The Unseen

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The Paranormal Research Center was a disappointingly plain and provincial building: a cheaply made and functional two-story beige-and-tan block with a tacked-on triangle-roofed facade and shuttered windows.

Laurel parked outside in the lot, filled with about two dozen cars, and contemplated the building.

After Dr. Rhine retired in 1965, he and his wife founded the private Rhine Research Center; he was already making provisions to continue his work. Another Duke poltergeist investigator, Dr. William Roll, moved on to a position at the University of West Georgia, and another group of researchers had broken off from the Duke lab earlier to found the Paranormal Research Center, located in Raleigh, just a forty-minute drive from Duke. Leish had made several mentions of the PRC in the articles Laurel had been able to find of his; it was clear he had ties to the organization, and Laurel hoped someone at the Center would be able to give her more answers about Leish’s work at Duke.

Laurel had phoned the Center and spoken with a receptionist, explaining she was a new Duke professor interested in the history of the Duke parapsychology department and the Research Center. “I wondered if I could arrange to get a tour, at the Center’s convenience, of course.”

“I’m very sorry. The PRC is a private facility. We don’t conduct tours.”

Laurel pressed, but both the receptionist and the administrator that Laurel insisted on being transferred to held their ground. “I’m sorry—the Center is not open to the public. You are perfectly welcome to attend one of our open lectures, though. We have one tomorrow night at seven.”

Laurel decided to go to the lecture and take it from there.

She was as jumpy as a cat as she got out of the car and moved up toward the building. It was unaccountable, the feeling of going into enemy territory, but her instinct was to proceed cautiously, not to let too much slip.

Her uncle’s voice whispered in her head. You need to pay attention.

The double doors of the lecture hall led into a hundred-seat auditorium connected to the main building. There were about three dozen people scattered in the seats, most older than fifty. A volunteer, a small elderly woman in a St. Pete’s sweatshirt and jeans and red Keds sat at a back table, surrounded by stacks of literature on the Center, program schedules, flyers calling for study volunteers. There was also a schedule of the bimonthly lecture programs: nothing Laurel hadn’t seen advertised at bookstores and yoga studios and community college seminars all over Los Angeles: “What Do We Know About Auras?”; “Healing Through Meditation”; “Coping with Spiritual Emergencies”; “The Implications of Parapsychology for Religion and Spirituality.”

Laurel collected one of each, and took a seat in the back row, where the dimness of the auditorium gave her some anonymity. The pamphlets were disappointingly lightweight—there was nothing of the groundbreaking potential she had been finding in the Rhine Lab files. Browsing through them, she realized that the bottom line of all of the brochures was to solicit contributions for the Center’s research. Just as she was wondering if donors might get tours of the Center, another elderly volunteer walked out on stage to introduce the speaker: the director of the Center, Dr. Richard Anton.

Anton took the stage to a murmur and scattering of applause from the audience. He was an arresting man in his forties, with thick dark hair and eyebrows and piercing black eyes. His black trousers and sweater and rich maroon scarf were all of fine quality and even from a distance Laurel could see the glitter of real gold in his watch. They must be getting money from somewhere, then, Laurel thought. When Anton started to speak, his voice was deep and compelling, and Laurel was instantly reminded of Dr. Leish, though the swarthy Anton did not physically resemble the cool, elegantly blond Leish in any way.

Maybe all parapsychologists are charismatics, Laurel thought. That’s how they convince people that the impossible is real.

The topic of the evening was remote viewing.

As a native of California, where New Age trends were as much a part of the culture as sunshine, Laurel was somewhat aware of the concept of remote viewing. As she understood it, it was the most recent catch phrase for ESP experiences, in which a subject could see something happening from a distance, sometimes a great distance. According to Dr. Anton, remote viewing had been tested in top-secret experiments by the military with apparent success.

But really it’s just another fad, isn’t it? We’re trying to put scientific explanations on something that exists, but can’t be explained.

On the stage, Anton was speaking about the PRC’s remote viewing experiments in their custom-built Ganzfeld rooms. “It was parapsychologist Charles Honorton who developed the concept of the Ganzfeld, the ‘empty field.’ We know from statistics that the vast majority of ESP or psi experiences occur while the subject is in an altered state: while dreaming, in a state of relaxation or meditation. Honorton theorized that ESP experiences were subtle communications that are easily drowned out by the cacophony of internal and external stimuli flooding our brains during normal, waking consciousness.”

Laurel sat up straighter in her seat. She knew from her reading that Leish had used the Ganzfeld technique in his experiments. She eased a notepad out of her purse and began to take notes.

“Taking as a model the practices of mystics and psychics throughout the centuries, Honorton adapted the Ganzfeld technique to reduce all distracting sounds and visuals. The ESP subject is seated in a soft, reclining chair in a soundproof room. Split halves of Ping-Pong balls are taped over the receiver’s eyes to eliminate visual distractions, and headphones play a relaxation tape, all to produce a mild state of sensory deprivation.

