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The doctor's eyes focused, he looked down at his wrist, and broke out laughing. "Okay," he said. "I'm convinced you're not federal agents. That's what I was worried about."
"Why would you worry about that?" I asked.
"The man you pointed to isn't named Greaves. His real name is Fenton Agarias, and one thing I know about him is he has mysterious co
"Is there anything else you can tell us about him?" said Schell.
"He's mad," said Stintson.
BLOOD
You mean like frothing at the mouth?" asked Schell. "When I met him, he didn't seem any worse than a crank." "No, no," said Stintson. "I'm talking about the work he was doing at the ERO. Agarias was sold-lock, stock, and barrel-on the whole concept of thi
"So you and some of the others questioned him?" asked Schell.
"We went above his head, to our boss, Davenport, and told him we wanted Agarias out. They either wouldn't or couldn't relieve him of his position, but soon after he got a grant, private money, and a lot of it, to build a facility elsewhere, all on his own, and continue his research."
"When was this?" I asked.
Stintson thought for a moment. "About…1918 perhaps, maybe even earlier. I've seen him since then, but he doesn't speak to me. He's been at the ERO on occasion, for instance the gathering in that photo. He still has an office there, and I heard that he also opened a private medical practice, catering to wealthy families here on the North Shore, although I doubt he needs the money. I don't know anything more about his present circumstances."
"Can you tell us anything more about the research he was doing?" asked Schell.
"His specialty was hematology. That I remember. He had an insane notion that racial difference was found in the blood, which has no scientific basis. It's like something out of the Old Testament. Unfortunately, the people supporting him also cull their science from the Bible.
"One other thing, and this will explain to you why I was so cautious. One of my ERO colleagues insisted on investigating Agarias on his own. He wound up dead. Shot through the back of the head while kneeling on his living room floor. Coincidence? Maybe. Then again, maybe not."
"An execution," said Schell.
"The police report called it a robbery, but according to his daughter, nothing was missing from the house. After that, no one asked about Agarias any further."
"How do I find out more about Agarias without getting shot in the back of the head?" asked Schell.
"I wouldn't confront him," said Stintson. "But you might take a look through his office. He still has one at the ERO."
"Locked up, I imagine," said Schell.
"Are you a con man, or are you a con man?" said Stintson.
We eventually said our good-byes to Stintson after getting a hand-drawn map from him depicting the layout of the ERO, in particular the location of Agarias's office and the security guard's station. His parting remark was a plea not to ever mention that he spoke to us. On the drive home, Schell admitted to me that things had finally broken open in his mind and were begi
"In a few hours we've gone from abandoning this goose chase to being on the verge of solving the whole thing," I said.
Schell smiled, ruefully it seemed. "Remember you were saying I never made mistakes? Well I was completely wrong about Greaves/Agarias. He seems to be the guy, though, or at least a part of it, I'm sure of that," he said.
"I see the co
"Think about when it happened," said Schell. "Directly following Charlotte Barnes's funeral. I'm betting Agarias, in his guise of Doctor Greaves, showed up at the funeral or the wake or both. Parks probably recognized him, tried to remember where he'd seen him before, and eventually put it together. That's why he had the photograph on his desk. As a friend of Barnes, perhaps he wanted to figure out what kind of scam Agarias was pulling, using an assumed name. Parks might have remembered that some of the other researchers had wanted to drum Agarias out of the ERO."
"So they killed him and two of his employees?" I asked.
"Agarias is covering his trail. Like Stintson said, the guy's a lunatic. And if what I'm thinking about the rest of it is even close to true, we're going to see that he's crazier than we could ever imagine."
When we reached the house, before getting out of the car, Schell put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Listen, I'll fill Antony in, but don't say anything to Morgan or Isabel about what we learned."
I nodded.
For the rest of the day, Schell was very quiet. He told me he was pla
"Come with me," she said.
I'd had a feeling that things would come to this, but I wanted to put off thinking about it as long as possible. If she went away and I didn't go with her, I knew I would never see her again. But if I left Antony and Schell and the promise of college behind, I would be writing off that part of my life. All I said to her was, "When you're ready to go, tell me." She smiled and said nothing more about it, and I wasn't sure if she thought I was promising I'd follow or if she knew I couldn't decide, but I didn't have the courage to contemplate the choice any further.
Back at the house, we found Antony sitting at the kitchen table, cleaning the Mauser. He was bent over the gun, whistling, amid all ma
"I haven't cleaned this damn thing in years," he said, "and it's not in bad shape-a little copper fouling, that's about it."
"Are you getting an itchy trigger finger?" I asked.
"Not me," he said. "This is by order of the boss."
"Is he expecting gunplay?"
"Beats me," said Antony. "I just clean the gun, drive the car, get strangled by the bad guys, and make the di
Schell and Morgan only appeared at di