Impact

51

It amazed Abbey how quickly the deserted, rain-drenched park filled with people. They came out of the town houses and apartments, white-haired ladies speaking Polish, middle-aged men with bratwurst guts, young professionals, hip-hop kids, junkies, drunks, shopkeepers, and yuppies, forming a loose crowd in front of the small three-story row house. Ford and Abbey mingled with the crowd while the police pushed everyone back, set up barricades, and blocked off the street. Two ambulances arrived, followed by unmarked cars packed with homicide detectives in brown suits, ambulances, a crime-scene van, and finally the local news vans.

Abbey crowded forward with the others, listening to the babble of voices. Somehow, as if by osmosis, the crowd knew everything: two bodies found in the front hall, shot at point-blank range, house tossed. No one had heard anything, no one had noticed strange people, no one had seen cars parked in front.

As the cops bawled at the growing crowd, Ford nodded to Abbey and they pushed toward a gaggle of local women.

"Excuse me," said Ford, "but I'm new to the neighborhood. What happened?"

They turned to him eagerly, all speaking at once, interrupting each other, while Ford encouraged them with wide-eyed interest, adding interjections and expostulations. Once again she was amazed at Ford's chameleon-like ability to play a part and extract information.

"It's Mrs. Corso and her son Mark . . . He'd just come back from California . . . A lovely woman, husband died of a heart attack several years ago . . . Been a struggle since . . . Lived here all their lives . . . A good boy, studied hard, went to Brown University . . . Working at Moto's to earn pocket money . . . Seems like yesterday he was playing stickball in the park . . . A tragedy . . ."

When the information from the ladies had been exhausted, they retreated to the edge of the crowd. Ford's face was dark. "What was his title in the personnel file?" he asked Abbey.

"Senior data analysis technician."

Without another word, Ford flipped open his cell phone and called the NPF switchboard, and in a moment was connected to Derkweiler.

"This is Ford from the Agency," he said in a clipped voice. "This fellow Corso who was working for you--what exactly did he do and why was he fired?"

There was a long silence as Ford listened into his phone. Abbey could just hear the squawk of Derkweiler's voice on the other end. Ford thanked him and hung up.

"Yeah?" Abbey asked.

"He was in charge of processing radar and visual data from the Mars Mapping Orbiter."

"And?"

"He was fired for cause. Derkweiler said he didn't have 'adequate prioritization skills,' became 'obsessed with irrelevant gamma ray data,' refused to follow instructions, and caused a scene at a scientific meeting."

Abbey thought for a moment. "Obsessed, huh?"

Ford cleared his throat. "What do you know about gamma rays?"

"That there shouldn't be any from Mars."