Skull Session

  First he failed to reach Mrs. Mason, with whom he was planning to plead for another interview with Heather, and then failed to reach a highly regarded professor of Asian studies at NYU who he hoped might give him some ideas about a possible Philippine connection to High-wood. He left messages on both answering machines. To his surprise, though, he managed to reach Rick LePlante, a reporter for the Times who often wrote about events in Westchester and Putnam counties and made a hobby out of local history. Mo asked him for information on Ku Klux Klan activities in Westchester County. Rick couldn't recall any major incidents but promised to look into it and call Mo back.

  Mo put a check next to Rick's name on his call list, and went back to his notes, still thinking about his conversation with Lia. / was thinking about you on the drive up. I'm very glad to have you with us on this thing. Could mean anything.

  But one thing was for certain: She was a very smart woman. She put things together fast. It hadn't escaped him that she'd said "whatever is happening" up at the lodge. Present tense. A continuing situation.

  42

  IT WAS ALMOST EIGHT o'clock by the time Paul reached the Hanover-Norwich exit. He'd been driving in the dark for over three hours, but instead of feeling drained from the long day, he felt oddly energized. Part of it was the anticipation of seeing Mark tomorrow. Part of it was the decision he'd made to fight back—starting with a little research. Rather than turning left on 10A, toward home, he swung right, crossed the river into New Hampshire, and went to Hanover.

  The Dana Medical Library had closed, but the huge Baker Library was still open. Paul showed the reference librarian his database access authorization and found an empty terminal at the center table. He'd occasionally used the electronic reference resources at Dartmouth to research information about education, but more often had made use of the medical database MedLine while pursuing various ideas about Mark's condition. The service provided abstracts of articles from 2,500 medical journals from around the world. If there was any serious, current information on hyperkinesis or hyperdynamism, he'd find it here.

  The reference room was long and narrow, two stories tall, with a balcony running around three sides. After a week in the wreckage of Highwood, he found the pervasive order and cleanliness especially soothing. Reassuring. What had Ben always said? "A library is a temple to Reason."

  The MedLine screen told him that 332 entries were on file for hyperkinesis, and showed the titles and authors of the first eight. He read the first screen of titles, then moved ahead one screen, then another. As he'd anticipated, the articles dealt with hyperkinesis as a side effect of diseases, brain injuries, or drugs. The majority dealt with pediatric pathologies, notably hyperactivity and attention deficit disorder.

  After half an hour, just as he had begun to despair of finding anything relevant, he got his first hit.

  Abstract: Study of human hyperkinetic and hyperdynamic potentials has been prejudiced by limiting research to known physio- or psychopathologies. Despite a wealth of anecdotal evidence attesting to spontaneous displays of vasdy accelerated metabolic/kinetic activity and increased muscular strength in humans, clinical observation of such phenomena has been limited. Based on a new assessment of historical data and a hypothetical model for the mechanisms of the phenomenon, Dr. Stropes argues for systematic research into hyperkinesis/ hyperdynamism.

  To suggest likely mechanisms, Stropes cites the case of a 27-year-old Florida woman in whom regional cerebral glucose consumption was measured shortly after hyperkinetic/hyperdynamic movements subsided. While cerebellar and cortical glucose consumption was near normal, hypothalamic, lentiform and caudate glucose consumption was significantly increased in both hemispheres . . .

  Despite Stropes's assertion that hyperkinesis and hyperdynamism needn't be associated with illness, the list of cross-references at the end of the abstract was ominous: aggression, epilepsy, hysteria, movement disorders, rage, stress, trauma, violent psychopathologies.

  Paul found another relevent title almost immediately, this time a highly clinical piece by a Dr. J. Horowitz. Reading between the lines of tongue-twisting medical terminology, he was able to deduce that the article reported on electrical activity and regional glucose concentrations in the brain of an emotionally traumatized but otherwise healthy twenty-four-year-old man. The subject had demonstrated a period of extreme strength after witnessing his younger sister being hit by a car. He was apprehended while ripping parking meters out of the sidewalk with his bare hands.

