Much of his work followed typical FBI protocol; the bureau had a solid forensics system that covered every base that could be imagined. Everything from the genetic evidence gathered under the CODIS umbrella to their Behavioral Science Department operated on good, solid principles. But what Jake did, the way he worked, was viewed with more than a modicum of skepticism by many of the people he helped. He understood that the sideways-glance treatment was the result of his solid—not weak—results. What they didn’t understand was which set of senses he used. And as many times as he had tried to explain what he did, he ended up confusing the issue more than clarifying it.
Jake didn’t believe in any of the parasciences. He didn’t believe in mediums or psychics or any of the unquantifiable bullshit that the Discovery Channel was so fond of talking about. Jake didn’t receive visions or see auras or summon spirits, although the people around him treated him like he did. No, the process Special Agent Jake Cole used was little more than a nineteenth-century parlor trick.
Jake knew that no quantifiable proof of tangible psychic power had ever been demonstrated. Never. Not once. People believe because they want to believe. Some are duped, others outright lied to, but the great truth is that there has never been a controlled experiment where a psychic was able to prove anything other than an extremely well-honed set of observation skills. And this was what Jake capitalized on. He didn’t talk with the dead, or speak with the spirit world. He observed. Watched. Saw. And computed. The con artists who masquerade as psychics call it cold reading.
In simple terms, he solved riddles—it was as mundane as that.
The element of the otherworldly that his coworkers subscribed to was simply confusion in the face of a mental acuity they could not understand. Like a musical or mathematical savant, Jake was able to tap into something that those around him could not and the result was that they were uncomfortable around him. Some were even afraid.
Jake did not create character sketches of killers; his talent lay in creating detailed renderings of the mechanics of a murder. It was a subtle science where slight nuances equaled a vastly different image. He never changed his opinion about a case because he never made a judgment call until he was certain.
Jake looked away from the screen and rubbed his eyes. The defining factor in this case was the lack of details he was seeing. Men like Hauser would call it evidence but Jake didn’t think in those terms. Jake thought of each detail as a pixel of color in a painting, and like any art, when enough pixels were present, an image took shape. But when they were absent, all the mental gymnastics in the world wouldn’t be able to finish the picture. This time, though, the lack of details was a godsend. Without a lot of physical evidence to sift through he had been forced to fall back on that part of him that even he didn’t understand. And through this computational process he had somehow recognized the killer’s smell. After all this time. After all the anger and hate and fear and heroin and booze. He would—
The phone jolted him out of the reenactment stage lit up in his head. “Cole,” he said wearily. Warily.
“This is Nurse Rachael at the hospital. You need to come down here right now.”
“My father—” He stopped himself. “What happened?”
“I think you should come to the hospital.”
There was the cymbal-like clang of something metal bouncing on a floor. Of breaking glass. Swearing. A slap. “Please,” someone said in the background. “Mr. Coleridge. Please stop. It’s going to be okay.”
And then the background static was buried under the wail of a single, high-pitched shriek that rattled the speaker. Jake jolted the phone away from his ear.
“Please. He’s coming. He’s coming. I can’t stay here! I can’t! Oh, God. Please. Let me go. I won’t tell him about you, I won’t. But if you don’t let me go, I’ll have to and then…and then—” His old man’s voice was panicked, mad. “Get away from me with that needle!”
Nurse Rachael came back on, winded. “Please, Mr. Cole.”
20
Jake shoved the door open and a little old lady with an unlit cigarette clamped in her teeth and wheeling an IV stand barked a Watch where you’re going! dodged the swinging door, and kept moving on her mission. Jake ran to the nursing station.
In the after-lunch lull, two nurses were going about various tasks at the station. A tall heavyset man in thick glasses and a thin horseshoe of gray hair looked around, smiled a public-service-announcement smile, and came to the counter. “Mr. Cole, I’m Dr. Sobel, one of your father’s physicians.”
Jake pulled up the name from the files he had been given—Sobel was a psychiatrist. If nothing else, Jake’s profession had taught him to mistrust people who said they could understand how the mind worked.
Sobel stuck out his hand. “I’ve got a few minutes until an appointment—but it’s important we talk. Could we have a follow-up tomorrow morning?”
“One of my father’s nurses called me. She said—”
Sobel waved it away, as if Jake was being melodramatic. “Rachael Macready. Yes, her shift is over.”
Jake recognized the calming tone and soothing word choice of a man trained to manipulate. “What happened?” he asked.
“Your father’s okay for now. We’ve sedated him. Again.” That last word said a little tersely, as if Jake might run out on his bills.
The psychiatrist went to a wall of cubbyholes and pulled out his father’s chart, then came around from behind the counter. He pulled Jake off into a small conference room. “I have two minutes, let’s make this count. Your father’s very agitated. I know you were here for one of his earlier episodes so I think you know what I mean. Do you have any idea what’s going on with him? What’s got him so worked up?” He closed the door.
Jake perched on the edge of the conference table. “I’m the last person who could tell you about him.”
Sobel made a note in the chart. “I’d like to tell you that it’s full-moon fever or that the coming storm is affecting him—which it probably is—but there’s something else agitating your father.” Sobel kept his eyes on the chart as he flipped through the pages.
Jake resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “He burned off his hands, Dr. Sobel. He’s in an unfamiliar environment. He’s loaded up on morphine, which is probably not the best thing for a man of his age. You’d probably prefer an anxiolytic mixed with a muscle relaxant and a sedative. Alprazolam’s your best bet. But my father’s an alcoholic so his renal function comes into question along with his age. So you go with the morphine. I know what’s going on.”
Sobel stopped flipping through the chart and looked up at Jake. “Are you a doctor?”
Jake smiled, almost laughed. “No. But I know about managing difficult personalities and you don’t have a lot of options with an old alcoholic who’s been a belligerent sonofabitch most of his life. You have to keep him—and those around him—comfortable.”
Sobel nodded and the planes of his face slid into a half-smile. “Your father’s always been an interesting man.”
“Do you know him?” Jake asked, surprised that his voice was so calm.
Sobel’s head bobbed back and forth in a no-yes-nod-shake. “My wife and I knew your mother. At the yacht club. She filled in when we needed a fourth for doubles. Your mother was a wonderful tennis player.”
Jake smiled. He hadn’t known that. “But not my dad?”