He gave Gurney a hard stare. “I’m done explaining this to you. You’re one millimeter away from an obstruction charge. You hear what I’m saying?”
“Are we finished here?”
“You better be finished here.” Fenton gazed out in silence at the growing storm, then began shaking his head slowly. “I don’t get you, Gurney. What are you, some kind of egomaniac who always thinks he’s right and the rest of the team is wrong?”
“That would depend on the track record of the team.”
Fenton’s eyes were fixed on the swirling snow. He was gripping the steering wheel with both hands. “Let me ask you something. Where were you on 9/11?”
Gurney blinked at the abrupt segue. “My wife and I were away when the towers went down, but I got to ground zero that night. Why do you ask?”
“I was in Lower Manhattan that morning. At a joint NYPD-NYSP training session. We got sent to the towers as soon as the first plane hit.” The man’s knuckles were whitening from the force of his grip on the wheel. “So many years ago, and I still get nightmares. I can still hear the sound.”
Gurney knew what “the sound” was. He’d heard versions of this experience from other cops and firemen. While the fires were spreading from floor to floor, people were jumping from the high windows.
“The sound” was the sound of the bodies hitting the pavement.
Gurney said nothing.
Eventually Fenton broke the silence. “You get my point, Gurney? That’s what the world is now. That’s the new reality. Nobody gets to sit on the fence anymore. It’s about the survival of America. This is a war, not a game. You got to be on one side or the other.”
Gurney nodded in a vague show of agreement. “Tell me something, Gilbert. Those important, powerful, anonymous people who’ve taken a special interest in the Hammond case—you sure they’re on the side of the angels?”
Fenton turned in his seat, his expression incredulous and furious.
CHAPTER 44
On his way back to the suite, Gurney stopped in the Hearth Room to call Hardwick.
“Things are getting tense. I got another visit from Fenton. The man is under severe pressure to get rid of me.”
“Any idea what it is you’re doing that’s getting them so agitated?”
“They’re desperate for Hammond to confess, and they think I’m preventing that.”
“These bastards actually believe he hypnotized four men into killing themselves?”
“That would seem to be the case.”
“So what do you want me to do?”
“Stay close in case all hell should break loose.”
“Anything else I should know about?”
Madeleine’s mental state came to mind. But he wasn’t ready to discuss that with anyone. “Not right now.” He ended the call and went up to the suite. Tucked under his arm were Hammond’s article on polygraphy and Gall’s description of his nightmare.
He found Madeleine asleep with the bedside lamp on. In the sitting area the foil-covered plates Jane Hammond had brought over remained unopened on the coffee table. He settled down on the couch. The article, he noted, was eleven pages. The dream description was only half a page, so he started with that.
Per your request, these are the principal details of the dream I’ve been having since our last session. It begins with the illusion that I am awake, in my own bed. I develop an awareness of another presence in the room. I feel frightened and want to get up, but I discover I’m paralyzed. I want to call for help, but no words will come out. Then I see, emerging from the darkness, a thing covered with bristling fur. Somehow I know it’s a wolf. I hear it growling. I see its eyes shining, bright red, in the darkness. Then I feel its weight on me and its hot breath. The breath has a rotten smell. There’s a viscous fluid dripping from its mouth. Then the wolf is transformed into a dagger. On the handle there’s a wolf’s head with glittering ruby eyes. I feel something going into me. I’m soaked with blood. Then I see a man holding the dagger, offering me bright little pills. When I wake up I feel terrible. So terrible that I wish I were dead.
Gurney turned the copy over and discovered on the back a notation written with a different kind of pen in a rougher hand, presumably Fenton’s: “Daggers similar to the one described here found at all four suicide sites.”
He went back to the front of the page and read the dream narrative again.
So many lurid particulars.
Was it conceivable that Hammond had planted this dream in the minds of four people?
Was it conceivable that the dream had literally killed them?
The concept was astonishing.
So astonishing, Gurney couldn’t believe it.
He put the dream description aside and went on to Hammond’s polygraph article.
He started off reading it carefully, then began skimming, seeing no major revelations. Written years ago when Hammond was a doctoral candidate, it examined factors that contribute to polygraph errors, both accidental and induced. Simple factors included tricks such as using a thumbtack concealed in one’s clothing to produce pain at chosen points in the process to throw off the machine’s physiological response readings. At the more complex end of the spectrum were certain mental states, both meditative and disordered, that blurred the difference between a subject’s honest and deceptive responses.
“What time is it?”
Startled by the sound of Madeleine’s voice, Gurney turned to find her standing by the couch, gazing at him with the look of someone emerging from a bad dream.
He checked his phone. “It’s a little after nine.”
She blinked, hesitated. “David?”
“Yes?”
“Do you think I’m losing my mind?”
“Of course not.”
“I saw Colin in the tub. I’m sure of it. But it doesn’t make any sense.”
“It just means we haven’t found the explanation yet. But we will.”
“You really think everything is explainable?”
“I don’t think it is. I know it is.”
“Is seeing a ghost explainable?”
“You’re thinking now that you saw a ghost? Not a physical body?”
“I don’t know. I only know it was Colin. But there was something spirit-like about him. A kind of glow, as though I were looking not only at his body but at his soul. Do you believe we continue to exist after our bodies die?”
“I can’t answer that, Maddie. I’m not even sure what the question means.”
There was a lost look in her eyes. “Nothing like this has ever happened to you, has it?”
“No.”
His phone rang.
He let it ring three more times before glancing at the ID screen.
It was Rebecca Holdenfield.
As urgently as he craved any input that might move the Hammond case forward, he didn’t feel able to turn away from the look on Madeleine’s face. He let the call go to voicemail.
She shivered. “I’m cold. I should go back to bed.” She started to turn away from the couch, then stopped. “I forgot to tell you. Jane invited us to breakfast.”
Given the situation with Fenton, visiting the Hammonds seemed like a bad idea. On the other hand, he felt it would be good for Madeleine to be out of the lodge, even for an hour.