“For hypnotherapy, none whatsoever. We would ordinarily never expose someone to fear-inducing imagery. In somnambulism — that’s deep trance — the imagery becomes very, very real. Ridley carries powerful beliefs about Trapdoor on both the conscious and subconscious levels. At the level reached in deep trance, he believes that Trapdoor is a source of special power. It’s not that strange when you consider the experience he had there, his closeness with death and violence and questions of his own survival. Over time, however, those experiences have become more deeply associated with Trapdoor in his mind. It has become a mythological sort of place to him, capable of bestowing gifts on people and... and requiring gifts from them.”
“Gifts,” Mark echoed. “Can you elaborate on that?”
She looked at him for a long time before she said, “Lives. Deep in his mind, Ridley believes that the cave can grant them. Or demand them.”
“Fantastic. If no good can come from it, why would you indulge him in the attempt?”
“Because he already knows what happened in that cave. And what other trance sessions have told me — when I’m able to achieve deep trance with Ridley, that is, he can be a challenge — is that he wants to show someone where it happened.” She swallowed, and for the first time she looked afraid. Outside, the wind picked up and grew louder, and the dog began to howl along with it, as if concerned over the changes that were on the way. “In particular, he wants to show me.”
“You truly believe that he would take you to where she was killed? That he would tell you the truth?”
“I can’t say that for certain. But I know that I can’t walk away from what I’ve heard.” She moved to a closet set between the bookshelves and opened the door. On the back of it, carefully taped, were articles with enlarged photographs of Sarah Martin. Old newspaper items covering her disappearance and the discovery of her body.
“I knew her mother,” Julianne said.
“Hey, that’s funny, so did I! I wouldn’t mention that around town, though. Just a bit of friendly advice.”
When she turned back to him, her eyes were dark. “You think you were the only person who was hurt that night, and that’s far from the truth. I’ve told you why I did what I did.”
“Sure. To appease a sociopath.”
“In part,” she said. “But there are many more layers. You need to know all of them to make a judgment. That’s your problem. You’re too comfortable determining the shape of the world from the surface.”
“Of the many problems facing me today, that’s not a high priority.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” She looked at the articles again, all those bold headlines announcing no leads, no arrests, and finally a “Ten Years Later, Still No Answers” anniversary piece. Mark thought about Lauren’s case. Sixteen months in, no arrests. What would they write in ten years?
“Diane Martin came to me at the recommendation of a friend,” Julianne said. “It was the year her husband was killed in a car accident. She was struggling with insomnia. She visited four times, and on the last visit reported that she was finally sleeping well. She said that she was dreaming vividly and that most of her dreams involved her daughter, and that in them, her daughter was always happy.”
Julianne closed the door slowly. “I reached out to her when I heard about Sarah. I didn’t hear back, but that wasn’t surprising, because everyone was reaching out to her then. I offered to help her in any way that I could. I never heard from her again. When she died, though, it was from an overdose of sleeping pills.”
“Maybe she didn’t think your techniques would work again.”
“Maybe she didn’t know if she’d find any peace in her dreams.” Julianne Grossman stepped away from the closet and looked Mark in the eye. “When Ridley came to me, I considered refusing. I suppose I should have. But my theoretical conflict of interest was dead, and, frankly, I was curious. I wanted to know what he would say. That’s the truth of everyone in this town — we all want to know what he would say if he’d talk. Well, I got to be the lucky one.” She turned away and took a deep breath. “Then I learned what is being done on her case: nothing. Nothing. Investigation has ceased. If he was honest in that confession, and I believe that he was... ” She turned back to Mark. “I can’t be the only one who knows. If he wants to bring me to the place where he killed her and tell me how he did it, I’m willing to take that walk. But I need help. I need someone who believes in what you just saw, someone who won’t roll his eyes and say that confession was coerced, someone who understands that you can tell the truth without ever being aware of doing it. I need you.”
“My only concern is my job,” Mark said. “You’ve threatened my career. My life. The rest of this, the story you just told? It doesn’t matter to me, Julianne. As much as I hate to say it, Sarah Martin doesn’t matter to me, either. Let me be absolutely clear: I don’t care. I just want out of this town with my life intact. That’s all.”
She crossed the room and stopped close to him, nearly touching him. The force of her stare seemed to hold his feet to the floor, making movement impossible. He struggled to keep the eye contact.
“Somewhere in the world,” she said, “someone knows the truth about your wife. I wonder if they care.”
He didn’t answer. She pressed the digital recorder into his palm.
“There’s your career,” she said. “There’s the truth you came back to Garrison to find. Do what you’d like with it.”
39
Mark turned the wrong way out of Julianne Grossman’s house and drove through the rain down an unfamiliar road until he reached a dead end and realized his mistake. Instead of turning around, he put the car in park and wiped sweat from his brow with trembling hands and then shook his head, as if he could clear his thoughts from inside it. Turned the AC on and cranked the fan up in hopes the cold air would sharpen his thinking. The digital recorder that Julianne Grossman had used to threaten his career was now in his jacket pocket. He pulled it out and stared at it for a few seconds, considering this supposed goodwill gesture. She could have made copies of the recording. She could be e-mailing them to his board of directors right now, and the sheriff, and anyone else who was interested; she could be burning CDs to distribute far and wide.
He pressed play and turned the volume up so he could hear the conversation clearly, and for the next twenty minutes he didn’t move, just sat there with the air-conditioning blasting on him even though it was thirty-some degrees outside and listened to his own voice telling Julianne all of the things she had wanted to hear. He listened to the way she’d asked him, in a casual but still direct fashion, for his own permission before various points of questioning. The permission was always granted.
There’s the truth you came back to Garrison to find.
He punched the power button and shut the recorder off.
If he shared the recording, people would know the reason he’d lied, supposing that they believed in hypnosis, but if he shared it, people would also know that he’d planned to murder a man. He could pull select clips, but sooner or later someone was going to want to hear the whole thing.
Some gift she’d bestowed upon him. Some peace offering.
He took out his cell phone and called Jeff London.
“Any progress up there, Markus?”
“Some.” Mark had the recorder in his free hand and was looking at it as if it were a snake. “But not all good.”
“I don’t follow.”