Wolf Lake

by John Verdon

  “David, when you asked me the other day if I knew anything about the term ‘trance-induced suicide,’ I said it sounded familiar. I just remembered why. And I looked it up in the New York Times online archive to refresh my memory. There was a report in the paper almost four years ago concerning one of those government leaker cases.

  “A former CIA employee claimed that a secret directorate with the agency’s Field Operations Psychological Research and Support Unit was conducting unauthorized experiments in hypnotic mind control. No big surprise there. However, the purpose of the experiments was to see if an otherwise normal subject could be rendered suicidal. According to the leaker, whose name was Sylvan Marschalk, considerable resources were being applied to the project. I guess the notion of magically persuading people to kill themselves had a lot of appeal. It sounds ridiculous, but probably no more ridiculous than their plot to assassinate Castro with an exploding cigar. Apparently the project was taken seriously enough to generate its own clandestine budget and its own acronym—TIS, for trance-induced suicide.

  “A week after he made his revelations he was found dead in Central Park of a massive drug overdose. Naturally, the official line was that there was no secret directorate and no experiments, and Marschalk’s claims were the unfortunate ravings of a paranoid drug addict.

  “So that’s the story, David. If by any chance you’re crossing swords with those same folks . . . God help you. Call when you can. Let me know that you’re alive. No joke.”

  Gurney went to his laptop and typed ‘Sylvan Marschalk’ into his search site. The New York Times article popped up first. Actually, a pair of articles. The first focused on “the allegations of a former CIA analyst.” The second, dated a week later, focused on the drug overdose. He read both carefully and found nothing in either Rebecca hadn’t already mentioned. He checked the other news items that came up in the search, all briefer than the ones in the Times. There were no follow-ups.

  The story was jarring—not only because of the way it ended, but because the leaker’s accusations regarding “induced suicide” research gave more credibility to the concept.

  He was still sitting on the couch pondering the implications when Madeleine emerged from the bathroom, wrapped in a towel.

  “Can you transfer that email for my sister from your computer to mine?”

  “You don’t want to send it from mine?”

  “No, because when she replies to it, I’d like the reply to come to my own tablet.”

  He went to the saved email document, entered Madeleine’s email address at the top, and hit “Send.” Once he saw that the process was completed, he closed down his laptop.

  That’s when it hit him.

  He sat motionless, almost breathless, for several long seconds, considering a startling possibility.

  If someone had found the unaddressed document while it was still in his unsent email file, wouldn’t they have assumed that he was writing about himself, his own emotional turmoil?

  Suppose that was the same incorrect assumption being made about Ethan Gall’s handwritten document? Might it not be, in fact, a description of someone else’s nightmare—someone who, for reasons yet unknown, dictated their experience in the form of a letter they planned to send to a third party—exactly as Madeleine had done?

  This hypothetical scenario took hold of Gurney’s mind. Soon he became convinced it was the truth. Someone had gone to Ethan and asked him to write out a letter for him—a letter to the therapist with whom he’d had the “session” that began his series of nightmares. He dictated what he wanted written, and Ethan wrote it down for him.

  Ironically, Gurney was so certain that this was the way it must have happened that he began to suspect his own objectivity. He’d learned on a number of occasions that the best way to test an idea he might be loving too much was to expose it to Hardwick’s skepticism.

  But that was a call he’d want to make with more privacy than the bugged suite permitted. The option of using Madeleine’s tablet to drown out his conversation with music—at the same time as she was using it to review the emotionally fraught email she’d be sending to her sister—did not seem feasible. And the speaker volume in his own aging laptop simply wasn’t adequate.

  He went over to the alcove.

  Madeleine was siting on the edge of the bed, studying the wording of her email on her tablet screen, her mouth a tight line of anxiety.

  “Maddie?”

  “What?”

  “I have to go downstairs.”

  She nodded vaguely.

  “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  She didn’t reply. He took the key, went out, and locked the door behind him.

  The Hearth Room still had the cold, empty feeling it had earlier. He settled into a leather armchair against the far wall, a spot from which he could keep an eye on the reception area. Hoping Hardwick would be within range of a cell tower, he made the call.

  The man answered immediately, apparently eager to complain.

  “Road out of the Wolf Lake estate was a horror. Right now I’m creeping along on the county route behind a monster plow-sander-salter. Impossible to get past him. What’s up with you?”

  “I wanted to get your opinion on a certain aspect of the case.”

  “You mean like the totally fucked-up impossibility of the whole thing?”

  “Just Ethan’s handwritten dream narrative.”

  There was a pause. Gurney could hear through the phone the heavy rumbling of the plow. When Hardwick spoke again his tone was calmer. “Definitely an odd little item. What are you thinking?”

  Gurney explained his new theory of how the written nightmare description could have come to be, and how Madeleine’s email dictation had led him to that conclusion.

  Hardwick cleared his throat. “It’s . . . possible.”

  Gurney wasn’t put off by his apparent lack of enthusiasm. He interpreted it as a sign that he was giving the idea serious thought.

  “It’s possible,” Hardwick repeated. “But if Ethan wasn’t writing down his own dream, then whose dream was it? And why were the details later reflected in the way he died?”

