Twelve Times Zero — Reading Notes

Cordell said doggedly: "The lab door was open a crack. I heard a woman's voice in there, and it wasn't my wife's. It was a voice like--like cracked ice. You know: cold and kind of ... well ... brittle and--and deadly. That's the only way I can describe it.

"Anyway, I sort of hesitated there, outside the door. I didn't want to go bulling in on something that wasn't none of my business ... but on the other hand I figured my wife was in there, else Alma would've said so."

"You hear anything besides this collection of ice cubes?"

The young man's jaw hardened. "I'm giving it the way it happened. You want the rest, or you want to trade wise cracks?"

One of the men behind Kirk lunged forward, "Why, you cheap punk--"

Kirk stopped him with an arm. "I'll handle this, Miller." To Cordell: "I asked you a question. Answer it."

"I heard Professor Gilmore. Only a couple words, then two quick flashes of light lit up the frosted glass door panel. That's when I heard these two thumps like when somebody falls down. I shoved open the door fast ... and right then I saw _her_!"

Kirk nodded for no apparent reason and was careful about knocking a quarter inch of ash off his cigar. "Tell me about her."

The young man's hands were shaking again. He sucked at his cigarette and let the smoke come out with his words: "She was clear over on the other side of the lab ... standing a good two feet off the floor in the middle of a big blue ball of some kind of--of soft fire. _Blue_ fire that sort of _pulsed_--you know. Anyway, there she was: this hell of a good-looking blonde; looking right smack at me, and there was this funny kind of gun in her hand. She aimed it and I ducked just as this dim flash of light came out of it. Something hit me on the side of the head and I ... well, I guess I blanked out."

"Well, like I said yesterday, I suppose I just naturally came out of it. I'm all spread out on the floor with the damndest headache you ever saw. Over by the window is the Prof and--" he wet his lips--"and Juanita. They're dead, Lieutenant; just kind of all piled up over there ... dead, their heads busted in and the--the--the--"

He sat there, his mouth working but no sound coming out, his eyes staring straight into the blazing light, the cigarette smouldering, forgotten, between the first two fingers of his left hand.

Almost gently Kirk said: "Let's go back to where you were standing outside the door. You heard this woman talking. What did she say?"

Cordell looked sightlessly down at his hands. "Nothing that made sense. Sounded, near as I can remember, like: 'Twelve times zero'--then some words, or more numbers maybe--I'm not sure--then she said, 'Chained to a two hundred thousand years'--and the Professor said something about his colleges having no idea and he'd warn them--and the blonde said, 'Three in the past five months'--and then something about taking in washing--"

The detective named Miller gave a derisive grunt. "Of all the goddam stories! Kirk, you gonna listen to any--"

Kirk silenced him with a gesture. "Go on, Cordell."

The young man slowly lifted the cigarette to his mouth, dragged heavily on it, then let it fall to the floor. "That's all. That's when the lights started flashing in there and I tried to be a hero."

"Sure you've left nothing out?"

"You've got it all. The truth, like you wanted."

Kirk said patiently, "Give it up, Cordell. You're as sane as the next guy. Give that story to a jury and they'll figure you're trying to make saps out of them--and when a jury gets sore at a defendant, he gets the limit. And in case you didn't know: in this State, the limit for murder is the hot seat!"

The prisoner stared at him woodenly. "You know I didn't kill my wife--or Professor Gilmore. I had no reason to--no motive. There's _got_ to be a motive."

The police officer rubbed his chin reflectively. "Uh-hunh. Motive. How long you married, Cordell?"

"Ames Chemical pay you a good salary?"

"Enough for two to live on?"

"How long did your wife work for Professor Gilmore?"

"Four years next month."

"Pretty big job for a woman, wasn't it?"

"Juanita held two degrees in nuclear physics."

"You mean this atom bomb stuff?"

"That was part of it."

"Gilmore's a big name in that field, I understand," Kirk said.

"Kind of young to rate that high, wouldn't you say? He couldn't have been much past forty."