The Dead Man

Chapter Twenty-nine

There were times when I knew that the job could get me killed, when the people on the other side of the door might be high enough, stupid enough, or scared enough to shoot instead of surrender, or when the creep I helped send away might try to make good on his threat to get even when he got out. Those risks came with the territory, like living in Kansas City where the blaring of tornado sirens was a rite of spring sending throngs of people outside with their video cameras searching the sky for twisters instead of taking shelter in the basement.

The possibility that a serial killer had plucked my name from the top of Walter Enoch's dead letter pile lay closer to the odds of being sucked into oblivion by a tornado than it did any risk I ever took as an FBI agent. But no matter how remote the chance, I'd learned one thing people living in trailer parks knew about tornados. It was human nature to tease the bear and curse God when the bear did what bears were meant to do.

In the four days since Simon Alexander had bought me a cup of coffee, it was possible that I'd gone from being a some-time security consultant to being both a murder suspect and serial killer target, depending on whose paranoid flavored Kool-Aid I drank. I had one advantage over Kent and Dolan and Walter Enoch's killer. Shaking made it easier to look both ways and see who was coming at me.

It wasn't only my status that had changed. So had the other volunteers in the dream project and, for that matter, Maggie Brennan's, all of whom could be targets if we were dealing with a serial killer. Tom Goodell never missed a retired cops' lunch and the next one was on Wednesday. I hoped he could close the loop between my Maggie Brennan and his.

The house was quiet and the dogs were sleeping. I reached in my pants' pocket and retrieved the flash drive that held Enoch's dream video and that Kent and Dolan would have taken along with my laptop had they bothered to search me. I loaded the video on the computer Simon had loaned to me, expanded the image to full screen, and turned up the volume.

The video began with the credits: Harper Institute of the Mind, Dream Project, Anthony Corliss, PhD, Project Director, Maggie Brennan, PhD, Assistant Director. Bold yellow font identified the subject as Walter Enoch and the date of the video as January 12.

Enoch's face filled the next frame, the camera shooting him from the neck up, magnifying his moonscape features. The dark paneled wall behind him was familiar. The camera pulled back a few inches, enough to reveal patches of blue and red tartan plaid fabric, confirming my memory. The video had been shot in Enoch's house. He was sitting in the chair where his body was found.

I froze the video, ran upstairs, and dug my Bose headphones out of the bedroom closet, not wanting to miss anything. Back in the kitchen, I took a deep breath and clicked play. Anthony Corliss's voice filled my ears.

"Before we talk about your dreams, Walter, tell me about your accident."

Walter's hand found his chin, crept over his mouth.

"I don't like to talk about it."

"Why? Because it wasn't an accident?"

Walter shuddered, looking away from the camera.

"No reason to talk about it."

"Walter, c'mon now. Look at me," Corliss said from behind the camera. And Walter did. "It's just you and me here, nobody else, and we've known each other a while now. We're friends, you and me, and I'm a doctor. A psychologist. You know that. I've told you about all the people I've helped who've suffered so bad for things they didn't even begin to deserve, things you wouldn't wish on a dog. I can help you if you'll let me."

Walter shifted in his chair. "You should go. I should never have let you in the house. Now you know what I've done."

Corliss ignored the request. "I'm glad you let me in, Walter, because now I can help you. I'll find you a lawyer and I'll testify for you. Tell the judge what a bad time you've had. After what you've been through, they'll go easy on you. Right now, though, you've got to tell me about your dreams. They've got to be terrible. You tell me about them and I'll help you find some peace."

Walter blinked his thin, stubby, pale eyelashes. His chest heaved as he struggled to breathe. "I am what I am. I got no need to make peace with you or anybody."

"I'm not talking about me or anybody else, Walter. I'm talking about you. Your pain is written in the scars all over your face. Let me help you."

Walter turned his head to the side, pressing his cheek into the back of his chair. "I'm fine. I don't need nobody's help."

"Something like your face, it was probably your mother. Fathers use their fists or a belt. Mothers use water. It's a subconscious connection to the womb. That's why when they go crazy some mommas drown their babies. Others boil them."

Walter ground deeper in the chair, a trickle of tears rolling over his ruined face. Corliss let the silence hang, waiting for him. The dead air lasted a couple of minutes, the camera detailing Walter's squirming anguish. He broke the silence, his head burrowed into the cushion, muffling his sobs.

"My mother poured boiling water on me. I was eight years old. She said I was a monster."

"Were you?"

"Not yet."

"I believe that, Walter. No way you deserved that. No way at all. But that's what she did and here we are. Can't un-ring that bell, can we? So let's concentrate on the part we can do something about starting with your dreams, Walter. Let's you and me get a handle on that."

Corliss's hand appeared in the frame, handing tissues to Walter who wiped his eyes and blew his nose, rolled his shoulders back and down and faced the camera, red eyes and blue lips the only colors in his washed-out face. He coughed, wet and raspy, gulped air, and nodded at the camera, his voice at first soft, gathering strength.

"It's the same dream. Not every night, but most nights. Ever since she burned me. She's running away from me and I'm chasing after her, calling her but it's like she don't hear me because she never stops. Not till I get lost. Then I'm caught up in these dark green vines and they're climbing all over me, pulling me down in the ground and I'm crying for my mother but I'm not making any sounds so she can't hear me. She doesn't know I'm in trouble and I need her. Then the vines, they turn into a big pond and the water's up to my neck and I see my momma in the middle of the pond and the water is shallow there cause I can see her, all of her except for her feet. She's smiling at me and I know she wants me to swim over to her so I start swimming and the closer I get the hotter the water gets and it's getting deeper, not shallower, and I can't touch the bottom. Then the water gets in my mouth and nose and I can't breathe and I'm sinking like a stone. Momma reaches down in the water and grabs me and I tell her I'm so sorry for whatever it was that I did. She calls me a monster, says the devil is in me. Then she shoves me down deeper in the water and the water is burning me. I can't breathe cause I'm swallowing the water and my insides feel like they're on fire and I know right then that I'm gonna die."

"But you don't die. You wake up," Corliss said.

"I don't want to. I want it to be over."

"It will be, soon, I promise you," Corliss said.

The screen went blank but I couldn't take my eyes off it until I realized I was the one holding my breath, the effort shattered by a fresh round of spasms and whiplash, thinking as much about Anthony Corliss as I was about Maggie Brennan. She struck me as a vulnerable mix of steel and sadness. I remembered the promise I'd made to protect her and hoped I could keep it.

I lumbered into the living den on unsteady legs, staring at the wall Lucy had designated for Walter Enoch, wanting to add my answers to the questions she had written. But the gears in my brain had gummed up and all I could do was collapse into the recliner. I promised myself that I would rest a few minutes and then try again, a promise that was broken when Lucy woke me and put me to bed.