by David Wiltse
Karen looked to Gold for confirmation, but the psychologist kept his eyes on the table. She did not question Becker on his conviction. There were things that he understood that few others did, and she did not want to know the basis of that understanding. She had glimpsed such knowledge and turned away.
"Cooper wasn't lying," Becker continued. "He answered the question the best way he knew how. But he didn't have a better answer because he didn't have the experience." @'Maybe it wasn't a great thing for him. Maybe he thought it would be but it wasn't," Karen said.
"He says he did it twice," Becker said.
"You can't mean he's making it all up."
"He's not making it up," Becker said. "I suspect he believes he actually did it."
"He believes it… but he didn't do it?"
"That's my guess."
"Why in hell would he believe he did it?"
Becker poured himself another cup of coffee.
"I'd just be speculating on that."
"As opposed to what you've been doing? John, with all due respect, you listened to a tape of the confessionand you know that is unauthorized, even having such a tape, don't you, Dr. Gold? — you listened to a tape, you thought about it for what, five minutes? And now you want to overturn the best arrest since Ted Bundy because… well, because it doesn't sound right to you."
"I'm not overturning the arrest. You can put Cooper away for the rest of his life for what you got. But you won't have the guy who killed the girls in the coal mine… But I think we can find him."
"Where? If it's not Cooper, who the hell is it?"
"Cooper got his story from someone. We know he didn't read about it.
That means someone told him.
Someone who knew the details."
"Who?"
"The guy who's had his ear for the past three years, I would imagine.
His cellmate. My friendly correspondent.
Swann."
"You're saying Swann told Cooper about it and Cooper thought he did it?"
"I imagine it was a bit more complicated, but something like that, yes.
Chimed in, Gold. Could it be done?"
"I'm not sure what… are you talking about hypnosis, something like that?" Gold asked.
"Hypnosis, brainwashing, I don't know what you'd call it. Two men are together in a cell for three years. Could one take on the memories of the other?"
"To the extent that he believes those memories are his own?" Gold paused, looked back and forth from Karen to Becker. Finally he shrugged.
"I don't know. If one of them is trying to make that happen, if the other is suggestible enough, if the conditions are right… I don't know. Why not, sure, yes, possible. Things have been done in POW camps by the North Koreans, the Vietnamese, the Chinese-not memory changes, that I know of, but certainly major shifts in value systems, personality makeup, that sort of thing. I mean, it seems to me that something like what you're suggesting could occur, but I'm not saying it did.
"A fine professional waffle," Becker said. "Still, it's good enough for me."
"Well, it's not nearly good enough for me!" Karen said, anger rising in her voice. "Hatcher has already delivered this Cooper to Congressman Beggs as a triumph of FBI persistence and overall brilliance-not to mention Hatcher's own genius, I'm sure-and Beggs has touted it to his constituents as a personal victory in his war on crime. You want me-I assume that's why you invited me to join in on your jerk-off session-you want me to waltz in to Hatcher and say, 'Sorry, but you have to call the whole thing off. Just go tell Congressman Beggs that you made a mistake-not only that, not only that, but tell him the reason I know he made a mistake is that former agent John Becker, one of Hatcher's favorite people, has listened to five minutes' worth of an unauthorized tape that was apparently pirated by a Bureau psychologist-or worse, a completely illegal tape made by the good doctor himself, and don't tell me which, because right now I'm in no mood to find out, and he brought this tape to my home, my home where he played it in private to John Becker, who decided that Cooper, who has already confessed in detail to killing the two girls, is not really lying because he does believe he did it, but still isn't telling the truth because he didn't really do it, he just was talked into thinking he did by his cellmate. Or so John Becker more or less sort of believes." Is that what you want me to do?"
"That's the gist of it," Becker said.
"John, I like my job. I worked real hard to get as high as I've gotten and I was beginning to think I might get even higher, eventually, if I didn't screw up too badly.
You have personal problems with the work. I understand that, I appreciate that, but I don't. I want to keep the job, I want to continue to be able to function as efficiently as possible. I have a son to support, college expenses to prepare for-"
"I give you the information for what it's worth, Karen.
What you do with it is up to you. The morality at the higher reaches of bureaucracy eludes me, I admit it, I have no experience at that height, I get nosebleeds..
"Information? Information? You haven't given me any information, John.
You've given me speculation. You've given me imagination. Those are fine qualities, John, assuming you want me to get tossed out on my ass."
"Maybe I should go into the other room," Gold suggested. He was of the mind that when two people who lived together began calling each other by their first names too frequently, it was time for visitors to depart.
Neither of the other two appeared to have heard him.
"I did not want to demean your contribution, Dr. Gold," Karen said.
"This is extracurricular work for you and I appreciate very much that you care enough to make the special effort."
"It was my curiosity more than anything," Gold said.
"I understand," she said. "And what you and John have come up with, even though it's only a hypothesis, is troubling to me. Very troubling."
"Not irretrievable, though," Becker said. "Both Cooper and Swann are available as much as we want them.
