The Betrayed (12 page)

His face clearly betrayed his uncertainty, because she stumbled into what seemed to be an explanation. “We met briefly once before; I’m working this summer as a research assistant for Professor Fuller.”

“Yes, of course.” Barneton nodded enthusiastically. “You must be here to pick up the new chapter on the Warren Court—I know Martin has been dying to review it.” He waved her into the office. “Come in, come in. I know I’ve got it lying around in here somewhere.”

“No, no,” the young woman stammered, losing her composure. “I’m not here for Professor Fuller. I’m here about something else.” She hesitated. “My sister’s Elizabeth Creay—she came to see you the other day; at least I think she was scheduled to come see you.”

Barneton frowned. “Oh, yes,” he said after a moment. “She did.” The woman just stood there looking a little lost and confused. “Did she have additional questions?” he said at last, no longer comfortable with the silence.

The young woman shook her head. “No,” she said. “Well, actually I don’t know, maybe she did.” She seemed to lose her train of thought, and he continued to look at her; she smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry, this is hard.” She rubbed her forehead nervously, and then looked him straight in the eyes. “She was murdered later that day.”

It was odd how she said it; without any emotion whatsoever, as though she was relating a fact of little or no consequence. It wasn’t the news of her sister’s death that startled Barneton, but the manner in which the news was delivered.

He looked at her for a long moment until he saw it—a tremble in her eye that somehow conveyed more sadness and emotion than any spoken words ever could have. He reached out and beckoned her over to one of the chairs in his office. “Sit down, and let’s talk.”

S
YDNEY SAT IN A SOFT
overstuffed leather chair in the corner of the office. It was a huge space, and bespoke both Barneton’s importance and his ego. He was over near the opposite wall from her, working the electric coffeemaker on the credenza.

“Coffee?” he offered.

“No thank you,” she shook her head. She already felt pa
thetic intruding on the well-known professor’s life. What had she really hoped to learn? “I’m sorry,” she said after a moment’s silence. “I know how strange this must seem, my being here. I don’t even know why I came.”

“How did it happen?”

“She was stabbed to death. In her home. It was in the papers.”

He frowned. “Now that you say that, I remember seeing a headline about a reporter being murdered, but I didn’t read the article. I never put it together with your sister’s visit.”

“It looks like it was just a random burglary.”

“Drugs?” Barneton asked.

Sydney nodded. “Probably. That’s what the police seem to be assuming—just someone looking for money to buy drugs.”

“I’m very sorry.” Barneton shook his head sadly. “She seemed like an extremely intelligent, engaging individual. It must be a great loss for you.”

“It is,” Sydney said. “More so for my niece—her daughter.” She thought for a moment, and then added in a fit of honesty, “Liz and I hadn’t been close.” She looked up at Barneton. “We were trying to become close, though.”

The professor finished preparing his coffee, then walked back and took a seat across from her. “So what brings you here?”

She looked at her hands, which worked nervously back and forth in her lap. “I wanted to know why she came to see you the other day.”

Barneton set his coffee down and leaned back in his chair. “Why does that interest you?”

It felt to Sydney as if she was being tested. She shook her head. “Like I said, I don’t even really know. You were the last person to talk to her before . . .” Her voice trailed off, and then she started again. “You work right here—right down the hall from where I’m working. It seems strange that she didn’t tell me she was going to be here.” Was that it? Was she jealous or angry that Liz had actually been in the building and hadn’t stopped by to say hello? Sydney didn’t think it was that simple. “I guess I’m just curious about the last few hours before Liz died,” she concluded weakly.

Barneton nodded. “I think I understand. You’re still in shock, of course, and you’ve been confronted with a tragic, completely foreign situation. I suspect you’re treating her death as something to be solved—something to be fixed. I’m sure it’s normal to gather all the information you can, so you can sit down and analyze it—try to make sense of it.” He spoke like a professor, with a tone that was at once paternal and condescending.

“I thought your specialty was the law. Do you teach psychology, too?”

