Chapter 54
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-Harvard University
Olivia sat silently, and waited for the Bishops to gather their belongings. They were moving more slowly than she would have liked, and she tapped her fingers lightly on the leather steering wheel, trying to curb her rising impatience—a difficult task, even when she wasn't in a hurry.
In what was something of a surprise, it was Peter who was holding up her departure, instead of his father, who had grabbed his coffee and exited without a word to either of them. She glanced toward his hunched form as he hurried across the quad toward the Kresge Building, then turned to Peter, who had finally pushed open his door and was lingering on the edge of his seat.
"You sure you don't want any company?" he said, eyeing her doubtfully. "It's a long drive to Hartford."
She shrugged and shook her head. "I'll be fine," she answered, and he nodded, accepting her decision without comment. "I need you here, Peter. Your father knows something about how these abductions were carried out…his memory may be our only lead."
Peter snorted a laugh, and swung out to the curb. "Now that's a scary thought," he smirked.
Olivia silently agreed with the sentiment. "Just see if there's anything you can do to jog his memory,." she said. "Anything at all might help."
"That sounds easy enough—until you remember that this is Walter we're talking about." He sighed, and looked out over the Harvard campus, in the direction of his father, then grabbed the door frame to get out. "I'll see what I can do, Olivia. I'm not making any promises though."
"Thanks, Peter."
"See you later."
He swung the door closed, and then gave the roof a little smack she could hear faintly as she spun the wheel and pulled away from the curb. In the rear view mirror, she kept one eye on Peter, watching as he turned away and followed the path his father had taken toward the Kresge Building, his hands pressed into his pockets. His tall form dwindled behind her, and the black jacket he was wearing stood out, drawing her attention. Was it new? She thought that it must be, as she'd never seen him wear it before. She wondered when he'd had the time to go shopping, and then why she cared—she didn't care . He disappeared a moment later when she turned a corner, and took the southward route away from Harvard toward the interstate.
Peter had been right about one thing. It was going to be a long drive to Hartford, or near enough to the city that it amounted to the same thing. While having company for the ride would have been nice, triggering Walter's memory was more important. And whether he wanted to admit it or not, he was getting good at dealing with his father's idiosyncratic ways, at pushing him to stay focused on the tasks at hand.
Her phone buzzed on the console between the front seats, and seeing that it was Charlie, she put it on speaker. He would be spearheading the investigation from his end at the Federal Building, directing the efforts of the agents and junior agents working beneath him.
"Hey, Charlie. What's up?"
Her friend's voice sounded tinny through the phones speaker, and irritated. "The Meriden field office finally got around to sending us the sketch their guy did based on the father's description of the kidnapper."
Olivia frowned. "Broyles said they hadn't had any luck with facial recognition."
"I looked at those old sketches—this one's better. The father got a good look at her," he said. "We're just starting to run it through the software now."
Traffic slowed as she approached the Charles, and she came to a rolling stop at a traffic light next to an empty yellow school bus. On the other side of the bridge ahead of her, was the interchange with I-90. The eastbound traffic toward downtown looked heavy, and it was a relief that she would be heading west. On her right was a guardrail, over which the rippling surface of the river glistened below . A singular man in a kayak was flying across its surface, pushed along by the river's current, and his furious paddling.
"That's good news,." she said, watching the kayaker's paddle rise, and then dip into the water. The last abduction had taken place a number of years ago, and the woman could have slipped up since then, and allowed her image to make it into the system, or it could have been in it all along. "Let me know if you find anything."
"I will," Charlie said. "Are you at Harvard?"
"No, I'm on my way to Connecticut to interview the father."
"Is Peter with you?"
"No. He's at the lab, trying to coax Walter's memory," she explained, and glanced down at the phone. "Why the twenty questions, Charlie?"
"Just curious…" he replied, then changed the subject. "Does Dr. Bishop know something about the abduction?"
"Not about the kidnapping per se," she said. "but he did know something about how it was carried out—the flashing lights. Unfortunately, he doesn't remember where he knows it from."
Charlie's low whistle in return sounded broken and scratchy. "You ever think about how many of these cases he seems to know something about? What are the chances of that, Liv?"
The light ahead of her turned green, and Olivia accelerated through the intersection toward the highway. "All the time,." she said, switching lanes and taking the I-90 on-ramp . Truth be told, she'd given up asking too many questions. Despite Walter's strange and coincidental connections with some of the things they investigated—the Pattern, and the cases related to it—he wasn't the one responsible. His incarceration for the last seventeen years was proof of that—yet it was still troubling. She shook her head at the futility of such contemplation. "He's a genius, Charlie. I just chalk it up to that. Look, I gotta go. Let me know if you get any hits with the facial."
"Will do, Livvy."
The call ended, and she merged on to I-90. She glanced over at vehicles stacking up across the median, glad once again she was heading the other way, and then settled in for the drive.
#
The Stocktons' neighborhood was just west of Hartford, in the small town of Glastonbury. It was an older neighborhood, though still affluent, and heavily wooded, with large lots and even larger homes set far back on the properties off the street.
In the summertime she imagined it would look quite beautiful and scenic, with the homes shrouded in layers of green, which would slowly give way to the oranges and reds and yellows of autumn, before finally succumbing to gravity and time, and the carpet of brown and the skeletal trees that was their current state, at the dawn of the New England winter.
Decorative mailboxes constructed of bricks lined the street on both sides, and she scanned the numbers out her window as she passed them by. The house numbers rose by two, and upon reaching the number she was looking for, she turned her SUV up a narrow drive, paved with concrete. Curved, black iron fencing with pointed steeples were set into red-bricked columns that flanked either side of the driveway, marking the entrance to the Stocktons' demesne.
At the other end of the drive was a wide, Tudor style home with a high, pyramidal roof and three evenly spaced gables across the front elevation. She came to stop next to a black BMW sedan parked in front of a closed three car garage and pushed open her door.
Olivia moved around the front of the house to a deep-set porch, and approached the front door—a great oak monstrosity, that wouldn't have looked out of place in a medieval castle. The door was as solid as it looked, and her light knock sounded inconsequential against its surface. She was about to knock again, harder than she had the first time, when approaching footsteps stayed her hand.
The woman that opened the door was heavy-set, with shoulder length strawberry-blonde hair in tight curls, and pale cheeks that contrasted sharply with her crimson-colored lipstick. Her chestnut eyes were shot with blood, and her makeup was smeared from recently shed tears.
Olivia held up her identification.
"Hi…I'm Agent Olivia Dunham, with the FBI," she said, and the let the ID fall back against her chest.
"Finally! I'm so glad you're here." The woman breathed with relief, and held a hand against her chest. "Come in, come in," she said, steeping aside and ushering Olivia through the door. The woman spoke with a heavy northeastern accent, not dissimilar to those she heard around Boston—and from Peter, though not Walter. Her own unaccented Floridian had always marked her as an outsider. "I'm Maureen Stockton. Jeremy's sister."
She followed the sister through the house, past a wooden staircase, to an open living room. A matching blue sofa and love seat sat in the middle of the space, arranged in a rectangular fashion, across from a pair of brown leather recliners. A narrow coffee table sat in the middle, covered in sports magazines along with several dirty plates. She cataloged the rest of the room at a glance; the upright piano against one wall, the empty bottle of cheap vodka sitting on an end table next to the couch—the sort for drinking in quantity. Next to the vodka was a picture laid face down. A thin layer of dust coated most of the flat surfaces, including a wooden entertainment cabinet with a small television set back inside two open doors.
