The Stones Cry Out (16 page)

She frowned. "I don’t know. That feels kind of odd to me."

I took out my card. "You can verify who I am with the Richmond police chief. I've spoken to him."

"It's not that." She stared at my card. "It's just..." She looked up. Tears pooled in her green eyes.

I did know.

Underneath my bed was a plain shoe box with David Harmon's cheap Timex watch, the crystal smashed. His favorite tie was in there, his favorite book of poetry. His Bible. A larger box beside it held the legal papers and notes I gathered from his desk the day after his murder. Just before Father's Day this year, I saw an identical Timex on sale at the local drugstore. And the papers maybe were nothing special. But I saw my own irrational sentimentality on Janine Falcon’s face -- the thing that kept me from throwing out a cheap watch.

She knew he was innocent, she said. But she wanted to know—needed to know—that her husband once lived and breathed even in the most mundane ways. Especially in mundane ways. What made people real were the simple and ordinary things. These papers proved her husband had a plan, a way out of police work. He just didn't get the chance.

I needed evidence.

But she needed evidence too.

Monday morning Eric Duncan's mineralogy report hit my desk. I read it over then called the lab.

"I'm not too excited about green sand,” I said.

"You're a geologist. That report says ‘glauconite.’"

"And some pyrite-bearing sediments in the clay. Wow-wee."

"You're not impressed? Fine. Did you read my notes about gray forms, disseminated acid, the clay? We're talking very fine grains, Raleigh. Less than two microns."

One micron was roughly the thickness of a fingernail, about one one-thousandth of a millimeter.

"I'm not questioning your work," I said. “But in this part of Virginia finding green sand is like saying you saw a lobbyist on Capitol Hill."

"The soil speaks; I don't speak for it." He sounded wounded.

"Sorry, Eric. I'm just frustrated."

"I can hear it. Did you read to the very end?"

"Acrylamide, I saw it. Refresh my memory."

"Synthetic."

"Still not ringing any bells."

"When I say, 'dirt diamonds,' do any bells go off?"

"You mean that white stuff in potting soil?"

"Yes," he said. "Except this acrylamide didn't come from potting soil. And it's not
in situ
either."

“Not
in situ”
meant it didn't originate on the roof.

Acrylamide, he continued, was used to manufacture plastics. Water treatment facilities also used polyacrylamide polymers to settle turbidity in drinking water. And paper mills used acrylamide to size their products.

"You might want to cut down on your beloved French fries,” he said.

“What’s that got to do with this?”

“Starches fried at high temperatures manufacture acrylamide. It's a known carcinogen."

"Thanks for the health tip, but I doubt my suspects were enjoying a Happy Meal."

Ignoring my jab, he continued with the brick and mortar samples. “The brick is distinct but not unique.”

"How distinct?"

"Enough that I could match color and composition, if I had another sample to compare it to."

I told him the comparisons would be there soon, even if I had to make an express run to the lab. “As soon as the cops release the material evidence, I’ll get it to you. Thanks for this quick turnaround, Eric.”

"But Raleigh?"

"Yes."

But he didn't say anything else.

"Hello? Eric?"

"Somebody asked why we closed the door." His voice sounded muffled, as if his palm cupped the receiver. "They were curious what we were doing in here."

"What did you say?"

"I said you'd been lusting after me for years."

"That'll throw them off the trail."

"I'm not as brave as you are.” He sighed. “I told them we had an important matter to discuss. In private."

"That's the truth."

"Yes," he said. "Yes, it is the truth."

But there was only more hollow silence.

"Thanks again," I said.

"Sure, good luck with the case."

"You know I don't believe in luck."

"Yes,” he said. “I know.”

Then he hung up.

The world's first synthetic ruby glittered to life about two hundred years ago, when a French chemist melted aluminum oxide at 2,200 degrees Celsius, tossed in some chromium, and
voila
—dazzling red gems that didn’t require a mining permit.

Over the next century, chemists learned to create other synthetic gems, such as emeralds which could come from beryllium oxide boiling in an alkaline solution at 800 degrees Celsius. And today the laboratories could churn out thousands of synthetics, from opals to diamonds, with only a trained gemologist able to recognize the fakes. They also created minerals which didn't appear in nature, such as my newest puzzler, acrylamide.

But since those first rubies, gemstones were no longer the only amazing thing coming out of test tubes.

When I walked into the Richmond Reproductive Clinic in the city's West End, the women in the waiting room didn’t look up from their magazines, even when the door closed with a loud
clunk
. And they continued reading as the brawny red-headed receptionist practically yelled her greeting.

"Hello, dear! We're behind schedule today, so be patient!"

I opened my identification, laying it on the plastic counter. "I need to ask Dr. Chivigny some questions."

All the women looked up.

The receptionist had painted eyebrows. They cinched down on her forehead into an almost clownish frown. "What's this about?" she said.

I decided it was time to use the Official Investigator voice. "I need to ask the doctor some questions." I hoped my tone would keep me from having to say,
Just get the guy.

And it did. She exited through a side door.

When I turned around, the fierce expressions on the women’s faces almost scared me.

Women with concerns. Women with worries. Women who had been denied the most basic right of being a woman: motherhood. They were women who had to come to a laboratory for their precious gems, when all around them other women received rubies as if wishing were all it took. And now I was casting a pall.
Questions?
their faces seemed to say.
What kind of questions?

