“Mr. Hamilton,” Barnett said, “I wonder if we could ask you to come down to the station and look at a picture of Mr. Stein.”
“Why?”
“If he and Dr. Ward had some clandestine meetings-say at the university? — a student such as yourself may have seen him. We also have some photos of other suspects. They may have been intermediaries between Mr. Stein and Dr. Ward, and we’d like you to take a look at them.”
Kevin nodded. “I thought you might want me to do something like this. Sure. I’ll do it.” He looked down at his slippers. “I have to put my shoes on.”
“That’s all right, Mr. Hamilton,” Barnett said. “Go right ahead. We’ll just wait out here.”
Kevin ducked into the bedroom. His eyes felt better, so he took his glasses off and put his contact lenses back in. Just then the phone rang. He picked it up and started putting on his tennis shoes.
“Hello.”
“It’s me,” Erica said.
“There you are. I tried calling you four or five times.”
“Somebody called right after you hung up, and I couldn’t get him off the phone.”
“Never mind that. You are never going to believe what’s going on. There really is a Stein. Herbert Stein. Actually, I should say there was. He was murdered two days ago.” Erica gasped. “Now the cops are here, and they want me to go down to the station with them.”
“To look at a lineup?”
“No, just some pictures. It shouldn’t take too long.”
The sound of a gas motor steadily grew as a man on a lawnmower neared Kevin’s apartment. He raised his voice.
“You still interested in lunch?”
There was a pause on the other end. “All right, but no McDonald’s.”
A click in the phone interrupted Erica’s voice. He could barely make out the tell-tale beeping of the call waiting signal over the din of the lawnmower. “That’s another call. Can you hang on?”
“Yes.”
Kevin depressed the switch.
“Hello?” He was practically yelling over the sound of the lawnmower.
“Mr. Hamilton, this is Detective Guy Robley of the HPD Homicide Division. Detective Chambers said you called about Herbert Stein.”
“Yes. Barnett and Kaplan are here. They explained about you not being able to get back to me.”
“Who?”
Kevin frowned. “Detectives Barnett and Kaplan. They said you asked them to stop by my apartment. I was just about to leave with them to come down to the station.”
“What do you mean, Mr. Hamilton? I didn’t send anyone to your apartment.”
Kevin looked at the closed bedroom door. “There must be some misunderstanding. Their names are Detectives Barnett and Kaplan.”
“Look, Mr. Hamilton” Robley said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I don’t know anyone by the name of Barnett or Kaplan.”
Lobec leaned against the wall by the bedroom door. He had moved over there to hear the phone conversation, but the noise of the lawnmower was drowning out Kevin’s voice. No matter. He had heard most of the conversation he had had with his girlfriend, and it didn’t sound as if he had told her anything of importance. Besides, her home was going to be their next stop. So much easier to make their deaths appear as an accident.
He couldn’t hear Kevin hang up the phone, but his voice called from the bedroom.
“I just have to go to the bathroom, and then I’ll be ready to go.”
Lobec heard a door shut. After waiting a minute, he peered into the bedroom. Seeing that it was clear, he walked in. The obese man with the lawnmower turned his machine off. Lobec listened at the door of the bathroom. The fan was on. He heard nothing.
He waited a few seconds. Still nothing.
He knocked on the door and asked if everything was all right. No response. He drew his pistol and tried the knob. Locked. He hit the flimsy door with his shoulder and rushed into the bathroom.
It took him only a second to scan the tiny room. Before his eyes reached it, he could feel the heat flowing through an open window, large enough for a man to fit through easily. He looked through. Hamilton’s car was still in the lot, but the student was nowhere to be seen.
“Something must have tipped him,” Bern said. “He didn’t take the car?”
Lobec turned and saw Bern looking through the window, his pistol already drawn. He slapped Bern’s right cheek, leaving an angry red mark.
“You fool. Of course he was tipped off. You did it by mentioning the word superconductivity before he told it to us.”
“I heard him say superconductivity.”
“He said he was conducting an experiment. He made no mention of the word ‘superconductivity.’”
“But I…”
“This is not a debate. His keys are in the kitchen and his wallet is on the coffee table. Get them in case he decides to come back. He must be in the apartment complex.”
Lobec heard talking coming from the bedroom. He and Bern rushed out of the bathroom to find Hamilton’s greeting playing on the answering machine. When the machine beeped and started recording, Lobec recognized the voice. The girl named Erica.
“Kevin? Kevin, are you there? It’s Erica. We got cut off. Kevin? If you’ve left for the police station, let me know when you get back.” After a few more seconds calling his name, she hung up.
Bern looked at Lobec. “What do we do now? Same plan? Interrogation?”
Lobec gave Bern a cold stare, twisting the silencer onto his pistol. “No. Hamilton obviously didn’t know what the code meant. Therefore, he is of no further use to us. When you find him, kill him.”
CHAPTER 8
As he heard Barnett and Kaplan, or whoever they were, leave the bedroom, Kevin felt the air rush from his lungs. He hadn’t even realized he had been holding his breath. Now he was breathing in huge gulps. His hiding place under the pile of laundry in the bedroom closet was tenuous at best. They would be back as soon as they realized he wasn’t anywhere in the apartment complex. He needed to move.
His hands were shaking as he eased open the closet door. These guys were impersonating police officers and spoke about killing him as if it were nothing more than an inconvenience. Once the lawnmower had stopped, he’d been able to hear everything they said in the bathroom.
When Detective Robley said that he had never heard of Barnett and Kaplan, Kevin had put the phone down without another word, knowing he’d never be able to convince Robley of his situation before the two impostors got suspicious. He also turned off the ringer, so the other line with Erica wouldn’t suddenly start ringing the phone. But in his hurry he’d forgotten about the answering machine. Now Erica might be in just as much danger.
The conversation with Robley made everything suddenly click. There was the misplaced remote control and the incorrectly filed folders. At first glance, those inconsistencies were nothing more than a curiosity. Given what just happened, though, the conclusion was obvious. Someone had been in his apartment last night. They had been very careful, but not perfect.
But the real clincher was Kaplan’s off-hand question about NV117. Kevin had never mentioned to Barnett and Kaplan that the experiment involved superconductivity. He was sure of it. Meaning the phone was tapped and they had heard him talking about it on the phone with Erica. That’s why they had come now. The phone call to the police. They had heard it and were afraid he’d tell them about the message from Ward. And because the phone was tapped, they almost certainly knew who Erica was and where she lived.
When Kevin realized Barnett and Kaplan’s deception, his choices became limited. Overpowering them was out of the question, not when one of them looked liked a linebacker for the Cowboys. And if they had guns, which Kevin was almost sure of, running wouldn’t have done much good either. That’s why he had opened the bathroom window, pushed the button locking the bathroom door, and closed it before hiding in the closet. Sneaking out was the only way. Luckily, the trick seemed to have worked. For now.