Chapter Four

The team looked at me. I held up my hand, if Charlie had run off to empty his stomach, I wanted to give him a litle privacy.

So I counted down from five on my fingers. After I folded my pinky, I followed Charlie to the men's room.

He was rinsing his face off when I got there. By the looks of the sink, he'd already rinsed his mouth out. I shook my head sadly.

His reflection gave me a sour look. "You don't need to come after me," he said. "I'm a big boy."

I turned my back on him so I could use the facilities. "Didn't you and Dad already go over that?" I asked blandly. "I mean, you're shorter than I am, and you claim that I'm short."

I didn't get the smile I was aiming for. "That's not what I meant," he said. "I can take care of myself."

"Really? If you've finished throwing up so quickly, that means you forgot lunch," I said. I was worried and trying to make light of it. Charlie's an adult. He is not a child. He is not made of glass.

Charlie leaned against the sink and closed his eyes.

"Dad and I really needed to get you married off, Chuck,"

This at least got him to roll his eyes in my direction.

"Seriously, Buddy," I said.

"I'm okay," he lied and he left with as much dignity as he could muster.

I took a few minutes to wash up and followed him. He was back at the table and David was placing an open can of 7-Up at his elbow. (Refresh my memory, whose brother is he? I sometimes think my team forgets.)

"It probably wasn't blood, Charlie," Megan was saying thoughtfully. She had the pictures sorted by gender and coloring, and by then was sorting by apparent age.

The computer analysis would do a better job of determining if any of these were of the same child at different ages, but Megan was working on the theory that redundancy never hurt.

"Right," Charlie said. He took a deep breath. "Anyway, there were caches of junk food all over the house, and he urged the stuff on all of us, the workers as well as me."

"And when Mom asked what you'd eaten, you spilled your guts because you never could keep a secret," I guessed.

That got a faint smile out of him. "Well, actually, it was a more literal version of 'spilling my guts'" he admitted.

"Ewww, Chuck!" I exclaimed. I put my hand over his mouth. "That's waaa-aay too much information."

A more Charlie-like grin followed that. "When Mom realized what I'd been eating, she made me clean the car."

My eyes must have bugged a little then. I actually remembered the car cleaning incident. I'd been surprised at how angry Mom had been. I mean, I'd seen Charlie get away with things that I'd get grounded for. It hadn't make sense to me that he'd get punished for getting carsick.

"I remember that," I managed." I'd actually felt sorry for you then, ya little squirt."

I was out of Megan's reach, so I felt safe in saying that.

After a few moments, another thought occurred to me. "Dad might remember that incident, too. Maybe he'd remember Dr. Math's real name."

Charlie shot me a miserable look. "You really want to tell Dad, 'Hey, Mom dropped Charlie off with a suspected pedophile. You happen to remember his name?' "

I winced.

Edna frowned, but I held up my hand. "We will, if we need to," I told her.

Charlie nodded. "Besides, Dad might not remember," he said. "I only went that one day, and Mom never paid him."

I cocked my head. "How do you know this?" I asked.

Charlie picked up the first picture I'd found of him. "This," he said. "This is from when I met Doctor Maths for the second time. He mentioned the lack of payment then."

I exchanged looks with the team. "Go on," I said quietly. "I take it you know where the picture of you at fourteen was taken?"

He nodded. "It was at a Mathematics symposium at L.A. Tech," he said. He shook his head. "I can't believe how naïve I was. I almost walked right into the oldest trap, and I never even suspected it until now."

I reached over and squeezed his forearm. "He was at this symposium?"

"He must have been," Charlie said. He stared sadly at his fourteen year old self.

"Think there are any records of attendees?" I asked.

Charlie blinked. "Um, could be," he said. He got up and typed the particulars into David's laptop.

I added the info to my notes.

"So, what happened?" Colby asked.

"Hm? Oh," Charlie said. "Oh. I was there to present my first published paper."

"Published? At fourteen?" Edna was deeply impressed.

OK, I puffed up a little. He's my brother, I'm entitled. No need for the team to smirk like they did.

Charlie was flattered by Edna's awe. I could tell. "Yeah, I was the youngest one there," he said with a shy smile.

"Not surprised," Colby said.

"By a couple of decades," David added.

Charlie nodded. "That's where part of the problem lay," he added. "Nobody took me into consideration when planning the menu and they served one of those rubber chicken casseroles with creamed vegetables on the side." He shuddered. "Even the rolls were too hard to eat. Dessert was cake, but I only got a tiny portion." He held up his thumb and forefinger to indicate the injustice of his treatment.

I had to grin.

"What?" Charlie demanded.

"I think it's funny that you remember the details of this lunch so clearly," I said.

"It was the first time I presented a paper in public," Charlie said defensively. "I could tell you what we had for breakfast, what Mom wore, how many times she had me change my tie…"

I held up my hands in surrender. "Whatever, Chuck," I said.

Charlie glared, Megan measured the distance to my shin, and David and Colby exchanged amused looks. I dragged their attention back to the matter at hand.

"Go on, Charlie," I said.

"Right," Charlie replied, sobering up. "I was still hungry and ready to go home. Mom got involved in some convoluted debate about intellectual property rights. However, she took pity on me and told me that I could go hit the vending machines in the lobby. She gave me a handful of change, and I had some money. I left before she could change her mind."

Charlie went back to his seat. "I also the first one out the door. The other scientists were finishing dessert or discussing the presentations or arguing about the presentations." He shook his head. "It was overwhelming and even if I hadn't been hungry, I doubt I would have stayed."

