The Dead Man

by Joel Goldman

My cell phone rang, the caller ID reading Private. I flipped the phone open.

  "Hello?"

  "Mr. Davis, this is Milo Harper."

  "Hang on a second." I covered the phone. "It's your roommate. I thought he was waiting for my call."

  "I forgot to tell you. He's a little impatient. I gave him your number."

  Simon headed for the door. I put the phone back to my ear.

  "Call me Jack."

  "For now, I'll call you late. I've been waiting to hear from you."

  I gritted my teeth. I'd promised Simon I would talk to Harper. I didn't promise to be nice. "Simon just finished telling me about your situation."

  "Fine. I'll meet you for dinner at McCormick and Schmick at seven-thirty and don't be late."

  Chapter Four

  Milo Harper was waiting for me in a booth, juggling screens on his Mac laptop while talking into a wireless headset, one hand darting in and out of an open briefcase on the seat, glancing at papers, jotting notes in a pocket-size journal. He motioned me into the booth, not breaking his multitasking stride. I slid in across from him, reached over the table, and closed his laptop. He clicked off his headset, scanning me with penetrating, dark eyes that didn't miss, the corner of his mouth twitching with what passed as a smile.

  "That's called confirmation bias. What you did, closing my laptop. As predictable as the rising sun."

  "You're clairvoyant?"

  "Not necessary if you know how the mind works. My phone call primed you to dislike me. You didn't want to come here, especially on a miserable night like this, but you came anyway, probably out of a sense of obligation to Simon. Instead of greeting you at the door like the hero he makes you out to be, I'm sitting here making good use of my time. But you see that as further proof that I'm a rude jerk. That's confirmation bias."

  "It wasn't just the phone call."

  "What else?"

  "Kate Scranton sends her regards."

  Harper straightened. He still had the wavy hair and square chin. If he still had the pecs they were hidden under a bulky sweater. He was near my height, six feet, though thinner with a long angular face washed out with an indoor pallor earned from a lifetime spent in front of a computer screen. He hadn't shaved for a few days. The salt and pepper growth that gave actors a patina of cool clung to his sallow cheeks, aging him.

  "Interesting. A woman who turns down my job offer trumps a man who thinks the only thing you're missing is a cape and a red S on your chest."

  I leaned back against the booth. "I'm here but that doesn't mean that Kate's wrong or that Simon is right."

  "No, it doesn't. And, I didn't believe Simon anyway." He pointed to a menu. "You want to order?"

  I shook my head. "I'm not staying. Tell me about your problem. I'll tell you if I'm interested."

  Our server appeared, asking for our order and his tip with a smile, not saying a word. Harper laid his menu on the table, traced his finger down the selections, stopping at the lobster, raised his eyebrows at me, giving me another chance. I shook my head, Harper shrugged at the waiter and the waiter shrugged back, closing the curtain on our pantomime with another smile before leaving.

  "Three people, three brains, not a word spoken, a million . . ."

  I raised my hand. "I get it. A brain is a terrible thing to waste."

  Harper grinned. "I can't help it. The human brain is the greatest evolutionary achievement and the mind, which is what the brain does, goes it one better. Spend some time with me and you'll learn to appreciate the mental organs. We study everything from basic brain anatomy, structure, and chemistry to behavioral disorders, genetic disorders, and anything else having to do with how the brain and the mind work and don't work. Most places that do brain research focus on one or two things. I'm trying to do it all because it's all connected, one neural miracle."

  "Including dreams," I said.

  "Including dreams and memory. I've got PhDs like Anthony Corliss who specialize in something called lucid dreaming. It's a way of recognizing when you are dreaming and then learning how to control your dreams."

  "Can he make dreams come true?"

  "Not yet, but he's trying. He's working with Maggie Brennan, another PhD, who's an expert on memory and posttraumatic stress disorder. The brain makes memories, decides which ones to keep and which ones to toss out. Memories, especially traumatic ones, get a workout in our dreams. We're researching whether people can learn to control their nightmares and manage their traumatic memories through lucid dreaming."

  Maggie Brennan's name had the nagging familiarity of something I had heard, forgotten, and now wished I hadn't. It would come to me, probably in the middle of the night, waking me up, only to be forgotten again by morning.

  "Simon told me that two people who've participated in the project have died."

  "Tom Delaney shot himself and Regina Blair fell off the top ledge of a three-story parking deck that was under construction. Both had responded to an ad we placed for volunteers."

  "What did they have to do?"

  "Talk to us about their dreams. Fill out questionnaires. Spend a few nights sleeping in our lab wearing an electroencephalograph skullcap so we can monitor their brain activity while they're dreaming. Learn lucid dreaming techniques and participate in some additional lab studies, brain scans, and group discussions to measure how they respond."

  "Doesn't sound too dangerous."

  "It isn't, but this is America and when bad things happen, people hire lawyers. The Delaney and Blair families hired Jason Bolt. You ever hear of him?"

  "I have. He carries some weight."

  "A lot of weight. He calls himself Lightning Bolt."

  I laughed. "Nobody does that! He hits that hard?"

