Kinderman looked stunned.
Sunlight chuckled. “Yes, of course. Good show biz, Lieutenant. The effect. All done without spilling a drop of blood. I call that showmanship, Lieutenant. But of course no one noticed. Pearls before—”
Sunlight did not finish. Kinderman had risen, rushed over to the couch and struck Sunlight’s face with a savage, smashing backhand slap. Now he loomed over Sunlight, his body trembling. Blood began to trickle from Sunlight’s mouth and from his nose. He leered up at Kinderman. “A few boos from the gallery, I see. That’s fine. Yes, that’s all right. I understand. I’ve been dull. Well, I shall liven things up for you a bit.”
Kinderman looked puzzled. Sunlight’s words were growing slurry, his eyelids heavy with a sudden drowsiness. His head was beginning to sag. He was whispering something. Kinderman leaned over to catch the words. “Good night, moon. Good night, cow—jumping over—the moon. Good night—Amy. Sweet little—”
Something extraordinary happened. Though Sunlight’s lips were barely moving, another voice emerged from his mouth. It was the younger, lighter voice of a man, and he seemed to be shouting from a distance. “S-s-s-stop him!” it cried in a stutter. “D-d-d-don’t let him—”
“Amy,” whispered Sunlight’s voice.
“N-n-n-no!” cried the other far away. “J-J-J-ames! N-n-n-no! D-d-d—”
The voice stopped. Sunlight’s head drooped over and he seemed to fall unconscious. Kinderman stared down at him, awed, uncomprehending. “Sunlight,” he said. There was no answer.
Kinderman turned and walked to the door. He buzzed for the nurse and then stepped outside. He waited for the nurse to come rushing up to him. “He passed out,” he said.
“Again?”
Kinderman watched her rush into the cell, his eyebrows knitting into a question. When the nurse reached Sunlight he quickly turned and began to walk rapidly down the hall. He felt shame and regret as he heard the nurse cry out, “His goddamn nose is broken!”
Kinderman hurried to the charge desk where Atkins was waiting with some papers. He handed them over to the detective. “Stedman said you’d want this right away,” said the sergeant.
“What is it?” asked Kinderman.
“The pathology report on the man in the coffin,” said Atkins.
Kinderman stuffed the papers into a pocket. “I want a policeman stationed in the hall outside Cell Twelve,” he told Atkins urgently. “Tell him not to leave here tonight until I speak to him. Point two, find the Gemini’s father. His name is Karl Vennamun. Try to get access to the national computer. I need him here quickly. Get to it, please, Atkins. It’s important.”
Atkins said, “Yes, sir,” and hurried away. Kinderman leaned against the charge desk and took the papers from his pocket. He skimmed them hurriedly, but then went back and reread one section. It gave him a start. He heard shoes squeaking toward him and looked up. Nurse Spencer stood before him accusingly.
“Did you hit him?” she asked.
“May I speak to you in private?”
“What’s wrong with your hand?” she said. She was staring at it. “It’s swollen.”
“Never mind, it’s all right,” the detective told her. “Could we talk in your office, please?”
“Go on in,” she said. “I need to get something.” She walked away and around a corner. Kinderman entered her little office and sat at the desk. While he waited, he studied the report again. Already shaken, he fell deeper into doubt and confusion.
“Okay, let me have that hand.” The nurse was back with a few supplies. Kinderman held out his hand and she started to pad it with gauze and then bandage it.
“That’s very kind of you,” he said.
“Don’t mention it.”
“When I told you Mister Sunlight passed out, you said ‘again,’ ” said Kinderman.
“Did I?”
“Yes.”
“Well, it’s happened before.”
The detective winced from a pressure on his hand.
“You want to hit people, that’s what happens,” said the nurse.
“How often has he fallen unconscious before?”
“Well, actually, just this week. I think the first time was Sunday.”
“Sunday?”
“Yes, I think so,” said Spencer. “Then again the next day. If you want exact times, I can check the chart.”
“No, no, no, not just yet. Any others?” he asked.
“Well—” Nurse Spencer looked uncomfortable. “About four o’clock Wednesday morning. I mean, just before we found—” She paused and looked flustered.
“That’s all right,” said Kinderman. “You’re very sensitive. Thank you for that. In the meantime, when this happens is it normal sleep?”
“Not at all,” responded Spencer, snipping the bandage roll with a pair of scissors. She taped the loose end. “His autonomic system slows to almost nothing: heartbeat, temperature, respiration. It’s like hibernation. But his brainwave activity’s just the opposite. It speeds up like crazy.”
Kinderman stared at her in silence.
“Does that mean something?” Spencer asked him.
“Has anyone mentioned to Sunlight what happened to Father Dyer?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t.”
“Doctor Temple?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does he spend a lot of time treating Sunlight?”
“You mean Temple?”
“Yes, Temple.”
“Yes, I think so. Guess he thinks it’s a challenge.”
“Does he use hypnosis on him?”
“Yes.”
