In an angry voice he said, “Don’t be an asshole, Dartelli. It doesn’t suit you.”
“I need answers.”
“You won’t get them here.”
“I’ll get them.”
“We’ll see.”
On his way back, Dart found a pay phone and called Gorman. “I need a client list for a security firm in town. Can you get it for me?”
“Proctor Securities?”
“Can you do it?”
“I can identify all deposits, and I can trace those deposits to bank accounts. Will that do?”
Dart gave him the dates of Zeller’s employment at Proctor.
“Are we getting somewhere?” Gorman asked hopefully. Part of the reason for the man’s participation over the years, Dart had come to understand, was the excitement. The speeding tickets were just an excuse.
“We’re getting somewhere,” Dart answered.
But the closer we get, the worse it looks.
“I tell ya,” Teddy Bragg said to Dart, sitting in the cramped forensic sciences office. “This
is
rocket science, or might as well be, so if I lose you, speak up because I don’t want to have to explain
everything
all over again.”
Dart felt uneasy. Bragg had excitement in his bloodshot eyes, and he offered a wide smile of his capped teeth. Recently, Bragg had not been smiling about anything. His skin had a little more color to it. He had come to Dart in person, something unheard of for Bragg. He had ranted on about how Dart should thank him for doing all the necessary research because without it he wouldn’t know what he knew, and now that he knew what he knew, he knew it was important. “Critically important,” he had said.
Dart had followed him down the hall with his heart in his throat. He’d never seen Bragg like this.
“You look better,” Dart said.
“Feel better.” He pointed to a canister in the corner of the office that, amid all the other debris, Dart had failed to notice. “O-two,” he said, “good old oxygen—or
new
oxygen, actually.” He smiled again, showing off his dental work.
“Let me get this straight,” Dart offered, seeing the open pack of cigarettes on the man’s desk. “You’re still smoking, but now you’re taking oxygen as well.”
“Physician, heal thyself.”
“But you’re no MD, Buzz.”
“Mind your own business. It works. Don’t knock it. Are you paying attention? Are you?”
“Yes.”
He handed Dart a photocopy of a page containing too many boxes, all filled with numbers. “Full blood workup that you requested. Harold Payne.”
“What’s it tell us?” Dart asked.
“It tells
me. I
tell
you
,” he replied arrogantly. “What it tells
me
, is that your boy was a quart low on androgens. Everything else checks out fine.”
“Androgens?”
“Male hormones. Testosterone and company. The ‘hard’ in hard-on.”
“Slow down, Buzz.”
“We aren’t even started yet. I tell ya—this is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. This is the kind of thing that a guy like me
lives
for. You been there. You know.”
“Androgens,” Dart repeated. He took out his notepad.
Seeing this, Bragg said, “Good boy. Now you’re getting the point.”
“What
is
the point? Or do you have to take me through two years of pre-med first?”
“Don’t get cute,” Bragg warned. “Most hormones can be categorized as either peptides or lipids. Peptides are chains of amino acids; lipids are fats and oils. Steroids are an example of a lipid. Did you hear me? Steroids. Do I have your interest yet? Both males and females possess endocrine systems that deliver estrogens, what we think of as female hormones, and androgens, the male hormones, in varying quantities. Those quantities control development and maturity of the genitals, body hair, breasts, voice range—human sexuality.” He craned forward, “Pay attention! Some say the
psychology
of sex as well, because many peptides have association with psychological activity. It is a delicate and precious balance responsible for the propagation of all species. A peptide is a chain of amino acids—you make it longer and it becomes a protein. In its shorter version it acts as a hormone. On an atomic level, there are some fascinating things that take place—but I’ll save you that, unless you’re interested.”
“Give me the Cliff Notes version.”
Bragg warned, “You’re going to need to study this if you’re ever going to understand it. This won’t come easy, Ivy. This isn’t ballistics or even DNA fingerprinting. This is heady stuff. We would have missed this if you hadn’t pushed for that workup, but you did, and I gotta tell ya, I love this shit!”
“But worth
what?
” Dart repeated.
“We’re talking about
vastly
diminished levels of androgens, Ivy.
