Jeremy glared at him. " 'Better yet'?"
Aaron shrank half an inch deeper into his chair. "I meant for him."
Julia wondered about that. Aaron had seemed to be warming to the subject of Jeremy taking a fall for a sex offense.
Julia said, "What does he say he found in your DNA?"
Again that cagey look. "Just a bunch of personal junk that don't mean nothin."
Julia kept her tone as level and soothing as possible. "Then why are you so upset?"
"Because I want to know where he's getting this information. And where's he getting my DN-fuckin-A?"
Aaron said, "Many commercial labs do DNA analysis. And as for obtaining a sample, all this detective would need was some of your hair or blood or saliva."
Jeremy shook his head. "I ain't had a haircut or cut myself recently and I never developed the spittin habit." His mouth twisted. "When you're inside and you spit, you're spittin where you live."
Julia had noted a thickening of his redneck accent during the course of the conversation. Over the years she'd noted that it usually occurred when he was upset. She*d come to see it as an unconscious affectation to put people off guard, make them underestimate him.
She said, "He could get saliva from an envelope or a fork or a spoon."
Jeremy looked at the floor and shook his head. "Shit. That means someone's been followin me and I ain't had a clue." When he looked up again his expression was fierce. "Where can I find this sonuvabitch?"
Julia glanced at Aaron and found him looking at her.
"We don't know," she said.
Fury blazed in Jeremy's eyes as he took a step toward her.
"Bullshit!"
It was all Julia could do not to flinch. But she held his burning gaze as she blurted a reply.
"It's true. He calls himself John Robertson, says he's a licensed private eye, but the man who holds the license is dead."
"You ain't gonna tell me he's a ghost, are you?"
"No, just someone who's very good at hiding his tracks." She thought about that. "I guess in a way he is a ghost."
Jeremy's expression became frustrated. "Well, what about this agency you're always threatening me with? Can't you sic them on this guy?"
"There's nothing I'd like better, but we've got nothing to go on. He wears gloves, so we have no fingerprints. The plates on his car are not registered to anyone. The only thing I might be able to give them is his physical description, but that's no help. He looks like a million other men his age."
"And what age is that?"
"Yours, I'd say. Average height, brown hair, brown eyes. No distinguishing features. Very average looking, wouldn't you agree, Aaron?" She looked to him for support and found him staring at her with a shocked expression. "What?"
He shook his head. "Nothing."
What was eating him?
"What about his face?" Jeremy said. "Big nose, little nose? Fat lips, thin lips? Scar? Anything?"
Julia shook her head. "Nothing. An eminently forgettable face."
"Fuck! And you have no idea where I can find him?"
Julia looked at him. Jeremy had unsettled her. Time for a little payback.
"Somewhere in your general vicinity, I imagine. Not now, not here, but sometime during the course of the rest of the day I would suspect he'll be watching you."
The flash of uncertainty in Jeremy's eyes was gratifying, but didn't last nearly long enough.
"Well, now that I know he's watchin, I'll catch him at it. And when I do…"
Julia pointed at him. "Don't do anything foolish. If you think you've spotted him, keep your distance. Call me instead. Anytime day or night—call me and I'll have him taken care of."
"I can handle this myself."
"I'm sure you can, but you mustn't. You were able to get off easy with that barroom fight. But if you assault this man, you'll be locked up again and we'll have to cancel the clinical trial. And then where will you be? Be sensible, Jeremy. If you spot him, you make the call, and that's all. Understand?"
He nodded. "Oh, yeah. I understand."
Julia wondered if he did. Only time would tell.
Without another word he walked out, leaving the door open behind him.
Julia turned to Aaron and found him staring at her again with that shocked look. One of her mother's favorite expressions came back to her.
"Close your mouth, Aaron. You're catching flies."
"I don't believe you did that."
"Did what?"
"Gave him Robertson's description. You might as well have served him up as a sacrificial lamb."
Julia shook her head. What an old woman.
"Think of it as a provocative stimulus. How can we know whether or not the suppresser therapy is working if we don't challenge it?"
"You did the same with Gerhard, and now you're condemning Robertson to the same fate."
"Not necessarily. If the higher dose of suppresser therapy is working, Jeremy will call in and we'll handle Robertson."
"And if it's not working, Robertson could wind up dead."
Julia had had just about enough of this.
"And if he does, so what?" She remembered his crack about her underwear. The bastard. "He's been playing us for fools, Aaron. He's not supposed to be anywhere near Jeremy, so if he's caught snooping around, it's on his head, not ours. Besides, I see it as a win-win situation."
"Not for Robertson."
"No, for us. If Jeremy removes Robertson, not only will we have him off our backs, but we'll also have an indication that we need to up the dose of two-eighty-seven."
"But what if he's clumsy about it and gets caught?"
"We'll clean things up before he gets caught—just like last time."
"Last time we were lucky."
"We must provoke him, Aaron. And think about it: If he calls in instead of attacking, not only will we know the suppresser is working, we'll have an idea of the proper milligram-per-kilogram dose. I don't see a downside."
"Unless you're Robertson."
"Why do you care about that lying swindler?"
"He's a fellow human being. Isn't what we're doing here supposed to make the world a safer place for our fellow human beings?"
Julia sighed. "Yes, I suppose it is."
But not that particular human being.
3
Jeremy's brain blazed as he spun the Miata's tires on the way out of the Creighton front gate and headed back to the city. He checked his rearview mirror to see if anyone pulled into the lane behind him, and scanned the road ahead for cars parked on the shoulders.
Someone had been following him around, picking up little souvenirs here and there and using them to test his DNA.
Shit!
Worst part was he hadn't had a clue.
He checked around again. He had the road to himself. But what did that mean? This Robertson guy could be waiting down near the Thruway, knowing he'd have to come that way to get back to Queens. The guy could pull in a few cars behind him as he got on and Jeremy would never know.
That hunted feeling…
Reminded him of his last free days in Atlanta. He'd thought he was in the clear, thought he'd covered his tracks. Everyone was looking for a religious nut, a wild-eyed right-to-lifer, and Jeremy was anything but. But…
Yeah. Always the but.
But someone had seen someone near the second shooting and gave a description that shared certain features with someone else seen in a photo taken on the street shortly before the first shooting, and a sketch was circulated in a door-to-door canvas and finally a newsstand guy thought it looked like someone who came by regularly to buy cigarettes.