Barneton smiled. “Strictly amateur in this field,” he admitted. “Though I’d wager I’m one of the better amateurs. Most people don’t realize that law relies on an innate understanding of psychology to choose its direction. After all, the goal of the law is to get individuals to conform to collective goals and norms. In order to accomplish that, you have to understand what makes people tick.” She shifted in her chair, and he seemed to notice that she was uncomfortable being psychoanalyzed. “It’s not a bad thing, what you’re doing,” he tried to reassure her. “Just remember that, no matter what you find, death is something that ultimately can’t be solved—and certainly can’t be fixed.” He looked at her in earnest, leaning forward and staring straight into her eyes.

“I understand that,” she said.

He leaned back in his chair again. “Good. Now, what is it that you wanted to ask me?”

“I wanted to know what she came to see you about.”

He took a deep breath and held it for a moment before letting it escape his lungs in a massive sigh. “Eugenics,” he said.

“Eugenics?” she prodded.

He nodded. “Yes, eugenics. Or, I suppose, to be more accurate, not eugenics generally, but the legal history of eugenics in this country.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither did I, but it was a fascinating conversation. We talked for over an hour.”

“Eugenics?” Sydney repeated, still baffled. “Hitler, right?”

“Well, yes, Hitler is the most extreme and well-known proponent of eugenics. But eugenics extends well beyond its use in the Third Reich. Eugenics is the science of controlling the gene pool—improving it, in theory—through selective breeding. It was a theory of social science based on Darwinism that was dominant throughout almost the entire first half of the twentieth century.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard of eugenics except when someone was talking about the Nazis.”

“That’s not surprising. We all like to shift history to focus on the sins of others, rather than to examine our own failings. And, in all fairness, the Nazis were the most active proponents and followers of eugenics. Their notions of ‘racial purity’ and superiority gave rise to a massive eugenics program to ‘cleanse’ the gene pool. In pursuing his goal, Hitler implemented mass sterilization programs to weed out what he considered ‘inferior’ genes. Most of these programs were directed toward the handicapped, or mentally retarded, as well as gypsies, Jews, and foreigners. In a few short years, he had more than three hundred and fifty thousand people involuntarily sterilized. As I’m sure you know, he wasn’t ultimately satisfied with sterilization as a long-term cure of what he considered ‘bad genes,’ and as a result instituted his Final Solution—the death camps.”

“Why would my sister have been interested in Hitler’s social science policies?”

“She wasn’t. As I said, she was interested in the history of eugenics in America.”

“American Nazis?”

“No, no.” Barneton shook his head. “It was far too widespread in this country to simply be labeled a ‘Nazi’ issue. Eugenics has had a long history in the United States. In fact, this country was the first to try to apply the principles in government programs, and many of Hitler’s own sterilization laws were taken directly from model laws in effect in the United States.”

Sydney frowned. “I find that hard to believe. How could there be that many ignorant people controlling the country?”

“Well, what seems like ignorance to us now seemed like self-evident truths to many people a century ago. And I’m not talking about ignorant people; I’m talking about some of the most intelligent, progressive individuals of the times. People like Oliver Wendell Holmes, probably the most famous, brilliant, and well-respected judge we’ve ever had on the Supreme Court; Margaret Sanger, one of the leaders of the early feminist movement and a founder of Planned Parenthood; scientists from Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, the University of Michigan, and NYU.”

“But wasn’t the eugenics movement discredited after we found out what Hitler had been doing?”

“Certainly the term ‘eugenics’ fell out of favor in the second half of the twentieth century, but the notion of improving the gene pool has never died. Most of the states in the nation have had forced sterilization laws at one time or another, and in several instances the laws survived into the late 1970s. These laws allowed states to sterilize criminals, prostitutes, the mentally retarded—all without their permission. Most government studies estimate that between sixty and two hundred thousand people were involuntarily sterilized in the United States between the 1920s and the 1970s, but some experts believe that the numbers could be far higher.”

