Hello Again

by Brenda Novak

  So he’d attempted to use a social device even though he didn’t understand it. She found that interesting. It showed effort. “Psychology has always had its critics, Dr. Bishop. You’re hardly the first.”

  “Perhaps that’s true. But even you must admit we critics have a solid argument.”

  “Except that I could come up with an equally compelling argument with which to take the opposite side.”

  “Compelling argument—or justifications? Certainly you’ve heard of the reproducibility crisis and the University of Virginia psychology professor who couldn’t replicate so many important psychological studies.”

  Of course she’d heard of Brian Nosek. Only thirty-five of the one hundred replications he and his colleagues performed fully supported the original studies—creating a black eye on her industry. But humankind couldn’t give up on trying to understand their own mental processes. They had to forge ahead, perform more and more studies, as she was attempting to do, in all areas but specifically psychopathy, or there’d never be any real help for the innocent victims who so often suffered when they came up against someone like Bishop.

  “I’m familiar, yes.”

  “That doesn’t make you doubt—even a little?”

  “No.”

  “Once someone is damaged, they’re just damaged. There’s no help for them.”

  Was he talking about himself? “That’s a pessimistic view.”

  “Again, what’s the point of hiding from the truth?”

  “I’ve seen a lot of growth and change in damaged individuals. I believe I’m one of them.”

  “You’re completely recovered? Self-actualized as B. F. Skinner or another humanist might put it?”

  She wasn’t sure she could state that. She still struggled at times. Healing was one thing. Forgetting and refusing to let what happened change certain things about her—like her ability to trust—was something else. “We all have a choice. I’m turning what happened to me into positive energy.”

  “As opposed to me, for instance.”

  “If you killed your mother and those young women, yes.”

  “Apparently, you can be blunt, too.”

  “You said you preferred the truth.”

  “Fair enough. If I killed my mother and the others, you’d be right.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “I’ve already told you that.”

  She glanced at her watch. They could go back and forth on this later. There’d be plenty of time. “Listen, I have other appointments. So if that’s all…”

  “Not quite.” He stopped her before she could reach the door.

  She turned in expectation.

  “I hear you had a visitor today.”

  Evelyn felt the hair rise on the back of her neck. She’d been thinking of Jennifer all along but hadn’t planned on mentioning her until the last possible second, as if the matter were merely an afterthought. How had he beaten her to it? “You heard about that?”

  She knew how the COs talked. Rumors swept quickly through the prison side of the facility. Hilltop was such a small town—only five hundred people—that there wasn’t a lot to offset the boredom, other than the small aberrations in each day. But this was ridiculous. Jennifer had only been gone fifteen minutes when Lyman sent word that he’d like an audience.

  “Apparently, the woman who came wasn’t from around here,” he said. “And she was quite attractive. Almost as attractive as you.”

  She ignored the compliment. “I can’t imagine why information of a visitor would be of any interest to you.”

  His chains, looking sorely out of place on such a seemingly harmless and docile man, rattled as he stood and approached the glass. “Was it Jennifer Hall, by any chance?”

  For a split second Evelyn considered lying but thought twice. If he ever caught her being dishonest with him, she’d lose his trust, and that trust could prove valuable in the future. No matter how badly she wanted him to cooperate for Jennifer’s sake, she had to look at the big picture. “Yes, it was. How’d you know?”

  “Her description, of course. And Jennifer was expecting during the trial. I could hardly take my eyes off her. I’m fascinated by childbirth and motherhood.”

  Evelyn suppressed a shiver at the thought of this psychopath staring down the twin of the woman he’d murdered so cruelly—or having any interest in her baby. “Because…”

  “It was like seeing a ghost.”

  “As if Jan was there, watching.”

  “Yes. I had Jan in one of my graduate classes. She was a bright student, somehow more attractive than her identical twin. That sounds odd, I know. But she had a certain … zest for life. An intangible trait, if you will, that I admired.”

  He’d admired her so much that she became an obsession. He went to her apartment and kidnapped her, probably at knifepoint. Then, if he followed the same pattern used for other victims, he gave her a frontal lobotomy to make her more compliant and, if she survived that, used her for whatever purpose he wanted. Until he killed her, of course. “And now she’s gone.”

  “Yes, it’s tragic.”

  Oddly enough, he sounded sincere, as if he mourned her loss as much as anyone. “So why did you kill her?”

  At this point, many of the psychopaths Evelyn interviewed would say, I had no choice.… She made me.… She wouldn’t shut up.… She was going to leave me.… Something that placed the blame squarely on the victim for provoking the behavior.

  Evelyn arched her eyebrows as she awaited Bishop’s response.

  He shook his head. “I didn’t kill her.”

  “You might as well be honest with me, Dr. Bishop. You’ve been convicted.”

  “Despite the lack of evidence.”

  “Still. There’s little hope of getting out. You wouldn’t have been sent here if you had any chance with an appeal.”

  “Regardless, the truth remains.”

  He could be so convincing. But those inmates who didn’t blame the victim often pleaded their innocence, despite overwhelming proof to the contrary. Psychopaths could lie about something they’d admitted only two minutes earlier—and never bother to account for the discrepancy. “I suppose that means you won’t reveal the location of her sister’s remains.”

