"You're overlooking something that destroys your logic."
"What's that?"
"He went to you for help in solving the case. Why would he do that if he was covering it all the while?"
I said, "He came to me for help, yeah, but how do you know what sort of help he was hoping to receive? Suppose he only wanted me to find the girl's family?"
"Why would he want that, if not to identify the girl and hopefully catch her assailant?"
"Maybe," I said, "because he'd already planned to finish the job. He brought me in as a cover. And, additionally, if I could turn something for him, to nail down any loose ends in the girl's own environment. Maybe her people knew him from the old days. So maybe they could endanger him and—"
"So who killed him?"
"Exactly."
"Exactly what?" he inquired warily.
I replied, "Sorry, I thought you were leading me. As it turned out, I did help him. I found a clue to the dead girl's origins. Don't ask about that just now unless you really want to get into something very freaky. But I did point Jim toward Ojai. I believe it went a bit beyond that, even. I believe Jim was tailing me all day Wednesday. I believe he tailed me to Sportsman's Lodge, watched me check in, got my room number, assumed I was there for the night. I believe he took my Walther PPK from the Maserati. I believe he called the dead girl's sister in Ojai and got her to come to Studio City, on one pretext or another. I believe he intended to kill that girl with my gun and dump her on me. I believe he would have killed Dr. Saunders, too, just on the off chance that she could be dangerous to him. She had, after all, been very close to the dead girl for several weeks. But obviously something went wrong with his plan. The bullet went into his head instead of hers. I believe a guy known as Gordon Campbell helped it to happen that way."
"Who is Gordon Campbell?"
"A fringe loony in Ojai. Runs a sweet little fortune-telling and sex-farm scam there. Strictly a small operator, small enough to be scared to death over any involvement in the death of a policeman, whatever the circumstances. He and the dead girl's sister live together."
Captain Valdiva was looking exceptionally tired. "They also steal the body from the morgue?"
I replied, "Jim probably did that. I believe he was going for total destruction of the evidence."
"Shit," Valdiva said quietly. "I couldn't buy you as the killer on a hell of a lot less fanciful scenario than that."
I said, "Don't like it, eh?"
"Not even a little," he said disgustedly.
"Neither do I," I admitted. "But I guess I like it better than the alternative."
"Which alternative is that?"
"Jim did not attack Vicky's natural mother with a crow bar. He was simply trying to move heaven and earth to protect the one who did."
"Aw, no," Valdiva said wearily.
"Aw, yeah," I said. "If Jim didn't start all that, then Georgia did."
"Aw, no."
My feelings exactly. We do not always love the puzzle we solve.
Chapter Twenty-Six: Profile
Valdiva did not feel like eating, after all, by the time we got to the restaurant. He reminded me of my legal obligations and dropped me there. It was exactly twelve o'clock; Alison was not due for another thirty minutes. I left my name with the maitre d' and went to the bar to wait for her. Did not mind waiting; had a lot to think about. Sat at the end of the bar and nursed a Kahlua-coffee until she arrived, early, twenty minutes later.
We embraced and exchanged the usual status examination. She seemed okay, maybe a bit weary around the eyes, very sober and thoughtful, wearing the same casual outfit we'd bought in Ojai the day before but freshly done up.
"Hope you don't mind that I went to your place instead of my own," she said soberly. "I gambled that one of the extra keys would open a door. Oh—the parking valet has them. That's a honey of a car, by the way. Only took me about a half hour to get in here."
I tried to suppress an automatic wince, said, "Yeah, she'll fly if you let her."
She was looking me over, still evincing concern. "You look terrible."
I said, "Thanks. Feel about the same, to tell the truth. It has not been a joyful twelve hours."
She murmured something meant to be comforting, I'm sure, then asked, "Did Frank tell you I talked to him early this morning?"
I lifted an eyebrow to confirm. "Frank?"
"Captain Valdiva."
The bartender came over. She shook her head at him, nodded at me, explained, "I started trying to reach him at four o'clock. Took me that long to get myself together enough to get down to Malibu and—I just couldn't go home, I couldn't. Anyway, Malibu was closer. I took the coast highway down from Oxnard. Hit your place about four. Started trying to—they wouldn't give me Frank's home number. I pestered them until—kept calling back every ten minutes. Finally he returned my call at about five-thirty. He was very sweet, really. Assured me that you were okay and that you would be on the streets again very soon. I was absolutely nutty with worry and fatigue. Anyway, Frank assured me, and—I guess I conked out at about six o'clock—the sleep of the dead, I guess, until about half an hour before you called. I was slowly going crazy again—uh, that?—where is Frank?—I thought—isn't he here?"
I thought it very sweet that she'd be so concerned about me. But I was also a bit puzzled by the seemingly intimate way she referred to Valdiva. I told her, "Something came up. He couldn't stay. Had you met the guy before last night?"
She replied, 'Twice, as a matter of fact. He came to the hospital once to see Jane. And, uh, when I was dating Jim, we ran into him one night at the Old World on Sunset."
