They had talked, briefly, in the hospital cafeteria earlier. The place was packed with reporters, and a carnival atmosphere prevailed. He saw her sitting at a table, alone, drinking coffee. When she saw him, she rose and hurried to leave. He had intercepted her at the door and had said, “Janice, trust me for once, I know what I’m doing.” She had seemed so tired, beaten, her face drawn and empty, her gaze averted from his. “No, you don’t,” she had replied in a helpless voice, bereft of hope or accusation. “But even if you did, it wouldn’t matter. It really wouldn’t matter.”
“In agreeing to conduct this test, I do so with no pretense of a belief or faith in its ultimate success. I am here at the behest of a government agency to perform a function I have been trained and am licensed to perform.”
Bill’s clothing clung to his skin. The room was like a pressure cooker. Why was the garrulous old bastard going on so? Why couldn’t he shut up and get the damn show on the road—get the damn thing over with?
“An hour ago I met with the defendant, Mr. Hoover. He has told me five facts about his daughter’s life. Details of events of a special, intimate nature that made a memorable impression on Audrey Rose and that are known only to Mr. Hoover, myself, and my colleagues. If we indeed achieve our purpose here this morning, I will ask the subject to recall these events. Her ability to do so, or not to do so, might well prove conclusive.”
It would be over—soon. Soon the issue would be settled—once and for all. Soon they’d all be together again. And once it was over and behind them, they’d find their way back to each other. There would be a distance, a strain for a time, but in the end there’d be forgiveness. Their love would help Janice stretch to forgiveness—in time.
“I will now bring in the subject.”
All was silent in the recreation hall, as more than a hundred pairs of eyes unblinkingly fixed on one of three strategically placed television monitors, each purveying the same angle of Dr. Lipscomb as he walked to the examining-room door and opened it to admit Ivy.
The contact between eyes and screens was palpable, like a high-tension electrical current, Janice thought, fighting to concentrate on the technical aspects of the test. She had conditioned her mind to accept the test as the next inevitable step in a progression that was unstoppable. She would not cry, she had counseled herself. Tears would serve no purpose now, would be of no use to Ivy or to herself. It was too late for tears. But the sight of Ivy on the screen, entering the room and allowing the doctor to lead her by the hand to the couch, so shy, so trusting, so vulnerable, caused Janice to catch her breath. For an instant, she feared panic would overwhelm her, and she had to struggle to suppress it.
Ivy’s lovely blond hair had been bobbed to a feather cut by Janice, and her facial skin still bore the high color of her recent injury, and yet, even over the coarse black and white transmission which reduced everything to indiscriminate shades of gray, her beauty remained undiminished.
Sitting back comfortably on the couch with one foot tucked up under her, Ivy betrayed no nervousness and seemed in total control of herself.
“Relax, Ivy,” Dr. Lipscomb said in a softly insinuating monotone. “Relax and allow every muscle in your body to become limp and loose. As we discussed the other day, you will not be harmed in any way, but simply feel very tired, very tired, so tired that you will wish to fall asleep for a while. Nothing harmful, nothing bad is going to happen to you. You will not mind falling asleep for a while, for soon you will begin to feel so tired, so tired that you will not mind falling asleep. Will you mind falling asleep, Ivy?”
“No, it’s all right,” Ivy replied, wide awake. “I won’t mind.”
No, Ivy wouldn’t mind, Janice thought. Although the psychiatrists in all their smug wisdom thought her a child and easily deceived, Ivy had quickly fathomed the purpose of the test and had confided it to Janice.
“They want to hypnotize me to find out if Audrey Rose is making me do all those crazy things.”
“You don’t have to go through with it,” Janice had told her. “Nobody can be hypnotized against her will.”
“But I want to,” she had replied with eyes grave and anxious. “I have to know what’s wrong with me. I can’t stand being the way I am.”
It was truly amazing, Janice had thought, how Ivy too had become a willing part of Audrey Rose’s conspiracy. First, Scott Velie, then Bill, then Hoover, then Judge Langley, and now the victim herself, all being whipped into a unity of purpose by a force incomprehensible to them. Was it possible that only she, Janice, knew what was going on, that only she had divined the meaning and intent behind Audrey Rose’s latest ploy?
It surely seemed so. At every turn Janice had been rebuffed.
All through the long weekend she had tried to get through to somebody, made countless calls to the apartment in the hope that Bill had finally decided to go home, but he never did. Scott Velie had been unlocatable. She’d tried to coerce the operator into divulging Judge Langley’s unlisted phone number—claiming it was a matter of life and death, which it was—but all her passionate pleadings had been met with softly courteous refusals, first by the operator and then, maddeningly, by her supervisor.
When she did finally get to Langley early this morning after waiting two hours in the frigid, wind-whipped hospital parking lot for his rented limousine to arrive and did, at last, get to register her objections to the test in her strongest, most earnest, yet respectful tone, his response, rattled off to her as they sprinted across the treacherously slick parking lot, had all the spontaneity and sincerity of a prepared statement committed to memory.
“Madam, I understand your objections, and I feel very deeply about them. You have every right to make your feelings known, and under normal circumstances, I would give every consideration to your wishes. However, your husband and the defense both have equal rights of consent in this matter and, I am told by Dr. Lipscomb, your daughter has also consented and not only is willing to undergo the test but wishes very strongly to do so. What we are doing is, no doubt, highly unusual, but this is a criminal case. The charge is a very serious one, and should the defendant be found guilty, he will be subject to very severe penalties. In the consideration of that and in the interest of justice, I must deny your request. But rest assured, we have taken every precaution to ensure the safety of your child. We have brought in the best psychiatrists, and the test will be conducted as if in the privacy of a hospital room.”
Langley had been her last rational hope.
Her only option left was irrational.
The test was scheduled to start at ten. At 9:05, she’d sought out Dr. Webster. Found him in the lobby. Talking with reporters. Freshly starched smock, shining stethoscope around his neck, fully prepared for the occasion. Janice caught his eye. He joined her in the vestibule, which was cold and deserted.
Was Ivy well enough to go home? she’d casually inquired.
“Sure,” he’d agreed. “Soon as this test is over.”
Her next stop was Ivy’s room. She’d found her sitting on the bed, chatting amiably with the three psychiatrists. Their conversation was light and general, no doubt a charming exercise. Relaxing the patient before the operation. They’d hardly noticed Janice. She’d waited patiently for them to leave. When, after two or three minutes, they didn’t, she’d interrupted with a slightly hysterical “May I please have a few moments alone with my daughter?” The psychiatrists eyed her with professional interest and silently left.