“So what have the documents told you?”
“How to access the lab — which we’d discovered already, thanks to Pam. The names of the three scientists who were directly involved in the work. Oh, and the name of the venture: Project Synesthesia.”
Kim frowned. “Synesthesia?”
“A neurological term for an unusual phenomenon where stimulating one sensory pathway causes the stimulation of a second. Tasting colors. Seeing sounds. It was a topic of great scientific interest in the early part of the twentieth century, but that interest died out long ago.”
“Interesting.” Kim thought for a moment, eyes far away. Then she turned back to Logan. “But what does it have to do with catching ghosts?”
“I was asking myself the same thing. I’m beginning to wonder if I was wrong about the purpose of the Machine.” He shifted in his chair. “At least we now know where ‘Project Sin’ came from. It was clearly the nickname, or code name, for the work.”
“Nickname,” Kim nodded. “You mentioned the names of the scientists. Anyone I might have heard of?”
“I doubt it.” Logan glanced over his desktop, picked up a sheet of paper containing three brief paragraphs. “Martin Watkins was the elder scientist on the project. From what I can gather, he spearheaded the work. He was an expert in physics. He died quite some time back, in the early 1950s. Apparently a suicide. Edwin Ramsey was his associate, a mechanical engineer. He died four years ago. The third was named Charles Sorrel, the junior man on the project. A medical doctor, specializing in what today would be called neuroscience. I don’t know what happened to him — I haven’t been able to track him down.”
“And that’s all you’ve learned?” Kim looked disappointed.
“Yes, save what I’ve been able to read between the lines. The work was obviously controversial and cutting-edge, which is why it took place in the secret room. But there’s nothing in this dossier about why the work was abandoned — why it was considered dangerous.”
Another silence fell over the room. Kim looked out the window, chewing her lip absently. Then she turned back.
“I almost forgot. I’ve made some progress of my own in examining those small devices we found in the room. A little progress, anyway.”
Logan sat up. “Go on.”
“Well, based on the components, I think they might be tone generators. At least in part.”
Logan stared at her. “What? For what purpose?”
She shrugged. “I haven’t gotten that far yet.”
“What’s their relationship to the Machine?”
“Can’t tell you that either. Sorry.”
Logan slipped the napkin off of the sandwich. “Doesn’t sound very menacing.”
“I know. I could be wrong. I’ll keep working on it.”
Logan picked up half of the sandwich. “A tone generator.” He prepared to take a bite. Then a thought came into his head and he put the sandwich down. “That reminds me. I meant to ask if you could lend me some Alkan CDs.”
“Great minds think alike.” She rummaged in her satchel. “I have one right here.” She handed the jewel case across the desk.
He glanced at the cover. “Grande sonate ‘Les quatre âges,’ by Charles-Valentin Alkan.”
“A four-movement piano sonata. Real hairy one, too. It was Willard’s favorite.”
Grasping the CD, Logan rose from his desk and walked into the bedroom, Kim following. Beside the bed was an alarm clock with a built-in CD player. He slipped the CD into the loading slot, adjusted the volume. A moment later, the room became filled with precisely the music he’d first heard in Strachey’s parlor: lush and romantic, yet at the same time seemingly possessed by demons; full of complex passages that veered between major and minor, wickedly complicated, shot through with the rising arpeggios and chordal work he remembered so vividly. He took an instinctual step back.
“What is it?” Kim asked him. “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost — to coin a phrase.”
“This is it,” he told her. “The music I’ve been hearing in my head.”
“What does it mean?” she asked. “You don’t think the Machine’s responsible, do you?”
Quickly, he shut the music off. “No,” he said, returning to his office and sitting back behind the desk. “No, I don’t think so. Recall my telling you I’m an empath? The first place I heard that music was in Strachey’s study. If I was to speculate, I’d guess that the empath in me was picking up what Strachey himself heard — when he was becoming sick.” He paused. “But there’s something else.”
“What?”
“When I first heard that music — in Strachey’s study — I smelled something, as well. It was awful, like burning flesh.”
“Alkan’s music has weird effects on people. Some have claimed to smell smoke while listening to it.”
Logan barely heard this — he was thinking. “Right before he died, Strachey said he was being pursued by voices. Voices that tasted like poison. And then Dr. Wilcox, at breakfast. He raved about voices in his head. Voices that hurt, that were too sharp.”
“I wasn’t there,” Kim said. “Thank God.”
“At the time, I assumed Wilcox meant the voices hurt because they were too shrill, too loud. But I don’t think that’s the kind of ‘sharp’ he meant. I think he could feel the voices.”
Kim looked at him. “You’re talking about synesthesia — aren’t you?”
Logan nodded. “Smelling music. Tasting voices. Feeling voices.”
Kim stood before the desk, considering this for a long moment. “I’d better get back to work,” she finally said, in a low voice.
“Thanks for the sandwich,” Logan replied. He watched her leave, shutting the door behind her. His eyes traveled to the sandwich, sitting on the white china plate. Then they moved to the sheet containing three paragraphs — the brief dossiers of the scientists behind Project Sin. After a moment, he picked up the sheet and began rereading it thoughtfully.
40
The Taunton River Assisted Living Community was a cream-colored three-story building on Middle Street in Fall River, Massachusetts. Logan parked in the lot behind the building, then — leaning into the howling wind — went through the front entrance and made a series of inquiries.
“That’s him over there,” a second-floor nurse said five minutes later. “By the window.”
“Thanks,” Logan replied.
“How did you say you’re related again?”
“Distantly,” Logan said. “It’s complicated.”
“Well, however you’re related, it’s nice of you to stop by, especially with this storm approaching. Both his children are dead, and his grandchildren never visit. Shame, really — mentally, at least, he’s still sharp.”
“Thank you again.”
The nurse nodded toward the box of chocolates in Logan’s hand. “He can’t have those, I’m afraid.”
“I’ll leave them at the nurse’s station on the way out.”
He walked through the large community room, past superannuated men and women watching television, playing cards, doing jigsaw puzzles, mumbling to themselves, or in some cases just sitting with vacant expressions on their faces. He stopped before a large picture window in the far wall. It overlooked Kennedy Park and, past the train tracks, the approach to Battleship Cove. A wheelchair was placed by the window, and in it sat perhaps the oldest man Logan had ever seen. His face was sallow and covered with an incredible tracery of wrinkles; the bony white knuckles that grasped the arms of the chair almost threatened to burst through the tissue-paper skin. Extreme age had shrunk and twisted his body into the shape of a comma. A tube of oxygen lay in the base of the wheelchair, and a nasal cannula was fixed in place. But the faded blue eyes that glanced Logan’s way as he approached were as bright as a bird’s.