The Third Twin Page 0,148

L. Farber. She went to the end of the corridor where a pair of swing doors gave onto the staircase. She pulled the doors a little inward and used the book to wedge them there, then she balanced the vase on the top edge of the doors, straddling the gap. There was no way anyone could come in without causing the vase to fall and smash.

Watching her, Lisa said: "What'll I say if they ask me why I did that?"

"You didn't want anyone to sneak up on you," Jeannie replied.

Lisa nodded, satisfied. "God knows I have reason enough to be paranoid."

"Let's get going," Jeannie said.

They went back into the lab, leaving the door open to be sure they would hear the glass breaking. Jeannie put her precious floppy disk into Lisa's computer and printed the Pentagon results. There were the names of the eight babies whose electrocardiograms were as similar as if they had all come from one person. Eight tiny hearts beating exactly the same way. Somehow Berrington had arranged for the army hospitals to give these babies this test. No doubt copies had been sent to the Aventine Clinic, where they had remained until they were shredded on Thursday. But Berrington had forgotten, or perhaps never realized, that the army would keep the original graphs.

"Let's start with Henry King," she suggested. "Full name Henry Irwin King."

On her desk Lisa had two CD-ROM drives, one on top of the other. She took two CDs from her desk drawer and put one in each drive. "We have every residential phone in the United States on those two disks," she said. "And we have software that enables us to search both disks at the same time."

A Windows screen appeared on the monitor. "People don't always put their full name in the phone book, unfortunately," she said. "Let's just see how many H. Kings there are in the United States." She typed

H * King

and clicked on Count. After a moment a Count window appeared with the number 1,129.

Jeannie was discouraged. "It will take all night to call that many numbers!"

"Wait, we may be able to do better." Lisa typed

Henry I. King OR Henry Irwin King

and clicked on the Retrieve icon, a picture of a dog. After a moment a list appeared on the screen. "We have three Henry Irwin Kings and seventeen Henry I. Kings. What's his last known address?"

Jeannie consulted her printout. "Fort Devens, Massachusetts."

"Okay, we have one Henry Irwin King in Amherst and four Henry I. Kings in Boston."

"Let's call them."

"You do realize it's one o'clock in the morning."

"I can't wait until tomorrow."

"People won't talk to you at this time of night."

"Sure they will," Jeannie said. It was bravado. She knew she would have trouble. She just was not prepared to wait until morning. This was too important. "I'll say I'm from the police, tracking down a serial killer."

"That has to be against the law."

"Give me the Amherst number."

Lisa highlighted the listing and pressed F2. There was a rapid series of beeps from the computer's modem. Jeannie picked up the phone.

She heard seven rings, then a sleepy voice answered: "Yes?"

"This is Detective Susan Farber of the Amherst Police Department," she said. She half expected him to say, "The hell it is," but he made no response, and she went on briskly: "We're sorry to call you in the middle of the night, but it's an urgent police matter. Am I speaking to Henry Irwin King?"

"Yes - what's happened?"

It sounded like the voice of a middle-aged man, but Jeannie persisted just to be sure. "This is just a routine inquiry."

That was a mistake. "Routine?" he said tetchily. "At this time of night?"

Improvising hastily, she said: "We're investigating a serious crime and we need to eliminate you as a suspect, sir. Could you tell me your date and place of birth?"

"I was born in Greenfield, Massachusetts, on the fourth of May, 1945. Okay?"

"You don't have a son of the same name, do you?"

"No, I have three daughters. Can I go back to sleep now?"

"We don't need to trouble you any further. Thank you for cooperating with the police, and have a good night's rest." She hung up and looked triumphantly at Lisa. "See? He talked to me. He didn't like it, but he talked."

Lisa laughed. "Dr. Ferrami, you have a talent to deceive."

Jeannie grinned. "All it takes is chutzpah. Let's do the Henry I. Kings. I'll call the first two, you take the last two."

Only one of them could use the automatic