Merrill and I found Baldwin and Alvarez together in his office.
They stopped talking abruptly when we walked in, and didn’t offer us a seat.
“I was just leaving,” Baldwin said. “I’ll let you all talk.”
Merrill moved in front of the door.
“We came to see you,” I said, “but we’d like to talk to both of you.”
She glared at Merrill, then looked at Alvarez for support, but found none. Finally, she sat down again. “What’s this about?”
“Hypnosis, Confinement visits, murder.”
“Murder? I thought he committed suicide.”
“Who?”
“Don’t play games with me, Chaplain. We all know you mean Danny Jacobs.”
“What has that got to do with us?” Alvarez said.
They were the first words he had spoken, and they came out in a heavily accented rhythm uncommon to English.
“That what we want to know,” Merrill said. “What?” Baldwin said in outrage, but it lacked conviction.
“We’re talking to everyone who was in the dorm the night Jacobs was killed and in Confinement the night the attempt was made on Lance Phillips. You two were in both places.”
“One cannot practice medicine from a desk,” Alvarez said. “I—how do you say it?—make the house call. I am very dedicated to my medicine. I make the rounds constantly.”
Juan Alvarez was a middle-aged Hispanic man with a light complexion and coarse, black hair going gray. He wasn’t fat exactly, but overweight, soft, fleshy. His eyes protruded out of his head, as if too much was stuffed into his skull, and when he widened them, which was often, they seemed to pop out.
“You do,” Bailey said to him. Then to us, “He does.”
“But what were you doing in those particular places at those particular times?”
“Checking on patients I had discharged from the infirmary,” he said. “My care of them does not end when they walk out of this building.”
“Same thing with me,” Baldwin said. “I keep telling Hahn if you want to be effective, you’ve got to go where the patients are. Meet them on their turf, in their world. It’s amazing what that can teach you about their needs. Know what I mean?”
“You know what she mean?” Merrill asked. I shrugged.
“So y’all’s just down there checkin’ on patients,” he added. “Doing no harm, shit like that?”
“Yes.”
“Eleven-thirty at night?” Merrill said. “Get the fuck outta here.”
“It is true,” Alvarez said. “We are very dedicated.
Our patients are our lives. We practice giving help because we want to help others, we want to make a difference in the world.”
“Do you have any other patients?”
“What?”
“Do either of you practice medicine or psychiatry anywhere else?” I asked.
Bailey looked at Alvarez.
“No,” Alvarez said. “I am a physician for the state of Florida only. That is all. Florida has been very good to me. I love America. I own many things. Rental property. Clinic. Restaurant. But the only patients I have are here. In here I am doctor. Out there I am businessman.”
“Do either of you have any idea who might have tried to kill Lance?” I asked.
They both shook their heads.
Baldwin said, “I’d look at those Suicide Kings.”
“You know about them?”
“Well . . . yeah. And they’re bonkers.”
“Bonkers?”
Merrill said, “Can you put that in terms we can understand? Just speak English.” He looked at Alvarez. “No offense.”
Alvarez didn’t get it, just shook his head in confusion and gave a small smile.
“Sorry we could not help more,” Alvarez said. “But we really must return to work now. If we think of anything other we call you.”
Ignoring him, I looked at Baldwin. “Whatta you use hypnotherapy for?”
She winced and shuttered slightly, but recovered quickly. “Ah, well, all sorts of things—treatment of pain, depression, anxiety, phobias, stress, habit disorders, gastro-intestinal disorders, skin conditions, post—all sorts of things. Why?”
“Ever use it on Lance or Danny?”
“Not as I recall, but I may have. I use it on all my patients.”
“They were your patients, weren’t they?”
“Lance still is.”
“So you’ve used it on them.”
“Oh, well, yes. I thought you meant . . . Yes, I guess I have.”
33
Passing through the waiting room for Medical, Classification, and Psychology on my way to Hahn’s office, the desk sergeant held up the phone. “For you.”
“Thanks,” I said as I took it from him.
“I’m not supposed to be talking to you about this.”
It took me a minute, but I recognized the voice as that of Hank Sproul, the forensic pathologist who had performed the autopsy on Danny Jacobs.
“I realize that,” I said. “And I really appreciate it.”
“I’m doing it for your dad. He’s good people. I owe him. Just keep it between us.”
The waiting room was overflowing with hostile inmates seeking relief from the state workers behind the two locked doors on either side of the room. Many of them suffered from paranoia and narcissism and a sense of victimhood that their daily interactions with the mammoth immovable machine of the DOC only served to confirm.
“I found nothing to contradict it was anything but self-strangulation.”
I thought about it.
“However, since there was no note and this method is very rarely used in suicide . . .”
“It could be murder?”
“I can’t say that. I checked everything very carefully.
When your dad called, I checked everything again.”
“Can you say it wasn’t murder?”
“Not definitively.”
“Anything you can’t account for?” I said. “Anything at all?”
He hesitated and there was nothing but static on the line for a long moment.