Send the Behavioral Sciences boys to talk to Swann, let them figure it out."
"That's what's troubling," Karen said. "We no longer have Swann."
"He's in Springville-get him transferred to our custody."
"No, John, that's what I'm saying. He isn't in Springville anymore. He's gone-he's out-he's been released."
"Released? How?"
"That was his bargain with Hatcher, his price for cooperating in the capture of Cooper."
"He said he wanted safety."
"He would never have been safe in the prison system, we all knew that.
So did he. Hatcher got his sentence commuted. He was released from prison the day we caught Cooper."
"Cooperate how?" Becker asked.
"He knew where Cooper was."
"How?"
"Apparently Cooper was sending him postcards.
Swann refused to tell us where to look unless Hatcher worked on a commutation of his sentence." Karen shrugged. "Hatcher gets what he goes after. We got the postcards, Swann got his commutation."
"That little shit is free?"
"And vanished. He was supposed to meet with a parole officer three days ago and never showed up. We don't have a clue where he is."
"So Hatcher not only caught the wrong man, he let the real killer loose," Becker said gleefully. "I wonder how Congressman Beggs will react to that bit of news?"
The crowd was so big, so boisterous, so agitated with anticipation that Tommy entertained thoughts of investing in a bigger tent. The whole swing through Kentucky had been like this, the audiences swelling every performance as word of the show spread before them from one town to the next like the bow wave of a ship so that when the Reverend Tommy R.
Walker's Gospel and Healing Meeting arrived, the residents had already been buoyed upwards with excitement. Tonight, though, looked like the best ever. The entire audience nearly swooned en masse when Aural did her solo piece-he was going to miss certain things about he
r, no question, even the Apostolic Choir of the Holy Ghost sounded better when she joined in. Oh, he'd lose a few from the audience when Aural was gone, but he'd keep most of them, he was sure of that. It was still his show, after all. If only just. And soon it would be all his again, only bigger and better.
Tommy whipped into the healing segment with unusual vigor, curing with great zest, as if nothing could be more fun. They were lined up with their ailments like he was giving away free money, and he worked his miracles quick as he could shout Hallelujah and Praise Jesus. The deacon and the choir were kept so busy catching cascading bodies that they actually worked up a sweat for a change. It was nice for Tommy not to be the only one bathed in perspiration.
He had cured a gallbladder and healed a kidney stone and pushed a lung tumor clean out of a man like it was nothing more than a chip on his shoulder when one of the overheated supplicants grabbed him. The man seized Tommy by the biceps and pulled him close so that their faces were practically touching. His breath was hot and smelled of mint and Tommy blinked as he puffed it into his eyes with every word.
"I've done terrible things," the man said, his voice low and whispery.
"I've done things no man should do."
The man held Tommy so firmly that there was no way the Reverend could free himself short of kicking the man off him. He was small and thin, but he clasped Tommy's arms with all the strength of a man in the grip of conviction. His nose was so close to Tommy's own that the minister had to turn his face and look at him sideways.
Tommy thought he was probably insane, and then he thought of assassination.
"My soul ain't clean," the man said. "I've been places no man should have to go, and Jesus knows I'm sorry, but I can't help it, I just can't help it, I get these thoughts, they won't leave me, they force me to do it."
The deacon had hurried over and was trying to pull the man off Tommy, but he clung like fury.
"You got to cure my heart," the man was saying.
"You got to cleanse me."
"I'm going to do it, too, if you just let loose," Tommy said.
"Thoughts that would drive a man crazy," the man said, his eyes widening.
"Let go of me, son, and I'll heal that heart in no time," Tommy said, trying to smile. The man was pushing himself harder into Tommy the more the deacon tried to pull him off "Only Jesus understands," the man was saying.
"I understand you, son. Now let me go and we'll get the holy power of Jesus working for us."
"You don't understand me," the man said, grasping Tommy even tighter.
"You don't. No one can."
Then the voice of the angel. "I understand you," and a tone so sweet, so manifestly full of patient understanding, of bone-deep sincerity, that the man eased up his grip and turned to look Aural in the face.
"Do you?"
She was standing right next to him. She put her fingers on his arm, that dainty hand coming out of the folds of the robe like soft magic. That half-smile, that goddamned suggestion of holiness and sainthood that Tommy couldn't duplicate no matter how he tried, moved her lips and Tommy watched as it worked its wonders again. The man looked into her face transfixed, the mania and desperation seeping away like a long sigh.
"Only a woman can truly understand a man," Aural said, although Tommy wasn't sure he actually heard the words over the din of the congregation, which was more excited than ever by the new development.
They were shouting at the man to release the Reverend and praying and praising Jesus and generally talking amongst themselves, every voice trying to be louder than the other. But the man heard Aural well enough, and when she told him to unloose Tommy, the man did it, and when she told him, sweet as a mother's kiss, to go back to the audience, he did that, too. She said if he was still troubled after the show she'd talk to him some more and he acted like it was a pure blessing from a saint herself.
Another triumph for the bitch, Tommy thought. Now they think she can calm the berserk and make the insane see reason. Throw away the Thorazine, Aural's here.
