“Wow. Okay. I’ll stay here.” He gave her the number. “Please have him call me as soon as he gets in.”
“All right.” Two clicks could be heard. Bern began to speak, but Lobec lifted his hand as another number was dialed. The LCD panel in front of him displayed the number of the girl named Erica Jensen, who they had already identified with their caller ID unit. The line was busy, and Hamilton hung up the phone. He tried twice more and then seemed to give up.
Finally, Lobec lowered his hand, and Bern spoke.
“We can’t let him talk to the cops.”
“You are correct. It’s unfortunate that we did not know of Hamilton’s involvement in NV117 previously.” Lobec pulled out his SIG Sauer P230, a compact weapon easily concealed and modified to accommodate a silencer. He chambered a round and replaced it in his shoulder holster. “It would have been so much easier.”
“We going now?” Bern checked his badge and identification and grimaced again when he saw his alias.
“No, that would be unrealistic. The police would never arrive so quickly. Even so, we don’t have much time. We will wait ten minutes. If anyone calls in that time, we will need to surprise him. Otherwise, we can introduce ourselves to him in the usual fashion.”
CHAPTER 7
After shaving and changing into more presentable clothes, Kevin tried calling Erica again. Busy. He laid the receiver in the cradle, put his slippers back on, and walked back to the living room, plopping himself on the couch. Headline News was into the next half hour, but he switched it to the local channel to see if he could find out anything about this Stein. Damn, he wished he got the paper.
Kevin was still confused by the events of the last two hours, and he played them over in his mind to see if any of it made sense, to try to put it together into some rational explanation. No. First, he needed to start with the facts. One, his professor and the professor’s wife were dead, supposedly from a house fire. Two, he received e-mail from Dr. Ward claiming-wait, change that-from Dr. Ward’s e-mail address claiming that someone was trying to kill him, and that same someone had already killed a man named Herbert Stein. Not only that, but they wanted to kill him for an experiment that was a failure, and one of these people was named Clay. Three, Herbert Stein, a person he had never heard of until today, was murdered.
Which left him with what? He looked at the printout again. He wished he could believe that this was all an elaborate hoax, that somebody owed him for a joke he had pulled at one time, but he was too much of a realist to believe it. Even the nerds in his chemistry department wouldn’t stoop to something like this.
That left a high probability that the message really was from Dr. Ward. Three dead people. Maybe all of them murdered. He was glad he had called the police.
A sharp knock on the door startled him, and Kevin accidentally tore the printout in half. He stuffed the pieces of paper into his pocket as he rose and walked over to the front door.
Normally, during the day he would just open the door, although at night he always checked who it was first. Today was not normal. He looked through the foggy peephole and could make out two men in suits. He recognized neither of them.
“Who is it?” he said loudly.
“Detectives Barnett and Kaplan,” a well-spoken voice said. “Guy Robley radioed us and asked us to stop by since we were in the neighborhood. He said he couldn’t get to the phone right now to call you. If you’ll crack the door, you can see our identification.”
At the mention of Detective Robley’s name, Kevin calmed. Even so, he kept the chain on and gave the IDs presented a thorough inspection. They seemed all right to him, not that he’d know what fake badges looked like. Satisfied, he removed the chain and asked the officers to come in.
“Man, am I glad you’re here.” The officer named Barnett looked to be in his late thirties and was neatly dressed in a gray suit and paisley tie. He looked more like a businessman than a cop. His matching gray eyes examined Kevin thoroughly, but he gave Kevin a friendly smile. The other officer, Kaplan, was younger and more rumpled in his navy suit. Both were shorter than Kevin by about four inches. “You guys must be hot. Can I get you something to drink?”
Barnett glanced at Kaplan and then shook his head. “No, thank you. We just had a late breakfast, and I think we drank a pot of coffee between us.” As they sat down in the living room, his smile changed to a concerned frown. “We are working on the Stein case with Guy. He said you called with some information concerning Mr. Stein.”
“Actually, I was calling about a professor, Dr. Michael Ward.”
“The professor from STU who died in the fire last night?” Barnett said.
“Yes, I go to STU. I worked with him for year and a half until last May.”
Barnett concerned expression deepened. “This must be difficult for you. I’m sorry. Please, go on.”
“I wasn’t very close to Dr. Ward. I just worked for him.” Kevin told them everything that had happened to him since he woke up. During the story, Barnett asked a few questions for clarification, but Kaplan just scribbled on a notepad and said nothing. When Kevin got to the part about the message from Ward, Barnett stopped him.
“Do you know what the message means? This could be very important in our investigation into Mr. Stein’s death.”
“No, I don’t. Maybe if Dr. Ward had been able to finish it, I would have understood. The last sentence was cut off, as if he’d stopped typing abruptly.”
“Could I see this e-mail message?” said Barnett.
“Sure,” Kevin said, “I can even give you a copy.” He went to the Mac and typed the commands to print them a fresh copy instead of giving them the torn one in his pocket. “Do you really think it’s from Dr. Ward?”
“As you said yourself, this could have been typed by anyone and merely sent from his account. But I don’t think we can rule out the possibility.”
Kevin gave them the note. Both officers read it intently.
For the first time, Kaplan spoke. His voice was surprisingly high for his size. “What is NV117?”
“It was an experiment we were conducting right before I stopped working with Dr. Ward. It was research I was conducting for the Department of Energy, fairly harmless stuff.”
“Why would someone be interested in research in superconductivity?” Kaplan said.
Kevin gave Kaplan a puzzled look. “I have no idea. How did you…”
Barnett interrupted. “Do you know what the code means?”
Kevin shrugged as he completed the commands to print the message. “I keep thinking I’ve seen it before, but nothing comes to mind. Like I said, the message wasn’t finished.”
Kevin turned back toward Barnett, and for a split second, caught Barnett glaring at Kaplan. The look vanished quickly and smoothly, as if Kevin wasn’t meant to see it.
“Did you know Herbert Stein?” asked Barnett.
“Never heard of him before. Who was he?” Kevin plucked the note from the printer and handed it to Barnett. “Some drug dealer?” The drug wave had hit Houston as hard as any city.
“Well,” Barnett said, “of course, you understand that I can’t reveal everything we know about the case, but I can tell you that he was a respectable attorney with a small practice in the Village. And no, drugs don’t seem to be involved.”
“A lawyer, huh? Was Dr. Ward a client of his?”
“I don’t recall that name from his records,” Kaplan said.
“I don’t either,” Barnett said. “We’ll check that out later. Have you seen a photo of Mr. Stein?”
“No. I’ve been watching the news off and on, but I haven’t seen the story. I didn’t even know he was a real person until I talked to Detective Chambers.”