The maitre d' interrupted that line of conversation. Our table was ready. The next few minutes were devoted to studying the menus and ordering lunch. It's a nice restaurant, sort of New York-style, wide menu selection. Like Valdiva, I could not become too interested in food, though; finally decided on a brunch-style offering of eggs Benedict. That sounded okay to Alison too; obviously she was in no particular mood for food, either.
That out of the way, I returned immediately to Valdiva. "You said that Frank visited Jane at the hospital. When was that?"
She furrowed her brow to reply, "Gosh, I..."
“I mean, at about what point? Before Jim became...?”
"Oh, no, not before. I guess—it was about a week after I took over. But, see, Jim was on the case before I was."
"What do you think of Valdiva?"
"Interesting man," she replied. "Very intense. I would say probably every inch the police officer."
"Stressed?"
"Oh, yes, definitely, he has the classic profile. Not a lot of humor in his life, I would say. He would see life as a challenge that must be met twenty-four hours a day."
"The guard is up," I suggested.
"It's always up, right."
"But very fair-minded."
"Yes, and that would contribute to the stress. Things can get very difficult for us if we have no refuge in prejudices."
It could be very easy to forget that this highly attractive young woman carried such impressive scientific credentials. Add to that the fact that she rarely volunteered psychological pronouncements on everyday affairs and the transition from pretty girl to clinical psychologist was even more remarkable.
I was asking for a professional point of view when I said to her, "Do you think he is a man who would come into serious conflict if he had to decide between loyalty to a friend and loyalty to his oath as a police officer?"
She replied very quickly to that. "Oh, undoubtedly."
"Which would win?"
She screwed her face into a thoughtful grimace, said, "Gosh, I don't know. It would be tough. I believe be would probably try to find a way to satisfy both."
"Compromise?"
"Not that, exactly. He would not see it as a compromise. He would see it as—"
I suggested, "Giving a friend the benefit of every possible doubt?"
'To some extent, yes."
"Maybe. Well... no. It would depend."
"On what?'
"You really want me to walk the thin ice, don't you? How can I possibly? I'm just going on—"
I said, "Educated hunch. Trust it. What is it?"
She sighed, reflected a moment, finally said, "He would not break the law to save a friend. But he might... bend it.. .just a little."
Even though the friend is dead wrong."
"Even then, yes."
It was my turn to sigh and reflect.
She asked me, "What's this all about?"
"It's about me," I told her. "And my big mouth. I broke the first law of self-preservation, a while ago, in tossing Frank Valdiva a very close friend to crucify. You're telling me he won't do it. I believe I told him nothing he had not already guessed—or feared—on his own. And I'm just wondering where that leaves me."
"But he's cleared you," she said quietly.
"No, he's just backed away a couple of steps. I'm still the prime patsy in this case." I sighed again. "I'm going to need your help, Alison."
"What can I do?"
"Introduce me to the surgeon who salvaged what was left of Jane Doe."
"I don't know him personally, but I suppose I could—"
I said, "Sure you could. I'll want to talk to him this afternoon. I want to thoroughly nail down this side of the street before I venture again to the other side."
"What other side? What... ?"
"The insane side. Something is—"
"What?" she asked, with some agitation.
"Haven't you noticed? Jane seems to have..."
"What?"
"Simmered down. Ever since Jim Cochran died. There's been no—"
"What do you—"
"...no further phenomena from her. She disconnected, let go of it. What could that mean?"
“Are you asking me?”
No. I was asking myself. And I felt that I had to have the answer before Frank Valdiva found his.
Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Trembling Question
The surgeon's name was Grewal. He was a native of India, maybe forty-five years old, bright guy with a piercing gaze and a reflective manner, seemed to always pull a brief mental review of every statement before uttering it. I liked him right away because he looked a bit like Zubin Mehta and I am very partial to musical conductors. Grewal, though, had built quite a reputation in medical circles as a brilliant neurosurgeon. He'd done a lot of experimental work and was recognized as a daring innovator of surgical techniques involving the brain.
He remembered my Jane Doe very well. Both hands rose toward the heavens, then dropped into his lap as he asked me, "But what can we do? Living tissue may not be infinitely subdivided." Pause for reflection, then: "Nerve tissue in particular. Each cell is highly specialized." Long pause. "The brain should not be regarded as a single organ, but as many organs working in close concert, very much as the many instruments of a large orchestra."
Okay, Mr. Mehta, lead on.
"The same as each instrument of the orchestra has its particular part to play, the same also you will see within the brain the particular instruments and their individual melodies."
I loved it.
"Remove a single flute or violin from the orchestra at a crucial moment and still the orchestra shall play on, and only the conductor or the trained critic will note the loss. Remove, however, all the violins or all the wind instruments, and note then the consternation of the entire audience."
I nodded agreement with that and asked him, "How much of Jane's orchestra did you remove?"
He reflected on that question for a moment before replying, "I fear that we ended her concert forever."
I asked, "Why would you do that?"
