“The bedrooms … upstairs”—his voice was hushed with emotion—“three of them … Ivy’s to the left of the stairs.…”
Bill girded himself for action. If Hoover took one step up the stairs, he would charge across the room and tackle the son of a bitch.
But Hoover held his ground and turned his attention to Bill.
“Am I right?” he asked with a smile that Bill decided was smug.
“Umm … yeah …” Bill said, shifting about nervously. “I … er … think we’d better get this thing started, if you don’t mind.”
“Certainly,” Hoover replied, and quickly crossed the room, taking in the slipshod arrangement of carpets concealing the microphone wire. He sat on the sofa where he was meant to sit, and Bill took the seat immediately to his right.
“Uh … I wonder, Mr. Hoover,” Bill began, groping, “if you’d mind going through the … highlights again of what you told us last night? We were kind of hazy, and … you hit us with so much.…”
Hoover thought a moment. “Is there any particular part that you would like me to repeat?”
Janice was sure that Hoover knew he was being recorded.
“No, no,” Bill said. “Just a general summary of things, you know, starting, say, with the death of your wife and child.”
Elliot Hoover took a deep breath and shut his eyes. There was a sense of ritual in the gesture, a rallying of inner strengths to muster support for a time of trial. When he spoke, it was in short, well-organized, fact-filled sentences.
“My wife and child died in a car accident on August 4, 1964. About a year later, I met a woman, a psychic, who told me that my daughter had returned to life, in the body of another person, and was living in New York City. My tendency was to scoff at the notion, but I did find it intriguing. A year later I attended a lecture given by a well-known parapsychologist, and he told me substantially the same thing the woman had a year before, that my daughter was living in the body of a child named Ivy, and he went on to describe her home, which was identical to the environment I now find myself in.”
The simple, direct manner of his delivery gave Janice the chills. He really seemed to believe this.
“Who are these people?” Bill interrupted.
“I beg your pardon?”
“The two psychics? What are their names?”
“I never knew the woman’s name. The man was Erik Lloyd.”
“Erik Lloyd?”
“Yes, he”—Hoover’s eyes lowered in respect—“died several years ago.”
“Uh-huh,” Bill commiserated. “That’s too bad.”
He could have predicted both answers. Hoover obviously thought he was dealing with novices.
“All right,” he continued, his eyes fastened on Hoover, “at that point, we’re talking about 1965 to ’6. You say that two people, psychics, told you your daughter was alive and living in New York and that her name was Ivy, is that correct?”
Janice thought Bill was overplaying it. Still, Hoover answered forthrightly and without seeming concern.
“Yes,” he replied. “That’s correct.”
“Well, why didn’t you come here then and claim her?”
“It was never my intention to claim her. Nor is it now.”
“Well, why didn’t you at least come and look us up, as you’re doing now? What took you, was it, seven years to decide whether or not she was really your child?”
“Mr. Templeton”—Hoover’s voice was soft with patience—“as I explained last night, my entire background, my religious upbringing, the sum and substance of all I was and believed in, were strongly opposed to such ideas. I was a scoffer and a disbeliever, as you are now.”
“So you went to India to discover the truth?”
“I went to many places, Mr. Templeton, met and stayed with many families, many teachers; learned of a way of life that was totally alien to mine; joined my life with theirs; embraced their customs; shared their poverty; partook of their beliefs and their philosophies; and, in time, with the help of God, and the wisdom of Siddhartha Guatama, their Buddha, came to know the reality of their religious convictions.”
Hoover turned to Janice.
“Might I please have a glass of water, Mrs. Templeton?” he asked.
As Janice rose and walked toward the kitchen, Bill’s next question faded off in the background.
“Understand, Mr. Hoover, when it comes to reincarnation and things like that, I’m at ground zero. Tell me. What are these religious convictions you’re talking about? And what convinces you that they’re right and that you are right in what you’re doing?”
Janice wondered if Hoover took ice in his water and decided finally to serve the ice separately. The thought of Russ, upstairs, listening to this strange conversation, brought a fleeting smile to her lips. Somehow Hoover didn’t seem so frightening tonight. He had no doubt been through a very bad experience and was a tortured man, willing to believe in anything. Janice almost felt sorry for him.
When she returned with the tray, Hoover was speaking in a voice charged with passion.
“The ego in man never dies. It keeps coming back over and over again, having gained in wisdom during each sojourn spent on other planes of being between the incarnations. Therefore, some souls are older in wisdom, have enjoyed more stages of spiritual and intellectual evolution, so that a great teacher may be an older soul than, say, a bricklayer or a savage.…”
“Ummmm, yeah …” Bill said as Janice put down the tray.
“I didn’t know if you wanted ice,” she said unsurely, placing the glass of cubes on the table next to Hoover.
“No, thanks,” he said with a quick smile. “I take it straight.”
“What did you do for money, Mr. Hoover,” Bill asked, “for sustenance during all this time? I mean, you quit working back in sixty-seven. How did you support yourself during all those years?”
Janice was sure this was one of Harold Yates’ questions.
Hoover finished drinking his water and answered simply. “A great deal of money came to me from the death of my wife and daughter. A double indemnity policy amounting to more than two hundred thousand dollars has more than provided for me during these years.”
Bill did a quick mental calculation: At eight and one-half percent interest, two hundred grand would net him seventeen thou per year, which, if true, was enough to support him on any number of truth searches.
“While the money, on the one hand, was abhorrent to me,” Hoover continued, “I did make positive use of some of it. There’s still a great deal left as my needs are very simple.”
“When did you come to New York?”
“This year, on the twelfth of July.”
“And you used a disguise?”
“Not until I was pretty sure I had … found the right people.”
“You mean us?”
“Yes.”
“How were you sure we were the right people?”
“A process of elimination. I had only three real clues: She lived in New York City; her hair was blond; her name was Ivy. That, plus the time of her birth, which had to be soon after Audrey Rose’s death. I went to the boards of health in all five boroughs and checked the birth records. I found six girls who were possible: two in Queens, one in the Bronx, one in Brooklyn, and two in Manhattan. All had been born within a year of Audrey Rose’s death. But only one was born at the moment of her death. Your daughter.”