  “Like the wolf dagger Fenton claims he cut his wrists with? I don’t know. I’m not saying the dictation hypothesis is the final answer, but it fits with the idea that Ethan’s part in the affair was different from that of the other three victims. He always struck me as the odd man out.”

  “You’re saying we’ve got three people who had nightmares and ended up dead, and one person who transcribed someone’s else’s nightmare and ended up dead. But I’m still stuck at the basic question. Could a hypnotist—Richard or anyone else—have caused those nightmares and suicides?”

  “Interesting you should bring that up. I just listened to a message from Rebecca Holdenfield about a CIA leaker who claimed that the agency was actively researching that very subject—obviously in the belief that it could be done.”

  “Of course, they denied it?”

  “Of course. But I have to say that all the hints of national security interest in this case could be connected to that kind of program.”

  Hardwick sighed impatiently. “The problem I have with the fatal-hypnosis thing is that it turns the whole thing back on Hammond and makes Fenton right. As I said before, that is not an acceptable outcome. Hold on a second, ace. Let me put down the phone. I have a chance here to get around the monster plow.”

  When Hardwick came back on the phone half a minute later, Gurney could hear the rumble of the plow fading into the distance. “So what do you think we actually know, Sherlock?”

  “Taking Ethan out of the equation for the moment, we know that three gay-hating men were offered some kind of financial incentive to visit a gay hypnotherapist. We know they all later reported having nightmares, and shortly afterward each one was found dead. And we know that the investigating officer has zeroed in on Richard Hammond as the orchestrator of all this.”

  “A decision about which we have our
doubts?”

  “Correct.”

  “Okay,” said Hardwick, beginning to sound exasperated. “Once again we circle back to the key question. If Hammond didn’t give them their nightmares, who did? That’s the only question that matters. Am I right?”

  If Hammond didn’t give them their nightmares, who did?

  If Hammond didn’t give . . .

  Holy Christ!

  For the second time that morning, Gurney almost stopped breathing. He stared straight ahead but saw nothing. His focus was entirely on the significance of what Hardwick had just said. He repeated it to himself.

  If Hammond didn’t give them their nightmares, who did?

  “Hey, Sherlock, you still there?”

  He began to laugh.

  “What the hell’s so funny?”

  “Your question. It only sounds like a question. It’s really an answer. In fact, it may be the key to the whole damn case.”

  CHAPTER 47

  Hardwick drove into a cell-service dead zone before Gurney could elaborate on his sudden insight. It gave him an opportunity to test it from different angles to be sure it felt solid.

  Twenty minutes later Hardwick called back. “Glad you think I’m so fucking brilliant. But what exactly is this ‘key’ I gave you?”

  “The wording of your original question. You asked, if it wasn’t Hammond, then who gave the victims their nightmares.”

  “So?”

  “So that’s the solution to the problem we’ve been banging our heads against from the beginning. The victims were given those nightmares. I mean, they were literally handed to them.” Gurney paused, waiting for a reaction.

  “Keep talking.”

  “Okay. Let’s leave Ethan out of it for the moment, because something different was going on with him. As for the other three, I believe each one was given a description of the nightmare. They never had the nightmares they complained about, never actually dreamt those things. They just memorized the details they were given and recounted them later as if they’d experienced them.”

  “Why the hell would they do that?”

  “Because that’s what they were being paid to do. We already saw evidence that there was some financial benefit connected with their coming to Wolf Lake—that things suddenly appeared to be looking up for all three of them. We didn’t know why. But this would explain it. I’m pretty sure that they were paid for coming to the lodge, having a session with Hammond, and then complaining about bizarre dreams. Not only complaining, but reporting the inflammatory details to reliable witnesses—Wenzel to a high-profile evangelical minister, Balzac to a therapist, Pardosa to his chiropractor.”

  “Sounds like a hell of a scheme. But what was the end game?”

  “It could have been a number of things. Maybe they were setting up the basis for taking some kind of bogus legal action against Hammond? A malpractice suit? Phony sexual assault charges? Maybe the whole thing was a plot to destroy his therapy practice? If Bowman Cox’s comments were any indication, Hammond stirred up enough animosity in certain circles to make something like that credible. In fact, as I think about it now, I wonder if the Reverend Cox might have played a bigger role than he admits to.”

  “Christ, Davey, I need a minute to get my head around this. I mean, if nobody dreamt anything, then—”

  “Wait—hold on second.”

  Madeleine, bundled up in ski pants, jacket, scarf, and hat, was heading out through the reception area.

  “Jack, I’ll call you back in a few minutes.”

  He caught up with Madeleine at the lodge door.

  “What’s up?”

  “I want to get some air. It stopped snowing.”

  “You could just step out on our balcony.”

  She shook her head. “I want to be outside. Really outside. I’m sure the snow is going to start again, so this is my chance.”

  “Want me to come with you?”

  “No. You do what you’re doing. I know it’s important. And stop looking at me like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like I’m going to fall apart. I’ll be fine.”

  He nodded. “I’ll be here . . . if you need anything.”

