by Linda Ladd
Moving over to the light box, I flipped on the toggle switch on its right edge; it immediately began pulsating with lights, a regular fireworks show with lots of slowly moving designs, kind of like you would see when turning the cylinder of a child’s kaleidoscope but faster. I picked up the headphones and cupped one to my left ear. Strange sounds emanated, obviously weirded-up frequencies. Rather annoying sounds, truthfully.
“Want to try it out, Detective?”
I jumped at the voice, very close behind me, then turned and found Collins standing at the edge of the screen. I hadn’t heard him come in, which was not like me. I make a point to know who’s doing what in every room I’m in. He was a stealthy little critter.
He laughed at my reaction. “Oops, sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you, Detective.”
“You didn’t scare me.” That was a lie, of course, he had startled me a little, but I didn’t like him laughing at me. I put the headphones down on the table. “I take it that this is the new technique you write about in your book, correct, doctor? Sound waves and posthypnotic suggestions, all that kinda stuff.”
“Well, I can’t take all the credit. Dr. Young started experimenting with this procedure long before I did and really is much more accomplished than I, but I do find this therapy completely fascinating. That’s why I pursued it for my doctoral dissertation, thus the book Nick so kindly purchased.”
Wow, was that ever a mouthful. Smiling all friendly like, even inside his eyes this time, Boyce Collins said, “Please sit down. Let me show you how it works. You might find it interesting.”
I remembered Black’s rather pointed warning and heeded it. “I’m sure I would. But I don’t have a lot of time, but I do have lots of questions to ask you.”
“Oh, come now, Detective, loosen up, bear with me. Let me show off my wares.”
Wares? Who did he think he was? Simple Simon? And that was an odd way to put it, but let’s face it, Collins was an odd duck. I threw caution to the wind, which is where I usually threw it when somebody irked me as much as Boycie Baby. I got smiley, too. “All right, if you promise not to make me do something stupid, like pretend I’m a monkey or lick my paw like a cat.”
Collins didn’t laugh, but he did crack a smile. It might’ve been a charity one, though. He shook his head. “Ah, that old wives’ tale rears its ugly head again. Let me be clear, Detective, I can’t make you do a single thing you wouldn’t ordinarily do. Certainly nothing against your own personal moral code. Something tells me you wouldn’t be a good candidate for hypnotism, anyway.”
That’s exactly what Black had said, but I played dumb. “Oh? Why do you say that?”
“I don’t know you well, of course, but you appear to be a strong, capable woman, determined, if I have read your personality correctly. You’re a police officer always in search of the facts. You’re trained to seek out the truth and know when people are lying. Actually, that’s not so different from my job. Here, sit down a minute, and let me explain how this contraption works.”
Okay, I’d play along, humor the good doc. I sat down in the rocker. Collins took my place at the light box and fiddled with a few knobs, punched a few computer buttons. The light got brighter and flashed on and off in a sporadic fashion. “This is all very experimental, you understand. Nobody is using it yet, except for Dr. Young and myself, but it’s gotten a great deal of interest since my book was published. It’s registered for patent, and I’m happy to say I’ve had some success with a couple of our patients.”
“Why don’t you just tell me how it works? That would be faster. We’re both busy people.”
“Certainly, if that’s what you wish. You are looking at the light box, of course. All it is, basically, is a repetitive light spectrum with multicolored icons blinking in random sequences.”
“Right. Looks like a kaleidoscope,” I said, trying to urge him on. I could humor him and his therapeutic toys for a while, but I had other things to do.
“That’s right. Every child loves those, you know. Adults, too. You’d be surprised how many grown men and women find it fun and relaxing to turn the end of a toy kaleidoscope. I find it fascinating myself. Do you?”
“I guess so. I haven’t done it since I was three.”
“Here, put on these headphones and listen to the sounds.” He held them out to me, his smile openly challenging me to play along, which I had usually found meant it was something I should not do. This time, however, curiosity killed the cat. “Okay, but I reserve the right to stop this brainwashing attempt at my own discretion.”
Boyce Collins grinned and looked very boyish and charming all of a sudden. He couldn’t be very old. “Anything you want, detective. Just take the headphones off any time you’ve had enough. No problem. But I think you’ll like it. Most people find it incredibly relaxing. Many even fall asleep.”
Right, I’m sure it was gonna be a real party. So I put on the headphones but kept my attention glued on his smirking face. He turned back toward the box, punched more buttons on the computer, and peculiar soft sounds flooded into my ears. I watched him lean against the wall beside the light box and watch me so I transferred my focus to the shifting yellow, green, blue, and red shapes flitting, spinning, and melting into each other in front of me. Almost immediately, I felt my muscles relax. I tensed them again, just in case I was more hypnotizable than everybody seemed to think, which I can tell you, I am not. But I had to admit, this could relax a person big-time, even one wound as tight as most of his patients no doubt were.