Again the hands imploring the heavens and then falling onto his lap in a gesture of surrender. "What is life, Mr. Ford? We cling to it very tenaciously. This young woman came to us clinging beyond any normal expectation. We did what we could to assist her in that. We may not suture a ruptured brain back together again, you know. We may not re-create individual cells and rebuild cortices. Even if we could do that by some technical means, we could not begin to reconnect all the billions of electrical circuits. When an electric power generating plant blows up, Mr. Ford, one cannot gather up all the spilled electrons and reconnect them in any meaningful way."
I nodded my head in sympathy with that point of view. Then he said something that really put me in his corner: "And, of course, in the final analysis, Mr. Ford, a neurosurgeon is little more than an electrical engineer."
I said, "Really!"
"Of course. The more we study the brain, the more we realize that we are dealing with fields of electrical force localized within biochemical structures. Our task, then, as neurosurgeons, is to attempt to understand how these trillions upon billions of tiny structures are orchestrated to produce the personality we perceive as a living being, how certain orchestral sections respond to what we term the will and how others respond reflexibly to protect the living being. Quite fascinating when one thinks about it, and when one realizes that the entire living structure appears to be no more than a support structure for the maintenance of consciousness. Ah, but ah!—do not ask me to define for you this term consciousness, for therein lies the trembling question."
I smiled and asked him, "Which trembling question is that?"
"What is it all about, my friend?"
I really liked this guy. I asked, "What was it all about for Jane Doe?"
He frowned, ran a finger along the crease of his trousers, pushed back in his chair, swung the feet, reflected. Presently he replied, "For my Jane Doe the question had gone quite beyond any literal meaning. She came to us a dead woman who refused to remain dead."
I asked, "Exactly how do you mean that?"
He shrugged, answered, "There was no discernible pulse or heartbeat. She was dead by every definition save the final determining presence of brain waves. And those brain waves...they were quite remarkable."
"How so?"
"There seemed to be..." He paused, took a deep breath, gave me a rather shy look, reflected a moment, continued: "Understand, please, that the left side of her skull was crushed. The left cerebral cortex was jellied and escaping. Yet there was very little bleeding—very little loss of blood throughout, actually. All of the vital systems were severely depressed. The patient was in a physical state best understood as dormancy, suspended animation—as though somehow, by some will, an heroic personal effort was being made to conserve all possible resources until repairs could be made. Does this sound to you fanciful? Never mind, it sounds so—even to me—but it is the inescapable conclusion. The patient was dead, yet the patient would not accept this fact. And the waves..."
"What about them?"
"Heroic."
"Heroic?"
"Yes. Not the usual calm characteristics of the coma or comalike state but virtual electrical storms more characteristic of epileptic attack. But yet there seemed..."
I waited courteously for him to continue. After about twenty seconds I prompted him. "You were saying that there seemed—"
"... a method to the attack," he resumed. "An organization of...The storm seemed organized, more so than the disorganized flashes characteristic of epilepsy."
I asked him, "What did that suggest to you?"
"Willful activity," he replied. "Ragingly willful activity. Of a degree never before observed in similar circumstances."
"But, of course, that brain was in severe trauma."
"But of course. All the more remarkable, then, are the noted characteristics."
I asked him, "Had you ever experienced anything of this nature before? In any other patient?"
"But once," he replied thoughtfully. "As a young medical student in India. One of the masters exhibited such."
"Masters of what?"
He blinked, smiled, replied, "A holy man. His brain waves were thus in all but the meditative state."
I as
ked, "Was this holy man particularly remarkable in any..."
The surgeon showed me that shy smile, dropped his gaze, replied, 'This holy man was reputed to be one hundred and thirty years of age."
I said, "Yeah, okay, I guess that's remarkable enough."
"He did not bleed when cut."
"Uh-huh."
"He had fasted forty years. Understand? No food whatever for forty years. Or so he claimed."
"Uh-huh."
"He stood upon blazing coals for twenty minutes but did not burn. This I saw with my own eyes."
"Uh-huh."
"Three steel nails had been driven two inches inside his skull. This had been such, he said, for more than twenty years. He placed them there himself."
"Uh-huh. Why?"
The doctor spread his hands. "Why not?"
"What is it all about, eh?"
"Precisely so. This holy man claimed to be—how would it translate?—-freed from the flesh... a moving spirit."
"Uh-huh. Or a walking soul?"
"Perhaps, yes. A free soul, a free spirit, not bound to the flesh."
"Did he come from another world?"
"In his understanding, but of course. As do each of us, all of us. This was his demonstration."
"Demonstration of what?"
"The thesis that we use the body, the body does not use us."
"Do you buy that?"
He spread the hands again. "There exist two basic aspects, Mr. Ford, as regards the human brain. I believe these may be stated simply as action and reaction. May we say that action stimulates the brain from within the physical structure while reaction is a stimulus emanating from outside the physical structure."
After a moment I prodded with: "Yes?"
"Yes. What is the origin of action?"
I sighed and replied, "There you go. What is it all about."
"Quite so."
Mind to Mind: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective Page 14