The Door to December

coppery smell.
     'Jesus,' she said.
     'What I want you to see is in the next room,' he said, leading her toward a door at the rear of the demolished study. She noticed two opaque plastic body bags on the floor. Looking back at her, Haldane said again, 'Next room.'
     Laura didn't want to stop, but she stopped. She didn't want to look down at the two shrouded bodies, but she looked. She said, 'Is one of these... Dylan?'
     Haldane had moved ahead of her. Now he returned to her side. 'This one had Dylan McCaffrey's ID,' he said, pointing. 'But you don't want to see him.'
     'No,' she agreed, 'I don't. She glanced at the other bag. 'Who was this one?'
     'According to the driver's license and other cards in his wallet, his name was Wilhelm Hoffritz.'
     She was astonished.
     Her surprise must have been evident, for Haldane said, 'Do you know him?'
     'He was at the university. One of my husband's ... colleagues.'
     'UCLA?'
     'Yes. Dylan and Hoffritz conducted a number of joint studies. They shared some of the same ... obsessions.'
     'Do I detect disapproval?'
     She said nothing.
     'You didn't like Hoffritz?' Haldane pressed.
     'I despised him.'
     'Why?'
     'He was a smug, self-important, condescending, pompous, arrogant little man.'
     'What else?'
     'Isn't that enough?'
     'You're not the kind of woman who would use the word "despise" lightly,' Haldane said.
     When she met his stare, she saw a sharp and probing intelligence that she hadn't noticed before. She closed her eyes. Haldane's direct gaze was discomfiting, but she didn't want to look anywhere else because anywhere else was sure to be smeared with blood.
     She said, 'Hoffritz believed in centralized social planning. He was interested in the use of psychology, drugs, and various forms of subliminal conditioning to reform and direct the masses.'
     Haldane was silent. Then: 'Mind control?'
     'That's right. Her eyes were still closed, her head bowed. 'He was an elitist. No. That's too kind. He was a totalitarian. He would have made an equally good Nazi or Communist. Either one. He had no politics except the politics of raw power. He wanted to control.'
     'They do that kind of research at UCLA?'
     She opened her eyes and saw that he wasn't kidding. 'Of course. It's a great university, a free university. There aren't any overt restrictions on the directions a scientist's research can take — if he can round up the funding for it.'
     'But the consequence of that kind of research...'
     Smiling sourly, she said, 'Empirical results. Breakthroughs. The advancement of knowledge. That's what a researcher is concerned about, Lieutenant. Not consequences.'
     'You said your husband shared Hoffritz's obsession. You mean he was deep into research with mind-control applications?'
     'Yes. But he wasn't a fascist like Willy Hoffritz. He was more interested in modifying the behavior of criminal personalities as a means of reducing the crime rate. At least I think that's what he was interested in. That's what he talked most about. But the more involved Dylan got with any project, the more obsessed with it, the less he talked about it, as if talking used up energy that could be better spent in thought and work.'
     'He received government grants?'
     'Dylan? Yes. Both him and Hoffritz.'
     'Pentagon?'
     'Maybe. But he wasn't primarily defense-oriented. Why? What does that have to do with this?'
     He didn't answer. 'You told me your husband quit his position at the university when he ran off with your daughter.'
     'Yes'
     'But now we find he was still working with Hoffritz.'
     'Hoffritz is no longer at UCLA, hasn't been for ... three or four years, maybe longer.'
     'What happened?'
     'I don't know,' she said. 'I just heard through the grapevine that he'd gone on to other things. And I had the feeling that he'd been asked to leave.'
     'Why?'
     'The rumor was ... some violation of professional ethics.'
     'What?'
     'I don't know. Ask someone at UCLA.'
     'You're not associated with the university?'
     'No. I'm not in research. I work at Saint Mark's Children's Hospital, and I have a small private practice besides. Maybe if you talked to