Radically
diminished levels, if you follow me.”
“I
want
to follow you. I’m trying,” Dart said.
“I’ll tell ya something—based on this blood work, I would have bet the farm that Payne was a neuter. No testicles. But I checked.” Answering Dart’s puzzled expression he said, “Damn right. I checked with Doc Ray—jewels intact. Which means that there is
no medical explanation
for these deficiencies. And let me just say that hormone deficiency has been a major focus of the medical community for decades, and I’m quite aware of the science as a whole and certain treatments in specific.”
“Does this has to do with—”
“His being a wife beater? It certainly
could.
You bet. And if you ask
me
, it
does.
Opinions might vary. But there’s the rub: lower levels should make this guy passive; abnormally
higher
levels of androgens would be anticipated in a sex offender. And that’s where the research I was talking about comes in.” He pointed to a stack of books. He was speaking so excitedly that Dart could barely understand him. “I got some of this on-line last night. Some of it from standard reference. I’ve posted a couple of e-mails; I should know more by tomorrow or Friday. Fascinating stuff,” he said.
“Let me get this straight: Payne’s levels were
lower
than normal. And given his abhorrent behavior with his wife, we would expect
higher
levels.”
“I would,” Bragg corrected. “Yes. And here’s the bigger problem: The blood workup did not reveal any medication—the synthetic or animal hormones we would expect to encounter with chemical castration.”
“Castration?”
“Let me give you some background.” He pointed to the stack of books and newspaper articles on the countertop. “First off, keep in mind that we’re talking about sex offenders, Ivy. Very important! We’re talking about men who take ten-year-old girls behind toolsheds and force them to have sex. Full penetration. Oral sex. Anal sex. You name it. It ain’t pretty. If it’s assault, then they break a few limbs in the process. Beat her up. Or if it’s a Harold Payne, then it’s the beating her up that counts. Bruises. Contusions. Lacerations. Fractures. These guys are beasts.”
“If you’re asking if we care about these guys dying, all I can say is—”
“I’m not! I tell ya, I’m not crying over losing Harold Payne—not if he took his own life. But we’re both questioning that, aren’t we? Of course we are, or you wouldn’t be here. Listen to me—several years back, late eighties, Finland instituted a program of voluntary castration for its sex offenders. They traded these men freedom for castration. The group was monitored and studied over a four-year period. The results were impressive: two to four percent recidivism versus eighty in the control group—a ninety-eight percent reduction in sexual assault; and even these figures are skewed. The two to four percent repeat offenders were picked up for offenses like voyeurism and flashing. In fact, none of the castrated offenders went on to commit a violent sexual act. Not
one.
“The castrations were
voluntary
, don’t forget,” Bragg continued. “I tell ya, it’s a relatively simple procedure: the testicles are removed and replaced by prosthesis. And don’t feel too sorry: A percentage of the group reported having intercourse about once a month. But the abhorrent behavior, caused by either ‘defective’ hormone production—if you will—or the body’s overproduction, was eliminated entirely. Simple English: Castration works.”
“But Payne’s equipment was intact,” Dart reminded.
“Scientists and researchers in this country bowed to the religious right and deemed castration barbaric. This, despite the obvious success. But it led to other attempts: The U.S. decided that a less barbaric solution would be to administer high doses of estrogen, in theory to counter-balance the ill effects of the over-production of testosterone. That’s known as chemical castration. It was tried on a voluntary basis in some of our prisons. It failed on two counts. One, because of the inherent social problems with this approach: breast development, loss of facial hair, a change of voice. Two, it just plain didn’t work. The funding was scrapped and the program dropped. We reverted to locking away sex offenders, but for far too brief a time.”
“Teddy—”
“Where am I going with this?” he asked rhetorically. “Let me tell ya.” He spun his chair around and produced one of several gray cardboard boxes, the size and shape of a shoe box. He removed the lid and pulled out a plastic bag, inside of which was a smaller plastic bag, inside of which were the glass vials recovered from 11 Hamilton Court. “Don’t jump all over me about the inadmissibility of this evidence, because I’ve heard all about it. And besides, that’s your problem. I don’t give a shit. My job is to make sense of evidence. And boy, can I make sense of this.”