Jeremy Stockton was seated in the middle of the long sofa, leaning on his knees while holding his head in both hands. His graying hair was cut short and was beginning to recede back over his forehead. She thought he might have had a muscular build in his younger days, but the muscles had begun to flag, giving way to fat, as was common in the elder years.
"Jeremy, there's an agent from the FBI here to see you," Maureen Stockton said, putting a hand on his shoulder.
He looked up as his sister sat down next to him, and met Olivia's gaze anxiously. His face was wan, and his gray eyes red-rimmed. "Have you found him?" he cried out. "Have you found Ben?"
"I'm afraid not, Mr. Stockton," she said, and took a seat across from him on the edge of one of the recliners. The chair shifted forward as her weight pressed down on it. "I'm Agent Olivia Dunham, and I'd like to ask you a few questions about what happened."
Jeremy nodded eagerly, wringing his hands together. There was a desperateness in his eyes, and she thought he was likely going crazy inside his head. She could only imagine the nightmare that he was going through, and how she would've reacted if placed in the same situation, if anything ever happened to her niece, Ella.
"So I understand you stopped to help a woman who claimed to have car trouble?" she asked, starting the interview.
He nodded again. "Yeah, that's right."
"Did this woman stop you, or did you stop on your own?"
"I uh…I stopped on my own," Jeremy said, shaking his head with regret. "We were on our way back from Middletown. We go down to eat at O'Rourke's every Wednesday night after…Ben loves the steamed cheeseburgers…" He paused, and cleared his throat, then glanced down at his feet for a moment. "When I came over a hill on Route 17, I saw flashers, and this woman was standing on the side of the road. Just standing there under an umbrella in front of her car. It was a…a tan…or white Mercedes. Nice. The hood was up. She seemed like she was in trouble. It was pouring down rain, I…I just thought I might be able to help her out, you know?"
Olivia nodded. "I understand. What happened next?"
"She said she needed help, that her car died and wouldn't start." He shrugged, wiped his palms on his blue jeans. "I'm no mechanic, but I know my way around under the hood, enough to see if anything was obvious, at least. So I got out."
"And Ben stayed behind in the car?" she wanted to know.
"Yeah…"
She hesitated, then asked her next question, insensitive though it might seem. "Mr. Stockton," she began quietly, "is there any chance that Ben might've…gotten out on his own?"
"No…no…," he said, shaking his head. "Ben is a good boy. He wouldn't do that."
Maureen Stockton nodded in agreement. "Ben has always been very well behaved," she said, defending her brother's statement. "You only have to tell him once, and he listens. He's never been a troublemaker."
"Okay…," Olivia said, moving on. "So what happened next? What did you see under the hood of the car?"
He glanced down at the coffee table and wet his lips nervously. "There was nothing at first," he said. "I checked the terminals on the battery, the distributor and vacuum hosing—there was nothing that seemed out of place, so I called for a tow truck." He glanced over at his sister, who gave him a nod of encouragement, and then went on. "But then, these lights started flashing, right up near the air filter housing…and, I remember thinking that they didn't belong there, and then…and then the next thing I knew, the tow truck driver was tapping me on the shoulder. And Ben was gone."
"And the lights were green and red?"
"Yes…three green flashes, and…and then a red—I remember that clearly," he said brokenly. The desperation blazed in his eyes again. "I know what it sounds like," he said, his hands becoming animated in his distress. "Like I'm crazy. I'm not. I talked to her. I touched her car. She was there!"
"The police grilled my brother for hours!" Maureen added angrily before Olivia could reply. "They…they treated him like he was a suspect!"
"I know what I saw," he insisted. "She was real…and she took my son!"
"Why doesn't anyone believe him?"
"We're wasting time!" Jeremy said. "We need to find Ben!"
Olivia held both hands up, nodding her head. "I believe you," she assured the distraught brother and sister. "In fact, we think that this same woman may be involved in a number of other abductions."
"What? This has happened before?" Maureen wanted to know, and shifted forward on her seat.
"Why would anyone want to take my son?" Jeremy asked. He seemed dumbfounded by the revelation.
"I don't know," she told him truthfully. "Honestly, he doesn't really fit the profile of any of the other victims."
"How so?" the sister said.
"For one, they were all adults, and another, they were all academics—experts in various scientific fields."
Olivia frowned as Jeremy Stockton exchanged a glance with his sister, a sharp, knowing look if she had ever seen one. There was something there, something important they hadn't told her yet. She sensed that whatever it was, the chance was good that it was the reason that Ben had been kidnapped.
"What is it?" she said, looking between them.
"Ben is…kind of an expert himself." Jeremy replied slowly. His gaze went past her, over her shoulder.
She turned her head, and saw only the piano against the wall behind her. "What do you mean?" she asked, looking back at him.
"Nine months ago, my wife was walking Ben to school." Jeremy said softly. "Some…idiot late for a dentist appointment ran a red light." He swallowed and lowered his head for a moment, before continuing in a hoarse voice. "…And they were hit in the cross walk. Abby was killed. The doctors, they told me they didn't know if Ben was gonna make it either. He was in a coma for six days." His sister reached over and took one of his hands. "And when he woke up…well, it's easier if I just show you."
He got up and began rummaging through the entertainment cabinet until he found the DVD he was looking for. He put the disc in the player below the television, and stepped back, giving her room to watch.
The image that flicked to life was of a young boy, with straight dark hair, seated at the same piano that was against the wall behind her. It was Ben Stockton. In the movie, he glanced back at the camera, and then started to play. It was a simple, but beautiful piece that tugged at her emotions after just a few notes. Though she had no real ear for it, as the music ebbed and flowed it became obvious that the boy was talented—especially considering his young age.
"This is the day I took him home from the hospital," Ben's father explained, gesturing with the remote. "He hadn't spoken—said even a word—since I told him his mother had died. And when we got home…he just sat down at the piano and started to play."
"Well, he's very talented." Olivia said, glancing over at him.
"That's the thing," he said with a low grunt. "Before this, he had never taken a single lesson."
She turned back to the movie, and watched as his hands glided effortlessly over the keys. It was difficult to believe that he'd never played before, that she was watching his first time. It didn't seem possible.
"His doctors told me there had been other cases…" Jeremy Stockton continued, "people with severe brain traumas who have woken up with the ability to do things they'd never done before. Two weeks after coming home from the hospital, he was composing his own music." He nodded toward the television screen. "One piece in particular. He was working on it constantly—in the car, at school. He stopped being interested in everything else."
Olivia detected an undertone of bitterness in his words, in his voice, and guessed that his son's newfound obsession with the piano may have been a source of contention between them. She glanced down at the sports magazines on the coffee table. He had probably not approved, had wanted something more in line with his own interests for his son. She was certain that he was regretting whatever arguments they'd had now.
"You said the other people that had been taken were accomplished at something." Maureen Stockton spoke up in the silence. "Do you think his piano playing was why they took Ben?"
"I don't know," she admitted, and turned her attention back to the home movie. Ben's shoulders were swaying in tune with the music, his head tilted in a way that made her think his eyes might have be closed. "Would you mind if I took this video with me, Mr. Stockton?" she said. "I'd like to show it to someone."
"Of course," he consented with a quick nod. "If…if you think it'll help." He stopped the movie, and placed it back in its case.
"I do," Olivia said. She wasn't sure how it would help, exactly, but there was a strong something in her gut that told her it might be important. Walter would certainly want to see it, if nothing else. Maybe he could explain it. "I think that's all for now," she said, pushing off the recliner. He handed her the jewel case and she slid it into her coat pocket. "We're going to find him, Mr. Stockton, please don't lose hope."
