Mortal Fear. Greg Iles

kids.” Her voice cracks slightly at that. “Harper, this is not acceptable.”

      “I know, babe. Goddamn it. I’ll try to see if I can do something about it.”

      “You’ve got to do something about it. My world isn’t isolated like yours. The good opinion of these people is a prerequisite for keeping my privileges.”

      “I get the message, Drewe. Let me make some phone calls.”

      “Please do that. I’m being paged.”

      And she is gone.

      Let me make some phone calls. I said it with such confidence. Who the hell was I kidding? Am I going to call a New Orleans homicide detective and say, “Listen, shrimphead, leave my wife alone or take the fucking consequences!”

      No.

      Am I going to call Bob Anderson and say, “Dr. Anderson, it turns out I actually can’t take care of your little girl so could you please call the governor and ask him to get the FBI off our backs?”

      Hell no.

      Am I going to call the FBI and say, “Could you please stop questioning my wife about this murder case? She doesn’t like it.”

      Maybe.

      I take Baxter’s card from my wallet, punch in the number of Quantico, and ask for Agent Baxter.

      “Special Agent Baxter is in the field at this time,” says a robotic female voice. “Would you like to leave voice mail?”

      I decide to wake her up. “My name is Harper Cole,” I say too loudly. “I met with Baxter and Dr. Lenz about the Karin Wheat murder, and they told me to call immediately if I remembered anything vital to the case. Well, I have.”

      “Where are you, Mr. Cole?” says a slightly less controlled voice.

      “Home. And I don’t have much time.”

      The voice finally becomes human. “Could you give me your number, please? Mr. Cole?”

      “Baxter has it,” I snap, and hang up the phone. That ought to light a fire under somebody.

      I sit down at the EROS computer, log in as SYSOP, and begin scanning the Level Two messages as they are posted. EROS traffic is basically unmoderated, which means we sysops do not screen or censor the communications of clients. This freedom is what allows Miles and me to run the busy service without much help. Certain types of communication are prohibited on EROS, and they are filtered by a simple but efficient program designed by Miles: he calls it “Ward Cleaver.” As messages are posted to the various areas of our servers, “Ward” automatically searches out all binary graphic files and references to children and deposits them in a special file called the Dumpster. (Actually, “Ward” lost his graphic filter three weeks ago.) At his leisure, Miles then attempts—usually with success—to track down the originators of these forbidden files. He doesn’t turn them over to the cops or anything. He just likes letting them know he can find them.

      Theoretically, I’m supposed to be monitoring the various areas of EROS on a round-robin basis, doing what I can to assist new clients and helping to foster a sense of online community. But in the past few weeks I have become rather casual about that duty. More than a few of this morning’s messages are about Karin Wheat’s death. The themes are consistent: shock, denial, anger. Of course, none of the authors of these messages has any idea that Karin was an EROS client. They knew her only through her novels, which would interest most EROS clients, as they dealt with the darker side of the human psyche.

      When my phone rings, I pick it up prepared to give Daniel Baxter a piece of my mind, but instead I find myself listening to the flat vowels of Dr. Arthur Lenz.

      “You’ve remembered something of value, Mr. Cole?” he says.

      “Where’s Baxter?”

      “He’s not available just now.”

      “Where are you, Doctor?”

      “Is that relevant?”

      “Did you go to Minnesota to see Strobekker’s body exhumed?”

      “Do you doubt that I did?”

      “I think you went straight to New York to try to crack Jan Krislov. Didn’t you?”

      “As a matter of fact, I personally observed the postmortem on David Strobekker.”

      “Was he missing his pineal gland?”

      “Oddly enough, no. Now, what was the purpose of your call?”

      “Am I a prime suspect in these murders, Doctor?”

      Lenz pauses. “You’re a suspect, yes.”

      “Why?”

      “You have access to EROS’s master client list. That makes you a member of a very exclusive group.”

      “Have you got access to the list yet?”

      “No.”

      “Maybe I can help you.”

      “How?”

      “Maybe I have a copy of the list.”

      “Do you or don’t you?”

      It’s my turn to play coy.

      “What do you want?” Lenz asks.

      “I want the FBI to stop hassling my wife.”

      “Ah. Daniel’s agents can be clumsy on occasion. They are causing you problems?”

      “They’re bothering my wife at work.”

      “I see.”

      “And anybody who bothers my wife de facto pisses me off.”

      “Yes.”

      “What can you do about that?”

      Lenz says nothing for a while.

      “You realize I could go public with all this at any time,” I tell him.

      “That would only aggravate the very situation you seek to alleviate. The disruption of your wife’s life would increase exponentially.”

      He’s right, of course.

      “But perhaps I can be of assistance,” he says. “It’s true that the various police departments involved in the case—particularly the Michigan department—are ready to have both you and Mr. Turner arrested. I, however, do not share their enthusiasm.”

      “Get to it, Doctor.”

      “I think perhaps we can help each other, Mr. Cole. If you will agree to help me in a limited capacity, I think I could have both Bureau and police pressure removed from your life.”

      “What kind of capacity?”

      “I want the master client list, of course. Can you get it?”

      “Maybe.”

      “I’ll take that as a no.”

      Damn this guy. “Why take that as a no?”

      “If you had a copy of your own, you would have destroyed it by now. And you no longer have access to the accounting database, which you would need to get a new copy.”

       How does he know that?

      “However, you still have something I want.”

      “What’s that?”

      “Your thoughts.”

      “What?”

      And then he tells me. How long he has been planning this, I don’t know. Maybe this was the whole point of putting pressure on Drewe. Of not throwing me to the Michigan police. Because Lenz wants exactly what they want. To fly me up to Washington so he can question me with no one else around. He says something