“How awful,” the elderly librarian said.
“Yes. He went on to say that the village has experienced nothing but bad luck ever since, cattle diseases, drought, and the like. He believes that because Bowie’s family doesn’t know how or where their ancestor died that his spirit still haunts them. It sounds a little strange to us, but animism is the prevalent faith in this part of Africa.”
“Dr. Mercer, I’m from New England. I know all about ghost stories.”
“I promised the headman that I would try to contact the Bowie family to tell them what happened to Chester.”
“And you think I can help?”
“It’s a hunch but I believe he was a rather gifted geologist and it’s possible that you have records of his academic career. Your records online go back only to 1900 and I was wondering if you could dig back a couple more years.”
“No digging required. We are about to load the years 1890 to 1899 onto the site. Give me a moment.” She typed so slowly that Mercer spelled out the name in his head. “And here we are. Chester T. Bowie, class of 1899 from Keeler State in New Jersey.”
He knew it. “Thank you, Mrs. Moreland. I can contact the college. Hopefully they have records going back that far that give some family history.”
“I’m not sure if that will help.”
Her tone sent a stone plummeting to the base of Mercer’s stomach. “How so?”
“It indicates here that this Chester Bowie graduated summa cum laude with a degree in ancient Greek history.”
“Excuse me?”
“I don’t think this is your man. He wasn’t a geologist. He was a historian.”
Mercer cursed and immediately sensed Mrs. Moreland’s disapproval over the phone. He apologized, thanking her for her time. He stared into space for a minute, his hand still holding the portable phone. “What the hell,” he said and dialed information for the small New Jersey college.
“Our records go back to the day the school was founded by Benjamin Keeler in 1884,” a perky coed named Jody in the alumni office assured Mercer when he asked.
“I’m looking for information about Chester Bowie. He graduated in 1899.”
“Oh sure,” Jody said as though she knew the man. “Bowie the booby.”
“Excuse me?”
“Oh, it’s a nickname he had. He is sort of, like, a legend here.”
“How so?”
“He was a student here and then became a teacher. I guess he was a real whack job. He vanished in the 1930s or something.”
The timing could fit had Mercer been wrong about the African woman’s age. “Why do you say he was a whack job?”
“I’m not sure. Students here use his name if someone does something stupid, like you know ‘pulling a Chester.’ It’s just, like, a thing we say.”
Mercer had thought using the word “like” so often had died out a decade ago. “Is there anyone in the office who could give me a bit more information?”
“Um, not really. I’m here by myself and I don’t know when my boss is coming back. She’s on maternity leave.” Jody went quiet before perking up once again. Her voice jumped several octaves. “But hey, there was like this book written a couple years ago. This woman wrote it and she had a section about Bowie the booby. She gave a couple of signed copies to the school. There’s one here someplace.” She fumbled through a bunch of drawers, slamming them so the metal rang in Mercer’s ears. “Yes! I found it. Science Beyond the Fringe: Alchemy to Perpetual Motion and Those who Sought the Free Lunch by Serena Ballard.”
Mercer was more than a little intrigued that a historian of ancient Greece was in a book about junk science. He thanked Jody and hung up, typing the title on an Internet bookseller’s site.
And there it was: Science Beyond the Fringe by Serena Ballard. The book had been published three years earlier and by the looks of it hadn’t done well. There were no readers’ reviews and the site indicated the book was already out of print.
Next he typed the author’s name onto a search engine and came up with an uninspired Web site dedicated to the book. As the title implied, the book chronicled pseudo-scientists in their bizarre quest to invent the impossible. On the single-page site were short paragraphs about some of the stranger folks — a dry cleaner from New York who tried to patent his interstellar telephone, a mechanic from Pennsylvania who spent his life trying to draw usable power from static electicity, and another from California who was convinced he’d deciphered the language of humpback whales.
Mercer got the sense that the book was written with tongue firmly planted in cheek and thought it might make an amusing read. At the bottom of the page was a link where he could e-mail the author so he dashed a quick note to Serena Ballard explaining his interest in Chester Bowie and giving his telephone number.
To his astonishment his phone rang in less than a minute.
“Hello?”
“Dr. Mercer?”
“Yes. Is this Serena Ballard?”
“It is. I can’t tell you how surprised I was to get your e-mail.”
“About half as much as I appreciate you getting back to me,” Mercer said. She had a beautiful throaty voice.
“According to the Web counter on that old site you just doubled the number of hits since it went online.”
“I have the feeling the book didn’t do as well as you’d hoped.”
She chuckled. “The publisher lost my princely advance of one thousand dollars. In truth, Science Beyond the Fringe was a labor of love. I sent it to publishers on a lark.”
“Still, writing a book is a hell of an accomplishment.”
“I did it for my grandfather. If you saw the Web site you might have noticed the bit about the guy in Pennsylvania who tried to harness static electricity.”
“Your grandfather?”
“He was inspired by a machine he read about in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and knew he could make it work. He spent every night and weekend in his garage tinkering away. He burned it down once and spent a week in the hospital after nearly electrocuting himself. He got a chance to read my book before he died, but never knew that I managed to get it published. You indicated you wanted some information about Chester Bowie.”
“What can you tell me about him and what did he do to merit a mention in your book?”
“Bowie taught ancient history at a place called Keeler College here in New Jersey.”
“You’re in New Jersey?”
“Yes, I’m the marketing director for the new Deco Palace Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City. It’s great. Have you ever been here?”
“No, but I have a friend who considers Atlantic City his third home.”
“Third home, wow.”
“Not that impressive because he uses my place as his second. Anyway back to Bowie.”
“Chester Bowie taught ancient history at Keeler. From what I recall from my research he was a real flake. He muttered to himself all the time and always wore a cape around campus.”
“And what did he do to merit a mention in your book?” asked Mercer.
“Well he wasn’t a scientist but he was a crackpot. That’s why he’s in there. He was convinced that the creatures from Greek mythology actually existed.”
“You mean griffins, Medusa, and giant three-headed dogs?”
“Yup.”
“I guess that would certify him as a crackpot.”
“It’s not as bad as that,” Serena admitted. “What Bowie believed is that ancient Greek farmers plowing their fields discovered bones from animals that went extinct in the last ice age. Not knowing how the skeletons fit together, he believed they created all kinds of fantastic monsters from the bones, mixing and matching as they went along and then inventing stories about their creations.”