Cooper poured out five cups of steaming coffee from the insulated metal coffee pot and began passing them out to his guests. "I arrived in Twin Peaks on February 24, 1989, to investigate the murder of Laura Palmer. The moment Ronette Pulaski crossed over into Idaho, the FBI caught the case. There was no question about it falling into our jurisdiction. So I familiarized myself with the case on the flight from Philadelphia to Seattle. Two murders, a year apart, with striking similarities. If it sounds like a duck and walks like a duck…"

Olivia repositioned the tape recorder on the table in front of her. "When did you become aware that this case was unique?"

"As soon as Gordon Cole handed it to me, personally. He wasn't interested in cases unless they were unique, strange…" he turned to Olivia. "I'm sure you've heard about Agent Cole? His eccentricities?"

Bits of old, half-remembered facts floated back to her. "The Blue Rose cases," she said, adding, for Peter and Walter's benefit: "I guess, in a sense, Agent Cole is the progenitor of Fringe Division. The cases he took on didn't fit the traditional mold but no one else knew what to do with them. Things like the occult, the supernatural, aliens. But many of the things he was investigating then became things we are investigating now," she said, glancing back to Cooper. "He handpicked the agents he wanted working on his cases. It was both an honour and a bit of a burden, to hear it told."

Cooper nodded. "I knew it wouldn't be your average case, your average serial killing. And it wasn't."

Olivia changed tack. "You were here in Twin Peaks for the murder of Maddy Ferguson, is that correct?"

Cooper nodded. "Yes. That was the turning point for the case, wouldn't you say, Harry?"

Sheriff Truman concurred. "We had Benjamin Horne in custody and figured he was good for Laura's murder, thanks to his suspicious behaviour and the evidence we got from his own daughter about his…involvement with Laura."

Olivia busied herself taking notes. "So it came as a surprise to find another murder with the best suspect in custody?"

"Naturally," Cooper said. "So we came at it from a different angle. I'd always attempted things that were…unconventional, shall we say, and with varying levels of success. In this case, the hunch paid off. We cornered Leland Palmer and he—or, rather, BOB—confessed to it all."

"Bob?" Walter asked. "Who's Bob?"

"The best we could tell, he was the evil spirit residing within Leland. The poor man had been sharing his body with a demon for the better part of his life, and he'd been coerced to rape and murder his own daughter," Cooper shook his head sadly. "It was beyond tragic."

"A man murders three people and his demonic possession is tragic?" Peter scoffed.

Cooper didn't back down. "When you watch a man's tormented soul leave his body after realizing the full extent of the horrors he's inflicted upon his own flesh and blood…yes, Mr. Bishop, it is a tragedy. It's all a tragedy."

Olivia redirected. "You remained in Twin Peaks for the rest of March, even though your official assignment had already ended. Why?"

"Initially, it was my plan to take a vacation, but I was required to stay here for the duration of the DEA and FBI Internal Affairs investigation into my unauthorized raid on a Canadian gambling house and brothel, intended to recover Benjamin Horne's daughter from her captors during a failed blackmail and takeover attempt."

Olivia looked at Sheriff Truman, who nodded. "It's a long story."

She turned back to Cooper. "And once that investigation was over—"

"Windom Earle returned," Cooper sighed. "He was my former partner, and he went mad a few years earlier, following the murder of his wife while he and I were on her protective detail." Cooper paused, a faraway, haunted look crossing his face. "I say he went mad," he continued, "but it was always my belief that he faked his illness to cover up the fact that he was the one responsible for her murder. Why he murdered her is something that eluded me for many years—but I believe now that not only was she a material witness in a federal crime perpetrated by her husband, but that Windom knew Caroline and I were having an affair."

Peter glanced at Olivia, who held his gaze for a moment before continuing to take her notes.

"When Windom returned, he began sending me clues, taunting me. I knew I had to stay and settle the score, not for my own personal gain but to ensure that no one else suffered at his hands," Cooper shook his head. "He was playing by his own rules. We thought we could beat him, but he was a mad man, rigging the game as he went. When we discovered his plot to kidnap the winner of the Miss Twin Peaks pageant, I thought that would be it. But it was only the beginning."

