1 The Question of the Missing Head by E. J. Copperman Page B

door.
    “What does that song mean?” Ms. Washburn asked.
    “That she is a very strange woman,” I told her.
    “News flash.”

fourteen
    “The clock is ticking,” Marshall Ackerman said. “We’re not sure how many more hours we have before it will be impossible to properly preserve Ms. Masters-Powell.”
    “Based on the information you gave me, we have exactly five hours and thirty-seven minutes,” I corrected him. Ackerman had summoned Ms. Washburn and me back to his office only seconds after the interview with Charlotte had ended. “If you do not receive a ransom demand or some such communication from the people involved indicating the remains are being properly cared for, we will have a very poor chance of finding them intact after that. So I believe we are wasting precious time rehashing these facts. Is there new information relevant to the question that you can tell me?”
    Ackerman looked oddly surprised. Later, I realized he probably wasn’t accustomed to being spoken to quite like that, but at the time I felt I was merely stating facts. People’s emotions are tricky things, and sometimes I forget that.
    Ms. Washburn, standing to my side, told Ackerman, “Mr. Hoenig is concerned about the urgency of the situation and is doing everything he can to answer your question while there is still time to bring the matter to a satisfactory conclusion.”
    “He doesn’t need an interpreter,” Ackerman said with a growl in his voice. “He’s told me off quite effectively.” He turned his attention to me. “Yes, Mr. Hoenig, as a matter of fact I do have some information for you. Arthur Masters is on his way here, along with Ms. Masters-Powell’s mother, Laverne. And I thought I had asked you not to contact them if at all possible.”
    “I didn’t contact them,” I told him. “I assume Detective Lapides did so.”
    Ackerman nodded. “Yes he did, and when I asked him about it, he told me you had suggested it might be a good idea. Why would you do that when I asked you not to?”
    “You asked me not to contact them about the disappearance of Ms. Masters-Powell’s remains,” I reminded him. “I have not. Detective Lapides is investigating the murder of Dr. Springer. That is a completely separate affair.”
    Ackerman gasped, not in surprise, but almost as if he were fighting for breath. He made some noises that did not resemble speech, and the veins in his neck became visible. I looked to Ms. Washburn for some explanation, but she had turned away and had her hand to her mouth. She appeared to be suppressing a laugh.
    “Just … just … just try to be discreet about this matter,” Ackerman finally pushed out of his mouth. “My business, this institute, relies on patrons like Rita Masters-Powell for its very survival. A challenge to her endowment for us could be crippling.”
    That should have immediately reminded me never to take any piece of a question for granted. I felt my hand go to my chin and stroke it, which I’ve been told means I am thinking more deeply than usual.
    If it was Ms. Masters-Powell’s endowment that was paying for the preservation of her remains, that meant her family either was not paying the monthly (or annual) bill issued by GSCI, or had provided the endowment for her before her death. So Ackerman’s concern about Lapides contacting her family probably would not be motivated by a fear that his stipend would end if they were dissatisfied with the service for which they were paying; it would be because he was afraid they’d challenge her posthumous desire to have it paid. He was worried, in other words, that he would be sued.
    In moments like this, I especially missed having my mother nearby, since she understood human behavior and things like anger much more completely than I do. I get “agitated,” Mother says, when something is not logical, or when people act in an irrational way that keeps me from completing a goal. I know I should react differently, and had been working