Jeremy Stockton scrubbed a hand across his mouth, and then nodded. "Thank you," he said in a muffled voice, and then turned away from her, and moved in the direction of the upright piano.
She watched him for a moment, then moved toward the front door, followed by Maureen Stockton. "Thank you so much for your time,." she said, turning to the other woman when she reached the front door. She shook her hand, and then pulled open the heavy door.
"Um…Agent Dunham?" Maureen said, stopping her as she started outside.
Olivia turned back to her.
"After Abby died, my brother…he barely held it together," she said quietly, and glanced back toward the living room. "Without Ben, I don't think he's going to make it."
"I'll do everything I can." Olivia promised, noting the tears in her eyes.
#
On the drive back to Boston, Olivia's thoughts kept returning to Ben's father, and his sister's parting words. Jeremy Stockton was living a nightmare made flesh, first his wife, and then his son. It was enough to break any man—or woman, for that matter.
She was sitting at the stop light at the end of the Cambridge exit from I-90, when her phone vibrated in her lap. She glanced down at the lit display. It was Charlie again, hopefully with some good news. She put the phone on speaker.
"Dunham."
Charlie's rough voice filled the interior. "Hey, it's me," he said without preamble. "It took us a while, but based on the new sketch, we ID'd your kidnapper. Name is Joanne Ostler. She was a neurologist studying at MIT. She would have been thirty this March."
"Wait. What do you mean, would have been?" she said, her sudden enthusiasm at identifying the suspect tempered by his last words.
"According to the DMV and the Department of Records, Joanne Ostler died ten years ago," Charlie said. "That's why it took so long for us to find a match, and probably why the other searches never did."
Olivia frowned. "Are you sure it's the same woman?"
"She looks almost identical to the woman from the sketch," he replied, and then added, "and she doesn't have a twin because I checked, after what happened with Richard and Morgan Stieg."
She had learned her lesson from that fiasco as well. She was still learning it.
"So what happened to her?" she queried. "How did she die?"
"Apparently, her car went off a bridge in November of ninety-eight. Eight months before any of the abductions."
"How is that even possible?"
"Here's the thing," Charlie said. "The car was recovered, but her body was never found."
"So then it's possible that she survived," Olivia mused. It made sense. No one would be looking for her if she was dead.
"Either that, or Broyles has you chasing a ghost."
Olivia was silent for a moment as the light changed, and she made the turn on to Cambridge Street. "…I assume you're running an alias search?" she asked "Any likely matches?"
"Nothing yet," he answered. "I'll keep you updated."
"Thanks, Charlie," she said before ending the call.
After finding an empty space on the curb near the Kresge Building, Olivia picked up the DVD case from Ben's father and stared at it through the clear plastic for a moment before opening her door. Maybe Walter or Peter would recognize the music he was playing, or see something in it that could explain why Ben was taken. Either his music or his newfound ability had to be related, somehow. Her gut was screaming it at her, and it was rarely wrong.
Walter lifted the cardboard box off the shelf with a grunt of effort. The box was heavier than it looked. He carried it over to the table in the center of the storage room and set it down next to his record collection under the swinging overhead light. The flaps on the top of box were folded shut, criss-crossed over and under one another, and he pulled them open and looked inside.
The box was filled with old electronics, or rather antiques, as they were now. They'd been old when he put them in the box, before his sojourn in the asylum. The capacitors, vacuum tubes, potentiometers, and other components inside were relics of the analog era, before the digital age, and the ultra-miniaturization of everything electronic that had only just been getting started when he'd been incarcerated. He dug through the jumble of parts, then jerked his thumb up to his mouth and sucked on the puncture wound he received from one the prickly solder points. After staunching the flow, he resumed his search with the salty-iron taste of blood on his tongue, and pushed aside the ancient electronics until his fingertips brushed the bottom of the box.
The light box wasn't there.
He pushed the box away and turned to the shelf behind him, then grabbed another box at random and carried it back to the table. The second box contained his collection of old circuit boards, a small box of chicken-head knobs and toggle switches, and several handmade enclosure boxes constructed of bent sheet metal. He picked up one the enclosures, and examined it under the paltry light.
It was finely made, the bends and drill holes in the metal exact. Most likely Belly's handiwork, he thought, made for some project or device that had never been completed. His old friend had always been a stickler for the little details. It was probably how he'd been able to create the technological and financial empire that was Massive Dynamic, while he himself had been placed in an insane asylum.
He wasn't jealous of his old friend's success, exactly, but he was more than a little curious why he'd never come to visit, why no one had ever come to visit . Surely with all the power and wealth he'd accumulated through his empire, Belly could have found a way to visit him, if he'd wanted to.
Walter paused, and waited to see if any comments would be forthcoming, but there was only silence in his head and in the storage room. It seemed his old friend wasn't in a talkative mood . After a moment, he dropped the enclosure back in the box with the others, and then glanced around at the shelves lining the walls.
There were many more boxes to choose from—the shelves were positively crammed with them. He tried to think back to the time before, back when he'd been his old self, back to when he'd been whole, but was unable to piece himself together. He was unable to think as he might've thought when he'd used the light box last—it had been many years before the accident. There were too many gaps in his memory, the context in which he viewed the world was wholly different now than back then. That he was able to recognize that he was different than he had been was an encouraging sign, but made his failure seem all the more frustrating. He wondered what would be more disturbing: to be just far enough gone to recognize his own diminishment, or to tip over the edge and never know it.
A tremor ran through him, and he realized he was standing there slack-jawed. He stepped away from the table and walked along the row of shelves, eyeing them from top to bottom, until he spied a wooden bin high on the top shelf in one corner of the storage room. The wooden bin sparked a memory of himself and his poor assistant Carla, bent over a lab table next to each other. What they'd been working on he couldn't say, but there was a distinct image of the object he was looking for lying on the table between them.
He pulled the wooden bin from the shelf, and set it down next to the others. Inside, he found what he was looking for underneath a stack of ancient Jugs magazines, along with the device for programming it. Walter shook his fist triumphantly, then removed them both from the bin. The light box was a thin and rectangular, with four recessed light sockets set in one face at even intervals. Three of the four sockets were empty, with a single blue light in the remaining socket. Digging further in the bin, he found a small shoe box full of colored light bulbs that he recognized and pulled out as well . He selected the colors he needed and dropped them in his lab coat pocket, and then grabbed the light box and its controller and hurried up the steps to the lab.
His son and Agent Farnsworth were still busy in their seats where he'd left them, the girl had a set of curious plugs stuck in her ears, and Peter had a soldering iron warming on its stand next to him. Walter narrowed his eyes on the soldering iron as he moved past, and then stared at the small electronic device that Peter had disassembled. Its innards were spread out on the table before him. His son had always been particularly gifted with electronics—he distinctly remembered him successfully repairing a broken transistor radio when he'd been a boy. He'd been very proud of himself.
Walter set the light box down on an open table, and went about setting up his experiment. The blue light bulb he unscrewed and tossed aside, and then pulled the green and red bulbs from his pocket.
While he couldn't recall where he remembered the green-red light sequence from, the fragment he could recall was clear, and confirmed by Agent Broyles. Three green flashes then a red, repeating. He screwed the bulbs in the proper order, then plugged in the light box's power cord, and began programming the time and duration of the flashes, manipulating the small dials on the faceplate of the controller box.
