The figure in the bed was male and elderly. He appeared to have a glandular disorder; his face was like raised bread dough, puffy and pale. It was also drawn down on one side by stroke, leaving the wide mouth twisted. Just now the muscles were slack and the eyes closed, their lids thick.
Given the puffy face, one might have expected a great swollen body. Actually, its bulk beneath the soft cotton sheet was not particularly large, but it seemed to spread, as if its bones were cartilage, not rigid enough to support it.
The eyes opened. Their blue was faded, their whites yellowish. They shifted to the nurse, not in an invalid's drugged or helpless or apathetic gaze, but coldly. As if feeling the touch, she set the book aside.
"Ten twenty-six, sir," she said as if answering a question, and stood up. She pressed two keys on a small control box at the foot of the bed, and slowly the bed took a shape suited to reading.
Nothing more was said. She didn't ask if he was hungry or wanted an alcohol rub or to relieve himself. Instead she took the eyeglasses from the bedside table, made sure again that they were clean, and carefully set them on the puffy face. Laser surgery could have corrected his astigmatism, but he'd declined it. He intended to correct it himself one day, along with much else.
Next she swung a hospital reading screen on its arm and positioned it, looked questioningly at him, then sat down at a small table and keyed in instructions on a small console. The masthead for the L.A. Times wire edition lit the screen for a moment. The date was 2008 August 13, and the edition, 1000 hours. A menu screened. One of the selections was scan, and touching, she activated it, controlling the speed with a knurled knob. Page one scrolled up too rapidly for all but the swiftest readers.
From where she sat, to watch the screen would have been awkward, and she didn't try. Her eyes stayed mostly on the old man. Now and then she slowed the image for a moment or for several, as if sensing his wishes and his reading rate. As one of the items brought a change of expression to his face, she slowed the scrolling nearly to a stop. It read:
Ex-OSS Official's Daughter Weds Gnostie
Gloria DeSmet of Pacific Grove, 21-year-old daughter of retired OSS Deputy Director Alex DeSmet, has married Fred L. Hamilton, a counselor for the Church of the New Gnosis in Los Angeles, according to a friend of the DeSmet family.
A student at Stanford University, Gloria DeSmet was employed for the summer at Holy Redeemer Hospital in Monterey. Hamilton, who'd concealed his affiliation with the Gnostic cult, had also been employed there, as a psychiatric assistant. (Supp A). Hamilton and DeSmet had been dating.
Hamilton's use of Gnostic counseling procedures on patients at Holy Redeemer was discovered, and he was discharged. Last Friday, after telling her parents that she would spend the weekend near Grass Valley with friends, Gloria DeSmet followed Hamilton to Los Angeles. She was not missed until she failed to show up for work on Monday. She and Hamilton were married in Los Angeles on Tuesday. She then notified her family.
The old man began to chuckle.
1
DEBRIEF
2012, July 5
It was a UCLA project. Its purpose was to record "the anatomy of selected investigations."
Martti Seppanen watched the young woman adjust her camcorder and other gear, skeptical that anything useful would come of it. To him it smelled like academic/bureaucratic barn waste. The case was already thoroughly documented in his taped debriefs, and in case and court records.
Also it would end up in UCLA's security archives, because Martti would be freeflowing, and some or much of what he said would be about persons not guilty of any crime, persons whose privacy had to be protected. It would be seen only with hard-to-get approvals, mainly by candidates for advanced degrees in law enforcement.
Joe Keneely didn't think much of the project either, because confidentiality prevented using it as promotion. He could have refused, of course, but the California Department of Justice had pushed, and the state was a major client of Prudential Investigations and Security, Inc. Within the limits of ethics and the law, it was desirable to humor them.
Why video? Martti wondered. All it would show was him sitting with his eyes closed or unfocused, talking. Maybe it had something to do with the aura analyzer she'd set up beside the camcorder. Presumably it would be monitoring his frame of mind while he talked.1
The aura analyzer was more than just a lie detector. According to articles in the Journal of Law Enforcement Technology, they were more reliable than polygraphs, and gave broader information.
They're not going to believe everything I say anyway, Martti told himself, regardless of what my aura shows.
It occurred to him that some of what he might say could surprise him, too. He'd read that with a Veritas injection, you remembered a lot you otherwise wouldn't, and in detail. Supposedly even stuff you'd psychologically suppressed after it happened. And while you could hold back under Veritas, you'd rarely feel an impulse to. Normally you just freeflowed. Probably the aura analyzer would show if you were withholding.
He decided he'd view it himself when they were done. There might be insights for him.
The woman removed a syringe from a small, flat, velvet-lined box. "All right, Mr. Seppanen," she said cheerily, "I believe I'm ready. How about you?"
He'd eaten a pizza half an hour earlier, so hunger wouldn't distract him, had avoided caffeine with its diuretic effects, and had just been to the restroom. He took a deep breath and let it out. "Yeah, I'm ready."
"Good," she said, and stepped over to his chair. "You don't need to speak loudly. Just murmur. It's easier on the
1 In 2009, President Douglas Ishimatsu declassified a number of mood- and mind-altering devices previously withheld under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, or by the FDA, while legalizing private research and the publication of results. Why most of the devices had been withheld in the first place is difficult to imagine, beyond the bureaucratic dictum: "Cover your rear." Legalization has brought a flurry of new research on the mind and neuro-electrical fields.
throat, and my corder will get it. Now if you'll just give me your hand . . ."
He laid a thick hand on the corner of his desk. She took it, held the syringe against the back of it, and pressed the trigger. The hiss reminded him of the adjustment valves on the exercise machines at Gold's. "It'll take a minute or so," she said, and sat down across from him, her laptop open in front of her on the folding laptop table she'd brought. Bit by bit he felt his mind relaxing. The room blurred, and though he found he could bring it back in focus, it didn't seem worthwhile to. It was easier just to close his eyes. His lips opened, and he started to speak.
2
GNOSTIES
In a way, I got involved with the Christman case in May of 2010, a year and a half before Christman disappeared. I was an investigative assistant here, with an MS in Law Enforcement from Northern Michigan University and four years of experience on the Marquette, Michigan, police force. I'd just spent five months apprenticing under Carlos—that's Carlos Katagawa, Supervisory Senior Investigator here at Prudential. He'd told Joe—Joe Keneely is president and majority shareholder—that I was ready for a case of my own, and Joe said go ahead. So when I came in that day, Carlos called me down the hall to his office and played a cube for me.