“Talk to me.”
“Dead viruses,” he said, pointing to the vials. “Mean anything?”
“Vaccine?”
“Good boy,” Bragg said, clearly impressed. “Only in this case you’re wrong. Close, but no cigar.”
Mention of a cigar reminded Dart of Zeller, and he studied Bragg closely to see if maybe the man knew more than he was letting on. He decided that he wasn’t. “So?”
“There are three systems currently in wide use for the delivery of gene therapy.”
“Gene therapy,” Dart echoed.
“DNA. The building block of life.”
“I got that,” Dart said anxiously.
“My guess is that our Mr. Payne was in a gene therapy program.”
Dart finally saw what Bragg was getting at. He nearly shouted, “A program involving sex offenders, wife beaters?”
Bragg nodded. “It’s called anti-sense technology. What it amounts to is divining which gene produces ill effects and then attaching DNA material to that gene to resequence its behavior. It’s been effective with Huntington’s disease, high cholesterol. It’s a wide-open field. The government has been actively mapping human DNA since the eighties in something called the Human Genome Project. Everyone’s involved—even Bill Gates.”
“We found injection marks,” Dart stuttered. “We thought maybe giving blood or selling plasma.”
Bragg acted out giving himself a shot in the arm. “Shooting up dead viruses mixed with fresh genes. It’s the ultimate solution,” he said. “Nothing barbaric about it. Fix the gene, correct the hormonal imbalance, improve the behavior. Like cutting the nuts off without a knife. Break the chain. I’m not saying that’s what’s going on here. But it’s possible.”
“How possible?”
“
Quite
possible.” Bragg pointed to the vials. “If this shit is what I think it is, it’s the cutting edge.”
“And what do
you
think?” Abby asked.
“I think Zeller knows about these gene therapy tests. I think he doesn’t want anybody offering a ‘cure’ to sex offenders—another excuse to parole them. Nesbit was on parole at the time he killed Lucky and the three others.”
“It’s difficult, isn’t it?”
“How’s that?” Dart asked.
“No tears for guys like Gerald Lawrence. There’s a part of me—a big part—that wishes them dead. I work with their victims—but week in and week out—and what’s been done to them makes me sick. Oh yes,” she reassured him, “me too. Don’t think I get used to this. You
never
get used to it.”
This came as a relief to Dart, who had worried that she had become hardened—that something had been stolen from her as well. He explained, “That was a major part of my reasoning for not going forward with the Ice Man: Who cares? Making them dead is somehow more satisfying than locking them up. But what if there is treatment?”
“And what about so many sex offenders expressing pressing remorse and genuinely wanting to stop?” she asked. “I know. It’s not an easy issue.”
“I know what has to be done,” Dart said, dreading this thought.
“Well, I know what has to be done too,” she said seductively. She wore a pair of tight blue jeans and a loose-fitting gray sweater that Dart found provocative, because when she leaned over it fell open at the neck. Drinking a beer from the bottle, she was sitting in Dart’s one remaining captain’s chair, her left leg kicked up over the arm.
He was prepping a radicchio and shrimp risotto and trying to concentrate on the recipe. Mac was snoring at Abby’s feet.
“Before you start that,” she said, “take a break. Once you get going on a risotto, you can’t stop.” She motioned him into a chair. “Tell me about Kowalski.”
Dart opened a beer. “It’s possible that he’s telling the truth. He told us the same story three times in a row. And he remembered details well. The trouble with interviewing a cop—he knows what you’re looking for. He could be full of shit. It’s hard to say.”
“But you believe him,” she stated.
“I do. Haite doesn’t. And I can’t tell Haite because it involves Zeller, and I’m not ready to lay all that on him.”
“Personally, I’ve never believed anything Kowalski says. He’s a bullshitter from way back.” She asked, “What’s his status?”
“It’ll be reviewed. Meanwhile, he’s still active.”
“I don’t imagine he’s too keen on you.”
“He never has been.”
She took a pull on the beer and set down the bottle. There was something brewing in her.