She knew with a pang that there was no hope of his ever leaving there willingly.
"Okay," he said, turning away from the phone. "Professor Jensen will see us now. He's a handwriting expert the Department uses from time to time. A Philosophy prof at NYU. Pretty weird duck, but handwriting's his hobby, and he's damned good at it."
New York University's Washington Square campus wasn't far from Dr. Gates' office. Rob drove her past the huge stone arch that marked the square. The lower seven or eight feet of its two supports were darkened with overlapping scrawls of graffiti. It made her think of a giant with dirty feet. Parking was no problem with Rob's Vehicle Identification card. He led her into a modern looking glass and brick building filled with students hanging around between classes. Black seemed to be the 'in' color—clothing, eye make-up, fingernail polish, even hair when it wasn't green or orange. Most of the kids seemed to have invested a lot of time and effort into distorting whatever natural attractiveness they might have possessed.
Professor Jensen's office was on the fifth floor. Younger than Kara had expected, he was maybe forty, very thin, balding in front with long dark hair trailing over the collar of his shirt.
"Ah, yes," he said when Rob walked through the door. "Detective Harris. I remember you now. What have you got for me?"
Kara noticed how he was rubbing his hands together in anticipation. He was really into this handwriting thing.
"Nothing too detailed. Just want to know if the author of this is male or female."
"Ah! A debatable determination. Some authorities say you can't tell."
"No?"
"But I can. Not a hundred percent, of course, but I've got an excellent record. Let's have a look, shall we?"
Rob handed him the xeroxes. Professor Jensen took them to his cluttered desk.
"You don't have the originals?"
"Back at the precinct house. If you need them, I'll get them."
"These should suffice for the moment."
He pulled a magnifying glass from the top drawer, then bent over the sheets.
"The writer is male, I'd say. Little doubt about it."
Rob nudged Kara with his elbow and gave her a self-satisfied I-told-you-so look.
Professor Jensen was staring at the xerox of the envelope.
"Deucedly strange way of sending a letter, wouldn't you say?"
Kara was trying to remember when she had last heard someone say 'deucedly' when Rob reached over and picked out the xerox of the check.
"Any chance they were written by the same guy?"
Jensen brought the magnifying glass into play again. Bewildered, Kara turned to Rob. He held a finger to his lips. Trust me.
"Hard to say," Jensen said. "If I had a longer sample of the second hand…"
Suddenly Kara remembered something and fumbled in her shoulder bag, praying she hadn't lost it. Here it was.
"Will this do? It's a prescription."
Jensen took it and laid it out on the desk in line with the check, the note, and the envelope face. He leaned back, then hovered close, finally he crossed his arms in front of his chest and simply stared.
"Odd," he said, and stared some more. "My immediate impulse is to say that these are two different people. The downstrokes and loops are similar but not completely. And yet… there's a common factor here, a unifying influence. I can't tell you in concrete terms, but after you've analyzed enough handwriting, you get a subliminal feel for the gestalt of a sample. These two feel similar to me, and yet they're not."
Rob said, "Could the man who wrote the check and the prescription have been trying to disguise his handwriting when he wrote the note and addressed the envelope?"
"Possibly. But I get a feeling that it might have been the other way around."
"What do you mean?"
"Perhaps the author of the note was trying to imitate the handwriting of the man who wrote the check."
▼
Kara slumped in the passenger seat of Rob's car as it idled at the curb. Professor's Jenkins' analysis had shaken her to the core.
"Do you think Dr. Gates could have sent me that message? Why would he do such a thing?"
"I don't know. Mind if I smoke?"
"Yes. And if he didn't, why would he lie about whoever did? Why would he say it was a female when it was a male."
"That might have been just to protect his patient. We both know what a fanatic he is about confidentiality."
"Do you think Dr. Gates is as tightly wrapped as he should be?"
Rob looked at her and shrugged.
"I don't like the guy, but that's a gut thing. The people I talk to who should know give him high marks, especially when it comes to multiple personalities."
"What if he's a multiple personality himself? What if his other self wrote me that note to warn me away from him?"
Rob's eyes widened and his voice became hushed.
"What if it was his Evil Twin?"
"Not funny, Rob. I'm serious."
"Sorry. It seems jut a little too far out."
But an idea that was even farther out kept nagging at Kara's mind. It was so ridiculous and outrageous that she didn't want to mention it, but it was there and it was going to keep on nibbling away at her until she brought it out.
"Try this for far out: What if Dr. Gates can take over your body while you sleep?"
"And use it for his 'personal pleasures'?" Rob said with a slow smile. "Kara…"
"I know how it must sound to you, but it's different on my end. You're not living under the threat of someone named Janine taking over your body and doing what she wants with it. When you've lost the absolute control you always assumed you had, crazy things start to sound plausible."
"I need a cigarette," Rob said.
He got out of the car and walked around the front to Kara's side where he squatted against the pole of the No Parking sign. As he lit up, he motioned Kara to roll her window down.
"Those things will kill you," she said.
"You make me nervous when you talk like that."
"Just consider it. What if that note I got isn't completely out of left field? What if Dr. Gates entered my mind when he hypnotized me and he's been taking over whenever he wished? What if he was doing the same thing to Kelly? What if that warning is from one of his past victims?" She forced a laugh that came out sounding strangled. "What if I'm completely bonkers for even mentioning this?"
Rob was staring at her.
"Please don't laugh like that again," he said. "It's scary."
"My life has become scary, Rob. Does all that I said sound as crazy and impossible to you as it should to me? Tell me it's absolutely impossible."
"It's absolutely impossible."
"Good. Then I'll sleep easier tonight." She coughed. "Can I roll the window up now? You're getting smoke in the car."
Rob took a final drag and flipped the cigarette away.
"Where do you want to go?" he said as he got behind the wheel.
"Ellen's, if you don't mind."
"What about tonight? You staying alone at Kelly's again?"
"Definitely."
Kara loathed the idea of spending another night alone in that apartment, but until she was sure…
"I'd offer to keep you company," Rob said, "but tonight's my turn to do a shift on a stakeout we're running on a murder suspect's apartment. But I'll come over first thing in the morning and see how you are."
Kara watched his eyes as he spoke. Something wrong there. Was he avoiding her for some reason? Or was she getting as paranoid as the person who'd written her that note?