More than curious about the sounds, or sound waves, if I recalled the explanation correctly from Collins’s book, this whole therapy had a lot to do with frequency, different levels affecting the mind in different ways. In his book, he had compared the effect with how crystal singing bowls affected the chakras of the body. What are chakras of the body? Got me. But believe it or not, I know something about crystal singing bowls, but only because once when Harve and I were on patrol in LA, we had been called to a robbery at a Buddhist novelty shop and that was the day I heard my first crystal singing bowl. The owner’s wife was trying to calm herself down after the robber took off and was doing it with these clear crystal bowls of various sizes that made truly beautiful and haunting sounds when she dragged a soft mallet around the rims. I know, that sounds crazy, but it’s the truth. I’d have to pay Khur-Vay a visit and let her explain to me how they worked and what the sounds meant and what a chakra was. If anybody would know that sort of stuff, I had a feeling she would. Maybe she even had some in her storeroom that Black could buy me for my birthday.
Leaning my head back, I rested against the soft pillowed cushion and pretended to shut my eyes, but I really watched Dr. Jekyll from under my lashes. Just in case he pressed another button that pierced my brain with gamma rays and turned me into a vegetable or various and sundry other zombie-like creatures, you understand. He just stood there, however, smiling at me as if he knew what I was doing. All of a sudden, he looked a lot more relaxed than I felt.
After a couple of minutes of the catchy, alien-craft sounds, I said, “Well, that was just as fun as fun can be, Doc. I enjoyed it. All I need now is a cot and a blanket and maybe a pacifier.”
Expression all serious now, Collins took off my headphones and placed them back on the table. “You joke around a lot, Detective Morgan, but guess what? I just put you out and found out all kinds of personal things about you. I told you not to remember it when you woke up and you don’t, do you?”
“Yeah, right. Ha ha, Doctor. You’re a regular Will Ferrell in a white coat.”
Smiling knowingly, he flipped off the screen and turned back to face me. “Look at your watch. You’ll see that you’ve suddenly lost fifteen minutes of time. That’ll prove what I said just happened.”
I looked at my watch, which said the exact right time. I think. I didn’t know for sure or precisely how long I’d been in his office. And he could have messed with it, anyway. So I bluffed. “Sorry to disappoint you, Dr. Collins, but no
ne of my time is missing. Maybe you need a new battery.”
“But what if I told you when you were under what time would appear correct to you?”
I stared at him for a second, not sure, and then he laughed at me, and said, “Got you, Detective.”
“Oh, I get it. Shrink humor. Gets me every time.” But I was not amused. Suddenly I didn’t like this guy, or his perpetual, condescending jokes, and I wouldn’t put it past him to pull some kind of dirty trick like he’d just described. On me and on his patients, too. And I didn’t like the way he was looking at me now, either. His next words put some nasty icing on that cake.
He said, “Oh, yes, that’s right. You’re Nicholas Black’s newest squeeze, aren’t you? You probably know all our professional jokes.”
Whoa, fella. All of a sudden he was getting down and dirty, personal, even. I examined him at length and with hard eyes, not liking his description of me but well aware he had chosen his insulting words for a reason. A more pertinent question, though, is why? Baiting me, perhaps? But I couldn’t see a good reason for that, not yet. We didn’t know each other well enough to feel hatred, but extreme dislike might be in the cards. I was feeling a rising degree of that already.
I bit, just for the heck of it. I said, “The truth, Doctor Collins, is that I’m nobody’s squeeze, new or any other kind. Now if you don’t mind, I really need you to quit playing around and answer my questions.”
“I didn’t mean to offend you.”
Oh, yes, you did, you big jerk. Our budding relationship was not off to a tremendous start. In fact, it was cracked in half and going down as fast as the Titanic. I was gracious. I said, “No offense taken.”
He said, “I can tell that I offended you. I know you’re upset with me.”
“I don’t upset easily. Shall we get started?”
Collins suddenly became Mr. Gentleman Extraordinaire. “Please sit down. May I get you something to drink? I have coffee over there on the counter. Water, tea, soda?”
These Oak Haven docs had a veritable Starbucks operation going on in their offices. “I’ll take a bottle of water. It’s so much better for your health.”
“That’s very true. I think I’ll have one, too.”
Retrieving them from a small fridge just like his cohort, Marty Young’s, he handed me one with condensation on the outside. Surreptitiously, I checked the bottle for tampering, not trusting him any more than I did Young. I was thirsty, too, though, so I twisted it open and drank some of it. My parched throat thanked me. Or maybe we’d already had enough of each other and were making excuses not to talk to each other any more. Or maybe it’s almost a hundred degrees outside and we’re just thirsty. At least we didn’t make a toast and tap our plastic bottles together.
“Okay, Doctor, if you don’t mind. We need to cut out all this pleasant chitchat and delightful refreshment and get down to business.”
Collins grinned at me. I waited for him to round the desk and sit down, the gentleman in me coming out, I suppose, then took a seat on his soft leather couch after he was safely in his chair. I put my Ozarka on the table and pulled out my pad and pen. “You treated Michael Murphy, correct?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I looked up to see if he was taunting me. I couldn’t tell. I was pretty sure he was. My I-hate-your-guts-worse-than-poison meter spiraled upward in alarming fashion, but I do have overreactions at times, I admit it.
“When did you start Mr. Murphy’s therapy?”
