial with shutters that had long ago lost their paint. It was surrounded, of course, by barbed wire.

I got off my bicycle and went up to the front gate, which was, of course, locked. I gave a shout. "Hullo! Professor Hemphill!"

A dog started barking. After a few moments a gun came poking out through a crack in the front door. All very straightforward and predictable, like a conversation about the weather. I raised my hands. "Hi, there," I called out. "Nice to see you. My name is Walter Sands. Professor Costigan at Northeastern gave me your name and address. He said you might be able to tell me something about a man named Robert Cornwall."

The door opened wide. A bald-headed man in a blue turtleneck sweater came out, leading the obligatory Doberman on a leash. Neither looked pleased to see me. I smiled my most endearing smile. Eventually the man came to the gate and unlocked it. I waited for him to jerk the dog to a sitting position, and then I entered. "You can't be too careful nowadays," I said.

"Come inside," Professor Hemphill replied.

I followed him and the dog inside. Hemphill was short, and looked shorter because he slouched as he walked, as if he had a bad back, or maybe felt the weight of the world. His skin was the translucent kind that always seems ready to blush, and his features were the thin, nervous kind that always seems ready to twitch. He looked as if he hadn't shaved in a couple of days, and hadn't smiled in several years.

His house was lovely; he had guarded it well. The hall was dominated by a large grandfather clock, ticking away as solemnly as it must have thirty years ago. The stairway's oak banister and newel post looked freshly polished. The gilt on the mirror sparkled; the parquet floor gleamed.

Hemphill led me into a sitting room; more parquet, a Queen Anne sofa, somewhat faded, and a small marble fireplace from the days when they hadn't really needed fires. I stopped in front of the painting hung above the mantel. "Sargent," I said.

"Very good," Hemphill replied. "It's my wife's grandmother. How in the world do you know about Sargent?"

"A friend of mine named Bobby Gallagher deals in stuff like this. He'd pay you a lot for it."

"Not for sale," Hemphill said curtly. "Now please hand me your gun."

I did as I was told, and I sat down on the sofa when Hemphill gestured to it. He sat in an armchair by the fireplace, leaving both our weapons on a sidetable next to the chair. His hands were trembling a little. He didn't seem to be the type to thrive in this kind of world; but here he was, and I was sure if I tried to get my gun back, either he or his dog would manage to kill me.

"Robert Cornwall, Mr. Sands. Why do you want to know about him?"

"I met his son in the service," I said, repeating my lie. "He never knew his father, and he asked me to find out what happened to him."

Hemphill stared at me then, until I began to think his social skills had gone to hell out here in the suburbs. "I knew Robert Cornwall," he said. "I believe he's dead."

His tone was quiet and final, and my heart sank. This was not what Dr. Winfield wanted to hear. I felt obliged to press on with the interview, however. "You say you believe he's dead. Do you know for sure?"

Hemphill blushed. "Why do you ask that? Do you think I'd lie to you?"

"Not at all. Maybe you just assume he's dead, which I suppose is a good assumption. But did you see him die? Can you tell me anything about the circumstances of his death?"

"Well, I mean, he's not around here. What else could have happened to him?"

"He could have gone to England," I suggested.

Hemphill stared at me some more. "No, that's not possible," he said finally.

"Why? I was told the British took scientists back with them. Didn't that happen?"

"Yes. Certainly. In fact, they asked me to go."

"And you turned them down? Why?"

Hemphill shrugged. "I wanted to stay here. My—my wife was missing, and I had some hopes of finding her."

"But Cornwall could've gone, right? Do you know for sure that he didn't?"

"We don't live in total scientific isolation here, Mr. Sands," he pointed out. "We still receive the journals that are put out in England and other places that have more resources than we do. If the British took Cornwall, he would be doing science over there, and we would know about it. We certainly know about a lot of other American scientists in Britain. I haven't seen anything by him, so I assume he wasn't taken. You can have Costigan show you the back issues of
Nature
and the like at Northeastern, if you don't believe me."

"I believe you," I said. But something was out of focus; somehow I wasn't getting the picture I had hoped this man could provide me. "Tell me about Cornwall," I said. "How well did you know him?"

Hemphill's stare slowly turned into the misty far-off look of someone remembering the old days. I had seen that look often enough in my life: on Bobby Gallagher's face, on the faces of toothless old women dying in alleyways, on the faces of hard-boiled army officers. On my father's face. Hemphill's hands were still shaking.