As his fingers did their work, his thoughts drifted absently back to the memory fragment of the flashing lights. It was as if a shroud had been laid across his mind, and no matter how hard he tried to cut through it, he was unable to penetrate its foggy embrace . For reasons he had yet to determine, he didn't have access to his own memories, to parts of his own past. Early onset of Alzheimer's would have been his first diagnosis, but he had no family history of it, which was prevalent for the early onset variety.
Too much LSD, Walter, Belly's voice cracked out of nowhere .
Walter ignored his old friend's voice. LSD had nothing to do with his memories. His gaps had the fingerprint of some sort of trauma—be it physical or psychological—all over them.
He giggled at the thought, drawing a glance from Peter in his peripheral vision, which he also ignored. He couldn't remember being hit in the head lately, but perhaps the memory of the trauma itself was gone, which might explain his confusion.
It was a conundrum.
Taking a different tack, he focused only on the voice from the memory. The lights. They put me asleep, Walter. Green, green, green, red they flashed… The voice still made him think of Christmas, of trees and lights and presents and carols.
Carols. The thought had a stickiness to it, like wet clay clinging to the surface of his mind, and refused to let go. It was a familiar feeling, almost instinctual. He was getting warmer. In an effort to jog his memory, he started at the top, reciting the Christmas carols he had memorized under his breath. Perhaps one of them would shake something loose.
#
"Hey, Walter." Peter's voice said suddenly.
Walter blinked and looked around, taking in his surroundings. It felt as if he'd just broken through the surface of a swimming pool, or more accurately, like he'd been woken early from a nap—confused.
He was still in the lab. The green and red lights blinked on the edge of his vision. Apparently, at some point he had discovered the correct timing. He toggled the light box's power off, lest he become glamored by it again, unintentionally.
"Don't you think it's a bit early for yuletide cheer?" Peter said from his lab table.
It hadn't been until he reached the D's, and Deck the Halls, that he'd gotten the timing correct. At least that was the last carol he remembered reciting before Peter's voice had brought him out of his stupor. "I was reciting Christmas carols in an attempt to jar loose some details from my subconscious to remember where I heard mention of the green and red lights," he said. "But sadly, it hasn't worked yet."
Peter gestured toward the light box. "So you thought it would be more useful to work on your Christmas tree decorations?"
He shook his head. "Though I cannot recall where I heard of the lights, it did give me an idea—a theory as to how the boy was taken," he said. "Many years ago, we were hired to design a technology, an intricate pattern of flashing lights intended to create a suggestible state of hypnosis. Theoretically the test subjects will do whatever commanded. Bark like a dog, dance a jig, wash the car."
"Really." Peter grinned. "The U.S. government had you working on mind control? Why does that not come as a shock?"
"Not the government," Walter corrected . He grabbed the controller box and got up. He was ready. All that was needed now was a test subject, and Peter would do nicely. "It was one of the big advertising agencies," he went on. "They hoped to broadcast the flashing lights in between frames during commercials, so that the viewers would have no choice but to buy their clients products. Unfortunately, it merely caused extreme nausea in those that we tested it on. Which was unfortunate, because apparently, people don't like to shop when they feel like they're going to throw up."
Peter chuckled. "No, I guess they wouldn't." He placed the hot soldering iron on its stand, and then moved next to Walter's table and glanced down at the light box. "So, if you aren't planning on celebrating Christmas early, what is all that?"
"I posit that the flashing lights witnessed by the father induced a hypnagogic trance, during which the child was abducted by the woman," he said.
His son looked down at the light box again. "I thought you said the experiments were failures."
"Oh yes," Walter confirmed, nodding vigorously. "They were indeed, but in our studies, we focused solely on the timing and intensity of the flashes, not the colors—the greens and the red. Now I suggest that those wavelengths are the key to success." He motioned for Peter to stand in front of the narrow light box. "Let me demonstrate. Come."
"What do you want me to do?" Peter asked.
"Just stare at the lights, son."
"Okay…," he said doubtfully, crossing his arms.
Walter stepped away from the table, pulling the cord that trailed from the controller box with him. He flipped the power toggle, then watched his son closely as tints of green and red reflected off his pupils. His face, which was full of his typical skepticism at first, went slack several moments later, his eyes glazed and distant, unaware. Peter stood perfectly still, his gaze fixed on the light box, or perhaps at some invisible point beyond.
Walter waved a hand in front of his son's face, careful not to touch him, or make any sudden sounds that could startle him out of the trance. The transition from awareness to hypnagogia had been remarkably quick—he suspected it could most likely take anyone unaware in mere moments after one had focused on the light pattern. The process was effective, and he felt fairly envious of whomever had come up with it.
He toggled off the lights, then checked his son for any reaction. Seeing none, he glanced around the lab, looking for something with which he could make a dramatic point. His son, being the skeptic that he was, would require it. And it would be fun. His gaze fell on a black marker, sitting among the mess Peter had spread about his table.
With a grin, he grabbed the marker and pulled off the cap. The tip was nicely pointed, new and full of ink. It would do nicely. Perhaps raccoon eyes would be sufficient, or a nice bad-guy goatee, though his son's lack of shaving might make drawing the goatee difficult.
"Walter!" a female voice hissed behind him. He turned to find his young assistant, Agent Farnsworth, staring up at him with disapproval. "What are you doing with that marker?" she said.
The girl was going to ruin everything! Walter made a shushing motion, then grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her a safe distance away from Peter. "I've successfully put Peter into a hypnagogic trance, Aspirin!" he whispered in her ear excitedly. "We mustn't startle him out of it yet."
"And the marker?" she said, looking past him at Peter. "Where does that come into play?"
"Oh…well, I merely need to prove to him that it worked," he said. "When he comes out of the trance, it will seem to him as if no time at all has passed. He likely won't even realize he's been under."
"And you thought drawing on him with a marker—a permanent marker—was a good way to do that, huh?" Astro said, slowly shaking her head.
"Of course not," Walter said, then gestured at Peter with the marker. "He's going to do it himself. Wait!" he said as she plucked the marker from his outstretched hand.
"I can't let you do that, Walter," she protested. "Peter would kill me. However…," She smiled, and then grabbed a pair of scissors from the table she'd been sitting at. "How about these instead?" She squeezed the scissors open and closed.
The metallic shearing sound brought a smile to his face. "Oh…I like your thinking, my dear," he said. Peter was looking a bit scraggly up top lately.
Agent Farnsworth placed the scissors in his hands, then closed his fingers around the silver handles. "Not near his face, or his hair," she said. "Can you handle that?"
Walter eyed his son's hair, then shrugged. "If I must."
"You must."
Peter started at the loud bang! of the lab door rebounding against the wall behind him. He blinked, and then focused on the narrow light box sitting on the table in front of him.
The green and red lights were no longer flashing—apparently Walter's experiment was over. He should have told his father not to waste his time in the beginning; he'd always been resistant to hypnosis, and that resistance seemed to extend to the flashing light, trance inducing, flavor as well. The green and red colors had seemed familiar though, had triggered some memory, but he couldn't recall from where or when.
"Sorry, Walter," he said, and glanced back over his shoulder where his father had been standing moments ago. He was gone. "Walter?"
"Over here, son."
Peter spun on his heels, turning in the other direction. He found Walter seated at a table on the raised area of the lab.
What the hell?
"Anyone ready for lunch?"
He frowned, and turned again to find the diminutive junior agent walking toward him across the lab floor. She was wearing her dark navy coat, and had a bag of Chinese takeout from their usual place dangling from one hand.