“Very often?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure. I can’t be sure.”
“And when was the last time you saw Temple doing this, please?”
“Wednesday morning.”
“At what time?”
“Around three. I was working the shift for a girl on vacation. Move your fingers a little.”
Kinderman wiggled his swollen hand.
“Feel all right?” she asked. “Not too tight?”
“No, it’s fine, miss. Thank you. And thank you for talking to me.” He stood up. “One little thing,” he said. “Could you keep our discussion confidential?”
“Sure. And the broken nose as well.”
“He’s all right now, Sunlight?”
She nodded. “They’re giving him an EEG right now.”
“You’ll let me know if the results are as usual?”
“Yes. Lieutenant?”
“Yes?”
“This is all very strange,” she said.
Kinderman met her gaze in silence. Then he said, “Thank you,” and left the office. He walked hurriedly through the halls and found Temple’s office. The door was closed. He lifted his bandaged hand to knock, then remembered his injury and knocked with the other hand.
He heard Temple say, “Come in.” Kinderman entered.
“Oh, it’s you,” said Temple. He was sitting at his desk, his white medical jacket stained with ashes. His tongue wet the end of a fresh cigarillo. He pointed to a chair. “Have a seat. What’s the problem? Hey, what’s wrong with your hand?”
“A little scratch,” the detective told him. He eased himself down in the chair.
“Big scratch,” said Temple. “So what can I do for you, Lieutenant?”
“You have the right to remain silent,” Kinderman told him, speaking in a deadly, flat tone of voice. “If you give up the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak with an attorney and to have the attorney present during questioning. If you so desire, and cannot afford one, an attorney will be appointed for you without charge prior to questioning. Do you understand each of these rights that I’ve explained to you?”
Temple looked staggered. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I have asked you a question,” snapped Kinderman. “Answer it.”
“Yes.”
“You understand your rights?”
The psychiatrist looked cowed. “Yes, I do,” he said softly.
“Mister Sunlight in the disturbed ward, Doctor—have you treated him?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve done so personally?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve used hypnosis?”
“Yes.”
“How often?”
“Maybe once or twice a week.”
“For how long?”
“A few years.”
“And to what end?”
“Just to get him to talk, at first, and then later to find out who he is.”
“And did you?”
“No.”
“You didn’t?”
“No.”
Kinderman stared in steely silence. The psychiatrist shifted a little in his chair. “Well, he said he’s the Gemini Killer,” Temple blurted. “That’s crazy.”
“Why?”
“Well, the Gemini’s dead.”
“Doctor, isn’t it a fact that by the use of hypnosis you implanted Mister Sunlight’s conviction he’s The Gemini?”
The psychiatrist’s face began to crimson. He shook his head vigorously once and said, “No.”
“You did not?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Did you tell Mister Sunlight the manner in which Father Dyer was murdered?”
“No.”
“Did you tell him my name and rank?”
“No.”
“Did you forge a so-called order form involving Martina Lazlo?”
Temple stared silently, flushing, then said, “No.”
“You are positive?”
“Yes.”
“Doctor Temple, it’s a fact, is it not, that you worked with the Gemini squad in San Francisco as their chief psychiatric consultant on the case?”
Temple looked stricken.
“Is that a fact or is it not?” said Kinderman harshly.
The psychiatrist said, “Yes,” in a weak, cracked voice.
“Mister Sunlight has specific information known generally only to the Gemini squad about the murder of a woman named Karen Jacobs killed by the Gemini in 1968. Did you give Mister Sunlight this information?”
“No.”
“You did not?”
“No, I didn’t! I swear it!”
“Isn’t it a fact that through hypnosis you’ve implanted the conviction in the man in Cell Twelve that he is The Gemini Killer?”
“I said no!”
“Do you now wish to change any part of your testimony?”
“Yes.”
“What part?”
“About the order form,” Temple said weakly.
The detective cupped a hand to his ear.
“The order form,” said Temple, raising his voice.
“You forged it?”
“Yes.”
“To make trouble for Doctor Amfortas?”
“Yes.”
“To make him a suspect?”
“No. It wasn’t that.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t like him.”
“Why not?”
Temple seemed to hesitate. At last he said, “His manner.”
“His manner?”
“So superior,” said Temple.
“And for this you forge an order form, Doctor?”
Temple stared.
“When I spoke to you Wednesday about Father Dyer, I described the authentic Gemini M.O. Yet you made no comment. Why was that? Why did you conceal your background, Doctor?”
“I didn’t conceal it.”
“Why didn’t you offer it?”
“I was scared.”
“You were what?”
“Afraid. I was sure you’d suspect me.”
“You achieved a notoriety during the Gemini case and have since become obscure. Isn’t it a fact that you have an interest in resurrecting the Gemini murders?”
“No.”
Kinderman drilled his eyes with a deadly, grim, unblinking stare. He did not move at all or speak. Finally, Temple’s face turned ashen and he quavered, “You’re not going to arrest me, are you?”
