The Terminal Experiment

CHAPTER 42

The next day, Peter made sure Cathy got safely on her way to work, but he stayed home. He’d disconnected the electronic door system and had called a locksmith to come and put in old-fashioned key-operated dead bolts. While the locksmith worked, Peter sat in his office and stared out into space, trying to make sense of it all.

He thought about Rod Churchill.

A cold fish. Undemonstrative.

But he had been taking phenelzine — an antidepressant.

Meaning, of course, that he had been diagnosed as having clinical depression. But in the two decades Peter had known Rod Churchill, he’d seen no change in his demeanor. So maybe … maybe he’d been depressed for all that time. Maybe he’d been depressed even longer than that, depressed during Cathy’s childhood, leading him to be the lousy father he had been.

Peter shook his head. Rod Churchill — not a bastard, not an asshole. Just sick — a chemical imbalance.

Surely that mitigated what he’d done, made him less culpable for the way in which he’d treated his daughters.

Hell, thought Peter, we’re all chemical machines. Peter couldn’t function without his morning coffee. There was no doubt that Cathy became more irritable just before her period. And Hans Larsen had let his hormones guide him through his life.

Which was the real Peter? The sluggish, irritable guy who pulled himself out of bed each morning? Or the focused, driven person who arrived at the office, the drug caffeine working its magic? Which was the real Cathy? The cheerful, bright, sexy woman she was most of the time, or the cranky, quarrelsome person she became for a few days each month? And which the real Larsen? The drunken, sex-crazed lout Peter had known, or the fellow who apparently had done his job well and been liked by most of his coworkers? What, he wondered idly, would the guy have been like if someone were to cut off his dick? Probably a completely different person.

What was left of a person if you removed stimulants and depressants, inhibitors and disinhibitors, testosterone and estrogen? And what about children who’d received too little oxygen during birth? What about Down’s syndrome — people altered completely by having an extra twenty-first chromosome? What about those with autism? Or dementia? Manic-depressives? Schizophrenics? Those who suffer from multiple personalities? Those with brain damage? Those with Alzheimer’s? Surely the individuals affected aren’t at fault. Surely none of those things reflect the actual people — the souls in question.

And what about those twin studies the Control sim had mentioned? Nature, not nurture, guided our behavior. When we weren’t dancing to a chemical tune, we were marching to the genetic drummer.

Yet Rod Churchill had been getting help.

If he’d really been killed in the way Detective Philo suggested, the sim would have known that Rod was taking phenelzine, would have looked it up in a database of drugs, would have understood what Rod was being treated for. Could the sim have failed to realize that although the treatment might be new, the condition could have been long-standing? Surely that would have been enough evidence to commute any death sentence the sim had been contemplating?

No — no version of him would have killed Rod Churchill, knowing of this chemical problem. Pity him, yes, but surely not kill him. In fact, this called into question all of Sandra Philo’s case. The sims, after all, had admitted to neither of the murders, and all Philo’s evidence pointing to Peter, and from there to the sims, was circumstantial.

Peter breathed a sigh of relief. He would not have killed Rod Churchill. Rod had simply done something stupid, failing to follow his doctor’s orders. And Hans Larsen? Well, Peter had always contended that dozens of angry spouses might have wanted him dead — including, now that he thought about it, Larsen’s own wife, who, Peter seemed to recall, worked in a bank and could have embezzled the funds needed to hire a hit man.

Fog, that’s all the case against him was. Empty fog.

And he’d prove that. He’d audit his own finances. Hiring a hit man would surely have cost tens of thousands of dollars, if not hundreds of thousands. Philo might never find the missing funds, even if she subpoenaed his financial records. But Peter had the advantage of thinking precisely the same way the sims did. If he looked — really looked — and could not find any missing money, well, then he could rest easy.

Peter dialed into his company’s mainframes, logged on to the corporate accounts database, and started digging. He used an accounting expert system made by Mirror Image to help him audit. As he moved through each account, each financial database, and found nothing amiss, his confidence grew. He was interrupted after an hour or so by the locksmith, who had finished his job. Peter thanked the man, paid him, and went back to his searching. Philo had been wrong, completely wrong. Just another cop who loved conspiracy theories. Why, he’d give her a piece of his mind—

His computer beeped.

Good Christ, thought Peter. Good Christ.

