13

Economist and former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan famously endorsed the theory that sales of men’s underwear (the Men’s Underwear Index, or MUI) served as a valuable economic indicator. Plot your MUI predictions for the years leading up to and following the next recession.

Nicole is waiting for us in the lobby when we arrive. Before we even say hello, she enters our names into the reception desk computer. The machine spits out badges bearing the words INDUSTRY CONTACT. We slip the lanyards around our necks and follow her into the elevator.

As we walk the long hallway past the beanbag chairs and dining areas, I get the feeling that this famous, feared, mildly respected tech company is really just a stock symbol and a slick website being run out of a building that resembles the food court at a shopping mall.

We step into a café, quiet save for the clicking of laptop keyboards. Nicole leads us to a dimly lit booth, and Kyle and I slide in side by side. She returns moments later with three coffees and slides into the seat across from us, attempting to shield her face from prying eyes. It’s no use. Two young men pass our table, greeting her cheerfully. She doesn’t want to be here with us, but now that she’s been seen by her colleagues, she has given up her defenses. She tells us about the morning on the beach, the “sandwiches” in the car, the strange figure in the distance, shuffling toward her. Her eyes are almost frantic. I can tell she hasn’t been sleeping well.

“And when did you realize it was a boy?” I ask.

“I don’t know.” She shudders. “I mean, I knew in that last ten feet it was human, but it was so white. So bluish white, and the completely bald head, the lack of hair anywhere. His skin was translucent, shivering, so cold, I could see his veins through his skin. He was tall enough to be fifteen or sixteen, I guessed. But he was so gaunt and weak he struck me as much younger.”

“What did you do?”

“I asked the boy if he was okay, even though it was obvious he wasn’t. He didn’t reply. Then I took off my coat, wrapped him up in it, and called nine-one-one. The operator said to stay right there, so I just held him in my arms, trying to warm him up. He was trembling, his lips blue. He didn’t meet my eyes. He was humming, this terrible, high-pitched noise. The firemen arrived within six or seven minutes. But still, those minutes standing there with that frozen, traumatized boy felt like hours.”

“Did he say anything at all?”

“No, he just kept humming, shaking.”

“Could you see where he came from?”

“Somewhere down the beach.” She bites her lip. I wait for her to fill the silence. Several seconds tick by. She shifts uncomfortably in her seat. “Is he okay?”

“He’s with his family,” Kyle says.

“But is he okay?”

“Hard to tell, but at least he’s back in school.”

Nicole lets out a deep sigh, almost as if she has been holding her breath all these months. “Thank God.” She swipes a tear from her face, sits up, looking first at me, then at Kyle. “Did you catch the guy?” The tiny twitch of her mouth, barely perceptible, gives me pause.

As we’re getting into the cruiser, I ask Kyle: “Why doesn’t it mention in the file that Stafford had no hair when he appeared on the beach?”

“I asked Crandall the same thing.”

“What about the Lamey twins? Also hairless?”

“No, but they did have an unusual smell.”

“I didn’t see that in the file.”

“Crandall wasn’t big on details, as you’ve noticed.”

“What kind of smell? Sweat? Feces?”

“The opposite.”

“What’s the opposite of feces?” I say, laughing. I can’t help it. In the Behavioral Analysis Program, BAP—a special division of the Behavioral Analysis Unit focused on counterintelligence—we used to laugh at the most inappropriate things. It was a way of releasing tension, or maybe it’s just that inappropriate things are funnier.

“It was the absence of smell. Like a cloak of unsmellability. At least that’s how the nurse described it to me.”

“What nurse? I thought Crandall handled that case?”

“Yes, but when I got to the job, I was curious, and the Lamey case hadn’t been officially closed yet. I tracked down one of the nurses who’d received the twins at the hospital right after they were found. When she told me about the absence of smell, it sounded like a clue.”

“Or the absence of a clue.”

“Have you ever heard of Febreze?”

“The cleaning product?”

“Not a cleaning product, a deodorizing product, invented by a chemist at Procter and Gamble. A pretty amazing feat of chemistry really, it’s an inorganic compound, microscopically small, shaped like a doughnut. And it doesn’t smell like anything. The shape traps the odor molecule, blocking it so that the smell is undetectable. But when Procter and Gamble first sold the product, it was a total flop. In cleaning products, it turns out, people don’t want clean so much as they want the smell of clean. Anyway, long story short, P&G relaunches the product with a trademark scent, and it makes millions.”

“So are you saying the twins were doused with Febreze?” I ask.

“All I know is, both kids had a rash over their entire bodies, which cleared up within days of their return. The doctors found traces of beta-cyclodextrin in one of the twin’s urine.”

“The key ingredient of . . .”

“Febreze. Though, apparently, it’s not unusual for people to have that chemical in their urine.”

I’m beginning to wonder how much else was missing from the Lamey file. “Did the kids mention anything about it? Or were they mute, like Gray Stafford?”

“Not mute, but they hadn’t talked much before and they certainly didn’t start after they returned. Eventually, their mother was able to surmise that they had been kept in a room with bunk beds, wherever they were.”

“Were they fed?”

“It was hard to tell, because they were extremely picky eaters. They’d lost a dangerous amount of weight, but that might have just meant they didn’t eat what they were given.”

“Anything else?”

“They didn’t hear any human sounds.” He glances over at me.

“What do you mean? Were there pets? Machines? Road noise?”

“There might have been horses.”

“Really?”

“One of the twins was afraid of horses when she returned. Never had been before. I know the file says ‘learning disabled,’ but that’s not quite accurate. Someone who knew more about these things, someone not like Crandall, in other words, would probably have asked the parents if the children had Asperger’s. The twins gave us nothing. In fact, they seemed totally uninterested in shedding light on anything that had happened to them. And unlike Gray, they didn’t seem overly traumatized, except for the horse thing.”

We wind back along 92, heading inland, emerging from dense fog into sunshine. “There was a news story a few years ago,” I say, “about a father and his twelve-year-old son who survived overnight in the Atlantic Ocean after their fishing boat capsized. The father was terrified, but the boy seemed to think the whole thing was a great adventure. He had autism, and his neurological difference allowed him to stay calm. It saved their lives. He didn’t sense the danger. Could that be what happened with the Lamey twins?”

“Possible. The Febreze thing is just my theory. Their mother thought the rash could be from something else. She said they were both allergic to black walnut trees. Before Chief Jepson told me to leave the case alone, I wasted an entire weekend researching black walnut trees. I had this vision of myself solving the mystery, you know, finding the villain camping out in a tent in a black walnut orchard.”

“With horses.”

“Exactly. But it doesn’t really work that way, does it?”

“Sometimes it does. I can’t tell you how many weekends I’ve spent on details like that. Occasionally, it pans out.”

Kyle takes the Black Mountain Road exit, cruising into Greenfield, slowing to take the hairpin curves. On Robinwood, a deer darts out in front of us. Kyle swerves and brakes expertly, not too hard, the stunned deer staring at us for several moments before leaping into the brush. As we pull up in front of my dad’s house, I have one more question for Kyle. “What reason did Chief Jepson give you when he told you to quit investigating?”

“He insisted there was no there there. Chief said my primary job as a new officer on the force was to be, and I quote, ‘a comforting presence for the good citizens of Greenfield.’”