“Yes. Well . . . there was some controversy—a hate-mail campaign aimed at Richard, generated by a network of fundamentalist ministers. But that was nearly ten years ago. Why is this an issue now?”
“Some people have long memories.”
“Some people are just bigots, looking for someone to hate.”
Gurney couldn’t disagree. On the other hand, he wasn’t ready to ascribe Reverend Cox’s demonic interpretation of the case to something as simple as plain old bigotry.
His second call, to Hardwick, went to voicemail. He left a message, suggesting that he check his email and listen to the attached audio file. And maybe he could try to get a lead on the missing girlfriend of Steven Pardosa, the suicide case in Floral Park.
His third call was to Rebecca Holdenfield. She picked up on the third ring.
“Hello, David. It’s been a long time. What can I do for you?” Her voice, even over the phone, projected a subtle sexuality he’d always found both enticing and cautionary.
“Tell me about Richard Hammond.”
“The Richard Hammond who’s currently at the center of a tornado?”
“Correct.”
“Tremendously bright. Moody. Creative. Likes to work on the cutting edge. You have some specific questions?”
“How much do you know about the tornado?”
“As much as anyone else who listens to the news on their way to work. Four patient suicides in one month.”
“You heard the police theory that he caused the suicides through hypnotic suggestion?”
“Yes, I heard that.”
“You think it’s possible?”
She uttered a derisive little laugh. “Hammond is exceptional, but there are limits.”
“Tell me about the limits.”
“Hypnosis can’t induce behavior that’s inconsistent with an individual’s core values.”
“So hypnotically induced suicide is just flat-out impossible?”
She hesitated before answering. “A hypnotherapist might move a suicidal person closer to suicide, through incompetence or reckless malpractice. But he couldn’t create an irresistible urge to die in a person who wanted to live. Nothing remotely like that has ever been documented.”
Now it was Gurney’s turn to pause for a moment’s reflection. “I keep hearing people say that Hammond is unique in his field. And you mentioned a minute ago that he likes to work on the ‘cutting edge.’ What’s that all about?”
“He pushes the boundaries. I saw an abstract of a paper he presented at a meeting of the American Psychiatric Association—all about breaking down the separation between neuropsychology and motivational hypnotherapy. He claimed that intensive hypnotherapy can form new neural pathways, enabling new behavior that was previously difficult or impossible.”
Gurney said nothing. He was waiting for her to catch the dissonance between that statement and what she’d said about hypnotherapy’s limits.
“But don’t get me wrong,” she added quickly. “There’s no evidence that even the most intensive hypnotherapy could turn a desire to live into a desire to die. And, by the way, there’s a whole other aspect to this question of what people are capable or incapable of doing.”
Again Gurney waited for her to go on.
“The aspect of character. Character and personality. From what I’ve seen and heard of Hammond, I’d have to say that morally and temperamentally he’s an unlikely candidate for masterminding suicides. He’s a perpetual wunderkind, he’s neurotic, maybe a bit too much of the tortured genius. But a monster? No.”
“That word reminds me, did you get my email?”
“Not if you sent it in the past hour. Been too busy to check. Why?”
“I just met with a Florida preacher who believes that Hammond is very much a monster. I sent you a recording of our conversation.”
“Sounds outrageous. Can’t listen to it this second, though. I’ve got a client waiting. But I will get to it, and . . . and I will get back to you. Okay?”
An unresolved note in her voice told Gurney there was something more she wanted to say. So, once more, he waited.
“You know,” she added, “just theoretically speaking . . . if someone could figure out how to do that . . .”
“You mean figure out how to make people kill themselves?”
“Yes. If someone . . . if someone could actually do that . . .” The implications seemed to leave her at a loss for words.
GURNEY SAT GAZING OUT OVER THE RESERVOIR. THE LONGER Rebecca Holdenfield’s unfinished comment lingered in his mind, the more convinced he was that he’d heard in it a touch of fear.
He glanced at the dashboard clock. It read 3:23 PM. In a shadowed mountain valley in December, slipping down toward the shortest day of the year, it was nearly dusk.
Gurney’s attention began to drift to a series of images. The images were both familiar and disconcerting. Familiar because they’d come to him from time to time—perhaps a dozen times in all, always unexpectedly—ever since he’d had the dream in which they first appeared, shortly after he and Madeleine had moved to the western Catskills and heard the stories about the old farm villages that had been dammed and flooded to create the reservoir.
The villagers had been forced from their homes, dispossessed by eminent domain and New York City’s need for water. All the houses and barns, the churches and schools and general stores, everything had been burned to the ground, the charred timbers and stone foundations bulldozed into the earth, and all the bodies exhumed from the valley cemeteries. It was as if the place had never been home to anyone—as if communities that had existed for over a century had never existed at all. The vast reservoir was now the great presence in the valley, the bulldozed relics of human habitation having been long since absorbed into its silty bottom.
But these hard facts, although they seemed to initiate it, were not the final substance of the dream’s recurrent images. In his mind’s eye he was standing in the dim, blue-green, deadly silent depths of the reservoir. All around him were abandoned homes, bereft of doors and windows. Incongruously, among the inundated farm buildings stood the Bronx apartment house where he’d spent his childhood. It, too, was eerily vacant, its windows nothing but rectangular openings in the murky brick facade. Eellike creatures undulated in and out of the openings. In the lightless interior venomous sea snakes lurked, waiting for their prey to venture in. A slow, freezing current pushed at his back, moving him ever closer to the looming structure with its hideous contents.
So vivid were these images that Gurney’s lips drew back in revulsion. He shook his head, took a deep breath, started the car, pulled back onto the county road, and headed for home—resolving never to dwell on that dream again.
The dozen miles of hills and hollows between the reservoir and Walnut Crossing formed a dead zone for his phone. But as he turned onto the narrow road up to his property, he entered the service area of the Walnut Crossing cell tower and his phone rang.
It was Jane Hammond.
“Did you hear?” Her voice was alive with anger.
“Hear what?”
“About Fenton’s latest press briefing.”
“What happened?”
“He’s making everything worse.”
“What did he do?”
“He claimed Richard is now his ‘primary suspect’ in what he’s calling