"You look much better, Jess. Relaxed! I know I am," J. T. remarked, squeezing her hand.
"Thanks, yeah, much better. Nothing like a little R and R for the soul. Now for some sleep," Jessica agreed.
They weaved their way through a clutch of revelers reluctant to part for anyone, all crowded in the small lobby where the hotel clerk, seeing her, waved Jessica over. "You have a package that arrived earlier. I tried to locate you, but you were out."
It looked to be "business as usual" in the lodge, as if the fire of this morning had never occurred here.
"Thank you," she replied to the clerk, taking hold of the package rushed to her from Santiva in Quantico. A second sealed envelope, this one Western Union from Warren Bishop, was also handed her.
Soon she and J. T. located Jessica's room, where she said good night, but at the last J. T. voiced his concern for her. "I heard that you and Repasi had something of a showdown in the autopsy room. Told ya the man's an odd duck, a weird act."
"Did you hear that he accused me of being in collusion with the killer, that this was all prearranged as some sort of publicity stunt? That I'm rabid for tabloid press coverage and will do anything to get it? Is that crazy or what?"
"Just crazy enough to show up in the tabloids, Jess," he joked, poking her with a relaxed fist to her shoulder.
"I can't figure his game," she admitted, leaning against her doorjamb.
"Easy," he replied. "It's Karl Repasi who wants to be in the tabloids. Remember, he's always writing a book, and publicity-any publicity, good, bad, or indifferent-sells books."
"I suppose you're right. I just couldn't believe his gall, the way he attacked me. Really, John, have I become that much the.. the celebrity that it's gotten in the way of my being capable of doing my job?"
"That's nonsense, Jess."
"Say it like you mean it, John."
"I do mean it!"
"Once more with conviction!" Now she teased him.
"I'm too exhausted to muster conviction for much, sorry, the day your professional ability is compromised by anything-anything whatsoever-Jess… well, I know you well enough, Dr. Coran, that that's the day you step away from this work."
She dropped her sleepy-eyed gaze, finished with having put J. T. on the spot, through with scrutinizing his reaction down to the least tick. "Thanks, J. T. You're a friend, a true friend. I have very few of you left, you know."
"Nonsense." J. T. pointed to the mail in her hands. "You're not going over that stuff tonight, are you? You're far too exhausted."
"No, nothing more tonight," she promised. "And yes, I am tired."
''How are you really doing, Jess? I mean, well, I know this maniac's got to you."
"I'm holding up," she assured him, thinking, but barely…
J. T. gritted his teeth and said, "And Karl Repasi's only making it more difficult for you."
"Leave Repasi to me, okay. I don't want to hear that you two've gotten into a fistfight behind the barn over my honor, J. T. Is that clear?"
"All clear, Doctor… All clear."
"I know it sounds crazy, J. T., but you know what I fear the most tonight?''
"Your telephone, I would imagine."
She nodded. "Exactly. Crazy, isn't it? I mean, he can't possibly know I'm staying here tonight, yet."
"If it bothers you, unplug the damned thing."
"Unplug the phone? If I do that, I cut myself off from Quantico, from Bishop, everyone. No, I can't do that."
"Why the hell not?"
"It's not done in our profession."
"It's time you started thinking of yourself, Jess, and to hell with our profession."
She smiled back at J. T., saying, "Maybe you're right. Maybe I'll do just that, and thanks, John."
"What for?"
"For being a friend."
TWELVE
Woman is like your shadow: Follow her, she flies; fly from her, she follows.
Unable to sleep, her mind returning again to Karl Repasi's outrageous suggestions, Jessica wondered how many other less informed, less educated people in and out of her profession had begun to see things through the same distorted mirror as Repasi. Certainly, Karl had always been eccentric, an odd practitioner even for an M.E., but she could not fathom how he had arrived at such warped assumptions and conclusions. Then again, of late, anyone connected with the FBI, or the U.S. government in any way, shape, or form, had become targets for all the paranoia free-floating about American society, from UFO freaks, delusional fringe groups, and the man on the street, thanks in large measure to Hollywood's portrayal of government cover-ups, particularly in hiding UFOs and alien bodies, genetic experiments, and covert operatives working under the cloak of the U.S. flag; all this had become a battle cry for the fringe element and the fanatic alike. And why not exploit this uniquely American mass paranoia with such blockbuster, billion-dollar productions as now decorated the marquees of every movie theater in the land?
Jessica sadly realized that for many she'd become a scapegoat. Americans and people in general needed scapegoats and villains, people to point at and call less than holy, less than human, less than themselves, to point a finger at people capable of ignoring the rules all good Americans lived by.
Hollywood had lost many of its favorite villains, the threat of Russians overrunning America long gone, the German Nazis a thing of the past, now considered historical fiction by many young people, as if the Holocaust were a staged event for propaganda. Where better to place today's villain than squarely beneath the cloak of government, despite the fact that the U.S. government was made up of people just like all other citizens of the country, people who wanted white-picket fences around suburban homes in which to raise happy, healthy children? But nowadays Americans were drowning in their own paranoia, unable to see that the true villains, criminal-minded adults, were created out of Nazilike, Gestapolike upbringings, born to parents who abused children in cruel and torturous ways.
American mass paranoia had begun long before Waco, Ruby Ridge, and Oklahoma City. And to a certain extent, healthy paranoia, cynicism, and distrust of British authority had created the republic that was America. Cynicism formed the roots of democracy. Without it, there would be no America, a nation conceived in liberty, justice for all, and skepticism of authority.
Still, Jessica felt shocked to her core when an audience in a movie house applauded at the sight of the White House being blown away by alien invaders. She felt a wave of revulsion that films were now glamorizing such violent acts directed at the core of the nation and its symbols.
Jessica wondered at what juncture healthy criticism of the government became a bitter expression of futility, threatening to destroy all social fabric and the body politic. Popular fiction and movies of late had recently taken people into a chaotic landscape, displaying the American inability to sort out good from evil. Yet films and popular books only mirrored what was out there, what free-floated about in the ether of a place. The root causes of the paranoia didn't burst forth from film or the writings of horror and science fiction novelists, but from the collective soul.
Jessica knew that ill feelings toward government and government agencies were in the popular mind long before they were in the Hollywood pipeline, long before Hollywood embraced such scripts, before such incidents as Ruby Ridge-and that they'd grown to epidemic proportions, poisoning minds, especially those of the nation's youth, since Watergate.