Near Death by Glenn Cooper

told him that Quinn had seemed his normal self during their last phone conversation, maybe a little tired and stressed from a busyday. If he had plans for that evening, he never shared them.
    “When was the last time you saw him?” The hall was noisy; Cyrus almost felt he was shouting.
    “At Alex’s house, the previous Saturday night.”
    “Tell me about Alex.”
    “He’s a great guy, an amazing guy, a really brilliant research doctor. When I was an undergrad I read one of his papers and e-mailed him. We got to know each other.”
    “He’s at Harvard Med, isn’t he?” Cyrus asked, aware of the answer.
    “Yeah. And at Children’s Hospital. I wouldn’t be shocked if he gets the Nobel Prize one day for his work on brain injury.”
    “Brain injury,” Cyrus repeated. “Lot of that going around. What were you doing at his house?”
    For the first time the young man stiffened. “A bunch of people meet at his place in Cambridge a couple of times a month to talk about science and philosophy. Alex is sort of the focal point.”
    He wanted to know more but Fox was hesitant. “You’re going to be talking to Alex. He’ll tell you about it.”
    “How come you know I’m talking to him?”
    “He told me.”
    “Was that him on the phone?”
    Nodding, Fox tried to avoid sounding unhelpful. “Look, it’s not a big mystery or anything. It’s just that Alex likes to keep the group’s discussions private for a lot of reasons. If you’ve got any questions after you’ve seen him—any whatsoever—call me and I’ll be happy to help you out but really, Alex is in the best position to give you the lowdown.” Whenever Fox talked about Weller, Cyrus noticed he lowered his eyes and spoke a little more softly. What was it? Was he in awe of the guy? Something else?
    If Fox’s intent was to put him at ease, the conversation had the opposite effect. Cyrus was satisfied Fox was telling the truth about his relationship with Thomas Quinn. In his gut he believed the kid probably didn’t have information on the murder. But this Weller character made his antennae vibrate like crazy and he hadn’t even met him. The police report on Weller’s interview was two-dimensional, minimalist and uninteresting. The real story was bound to be richer.
    When he was ready to leave he flipped a business card on the table and worried the kid by sternly saying, “Since your friend Alex is so interested in my whereabouts, let him know I’m on my way over to his lab.”
    As he drove down Longwood Avenue past Children’s Hospital, Cyrus stared unswervingly at the bumper of the car in front of him, refusing to look at the buildings. If there was a place on earth he loathed more, he hadn’t yet found it. Tara was still there. He’d visit her later. For now he tried to block it out.
    Down the street, he pulled into a handicapped spot in front of Vanderbilt Hall, the med school dorm, and put his FBI OFFICIAL BUSINESS placard on the dash.
    Across Longwood Avenue, the entrance to the Harvard Medical campus, long ago dubbed the Great White Quadrangle, was festooned with a pair of oversized stoneware urns. He sighed heavily at the imposing sight of five large marble buildings surrounding a central green crisscrossed with students walking purposefully, to this day self-conscious about his own academic credentials.
    His start had been auspicious: a scholarship at Boston College, which took care of a good piece of the financial burden. A couple of campus jobs and a modest contribution from his parents had covered the rest. Sad to say, he considered his two years at BC his life’s high-water mark. The ivy-crept campus, the library books that smelled of past generations, the lofty ideas; the hours spent readingbeautiful sentences. Thinking about those years made him ache.
    Then, in the summer before his junior year, his father got into the kind of trouble that blights a family for generations: accusations of sexual impropriety involving a woman at a