Maxwell hesitated a fraction too long. "He's doing fine," he said.
I cocked my eyebrow at him. "Really?" I asked pointedly.
His jaw clenched momentarily. "Actually... I'm not sure he's been told yet. There's nothing he can do, and we don't want to... you know."
Stir up psychosomatic trouble, I finished silently for him. Made as much sense as any of the rest of it, I supposed—
"Wait a second," I interrupted my own thought. "I remember reading once that for acupuncture to work the subject has to believe in it, at least a little. Doesn't the same apply to voodoo?"
Christophe drew himself up to his full height. "Mr. Harland," he said stiffly, "we are not dealing with fantasies and legends here. Our method is a fully medical, fully scientific treatment of the patient, and whatever he believes or does not believe matters but little."
Maxwell looked at Pak. "You agree with that, Doctor?"
Pak pursed his lips. "There's some element of belief in it, sure," he conceded. "But what area of medicine doesn't have that? The whole double-blind/placebo approach to drug testing shows—"
"Fine, fine," Maxwell cut him off. "I suppose it doesn't matter, anyway. If the President has enough belief to get benefit out of it, he probably has enough to get hurt, too."
Pak swallowed visibly. "Mr. Maxwell... look, we're really sorry about all this. Is there anything at all we can do to help?"
Maxwell glanced at me. "You think of anything?"
I looked past him at the rows of dolls. There was still a heavy aura of unreality hanging over this whole thing.... With an effort I forced myself back to business. "I presume your people already checked for fingerprints?"
"In the entryway, on the windows, on the vault itself, and also on the file cabinet where the records are kept. We're assuming that's how the thief knew which doll was the President's."
"In that case—" I shrugged. "I guess it's time to get back to the station and warm up the computer. So unless you two know of a antidote to—"
I broke off as, for some reason, a train of thought I'd been sidetracked from earlier suddenly reappeared. "Something?" Maxwell prompted.
"Dr. Christophe," I said slowly, "what would happen if a given patient had two dolls linked to him? And different things were done to each one?"
Christophe nodded eagerly. "Yes—I had the exact same thought myself. If Sam's acupuncture can counteract any damage done through the stolen doll—" He looked at Pak. "Certainly you can do it?"
Pak's forehead creased in a frown. "It's a nice thought, Pierre, but I'm not at all sure I can do it. If the dolls are both running the same strength—"
"But they won't be," Maxwell interrupted him. "The Haitian dirt, remember? You can keep yours stuck up to its knees in the stuff, while theirs will gradually be losing power." He shook his head abruptly. "I can't believe I'm actually talking like this," he muttered. "Anyway, it's our best shot until we get the first doll back. I'm going to phone for a car—have all the stuff you'll need ready in fifteen minutes, okay?"
"Wait a second," Pak objected. "Where are we going?"
"The White House, of course," Maxwell told him. "Well, Baltimore, actually—the President's there right now getting ready for the debate tonight. I want you to be right there with him in case an attack is made."
"But the doll will work—"
"I'm not talking about the damn doll—I'm talking about the problem of communications lag. If the President has to tell someone where it hurts and then they have to call you from Baltimore or the White House and then you have to get the doll out and treat it and ask over the phone whether it's doing any good—" He broke off. "What am I explaining all of this for? You're going to be with the President for the next few days and that's that. As material witnesses, if nothing else."
He hadn't a hope of getting that one to stick, and he and I both knew it. But Pak and Christophe apparently didn't. Or else they were feeling responsible enough that they weren't in any mood to be awkward. Whichever, by the time Maxwell got his connection through to the White House they'd both headed off to collect their materials and equipment, and by the time the car arrived ten minutes later they were ready to go. Maxwell gave the driver directions, and as they drove off he and I got back in my car and returned to the station.
—
"Well, there you have it," I sighed, leaning back in my chair and waving at the printout. "Your likeliest suspects. Take your pick."
Maxwell said a particularly obscene word and hefted the stack of paper. "I don't suppose there's a chance we missed any helpful criteria, is there?"
I shrugged. "You sat there and watched me feed it all in. Expert safecracker, equally proficient with fancy vaults and fancy electronic alarm systems, not dead, not in jail, et cetera, et cetera."
He shook his head. "It'll take days to sort through these."
"Longer than that to track all of them down," I agreed. "Any ideas you've got, I'll take them."
He gnawed at the end of a pencil. "What about cross-referencing with our hate mail file? Surely no ordinary thief would have any interest in killing President Thompson."
"Fine—but most of your hate-mail people aren't going to know about the President's doll in the first place. We'd do better to try and find a leak from either the White House or Pak and Christophe's place."
"We're already doing that," he said grimly. "Also checking with the CIA regarding foreign intelligence services and terrorist organizations. These guys—" he tapped the printout—"were more of a long shot, but we couldn't afford to pass it up."
"Nice to occasionally be included in what's going on," I murmured. "How's the President?"
"As of ten minutes ago he was fine." Maxwell had been calling at roughly fifteen minute intervals, despite the fact that the Baltimore Secret Service contingent had my phone number and had promised to let us know immediately if anything happened.
"Well, that's something, anyway." I glanced at my watch. It was nearly four o'clock; two and a half hours since we'd left the voodoo acupuncture clinic and maybe as many as sixteen since the doll had been stolen.
And something here was not quite right. "Maxwell, don't take this the wrong way... but what the hell is he waiting for?"
"Who, the thief?"
"Yeah." I chewed at my lip. "Think about it a minute. We assume he knows what he has and that he went in deliberately looking for it. So why wait to use it?"
"Establishing an alibi?" Maxwell suggested slowly.
"For murder with a voodoo doll?"
"Yeah, I suppose that doesn't make any sense," he admitted. "Well... maybe he's not planning to use it himself. Maybe he's going to send out feelers and sell the doll to the highest bidder."
"Maybe," I nodded. "On the other hand, who would believe him?"
"Holding it for ransom, then?"
"He's had sixteen hours to cut out newspaper letters and paste up a ransom note. Anything like that shown up?"
He shook his head. "I'm sure I'd have been told if it had. Okay, I'll bite: what is taking him so long?"
"I don't know, but whatever he's planning he's up against at least two time limits. One: the longer he holds it, the better the chance that we'll catch up with him. And two: the longer he waits, the less power the doll's going to have."
"Unless he knows about the Haitian soil connection... no. If he'd known he should have helped himself to some when he took the doll."
"Though he could have a private source of the stuff," I agreed. "It's still a fair assumption, though. Could he have expected us to have Pak standing by waiting to counteract whatever he does? He might be holding off then until Pak relaxes his guard some."
"The theft went undiscovered for at least a couple of hours," Maxwell pointed out. "He could have killed the President in his sleep. For that matter, he could have done it right there in the vault and never needed to take the doll at all."