"You? Passing on a chance to discuss or even argue about math?" I asked.

Charlie made a wry face. "There were more scientists than I had ever seen in one room," he said. "I was feeling overwhelmed." He shook his head. "Anyway, the only vending machines in the lobby held gum and cigarettes. The clerk told me that the upstairs lounge room had cookies and soda. So I went upstairs in search of junk food."

"And ran into Dr. Maths," Megan finished grimly.

Charlie nodded. "We got to talking. He mentioned the lack of payment and wondered if there was a diplomatic way to bring this to Mom's attention.

"We started walking then. He said he was very impressed with my paper, that's when he took my picture."

Charlie sighed. "He said he wanted a picture of both of us, and suggested that we would be able to find somebody at the hot dog cart. That idea held instant appeal. Not only would I be able to get the highly coveted junk food, but something a little more substantial as well."

"Dr. Maths must have been listening," David observed.

Charlie made a wry face. "Or he could just have been observant," he said. "Anyway, he told me that the hot dog cart was outside, next to the industrial arts building."

Edna muttered something I won't repeat here.

I oh so casually sat down in the chair between Megan and Charlie. Megan squeezed my arm, letting me know that I hadn't been as casual as I had hoped.

Charlie's face tightened. "I've been to L.A. Tech since," he said. "There's no hot dog cart in the area he said there was. I didn't think about it much because I assumed that it had been moved."

He grabbed a pad of paper and began sketching the area. "After all, it's not a good location for attracting customers. The industrial arts building is set apart from the other buildings, none of which have windows facing it. There's a small, grassy area with lots of tall bushes, and a small parking lot nearby."

"So, was anybody out there that day?"

Charlie shook his head. "I doubt it. It was Friday afternoon during the summer. Not likely to have been any class out there. I don't know for sure, because we never got that far. We were intercepted by a professor who wanted more details about my paper, and my autograph."

I was all ears, and the rest of the team was, too.

"This professor, have you met him since?" Edna asked. "Can you get in touch with him?"

Charlie held up his cell phone. "I left a voice message as soon as I realized where that picture was taken," he said.

I had my suspicions about who he called, but didn't voice them.

"I was flattered as hell, as you can imagine," Charlie said. "Looking back, I think that Dr. Maths was rather put out that my attention had been distracted from him."

"I bet he was," Megan said.

Charlie nodded and kept talking. "Anyway, next thing I knew, Dr. Maths and I been steered back to the lobby just as people started to come out of the conference room. I mentioned getting a photograph of both of us, but Dr. Maths had to leave then."

"What a surprise," Colby muttered.

Charlie sighed. "Mom showed up a few minutes later, and she was not in a good mood. I think she'd lost her legal debate. Anyway, we left before I could hand out my autograph and I didn't dare mention junk food when she was in that mood." He actually pouted. "Then we had that eggplant thing for dinner."

I winced. I miss my Mom with a passion some days, but what she did with eggplant had to be illegal in all fifty states, DC, and most of the territories that the US owned. I put my arm around Charlie's shoulders and squeezed with what I hoped would be taken as mock sympathy.

Didn't fool Megan, she shot me a sympathetic look. Damn profilers.

"And you never saw Dr. Maths again?" I asked, shifting and tightening my grip. It was Megan's fault, really. She shouldn't have gotten all girly on me. I made sure I was out of her reach, too.

Charlie shook his head. He didn't say anything, possibly because I was cutting off his air supply right then.

Megan started to ask something, or maybe she was going to tell me that fuchsia wasn't Charlie's best color. She was interrupted by Charlie's cell phone.

I released him and he flipped the phone open.

"Yes?" he said. Such wonderful phone etiquette he has. "Oh, good. Yeah, I was wondering if you remembered that…" He actually blushed at this point. "I'm glad it was so memorable, thanks. What about the guy I was talking to…"

Then his expression darkened and I was afraid we were going to have to tell Dad about this after all.

"No, don't go there. Yes, that is what we're…" he paused. "Wait, how were you to know? And even if you suspected…" He paused and shook his head. "Stop. No. You can't blame… Matz-ur-ath? How do you spell that?" He gave a snort of something close to amusement. "And I kept saying 'Dr. Maths… Oh, he did go by that? Well, I feel less stupid."

He wrote Arnold Matzurath on his pad. David input that into his computer.

"Yeah, well, you're not, either. In fact, I owe you… I never thanked you. In fact, if I ever mentioned the event, I'm sure I was rude." Charlie's eyebrows went up. "I am not always rude, am I?"

He was very careful not to look at me after he said that.

"Lobster? If that's what you want…" Charlie grinned. "I know you were joking, but I'm not…" His voice got rather squeaky then. "You have his address?"

Everyone looked alert.

"Now I'm definitely not joking about that lobster dinner. Yes, for two. Of course, with the dining companion of your choice." He shot a sideways look at Megan.

I have got to be nicer to Larry Fleinhardt.

Colby and David looked amused. Colby opened his mouth to say something, winced, and shut it again. Megan looked bland. I made a note not to play poker with her.

"Thanks, Lar," Charlie flipped his phone shut.

The team was all over this like melted butter on a lobster. I could leave them alone while I took Charlie home. At least, as long as I brought them back something to eat.

"C'mon, Buddy," I said, I gestured for him to accompany me. "I think you've done enough."

Charlie frowned. "You sure? I could still do a geographic analysis of the victims."

"You can do that at home," I said. "All you need for that are the addresses of where they lived and where they were last seen, right?"

Charlie nodded. I let him grab his laptop before I herded him home.