The look disappeared finally, to be replaced by the mask of civilization. What Hemphill gave me when he spoke was an edited, emotionless summary. He could have been lecturing on invertebrate anatomy, or reciting an obituary.

"Cornwall and I were both assistant professors in the biology department at MIT," he said. "We collaborated on a couple of projects, and we saw each other socially as well. He was a superb scientist, I believe, and he was certainly aware of his talent. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. And, Mr. Sands, he was not married. He had no children."

"Ah." The Sandman's first mistake. I couldn't believe my stupidity. There was nothing to do but plunge ahead, however. "Did Cornwall work on cloning?"

Hemphill nodded.

"Cloning of mammals?"

"Yes."

"Cloning of human beings?"

Hemphill shrugged. "Clone one mammal, you can clone them all."

I couldn't think of a reason not to tell him the truth. "Professor, my friend doesn't really think he's Cornwall's son—he thinks he's Cornwall's clone."

Hemphill shook his head. "No, that's not possible."

"Why? Why couldn't Cornwall have made a clone of himself and impregnated a woman with it?"

"It's not that easy." Hemphill shifted in his chair. Like Costigan, he was preparing to lecture. "Cloning a mammal is one thing; cloning an
adult
mammal is something else altogether. The success of the procedure declines precipitously with the age of the donor nucleus—and I'm talking days from the moment of fertilization, not years. We studied this at MIT. It probably has something to do with changes in the DNA due to cell differentiation. Cornwall couldn't have cloned himself, even if he knew how to clone a human being. He was too old, Mr. Sands."

"My friend is a dead ringer for Cornwall," I said. "Maybe Cornwall solved this problem with cloning adults and didn't tell you."

Hemphill shook his head. "Cornwall was not the kind to hide his scientific achievements. And that would've been a considerable achievement."

"So then, what is my friend?"

"I don't know, Mr. Sands. A human being, like all the rest of us. Perhaps Cornwall had an affair with a grad student and she became pregnant. I wouldn't put it past him."

I wasn't getting very far with cloning. I decided to change the subject. "Can you think of a reason why someone would want to murder my friend?"

Hemphill stared at me. "Murder?" he repeated.

"Two days ago, near Northeastern, after he tried to find out something about Cornwall."

Hemphill blushed. "What are you suggesting—that there's some deep dark secret about all of this?"

"I'm really not suggesting anything, Professor Hemphill. I'm just trying to learn what there is to be learned."

"I can't think that there's anything at all to be learned, Mr. Sands. It was a long time ago, and anything that happened back then is as irrelevant as the stock certificates I probably still have waiting for me in some safe-deposit box downtown. Why doesn't your friend just go on with his life?"

"I don't know," I said honestly. "It seems to matter to him."

Hemphill was silent for a moment; then he arose and walked over to the barred window. The dog stirred himself and growled, just to make sure I didn't get any ideas about going for my gun. Hemphill stared out at the barbed wire surrounding his home. "Cornwall couldn't have cared less about politics. He thought that this war wouldn't affect him—that he would go on with his work, somehow, because his work was important, and the world would have to realize that. I remember the last time I saw him—after the war, when everyone was beginning to realize that it may have been a tiny war, but things would never be the same again, things were going to be unimaginably worse for an unimaginably long time. And—and he found out I wasn't going to go to England, I was going to stay here and wait. And he laughed at me. 'George,' he said. 'You only have the one life. Don't waste it.'"

"It sounds as though he would've gone to England, then, if he'd had half a chance. Are you sure he's dead, Professor?"

Hemphill stared out the window, his gaze misty. "Yes, he's dead, Mr. Sands. And all that was a long time ago. Now I think you'd better leave."

"But I'd really like to—"

He turned abruptly to me, and the dog got to its feet, drooling as it waited for the command to attack.

I stood up. "Well, thanks for your time, Professor. Sorry if I dredged up unhappy memories."

Hemphill laughed. "I only have the one life, Mr. Sands. I don't intend to waste it on unhappy memories." He handed me my gun. "I'll see you to the door."

I pocketed it. "Much obliged," I said.

When I pedaled off, the dog barked after me until I was out of sight.

Chapter 7

I sat on a bench at Downtown Crossing and brooded. Hemphill had seemed awfully sure that Cornwall was dead. And that meant my client was not going to be happy.