“A sender is in a similar room, and goes through similar relaxation exercises. Then the sender is shown a photo or a film clip, and for the next thirty minutes, the sender tries to mentally communicate the image or images to the receiver.”

Laurel already felt a nagging dissatisfaction with the structure of the tests. The whole concept of laboratory testing ignored the fact that telepathic and precognitive experiences seemed to manifest under conditions of extreme stress and trauma, which would be difficult if not downright unethical to create in a lab.

On the stage, Anton launched into a recitation of eye-glazing statistics from the Center’s latest remote-viewing study. Laurel saw movement at the corner of her eye and turned to see the elderly volunteer at the back table rise unobtrusively and head for a side door. In the dark of the back row, Laurel quietly rose from her own seat and followed her.

The side door opened into a hall with a men’s and women’s restroom. Another door on the other side of the door was just swinging shut. Laurel took three quick steps across the hall and caught the edge of the door just before it closed, then stood close to it, straining to hear anything beyond the door—steps, movement…

There was nothing.

Laurel pushed the door open cautiously…

It opened into a hushed, deserted hallway. There was a dark, glassed-in office to the left and a walled-in office to the right, and a long dim corridor with other doors leading to other rooms off it.

She could hear the murmuring of voices somewhere from the back—a meeting, maybe, with doors open.

But instead of calling out, or ringing the bell on the front table, she hovered quietly in the entry hall, looking around.

A narrow table beside the door held more informational flyers and brochures. On the other side of the hall a standing rack displayed several dozen display copies of books for sale, all with addictively intriguing titles: The Gift… This House Is Haunted!… Entangled Minds… Life Among the Dead… Seven Experiments that Could Change the World.

The murmuring of voices from the back room continued, but still no one emerged to check on the hall. Stepping quietly, Laurel moved further into the building, past offices and common rooms with exotically patterned rugs and lush indoor trees and arresting art from different cultures: shamanic masks and primitive fetishes. There was a quiet resonance about the place Laurel found unnerving—a quality of waiting, of listening.

Ahead of her a door opened into a room with comfortable and expensive high-backed couches and chairs. Laurel caught her breath at the sight of a familiar object on a dark mahogany end table: an original dice-throwing machine—a stand holding a long rectangular Lucite tube with seven dice in the bottom and a series of shutters through which the dice could fall. Even though the device was anachronistic and somehow naively simple Laurel felt the same strange thrill, seeing the real machine in front of her.

She backed out of the room and continued her illicit tour.

The intersecting hall was hung with black-and-white photos from the early days of the Duke parapsychology lab. Laurel passed by scene after scene of austerely dressed, serious scientists, in offices that were as uncluttered as the time, as formal and familiar as stage settings. But in none of them did she find Dr. Leish.

She turned and looked further down the dark hall, wondering. So where are the poltergeist shots? she thought wildly. If I keep going, will I find a photo of the Folger House? She had a sudden urge to laugh.

The last door of the hall was open into a long room lined with bookcases filled with many older and leather-bound volumes, the spines all affixed with what looked like new white library catalog stickers. Just inside the doorway stood an old-style walnut card catalog… Laurel couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen one. She glanced back down the dim hall with its gleaming floors—but there was still no sign of anyone. She quietly stepped into the library to the cabinet and scanned the file titles.

Well, why not?

She pulled open the F–J SUBJECT drawer and quickly flipped through the cards, looking for FOLGER, passing through a variety of wild subjects: FAE, FAIRY, FAKIR, FETISH, FIELD INVESTIGATION, FIR DIRECTOR. But the cards skipped from FIVE-FOLD KISS to FORCED CHOICE TESTING, with no entry for folger.

Laurel pushed the drawer back in, and tried FOLGER in the TITLES drawers and also the AUTHOR drawers—but no luck, either place.

Laurel slid the file drawer back in and turned—and jumped.

A man stood in the inner doorway of the library, watching her. Dark hair, thick dark brows, black trousers and sweater, expensive watch. Dr. Anton.

Have I been here that long? The lecture’s over? Laurel’s thoughts were fast, disjointed. Her heart had started beating frantically.

“Something you’re looking for?” Anton asked, his face expressionless as his dark eyes took her in with photographic intensity.

Laurel felt her face reddening, though she tried to keep cool. “I’m Laurel MacDonald. I got lost on the way back from the bathroom, and… well, then I’m afraid I was snooping.”

The dark-haired man studied her without speaking and Laurel had the uneasy feeling that he was reading her mind, or at least reading her. She tried not to fidget. “I just joined the faculty at Duke. The psychology department. The legacy of the parapsychology lab is so much a part of the department’s history that I—”

He interrupted her. “What’s your field?” he demanded—yes, it was a demand, even though his voice never rose.

