Dying Memories (10 page)

Chapter 29

The professors and staff members over at MIT that Bill talked to didn’t know whether Tim Zhang had done any work for ViGen Corporation. None of them had even heard of the company, at least that was what they claimed. “Terrible what happened to Tim,” a very thin but attractive woman professor of Pakistani descent volunteered. She had the office next to the late Tim Zhang. She hesitated before adding that Zhang had acted oddly for several weeks before his death.

“How do you mean odd?”

She squinted in concentration, thin lines grooving her forehead. “Jumpy,” she said after some thought. “I was walking with him one day and a student behind us dropped a book. The noise startled Tim so much that I thought the poor man was going to have a heart attack.” She sighed, a sad smile turning up her thin lips. “He was such an absent-minded goofball, a really good-hearted man, but those last few weeks he became so quiet and jumpy. Something was bothering him.”

She didn’t say it, but Bill could see what she was thinking.
It was almost as though Tim had had a premonition that he was going to die soon.
Bill thanked her, and gave her his cell phone number in case she remembered anything else.

“Why are you interested in this?” she asked, her eyes scrunching up as she stared at Bill. “This happened so long ago.”

Bill shook his head and told her he wasn’t sure, which was only partly true. As he was leaving the MIT campus Jack O’Donnell called to remind him that they had a two o’clock staff meeting in ten minutes.

“I’m going to have to bow out.”

“I don’t think so,” Jack said, a touch of petulance in his voice. “I want you at that meeting.”

“I can’t be there,” Bill told him. “I’m tracking down leads, and it might be a few days or longer before I’m back in the office. I’ll call later and you can fill me in, and don’t worry, I’ll be sending copy over each day.”

“What leads are you tracking down?” Jack’s tone had suddenly turned ice cold. Bill knew his boss didn’t like the part of his not showing up at the office for any sort of open-ended period of time, especially with the cutbacks that were going on. If he hadn’t been taking the lead on one of the city’s biggest stories, he wouldn’t have been able to get away with it.

“Too early to tell you. But don’t worry, all will be disclosed soon.”

He disconnected the call before his boss could argue the matter any further. What he needed next was a coffee shop with Wi-Fi Internet access, and he found one after driving over the Charles River and into Brookline. When he checked his email he found a message from Carol telling him that ViGen was like a ghost, she couldn’t find anything about how they were funded. There was another email message waiting for him with the sender field blank and the subject header:
close call today
. Bill knew instantly who it was from. He slowly sipped his coffee while a sense of dread took over. Finally he brought up the email message. As he expected it was from his good pal
G
. The message read:

My men were outside One Post Office Square and would’ve run interference if you hadn’t gotten out of there in time. It’s probably best if you stay away from your apartment. Ditto, your office. You need to crack ViGen open, and here’s your way of doing it: they’re running illegal human trials. Look for them rounding up homeless, usually at three AM in Cambridge. They use unmarked vans.–yer pal, G.

Attached to the email was a map that pointed out a location near the Porter Square section of Cambridge that looked like an area under an overpass. Again as with the earlier email, there was no email address provided. Bill sat paralyzed as he reread the email several times, then closed his eyes. If his good pal,
G
, was telling the truth then he was being watched. Or maybe
G’
s men were simply staking out Forster’s hedge fund office in case he showed up, like they probably had Roberson’s office the other day. Or maybe
G
was simply fucking with his head.

It took several minutes before Bill was able to work up enough strength to reopen his eyes and peer around the coffee shop. If anyone was watching him he couldn’t tell, but he doubted it. When he was younger he developed a strong survival instinct, first so he could survive the bizarre shit from his home life, then later the army. Although he was feeling jittery inside, he had to think his gut would be warning him if he was being followed. He considered getting the FBI involved, but what did he have? Some emails that could’ve been sent by anyone, including himself. Rumors about a biotech company that he couldn’t substantiate. His borderline crazy theory connecting two murders where he had no real proof or evidence.

He took his laptop with him to the men’s room where he stood by the sink splashing cold water onto his face. When he felt less jittery, he dried his face off, then went back to the table he’d been sitting at earlier and called Carol on her cell phone. He knew by her hushed tone that he was interrupting Jack’s staff meeting. He asked if she could find out if ViGen had been approved for conducting human trials.

“I’ll look into it,” she said, “but I might not be able to get to it until tomorrow morning.”

“That’s fine. Whatever you find out, call me instead of emailing. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to check my email again.”

