“If there is something going on there, I would have to look hard at the manager, Carson, because it would be tough to run the kind of scam we’re looking for without his knowledge or even participation. But so far, there is no real evidence of that. Right now, the only odd thing about him is what happened at that airport.”
She thought about that for almost a minute. Finally, she spoke.
“You asked what Jessamine ‘does.’ Well, what she does is a form of what most of us would call ‘mental telepathy.’ ”. ‘
“You’re saying she can read minds?”
“Not exactly. I hate that term — read minds — because it provokes an image of science fiction.”
Or science fantasy, he thought.
“But the best way I can describe it is to say that she can apparently form a mental image — a picture, if you will — of what.another person is thinking, provided that person is in an agitated mental state. If they’re very angry, for example, or very afraid.”
That made him stop and think back to the airport. Carson had been staring at the girl when he passed out. Stafford was positive of that.
Had Carson been in an agitated mental state? He hadn’t seemed so, at least not after the incident. And yet, Stafford had-not been there before the man had fainted. Had Carson been scared witless there in the terminal because the DCIS was paying him a no notice visit? And if so, for what reason? Had the girl perhaps detected the reason?
“So you think maybe Jess ‘saw’ something,” life said. “Or received this mental image of some evildoing on Carson’s part just before he fainted?
Why do you think that?”
“Because he fainted,” she said softly. “That’s what happens when she sees something. It’s happened here in the home.
Twice. On the first occasion, one of the other kids, a child who is no longer here, accused her of taking one of his books. He was not very stable, emotionally, and he got really ugly with her, got right in her face with lots of shouting and name-calling, and then suddenly he just fainted. Jess looked around for a moment, then signed to me that the thing he was looking for was not a book, but a magazine, and that it was hidden behind his own bureau. I went and looked, accompanied by Mrs. Benning, by the way, who also saw this. The magazine was right where she said it was, taped to the back of the bureau. It was one of those porn things.”
“She could have already known that it was there,” he pointed out.
“Then why did the boy faint when he got into it with Jess?”
“Hyperventilated, maybe? Got so mad, he held his breath?”
She looked at him patiently.
“Okay, and the second time?”
“The second time involved a teenage boy who worked afternoons for Mr. Jackson in the barn. Jess was down there one day, getting ready to ride, when the boy came into the stall aisle. She looked at him, dropped the reins,” picked up a broom; and went after him. This time, she was the one who was extremely agitated. The kid just backed away, but she kept after him. She can’t speak, remember, so the only way she can express serious anger is by doing something.”
“Like beating him ip with a broom?”
“Yes. Fortunately, Mr. Jackson was there, but as he ran to break it up, the boy suddenly fainted. Mr. Jackson had to restrain her physically from doing some real damage.” — “What had he done?”
She refilled their coffee cups. “This was a little more difficult to get out of her,” she said, “but apparently, when the school bus was late, Jess had been going directly to the barn and changing clothes in one of the stalls. The stall was next to the feed room, and the boy had a peephole and had been spying on her when she got undressed. He was very likely thinking some seriously impure thoughts when this episode erupted. He was fifteen, raging male hormones and all that, and she is, as you’ve seen, developed. We found the peephole, and there was evidence that it had been used frequently.” “Damn,” he said. “And what did the kid do when he woke up?”
“He was disoriented and embarrassed, in about equal proportions.”
Just like Carson, he thought. “Did you have any tests done in Charlotte in this area?”
“Not beyond a brain scan. She’d been complaining of headaches, and I suppose I thought …” She didn’t finish the sentence.
He remembered her comment about good news. “And the bad news was that you were hoping they’d find a physiological explanation for the two incidents you described?”
“Yes. I believe the thing at the airport makes three.”
Stafford finished his coffee. “As I recall the press reports on the Stargate program, they were trying to find people who could establish a telepathic relationship over long distances.”
“Well, you know more about that than I do. But if that was the case, Jess couldn’t have helped them. This phenomenon apparently happens only when she’s right in front of the other person, and that person is mentally agitated.”
“Or she is. Have you talked to her about it? I don’t mean the incidents, but the phenomenon itself?”
“Tried. We have the basic problem of having to use sign language, and my having to explain new terms to her. Plus, she went through a pretty horrific experience as a very young child. Talking about this phenomenon is very tricky, because any teenager, and especially Jess, is hypersensitive to any implication that there’s something different, or wrong, with them. I told you, Dave, this is complicated.”
It certainly is, he thought, although he wanted to know more about why Gwen was being so protective of the girl. On the other hand, that was, after all, her job. But assuming the phenomenon was real, what had the girl seen in Carson’s mind?
“Would you consider letting’me talk to her?” he asked. “With you present, of course; I can’t read sign language, so you’d have to translate. But I guess I need to know what she saw in the airport.”
Gwen had to think about that, and he gave her time. He could not imagine what the hell Carson could have going at the DRMO that might trigger one of the girl’s psychic episodes.
“That depends,” she replied finally. “On what you’re investigating at that place, and what would happen to her if you catch this Carson person because of something Jess saw.” “As I said, at the moment I don’t have any evidence that Carson is doing anything wrong. I don’t much like the guy, nor do his employees, but that’s neither here nor there. But if I had to wrap up and report to my boss right now, I’d say there’s very little going on at that DRMO.”
“Well, what I’m getting at is that I won’t expose Jess to some media circus over a case of stolen airplane parts. Maybe we should just drop this.”
He nodded thoughtfully. For his part, he could just see himself bringing in a report to Ray Sparks based on a fourteen-year-old’s — what, visions?
“I could go along with that, Gwen. Unless she ‘saw’ a murder or something equally serious, that might be the best course of action.”
She looked at him for a moment. “You still don’t believe it, do you?” He sighed. “There are a lot of things in this world I don’t understand.
Understanding is different from believing. But like I said, I’m supposed to see what’s in front of me. I can’t see mental telepathy.”
She nodded. “Neither can I. But let me get something for you.”
She got up and went through a screen door. A light went on in her office and he could hear her looking for something. He got up and stood by the porch railing. Her side of the house faced away from the pond, overlooking the grove of sprawling, moonlit pecan trees. The scent of swelling greenery perfumed the darkness, and he could hear the first peeps of the nocturnal tree frog chorus. Gwen came back out onto the porch and handed him a piece of paper.