Lunch? He looked at the clock on the wall, confused as to how it could be lunchtime already. They'd only just returned from the briefing with Broyles at the Federal Building—it couldn't have been more than one hour since their arrival. The plastic lens on the clock face was clouded with age, but there was no mistaking the time—unless his father had gone through the trouble of changing it, which he doubted.
Somehow, it was just before noon.
"What's up Chachi?" There was an amused smirk on Astrid's face as she eyed him up and down, then moved past him, toward the table where Walter was sitting.
Chachi? Peter glanced down—and saw that his arms were bare, that the sleeves of his shirt had been jaggedly cut off, just below his shoulders. On the floor at his feet were the discarded remnants. What the fuck is going on? he thought, and then it clicked with a crystal clarity. Of course. The lights. They had worked on him after all.
"Did you do this to me?" he said, and brought his left hand up to point in his father's direction.
A pair of metal scissors dangled between his thumb and forefinger.
"No. You did," Walter said, watching him over the rim of his coffee cup. "The power of suggestion, son. The lights were rather effective, were they not?"
Peter grunted, and glanced uneasily at the scissors before setting them down next to the light box. He felt out of sorts at the lost span of time, at the blank space in his memory. It reminded him of a time when he was a boy, around eight or nine years old. It had been in the middle of winter—when the days were the shortest of the year. He had tried to stay up all night in order to see the sunrise, but had failed, and had fallen asleep right before its scheduled time. For some reason his mother had allowed him to sleep all through the next day, and he'd woken to the same darkness in which he'd gone to sleep.
He remembered the confusion he'd felt then, the strange sense of dislocation at the time lost, as if he'd been left behind and the world had marched on without him. Days later, when he'd tried to recall what he'd been doing on that particular day—it had been a Saturday—he'd had a moment of panic at the hole in his memory, until he had remembered that he'd slept through it. He didn't care for the feeling any more now than he had back then, and that was without taking into account how he'd not been in control of himself. He wondered what else his father had made him do while he'd been under. Hopefully it had been nothing too embarrassing.
At least they could tell Olivia exactly how the kidnapping was done. It wouldn't help locate the missing boy, but it was something.
Leaving his father and Astrid behind as they unpacked the takeout containers, Peter entered Olivia's office. Behind her desk was a duffel bag he'd brought in recently with a spare change of clothes for the accidental blood, gore, fluid splatters—usually from dead bodies, and other unexpected phenomena that occurred all too frequently in his father's lab. He hadn't thought of self-mutilation at the time, but it seemed to fall under the unexpected phenomena category.
He snatched the bag up and removed a striped button-down and a gray t-shirt from inside. They were both old and wrinkled, but in better condition than what he was wearing. He pulled his ruined shirt over his head, and then held it up, inspecting the damage. It had not been his favorite shirt, but it had fit well and been comfortable. He tossed it in the trashcan next to the desk, then began putting on the replacements. Walter's voice rang out as he buttoned up the striped shirt, singing the opening lyrics to Frosty the Snowman. He looked out the office window at his father, who was parading through the lab tables and equipment as he belted out the song. At least Walter could carry a tune…somewhat.
Excellent, Peter said to himself on his way out of the office. He moved back to the table where his father had been sitting. Astrid was perched on the edge, deftly eating out of a container of fried rice with a pair of chopsticks. He pushed the remains of Walter's lunch aside, and sat down next to her.
Astrid looked up as he opened a container of shrimp lo-mein. "Aw…you changed your shirt," she grinned. "That's too bad. I kinda like the eighties look on you, Peter." She took a bite of her fried rice, then added with a wink, "I'm sure Olivia would have liked it too."
Peter snorted. "I don't know about that," he said, and grabbed his own chopsticks, and then swallowed down a large mouthful of noodles and shrimp. He doubted Olivia would have found it too amusing, at least at the moment, with Ben Stockton still missing, and little-to-no progress made toward finding him. He wondered if she'd had better luck with the father.
Across the lab, Walter marched out of the small storage closet near the office, pumping his fist as he belted out the second verse to It's Beginning To Look A lot Like Christmas. He watched his father traipse around the lab for a moment, then resumed eating. At least he was singing a song he didn't mind hearing—he actually enjoyed the Johnny Mathis version. Some of the other songs his father was singing hadn't even sounded like carols, more like songs for church on Sunday, which he'd never been a particular fan of.
"Here," Astrid offered, and passed him an earbud from her iPod. "I don't know what kind of music you like, but this has gotta be better than your father's Christmas carols."
Peter shoved the tiny speaker in his ear, and was surprised to hear the familiar guitar rift of Led Zeppelin's, Black Dog, blaring in his ear. He eyed her askance. "Led Zeppelin?" he said, lifting his eyebrows.
"What?" she said, and crinkled her nose. "You don't like 'em?"
"No, I like them just fine," he said. "Definitely in my top five. I'm just surprised that you do."
Astrid cocked her head. "Why would that surprise you?" she said, and glanced at Walter as he strolled past on the recessed floor below.
From the tone of her voice, he sensed that she was offended by his assumption. "I don't know," he said with a shrug. "I guess I just pictured you as more the club going, dance-the-night-away type of girl."
"Well…I have been known to do that on occasion," she chuckled, and raised her eyebrows suggestively, then expertly scooped up another bite of her fried rice. "Although, it's been a while. There's something about being on call twenty-four hours a day that doesn't leave a lot of time for anything else."
Peter had to agree with her. His guardianship of Walter, the constant care and attention required to make sure his father wasn't causing a disaster on any given day could be quite draining at times, even without taking into account the odd hours they sometimes worked. Walter's new sleep regimen was certainly not going to make it easier, though if his recent early morning excursion was anything to go by, maybe he was making progress toward independence.
The iPod shuffled to the next song, and the wild carnival sounds of The Beatles, 'Mr. Kite, filled his ear. Astrid apparently liked all of the classics, and he approved. The cacophonous mix of organ, whistles, and trills, coupled with John Lennon's melodic voice did a fine job of masking Walter as he launched into the first verse of Jingle Bells.
A motion to his right caught Peter's eye, and he turned to find Olivia sweep into the lab. Her dark overcoat was buttoned up to just above her narrow waist, and her head swiveled to watch Walter's performance as she approached their table.
"Hey," Olivia said. A slight frown creased her lips as her gaze flicked uncertainly between his shirt, the shared earbuds, and Astrid's position on the table next to him. "What the hell is he doing?" She nodded toward Walter as he strutted around the lab.
"Walter thinks it'll help him remember where he heard about the green and red lights." Astrid said as she removed the speaker from her ear and slipped off the edge of the table.
"Okay…," Olivia said.
Peter pulled his own earbud free, and wiped his mouth with a napkin. "We've got some good news," he said. "We think we understand how it was that Ben was abducted. Those green and red lights—they put the father into a hypnagogic state." At Olivia's confused look, he explained further. "It's kind of like having a waking dream, or being hypnotized, though it's not exactly hypnotism. You can enter it naturally, of course, but someone seems to have figured out how to induce it on their own."
Olivia nodded, seemingly pleased by their progress. "And we think we've ID'd the woman responsible," she said. "Her name's Joanne Ostler, and she's apparently been—"
"I have it!" Walter's shout from the floor below the railing turned their heads. He rushed toward them, holding up a finger as he squeezed between two lab tables. "It was Christmas," he said excitedly. "Christmas led me to Christmas carols—one of which is Jingle Bells, which leads one naturally to, dashing through the snow, which of course, inevitably, leads one to Dash."
"To…dash?" Astrid said with a frown.