“Okay. You’re not coming in tomorrow?” Bill heard some rustling that sounded as if Carol had stepped out of the conference room. Then in a hushed whisper, she said with concern, “I don’t think Jack’s too happy you didn’t make today’s staff meeting.”

“Yeah, well, he’ll get over it.”

After he got off the phone with Carol, Bill brought up MIT’s website, and tried to match the pictures he took outside of ViGen with the faculty pictures provided by MIT. He found two matches. One was a leading professor in computer science who specialized in simulations and modeling, another in the nanotechnology area. Bill called MIT and was able to get the office hours for both professors. One wasn’t going to be in until the next day, the other not until Friday. He tried getting their home numbers, but the administrative staff members he talked to wouldn’t budge on that. When he called directory assistance, he found both professors had their home numbers unlisted.

Bill bought himself another coffee, then sat and tried to work out copy for the next day’s edition of the
Tribune
, mostly bullshit about the superficial similarities between the Gail Hawes’s shooting and Trey Megeet’s. He knew Jack would run it without too much grousing, especially thinking it might open the door for Bill to visit Gail Hawes in lockup. It was a story he could normally pound out in his sleep, but by the time he was halfway done he was mostly just staring into space, paranoia creeping in and paralyzing him. He grabbed his laptop and left the coffee shop, and drove to the same spy shop he had visited earlier that morning. If he was being watched at Post Office Square and they planted bugs in his loaner car, he wouldn’t be able to see Emily again until this was over. He wasn’t going to do anything to put her in harm’s way.

The same scruffy tattooed sales clerk was on the job, and Bill offered him twenty bucks to check his car for bugs. The clerk raised an eyebrow. “Again?”

“A different car,” Bill explained.

“Look, I can sell you the bug detector for two hundred and fifty bucks,” the clerk said. “Just buy the damn thing. You’ll save money in the long run instead of having to keep coming back here and paying me twenty bucks. And when you’re done needing it, you can probably sell it used online for a hundred and fifty.”

Bill nodded. Even though it had been seven months since Karen broke up with him, the relationship had left him in a financial hole that he’d been slowly digging himself out of, but he had at least that much left on his credit cards before he’d be maxing them out. After he paid for the bug detector, the sales clerk told him he’d show Bill how to use it, then followed Bill out to the loaner car that he had gotten from the dealer. The clerk waved the device over the car and shook his head.

“It’s clean,” he said. “Too bad. If it had something, I’d show you how to locate it, but it’s pretty easy. You just follow the directions and the display will lead you right to the transmitter. So who’s bugging you?”

“Hell if I know,” Bill said.

The tattooed clerk nodded, unconvinced. “For eighty bucks I can sell you a bug jammer. It wouldn’t help if a GPS transmitter is attached to the outside of your car, but it could help keep you from being eavesdropped on.”

“Thanks, but I don’t think I need it.”

“Your call, chief.” The clerk smiled thinly. “Ninety-nine out of a hundred people who buy these detectors are just paranoid fucks. You’re that lucky one out of a hundred who has good reason to be paranoid. Be careful.”

The clerk turned and headed back to his shop, stopping once to look back at Bill and shake his head.

With only a little more peace of mind, Bill found another coffee shop that offered Wi-Fi. After loading himself up with some high octane, he sat at the counter and pounded out the rest of his article.

Chapter 30

It was three-thirty in the morning as Bill lay low in his car with the engine and lights off and watched as a group of homeless lay huddled under an overpass near Porter Square. He’d been there over an hour with no sign of any vans. It was cold in the car and he wished he’d brought a blanket instead of just shivering in his leather bomber jacket. He checked the time again, thought about calling it a night but talked himself into giving it another half hour.

Earlier that night he’d almost gone back to his own apartment for his video camera, but didn’t want to risk his place being under twenty-four surveillance. Instead he broke into Jeremy’s apartment so he could borrow his friend’s camera instead. Broke in was an accurate way of putting it since he ended up using a skill he had developed as a teenager to pick the lock on Jeremy’s apartment door. He was rusty at it, having not done anything like that in almost twenty years and not having the right tools, but it was a cheap lock, and at two in the morning there wasn’t much risk someone would be passing him in the hallway. As rusty as Bill was it took him only three minutes of fumbling with the lock before he had the door open and was slipping into the apartment. Waiting for him inside was Jeremy’s Persian cat, Augustine, who quickly rubbed against Bill’s leg, purring. Bill picked his little furry buddy up and stroked Augustine while he found Jeremy’s video camera, and after that searched the kitchen cabinet drawers and pocketed a spare key in case he needed to go back there. Later when his friend returned from Italy he’d explain all this to him. Attached by a magnet to the refrigerator were feeding and care instructions for Augustine that Jeremy had left for his neighbor Kate. She must’ve last come in early in the day because the water dish was near empty. Before leaving Bill made sure it was full. He was half tempted to bring Augustine with him. It would’ve been nice to have had the company.

