Joel Goldman - The Dead Man

"You say that McNair took a second look at Delaney's and Blair's files?"

"So he says."

"Then he did. He's a better cop than you give him credit for. My boss is going to need a good reason to let me or anyone else take a third look."

"Anne Kendall isn't a good enough reason?"

"Not without more proof that Delaney and Blair were homicides and not without something to tie them to her and Enoch. You know how this works. But as long as we're talking, tell me why Kent and Dolan have such a hard-on for you?"

"What did Dolan tell you?"

"Not much. His mother didn't teach him to share. He had a look at the closet in the sub-basement and went back upstairs. All I got from him was that you were damaged goods."

I had taken a chance on Carter and if I was going to make it pay, I had to go all the way with it. If he took this on, he'd find out about my personal connection to Walter Enoch's murder and would shut me down for trying to sandbag him. He listened as I rolled out the rest of it, telling him about Wendy and my movement disorder. He nodded, asking the right questions at the right time, leaning back in his chair when I was finished, letting out a deep sigh.

"You are the king of the clusterfuck, you know that?"

"Wouldn't be any fun if it was easy," I said.

"This is McNair's case."

"You're his partner, not his butt boy."

"He's not going to like it if I make him look bad."

"McNair doesn't need any help with that."

"My lieutenant won't like it if I get in a pissing match with the feds over one of their cases. Especially if he finds out you're behind it and the feds are putting your tit in the wringer. Doesn't do much for your credibility."

"I can handle Kent and Dolan. And if all four deaths are related, you've got an exclusive claim to three out of four. Your boss can take that to his boss, let the brass run interference."

"All that aside, you've still got a whole lot of nothing. Why would I want to hike up my pants and step in that?"

"To get it right."

Carter studied me, weighing his career. The phone on my desk rang, the name on caller ID reason to hope for the first good break of the day.

"It's Frank Gentry, the institute's IT director. He's been doing some work for me on this."

"Go ahead," Carter said. "Take it."

I picked up the receiver and listened as Gentry told me about the results of his additional research on the dream project video files. I thanked him and hung up.

"Leonard Nagel didn't access Delaney's, Blair's, or Enoch's dream videos," I said.

"That helps my case against Leonard but it doesn't help yours," Carter said.

"So who did access their videos?" Lucy asked.

"Other than Anthony Corliss, Maggie Brennan, and their two research associates?"

"Yeah," she said.

"Just one other person. Milo Harper."

"What do you make of that?" Carter asked.

"Harper says that's how he keeps track of what's going on at the institute."

"If he was concerned about what happened with Delaney, Blair, and Enoch, it makes sense that he'd take a look at their videos," Lucy said.

"After they died, but not before," Carter said, echoing my own concerns. "He's got to be too busy to single out three research subjects for special attention and he's got to be too smart to hire you to investigate Delaney's and Blair's deaths if he had something to do with them."

"We've got Enoch's video but we need to see the videos Delaney and Blair made to get a handle on this," Lucy said.

"Gentry came through on their videos. He e-mailed them to me," I said.

I brought up the e-mail screen on my desktop. Gentry's e-mail was at the top of the list. I downloaded the Blair video and the three of us crowded around my monitor as the credits rolled with Gary Kaufman doing the narration: Harper Institute of the Mind Dream Project, Subject-Regina Blair, Date: November 28.

The video ran twelve minutes. Regina was composed through the first eight minutes, Kaufman explaining the procedure, Regina acknowledging her understanding of the process and her willingness to participate. When Kaufman asked her to describe her dream, she tilted her head back, closed her eyes, and breathed steadily before she answered, keeping her eyes closed. As she spoke, she hunched her shoulders and held herself with crossed arms.

"I'm in a dark place. It's not pitch black but almost. There are shadows and bits of light. I can't figure out where the light is coming from and everywhere I turn, I can't find anything to touch or hold on to. I start taking little steps with my hands in front of me. I'm trying to find my way out and my heart starts beating so fast I can't breathe. I'm sweating and I'm calling for help but I can't hear my own voice and no one answers. Then I start shaking and I feel cold and hot at the same time and then it's just light enough for me to see that I'm standing on a ledge looking down and there's no bottom, no end, and then I'm falling. I don't even know what made me fall but I can't stop and I scream all the way down."

She opened her eyes, tears streaming down her face as she shook. The camera closed in until her face filled the screen before going black.

It wasn't an unusual dream. I'd had dreams of being lost, of falling. Knowing her dream had come as true as any dream could made it feel real, infecting me with a fleeting sense of vertigo.

No one said anything as I downloaded Delaney's video. Corliss's voice provided the introductory narrative, the onscreen credits noting the date as December 22.

"Corliss told me that the research assistants are supposed to shoot the videos but he shot Walter Enoch's video and this one."

The camera was focused on Delaney. Like Enoch, he was sitting in the same chair where the police found his body, an entertainment center behind him, television in the middle, books lining shelves on either side.

"That's Delaney's place," Lucy said. "The entertainment center was still there when I was in the apartment."

"The videos were supposed to be done at the institute. Corliss said he took Enoch's video at the house because he wanted to know more about him. I wonder what his excuse is for taking Delaney's at his apartment."

"One thing is for sure," Lucy said, "both Enoch and Delaney would be more likely to let Corliss in if he'd been there once before and there was no sign of forcible entry at either place."

"And Kent and Dolan were interviewing Corliss about the Enoch case when Anne Kendall's body was found."

"Okay, okay," Carter said, "I'm paying attention."

I'd brought my copies of the incident reports on Delaney and Blair to the institute. I spread out the photos of Delaney's apartment the police had taken on my desk. Delaney's body had been found in a swivel chair, the chair turned with its back to the television. The photographs showed the body from a variety of angles as well as the rest of the room. Two of the photographs included the entertainment center. I froze the video image of the entertainment center and compared it to the photographs.

"Look at the shelf to the left of the television," I said. "In the video, the shelf is full. In the photographs, it's half empty. Something is missing."

"So what?" Carter said.

"So the killer could have shot Delaney, put the gun in his hand, and fired it again into a couple of books. Delaney ends up with powder burns on his hand. The bullet ends up in one of the books and the killer takes the books and the missing bullet with him."

Carter stepped back from the monitor. "That's what you want me to hang my hat on? No disrespect, Jack, but all that shaking you been doing must have scrambled your brain."

"What about the angle of entry of the bullet? You really think Delaney committed suicide by wrapping his arm around his head to shoot himself? That's crazy!"