“Only one thing,” he said slowly. “There’s usually way more than that. This was a very clean death and autopsy. There were some small pinpricks on the decedent’s left hand fingertips.”
I waited to see if more was coming.
“They were very small. Probably nothing at all, but I can’t account for them.”
“Like from a needle? Was he drugged?”
“Tox tests didn’t reveal any drugs in his system.”
“But that’s the kind of punctures we’re talking about.
Like from a needle or—”
“Yeah. They would’ve been easy to miss. I’m surprised I discovered them.”
“Could they be where drops of blood were drawn, like for a slide?”
“Possibly.”
“What about from checking his blood sugar levels?”
“Sure. Something like that,” he said. “Except he wasn’t a diabetic.”
“You got a book on hypnotherapy?”
“Several,” Hahn said.
“I need a textbook-type definition of what hypnotherapy is used for.”
“Why?”
“Something Baldwin said—well, stopped herself from saying.”
“You don’t need a book, you’ve got me.
Hypnotherapy is used to treat pain, depression, anxiety, stress, phobias, hemophilia, skin conditions, post-surgical recovery, relief of—”
“That’s it.”
“That’s what?”
“What she stopped herself from saying.”
“What?”
“Post-surgical recovery.”
“Really? That’s interesting.”
“You mind walking me through exactly how hypnotherapy works?”
“I can do better than that,” she said. “I can give you a demonstration.”
“I want you to be comfortable,” Hahn said in a slow, soft, mono
tonous voice. “Adjust your clothes, your shoes, the way you’re sitting, so you can be free and comfortable.”
The inmate in the seat in front of her, a small, pale boy with fine blond hair, began to move his limbs and wiggle into his chair just a little more in an attempt to be comfortable and free.
“Now, as we begin, you’re going to be aware that we’re in a professional environment and that we’re being watched, but as you relax, there is no need for the things surrounding us to have any impact on this process.”
He nodded, his head and eyelids already seeming relaxed and heavy.
“I’m going to ask you to look up, fixing your gaze on a particular spot that you are comfortable with, okay?”
He nodded and began to stare at a picture of Freud on the wall behind Hahn.
“Found one?” He nodded.
“Once you’ve fixed your eyes on it, don’t turn away from it. Keep your head in that position so that your ears’ll remain still and you’ll be able to hear the various inflections and intonations of my voice. That’ll enable you to better focus on what we’re doing.”
Hahn paused, but he didn’t respond in any way I could observe.
“Don’t worry about your thoughts,” she continued. “There will be many racing through your head. You might wonder, ‘Am I doing this right?’ or ‘What does she mean?’ Nothing is wrong. Everything is right. Everything. Okay? Don’t waste time trying to play a role you think you’re supposed to or doing what you’ve done before. Just relax, be comfortable, and be yourself.”
Hahn’s office was warmer than usual, and I wondered if that had anything to do with the hypnotic process. It might not have, but the heat and the continual monotonous sound of her voice were making me sleepy.
“Now, you’ll notice that your eyes will blink from time to time,” she continued, her voice droning on like a recording. “It’s a very natural thing. It’s a protective mechanism because the eyes weren’t designed to maintain a fixed stare. When it happens, feel comfortable about it. Your eyes will also tear. It’s a normal reaction to your eyes’ fixed state. It’s okay. Everything is okay. The object you’re staring at may distort occasionally. That’s natural too, so expect that to happen. Let it happen. It’s okay. Everything is okay. And finally, your eyes will grow heavy and want to close. It’s the same thing that happens when you read or watch TV. When it happens, let it. Let them naturally close, and then feel how you can seem to funnel back into the privacy of yourself.”
His eyes were beginning to blink more frequently and then close, only opening occasionally.
“That’s it,” she said. “You’re doing great. I notice that you are already relaxing. That’s fine. You’re doing fine. You’ll notice that you’re beginning to feel much more comfortable. Your eyes are more comfortable closed than open. Just relax and be comfortable. You’re doing great.”
She paused for a moment, then continued.
“Now if you take a deep breath and let it go, you’ll find you’re descending into the realm of relaxation . . . each muscle letting go, so that you feel limp like a rag doll. Take whatever number of deep breaths you need, letting them out slowly. Feel yourself descend, level by level, descend until you arrive at the place where you need to be for us to accomplish what we’re here to accomplish.”
It looked to me like he had already arrived at that place. His whole body had changed, relaxing in on itself somehow, and he was sitting like he might if he were alone, but not how he would had he been aware of our presence in the room.
His eyes were already closed. He was already under. If hypnotism was being used for destructive purposes, then inmates like this one were sheep to the slaughter.
“. . . off the merry-go-round,” Hahn was saying.
She never stopped talking during this process. “This is the first time your mind doesn’t have to act like an executive in making all your decisions, in resolving all your concerns. Now, feel the sensation as if every cell, every organ, every system in your body is being rejuvenated. Reborn.”
I realized that Hahn and the inmate had become my fixed objects and I was about to go under. I shook my head and looked away. Being hypnotized came far more easy than I would’ve thought.