Meanwhile Tommy looks like a fool. His own sell Can't even get hisself loose from one small loony. Needs a woman to save him. Might as well give it up right now, change the name to the Aural McKesson Miracle Show, and hand her the business.
Tommy was in a state that night, and even the new variation that Aural had told Rae about, where she did what was called the butterfly, was able to distract him for only so long. Afterwards he was just as riled as ever.
"In the first place, I ain't no priest. You see a collar on me, Rae? I don't do confessions. You got something troubling your conscience? Keep it to yourself, don't go grabbing me in the middle of the show and telling me how bad you are, because I don't care. I'm a healer, Rae…"
"And the best."
"Damned straight. I'm a healer, not every lunatic's confidant. I don't want to hear that shit. I should have been an evangelist, Rae. They don't have to deal with all the whining and carrying on I do. All they have to do is preach."
"Did he come up to her afterwards?"
"There you go again, all the time asking about her. I'm the one had the little jerk hanging on me like he was drowning and was going to take me down with him."
" 'Course I'm most concerned about you, honey."
"Yeah. Of course."
"I was just asking in case he hangs around and bothers you again."
"I don't know if he saw her afterwards or not. I went around the other side of the tent so I didn't have to watch her on her goddamned box.
You'll have to ask her your own self."
He turned away from her roughly, but a moment later he spoke again in the darkness.
"What was that you just done?"
"What you mean?"
"What was that thing you just done to me?"
Rae was quiet for a moment and Tommy knew she was blushing.
"It's called the butterfly," she said. She paused. "Did you like it?"
"Interesting," he said.
At first Rae didn't know how he meant it, but then he put his arms around her when he fell asleep, which was a thing he almost never did.
There was a pounding on the trailer door around three o'clock in the morning and Tommy bolted out of bed to answer it. A long, lean, evil-looking man stood there in cowboy boots and a Stetson that appeared to be as stiff as plywood. Tommy blinked once and waited, but he knew who the man was.
"You Reverend Tommy R. Walker?" the man asked.
Tommy stepped outside and pulled the door shut so that Rae would not overhear. He was wearing silk boxers at Rae had bought for him recently and he sported a sleeper's erection but he was too excited to see his visitor to worry about it.
"I am," Tommy said.
"I'm Harold Kershaw," the man said, removing his hat out of respect.
"God bless you, boy, I know you are. And not a moment too soon, neither."
Aural awoke from a troubled dream in which a man she had never seen before was showing her his life on film.
She was strapped in a chair and whenever the man experienced pain in his life, Aural was administered a shock just as painful. When she awoke, her mind still clouded by the dream, she heard voices outside the trailer that she shared with the female members of the Apostolics. The voices were speaking in the hushed tones of conspirators, the kinds of whispers that seem to carry even louder than regular speech on the night air.
One of the men was the Reverend Tommy, and she wondered what he was doing catting around outside her window in the middle of the night but when she heard the second voice, she knew. The second man didn't even speak, it was more of a prolonged grunt of assent, but she recognized it and it galvanized her into action.
Aural bolted the door, then yanked on her jeans and boots and squirmed out the window on the other side of the trailer. She didn't bother with her purse or any belongings because she knew there wasn't time. Bent over, she scuttled in the darkness towards the cars parked on the strip of asphalt adjoining the vacant lot whe
re they would erect the tent in the morning. She was within a few yards of the cars when she heard the sound of heavy boots kicking at the trailer door.
A body took shape beside one of the cars, stepping towards her. Aural swerved aside but the shape spoke.
"Miss Aural? It's me."
Aural squinted at the man in the darkness. She didn't know him.
"From the meeting tonight?" he continued. "You said you'd talk to me afterwards?"
"Not now, hon. This ain't exactly an appropriate time." Aural tried to step around him but he moved in front of her. Behind her, the Apostolics were sending up a frightened squawk and she could hear the door crashing in. Harold Kershaw was into the chicken coop, but the hen he was after had flown.
"You-all come back when it's light," Aural said, thinking by then she'd be all the way to Maine if she could manage it. "I'll talk to you then."
"I can help you now," the man said, and he opened his car door.
'Bless your heart," she said, dipping into the car, "but we best go right away." She glanced at the trailer and saw Harold Kershaw's ugly face peering out of the window that she had used as an exit.
"That's what I had in mind," the man said. He ran around the car to the driver's side, then fussed with something instead of opening the door.:'Come on, " Aural said.
'Going as fast as I can," the man said. "I wasn't quite ready for you."
Aural kept her eye on the trailer, expecting Harold to come running at any minute, so she gave only scant attention to the man who was still fussing on the outside of the car. He came around the back to her side again..
"What's taking you so long?" she demanded, still not looking at him fully.
"Ready now. Mustn't go off half-cocked," the man said.. "Don't want any mistakes, now, do we?"
Harold came thundering around the side of the trailer, pausing for only half a second to get his bearings, then headed straight for the cars with his heavy-footed lope.