He was troubled by the deaths, yes, but he was even more shocked to find that the Foundation had actually completed a series of in vitro fertilization cycles, which resulted in four pregnancies using surrogate mothers. Three had already given birth. The children were ultimately placed with parents who could not otherwise conceive.
This had been done, Tal, LaTour and the district attorney concluded, so that Farley and Sheldon could prove to potential clients that they were actually doing the cloning (though another reason, it appeared, was to make an additional $75,000 per placement from childless couples).
The main concern was for the health of the children and the county hired several legitimate genetics doctors and pediatricians to see if the three children who’d been born and the one fetus within the surrogate mother were healthy. They were examined and found to be fine and, despite the immortality scam, the surrogate births and the adoption placements were completely legal, the attorney general concluded.
One of the geneticists Tal and LaTour had consulted said, “So Bill Farley was behind this?” The man had shaken his head. “We’ve been hearing about his crazy ideas for years. A wacko.”
“There any chance,” Tal wondered, “that someday somebody’ll actually be able to do what he was talking about?”
“Cloning consciousness?” The doctor laughed. “You said you’re a statistician, right?”
“That’s right.”
“You know what the odds are of being able to perfectly duplicate the structure of any given human brain?”
“Small as a germ’s ass?” LaTour suggested.
The doctor considered this and said, “That sums it up pretty well.”
The day was too nice to be inside so Mac McCaffrey and Robert Covey were in the park. Tal spotted them on a bench overlooking a duck pond. He waved and veered toward them.
She appeared to be totally immersed in the sunlight, the soft breeze; Tal remembered how much this member of the Four Percent Club loved the out-of-doors.
Covey, Mac had confided to Tal, was doing pretty well. His blood pressure was down and he was in good spirits as he approached his surgery. She was breaching confidentiality rules by telling Tal this but she justified it on the grounds that Tal was a police officer investigating a case involving her patient. Another reason was simply that Tal liked the old guy and was concerned about him.
Mac also told him that Covey had finally called his son and left a message about his condition and the impending surgery. There’d been no reply, though Covey’d gotten a hang-up on his voice mail, the caller ID on the phone indicating “Out of Area.” Mac took the optimistic position that it had indeed been his son on the other end of the line and the man hadn’t left a message because he preferred to talk to his father in person. Time would tell.
In his office an hour ago Tal had been distracted as he listened to Mac’s breathy, enthusiastic report about her patient. He’d listened attentively but was mostly waiting for an appropriate lull in the conversation to leap in with a dinner invitation. None had presented itself, though, before she’d had to hang up to get to a meeting. He’d hurriedly made plans to meet here.
Tal now joined them and she looked up with that great crooked smile he was deciding he really liked and was more than just a little sexy.
“Hey,” he said.
“Officer,” Robert Covey said. They warmly shook hands. Tal hesitated for a moment in greeting Mac but then thought, hell with it, bent down and kissed her, though on the noncommittal cheek. This seemed unprofessional on several levels — his as well as hers — but she didn’t seem to care; he knew he certainly didn’t have a problem with the lapse.
Tal proceeded to explain to Covey that since he was the only victim who’d survived the Lotus Foundation scam the police needed a signed and notarized copy of his statement.
“In case I croak when I’m under the knife you’ll still have the evidence to put the pricks away.”
That was it exactly. Tal shrugged. “Well…”
“Don’tcha worry,” the old man said. “I’m happy to.”
Tal handed him the statement. “Look it over, make any changes you want. I’ll print out a final version and we’ll get it notarized.”
“Will do.” Covey skimmed it and then looked up. “How ’bout something to drink? There’s a bar—”
“Coffee, tea or soda,” Mac said ominously. “It’s not even noon yet.”
“She claims she negotiates,” Covey muttered to Tal. “But she don’t.”
The old man pointed toward the park’s concession stand at the top of a hill some distance away. “Coffee’s not bad there — for an outfit that’s not named for a whaler.”
“I’ll get it.”
“I’ll have a large with cream.”
“He’ll have a medium, skim milk,” Mac said. “Tea for me, please. Sugar.” She fired a crooked smile his way.
About a hundred yards from the bench where the old man sat chatting away with his friend, a young woman walked along the park path. The redhead was short, busty, attractive, wearing a beautiful tennis bracelet and a diamond/emerald ring, off which the sunlight glinted fiercely.
She kept her eyes down as she walked, so nobody could see her abundant tears.
Margaret Ludlum had been crying on and off for several days. Ever since her boss and lover, Dr. Anthony Sheldon, had been arrested.
Margaret had greeted the news of his arrest — and Farley’s, too — with horror, knowing that she’d probably be the next to be picked up. After all, she’d been the one that Sheldon and Farley had sent as a representative of the Lotus Foundation to the couples who were planning to kill themselves. It was she who’d slipped them plenty of Luminux during their last few weeks on earth, then suggested they buy the blueprint for their deaths — the suicide books — and coerced them into killing themselves and afterward cleaned up any evidence linking them to the Foundation or its two principals.
But the police had taken her statement — denying everything, of course — and let her go. It was clear they suspected Sheldon and Farley had an accomplice but seemed to think that it was one of Farley’s research assistants. Maybe they thought that only a man was capable of killing defenseless people.
Wrong. Margaret had been completely comfortable with assisted suicide. And more: She’d been only a minute away from murdering Robert Covey the other day as he walked down the street after leaving the Lotus Foundation. But just as she started toward him a van stopped nearby and two police officers jumped out, pulling him to safety. Other officers had raided the Foundation. She’d veered down a side street and called Sheldon to warn him. But it was too late. They got him outside his office at the hospital as he’d tried to flee.
Oh, yes, she’d been perfectly willing to kill Covey then.
And was perfectly willing to kill him now.
She watched that detective who’d initially come to interview Tony Sheldon walk away from the bench up the path toward the refreshment stand. It didn’t matter that he was leaving; he wasn’t her target.
Only Covey. With the old man gone it would be much harder to get a conviction, Sheldon explained. He might get off altogether or serve only a few years — that’s what they doled out in most cases of assisted suicides. The cardiologist promised he’d finally get divorced and he and Margaret would move to Europe…They’d taken some great trips to the South of France and the weeks there had been wonderful. Oh, how she missed him.
Missed the money, too, of course. That was the other reason she had to get Tony out of jail, of course. He’d been meaning to set up an account for her but hadn’t gotten around to it. She’d let that slide for too long and the paperwork never materialized.