Death Match

FIFTY-THREE

Lash stepped forward. Richard Silver glanced from him to Tara.

“And Ms. Stapleton, too. When Edwin phoned a few minutes ago, he said you might be showing up as well. I don’t understand.”

“She came to hear your side of the story,” Lash replied.

Silver raised his eyebrows. He was wearing another tropical shirt, decorated with palms and scallop shells. His worn black jeans were neatly pressed.

“Dr. Silver—” Lash began again.

“Please, Christopher. It’s Richard. I’ve reminded you.”

“We need to talk.”

Silver nodded.

“Over the last few hours my life has gone completely to hell.”

“Yes, you look terrible. I have a first-aid kit in the bathroom — would you like me to fetch it?”

Lash waved this away. “Why don’t you sound surprised?”

Silver fell silent.

“My medical history has been tampered with. False information about deviant juvenile behavior has been added. My FBI history has been altered in a way that insults dead colleagues. I now have a criminal record. Evidence has been fabricated linking me to the scenes of death at both the Wilners and the Thorpes. Plane tickets, hotel reservations, phone records. I know there’s only one person who could have done this, Richard: you. But Tara isn’t convinced. She wants to hear what you have to say.”

“Actually, Christopher — though I hate to say it — I believe you’re the one on trial here. But tell me more. You imply I’ve fabricated a vast tissue of lies about you. How would I have done that?”

“You’ve got the computing horsepower. Liza has data-sharing access with the major communications companies, travel and lodging industries, health care, banking. And you have the kind of access, unfettered access, to alter their records.”

Silver nodded slowly. “I suppose it’s true. I could do all that, if I had sufficient time. And imagination. But the question is why?”

“To conceal the identity of the real murderer.”

“And that would be—”

“You, Richard.”

For a moment, Silver did not reply.

“Me,” he said at last.

Lash nodded.

Silver shook his head slowly. “Edwin said I was to humor you, but this is really too much.” He glanced at Tara. “Ms. Stapleton, can you really imagine me killing those women? How would I do it? And why? And then, going to all the trouble of framing Christopher here — Christopher, of all people — for the murders?”

Silver’s tone was calm, reasonable, a little hurt. It was hard, even for Lash, to imagine the founder of Eden committing the murders. But if that was true, he had no hope left.

“You’re the killer, Christopher,” Silver said, turning back to him. “Saying that pains me more than I can tell you. I seldom make friends, but I’d begun to think of you as a friend. Yet you’ve jeopardized everything I worked for. And I still can’t understand why.”

Lash took another step forward.

“Hurting me won’t get you anywhere,” Silver said quickly. “I see you’ve disabled the elevator, but even so Edwin and his teams will be here within a few minutes. It would be so much easier for everyone, including you, if you gave yourself up.”

“And get myself shot? Weren’t those your personal orders: shoot to kill?”

At this, Silver’s air of injured surprise fell away.

Looking at him, hearing the line Silver was taking, Lash realized he had only one possible weapon to defend himself: his own expertise. If he could wear Silver down, find the inconsistency of madness in his words or deeds, he had a fighting chance.

“A minute ago, you asked me why you’d commit such murders,” he went on. “I’d hoped you’d be man enough to tell me. But you force me to draw my own conclusions. And that means performing a psychological autopsy. On you.”

Silver looked at him guardedly.

“You’re shy, retiring, uncomfortable in social situations. You’re probably ill at ease with persons of the opposite sex. Perhaps you feel awkward or unattractive. You communicate by email or videophone, or through Mauchly. Little is known of your childhood; it’s quite possible you’ve made an effort to conceal it. You live like a monk up here, closeting yourself with this creation — who, by the way, has a female voice and name — and devoting all your time to refining it. And isn’t it telling — isn’t it extremely telling — you chose to channel your life’s work into a system that brings lonely people together?”

When there was no reply, he continued.

“Of course, lots of people are shy. Lots of people are awkward socially. For you to have committed these atrocities, there would have to be a hell of a lot more to your story.” He paused, still looking at Silver. “What can you tell us about avatar zero? The avatar that, just by chance, happens to match successfully with the women in all six supercouples.”

Silver did not answer. A terrible pallor came over his face.

“It’s yours, isn’t it? Your own personality construct, left over from when you first alpha-tested the Eden program. Except you never took it out when the application went live. Secretly, you kept comparing yourself to real applicants. The temptation to find a match for yourself was too great. See, you couldn’t live without knowing. And yet, somehow, you couldn’t live with knowing, either.”

Silver had by now mastered his expression, and his face had become unreadable.

Lash turned to Tara. “I see two possible clinical profiles here. The first is that we’re dealing with a simple sociopathic personality, an irresponsible and selfish person with no moral code. A sociopath would be fascinated by the six women who, over time, were matched with himself. He’d both crave and fear them. And he’d be insanely jealous of any other man that dared possess them. There’s plenty of case studies in the literature to that effect.”

He paused again. “Are there problems with this hypothesis? Yes. Sociopaths are rarely so brilliant. Also, they’re rarely troubled by the deeds they’ve committed. Yet I think Richard here feels his actions intensely. Or at least, a part of him does.”

