what’s this Corliss kid done that’s so horrible? Hell, I bet Carmody himself doesn’t know. But I ask you, does it make any sense that you and I, who were trained to believe in apple pie, motherhood, and the U.S. of A. are now being asked to grab a little American kid and take him out and drown hün? I understand commies, and I understand traitors, and I hate them. But I don’t hate kids. I don’t understand them, but I don’t hate them. In fact, I love them. And I’ll tell you, Vic—it rubs me the wrong way to be told to go out and kill a little kid.”
“So what does all that mean?” Kaplan asked.
There was a long silence. Ernie Morantz shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know, Vic. I just don’t know. I guess it means I’ll wait and see what Carmody wants. But I can tell you, if he wants us to go into that house like a SWAT team after the S.L.A., he’s got the wrong man. I’m not sure I could do it.”
“But you’re not sure you couldn’t either.”
Morantz drained his coffee, then slid out of the booth. As he tossed some change on the table, he shook his head sadly. “No, I guess I’m not. Come on, let’s go call Carmody and get the bad news.”
The news, when they got it three minutes later, was as bad as either of them had expected.
Chapter 28
ARTHUR WISEMAN, his complexion drained of all color and his hands trembling, silently squared the stack of documents and placed them neatly in the center of Lucy Corliss’s coffee table. Finally his eyes began wandering over the room, pausing for a moment on each of the faces that were watching him, pausing almost as if he were seeking refuge, then, seeing none, moving on. At last his eyes came to rest on Sally Montgomery.
“There is no question about these statistics? No possibility of a mistake?”
“I suppose not,” Wiseman said almost to himself. “I can remember too much of it all—”
“Then you did know,” Sally flared.
Wiseman stared at her with eyes that had suddenly aged. “No,” he said softly. “I should have, but I didn’t You have to understand—all this happened over so many years. What I remember are incidents. The babies—the ones that died. We don’t forget them, you know. We learn to deal with the things that happen to children, we even learn to accept their deaths. But we don’t forget.” His eyes moved away from Sally, moved to the coffee table where, on the top of the stack, the list of children in Group Twenty-one lay. Once again he scanned the names. “They’re my children. All of them.”
Sally bit her lip. “Julie wasn’t your child. She was my child. Mine and Steve’s.”
“I didn’t mean it that way—”
“What are they doing?” Sally demanded. “What is CHILD doing?”
“Sally, I’ve known you all your life, and you’ve known me. Can you really believe that I would know about some sort of conspiracy and remain silent?”
But Sally was implacable. “Then why does it all come back to you?”
Wiseman shook his head helplessly. “I don’t know. I haven’t the slightest idea.” He picked up the medical records and began going through them. Suddenly, he looked up. “What about the chromosome analyses?”
Malone frowned. “What about them?”
Wiseman handed him the medical records of the children in Group Twenty-one, his expression uncertain. “I order a chromosome analysis on a child only if there’s reason to suspect a problem. And even then, I have to rely on the specialists to identify a defect in a particular chromosome and analyze it.”
“So?”
“So, the records of all those children in Group Twenty-one indicate that a complete chromosome analysis was done, but there were no indications of any abnormalities.”
Malone’s eyes fixed on the older man. “Then who ordered the analyses? And why?”
“I’m sure I don’t know—”
“Don’t you?” Malone challenged, his voice icy. He turned to the others. “It’s the obstetrician who orders tests like these. They’re usually done prenatally, when there’s a suspected problem with the fetus. But with all these children, there were no apparent problems, none whatsoever. Until they were born, and began dying.” He turned back to Wiseman. “So my question, Arthur, is, who ordered these tests, and what were they looking for?” Without waiting for the old doctor to answer, Malone plunged on. “I think the first part of the answer is clear: You were the obstetrician for all of these