"Dashiell Kim." Walter nodded. He leaned forward on the lower bar of the railing and looked up at them. "The man who mentioned the green and red lights to me. I'm sure it was him."
Olivia stepped forward, eyes blazing with interest. "Where is this man, Walter?" she wanted to know. "Can we talk to him?"
Walter shrugged. "I guess that would depend on whether or not he has succeeded in killing himself."
"What are you talking about?" Peter said. "Who is this guy, and where do you know him from?"
"He was a fellow inmate at St. Claire's asylum," his father said, and then let out an amused giggle. "We used to eat lunch together, sometimes. Except on Mondays—I couldn't tolerate the pudding."
"What did this man tell you?" Olivia asked.
Walter hesitated, gesticulating about with his hands. "Well…he told me a great many things, many of which were utterly insane," he said. "He was a mathematician, you know. And he loved the butterscotch pudding, and believe me, that's a sign of true madness."
"What did he tell you about the green and red lights, Walter?" Peter said, trying to course-correct his father's wandering mind.
"Oh, yes. The lights," he replied. "Sometimes when he was raving, I remember him ranting about a woman who had put him asleep with a Christmas tree, and then taken him away." He fluttered his hands above his head and then laughed.
"Taken him where?" Olivia said intently.
"Well, I…I don't remember that," Walter said, smiling fondly. "That Dashiell, he was quite the character."
"Walter, this is important," Peter pressed. "Are you sure you don't remember anything else?"
His father thought for a moment, rubbing at his chin, then shook his head. "I'm sorry, son," he said. "I simply can't recall anything else. The…uh, drug regimens we were prescribed, you see…well—they weren't of the sort I would have preferred."
There was a melancholy aspect to his father's tone, and Peter dropped his gaze as a surge of guilt passed through him. In the years his father was institutionalized, he had hardly thought of him while he'd been abroad. And when he'd been home in Boston…he remembered ridiculing him with his so-called friends and associates—telling them how crazy his father was, how he was rotting in a cell up at St. Claire's. They had laughed, and he had laughed with them, as he'd scavenged his father's belongings—sold his trinkets, his books, personal items, anything he could get his hands on that had seemed valuable. Anything he'd thought his father would miss—and for mere pittances. He can't remember what he'd needed or used the money for. Drinking or gambling seemed most likely—he'd been doing a lot of both back then.
A hollow feeling formed in his stomach as he stared down at his uneaten food, no longer hungry. He might be the worst son to have ever lived. What kind of man was he? He'd been younger then, but it was no excuse. What would his mother have thought of him?
His introspection went unnoticed, as Olivia announced that she intended to arrange for an interview with Dashiell Kim, if possible. Peter hardly listened. He glanced down at his father, the man he'd always referred to as Walter, for as far back as he could remember, and felt a tender protectiveness. Walter might be self-absorbed and myopic—as he'd once referred to him as to Olivia, on the day they'd met—but he was still his father, and as such, deserved some respect. His father. His hatred of him had existed in a vacuum—the hate of an ungrateful child who'd been unable to see further than his own problems, that the world was larger than himself.
A hand thrust a tinted DVD jewel case in front of him, and brought him out of his guilt-filled reverie . He looked up to find Olivia gazing down at him. Her eyes narrowed as they made the exchange. He wondered what she saw when she looked at him.
"This is a video of Ben Stockton that his father let me borrow. In it, he's playing the piano," she said, looking between the three of them. "It was taken after he and his mother were hit while crossing the street. Ben ended up in a coma, and the mother was killed. Prior to the accident, he'd never taken a single lesson."
"Oh?" Walter said. "Now I'm intrigued, Agent Dunham."
"You think this has something to do with him being abducted?" Astrid said.
"I don't know," Olivia said, raising her shoulders. "All the other victims were experts in some field, and Ben…well, just watch the video. I'm heading back to the Federal Building."
She turned and left before any of them could reply, her confident stride carrying her rapidly toward the door. Peter's gaze followed her across the lab, until the door swung shut behind her. He glanced down at the jewel case, and then at his father.
"Well, what are we waiting for?" Walter said eagerly. "I'll get my Betamax."
"Your Betamax?" Astrid snorted a laugh, and the plucked the jewel case from his hands. "I think you better let me handle this, Walter."
The two of them moved off, toward the small storage closet where the television was kept. He heard her trying to explain the workings of a DVD player to him, and his father seemed excited to try it out.
Peter shook his head, and slowly pushed back his chair to follow after them. Perhaps he could still make up for his past ill will—there was no time like the present.
Olivia ended her call as she stepped into the elevator car, down the corridor from the Federal Building parking garage for the second time that day. The steel shell of the car tended to disrupt service, and as she was going to see Charlie in several minutes anyway, was content to wait to continue their conversation. She pushed the button for her floor, and the door slid shut in front of her.
The elevator rose silently toward her floor.
Her thoughts drifted about, from Ben Stockton, and the strange ability he'd developed—which for the moment, she'd decided that she wasn't going to tell Broyles about—to the supposedly dead perp, Joanne Ostler, and what she could possibly be doing with the victims she'd been taking. Why had they all been insane when they'd been recovered? She guessed that it was some form of torture, physical or psychological, and an image of the missing boy came to mind, alone, and undergoing some cruel and unusual punishment, for reasons he was likely incapable of understanding. It filled her with an intense determination to find him…alive, and unharmed.
Her thoughts turned to Peter, and the sudden, peculiar gloominess that had seemed to roll over him right before she'd left the lab. She'd seen it in his eyes. Shame, she would have named it, but the word was too simple—not enough syllables to encompass the range of emotions that had been brewing in his cobalt gaze. Guilt, sadness, and most of all, self-loathing—they'd all been there right below the surface. She would ask him about it if she thought he'd tell her, but her instincts told her he would not. His private, inner thoughts were as guarded as her own, maybe more so with his uncertain past .
Peter had also changed his shirt at some point while she'd been interviewing Jeremy Stockton. What had that been about? If he hadn't planned on wearing the first shirt, then why put it on at all? The man could be infuriatingly strange at times. At least his change of clothing would be an easier subject to broach.
Charlie was waiting with the file she'd requested when the elevator car rocked to a stop, and the doors retracted open. She cleared her head of Peter and his oddities, and stepped out onto her floor.
"What have you got for me, Charlie?" she said.
"I pulled the book on one Dashiell Kim," he said, and handed her a blue file folder. Olivia opened it as they began walking back toward her office. "Nice guy. Clubbed his wife to death with a tire-iron. How's that for 'till death do us part', eh?"
Olivia nodded silently, and thumbed through the file, memorizing the relevant dates, the details of his case, and his subsequent incarceration. At the back of the file was what appeared to be a photograph, though it had been completely blacked out, other than a narrow strip that ran a border around the edges. It was the mark of redaction, and trouble. From what little she could make out, the image seemed to be of a room.
"What's this?" she said, tapping the picture.
"Don't know." Charlie shrugged. "It's above my pay grade, and yours."
She held the photograph up to the light for a moment, then placed it back in the file. The black wasn't marker—it had been printed that way. "Anything on the hotline?" she asked irritably.
"Nothing confirmed as of yet," he said. "There's a tip from a gas station attendant in Rochester, New York, and another from some kid working a drive-thru in Providence. Of the two, the Rochester lead seems more promising. We're looking into both reports though, hopefully one of them will pan out."
"All right…," she sighed, thinking of the red tape she was going to have to cut through. Walter hadn't mentioned anything about Kim being employed by the Federal Government. "Have you seen Broyles around?"
