The Door to December

information related to his research. We figured it was nothing more than what it seemed to be — entirely a personal matter having to do with a nasty childcustody dispute.'
     'Maybe it was.'
     'Yes, maybe it was,' Seames said. 'At first, anyway. But after a while McCaffrey apparently got involved in something important ... maybe something dangerous. At least that's certainly how it seems when you get a look at that gray room in Studio City. As for Willy Hoffritz ... eighteen months after McCaffrey disappeared, Hoffritz finished a long-running Pentagon project and declined to accept any additional defense-related work. He said that kind of research had begun to bother his conscience. At the time, the military tried to persuade him to change his mind, but eventually they accepted his refusal.'
     'From what I know of him,' Dan said, 'I don't believe Hoffritz had a conscience.'
     Seames's penetrating, hawkish eyes never left Dan's. He said, 'You're right about that, I think. At the time Hoffritz did his mea culpa routine, the Defense Department didn't ask us to verify his sudden turn toward pacifism. They accepted it at face value. But today I've been looking more closely at Willy Hoffritz. I'm convinced he stopped taking Pentagon grants only because he no longer wanted to be subject to random, periodic security investigations. He didn't want to worry that anyone might be watching him. He needed anonymity for some project of his own.'
     'Like torturing a nine-year-old girl,' Dan said.
     'Yes. I was in Studio City a few hours ago, had a look in that house. Nasty.'
     Neither the expression on his face nor that in his eyes matched the distaste and disapproval in his voice. Judging from his eyes, in fact, one might suspect that Michael Seames found the gray room more interesting than repulsive.
     Dan said, 'Why do you think they were doing those things to Melanie McCaffrey?'
     'I don't know. Bizarre stuff,' Seames said, wide-eyed, shaking his head with amazement. But his sudden expression of innocence seemed calculated.
     'What effect were they trying to obtain?'
     'I don't know.'
     'They weren't just involved in behavior-modification studies at that house.'
     Seames shrugged.
     Dan said, 'They were into brainwashing, total mind control ... and something else ... something worse.'
     Seames appeared to be bored. His gaze drifted away from Dan, and he watched the SID technicians as they sifted through the blood-spattered rubble.
     Dan said, 'But why?'
     'I really don't know,' Seames said again, impatiently this time. 'I only—'
     'But you're desperate to find out who was funding this whole hellish project,' Dan said.
     'I wouldn't say desperate. I'd say frantic. Quietly frantic.'
     'Then you must have some idea of what they were up to. You know something that's making you frantic.'
     'For Christ's sake, Haldane,' Seames said angrily, but even his anger seemed calculated, a ruse, calculated misdirection. 'You've seen the condition of the bodies. Prominent scientists, formerly funded by the Pentagon, wind up murdered in an inexplicable fashion ... hell, of course, we're interested!'
     'Inexplicable?' Dan said. 'It's not inexplicable. They were beaten to death.
     'Come on, Haldane. It's more complicated than that. If you've talked to your own coroner's office, you've learned they can't figure what the hell kind of weapon it was. And you've learned the victims never had a chance to fight back — no blood, skin, or hair under their fingernails. And many of the blows couldn't have been struck by a man wielding a club, because no man would have the strength to crush another man's bones like that. It would take tremendous force, mechanical force ... inhuman force. They weren't just beaten to death, they were smashed like bugs! And what about the doors here?'
     Dan frowned. 'What doors?'
     'Here, this shop, the front and back doors.'
     'What about them?'
     'You don't know?'
     'I just got here. I've hardly talked with anyone.'
     Seames nervously adjusted his tie, and Dan was unsettled by the sight of a nervous FBI agent. He had never seen one before. And Michael Seames's nervousness was one thing that he didn't appear to be faking.
     'The doors were locked when your people arrived,' the agent said.