"This is when Annie Blackburne was abducted?" Olivia clarified.

"Yes," Cooper said. "Kidnapped and taken, I believe, to the Black Lodge. That was Windom Earle's endgame all along. He was looking—had been looking, I think, since the middle part of the 1960s—for an entrance to the Black Lodge."

Olivia sat up straight and shook her head. "Black Lodge? What's the Black Lodge?"

This time, it was Walter who piped up. "Spirit worlds. Inhabited by shadow people."

The other four people in the room turned their attentions to Walter.

He continued. "They're mythologized in the oral history of several Native American tribes along the Pacific coast, from northern California through British Columbia and up into Alaska, some even as far away as northern Russia, across the Bering Strait."

"You know your stuff," Cooper sat back, once again in awe.

"My father's been known to read the dictionary," Peter quipped. "For fun."

"Sue me for enjoying the challenge of trying to win at Trivial Pursuit in as few moves as possible…" Walter muttered.

Cooper released a sigh and a smile. "There are worse pastimes, Dr. Bishop," he said, continuing after a beat. "In any case, he's right. They're spirit worlds, or a kind of alternate dimension that contains unimaginable power. It was this power that Windom Earle was seeking. He wanted to harness it, I believe, in order to become a powerful wielder, a Dugpa or a sorcerer," Cooper stared into his coffee cup. "To what end, I can't say. He never returned with us that night. I believe his soul resides in the Black Lodge now."

Olivia was furiously writing down everything she could—Black Lodge, Dugpa, shadow people—and only half listened to what Cooper was saying. But she caught onto his last words. "Returned with you?" Olivia asked. "Are you saying you believe you went to this Black Lodge as well?"

"Yes," Cooper said, looking at Sheriff Truman and back again. "I believe Windom Earle used Annie's fear to open the door and travel across the threshold into that other world."

"Why fear?" Peter asked.

"It's a powerful emotion, wouldn't you agree?" Cooper asked. "Seems like the perfect vehicle, capable of turning a person into a key, to paralyze them with their own fear and use that to cross over."

Olivia didn't let Peter answer. "Do you believe the evil spirit—Bob, as you call him—is trapped within the Black Lodge?"

"It's possible. Highly likely, in fact. Annie and I were the only two entities to return to the woods that night." He trailed off, lost in thought for a moment. "I saw her taken from the stage right in front of me. I resolved to get her back, to do everything in my power to see her returned safely. I had to do for her what I couldn't do for Caroline." He took a deep breath. "So I followed them to the woods, to Glastonbury Grove. I don't know how to describe what I saw when I got there. It was like another dimensional plane opened up in front of me and I was able to step across the void, into another world. There were people there—people I'd seen, people who had died. I thought maybe it was heaven, but after a while I woke up in my room, very much alive, but unable to recall much of anything about what happened."

Olivia nodded and returned to her notebook, which was now a mess of scribbles and shorthand. Deciphering it would take forever. But she was struck suddenly by the recognition dawning at the edges of Cooper's words; what he was saying hit a nerve. My dream, she thought…

"Annie was in the hospital for a long time when she came out of the woods," Cooper continued. "She was in a medically induced coma for a while, because whenever she was awake she would fly into an uncontrollable frenzy. No one could contain it. After a while, she calmed down, but would be catatonic for most of the day. I could visit her then, but once she began to reawaken, she refused to see me. She really refused to see anyone," Cooper sighed. "She withdrew from town, from social events. It was sad to see." He paused. "I lost faith in my ability to do much of anything after that. Left the FBI. Bought this place. And that's about all she wrote, really."

"Mr. Cooper, what happened in the supermarket that day?"

Cooper looked down at his hands. "We passed each other in the aisle. She was buying corn—creamed corn, I think. I hadn't seen her in so long, I guess I was nervous. I smiled and told her how much I disliked creamed corn. A simple remark, an icebreaker after years of so little." He sighed. "Annie took one look at me…I-I must have frightened her. She didn't say anything, so I left." When he looked back up at her, his eyes were brimmed with tears. "I never wanted to hurt her. If I had known I'd frighten her so much, I wouldn't have said anything. I would have left the store altogether until she was done."