“. . . gather all the physical discomfort and tension, and imagine putting it on your shoulders and then having God lift it off. Doesn’t that feel wonderful? Aren’t you lighter, more relaxed? Now, as I continue, it isn’t necessary for you to constantly pay attention to what I’m saying. You can go to wherever you feel most comfortable, and you’ll hear me at an unconscious level.”
Hahn glanced over at me and mouthed, Watch this.
“Okay, now, I want you to rub your pants leg with your right arm.”
He moved his right arm down and began to rub his right pant leg.
“As you continue feeling your clothing with your fingers, your fingers and even your hand will get lighter. It will grow lighter and lighter. I don’t know which finger feels the lightest, but one of them will feel so light it will begin to float, then the others will follow, then your wrist will feel so light it will begin to float, then your whole hand.”
Within a minute, his right hand was floating out beside him, his arm dangling down as if an invisible cord was holding up his hand.
“Now you’re going to lose all feeling in your floating hand. Do you feel it going numb? From your fingertips to your wrist, you have no feeling in your right hand.”
She then took out a small needle and began to poke it into the tips of his fingers, tiny droplets of blood oozing out onto the skin and point of the needle as she did, but he showed no response whatsoever.
When I left Hahn’s office, I found the nearest phone and called Hank Sproul back about the autopsy.
“It’s John Jordan. Got a quick question for you.”
“Okay.”
“The pinpricks you mentioned, could they’ve been from testing the feeling in his hand?”
“Whatta you mean?” His voice rising, interested. “I guess that’s possible. There nothing to suggest it’s not. What in the world made you think of that?”
“Hypnotism,” I said. “That’s how hypnotists check to see if their patient is fully inducted.”
34
Walking back to my office, I ran into Emile Rollins.
“I just came from the chapel,” he said. “I was hoping to talk to you.”
He turned and fell into step with me.
“Is somebody tryin’ to kill me—I mean the Kings?”
“I’m not sure.”
“I feel like I’m in danger—more so than usual—and I’s wondering if it’s paranoia or . . .”
A school bell rang, and inmates poured out of the classrooms to our right the same way they must have when they were children. Many of them still were. Big, spoiled, obnoxious kids, unwilling or unable to grow up.
Several inmates passing by us were making fun of what they would be served that evening in the chow hall, and I was amazed again at their ingratitude and sense of entitlement.
He shook his head. “This place, man . . . Life is cheap. It’s fuckin’ bleak. Where’s God?”
I shrugged. “Obscured by the bleakness maybe? I’m meant to be God’s representative. But as usual . . . falling down on my job.”
“No. I didn’t mean . . . I just meant . . .”
“If God is love, works through love, then the bleakness you’re talking about is an absence of love.”
Emile Rollins walked like a robot, his movements stiff and awkward, self-conscious—as if someone were watching him and it made him nervous or his joints didn’t bend as far as they should.
“I wasn’t really asking,” he said. “It was just sort of rhetorical. I didn’t want to be preached at.”
Although Emile worked on an outside community work squad, his uniform was neatly pressed and spotless, and showed no sign of fading or wear, and I wondered if Brent Allen was taking care of his fellow Suicide King.
“You see Dr.
Baldwin?” I asked. “That relevant to my safety?”
I nodded.
“Yeah. She’s good. Helped me more than anyone I’ve ever known.”
“She use hypnotherapy on you?”
“Yeah,” he nodded. “I don’t know what it does, but it works. Works better than anything I’ve ever tried.”
“You remember what you worked on when you come out?”
“No. I think that’s the point.”
“Anyone else ever hypnotize you?”
He shrugged. “She’s taught a lot of us how to do it.”
When we reached my office, my phone was ringing.
I unlocked the door and rushed in to pick it up. Emile Rollins followed.
“Chaplain Jordan,” I said into the receiver.
I hadn’t been in my office much lately. The air was still and stale, the large plants in need of water. A fine patina of dust covered their leaves, my books, frames, and the pile of papers on my desktop. My chapel orderlies could only come in and clean when I was here to supervise them.
“Yes, Chaplain, this is Margaret Allen. An inmate incarcerated there, Brent Allen, is my son.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“His grandfather, Charles Allen, has been put in the hospital and I’d like for him to be able to call and talk to him. They don’t expect him to make it through the night. It’d mean so much to him. My husband’s dead and Brent is the only grandchild, the only family my father-in-law has.”
“Yes, ma’am, I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “Let me get some information from you and I’ll call Brent in and let him call the hospital as soon as possible.”
“Thank you.”
She gave me the information and we hung up. “Brent’s granddaddy?” Rollins said when I hung up the phone.
I didn’t answer him.
“Well,” he added, “guess I’ll go so you can deal with that.”
When I told Brent his grandfather was in the hospital, he nodded as if he’d been expecting the news, then just sat there, uninterested, inattentive.
“You okay?” I asked.
He nodded. “I’ve been expecting it, you know? I’m just glad it wasn’t my mom. He’s lived a long, prosperous life. He’s had it good and easy.”
Innocent Blood; Blood Money; Blood Moon Page 34
