“That war being . . .?”
Cox looked surprised at the need for such a question. “The war being waged on the divinely ordained order of things. The war waged on the essence of man, woman, marriage, and family. The war waged with all the devil’s cunning by the homosexual armies of Satan.”
“Are you telling me that Christopher Wenzel drove down to Coral Dunes to tell you about his dream because of your opposition to gay marriage?”
Cox stared at Gurney, his eyes burning with an emotion that might have been fury or a kind of wild excitement. But there was something else in those eyes as well—that special gleam that signals an unshakable belief in a patent absurdity.
His voice rose as he spoke. “What I’m telling you is that he came to me because he was hypnotized, spiritually violated, and about to be murdered by Doctor Richard Hammond. Doctor of degeneracy and debasement.”
AFTER SPENDING ANOTHER FIFTEEN MINUTES LISTENING TO BOWMAN Cox—with absolutely no desire to have anything to eat—Gurney left the diner with more questions than he’d arrived with. Questions about Richard Hammond’s background, Jane Hammond’s honesty and openness, the significance of Wenzel’s elaborate dream, and Cox’s own fierce hatred of Hammond.
Gurney spent most of the Route 17 segment of his homeward drive arranging in his mind the content and sequence of the phone calls he intended to make: to Hardwick, to Jane, and to Rebecca Holdenfield—a brilliant forensic psychologist with whom he had a complicated history of attraction, alliance, and conflict.
Before he called any of them, however, he decided to email them copies of the audio file. He also wanted to listen to it himself—not so much the dream segment, whose details were vivid in his mind, but the portion of his dialogue with Cox that followed the claim of murder. Regarding that exchange, he wanted to be sure his recollection was precise before discussing it with anyone, especially Rebecca.
After pulling off onto the shoulder, he sent the emails—with brief introductions for Hardwick and Jane and a longer explanation for Rebecca. Then he opened the audio file from the diner, found the point where he wanted to begin, and tapped “Play.”
Listening with care to Cox’s every word, he pulled back onto the highway and headed into the rolling foothills.
Cox: What I’m telling you is that he came to me because he was hypnotized, spiritually violated, and about to be murdered by Doctor Richard Hammond. Doctor of degeneracy and debasement.
Gurney: Is that what Wenzel told you? That he expected to be murdered?
Cox: He related his nightmare, and his nightmare revealed what he was unable to say.
(Brief silence)
Gurney: You believe that Hammond murdered Wenzel?
Cox: With all my heart and soul.
Gurney: Let me be sure I have the sequence right. You’re saying that Hammond hypnotized Wenzel—under the guise of a therapy session that was supposed to help him stop smoking. Then a week later . . . what? Hammond flew down to Palm Beach, hypnotized Wenzel in his condo, and cut the arteries in his wrists—causing him to bleed to death, creating the appearance of a suicide? Is that what you’re saying happened?
Cox: You have a blind and dismissive attitude, sir.
Gurney: I want to understand the facts as you see them.
Cox: I see the presence and power of Satan—a reality to which your mind appears closed.
Gurney: My mind can be opened. Just tell me what you believe Richard Hammond actually did to Christopher Wenzel—the specifics, the logistics. Are you saying that Hammond personally traveled to Florida to kill him?
Cox: No, sir, that is not what I’m saying happened. That would be little more than the routine viciousness of mankind, a crime that could have been perpetrated by any common criminal. What actually happened was infinitely worse.
Gurney: I’m confused.
Cox: Hammond had no need to resort to any purely physical action.
Gurney: You’re saying now that Hammond did not murder anyone? You’re losing me.
Cox: We are dealin’ here, sir, with the power of Evil itself.
Gurney: Meaning what, exactly?
Cox: How much do you know about Hammond’s background?
Gurney: Not a great deal. I was told that he was famous in his field and that he helped a lot of people stop smoking.
Cox: (Harsh, humorless laugh) Hammond’s agenda has nothing to do with smoking or not smoking. That’s mere window dressing. Examine his background—his books, his articles. It won’t take you long to discover his true agenda, the agenda that was there from the beginning, plain as the fire of hell in the eyes of that wolf. Hammond’s agenda, sir, is the twisting of natural minds and the creation of homosexuals.
Gurney: The creation of homosexuals? How does he do that?
Cox: How? The only way it could be done. With the help of the devil.
Gurney: What does the devil actually help him do?
Cox: The answer to that is known only to Hammond and to Satan himself. But my personal opinion is that the man sold his soul in exchange for a terrible power over others—the power to enter their minds and to warp their thinking—to give them dreams of perversion, dreams that drive them either to lives of degenerate behavior or to self-destruction because they cannot endure the curse of such dreams.
Gurney: So, when you say that Hammond “murdered” Wenzel, what you mean is—
Cox: What I mean is that he murdered him in the most evil way imaginable—by planting in his mind a nightmare of perversion he could not bear to live with. A nightmare that drove him to his death. Think of it, Detective. What crueler and more wicked way could you kill a man than make him kill himself?
Gurney ended the audio playback as he was exiting the highway and turning onto the road that would take him through a series of hills and valleys to Walnut Crossing.
Apart from sharpening his memory of Cox’s exact words, replaying the conversation hadn’t helped. The man’s unhinged vision of Wenzel’s suicide was more a lightning storm than a source of useful light.
Could Cox be as crazy as he sounded?
Or, if the homophobic ranting was a performance, what was its purpose?
Despite the explanation Cox gave for Wenzel coming to him, Gurney was left wondering if there might have been another reason for that unfortunate man’s long drive to Coral Dunes.
When Gurney reached the west end of the Pepacton Reservoir he pulled off onto a gravel turnaround. In an area of spotty cell reception, it was one place where his phone always worked.
He was hoping to find some thread of coherence in the inconsistent pictures of the case presented by Gilbert Fenton, Bowman Cox, and Jane Hammond.
His first call was to Jane.
“I’ve got a question. Did Richard ever do any work in the area of sexual orientation?”
She hesitated. “Briefly. At the beginning of his career. Why do you ask?”
“I just spoke with a minister who met with one of the young men who committed suicide. He told me your brother provided therapy designed to alter a person’s sexual orientation.”
“That’s ludicrous! It had nothing to do with altering anything.” She paused, as if reluctant to say more.
Gurney waited.
She