The Serpent's Kiss

74

Dr. Taplin-Smithson looked a lot different out of her tweed pantsuit. She was still tall and big-boned, her frosted hair to her shoulders, but she wore jeans and a T-shirt. She had removed all vestiges of makeup and her eyes were red and puffy. She clutched a Kleenex in her left hand.

“I was so surprised to hear from you,” she said. “I’m having… well, come in. Please.”

Taplin-Smithson lived in the city of Detroit, which was only partly why they had chosen to talk to her first. She lived in the Pallister Commons, not far from the first attack on the Boulevard Café. Pallister Commons was an historical neighborhood just north of the Fisher Building, large, three-story homes with wide, broad porches, privacy fences and detached garages that were once carriage houses. There were no streets, exactly, which was confusing. Access to the garages were via alleys that ran every other street or so. Jill and Derek had been forced to park down the street and walk in, Derek grousing the entire way as he limped along on his crutches.

The front door opened into a high-ceilinged living area with heavy, darkly stained woodwork. Large windows looked out on the front and side yards. The furniture was expensive mission-style. There were paintings of what looked like Big Sur on the walls. A heavy-set white-haired man was sitting in a comfortable chair, a laptop computer in his lap. He set it on the floor and walked over to meet them, hand out. Derek shook.

“This is my husband, Alan Smithson. Alan’s a physician at Ford Hospital, right across the street.”

“Nice to meet you,” Jill said.

Taplin-Smithson took in Derek’s crutches. “What happened to you? Did you get hurt in that explosion?”

“Actually, no,” Derek said. “Old injury got re-hurt by a Birmingham cop today.”

“Quite a day.” She sighed and dabbed at her eyes. Her husband put his arm around her. He said, “It’s been terrible. Thank God it’s over.”

Derek and Jill didn’t comment.

Both doctors simultaneously said, “It is, isn’t it?”

“May we sit down?” Jill said. “I’m afraid we need your help.”

“Let’s go to the kitchen table.”

They followed them through the living room, cut through the modern kitchen into a formal dining room. A large window looked over the fenced-in backyard. A calico cat glanced up from a bowl of food, arched its shoulders, then nonchalantly exited the room.

They sat down at the table. “We need you to look at a list of people,” Jill said, and handed it to Taplin-Smithson.

The professor got up and returned a moment later with a pair of reading glasses. She sat down and studied the list. “This is from the center?” she said.

“The CBCTR Working Group,” Derek said. “Your name’s on it.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Yes, I helped from time to time. Not too often. Not a big need for a biostatistician for those scenarios.” She looked over her glasses at him. “I saw the press conference. The FBI says Bill Harrington was The Serpent. That he killed himself accidentally.”

“What do you think of that?” Jill asked.

Taplin-Smithson frowned at the piece of paper in her hands, then shot her husband a sideways glance. He shrugged.

“Bill wasn’t my favorite person,” she said, “but I never would have thought he was a mass murderer.”

“Would you take a look at that list and tell us if anybody there might be a candidate. Or if anybody sticks out.”

She studied Derek for a moment. “I’m supposed to look at a list of my colleagues and tell you whether I think any of them are capable of murdering over a hundred people?”

“Please,” Jill said. “Just look at the list.”

Taplin-Smithson shot her husband another look, then re-read the list. She frowned, then said, “Well, that’s sort of interesting.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, there are a number of graduate students on this list. In fact, Bill and Brad were always getting grad students to help with those scenarios, especially in the public health programs.”

“What’s so interesting?” Derek said.

She frowned again, took off her glasses and cocked her head at Derek. “Well, this student here. Kevin Matsumoto.”

“What about him?”

“Well…” She hesitated.

“Go ahead, honey,” her husband urged.

“Well,” Taplin-Smithson said. “He was an odd one. Brilliant, but strange. He was in the biochemistry department. In fact, he worked in Bill’s lab, was one of his most promising students. But Kevin… he had some problems.”

Derek leaned forward. “I noticed his name, too. What kind of problems?”

She took in a deep breath. “Well, emotional problems.”

“What kind?” Jill asked.

“Well, he was—”

”Was he the religious nut?” her husband asked.

Taplin-Smithson swallowed and nodded. “Well, you know, in a university situation you get all sorts of students. Especially in a big city university like Wayne State. Very multi-cultural. We get students from all sorts of religions. Christian and Jewish and Seventh Day Adventists and Muslims, even had a Quaker once. Buddhists, everything. And a fair number of seemingly normal people with nutty religious or political beliefs.”

Jill said, “And Kevin Matsumoto?”

“Well, he dropped out of school. Brad was pretty upset about it, because Kevin was such a gifted biochemist. Like I said, a little bit nutty, but…” She sighed. “We’re talking graduate students in the hard sciences. Sometimes these are the geekiest of the geeks, if you know what I mean? Social skills aren’t always all that polished. It’s a cliche to say that, but a lot of times it’s true. Kevin was like that.”

“Was he Japanese?” Derek asked.

“Oh yes. In appearance? Sure. I was under the impression his mother was American. I don’t think he was born in the U.S., but aside from his last name and his Asian features, he seemed to be completely American.”

“And the religion?”

“Well, a few months before he dropped out of school he started talking a lot about some religious group called Aleph. How he was a part of Aleph… wasn’t that it, honey?”

Dr. Smithson nodded. “I was thinking Alpha, but you may be right. Aleph sounds right.”

Jill noticed that Derek had gone rigid, his hands clenching the armrest of his chair.

“Anyway,” Taplin-Smithson said, “he got really erratic and sort got going on about the end of the world and how only Aleph could pave the way or save the world or something like that—”

Derek lurched to his feet and started hobbling for the door.

Jill startled, said, “Well, thank you very much,” and hurried after Derek.

Jill caught up to him halfway across the Taplin-Smithson’s lawn. She caught his arm. “All right, Derek. Out with it. What is Aleph?”

Derek turned to her. “After the 1995 sarin gas attack in Tokyo, Aum Shinrikyo changed their name and went underground. Their new name is Aleph.”