  He bowed his head. “I would if I could.”

  “Excuse me?” He’d spoken so low she could barely hear him.

  He jerked his head up, but he didn’t repeat himself. “That’s why Jennifer came all the way to Alaska?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you weren’t even going to ask me?”

  “I was still thinking about the best way to approach you.”

  He rubbed his lower lip, mumbling words she couldn’t hear.

  “Would you please speak up?”

  “Has she left? Is she heading back to the Lower 48?”

  “Not quite yet. I told her I didn’t hold out much hope, but she doesn’t want to take no for an answer. So … is there any way to convince you to change your mind?”

  He didn’t answer; he stared off into space.

  “Dr. Bishop?”

  “I wish I could help her,” he said, coming back to himself. “I’d do so in a heartbeat.”

  “You can,” Evelyn insisted.

  “I told you. I don’t know where the body is.”

  “From what I’ve read in your file, you have a fondness for fine wine and good food. With the right excuse, I could make your stay here much more comfortable.…”

  Once again, his gaze dropped to some point on the floor and stayed as if anchored there. He seemed to be drifting inside of his own mind, watching a scenario of some sort play out.

  She gave him a few seconds. Then she said, “Dr. Bishop?”

  He looked up.

  “Are you ready to tell me where you disposed of Jan Hall’s remains?”

  He frowned. “I liked Jan. I liked her a great deal.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  “The answer is no.”

/>   Evelyn curled her nails into her palms. “Will you ever be willing to divulge that information?”

  Lines of consternation appeared on his forehead as he gazed back at her.

  “Well?”

  “You should have Jennifer go home. We wouldn’t want her having that baby alone in Alaska.”

  * * *

  For a few seconds Evelyn had been hopeful. Despite her pessimistic predictions when she’d been speaking to Jennifer, she’d felt like she was reaching Lyman Bishop, that he was about to give up the location of Jan Hall’s body. And then … nothing. He’d retreated inside himself, closed up—leaving her all the more frustrated for that brief moment of hope. The crazy thing was that he’d seemed so sincere, as if he really wanted to help. So why hadn’t he? What stood in his way? Was the promise of a few worldly pleasures not enough? Did he believe he might receive a better offer later?

  Her heels clacked against the cement floor as she marched back to her office. The inmates were being served lunch. If she skipped eating herself, which she did quite often, she could garner a few minutes to prepare for her afternoon. Thanks to a rather large grant from a victims advocacy group, Hanover House had recently been afforded the same high-field magnetic resonance imaging technology as some brain research centers. With such equipment, she could replicate a study performed by scientists in the Netherlands, where eighteen psychopaths were shown short movie clips of two people interacting with each other. The psychopaths’ ability to empathize with depicted emotions was measured against that of a control group who watched the same clips. The findings of that study indicated that psychopaths showed less activity in the region of the brain associated with empathy, which didn’t come as a surprise. But the study also showed that, when they were asked to try to identify with what the people in those films were feeling, the activity in the brains of those with psychopathy was not dissimilar to that of the control group, suggesting that psychopaths can feel empathy when they choose to. That was revolutionary! She and Dr. Ricardo planned to use a much larger sampling of psychopaths to determine whether psychopaths autonomously switch between empathy and non-empathy depending on their personal goals, desires and/or certain social situations. Her findings, if conclusive, could lead to the possibility of therapy helping to heighten a psychopath’s ability to keep that “empathy switch” on, providing the first effective treatment for those with the disorder.

  The idea of accomplishing that, something that might make a real difference in criminology, was her dream.

  Maybe she was close. Maybe she’d be able to take the Netherlands study one or two steps further.…

  She’d just returned to her desk when Amarok called. Since she was already using her lunch hour to keep up with the demands of her day, she didn’t really have time to talk, but neither would she miss the opportunity. Although Amarok was seven years younger—no one she should take seriously since she didn’t plan on living in Alaska forever and she couldn’t see him being happy anywhere else—it was easy to lose sight of those practicalities. He was the first man she’d been able to sleep with since Jasper. She’d grown to trust Amarok in a way she trusted no one else, which was more important in her life than love.

  Although … she loved him, too. There was no getting around that. She’d fallen hard for the handsome trooper—and seemed to be falling harder with each passing day.

  “Hey, babe. How was your morning?”

  She couldn’t help smiling at the deep rumble of his voice. The memory of the way he’d made love to her last night, so tenderly, evoked a warm, tingly sensation. In many ways, she was like a teenage girl who was just beginning to explore her sexuality. Jasper had caused her to shut down that whole area of her life, but Amarok had rekindled her desire to be with a man, reintroduced her to physical pleasure. He was giving back everything Jasper had taken. No matter how things ultimately turned out between them, she’d always be grateful. “Eventful.”

  “That sounds ominous. I hope nothing too terrible is happening.”

  When they’d first started seeing each other, all hell was breaking lose at Hanover House. She assured him that it was nothing like before. Then she explained about Jennifer Hall’s visit and her meetings with Dr. Lyman Bishop.