  Paul's hands rang the invisible bell and he suppressed a series of little barks. If a person could rip up parking meters, he could also rip sinks out and shove them through walls, or throw bureaus through windows, or tear the doors off refrigerators. Or knock bowling ball-size finials off their posts hard enough to dent walls fifty feet away.

  He scanned several more screens before finding another article by M. Stropes, entitled "Evidence of hypothalamic and pituitary hypertrophy in subjects demonstrating hysterical hyperkinesis/hyperdynamism." Stropes had added the term hysterical to indicate a prolonged state of supernormal strength and activity induced by extreme emotions, usually of mortal fear or protective concern for loved ones. He argued that one basis for the phenomenon was a great increase of the brain's ability to produce the fight-or-flight chemicals that allowed the body to respond to threats. Stropes pointed to evidence that the main structures of the limbic system in hyperdynamic individuals were larger than normal or had structural anomalies.

  He found only one more relevant entry: an abstract of a review of Dr. Stropes's article. The opinion of the reviewer, Dr. I. Barrington, a bigwig at some neurological research institute, was that Stropes's methodologies and interpretations were suspect. The abstract quoted Barrington's conclusion verbatim: "Dr. Stropes has failed to make a convincing transition from folktales of supermen to clinical demonstration. Until the phenomenon can reliably be repeated under laboratory conditions, it will remain suspect and unsuitable for serious consideration by the medical community."

  Screw I. Barrington, Paul thought. If there was one thing to be learned from the history of the establishment's view of Tourette's, one thing he'd learned the hard way while working on Mark's problem, it was that the old guard of the medical establishment would defend its orthodoxies regardless of how much evidence was presented to the contrary.

  Paul exited MedLine and selected MediaList, a database that provided word searches for thirteen thousand mainstream newspapers and periodicals. One of the advantages of the database was that it carried the entire article on-line—if he managed to find anything, he'd be able to read the whole piece or print it out immediately. Punching in hyperdynamism here, he was rewarded with only a handful of entries, but a quick glance at the titles showed him that he'd hit the jackpot.

  The first article, from a newspaper in Oklahoma, was headlined "Big John in Real Life": A seventh-grade English teacher had rescued his class from a school devastated by a tornado. Using superhuman strength, the teacher had lifted the main roof-support I-beam, bearing thousands of pounds of weight, and kept the roof from crushing his students. The people in Tannersville, where the incident happened, had taken to calling the teacher Big John after the old popular song in which a miner saves his fellows after a mining cave-in.

  Paul could feel the shape of the melody in his fingers. Jimmy Dean, 1961.

  After the medical journal abstracts, regular journalistic prose sounded sensational: "Woman Lifts Car Off Mother of Two," "Miracle on 3rd Avenue," "Superman Lives in Indianapolis." The Superman article concerned a construction worker who had used his arms like the fabled Jaws of Life to free a fellow worker trapped when a section of an office building under construction had collapsed. Witnesses claimed the hero had momentarily been able to rip corrugated sheet-steel and bend rebar with his bare hands. The article quoted the same Dr. Michael Stropes who had written the articles in the medical journals, describing him as head of the Metabolic Disorders Research Unit of Roosevelt Institute.
r />   Dr. Barrington's opinions notwithstanding, Paul decided his next step would be to try to talk to Dr. Stropes.

  Paul leaned back in his chair, exhaustion beginning to wrap him in its fuzzy bear hug.

  One nagging problem: Lia. While he couldn't wait to tell her the results of his research, he didn't look forward to the skepticism he expected from her. It's tabloid stuff, Paul, she'd say. More of your neurological bias, neurochemical chauvinism. Or worse, she'd believe it, and the implicit danger would snag her. He'd never persuade her to leave Highwood, if it came to that, until she'd satisfied her curiosity, her hunger. Maybe he'd postpone telling her.

  His fingers twitched and a tune teased him: "Big Bad John." How long would that stay with him? The articles had suggested as many questions as they answered. The second one, for example, about the young man who had watched his sister get run over: Just how do you "apprehend" someone who can rip up parking meters with his bare hands?

  He guided the MG through the beautiful Vermont night, oblivious to its charms. Outside, stars shone above the bare woods and lightless houses of the serene countryside. Inside the MG it was a different kind of darkness. What had Royce said? Reality is subjective. It's whatever you make it. All too true.

