Cause to Fear

“It’s above my head, too,” she whispered to Ramirez, quickly flashing another smile at him. “But I sure don’t mind swimming for the surface.”

***

Some days, Avery was rather amazed at just how fluid and smooth things seemed to go. Bryson had given them the phone number, email address, and physical address for James Nguyen. Avery had placed a call to Nguyen and not only had he answered, but he had invited them to his home. He had seemed rather pleased to do so, in fact.

So when she and Ramirez walked to his front door forty minutes later, Avery couldn’t help but get the feeling that they might be wasting their time. Nguyen lived in a gorgeous two-story house in Beacon Hill. Apparently, his career in science had paid dividends. Sometimes, Avery found herself in awe of people with mathematical and scientific minds. She loved to read texts by them or just listen to them speak (one of the reasons she had once been so drawn to things like the Discovery Channel and the Scientific American magazines she sometimes glanced through in the college library).

On the porch, Ramirez knocked on the door. It took no time for Nguyen to answer it. He appeared to be in his late fifties or so. He was dressed in a Celtics T-shirt and a pair of gym shorts. He looked casual, calm, and almost happy.

As they’d already introduced themselves on the phone, Nguyen invited them in. They entered an elaborate foyer that led into a large living area. It appeared that Nguyen had prepared for them; he had set out bagels and cups of coffee on what looked like a very expensive coffee table.

“Please, have a seat,” Nguyen said.

Avery and Ramirez took a seat on the couch facing the coffee table while Nguyen sat down opposite them in an armchair.

“Help yourself,” Nguyen said, gesturing to the coffee and bagels. “Now, what can I do for you?”

“Well, as I said on the phone,” Avery said, “we spoke with Hal Bryson and he told us that you had to step down from your work with Esben Technologies. Could you tell us a bit about that?”

“Yes. Unfortunately, I was putting too much of my time and energy into my work. I started to get double vision and cluster headaches. I was working up to eighty-six hours a week for a stretch of about seven or eight months at one time. I just became obsessed with my work.”

“With what aspect of the work, exactly?” Avery asked.

“Looking back, I honestly couldn’t tell you,” he said. “It was just knowing that we were so close to creating temperatures in the lab that could mimic what someone might feel in space. To find ways to manipulate elements with temperatures…there’s something sort of godlike about it. It can get addicting. I simply didn’t realize this until it was too late.”

His obsession with his work certainly fits the description of whoever we’re working for, Avery thought. Still, from just having spoken to Nguyen for a grand total of two minutes, she was pretty sure Bryson had been right. There was no way Nguyen was behind it.

“What exactly were you working on when you stepped down?” Avery asked.

“It’s quite complicated,” he said. “And since then, I’ve moved on from it. But essentially, I was working to get rid of the excess heat that is caused when atoms lose their momentum during the cooling process. I was tinkering with quantum units of vibration and photons. Now, as I understand it, it’s been perfected by our folks in Boulder. But at the time, I was working myself crazy!”

“Outside of the work you’re doing for the journal and things with the college, are you still doing any of the work?” she asked.

“I dabble here and there,” he said. “But it’s just things here at home. I have my own little private lab in a rental space a few blocks away. But it’s nothing serious. Would you like to see it?”

Avery could tell that they weren’t being baited or given false enthusiasm. Nguyen was clearly very passionate about the work he used to do. And the more he talked about what he had once done, the deeper they dug themselves into a world of quantum mechanics – something that was a world away from a crazed killer dumping a body in a freezing river.

Avery and Ramirez shared a look, which Avery ended with a nod. “Well, Mr. Nguyen,” she said, “we truly appreciate your time. Let me leave you with one question, though: during the time you spent working in the lab, did you ever come cross anyone – coworkers, students, anyone – that struck you as eccentric or a little off?”

Nguyen took a few moments to think this over but then shook his head. “None that I can think of. Then again, us scientists are all a bit eccentric when you get right down to it. But if anyone pops into my head, I’ll let you know.”

“Thank you.”

“And if you change your mind and think you’d like to see my lab, just let me know.”

Passionate about his work and lonely, Avery thought. Damn…that was me up until a few months ago.

She could relate. And because of that, she gladly accepted Nguyen’s business card when he offered it to her at the door. He closed the door as Avery and Ramirez made their way down the porch stairs and back to their car.

“Did you understand a single word that guy said?” Ramirez asked.

“Very little,” she said.

