Gary Braver - Elixir

"Jesus, Jenny, live the years you have, and stop whining about the ones you don't have."

"I'm afraid of getting old. I'm afraid of becoming wrinkled and decrepit. You're my sister."

"It's because I'm your sister I won't let you." Laura put her hand on Jenny's. "And you're not old and decrepit, for god's sake. You're making yourself crazy. You look ten years younger."

It wasn't false flattery. Jenny did look younger. Her skin was smooth and shiny-the skin of somebody who took proper care and avoided sunlight. But more than that, she dressed young: not in teenie-bopper flash, but jumpers and flats and plastic beads. She looked like a Catholic-school girl.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say you were already taking the stuff."

Jenny looked at her with a start, then gathered her stuff to leave.

The tryst was over. And a disaster. For the first time they had fought over it. Yes, in phone talk Jenny would hint how she wished she could go on indefinitely like Roger-if only it were safe. What Laura had discounted as idle musings. But Jenny had meant it, and it shocked her to see how much festered below the surface.

Laura tried to hug her goodbye, but Jenny pushed her away and opened the door.

"I don't want you to leave hating me."

Jenny gave her an icy stare. "You don't understand," she said through her teeth. "You don't, don't, don't"

Laura watched her walk down the corridor to the elevator, thinking they were more like strangers than sisters. Thinking that Jenny's desperation went beyond fear of fifty. Something else was going on. She was over the edge. Maybe she'd recommend psychiatric counseling.

Laura stepped back inside and closed the door. She still clutched a photo of Brett. She stared at it for a moment, taking in his young colt beauty.

"What are you going to tell him?"

On Monday morning, Wally Olafsson walked into the resident agency office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Madison and reported his encounter the other night and what he had discovered on the Internet, producing the downloaded articles, photos copied from news stories gotten at the UW La Crosse campus library, the Cape Cod snapshots, and the video taken of Chris Bacon at the Wisconsin Regionals.

The complaint duty agent, Eric Brown, took notes as Wally outlined his past acquaintance with Christopher Bacon. On his computer, Brown checked the Bureau's database and located the outstanding warrant. He reviewed the charges, comparing screen file photos of Bacon with those Wally had brought and the video segment he ran on a VCR.

"There's a resemblance," Brown admitted, "but the guy looks on the young side. According to files, he should be fifty-six. This guy looks about thirty."

"He's not. He's my age." Wally suddenly felt self-conscious of his big fleshy head and bulging gut. "His kid must be about fourteen like my son, which means there should be over a forty-year difference between them. You saw the videos. They look like brothers."

"That's what I'm saying, Mr. Olafsson: You've got the wrong guy." Brown made a flat smile to say he's wasting both their time. "It's not Christopher Bacon, it's Roger Glover."

"I hear what you're saying, but I'm telling you, it's Chris. What convinced me was his eyes. You can't tell in the photos, but they're two different colors. I didn't remember until I got close."

"Sounds like you studied him pretty good."

"I did, and I'd bet my life it's Chris Bacon."

"Except he's about twenty-five years too young."

"Maybe he found good plastic surgeons. Criminals do that I hear." Brown's dismissal had put an edge in Wally's voice.

"Yeah, but when they want a change-over they get their faces restructured, not just a lid lift and tuck."

He ran the tape a couple more times. Glover had on a tight-fitting pullover that revealed a trim physique. "It's not just the face. Look at his body, and posture, the flat gut…"

"Some guys preserve well," Wally said.

Brown, who was himself trim and about forty-five, glanced at Wally without expression. But Wally could read his mind: If you're the same age, how come Glover looks like the poster boy for Geritol, and you're a middle-aged Tweedle Dum in wingtips?

Wally made a sigh of impatience. "Look, instead of dickering around, why don't you just bring him in and do a fingerprint check? Isn't that what you guys do?" Wally stopped short of an "I'm-a-taxpayer" harangue.

"Yeah, when we have probable cause."

"Christ, man, look at the photos! How much more probable cause do you need?"

"We can't arrest someone because he vaguely resembles a fugitive."

"Vaguely!" He pushed a photo at him. "Shave the beard and cut the hair, and these are the same goddamn guy."

"In your mind maybe, but he's got sunglasses on here, and the wire photo is fuzzy. And if he's the same guy, he's Peter goddamn Pan."

Wally felt his face flush. "Listen to me, Agent Brown. I'm not some jerk groupie of America's Most Wanted. I lived with the guy for two years. We were drinking buddies, we double-dated, we studied together. Roger Glover is Christopher Bacon. And if you don't do your job and investigate, you will be negligent in apprehending a federal fugitive wanted for mass murder."

Brown's eyes hardened, but he did not lash back. He gathered the photographs and stood up. "We'll look into it."

Wally got his briefcase and moved to the door. He felt wracked. Outside the window a light rain was falling. It was a three-hour ride back to Eau Claire. He'd stop on the road for a sandwich.

To clear the air before he left, he said, "Look, I'm sorry for the outburst, but this has put me on edge for the last two days. I just can't reconcile the guy I knew with these crimes. He was not some crazy or political fanatic. He was a good guy, a biochemist working to cure cancer. He wanted to save lives. It just doesn't jive."

Brown opened the door. "What can I say? People change."

"Did they ever prove he did it?"

"According to the files, he's the only suspect."

"Well, I hope to God I'm wrong."

Brown frowned. "You do?"

"Of course. We were old friends."

"Mr. Olafsson, if you hoped you were wrong you wouldn't be in here."

"I don't think I follow."

"The first question you asked when you called this morning was if the million-dollar reward still held. So much for auld lang syne."

At 12:10, Wally left the Madison FBI offices, and crossed the lot to his big gold Lexus-not the vehicle of a guy who had once had a golden mane down the middle of his back and who had headed up the Cambridge chapter of the SDS. But time had a way of changing things. A high-paying establishment job, a house in the heartland suburbs, and three decades of taxes would turn the pinkest radical into a Republican.

Driving a black unmarked Dodge Caravan, Roger Glover followed Wally north on Route 90 to his home in La Crosse. It was the same car Wally drove yesterday to the UW library where he photocopied microfilmed articles in the periodical room. After Wally left, Roger checked the reshelving box deposit: The Boston Globe, February 1988.

The parking sticker on the Lexus said Midland Investment Company, which confirmed in a telephone call that Wally was Senior Marketing VP. It was not a professional post that lent itself to personal visits to the FBI. Nor was it just a casual drop-in to see a friend-not at prime time on a Monday, and not on a five-hour round trip of 250 miles. Wally had come to file a report on Christopher Bacon.

It was a fear that he and Laura had lived with but could never fully prepare for. If they did nothing, the authorities would show up at their doorstep asking for evidence that they were Roger Glover born in Wichita and Laura Gendron Glover from Duluth. They would want documents and take prints. While they had birth certificates, a deep check would reveal that Roger Glover and son Brett had died in a car crash in 1958, and Laura Gendron Glover had died in 1968, age twelve.