  If only he'd quit while he was ahead, feeling hopeful that he'd found a key to the Highwood business. But he hadn't quit. After looking up hyperdynamism, he'd done just one more piece of research, idly, offhandedly. This time he'd punched in KKK.

  There'd been thousands of article titles to scan, but several had jumped out at him immediately. The first he pulled up was called "The Other KKK: Turn-of-the-Century Terror in the Philippines."

  Forget the Ku Klux Klan. KKK stood for Kataastaasang Kagalang-galang Katipunan ng mga Ank ng Bay an, Tagalog for "The Exalted and Most Honorable Society of the Sons of the People." It was a secret society, part religious cult, part political party, part crime syndicate, operating in the Philippines during the islands' revolt against Spain, and, later, against US colonialism. Like similar cults throughout the Orient, the KKK used mystic rituals, blood pacts, esoteric martial-arts techniques, and special codes as it carried on a terrorist war against the Spanish colonialists. Members wore anting-antings, traditional amulets they believed gave them superpowers in battle. Founder Andres Bonifacio and his followers were outraged by atrocities against their people and declared war against Spain in August, 1896. They'd make a raid, assassinate some Spaniard, and scrawl KKK on or over the corpse, in Roman letters.

  There can't be a connection, Paul thought. That was a hundred years ago, half a world away. But then he remembered the first of Ben's letters they found: Wasn't Bonifacio one of the names Ben had mentioned—someone Hoffmann Senior had known?

  The MG's headlights made a wan circle of light in the deep backroad night, and the dashboard lights flickered, making Paul wonder if some new wiring problem were starting to crop up. The least of his worries. What worried him was the wiring in his head: He'd been at a quarter of his old haloperidol dosage for five days now, and his neurochemistry was changing. His own thought processes were becoming unfamiliar, untrustworthy.

  In his mind he saw a band of KKK members, operating in secret all these years, bursting into Highwood for revenge or to recover something that they'd lost a long time ago, maybe something the original Hoffmann stole from them. With superpowers derived from their anting-antings. Performing esoteric rites, ripping the place apart in a trance-induced frenzy.

  The problem was that he couldn't quite disbelieve it. It seemed no less likely than any other scenario. Reality is subjective. It's whatever you make it.

  Equally real yet impossible was the idea that had been growing quietly in his mind: the secret child, the secret sibling. You couldn't look at the photos of the strange boy without feeling they were family portraits, mother and sons. What—Vivien had another child that nobody knew about, nobody talked about? But the Skoglunds had been up at the lodge once or twice a week for years. There'd never been any indication of another kid. Impossible. Surely Royce would have loved to reveal tantalizing tidbits back then. A secret only enhances your status if someone knows you have it.

  Paul gripped the wheel tightly. Isn't that what Royce had just done? "Who do you think this is?"

  So maybe there was a secret sibling. Mentally or physically defective, unacceptable in the Hoffmanns' stratum of society, not a good scion for the Hoffmann lineage. So they hid him away, like in the old days. The Hunchback of Highwood Lodge.

  Paul felt a chill come over him: The strange room off Vivien's bedroom. Like a vault. You could keep a kid in there. Nobody'd ever hear a thing.

  The scenario played out in his mind, detailed, absolutely convincing: Vivien's other child, kept in that room all those years. Cooped up because he was prone to violent, episodic dyscontrol, maybe deformed. Huge, pale, monstrous, pathetic. Growing older and stronger and at some point breaking loose, full of hatred for the mother who'd imprisoned him so long.

  Just a flight of morbid ideation, he told himself. But the thoughts kept coming. If it was designed as a vault, why are there air vents? Why are the ceiling lights recessed and behind steel grates? Not a darkroom—not without plumbing or electrical sockets. Not with the light switches in Vivien's bedroom.

  He could imagine Lia's skepticism: "Isn't that a bit too Victorian Gothic?" And ordinarily he'd have agreed. But after only a few days at Highwood, anything seemed possible.

  Which brought up the question of Lia again: to talk to Lia about these things, or not? Why did the prospect of talking to her about this stuff make him feel so uneasy?