But the truth was that he had said one thing that still clung to her mind. It did not make her think Nguyen was worth further investigation, but it did give her a new insight into how to think about their killer.

To find ways to manipulate elements with temperatures, Nguyen had said. There’s something sort of godlike about it.

Maybe our killer is acting out some godlike fantasy, she thought. And if he thinks he’s godlike, he could be more dangerous than we think.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The hamster looked like a furry block of ice when he took it out of the freezer. It felt like a block of ice, too. He couldn’t help but giggle at the clink sound it made when he placed it on the cookie sheet. Its legs were sticking up in the air – a stark contrast to the way they had been pedaling back and forth in panic when he had first placed it in the freezer.

That had been three days ago. Since then, the police had discovered the girl’s body in the river. He had been surprised at how far the body had made it. All the way to Watertown. And the girl’s name had been Patty Dearborne. Sounded pretentious. But damn, that girl had been beautiful.

He thought idly of Patty Dearborne, the girl he had taken from the outskirts of the BU campus as he ran his finger along the hamster’s frigid belly. He’d been so nervous, but it had been quite easy. Of course, he hadn’t meant to kill the girl. Things had just gotten out of hand. But then…then it had all sort of unlocked for him.

Beauty could be taken, but not in any mortal sort of way. Even when Patty Dearborne had been dead, she’d still been beautiful. Once he had gotten Patty naked, he’d found the girl to be damn near flawless. There had been one mole on her lower back and a small scar along the upper part of her ankle. But other than that, she had been spotless.

He had dumped Patty in the river and when she’d hit the frigid water, she had been dead. He’d watched the news with great anticipation, wondering if they would be able to bring her back…wondering if the ice that had held her for those two days would preserve her in some way.

Of course, it had not.

I was sloppy, he thought, looking to the hamster. It’ll take some time, but I’ll get it figured out.

He was hoping the hamster might be part of it. With his eyes still on its little frozen body, he retrieved the two heating pads from the kitchen counter. They were the sort of warming pads used in athletics to loosen muscles and promote relaxation for strained parts of the body. He placed one of the pads beneath the body and the other over its stiff little legs and frigid underside.

He was sure it would take some waiting. He had plenty of time…he was in no real hurry. He was trying to cheat death and he knew death was not going anywhere.

With this thought in his head, he filled his apartment with a witch-like cackle. Giving the hamster one final look, he walked into his bedroom. It was quite tidy, as was the adjoining bathroom. He went into the bathroom and washed his hands with the efficiency of a surgeon. He then looked into the mirror and stared at his face – a face he sometimes thought of as a monster.

There was irreparable damage on the left side of his face. It started just below his eye and reached down to his bottom lip. While most of the skin and tissue had been salvaged in his youth, there was permanent scarring and discoloring on that side of his face. His mouth always seemed to be frozen in a permanent scowl as well.

At thirty-nine years of age, he had stopped caring about just how bad it looked. It was the hand he had been dealt. A shitty mother had resulted in a disfigured mess. But that was okay…he was working on fixing it. He looked to the mangled reflection in the mirror and smiled. It could take years to figure it out, but that was okay.

“Hamsters are only five bucks apiece,” he said to the empty bathroom. “And those pretty college coeds are a dime a dozen.”

He had done some reading, mainly in the forums of practicing nurses and med students. He figured if the experiment with the hamster was going to work, the heating pads needed to be on it for about forty minutes. It would be a slow thaw, one that would not too badly disrupt or shock the frozen heart.

He spent that forty minutes watching the news. He caught a few quick blips about Patty Dearborne. He learned that Patty was attending BU with aspirations of becoming a counselor. She’d had a boyfriend and currently had loving parents mourning her. He saw the parents on TV, hugging and crying together while speaking to the media.

He cut the TV off and walked into the kitchen. The smell of the thawing hamster was starting to fill the room…a smell he had not been expecting. He ran to the little body and threw the heating pads off of it.

The fur was singed and the previously frozen belly was slightly charred. He swiped the tiny furry body away. When it plopped onto the kitchen floor with little trails of smoke wafting from its hide, he screamed.

He stormed around the apartment for a while, furious. As was usually the case, his anger and absolute rage were driven by memories of an oven burner…blazing in his memories of childhood with the smell of burned flesh.

His screams downgraded to pouting and sobbing within five minutes. Then, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, he went into the kitchen and picked up the hamster. He tossed it into the garbage as if it were just a piece of trash and washed his hands at the kitchen sink.