“Personality psychology,” she replied, looking him straight in the face. “I’m particularly interested in how various personality types bring their own agenda to social situations.”

His eyes narrowed, and she thought she had gone too far. Needling this man was no way to get the information she was here for.

“And you have an interest in parapsychology?” Anton’s voice was barbed with sarcasm.

Laurel surprised herself with her smooth reply. “I’m always interested in every aspect of human potential. I believe human beings are infinite. Don’t you? We’re not even half aware of everything we’re capable of.”

Those black, black eyes were fixed on her… she could almost feel the air between them vibrating with the intensity of the connection. Finally, he spoke softly. “Indeed, Dr. MacDonald. Indeed.”

Winning that admission from him made her reckless. “Actually, there is something you could help me with. I was looking for information on the Folger House.”

It was his sudden stillness that made her think she’d hit home. His eyes contracted to black pinpoints and he simply stared at her.

Sensing her advantage, she pushed it even further. “Folger,” she repeated helpfully. “Like the coffee. I understand it was an important part of the Duke lab’s research.”

“You’re mistaken,” Anton said flatly.

“I don’t think I am,” Laurel said. “Folger. I’m sure that was it. I’m very interested in what happened in that house.”

They locked eyes, and his face was like stone. “I’m sorry. It’s not something I’m familiar with.”

Laurel could sense a deep animosity coming from him, and she was suddenly acutely aware that she was alone with the man in a deserted building, and no one knew where she was. And yet with a boldness that shocked her, she persisted. “Then I wonder if you could tell me a bit about Dr. Alaistair Leish.”

Anton raised an eyebrow. “Dr. Leish. What about him?”

Laurel took a wild stab in the dark “I understand he was on staff at the Paranormal Research Center before he died.”

Anton smiled thinly. “Again, your information is faulty. Dr. Leish was never on staff at the Center.”

“But you do know of him.”

“It would be unusual to work in my field and not have heard of Dr. Leish. But the Paranormal Research Center is dedicated to scientifically quantifiable results. Leish was exclusively interested in field work, and was notorious for not gaining permissions for his unconventional studies. Since the founding of the Center, our board and researchers have been dedicated to carrying out its research under the most rigorous conditions.”

Laurel had the clear impression that Anton was reciting a policy he might not completely believe in himself. She felt her way carefully.

“I don’t know much about it, but as a researcher I have to wonder… how can you study a phenomenon like a poltergeist in a laboratory setting?”

Anton smiled at her strangely. “You can’t.” As she stared at him, trying to interpret this, he half-turned. “And now, Dr. MacDonald, I’ll see you out.”

There was no option of refusal; the interview was over.

She followed Anton back out into the spotless corridor and he opened the front door for her.

Just before she stepped out, she suddenly turned to him. “How did Dr. Leish die, do you know?”

Another beat of stillness. Then Anton said, “It was a heart attack, I believe.”

They looked at each other, and Laurel was sure he was lying. “At forty-one,” she said. “What a shame.”

“I agree. Good night, Dr. MacDonald.” He shut the door on her.

As she drove home on the nearly deserted highway through the dark tunnel of trees, her unease grew.

He’s lying.

Partially or even totally, but he was lying. Laurel struggled to regain her bearings. Had she completely given away her game by asking Anton about the house? On the other hand, she’d gotten exactly the information she’d come for: the Folger House was not only a real thing, but something significant, if not top secret—that was clear from the mysterious and arrogant man’s reaction.

And the confluence of dates—Leish at the Duke lab just before it closed—if Uncle Morgan was right and Folger closed the lab, then whatever the Folger House was, she was sure Leish had something to do with it.

She turned onto her block and parked her Volvo by the curb outside her house on the quiet, deserted street. All up and down the block, lights were on above the wide porches, but there was not a soul in sight beyond the shadow of a prowling cat. Wind whispered through the oaks and crape myrtles.

Laurel shut the car door and moved to the trunk, opened it to get out her wheeled book bag.

And suddenly the sense of being watched was overwhelming.

She turned under the diffuse light of the streetlamp. A breeze picked up and dry leaves rolled past her feet in a small flurry.

She could see no one, not on the porches, or inside a car.

She grabbed her bag, heaved closed the trunk lid, and hurried up her walkway for the door.

On the porch she pressed the book bag into the door frame, holding it up with her body as she dug in her purse for her keys. Her heart was pounding, completely out of proportion to the situation, but she was overwhelmed with a sense of urgency.

She found the keys, fumbled the door open, and slammed it behind her, locking it.

All right, now? she chided herself, as she leaned against the wall—but she was shaking.

Nothing to be afraid of…

Then she thought of Anton’s cold dark eyes, and was not so sure.