"Right here." A familiar voice said.
She turned to face Agent Broyles, who was striding up behind them.
"I'll talk to you later, Liv," Charlie said, and moved away from them down the corridor.
"Thanks, Charlie," Olivia called after him as Broyles came to a stop next to her. "We've made some progress, sir," she said as they moved down the corridor. "I think we may have ID'd another abductee. Dashiell Kim. He headed Astrophysics at U-Mass, then went missing in May, 2006. He turned up a week later at his home outside of Pittsfield, where he had a psychotic break, and bludgeoned his wife to death with a tire-iron."They entered the bustling situation room below her superior's office. The noise of ringing phones and agents conversing filled the space, and she raised her voice as they came to a stop below his office window, and passed him the file folder. "After his trial, he was committed to St. Claire's Hospital."
He opened the file and scanned the first page. "He was there at the same time as Dr. Bishop?" he asked a moment later. Olivia nodded. "What's his relevance to the Ben Stockton abduction?"
"Walter claims he remembers Kim telling him a story about a woman who put him to sleep with a Christmas tree, and then took him away."
Broyles's eyes widened. "The green and red lights."
Olivia nodded again. "Yeah. And he fits the profile—expert in a scientific field," she said. "…But I need you to get an interview request pushed through legal so we can arrange a visitation. Any specific things that Kim might remember about the abduction, like where he was taken, maybe—"
"That might take some time," he interrupted.
"How come?" she asked evenly, trying to keep the annoyance that was swiftly rising from showing on her face. She'd known getting access to Kim was going to be a problem the instant she'd seen that redacted photo. Bureaucracy was going to rear its ugly head once again.
"It says here that Dashiell Kim is a ten-twenty-seven."
"Yeah? And what's that?" Olivia said.
Some of the seething frustration managed to penetrate her mask of indifference, despite her best effort to hold it inside. Broyles glance at her tone was sharp, and he regarded her with a deliberate silence. Olivia held his stony gaze calmly, and refused to give him the pleasure of looking away. There was a boy's life at stake, and if he thought she was just going to sit around twiddling her thumbs while waiting for some bureaucrat to give her clearance, she was just going to have to disabuse him of that notion—rudely, if necessary.
"Let's talk," he said, and moved toward the stairs and up to his office.
Olivia trailed behind him, brooding on the inevitability of bureaucrats and their numbering systems. It was all about clearance, and ciphers and codes, the secret acronyms—it was the part of the job she despised.
#
Inside Broyles's office, she watched stoically from the chair in front of his desk as he leaned over his workstation, and glanced between the screen and Dashiell Kim's file. He typed in several keystrokes, and then straightened.
"Ten-twenty-seven…," Broyles said, and turned toward the printer on the counter behind his desk. It came to life and began spitting out documents. He grabbed the first of them, and began to read. "Criminally insane, with knowledge of state secrets. Apparently Kim had a sideline job, consulting on defense contracts for the J.P.L." He looked up from the document. "You can't get in to see him without official clearance."
Olivia ground her teeth. Fuck. She felt an intense urge to break something, but she forced it down, digging her nails into the fleshy part of her thigh."And how long will that take?" she asked woodenly. Maintaining her composure was becoming difficult, like a spring being pulled taught—eventually it would snap, or rebound violently.
"If we go through channels, six weeks, minimum," he said. "But, I've got a contact at Justice. I'll tell him it's urgent." He turned and grabbed another document off the printer and looked at it for a moment. A look of distaste crossed his face momentarily. "I don't know how a guy that could do this to his own wife is gonna help you find a missing kid."
He passed her the sheet of paper, and she recognized it at once as a crime scene photograph—coincidentally the same one she'd been looking at from the file Charlie had pulled. It seemed clearance had its privileges.
The picture was taken in a living room—in Dashiell Kim's home, she presumed—and a woman who must have been his wife was lying face down between a lounge chair and a coffee table. There was a pool of blood staining the hardwood floor underneath her body. The one arm fully visible in the photo was twisted at an unnatural angle, and her hair and clothing were matted with dried blood from a wound—or wounds, on the back of her head and upper body.
It had been a violent, brutal attack. Kim's wife had probably never seen it coming—the safe return of her husband turned into a nightmare. The walls behind the dead woman were covered in numbers and mathematical symbols, scribbled in a jagged, manic script. The numbers seemed random at a glance, but upon closer inspection, she noticed a pattern to them, functions that were scrawled repeatedly in several places. Walter had said the man was a mathematician, and math definitely seemed to be the focus of his obsession.
Broyles certainly had a point. It was difficult to see how a man capable of the violence in the photograph could be of help to them in finding Ben Stockton. Yet at the same time, she believed Walter had been sincere in his story. And he knew the man—had claimed to be friends with him.
"I have to get in to see him anyway," she said. "Dashiell Kim is the only lead we've got."
Broyles nodded silently, then sat down. He picked up his phone and dialed a number.
Olivia gazed at the picture, and listened to her superior's conversation with someone named Dana. It was strange hearing her boss laugh, and talk about mundane things like golf—apparently they played together—and ask about the man's wife and children. His children were fine, and she tucked away the fact that he'd made no mention of his own wife. After the pleasantries were over, Broyles got down to business and gave his contact the details of the case, and of their need to speak with Dashiell Kim sooner than later.
Several minutes passed, and then Broyles thanked his friend and hung up the phone. He gazed at her over steepled fingers. "You've got your access to Dashiell Kim," he reported. "Provided you can convince the hospital administrator to agree." He paused, and eyed her with disapproval, like a parent regarding a wayward child before going on. "The system works, Dunham. You just got to give it a chance to."
"Yes, sir," she said. Her cheeks were burning, but she tried to remain serene despite feeling like a fool. Of course he wasn't going to let Ben Stockton's fate be left to some faceless pencil-pusher. Why did she continue to doubt him? She collected the file on Kim, and then stood up and moved toward the door, where she stopped and looked back. "Thank you," she told him.
Broyles grunted, and waved her away.
#
Olivia stopped back at the lab on her way to St. Claire's. She wanted to show the Bishops the crime scene photograph Broyles had given her, as well as hear what they thought of the video of Ben Stockton.
She heard a piano playing as she pushed open outside the door, and saw Walter standing on the far side of the room in his white lab coat. His back was to the door, and he was watching said video fixedly, with his arms crossed about himself. The volume on the television was turned up loud, and the same haunting tune she'd heard at the Stocktons' filled the lab.
Peter was seated at his table with his back to his father, staring intently through a magnifying glass mounted on a swivel arm. A wisp of smoke rose from the tip of a rod-like tool he was holding in one hand, while the other held something small in place on the table underneath. Spread about before him were what looked like the guts of some device, circuit boards and several small rectangular bits of black plastic.
She wondered where it was he'd learned all of his skills with his hands, and when, given his nomadic lifestyle prior to her interference. Maybe it was some innate genius ability, as Walter seemed just as proficient, with the homemade-looking devices he produced from time-to-time.
Peter looked up as she approached, then set his tool down on its cradle.
"Hey," Olivia said as their eyes met.
"Hey yourself," he grinned in return, pushed back his stool and stood up.
"I had the file pulled on Dashiell Kim," she said, and opened the blue folder. "Your father was right. He is quite the character." She handed him the grisly photo of the crime scene. "He's also quite handy with a tire-iron, unfortunately for his wife."
Peter's brow furrowed as he studied the picture, and then glanced up with disturbed eyes. "He did this to his own wife?"