  "Worse. Lightning never strikes twice. Bolt does. He tagged me for eight figures a few years ago in a shareholder lawsuit. He called to tell me that he's going to sue me, the institute, Anthony Corliss, Maggie Brennan, and their two research assistants."

  "What makes him think Delaney's and Blair's deaths have anything to do with the institute?"

  "Volunteers are videotaped describing their dreams. Some of them are pretty graphic nightmares. Those are the ones our researchers are particularly interested in studying. Delaney's and Blair's dreams came true."

  "How so?"

  "Both of them died the way they dreamed they would. Bolt claims he has an expert witness who will testify that lucid dreaming breaks down inhibitions against dangerous behavior and causes people like Delaney and Blair to act out their nightmares."

  "I assume the police investigated both deaths. What did they come up with?"

  "Delaney was a suicide and Blair was an accident."

  "Did the police know about the videotapes?"

  "Not the first time around but Bolt stirred things up so they took another look. A detective named Paul McNair asked to see the tapes and we made them available."

  I'd worked with McNair on a joint task force a few years ago. He was a clock watcher, putting in his time until retirement. Not someone who'd be anxious to turn an easy case into a tough one.

  "What was McNair's take?"

  "That Delaney killed himself and that Blair got too close to the edge and fell."

  Chapter Five

  I nodded, knowing how little use cops, including ones that weren't lazy, have for dreams when we can make our cases with smoking guns, DNA, and confessions. "Did Delaney leave a note?"

  "No. McNair said that not everyone who commits suicide leaves a note."

  "He's right. About twenty-five percent don't. What was Regina Blair doing on the parking deck?"

  "She was an architect for the general contractor for the three-story garage and an adjacent office building. Both were under construction. The police said she was inspecting the top floor of the garage when she slipped and fell."

  "Anyone see it happen?"

  "Not according to Detective McNair. It happened early on a Sunday morning." He fished McNair's business card out of his briefcase and ha
nded it to me. "He can tell you more about it than I can."

  "Where do I fit in?"

  "I need to know as much as I can about Delaney and Blair—anything that will help us prove we had nothing to do with their deaths."

  "What do you know about them so far?"

  "Delaney was thirty-two, lived alone, and was a newspaper distributor for the Kansas City Star. Got a Purple Heart doing two tours in Iraq with the National Guard. He was the oldest of three kids. He went to high school at Rockhurst."

  "The private Catholic school?"

  "Right. He cut a wide swath there. He played football and basketball and he was on the debate team. His parents have established a scholarship there in his honor. Bolt says they're going to contribute anything they get in the lawsuit to the scholarship fund."

  "What about Regina Blair?"

  "She was thirty-five. She and her husband live up north at Riss Lake. She had a baby last year. They were active in their church and she volunteered for Big Brothers and Sisters. Her husband teaches at Park University."

  "A boy scout and a girl scout. Not much chance I'll find anything in their backgrounds that you can use."

  "I'm not looking for dirt. I want to know more about them than their credentials for getting into heaven. I want to know why Delaney dreamed about killing himself and what made Blair so afraid of heights. That could help us."

  "What if your institute is responsible?"

  "Then we'll pay what we owe and fix what's wrong with our project."

  "Don't you have lawyers and an insurance company to take care of that?"

  "We have a ten-million-dollar deductible and the right to control the investigation and handling of any claim. I've got the lawyers but I need you for the investigation. Your title will be director of security. You can start Monday morning. I'll pay you double what you were making at the FBI. Your office will be down the hall from mine. You'll have free rein to go where you want to go and talk to whomever you want. When this is over, I'd like you to stay but that's up to you."

  Before I could respond, a spasm twisted my head sideways and down, locking my chin against my raised shoulder. I waited for it to pass, time and my body both held hostage, the cycle repeating twice more in a twisted game of catch and release.

  "I've got a..."

  "Movement disorder called tics. Simon told me. The brain can be a real bitch. It's okay."

  "You aren't concerned that I'll shake when I should shoot?"

  Harper smiled. "Superman was allergic to kryptonite and things worked out for him."

  He reached into his briefcase again and slid a skinny black binder onto the table. "These are summaries of the projects we're working on, plus the names and contact information for the people running each one."

  "Why do I need to talk to everyone when this case is only about the dream project?"

  "I want to make certain we don't have problems with any of the work we're doing, not just the dream project, and I don't want to broadcast that we may be getting sued so I told the project directors that I hired you to review our internal security procedures to make certain our intellectual property is protected. I sent everyone a memo telling them to cooperate with you."

  "I haven't said yes."

  "Why wouldn't you? Kate Scranton won't work for me but Simon Alexander will. I'd call that a wash in the who-do-you-listen-to sweepstakes."

  "I listen to my friends but I make my own decisions. You might not like that. You don't like people telling you how to do your job. Same goes for me. I start looking for one thing and I may find another you don't want found. You need to be in control and something like this doesn't want to be controlled."

  "Open the binder. Read the tabs out loud."

  They were organized alphabetically by subject matter. He interrupted me when I got to Alzheimer's.

  "Makes tics look like a walk in the park."

  "It's not about the work you're doing. I'm sure it's all important."

  "Some more important to me than others."