“But couldn’t the courts stop this kind of thing from taking place?”

Barneton raised his eyebrows. “Of course they could have. But they chose not to. In fact, they supported it.” He got up and plucked a text off one of the many shelves. He flipped through the heavy volume. “The question of whether states could involuntarily sterilize an individual based on the principles of eugenics actually made it all the way up to the Supreme Court in 1927, when Virginia wanted to sterilize a prostitute named Carrie Buck who had been diagnosed as an ‘imbecile.’ Her mother and daughter had also been diagnosed as imbeciles. It took the high court fewer than four pages to conclude that the state of Virginia was well within its rights, and Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes delivered the decision of the Court. In the ruling, Holmes concluded that, ‘It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. ...Three generations of imbeciles are enough.’ ”

“That’s awful,” Sydney gasped, recoiling.

“Yes, it is,” Barneton agreed. Then he took a sip of his coffee. “But remember, many of those who believed in eugenics thought they were doing the right thing—that which was best for mankind. And many of the general principles of eugenics survive today in progressive, modern medical practices. In recent years, scientists, none of whom would consider themselves eugenicists, have developed ways to ‘improve’ the genetic code. With the mapping of the human genome, the hereditary architecture of the human race, in the 1990s, scientists have been able to isolate certain genes that are responsible for various diseases and conditions. ‘Gene therapy,’ or the medical application of ‘fixing’ these genes, is likely to be one of the next great leaps in the history of modern medicine—on a par with the development of sterile surgical procedures, or the development of antibiotics.”

The professor in Barneton had fully taken over, and Sydney felt like she was in a lecture now. He was growing more and more animated, and she could see why his classes were so well attended. “Think about it,” he continued. “In a few short years, we’ll not only be able to ‘fix’ defective genes—genes that cause disease—we will also be able to enhance our genetic makeup. We’ll be able to make sure that our children are intelligent, or tall, or athletic.”

“That’s far different from a eugenics program that weeds out weak genes through sterilization, or murder,” Sydney protested.

Barneton smiled. “That’s exactly what your sister said.” He sipped his coffee. “And of course you’re right, arguably, from a traditional moral prospective. But you’re really talking about trying to achieve the same goals through different methods. It’s the difference between what might be called ‘positive eugenics’ and ‘negative eugenics.’ With gene therapy—‘positive eugenics’—the goal is to correct defective genes and allow people to procreate freely. With ‘negative’ eugenics, the goal is to prevent those with defective genes from reproducing at all.” He paused and looked at Sydney in earnest. “At the macro level, however, the direction in which we are heading is arguably every bit as dangerous as the eugenics programs that tried to weed out ‘inferior genes’ through sterilization and murder. In both cases you’re talking about limiting the gene pool. No matter how you set out to accomplish that, it still has serious biological consequences.”

“But if all that’s being done is to weed out bad genes, how can that be anything but a positive thing?”

Barneton shook his head. “Nature doesn’t make judgments about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ with respect to the gene pool. Nature only cares about what helps the species survive in every possible situation. The most important genetic principle for the survival of the human race is diversity.” Sydney felt lost, and Barneton explained. “Take, for example, sickle-cell anemia,” he began. “It’s a genetic disease that results in the production of misshaped blood cells that are less effective at carrying oxygen. In some cases, the disease can be fatal. As a result, it could reasonably be viewed as a ‘bad gene’ disease that could potentially be cured through gene therapy. However, what’s interesting about this ‘disease’ is that it is a recessive genetic condition, meaning that a person must inherit it from both parents, both of whom must be carriers. Those who are carriers, though, are resistant to malaria, and, particularly before the widespread use of pesticides, were more likely to survive in malaria-infested areas of the world. In those situations, the ‘disease’ allowed people to survive in a broader range of environments. The same could potentially be said for all genetic ‘defects.’”

Sydney still looked confused. “And this is what Elizabeth came to talk to you about? Gene therapy?” she asked.