  “Good.” She pushed the heavy door open and stepped out into the frigid air.

  With some reluctance Gurney returned to his leather chair by the hearth. He got Hardwick back on the phone. “Sorry for the interruption. So what do you think of the new theory?”

  “Part of it I like a lot. I love getting rid of the idea that somebody made somebody else dream something, and the dream made them kill themselves.”

  “What part don’t you like?”

  “You’re saying there was a carefully worked-out plan involving three gay-hating creeps, possibly the same gay-hating creeps who killed the kid at Brightwater. And they came to Wolf Lake to meet with Hammond so they could later claim that he fucked with their minds, giving them horrible, sickening dreams. And their secret goal was to destroy Hammond’s reputation . . . or sue him . . . or build a criminal case against him . . . or maybe blackmail him into paying them to shut up and go away. Am I on track?”

  “Better than that, Jack. I think you just hit the bull’s-eye. Blackmail. I think that’s what it was all about. It’s a perfect fit. They’d love the idea of extorting big bucks from a gay doctor, a known aider and a better of perverts. They could even view their get-rich plan as the work of the Lord. I bet just thinking about it would have given them a power rush.”

  Hardwick was silent for a long moment. “But here’s what I don’t get. How come these ruthless, gay-hating bastards are now all dead, while their intended victim is alive and well?”

  “An interesting question. Almost as interesting as . . .” Gurney’s voice trailed off.

  Austen Steckle, in an arctic fur hat and heavy coat, was coming in through the lodge door, pulling a two-wheeled cart full of split logs. He pulled it across the reception area, into the Hearth Room, and over to the log rack near Gurney’s chair.

  He sniffled and wiped his nose with the back of a heavily gloved hand. “My friend, you need to talk to your wife out there.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Your wife. I warned her about that ice.”

  Gurney didn’t wait to hear the rest. Coatless, he hurried out of the lodge and across the lake road. Although no snow was falling at that moment, gusts of wind were kicking up powdery whirlwinds from the lake surface, making it hard to see very far.

  “Maddie!” he called, listening for a reply.

  All he heard was the wind.

  He shouted her name.

  Again there was no reply.

  Feeling a touch of panic, he was about to shout her name again when the snowy gusts abated and he saw her—standing still, her back to him, about a hundred yards out on the snow-covered ice.

  He called to her again.

  She neither moved nor answered.

  He stepped out onto the lake surface.

  He’d taken only a few steps when a movement in the sky caught his eye.

  It was a hawk—presumably the same hawk he’d seen on several occasions circling above the lake, over the sharp peak of Devil’s Fang, along the length of Cemetery Ridge. But this time it was circling lower—at an altitude of perhaps two hundred feet.

  As he watched, the next circle appeared to be lower.

  And the next still lower.

  Her face tilted upward, Madeleine was evidently watching it as well.

  Gurney was sure now that the bird was gliding in a gradually tightening spiral—the radius shrinking with each successive orbit. It was a behavior he’d observed in raptors above the fields back in Walnut Crossing. In those cases, the purpose of the behavior seemed to be the closer evaluation of prey in preparation for an attack. The iced-over lake, however, seemed an unlikely hunting ground. In fact, with the exception of Madeleine herself, there was nothing visible to Gurney anywhere on the smooth white surface.

  Still the hawk circled low
er.

  It had descended to no more than forty feet above the lake.

  Gurney was moving quickly now.

  The hawk seemed to hesitate for a moment on its flight path, rocking on its broad wings from side to side, as if assessing the significance of a second figure entering the scene.

  Just as Gurney was concluding that his presence had scared it off, it wheeled sharply toward Madeleine, diving at her with startling acceleration.

  In an effort to break into a flat-out sprint, Gurney slipped and fell. He scrambled to his knees, pulled out his Beretta, and shouted, “GET DOWN!”

  As Madeleine turned in his direction, the plummeting hawk extended its razor talons, and Gurney fired.

  The gunshot caused Madeleine to flinch, ducking just enough that the talons flashed by harmlessly over her head.

  Amazingly, the hawk came around again in a wide circle, rising thirty or forty feet above her before beginning a second dive.

  This time Madeleine ran, sliding, half-falling, out toward the center of the lake. Again the hawk swooped down past her head in a near miss—with Gurney clambering to his feet, running after her, shouting to her to stop, to not go any farther on the ice.

  As the hawk, at the far end of yet another circle, turned in toward Madeleine, Gurney spread his feet in a solid shooting stance and steadied his weapon in a two-handed grip. As the bird streaked past him he fired. He caught a glimpse of a tail feather breaking off and twirling around in a passing gust before settling on the ice.

  The hawk passed only a few inches over Madeleine’s head. Then, instead of circling again, it rose gradually up and away, disappearing finally over the treetops at the end of the lake.

  Madeleine had stopped running. She was about fifty feet ahead of him. She looked to be out of breath, or crying, or both.

  He called to her. “Are you all right?”

  She turned toward him and nodded.

  “Come back this way. We need to get off the ice.”

  She began walking toward him, slowly. When she was ten or twelve feet away, he heard a sound that stopped his breath.