“Intense dislike,” the detective said firmly, “is not probable cause for making an arrest. You are a terrible, indecent man, Doctor Temple, but for the moment the only restriction upon you is that you disengage from Mister Sunlight. You will not treat him or enter his cell until you are given further notice. And stay out of my sight,” said Kinderman sharply. He stood up and walked out of Temple’s office, pulling the door shut loudly behind him.
For much of the remainder of the afternoon, Kinderman wandered around the disturbed ward waiting for the man in Cell Twelve to grow conscious. He waited in vain. At approximately half past five he left the hospital. The cobbled streets were slick with rain as he rounded O Street onto Thirty-sixth and walked south to Amfortas’ tight frame house. There he rang the doorbell and knocked repeatedly. No one answered and at last he left. He walked up O Street and entered the gates of the university. He went up to Father Riley’s office. The little reception room was empty; the secretary wasn’t at her desk. Kinderman started to glance at his watch when he heard Father Riley calling to him gently from the inner office. “I’m here, friend. Come in.”
The Jesuit was sitting behind his desk, his hands clasped together at the back of his head. He looked tired and depressed. “Sit down and relax,” he told the detective.
Kinderman nodded and sat in a chair to the side of the desk. “You’ve been well, Father?”
“Yes, thank God. And you?”
Kinderman cast his eyes down and nodded; then he remembered to remove his hat. “I’m sorry,” he murmured.
“What can I do you for, Lieutenant?”
“Father Karras,” the detective said. “From the time he was taken away in the ambulance, what happened, Father? Would you know? I mean precisely, Father—the schedule of events from the time he died until he was buried.”
Riley told him what he knew and when he’d finished both men fell silent for a time. Outside on the campus the wind rattled windowpanes in the darkness of the winter night. Then the lid of a scotch bottle rasped metallically as the Jesuit slowly unscrewed it. He poured two fingers into a glass and then sipped and grimaced. “I don’t know,” he breathed softly. He stared through a window at the lights of the city. “I just don’t know anything anymore.”
Kinderman nodded in mute agreement. He bent over in his chair, hands clasped together, and he groped for some thread that he could follow toward reason. “He was buried the next morning,” he said, recapping what Riley had told him. “Closed coffin. The usual thing with your burials. But what person was the last one to see him, Father Riley? Would you know? Do you remember? I mean, who was the last one to see him in the coffin?”
Riley swirled the scotch around in his glass with a gentle movement of his wrist, staring down at the amber fluid reflectively. Then, “Fain,” he murmured. “Brother Fain.” He paused as though checking his memory, then looked up with a nod of his head. “Yes, that’s right. He was left to dress the body and seal up the coffin. Then no one ever saw him again.”
“What was that?”
“I said, no one ever saw him again.” Riley shrugged and shook his head. “Sad case,” he sighed. “He’d always griped about the Order not treating him well. He had a family in Kentucky and kept asking for assignment someplace near them. Toward the end he—”
“Toward the end?” interjected Kinderman.
“He was elderly; eighty—eighty-one. He always said that when he died he’d make sure he died at home. We always figured he just split because he sensed it was coming. He’d already had a couple of pretty bad coronaries.”
“Two coronaries precisely?”
“Yes,” said Riley.
Kinderman’s flesh began to crawl. “The man in Damien’s coffin,” he said numbly. “You remember he was dressed like a priest?”
Riley
nodded.
“The autopsy,” said Kinderman, pausing for a moment. “The man was elderly and showed the scarring of three major heart attacks: two before plus the one that killed him.”
The two men stared at one another in silence. Father Riley waited for what came next. Kinderman held his eyes and told him, “We have every indication that he died of fright.”
* * *
THE MAN in Cell Twelve did not regain consciousness until approximately six the next morning, a few minutes before Nurse Amy Keating was discovered in an empty room in Neurology. Her torso had been slit open, her organs removed, and her body—before being sewn back up—had been stuffed with light switches.
14
He sat in a space between fear and longing, a portable tape recorder clutched in one hand as he listened to cassettes of the music they had shared. Was it day or night outside? He didn’t know. The world was veiled beyond his living room, and the light from the lamps seemed dim. He couldn’t remember how long he’d been sitting there. Was it hours or only minutes? Reality danced in and out of his focus in a silent, baffling harlequinade. He’d doubled the steroid dosage, he remembered; the pain had eased to an ominous throbbing, a price that his brain had exacted for its ruin, for the drug ate away at its vital connections. He stared at a sofa and watched as it shrank to half its size. When he saw it smile he closed his eyes and gave himself totally to “Memory,” a haunting song from a show they had seen together at the Kennedy Center called Cats:
Touch me. It’s so easy to leave me …
The song swept through his soul and filled it. He wanted it louder and he fumbled for the volume control on the recorder when he heard a cassette fall softly to the floor. When he groped to pick it up two more of the cassettes slipped off his lap. He opened his eyes and saw the man. He was staring at his double.