A discrepancy in the subrights licensing account. No memo, no payee’s account number, no cross-referenced invoice. Just a whopping big debit notice:

Peter stared at the screen, his jaw slack.

The timing was just about right. Hans had been killed three days later.

But surely it had to be something innocent. A refund for a licensing deal that had fallen through, maybe. Or an adjustment because of an overpayment to his company. Or…

No.

No, it could be none of those things. Peter’s comptroller was meticulous. No way she’d make an entry like that. And the notation EFT. Electronic funds transfer. Exactly what a sim would have to use.

He was about to log off when the console beeped at him again. Another hit in his database search:

Peter let out another sigh of relief. There — proof that this was all innocent. Surely no hit man would work on an installment plan. Whatever was causing these debits had to be something routine, then. Patent payments, perhaps. Or…

Two days ago. That second transaction had been just two days ago.

And then it came to him.

What Cathy had said.

“What will happen,” she’d asked, “to the detective when she gets too close to the truth? Will you want her dead, too?”

It couldn’t be, thought Peter. It could not be.

Killing Hans he could understand. Perhaps he didn’t approve, but at least he understood. Killing Rod Churchill was more difficult to fathom, given the extenuating circumstances. But maybe, just maybe, the electronic sim didn’t see biochemistry as an excuse.

But Sandra Philo hadn’t done anything evil, hadn’t hurt Peter in any way. She was just doing her job.

But now, apparently, she had become inconvenient.

Christ almighty, thought Peter. The guilty sim didn’t just have reduced morality or skewed morality. It had no morality at all.

Easy, Peter. Let’s not get ahead of the data…

But — no. It was there, even within the flesh-and-blood Peter — buried deep, but there: a desire for self-preservation. There was no one else he wanted dead — that was true. But the detective was putting him, and the sims, at risk. If he were to get rid of anyone now, it would be her. If any version of himself were to get rid of anyone now, it would be her.

Damn it. God damn it. He’d have no more blood on his hands. Peter immediately activated his telephone; a valid address was as good for dialing as was a name. “Metropolitan Toronto Police, 32 Division, on Ellerslie,” he said.

The Bell logo danced off the screen. A craggy sergeant appeared. “Thirty-two division,” he said.

“Sandra Philo,” said Peter.

“It’s her day off,” said the sergeant. “Can someone else help you?”

“No, it’s — it’s personal. Do you know where she is?”

“Haven’t a clue,” said the cop.

“I don’t suppose I could get her home number?”

The cop laughed. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

Peter broke the connection and dialed directory assistance. “Philo, Sandra,” he said, then spelled the last name.

“There is no such listing,” said the computerized voice.

Of course. “Philo, A.,” he said. “A for Alexandria.”

“There is no such listing.”

Dammit, thought Peter. But a cop would be crazy to have a listed phone number — unless it was still under her ex-husband’s name. “Do you have any listing for anyone with the last name Philo?”

“There is no such listing.”

Peter clicked off. There must be some way to get a hold of her…

City directories. He’d seen them at the public library. Originally, they’d been designed to find the name that went with an address, but with them now on random-access CD-ROMs, it was just as easy to do the reverse, finding an address that went with a name. Peter called the telephone reference line for the Central Branch of the North York Public Library.

“Hello,” said a woman’s voice. “Quick reference.”

“Hello,” said Peter. “Do you have city directories there?”

“Yes.”

“Could you tell me the address for Alexandria Philo, please? P-H-I-L-O.”

“Just a moment, sir.” There was a pause. “I have no A. Philo, sir. In fact, the only Philo is listed as Sandy.”

Sandy — a non-gender-specific version of her name. Exactly the sort of precaution an intelligent woman living alone would take. “What does Sandy Philo do for a living?”

“It says ‘civil servant,’ sir. I suppose that could mean just about anything. ”

“that’s her. What’s the address, please?”

“Two-sixteen Melville Avenue.”

Peter jotted that down. “Is there a phone number?”

“It’s marked unlisted.”

“Thank you,” said Peter. “Thank you very much.”

He clicked off. Peter had never heard of Melville Avenue. He called up his electronic map book and looked it up. It was here in Don Mills. Not that far. Maybe a twenty-minute drive. It was crazy, he knew — a paranoid fantasy. And yet…

He hurried to his car and put the pedal to the metal.