WHILE BOYER JOGGED TO HIS RURAL MAILBOX, HARLOW FOUND A Thin Man movie on TCM. She was still watching it when the reporter returned.
“Bill was really a great actor,” she observed as he took a seat next to her on the couch. “He and Myrna made a great team.”
“She was his favorite costar,” he agreed. “The fans often thought they were really married.”
For the next hour, the man studied the woman’s eyes as much as he did The Thin Man Goes Home. He realized it must have seemed strange for Harlow to see her fiancé and one of her good friends looking ten years older than they had just a month before. Yet perhaps the images of an aging Powell and Loy would also help put into perspective that more than seventy years had passed. This was something she had to eventually face.
When the movie ended, Boyer picked up the zapper and turned the RCA high-definition monitor off. As the screen went black,
Harlow’s mood quickly moved from bright and cheery to distant and mournful.
“Got something here for you,” he said, waving a large envelope he hoped would brighten her mood.
“What is it?”
“Your identification. Bob Whitaker put it together for me. He’s with the justice department. Inside the envelope, you’ll find all the information you need to prove to the world that you are Kaytlin Jean Carpenter.”
She pulled the green folder out of the mailer and quickly flipped it open. She studied the first document. Grinning, she looked back at Boyer. “It says I was born on March 3, 1985. The day is right, but that’s seventy-four years past the real year. I do like the sound of twenty-six better than ninety-six.”
“I can understand that,” he laughed. “And you don’t look old enough to have celebrated either of those birthdays. I had him choose that date because I thought it would be easiest for you to remember. Besides, it gives me a lot of time to find you a present.”
“I knew there had to be a catch,” she quipped as she read a couple more lines. “This has me born in Little Rock, Arkansas.”
“In a hospital that had a fire in the early eighties,” Boyer informed her. “Records were destroyed in the blaze. Still, there is a record of your birth in the courthouse there. Bob made sure of that.”
“How?”
“I don’t know, and probably don’t want to know.”
“My parents were Jean and Andrew Shell of Mountain View. But my last name is supposed to be Carpenter.”
“It does work out, believe me,” he assured her. “Bob doesn’t know your story or who you are. He picked out those names because the couple did live in Mountain View at the time, they did have children, and they did die in an automobile accident just a few months after your birth date. Their children were all adopted into different homes, and the records of those adoptions were sealed. Therefore, you have something to back up your story.”
She laid the birth certificate to one side and glanced at the next document and grinned.
“I was evidently adopted in 1989 by Mark and Nancy Carpenter, and I was raised in South America.” Shaking her head, she added sarcastically, “I must have enjoyed my time in Rio a great deal.”
“I doubt if you spent much time there.”
“And why not?” she demanded. “I’ve heard it is a great city.”
“Well, the Carpenters were real people and spent more than twenty years in South America and Asia as Baptist missionaries. Bob seemed to feel no one could challenge that fact as the couple spent most of their time in very remote regions of the world. You probably had little contact with the real world until you returned to the States when you were—”
“Eighteen,” she cut in. “According to this paper, my parents were killed by rebel forces in Columbia.” Harlow glanced over at the writer then added, “I don’t suppose that would be Columbia, Missouri.” Boyer shook his head.
She continued, “Anyway, it says here that I attended college, the Fulbright Institute, and I majored in history. As I know nothing about what has happened during the past seventy years, it would seem that my education is lacking. Wonder if I cut too many classes.”
Boyer grinned. “Bob put you in a place where they could create records for you. That’s a school in Los Angeles, where most teaching is done one-on-one. A college for geniuses.”
“Oh yeah, that fits,” she said sarcastically. She leafed through a few more papers and smiled. “I like this. I have a driver’s license. This is great. I love to drive.”
“Yes, you have everything you need to prove you are Kaytlin Carpenter, just as long as you don’t talk yourself into a corner. There is a script, if you will, in this package that Bob’s people put together for you. It tells the story of your life. We both need to know it backward and forward. The details of your story will only ring true if we, especially you, know it as well as you do the details of your real life. For the moment, we don’t want to slip up. We can’t really afford to.”
“Where did the pictures come from?” Jean asked, pulling some snapshots from the file.
“Oh, some of the stuff I shot of you in LA and on the first days we got here. I sent them to Bob via e-mail. He was able to use them to create the baby pictures, youth shots, and official document shots. It was a matter of using a computer to de-age you, then to change hairstyles and other things to go with the time period. If you look through the packet, you will find an envelope filled with pictures of you and your parents, as well as pictures of you at school, in college, in the jungle, that sort of thing. They all will look as real as anything that exists on anyone anywhere.”
Harlow shook her head. “You mean you can create a life out of a few snapshots and a lot of bull.”
“It also helps to have a few connections,” Boyer offered. “Now, have you taken your pill for the day?”
“Yeah, right after I got up. What would happen if I didn’t?”
“Well, according to Dr. Gould, not much. It’s mainly just a precaution. Most transplant patients have to take a whole regimen of drugs every day. If they miss the pills, their bodies will reject the new organs. Research using something called stem cells has given doctors a way to fool bodies into believing that the new organs had always been there. In your case, your body believes the cloned kidneys really are your kidneys. I guess, in truth they are. The pill you take each day is something that helps, but you could probably live without it. Rejection will not be a problem in your case.”
“Well, I guess good things do happen to her who waits,” Harlow quipped. “And believe me, I did have to wait.”
He smiled. The Baby was incredible. She was suddenly adapting better than he could have believed. She was actually accepting what had happened, and now seemed ready to carve out a new life.
“Tell,” she asked as she walked to the window and stared out at the river, “what’s so important that Dr. Feller and Jim Blane are going to fly in all the way from California to talk to us?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “But we’d better jump in the Cobra and get to Ash Flat. The cupboard is running low. I’m sure that they’ll arrive hungry.”
“Can I drive? I have a license.”
He looked at her and then thought of his prize pony car. No one had ever driven that ride but him.
“Please?” she pleaded.
“Well, I don’t know,” he hesitated. “It’s a standard, and I doubt if you know how to drive a standard. Most folks don’t.”
“What do you mean standard?” Harlow inquired.
“I mean it has a clutch.”
“Yeah, so?” she replied. “Don’t all cars?”
Then it dawned on him: Harlow’s first life ended before the automatic transmission was invented. She had never driven a car that didn’t require using both hands and feet. To her this was old hat.
A few minutes later, with the top down and her hair blowing in the breeze, Kaytlin Carpenter was piloting the powerful V8 around Arkansas’s Route 289’s curves as if she was a part of the machine. As she smoothly shifted through the sports car’s gears, she laughed. No doubt about it, Jean Harlow was alive.