  “What’s Bishop like?” he asked.

  “Calm. Low-key. Thoughtful. Rational. Intelligent.”

  “That doesn’t sound like the kind of man who could—what did you call the procedure he performed on his victims?”

  “Ice-pick lobotomies. Like what Dr. Walter Freeman did back in the fifties and sixties.”

  “Right. Freeman jammed an ice pick through his patients’ eye sockets to scramble their brains. I remember now. Fucking gruesome.”

  He didn’t understand why she insisted on working with the type of men she did. But after they’d survived last year, when Dr. Fitzpatrick was undermining her authority and Anthony Garza was becoming a real threat, Amarok had stopped complaining about her job. He understood that she couldn’t quit. She felt destined to do this, had to do it—not only for herself but for all the other victims who’d suffered at the hands of a human predator.

  “He was trying to render them docile. Manageable. Controllable.”

  “So he could use them as sex slaves.”

  “So he could have ultimate power, ultimate control—for whatever he wished to do.”

  “And then he killed them.”

  “Maybe he only killed the ones in which the lobotomy didn’t exactly work. If I had to guess, I’d say he had varying results. He probably turned some victims into vegetables he couldn’t care for. Some probably died of infection or other complications. And maybe others were rendered docile, as he wished. Two years passed from the time one victim went missing to the time her body was found—and it was just going into rigor, so it was a fresh kill. He must’ve kept her that long.”

  Silence.

  “Let’s talk about something else,” she said. “I can tell this is upsetting you.”

  “It would upset anybody!” he snapped. “Which is why I worry about you, being constantly immersed in details of the worst of human behavior.”

  “I’m fine. I have a certain … clinical separation.” That wasn’t always true, but it was better if he believed it. “Anyway, I’m starting the brain imaging I was telling you about later today. I’m so excited.”

  His response was slow in coming, but he let her change the subject. “I wish you luck with that.”

  “A lot of good could come of it.”

  “But it’s going to take many hours of work.”

  “Yes.”

  “So let me guess—you’ll be home late again?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “There’s a storm coming in, Evelyn.”

  “I’ll try to beat it.”

  “Call me before you leave. I’d rather pick you up than have you fight your way home alone.”

  “Won’t you be out helping Phil clear the roads?”

  “I might be, depending on when you finish up. But leave me a message, just in case. I’ll come if I can.”

  After what’d happened last year, he was extra vigilant about her safety. And with Jasper still out there, somewhere, she appreciated even the small sense of security that evoked. “Okay.”

  “I’ll talk to you later.”

  She caught him before he could hang up. “Amarok?”

  “Yes?”

  “Did I tell you Jennifer Hall is eight months pregnant?”

  “No.”

  “Well, she is.”

  He hesitated. “Why’s that significant, babe?”

  She propped her head up with one hand. She shouldn’t have mentioned it. “It’s not. Never mind.”

  She disconnected, but he called her right back.

  “You’re not getting my hopes up, are you?” he asked.

  She sighed. “Can you see me pregnant, doing this job, Amarok?”

  “No. Each day would be agony for me, worrying that one of those assholes migh
t get hold of you. It’s hard enough as it is.”

  What was she thinking? He was right. She couldn’t create the possibility, couldn’t put either one of them through that. “I have to go. We’ll talk about it later, okay?”

  He ignored her attempt to get off the phone. “Couldn’t you set up a private practice? I mean, if you were to get pregnant? We could compromise, couldn’t we? You got Hanover House up and running, which was your dream. Now let other scientists do the actual research. You could keep an eye on your brainchild from outside the walls, become a consultant.”

  “What would I have to gain from leaving Hanover House—as long as Jasper’s out there, Amarok? He could kill me far easier than anyone in here.”

  “We always circle back to that bastard, don’t we?”

  “Yes. And that might never change. He’s had a lifetime to perfect the act of killing. I have no doubt that’s what he’s done. Which means he’ll be even harder to catch than before.”

  “We have to stop him, or you’ll never be able to live in peace.”

  Sadly, that was pretty much what it came down to. But the reason Jasper had never been caught wasn’t lack of good police work. Seasoned detectives had done all they could; there weren’t any leads. Amarok himself had scoured the case files, searching for any small detail that might’ve been missed. Some clue that’d been overlooked. Some possible way to track Jasper.

  There wasn’t one. So far, Jasper had managed to outsmart them all.

  “I’ve made a good life, in spite of him,” she said.

  “It won’t ever be complete, not when you’re constantly looking over your shoulder.”

  “He hasn’t gotten me yet,” she said. But they both knew he was out there. Waiting. Planning. That he’d made a second attempt on her life after twenty years left little doubt.

  “Be careful in the storm.”

  3

  As far as Jasper Moore, aka Andy Smith, was concerned, a prison wasn’t an entirely bad place to work. He needed experience as a CO if he hoped to get close to Evelyn Talbot again.

  Tilting back his chair, he leaned against the wall of the warden’s outer office and imagined leaving his wife and her two irritating daughters once and for all and heading for the final frontier. He’d been to Hilltop before—once—and knew exactly what it looked like.