  Because he didn't trust his own thought processes anymore. He couldn't deny it any longer. He had reduced his haloperidol dosage, and he had been changing. Things seemed clearer, patterns more apparent. Surprisingly, his tics had not gotten any worse. But the disturbing dream or memory images were getting more detailed, and the trancelike calm came upon him more often. And of course the flights of morbid ideation.

  The problem was he couldn't tell a reasonable idea from a morbid fantasy. Hysterical hyperdynamism, the KKK, the secret sibling: A little factual support and a lot of vague, morbid intuition, and the images were as real as the night road rushing toward him in the headlights.

  No, he couldn't talk to Lia about any of it just yet. She'd be skeptical, she'd be concerned for his mental well-being—a concern that wasn't entirely unjustified.

  He didn't like the idea of a wedge opening up between them, especially now. Why was he so sensitive to the nuances of their relationship right now? Face it: He was holding back from telling her things because he didn't want to look stupid, nuts, overly cred- ulous—especially not since Detective Mo Ford had come into the picture, with his decisiveness and professionalism. The aura of competence and security around him. Lia's obvious attraction to him.

  Pulling into the farm driveway, he reaffirmed his decision to wait on talking to her. He'd write to Dr. Stropes first, learn more about hyperdynamism; for the KKK and the secret sibling, he'd try to garner more clues from Vivien's papers, maybe talk to Vivien. Lia was high enough on the whole scenario. No sense in adding more fuel to the fire. Most important, he'd wait until he had a handle on his changing brain. In the long run, that was what mattered most.

  43

  MO ROLLED OUT OF BED and winced at the glare of the sun off the waxed floors in the living room, reminding him that he didn't own a rug of any kind. Maybe he ought to spend a few bucks to make the place presentable. He made some coffee and drank it slowly, scalding hot, as he looked out the window at the street. After the dismal weather of Saturday, the bright sky seemed encouraging, beckoning, and the heat of the coffee radiated pleasantly from his belly.

  Sunday morning—maybe he'd take a walk in the country. True, during their meeting on Friday, Barrett had told him that he'd gotten a call from Vivien Hoffmann, who had mentioned Mo's request for a consent search. "She emphatically reiterated that she will gladly comply with a court-ordered search, but that
until such time as such a warrant is issued she wants nobody nosing around," Barrett said, glowering at him. "I told her, 'Of course, Mrs. Hoffmann, absolutely, Mrs. Hoffmann.' " Barrett looked like he'd had a bad night. "End of discussion. I'm not going to remind you that I don't want your problems working with your superior officers to surface here."

  But it would be a shame to waste a nice day like this. Mo put on jeans and hiking boots, pocketed a tape measure and a magnifying loupe, strapped on his shoulder holster, and drove up to Golden's Bridge. He cruised slowly along Route 138, over the top of the Lewisboro Reservoir, until he came to the pullover where Richard Mason had parked the night he was killed. Mo locked his car and stood shivering in the chill breeze, looking through a thin screen of bare trees at the blue-gray water. On the far shore, the land rose, a dark hump of forest. The lodge at Highwood would be just about straight across, at the top of the swell of land. Four months after the fact, he had no expectation of finding anything specific here. He was just getting a feeling for the place. An intuitive understanding.

  Mo walked east on 138, the route Richard Mason had taken, probably with Essie, the night he died. Forest framed the road, the reservoir showing through the trees on the right, a rock-strewn slope rising on the left. The occasional houses he passed were well up in the woods. All had security system warning signs out front, with company logos on them—a way of letting serious burglars know exactly what system they were dealing with, Mo thought cynically, what techniques they'd need to get past it.

  About a half a mile from the car, the woods closed in. At the middle of the curve, no signs of habitation were visible, and the trees met overhead. Mo matched the scene with his memory of the accident-scene photos, placed the first point of impact, then the second. Then he kept walking east.

  At the eastern end of the reservoir, he turned onto Marsh Road, which would connect with the old reservoir road. The trees here were big-boled willows, some still holding their leaves, dried and bleached pale. The area felt remote; only one car passed in the time it took him to walk three-quarters of a mile to the driveway of Highwood.