Joseph Kanon - Los Alamos

“Nothing,” Mills said, looking away. “What if he didn’t log them out?”

“Could he do that?”

“He was security. He was supposed to take files. Nobody’s going to check on him.”

Connolly considered for a minute. “No, that’s not like him.”

“How do you know? You never knew him.”

“I live in his room. He’d log out.”

“In other words, he’d commit a criminal act, but he’d never break the rules.”

“You’d be surprised. I’ve known guys run somebody through with a knife and then wipe it clean because they’re naturally neat.”

“He wasn’t like that,” Mills said quietly, scraping his chair as he stood up.

“Something bothering you?”

“Let’s get some air. I can’t think straight, and I know you’re not.”

Surprised, Connolly followed him out, waiting until they were on the dusty street before he said anything. Mills leaned against a rough utility pole, the bald spot on his head shining in the afternoon light.

“So?”

“Look, I’m just a lawyer, not some hot-shot reporter. Maybe this is just going too fast for me. First I’m thinking you don’t know what you’re looking for. Now you already know what you want to find. Is there something I’m missing here?”

“Relax. You’re ahead of me.”

“Am I? A few days ago, Karl was the victim. Then he’s queer and now he’s blackmailing somebody. And you’re all hot to get the story. It’s not-right. Look, I worked with this guy. He wasn’t my favorite drinking buddy, but he was all right. What are we trying to prove, anyway? That there’s a murderer walking around up here?” He gestured toward the street, the usual mix of trucks and jeeps churning dust, technicians walking between buildings.

“Stranger things have happened.”

“I don’t believe it. The police don’t believe it. So what makes you so sure?”

“Not a goddamn thing. But there’s something wrong with the police story. They’ve got Karl wrong.”

“How do you mean?”

“It’s careless. Did he strike you as the kind of guy who’d go in for pickups? In workboots?”

Mills looked at him, puzzled. “Why workboots?”

“Police found prints. That seem right to you? Wouldn’t you say he was more the fastidious type?”

“I guess.” Mills frowned, then looked away toward the old school buildings as if he’d pick some answer out of the air. “I might have said that once. Now? I don’t know.” He shrugged. “All that time, and it turns out I didn’t know the first thing about him. All that time. He was someone else all along.”

“Tell me about him, then. Help me with this, Mills-don’t fold on me. I need to know what he was like.”

“I thought you’d already decided that.”

“Does it make sense to you that someone who survived two prison camps would be careless with strangers?”

“Well, you know what they say-a stiff prick has a mind of its own.”

Connolly ignored him. “Does it make sense?”

“No, but none of it does. Okay, so he wasn’t the pickup type. He didn’t seem to be. But he was there. He wasn’t alone. So who was it?”

“I think he met somebody.”

Mills stared at him again. “You mean somebody from up here.”

“Maybe.”

“Then why go to Santa Fe?”

“I don’t know.” Connolly thought for a minute. “You said he liked surveillance detail. Was he covering someone that day?”

“No.”

“You sure?”

“Sure. It was his day off. You can check the sign-up sheet. I remember because we were shorthanded that weekend and I asked him, but he begged off.”

“What happens when you’re shorthanded?”

Mills shrugged.

“They go without cover?”

“Not the priority list. Oppenheimer, Fermi-there’s a group that always have a bodyguard or they don’t leave the project. The others, we do spot covers. The whole point is that they don’t know when they’re covered, so they have to assume they are. It works all right. Nobody’s been kidnapped yet.”

“Congratulations.”

“Or had any trouble. They’re not the kind. They go on hikes, you know? Picnics. Family stuff. Once in a while a dinner at La Fonda. You don’t seriously think it was one of the scientists.”

“Why not? That would explain the money. They’re the only ones here making more than six grand a year. Two hundred bucks would be a big piece of change for anyone else.”

“No,” Mills said, shaking his head. “It’s ridiculous. They’re professors. Pointy-heads. Half the time they’re up there somewhere in the clouds anyway, not down here with the rest of us. They’re not—” He searched for a word. “Violent. I mean, that’s the last thing they are.”

Connolly smiled. “They’re making a bomb.”

“They’re not, though. They’re solving a problem. That’s how they see it.”

“That’s some trick,” Connolly said. “Okay, so they don’t go around knocking people over the head. But we don’t know why he was hit. People do some unlikely things when they’re upset. You admit at least that it’s possible he had a friend up here?”

“Anything’s possible.”

“He met somebody. Why not a friend?”

“Then we’re back where we started. Why go to Santa Fe?”

“Maybe they were discreet. Maybe they liked to meet off the Hill.”

Mills shook his head. “God, I hate this. Pretty soon you’ll have me thinking just like you do, walking around here thinking ‘Is he one?’ Suspecting everybody. This isn’t New York, you know.”

“Don’t go small-town on me now,” Connolly said. “You’re a big boy.”

“But this is a small town-that’s just what it is. Do you know how much trouble we’ve had since the project started? None. A few kids sneaking through the fence. A little hanky-panky in the women’s dormitory. A fight now and then over in the hutments. That’s it. It sounds crazy, but this is the nicest place I’ve ever lived.”

“Except it has one dead guy in it.”

“Who was killed forty miles away. But that doesn’t feel right to you, so now we’ve got a killer on the loose up here. And we’re going to catch him by going through his bankbook. Aw,” Mills said, waving his hand in disgust, “we’re not thinking straight.”

“You can’t get away from the money. Where did he get the money?”

“If his friend is so rich, why was he wearing boots?”

“You got me. Maybe they’re not connected.”

Mills looked up to answer him and then stopped, his attention drawn away. They had walked back toward the Tech Area and now stood beside the fence, sidestepping a jeep. A girl in heels, her white badge flapping against her sweater, brushed past the MP guard, her face covered in tears. Outside the gate, she squinted into the late afternoon sun, then, blinded by the light, walked unsteadily past them, nearly knocking into Mills as she went.

“What was that?” Mills said.

“Trouble in paradise,” Connolly said lightly. “The boss yelled. The boyfriend took a hike. Maybe it’s—”

“No, look,” Mills said, stopping him with a hand on his shoulder. “Something’s happened.”

Suddenly the street began to fill with people coming out of the buildings, then standing around aimlessly, unsure what to do, as if an explosion had gone off inside. Some of the women hugged each other. Others began to move in haphazard groups toward the open area in front of the Admin Building, anxious and listless at the same time.

Mills went up to the guard. “What’s going on?”

“It’s the President-Roosevelt’s dead,” he said, not looking at them.

Nobody said a word. Connolly felt winded, caught by an unexpected punch. He was surprised by how much he minded. Only the war was supposed to end, not the foundation of things. Now what? He imagined himself back in Washington-bells tolling, people stupefied in their maze of offices, the humming of gossip about a new order that was beginning before its time. Most of the people he knew there had come to Washington for Roosevelt, measuring their lives by his successes. They never expected to know anything else. Now the others would begin scurrying to make the town over-it wasn’t too soon, even now. For the first time since he’d come to Los Alamos, Connolly missed it, that nervous feeling of being at the center of things, where telephones rang and everything mattered. He felt suddenly marooned on a cool, bright plateau, looking at an inconsequential crime while the rest of the world skipped a beat.