Robin Cook - Shock

"You mean like hair color."

"Hair color is one thing, but I'm also talking about our general style, our look. We're both rather preppy. I think we each ought to aim for another type."

"Well, I'm all for changing my hair color," Deborah said. "I've always wanted to be a blond. I've heard you guys have a lot more fun."

"I'm trying to be serious here," Joanna said.

"Okay, okay," Deborah said. "So what else do you have in mind: strategic facial piercings and a couple of wild tattoos?"

Joanna laughed in spite of herself. "Let's try to be serious for a moment. I'm thinking in terms of clothes and makeup. There's a lot that we could do."

"You're right," Deborah said. "Occasionally I've had a fantasy of dressing up like a hooker. I guess I have an exhibitionist streak; I've just never acted on it. This could be my big chance."

"Are you mocking me again or are you serious?"

"I'm serious," Deborah said. "We might as well make this fun."

"I was thinking about going in the opposite direction," Joanna said. "The prudish librarian stereotype."

"That will be easy," Deborah joked. "You're practically there already."

"Very funny," Joanna said.

Deborah wiped her mouth with her napkin and tossed it onto her pastry plate. "Are you finished?"

"I certainly am," Joanna said.

"Then let's get this show on the road," Deborah said. "On the way here we passed a grocery store. Why don't we stop in and get some staples so that we don't have to come out for every meal? By then the library should be open."

"It sounds like a perfect plan," Joanna said.

THE WOMEN WERE STANDING ON THE FRONT STEPS OF THE old Boston Library building gazing at the Trinity Church across the busy Copley Square when the library's custodian unlocked the front door. It was nine o'clock. Since neither of the women had been in the Boston Library before, they were, in Deborah's words, blown away by the grand architecture and the vivid John Singer Sargent murals.

"I can't believe I lived in the Boston area for six years and never came in here," Deborah said as they walked through the echoey marbled halls. It was as if her head were on a swivel as it pivoted from side to side to take in all the details.

"I have to agree," Joanna said.

After inquiring where they could go to view old Boston Globe newspapers, the women were directed to the microfilm room. But once there they learned that there was a delay, sometimes as much as a year, before the papers were microfilmed. Consequently they were sent to the newspaper room. There they found the newspapers themselves.

"How far back should we go?" Deborah questioned.

"I'd suggest a month and then work backward," Joanna said.

The women got a stack of several weeks' worth of papers and carried them over to a vacant library table. They divided the stack in two and went to work.

"This isn't as easy as I thought it would be," Deborah said. "I was wrong about ages and birth dates. Few of the death notices have them."

"We'll have to just look at the obituaries," Joanna said. "They all seem to have the age."

The women went through the first stack of papers without success and went back for another.

"There certainly aren't many young women," Joanna commented.

"Nor young men," Deborah added. "People our age are not supposed to die that often. And even if they do, they're usually not famous enough to have an obituary written about them. Of course we don't want the name of anyone famous either, so we might have a problem here. But let's not give up yet."

After three more trips to get fresh stacks of papers, they had success.

"Ah, here's one!" Deborah said. "Georgina Marks."

Joanna looked over Deborah's shoulder. "How old?"

"Twenty-seven," Deborah said. "She was born January 28, 1973."

"Right time frame," Joanna said. "Does it say what she died of?"

"Yes, it does," Deborah said. She was quiet while she scanned the rest of the article. "She was accidentally shot in a shopping mall parking lot. Obviously in the wrong place at the wrong time. Apparently rival gangs were having a fight, and she caught a stray bullet. Can you imagine being called up and being told your wife was killed while she was out on a shopping trip at the neighborhood mall?" Deborah shuddered. "To make it worse, it says here she was the mother of four young children. The youngest was only six months old."

"I think it is best if we don't obsess about the sad details," Joanna said. "For us, these should be just names, not people."

"You're right," Deborah agreed. "At least she wasn't famous except for the tragic way she died, so it should be a good name for our purposes. I suppose I'll be Georgina Marks." She wrote the name and the birth date down on a pad of paper she and Joanna had brought.

"Now let's find a name for you," Deborah said.

Both women went back to scouring the obituaries. It wasn't until they'd perused six more weeks of papers that Deborah came across another name candidate.

"Prudence Heatherly, age twenty-four!" Deborah read out loud. "Now that name has an interesting ring to it. It's perfect for you, Joanna. It even sounds like a librarian, so it will go with your disguise."

"I don't find that funny in the slightest," Joanna said. "Let me read the obituary." She reached for the paper, but Deborah moved it out of her reach.

"I thought we weren't going to obsess about the details?" Deborah teased.

"I'm not obsessing," Joanna said. "I want to make sure she's not a local celebrity in Bookford. Besides, I feel I have to know something about the woman if I'm going to be borrowing her name."

"I thought these were just names, not people."

"Please!" Joanna enunciated slowly as if losing her patience.

Deborah handed the paper over and watched her roommate's face while she read the obituary. Joanna's expression progressively sagged.

"Is it bad?" Deborah asked when Joanna looked up.

"I'd say it was just as bad as Georgina's story," Joanna said. "She was a graduate student at Northeastern."

"That's getting a little too close to home," Deborah said. "What did she die of, or shouldn't I ask?"

"She was pushed in front of the Red Line subway at the Washington Street station." Now it was Joanna's turn to shudder. "A homeless man with no apparent motive did it. My word! What a tragedy for a parent getting a call saying your daughter was pushed in front of a train by a vagrant."

"At least we have the two names," Deborah said. She snatched the paper away from Joanna and refolded it. She wrote Prudence Heatherly down on the pad below Georgina, then busied herself restacking the papers. Joanna was motionless for a moment but then pitched in to help. Together the women carried the papers back to where they were kept.

Fifteen minutes later, first Deborah and then Joanna exited the library from the same entrance they'd entered. Although they were pensively subdued, they were pleased with their progress. It had only taken an hour and three quarters to get the two names.

"Should we walk or take the subway?" Deborah questioned.

"Let's take the subway," Joanna answered.

From the front of the library it was only a short walk to the inbound T stop on Boylston Street, and the Green Line took them directly to Government Center. When they emerged on the street level they were conveniently in front of the inappropriately modern Boston City Hall, which loomed out of its brick-paved mall like an enormous anachronism.

"Can you tell me where I'd find death certificates?" Joanna asked the receptionist at the information desk located in the building's multistoried lobby. Joanna had waited several minutes before speaking. The woman was involved in an animated but hushed dialogue with her colleague sitting next to her.

"They're downstairs at the Registry Department,' the woman said without looking up and hardly interrupting her conversation.