  I looked at him, saw how his eyes changed from lively to hot, how his face darkened.

  "You? You're what—forty?"

  "Forty-one. Six to ten percent of Alzheimer patients are under age sixty-five and that number is only going to go up. A few are younger than fifty and the youngest on record was twenty-nine."

  "I don't know what a person your age who has Alzheimer's is supposed to look like, but you act like you're on top of your game."

  He held up the small journal he'd been writing in when I arrived. "I try to write everything down in here on my laptop or my iPhone. I even use a Web service called Jott. I call a phone number and record what I want to remember and they send me an e-mail with my verbatim message and, if I want, a text message reminder. Even with all of that, I'm one step away from pinning notes to my sweater and leaving bread crumbs to find my way home. The trouble with memory loss is that you don't remember what you've forgotten until it's too late."

  "Who else knows about your condition?"

  "For now, no one besides you and my doctors. The institute is only one of my investments. I've got a lot of balls in the air and I don't know how much longer I can keep juggling them."

  "I'm sorry."

  He flattened his palms on the table, his fingertips arching, hanging on. "People are always sorry but that doesn't change what's happening to you or me. You're going to shake for the rest of your long life but I'm going to spend the rest of my dwindling years disappearing one brain cell, one memory at a time until I won't recognize you or me. The research we're doing might, just might, stop all of that, if not for me, then for someone else, and I'll be damned if I'm going to risk people's lives or the future of the institute. I don't care what I have to do. I thought you would understand that better than anyone."

  Harper was right. I had been primed not to like him whether it was because of Kate or his phone call or the rotten weather or the fear of putting myself on the line again, a shaking and shaken man uncertain if I could do more so I could do more, too concerned about myself than fellow travelers like Milo Harper. I closed the binder, tucked it under my arm, and stood.

  "I do. I'll see you Monday morning at eight."

  Chapter Six

  The hooded light over my front door was on when I came home, bathing the snow that had fallen during the day and drifted onto the porch in soft yellow. More light shone through the curtains in the living room that fronted the house and around the edges of the blinds in the bedroom on the east end of the second floor. The bedroom window looked down on the driveway where I was parked.

  The lights had been off when I left earlier in the day. I lived alone except for my dog, Ruby, who knew when it was time to eat but not how to flick a switch. Ruby is a cockapoo—half cocker spaniel, half poodle—a breed that dilutes the poodle's high canine IQ with the cocker spaniel's indiscriminate affection, the combination a perfect antiwatch dog. If someone were robbing me, Ruby would help him pack up my stuff.

  I sat in the car, studying the front door and windows. No one peeked at me. It had stopped snowing. My headlights bounced off the white powder and ice crystals swirling in the wind like frozen dust mites.

  I wondered who had been in my house and if they were still there; the effort stalled when the day caught up to me. No one knows what causes tics. In terms I can understand, there's a short somewhere in my brain's wiring that does more than kick me from the inside out as if something is trying to escape. At times, it blurs my brain, gumming up the neurons and hijacking the synapses, feeling like a burst of fever that slows me down to a crawl. I leaned back against the car seat, squeezing my eyes closed, waiting for the fog to lift, my body shuddering with aftershocks when it did a few minutes later.

  I looked at the house again. Nothing had changed. I got out of the car, the cold air picking me up. There were footprints in the snow leading from the curb, through the front yard and to the door. The street was empty.

  Lorraine Trent owned the house. She was a b
iology professor who was spending a year in Africa doing research. She had needed a tenant and I had needed a furnished place to live after my divorce. When I signed the lease, she gave me the only key. I doubted that she had come back eight months ahead of schedule.

  The house is in Brookside, a friendly midtown neighborhood with well-kept houses built fifty years or more ago and shops and restaurants you can walk to, including a dime store with its original creaky wood plank floor. For all its charm, Brookside wasn't immune to crime.

  Two kinds of thieves leave the front porch light on while they rob a house. The first kind wants the neighbors to think that nothing unusual is going on while they're in the house. Those thieves are smart enough to have transportation and there was none, unless the getaway driver was waiting to be summoned from around the corner. The second kind is too high to think straight, content to get out with whatever he can carry. Either way, I had to assume that the thief was armed.

  I would have felt better if my gun was holstered against my back instead of locked in a case on a shelf in my bedroom closet. Both Kansas and Missouri allowed concealed carry and I had a permit. After I left the Bureau, I quit carrying unless I had a reason. Seemed like a good idea at the time. At the moment, it was a bad idea, increasing the odds that I might get shot with my own gun.

  Part of being an FBI agent is having the balls to kick in the door even if it's your own door. Another part is having the sense to wait until someone can watch your back when you put your heel to the door jamb. Part of being an ex-FBI agent with a bad case of the jumping beans is missing kicking in doors so much that you decide not to wait for help.

  It was my door and I missed it that much. I was standing on my driveway, ankle deep snow seeping into my shoes, calculating the odds that I could take whoever had invaded my house and not liking the numbers. My days were manageable, my nights not so much. I flipped open my cell phone to call the cops, hearing the conversation in my head before I dialed.

  "You say the lights are on in your house?"