I took the chair nearest the exit and stared at the Berber carpet. It is blue. Baby blue. The women returned to their magazines, stealing glances, until a short bald man wearing a white lab coat appeared. "Dr. Chivigny" was embroidered above the chest pocket. In baby blue thread.

He motioned to me, brusquely.

The narrow hall was painted pink. Baby-girl pink. I counted five closed doors with plastic bins holding medical files. The doctor ushered me into the room at the end of the hall. His office. When I shook his hand, introducing myself, his fine-boned fingers said he was an efficient surgeon.

"I assume this has to do with the Spatz case," he said.

"Pardon?"

"Spatz. Harriet Spatz."

I shook my head.

Relief immediately washed over his narrow face.

"Oh. I thought...." He waited a moment. "I have a case pending with a patient. Former patient."

"I'm with the FBI," I reminded him.

"Yes, I know. But when my receptionist told me the FBI was here, I immediately connected you to the Spatz case. Since it's gone national. Federal. You know, the Spatz case?"

"Sir, I have no connection to that matter."

He crossed his arms over his chest. "Harriet Spatz. She alleges a drug taken while under my care deformed her baby. It's not possible, of course. Several clinical studies have proven Lupron does not cause birth defects. But personal injury lawyers aren't interested in facts, and now they've launched a nationwide search for women who took Lupron for fertility and gave birth to babies with physical abnormalities."

I showed no reaction.

“Then never mind.” He took a deep breath. “What can I help you with?"

"I'm looking into something that involves a couple who came to your clinic. Michael and Janine Falcon."

"Falcon? Falcon. No, the name doesn't have any association for me."

"It was several years back." I read something in his keen gray eyes. "You do understand, doctor, that you're not part of my investigation. I just needed to confirm some facts. Your cooperation would be appreciated."

He smiled then, and gestured to a chair near his desk. "Please, make yourself comfortable. I'll see what I can find."

His desk was a remarkable thing. A thick tree stump, the flat surface had been shellacked with a golden sealant that highlighted the tree rings. I wondered whether the doctor was capable of metaphor. An insinuation about life, family trees, but when he came back into the room, I decided against it.

"Michael and Janine Falcon? Yes, they were patients of mine." He carried their file in his hands like a prayer book. "You'll have to excuse my not recognizing the name. I don't get to know my patients very well."

"It seems like you would."

"Yes, this does appear to be an intimate scenario, doesn't it? Helping couples conceive. But once a woman is pregnant, I am no longer her physician. She returns to her regular OB-GYN for the remainder of the pregnancy, sometimes after only a month of my care. Frankly the less I know about them, the better." He caught himself. "For their sake, of course."

"Of course."

"So let's see...." He flipped through the medical file. "The Falcons were, well, they were under my care for thirteen months. She conceived on the third IVF...."

I didn't believe in luck, but Providence was definitely working in my favor. The doctor wanted goodwill points and believed that his help now would alleviate his other troubles. I wasn't about to set him straight. Not when Janine Falcon wouldn't release this particular file from her husband’s office. It was labeled The Richmond Reproductive Clinic. "She conceived on the third -- what?" I asked.

"IVF. In vitro fertilization."

"That's a complicated procedure, isn't it?"

He almost shrugged but stopped, as though realizing he could undermine his reputation. "After harvesting the eggs, we fertilize them with the sperm, and implant them back in the woman's uterus. Then it's a waiting game. What was your name again?"

I took out my credentials, handing him my card.

He held it carefully; he might need it later. "Miss Harmon?" he asked.

"Agent Harmon."

"Agent Harmon, if this doesn't have to do with the Spatz woman, may I ask what these questions are about?"

"Michael Falcon was a city detective. Last week he fell from a rooftop under suspicious circumstances. He’s dead."

For one split second, the doctor grimaced. "I did hear about this, on the news. But I didn't pay attention to the details. And I honestly do not remember him. Most husbands never set foot in my office. Embarrassed, ashamed, their manhood challenged. There's a whole gamut of reasons. But I still don't see how I’m connected to this."

And he didn't need to. "How much does an IVF procedure cost?" I asked.

"It is not inexpensive. And most insurance plans do not cover infertility treatments. I offer qualified patients financing options, including monthly payments. When the banks get involved with paperwork and loans, the strain can be too much for couples to handle."

I asked about cost again, trying to pin him down.

"One IVF treatment usually costs in the area of fifteen to twenty thousand dollars."

"You said Mrs. Falcon underwent three treatments. So that's, what, at least forty-five thousand dollars?"

He thumbed through the medical file. "Yes, but prior to the IVF, I performed some diagnostics. And they tried six in-utero inseminations."

I waited for the explanation.

"People refer to it as ‘the turkey-baster method.’ Of course, it's not that simplistic."

I asked what the Falcons' monthly payments were. He flipped through the file. "Well, the total cost came to more than one hundred thousand dollars."

“A hundred thousand?” I was shocked.

"That's not unusual. I have several families that have paid more than five hundred thousand dollars to conceive."

"It’s a lot cheaper to adopt."

He smiled, tightly. "You don't have children, do you?”

I shook my head.

“May I ask how old you are?"

"Twenty-nine."

He nodded. "My patients are mostly professional women. After age thirty, female fertility drops rather precipitously. Heroic measures are necessary. But my success rate is higher than average, about 45 percent."