Sheriff Truman, seated just to Cooper's right, clasped a hand on his friend's knee. "It's all right, Coop. You did exactly what you were supposed to do. No one could ask for any more."

Cooper nodded, his eyes cast down. "I broke my one rule by getting involved with Annie. My carelessness cost Caroline her life; it led directly to Annie's abduction, which she never recovered from, and may have caused her death."

Olivia closed her notebook. "We're tremendously sorry for your loss, Mr. Cooper. If there's anything else you can remember, or that you think is relevant to the investigation, please don't hesitate to call anytime." She handed him her business card, which he accepted with trembling hands.

"Thank you, Agent Dunham."

Peter and Walter made their way to the door while Olivia collected her things. She was about to reach for her tape recorder when Cooper's hand collided with hers; he was reaching for it, too.

Olivia gasped as the memory of her dream flooded back to her in its entirety—the red-draped room and the black and white tiled floors, the little man and the screaming woman and the gentleman in the suit who talked to her. It was you, she thought as she regarded the handsome former FBI Agent with fresh eyes. You're the man from my dream…

"This is a nice tape recorder," Cooper said. "I'm sure I still have my old recording device somewhere in here. A trusted friend. Not unlike today's smartphones, with Wi-Fi connectivity. No little tapes to mess about with."

As if on cue, Olivia's phone buzzed, sending a tinny chime out into the cabin.

Cooper grinned and shook his head. "I'd never fit into that world now…"

"Mr. Cooper," Olivia began, suddenly overcome with names and faces and half-recalled remembrances from past conversations. She opened her mouth to speak without rightly knowing where the words were coming from: "Can you tell me what happened to Josie Packard?"

At the mention of her name, both Cooper and Sheriff Truman straightened their backs imperceptibly, casting glances in each other's direction.

"She died in 1989, correct?" Olivia asked.

"I remember," Cooper said. "We were there. We saw it happen. She—"

"She was scared to death," Truman announced. "Right in front of our eyes. You saw BOB there, didn't you Coop? You saw BOB the moment after Josie died."

Cooper nodded slowly, his face hardening. "The same thing happened to Annie, didn't it?"

Olivia held his gaze for a moment longer before shaking her head. "We don't know yet. I'm sorry I can't give you more information about it." She reached out to shake his hand. "Thank you for your time. We'll be in touch."

Cooper shook her hand—and Olivia brushed off the odd sensation that traveled up her arm from the juncture of their palms—and a few seconds later they were piling back into the truck and heading down the mountain.

"What was that about?" Peter asked Olivia as they passed out of the long driveway and back onto the highway. "Who is Josie Packard?"

"Doctor Jacoby mentioned her when we were coming up here from Spokane. We knew there was another case from years before…"

"I haven't thought about Josie in years," Truman interrupted.

"You knew her pretty well then?" Peter asked.

"I should say so," the Sheriff said. "I was gonna marry her…"

The silence in the car grew heavy and oppressive, broken only by the faint vibration and delicate chime of Olivia's phone once again, a reminder that she had yet to check her phone for whatever message had been left. She shook herself out of the daydream long enough to reach into her pocket and pull out the device. There was a new email message waiting for her:

Agent Dunham:

Your FBI psychologist has agreed to meet you. She'll be arriving at the Twin Peaks Sheriff's Department sometime this afternoon from the Portland field office, along with the lab equipment Walter asked for.

I hope the investigation is bearing fruit. When you get back, I hope you'll tell me what all this was about.

Best,

Philip

Olivia sent a one-line reply: "Thanks—see you in a week" and hit 'Send,' a wistful smile on her face.

"Sheriff Truman, I believe someone will be waiting for us at the station. Would you mind taking us there when we get back into town?" Olivia asked.

"Let me guess," he joked. "A midget in a dream told you this?"

Olivia shot him a look in the rearview mirror; Peter, at her side, narrowed his eyes at her too.

"Not exactly…" Olivia replied.

"Wouldn't be the first time I took direction from an FBI Agent based on dream interpretation," Truman sighed. "Or rock throwing, or ancient Tibetan meditative techniques, for that matter."

"These are fascinating deduction techniques," Walter piped up.

Peter threw up his hands. "I'm not even going to ask…"