He turned back to Silver. “I know about the Thorpes: about the return medical checkup, about the high dosage of scolipane. But what delivery system did you use on Karen Wilner?”

He question hung in the air. At last, Silver cleared his throat.

“I used no ‘delivery system.’ Because I didn’t kill anybody.” His voice was different now: harsher, more abrupt. “Ms. Stapleton, surely you see this is all just grasping at straws. Dr. Lash is desperate, he’d say anything, do anything, to save himself.”

“Let’s turn to the second, more likely hypothesis,” Lash said. “Richard Silver is suffering from DID. Dissociative identity disorder. What used to be popularly known as split personality.”

“A myth,” Silver scoffed. “Movie fodder.”

“I wish it were. I’ve got a DID patient in my care now. They’re a bitch to treat. The way it usually works is that a person is traumatized when young. Sometimes sexual abuse; other times, physical or simply emotional abuse. My current patient, for example, had an abusive, unforgiving father. For some children, such trauma can be unbearable. They’re not old enough to understand it’s not their fault. Especially when the abuse comes from a so-called loved one. So they shatter into several personalities. Basically, you develop other people to take the abuse for you.” He looked over at Silver. “Why are your childhood years such a secret? Why did you become more comfortable with a computer screen than with other people? Was your own father abusive and unforgiving?”

“Don’t you talk about my family,” Silver said. For the first time ever, Lash detected a clear note of anger in his voice.

“Can such people appear normal?” Tara asked.

“Absolutely. They can function on a very high level.”

“Can they be intelligent?”

Lash nodded. “Extremely.”

“Don’t tell me you’re taken in by any of this,” Silver said to Tara.

“Are such people aware of their other personalities?” Tara asked.

“Usually not. They’re aware of losing time — half a day can go by in a ‘fugue state’ without their knowing where it went. The goal of treatment is to get the patient co-conscious with all his personalities.”

There was a distant thud from below. It was not particularly loud, but the floor of the laboratory shook faintly. The three exchanged glances.

The scene began to take on a surreal cast to Lash. Here he was, spinning out theories, while armed men eager to shoot him would break in any second. But he was almost done now; there was nothing else to do except finish.

“In such cases, one personality is usually dominant,” he went on. “Often it’s the normal, ‘good’ personality. The other personalities house the feelings that are too dangerous for the dominant personality.” He gestured at Silver. “So on the face of it, Richard is what he seems to be: a brilliant, if reclusive, computer engineer. The man who told me he feels almost a surgeon’s responsibility to his clients. But I fear there are other Richard Silvers, too, that we’re not allowed to see. The Richard Silver who was both hopelessly threatened by, yet irresistibly attracted to, the idea of a perfect mate. And, the other, darker, Richard Silver who feels murderous jealousy at the thought of another man possessing that perfect woman.”

He fell silent. Silver looked back at him, thin-lipped, eyes hard and glittering. In his expression, Lash read mortification and anger. But guilt? He wasn’t sure. And there was no more time now, no time at all…

As if to punctuate this thought, there came another deep thudding sound from below.

“In another few moments, Edwin will be here,” Silver said. “And this painful charade of yours will be over.”

Lash suddenly felt a great hollowness. “That’s it? You’ve got nothing else to say?”

“What am I supposed to say?”

“You could admit the truth.”

“The truth.” Silver almost spat the words. “The truth is you’ve insulted and humiliated me with this pseudo-psychological tale-spinning. So let’s put an end to this travesty. I’ve humored you long enough. You’re guilty of murder: have the guts to face up to it.”

“So you could live with yourself? You could sentence an innocent man to death?”

“You’re not innocent, Dr. Lash. Why not accept the truth? Everybody else has.”

Lash turned to Tara. “Is that true? What flavor of truth do you believe in this evening?”

“Flavor,” Silver said disdainfully. “You’re a serial murderer.”

“Tara?” Lash persisted.

Tara took a deep breath, turned to Silver. “You asked me something earlier. You asked, ‘Can you really imagine me killing those women?’ ”

For a moment, Silver looked puzzled. “Yes, I asked you that. Why?”

“Why did you single out the women? What about the men?”

“I—” Silver abruptly went silent.

“You hadn’t heard Christopher’s theory that the women alone were overdosed, given a medication that would guarantee suicidal-homicidal behavior. So why did you single out the women?”

“It was just a figure of speech.”

Tara did not reply.

“Ms. Stapleton,” Silver said in a harder tone. “In a few minutes, Lash will be subdued and restrained by my men. He will no longer pose a threat. Don’t make this any more complicated on anyone else — including yourself — than it need be.”

Still, Tara was silent.

“Silver’s right,” Lash said. He could hear the bitterness in his own voice. “He doesn’t have to admit anything. He can just keep his mouth shut. Nobody’s going to believe me now. There’s nothing more I can do.”

Tara made no indication she had heard. Her eyes remained veiled, far away.

And then, quite suddenly, they widened.

“No,” she said, turning to him. “There’s one more thing.”