"Yeah," she nodded. "After thirty-two years of marriage. By all accounts they seemed happy—until Dashiell showed up after he was abducted, and beat her to death.
"Did I hear mention of my old friend, Dashiell?" Walter approached, and looked over Peter's shoulder at the photo, and then grinned. "Of course. I'd recognize his handiwork anywhere."
She frowned at the fond recognition she picked up in his tone. "You mean he killed others?" she asked. "His file didn't mention any other victims…"
Walter startled, and looked up from the photograph. "Oh, well, he tried—a…a patient at the institution—Jasper it was I believe, but actually, I was referring to the equation," he said, and pointed a finger at the numbers and symbols on the wall beyond the dead woman in the photo. "Dashiell was obsessed with it, you see."
"Obsessed in what way?" she said.
"He couldn't complete it…," he replied, and then walked back over to the television, where the video of Ben Stockton was frozen on an image of his hands as they played over the piano keys. "I tried to help him solve it once, and he came at me with plastic spork." Walter grinned and made a stabbing motion toward his head, and then grabbed the remote and resumed the video.
The fingers on the screen came to life and flowed across the keys, filling the lab with their melodious, soul-tugging notes. The camera zoomed out, and then zoomed in again on the young boy's profile. His eyes were shut, and his head swayed as he concentrated on the piece. Something Jeremy Stockton had said came back to her as she watched Ben play; that he'd become very interested in one particular piece of music, and had lost interest in everything else. That kind of behavior might also be called obsessive.
Olivia tapped her lower lip. There was puzzle there, though she couldn't yet see how all the pieces fit together, or even the shape of them.
"What are you thinking?" Peter said.
"You know…," she started, looking between the two Bishops. "Ben's father told me that Ben had become obsessed with this one piece of music, and that he couldn't complete it either."
Peter frowned at her remark, and glanced down at the photo and then the video. "You mean that piece there?" he asked, throwing a hand toward the screen.
Olivia nodded. "Yeah. According to his father, Ben was working on it all the time."
Peter grunted at that, and returned his attention to the photograph. He ran a finger along its surface, over the scribble of numbers and symbols. His lips moved silently, and she could almost see the gears whirring into action behind his blue-eyed gaze.
"I've been listening to it," Walter said. "It's very beautiful. The boy's light years ahead of where even you were at that age, son."
"Walter, take a look at this." Peter said. He ignored the jibe and moved to his father's side, then set the photo down at a lab table next to the television. "See this function?" he said, pointing a finger. "It appears here…here…here—it just keeps on repeating, over and over."
"Yes, yes. I saw that," Walter said with a shrug. "It's a…recurring expression. What about it?"
"…Or, it's a rhythm," Peter said intently.
"Well…yes, I suppose…," Walter replied. He glanced down again at the picture, and then looked up sharply, surprise and comprehension dawning on his wrinkled face. His voice sounded shocked as he continued. "Peter, are you suggesting…?"
"Can you convert that into standard musical notation?" Peter said as he spun away from his father. He rushed toward the old upright piano sitting out of the way near the old tank.
Walter's face became animated, and his hands shook with his excitement. "Ohhh…oh, I can try!" he cried, and grabbed up a marker and a pad of paper from Astrid's table. He bent over the crime scene photo, his head bobbing slightly as he started writing at a frantic pace.
"What's going on?" Olivia asked. She followed Peter over to the piano. The two of them were on to something, but the specifics of what it might be eluded her completely. Sometimes it was like they spoke a separate language.
Peter moved behind the piano and sat down. "Music is a mathematical language," he explained. He stretched his fingers wide several times, then shook his hands loosely. "Chords have numerical values and their notes—quarters, eighths, sixteenths—they're all just fractional variables that—"
Olivia listened to the explanation, but couldn't see what he was getting at. While she was very good with numbers—memorizing sequences, recognizing patterns and things of that sort—music was something else all together. Her sole attempt at learning an instrument had been an abysmal failure, so much so that she'd shied away from learning music all together. Her Aunt had not been pleased.
"Okay…," she said, waving him off. "I took the oboe for six months, and then quit. What are you saying?"
Peter gave her a half amused, half pitying look, and then chuckled. "I'm saying that if this works like I'm hoping, it might explain why Ben was kidnapped," he said. He looked over at his father. "How much longer, Walter?"
"Just about there, Peter," he replied, and then hurried over to them a moment later with the pad of paper. "That's nine bars," he said, setting the pad down on the music stand above the piano keys. "It should be enough for us to know."
"Okay, listen to this," Peter said.
He settled his fingers over the keys, and then began to play. The first few notes were tenuous, uncertain, as if he needed to familiarize himself, but he quickly gained confidence, and the notes came together into something she recognized.
It was Ben's music from the video.
Olivia inhaled an audible breath at the realization.
Peter continued to play, blanketing the lab with melodies that were even more soulful to hear in person. She leaned forward against the piano lid, and stared down at the delicate movement of his fingers over the keys, lingering on the back of his hands and forearms, on the muscles and tendons that shifted underneath the sparse dusting of his hair.
The notes vibrating up through the piano lid sent her back to the last time she'd heard him play, after the case with Roy McComb. He'd asked her for a request, and then had played her something else, something lovely, and oddly personal considering how little they'd known of each other back then. It had only been their third case together.
He glanced up from the keys and caught her eye, and she wondered if he was thinking of the same thing. From the unreadable expression on his face, she suspected he was.
"Sound familiar?" Peter said.
He lifted his fingers from the keys, and the sudden silence pricked the bubble of tension that was forming around them.
Olivia swallowed, and exhaled the breath she'd been inadvertently holding. "That was Ben's song," she said, and glanced over at Walter, who was stunned by the turn of events, his mouth hanging open. "What do you think, Walter?"
He blinked, and then turned toward them. "Yes…," he said slowly. "Ben's piece…is the musical equivalent to Dashiell's mathematical formula." He looked down at Peter. "Excellent work, son."
Peter shrugged aside the compliment. "So…how is that even possible?" he said. "The two of them have never met." He glanced in her direction. "Have they?"
"I don't see how they could have," she said. "Dashiell Kim's been in the institution since 2006—before Ben's accident ever happened, and he didn't even know how to play the piano before then."
"It's not so surprising, actually," Walter said. "Curious minds often converge on the same idea. Newton and Leibniz independently, and without knowing each other, simultaneously invented calculus." He held up a finger. "The relevant question is—what is it?"
Peter nodded his agreement.
"What is what?" she said, shifting her gaze between them.
"What is it that both Ben and Dashiell are trying to solve?" Peter answered for his father.
"There's simply no way to know," Walter said, lifting his shoulders. "We're missing the context of the problem. There's no way to frame the solution—if we even knew it."
Olivia was silent for a moment, confused by the facts presented. None of it made any sense. "Did Dashiell Kim ever talk about the equation itself, Walter?" she said. "Or tell you why he came up with it?"
"Oh no…," Walter shook his head. "Dash hated talking about math, and the equation specifically—as poor Jasper can attest to."
She sighed, and pushed her hair out of her face. "Well, maybe he'll talk to me," she said, reaching into her pocket for her car keys. "I'm heading out to St. Claire's now to interview him."
She gave Peter a nod, and then walked swiftly toward the exit.
"Good luck, Agent Dunham," Walter called after her. "Don't eat the pudding, it's dreadful."
There was faint grin on her face as she walked out the door. The pudding at least, would not be a concern.
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Well here's the next chapter for The Equation. I hope it's an interesting read. Big thanks to r34d134d for proofreading and for her suggestions.
Thanks for reading!