“I guess it was about two years ago. Yes, it was almost exactly two years ago.”
“Michael would have been around nineteen then, correct?”
“Yes. Your own Nick referred him. We were pleased a doctor of his stature showed such confidence in Oak Haven.” He paused. “Are you sure I didn’t offend you? I really wouldn’t want to think I did. I was only joking around.”
I ignored the your own Nick crack. Actually, Black referred Michael to Oak Haven at the request of Mikey’s parents, who would have done it anyway because of their kinship to Martin Young, but I wouldn’t bring that up. I said, “Trust me, okay? I have skin as thick as a walrus. Can you tell me about your initial therapy sessions?”
“Well, we do have confidentiality clauses here at our place. I’m sure you understand that.”
“Yeah? Well, we have warrants over at our place. I’m sure you understand that. I can show you one, if you like.”
He chuckled, found that marginally amusing, I guess. I stared unblinkingly at him. He was trying very hard to either annoy me or charm me. I was just having trouble figuring out which it was. Why he was going to the trouble was another good question.
“All right, Detective Morgan. No need to obtain a warrant since the patient is deceased. What would you like to know?”
Glad he wasn’t going to be as difficult as he was hilarious, I asked, “What was his major problem when he arrived here for treatment?”
“He presented with clinical depression. Apparently because a girlfriend threw him over for a good friend of his. He thought at the time that he was in love with her.”
“It sounds as if you don’t think he was in love with her?”
“He thought he was. That’s what was important for us to understand.”
“Did he come here willingly?”
“I think his parents pretty much required him to check himself in. You can ask Dr. Black if he presented on his own cognizance to his practice.”
“Thanks, I will. Do you know the name of the girl who jilted him?”
“Her name was Sharon. I’m not comfortable giving you her second name.”
“Maybe you should get comfortable with it.”
“Richmond. Sharon Richmond.”
Well, that sounded like a real name and not one made up off the cuff, so I didn’t push it. Maybe I’d get a warrant for all his files, too, and see if there really was a Ms. Sharon Richmond. “Did you ever speak with her about Mikey’s problems?”
“Once. Over the telephone. Mikey agreed that I could talk to her, after she moved down to Tennessee. A little town called Dyersburg.”
“What was her take on this situation?”
“She told me that Mikey was a really nice guy but they didn’t have the right chemistry to make it in a serious relationship. She wanted to move home and live closer to her parents. Mikey didn’t want her to be so far away.”
“I thought you said she ended up dating his friend.”
“Actually, she was seeing his friend first. Mikey asked her out and they were a couple for a few months, and then later she got back with the first guy. He’s from her hometown, too. When she went back there, they ended up getting married. Mikey took it harder than he should have. Felt rejected, of course.”
“I see. How did he fare under your treatment?”
“He did well. That’s why this has come as such a shock to all of us here who treated him.”
“Did he get along with his family at that time?”
For the first time, Collins hesitated, and then he turned his gaze out over the grassy lawn, where three boys in shorts and Tshirts were tossing a Nerf football around. A group of girls sat on a concrete picnic table and watched them, waiting for them to get done so they could flirt, I assumed.
Collins said, “Have you ever met Mikey Murphy’s parents, Detective?”
“Yes. I had the unfortunate assignment of notifying them of Mikey’s death.”
“Ah, a very unpleasant task, I suspect.”
I nodded but didn’t speak.
Collins went on. “He was close to his dad in some ways. He and Mary Fern didn’t get along as well.”
“Are you aware Dr. Young is Michael Murphy’s first cousin?” I asked him, wondering why he hadn’t brought that to my attention. It wasn’t like it was a secret, or anything.
“That’s right. Their fathers are brothers.”
“Does Dr. Young’s family live around here, too?”
“Yes. They live in Lebanon, Missouri. That’s just
down the road from here.”
“I’ve been there.” Actually, I played a hooker in a prostitution sting at a truck stop there once upon a time and happened to run into a couple of ignorant farm boys who tried to have their way with me and lived to regret it.
“Is that the reason that his parents wanted Mikey admitted here?”
“I suspect so. They’re very private with family matters because of Joseph’s close connection to the governor. This all happened during the last campaign, and they didn’t want it to get out to the press or the voting public.”
“It’s gonna come out now, trust me.”
“Yes, that’s probably true. Marty says some reporters have already contacted them. I guess you know how that feels.”
“Meaning?”
Again, he looked surprised, as if he didn’t realize he was poking a hot fireplace poker into the tender underside of my private life, or at least, that’s the way he wanted it to appear. I kept getting this overwhelming notion that he was planning out everything he said, trying to manipulate me or throw me off balance. “Meaning that you’ve had some high-profile cases lately that plastered your picture in newspapers all over the state. Not to mention the sheer notoriety of dating Nick Black.”
“You seem to know an awful lot about me, Dr. Collins.”
“No more than anybody else. You’re a memorable lady, especially to anybody’s who’s had the pleasure of meeting you in person.”
Steadily, I held his gaze with my own. His eyes were all warm and fuzzy, and yes, he looked pretty silly and flirtatious. I am a direct person, so I said, “Are you coming on to me, by any chance, Doctor?”