“Where can we find her?”

“Malcolm said she was working at a bookstore named Spasm. An amusing place, he called it.”

“More body-piercing?” said Milo.

“Probably. Spasm. Does that tell you something?”

“Was she fired from PlasmoDerm?”

“Malcolm said she left.”

“When?”

“Two weeks before Malcolm's death.”

“Any idea why?”

“No. Her occupational history wasn't of very much interest to me. I was glad she was gone…” She looked down at the table. “I guess I was hoping with her out of the immediate environment, Malcolm and I might reconnect.”

“Was she at his funeral?”

“There was no funeral,” she said, still studying the white linen. “Malcolm's parents had him shipped back home and they cremated him. Look, I know you think the fact that she took him from me is coloring my opinion, but the facts are clear: She got her hooks into him, and not long after, he was dead. For no good reason.”

I said, “Detective Connor told us she got Malcolm into some kind of high-IQ group-”

“Meta. People who thought Mensa was for dummies. Malcolm went to a meeting with Zena and joined up. He said it was great even though the food was lousy and the wine was cheap. To me it sounded like losers with nothing to do but talk about how smart they were.”

“What did Malcolm like about it?”

“He said it was a pleasure to meet like-minded individuals- but how selective could they have been? Zena was a member!”

She smoothed her hair back and let it fall and the thick waves reverted to their original shape.

“I'm glad someone's finally looking into it. Maybe if Malcolm's parents had insisted, it would have happened sooner, but they didn't want to rake things up.”

“That's unusual,” said Milo. “Parents generally deny suicide.”

“You'd have to know Malcolm's parents. Both are professors of physics at Princeton- Dudley and Annabelle Ponsico. He's mechanical, she's particle, they're both geniuses. Malcolm's sister is a physical chemist at MIT and his brother's a mathematician at Michigan. We're talking major gray matter in the lineage but none of them talk. They just calculate.”

“You met them?”

“Once, last Christmas, they all visited and we had dinner at their hotel. Silent. The person I spoke to after Malcolm's death was the father and he just said let it rest, young lady, Malcolm has always been a moody boy.”

“A moody boy,” I said.

“Quaint,” she said. “But he's English. Maybe it was too soon after and they didn't want to hear about foul play. I guess I was insensitive.”

I'd read Ponsico's file this morning. Both parents had been interviewed over the phone by Petra Connor. Both had been grief-stricken, saying only that Malcolm had never done anything “unexpected” before but that he had been subject to mood swings since adolescence and, at age fifteen, had been treated for a year by a psychiatrist for sleep disturbance and depression.

Things he'd never told Sally.

“Did anyone else from PlasmoDerm belong to Meta?” said Milo.

“No one I know about. Why?”

“You suspect Zena. We're trying to learn more about her.”

“Well, that's all I know- would you like to see a picture of Malcolm?”

Before we could answer she produced a color snapshot from her handbag.

She and a tall young red-haired man in a rose garden. She wore a sundress, a big straw hat, and sunglasses and stood with her arm around Malcolm Ponsico's waist. He was well over six feet, narrow-shouldered, slightly overweight. The red hair was curly and thinning and he wore a ginger Abe Lincoln beard with no mustache. He had on a red polo shirt and brown slacks and had the loose-muscled stance of someone with no use for mirrors. She was grinning. His expression was noncommittal.

“We took this at the Huntington Library. An exhibit on Thomas Jefferson's scientific letters.”

Milo gave her back the picture. “Those letters on Malcolm's computer screen- DVLL. Mean anything to you?”

“Probably some devil reference that she put there. That's exactly the kind of thing she would have gone for.”

“She was into satanism, too?”

“It wouldn't surprise me- the salient point here is she stole him and got him involved in who-knows-what and soon after he was dead. I'm not a paranoid person, gentlemen, but the facts speak for themselves. Ask anyone who knows me, my reputation is for being dependable, level-headed, rational.”

Her fingers twisted around one another. “Perhaps that's the problem- I was too rational. Perhaps, if I'd yelled and kicked and put up a fuss when she went for him instead of standing back and assuming Malcolm would come to his senses, he would have understood how I really felt about him. Perhaps if I'd emoted, he'd still be alive.”

34

She thanked us for listening, put her lab coat on, and left the restaurant.

“Woman scorned,” said Milo. “And Ponsico had mood problems, even his parents didn't doubt the suicide. Without DVLL and that Meta article you found, I wouldn't spend another second on it.”

“Some pattern we've got,” I said. “Retarded kids and a genius with no sympathy for the genetically impaired. The only link I can see to our murders is Ponsico learned something at Meta that made him a threat. The killer chitchatting too explicitly about his plans, and Ponsico's contempt for the unfortunate didn't extend to homicide.”

“Dr. Sally's convinced this Zena was the killer but Zena's tiny and that part about her surprising Ponsico from behind is nonsense. The wound would have hurt but a big guy like that could have fought her off easily. So if he was murdered it was by someone strong. Just like our kids.”

“What about Zena and someone else?”

“A killing team… why not, we're entertaining all kinds of fantasies, but the only strike against this girl is the other girl hates her guts. Somewhere down the line, though, she may turn out useful.”

“As an entrÉe to Meta.”

He nodded. “Meantime, let's see what our Israeli friend has to offer.”

In the daylight, Sharavi's house was shabby. When he came to the door he was close-shaved and neatly dressed. Cup of tea in his hand. Mint sprig floating on top. I became aware of my own stubbled face.

He looked out at the street and let us in. The tea gave off steam.

“May I offer you some?”

Milo said, “No, thanks. Hope your computer's working.”

We walked to the back room. The PC was on, a screen-saving pink hexagon dancing on the black screen. Sharavi had arranged two folding chairs in the middle of the carpet. The velvet bag for his prayer equipment was gone.

Milo showed him the article about Farley Sanger's Meta editorial and told him about Malcolm Ponsico.

He pulled up to the workstation and began punching keys, using a one-handed hunt-and-peck that was faster than I would have believed.

The bad hand rested on his lap, an inert hunk of flesh.

I watched data bank after data bank flash and disappear.

After a while, he said, “If this group has done something criminal, none of the major agencies knows about it. I'll check academic bases.”

The keyword Meta brought up hundreds of irrelevant topics from university data stations: meta-analysis in philosophy, scores of chemical compounds, references to metabolism, metallurgy, metamorphosis.

When we'd waded through all of it, he said, “Let's try the Internet. It's become an international trash can, but who knows.”

“Let's try the phone first,” said Milo. “New York Information for Meta.”

Sharavi smiled. “Good point.” He dialed 212 Information, waited, hung up. “No listing.”

“Maybe,” I said, “the publicity about Sanger's article drove them out of business.”