Chapter 31

Bill squinted at his watch. Three-forty. Earlier that evening he had left his car in a public garage a half mile from Emily’s apartment. He didn’t want to be too paranoid about this, but he wanted to make sure that if anyone had followed his car they wouldn’t be able to follow him to Emily’s. When he walked the half mile to her place he cut through enough stores and alleyways to make sure he didn’t lead anyone else back there.

That night Emily sensed something was up with him, and he almost came clean. He thought about showing her the emails from his good pal,
G
, as well as telling her how his car had been bugged, and how he could prove it the next morning if she didn’t believe him, but in the end he didn’t tell her any of that. She had gone through so much already as a kid that he didn’t want to bring this mess into her life, and he certainly didn’t want to start scaring her. He also didn’t want her thinking again that he was crazy. A thought had hit him also that whoever it was who bugged his car might’ve cleaned out the bugs once they realized that Bill had dumped it at his dealership. He could just imagine if that had happened and he brought Emily to his car and waved his bug detector over it and nothing showed up.

At one-thirty he slipped out of bed without waking her. He hoped that she didn’t wake up and notice that he was gone, especially with this being only their third night together. If she did, she’d find a note with a flimsy excuse about how he had to go out for a few hours for a work assignment, which while mostly true, he didn’t want to have to explain to her later.

For the next twenty minutes Bill sat with his teeth chattering; then he gave up for the night and drove back to the North End, parking two blocks from Emily’s apartment. The streets were empty, and he didn’t see any other cars on the road. There wasn’t a chance that he had been followed. When he slipped back in bed next to Emily, she stirred and, sounding mostly asleep, asked if he had gone someplace. Before he could say anything, she fell asleep again, making her slight saw-over-metal breathing sounds.

The next morning Emily woke him from a blissfully dreamless sleep. “It’s seven-thirty,” she said, concerned. “The alarm didn’t go off. I’m sorry, Bill, you’re late.”

“Not a problem,” he told her. “I’m sleeping in this morning.” He squinted against the early morning light and forced a weak smile, adding, “I’m going to be working away from the office over the next few days. It will be nice. We’ll actually get to have breakfast together in the morning like a real couple.”

She had been lying on her side propped up by her elbow facing him. She settled back down, nestling in close to him so she could rest her head on his shoulder, her body warm against his.

“You didn’t lose your job, did you, Bill?” she asked, her voice tentative. “Because if you did you could tell me. It wouldn’t change anything with us.”

“Why would you think that?” he asked.

“You’ve been so preoccupied the last couple of days.” She hesitated before adding softly, “You’re not having second thoughts about us, are you?”

“The only thoughts I’m having about us is how I can’t get enough of you.” He reached over to kiss her forehead. “And I’m still gainfully employed at the
Tribune
, so, no, it’s nothing like that. I just need to be running around the next few days chasing down a story so there’s no point going to the office.”

They lay silently after that, all the while Bill sensing a growing tenseness in Emily’s body.

“Did you go somewhere last night?” she asked. “I thought you did, but I’m not sure whether I dreamt it.”

“You didn’t dream it,” Bill said. “I had to leave around one-thirty to track down a lead. I tried not waking you. I’m sorry if I did.”

Bill could feel Emily’s indecision as she struggled over whether to pursue this further. Instead, she crawled on top of him, kissing him hotly, passionately, her eyes searching into his. Before too long they were making love, and Bill was able to lose himself completely in Emily, all his paranoia and worries from the last couple of days gone. When they were finished, a sense of peace came over him; something he hadn’t felt since the moment he was pushed head first into that van.

“You really were only joking before about being kidnapped?” Emily asked.

“Yeah, I was only joking,” he said.

They didn’t say anything for a long time after that.

Carol called Bill’s cell phone at eight-thirty to tell him that there was no record of the FDA approving human trials for ViGen Corporation. Emily watched him carefully as he took the call, but didn’t ask him about it. She didn’t have to be at Boston University until eleven that morning so they lay in bed together for another thirty minutes, then Bill got up to cook them breakfast, making them both cheese omelets. It was ten o’clock by the time they were done eating and Bill had finished cleaning up. He had to leave then. He had an MIT professor to catch.