The Autobiography of FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper

by Mark Frost

  CAROLINE: Yes.

  COOPER: Do you know who I am?

  CAROLINE: Yes.

  COOPER: I want you to go back to the night you were kidnapped. . . . You are eating dinner, what happened?

  CAROLINE: Pork chops . . . the lights go out . . . Windom yells, "No!"

  COOPER: Do you see any faces?

  CAROLINE: No.

  COOPER: What happened next?

  CAROLINE: A hand comes over my face. I scream.

  COOPER: Then what?

  CAROLINE: They hit . . . hit, and hit, and hit. No . . . please.

  COOPER: It's all right, you're safe here, they can't hurt you again. Do you remember what happened next?

  CAROLINE: Dark . . . hands touch me . . . again and again. Stop, stop . . . It hurts in the arm, sharp.

  COOPER: A needle?

  CAROLINE: Yes.

  COOPER: They injected you with a drug.

  CAROLINE: It burns. I want to let my brain out of my head. Hit it hard.

  COOPER: Do you remember any faces?

  CAROLINE: Yes.

  COOPER: Who is it? Is it the man who did this to you?

  CAROLINE: Helper. He's dead.

  COOPER: How do you know he's dead?

  CAROLINE: No . . .

  COOPER: It's okay, you're safe with me. Tell me what happened to the helper.

  CAROLINE: His head was in my lap, looking at me. His body on the floor.

  COOPER: I don't understand.

  CAROLINE: I heard him scream. . . . They cut off his head. They put it in my lap. No! No! No! No!

  COOPER: Do you remember the other faces?

  CAROLINE: They wouldn't let me.

  At that point, Diane, I brought her out of the hypnotic state. Check with local PD and find out if any corpses have turned up missing a head over the last two months. My God, what Caroline has seen. I held her after the session until thankfully sleep gave her a chance to rest. I want to help her more than anything I've ever wanted in my entire life.

  April 17, 9 P.M.

  Diane, the identity of Caroline's chief tormentor remains elusive. This is just a hunch, but I cannot escape the feeling that Caroline is repressing something. It is almost as if identifying the madman is as painful as the experience itself. She does, however, continue to make progress, though I can't help but notice that Windom and her seem to be having trouble picking up the pieces where they left off. This puts hour. I cannot let my personal feelings interfere in this matter. I'm an outsider here and I must remain one. I am here to do a job, and that is all.

  April 20, 9 P.M.

  Windom has decided not to remain at the safe house. He feels that his continued presence serves only to impede Caroline's progress. I suspect that he blames himself for her abduction and believes his presence serves only to remind her of what she has just gone through. We talked for several hours on the nature of the crime that had been committed against his wife. He believes that it is without a doubt connected to his own abduction, and is at a loss to find the link.

  Before heading back to town, Windom told me that he believes evil exists as an independent life force, and that it will eventually conquer good because of guile. "At the end of all battles only the victor is honored," said Windom, "and no one remembers whether he was good or evil." This comes from the best mind in law enforcement I have ever known.

  April 21, 7 A.M.

  Upon arriving back in town last night, Windom was attacked as he entered his house. He suffered a superficial stab wound to the hand and arm, and his attackers fled. The house had apparently been searched. I have not told Caroline of the attack. She would want to go to him and the risk would be too great.

  Who is it that Caroline can identify? And why can't she remember who it is? Windom is now under protection himself and cannot attempt to return to the safe house until we can be sure that he is not under surveillance.

  April 30, 7 P.M.

  I do not know what to do. I find myself in the difficult position of choosing between breaking the trust of a friend and mentor, or denying love.

  The feelings I have been experiencing for Caroline are apparently mutual. While on a walk today Caroline told me that she loved me, and has since the first day we met. At first I tried to resist and convince her that I could not say that I felt the same way about her, but she saw through my charade and we ended up in a long and passionate embrace.

  I have never been able to say this about anyone, but I love her more than life itself. Every thought, every impulse, every waking second I want to devote to her. I want to help her heal, and I want to protect her for the rest of my life. We made love under a bright spring sun; it was the first time I've seen her happy since the end of her ordeal.

  I do not know what I will tell Windom when he arrives here in the morning. Aside from the fact that it would be useless to try, I can and will not lie to him.

  For the moment we have the night. The morning will be another day.

  * * *

  The following entry was made by Caroline sometime that evening.

  * * *

  I love you, Dale Cooper.

  April 30, 11:30 P.M.

  Caroline woke from a dream with a scream a short time ago. She had seen the face of the man who had taken her, and is sure that she knows him. I believe the barriers holding her back are beginning to fall. She has agreed to try another hypnotic session in the morning. I think maybe Windom is wrong on one point. Love is stronger than evil.

  May 1, 1 A.M.

  Something is not quite right . . . Caroline!

  The time of the next recording is not known.

  I have been stabbed . . . unconscious . . . Caroline is dead . . . Caroline is dead . . . Forgive me.

  * * *

  Chapter 5

  "It was a bad scene, as bad as I've ever seen, and that after one war and ten years in the Bureau. The events broke down like this: "The district emergency operator received a frantic call sometime around nine in the morning from the safe house asking for help. Local police were notified and they in turn notified us. It is believed that Agent Earle was the person who made that call. Local police units arrived on the scene about a minute before our units did. We secured the perimeter and then entered the house. On the floor of the living room slumped against a chair was Agent Cooper. He had been stabbed once in the chest. He had lost a great deal of blood and was unconscious. In his arms was Caroline Earle. She had also suffered a stab wound and was deceased. A blood trail indicated that she had been killed in the bedroom and then dragged into the position where we found her. Agent Earle was found in the corner of the kitchen clutching the phone. He was obviously distraught, and beyond our ability to reach him. I guess you could say he seemed quite insane. No arrests were ever made."

  Bill Raum

  F.B.I. Special Agent

  May 15

  I do not have my watch near. I am in a hospital. The walls are light blue. There is another man in the room but I have not seen him, only heard his coughing, for I cannot move from the position I'm in. Caroline is dead. I understand that it was Windom who found us. I do not know if I can face him at this moment.

  I remember little of the events on the evening of the attack. I do remember regaining consciousness and finding Caroline's lifeless body in my arms. . . . Her eyes were closed. The doctor says I am very lucky to be alive. . . . I told him that if he believed that, then he understood nothing of what life really was beyond the simple act of pumping blood. I understand that Caroline was buried ten days ago. . . . I should have been there. . . . It should have been me.

  May 20, 7 A.M.

  Diane, I will try as best I can to reconstruct the events on the night of the attack. At approximately 1 A.M. I detected movement outside of the safe house. Caroline was asleep. I drew my weapon and searched the inside of the house, which showed no signs of a forced entry. The perimeter also appeared to be secure. As I returned to the bedroom to check on Caroline, I realized that there was another presence in the room. B
efore I could act, a knife penetrated my ribs, slicing into my left lung. I believe at that point I called to Caroline and then lost consciousness.

  The next thing I remember was briefly waking and finding Caroline dead in my arms. The long white shirt she was wearing was soaked in blood.

  Dad is here at the hospital now, as is Gordon Cole. They seem to have hit it off. Diane, I believe for the first time in my life I know what love is, because I have lost it.

  May 20, 3 P.M.

  Gordon told me that it was Windom who found the two of us. And that what he found was too much for him to handle. His mind apparently has been unreachable from that moment on. A wound more severe than any knife can inflict. He is now in the psychiatric ward of this very hospital.

  My God, what have I done. I betrayed my best friend, and have lost him to madness. And the life that I loved more than any other, I failed to protect.

  As soon as I am able, I must go to Windom, and Caroline.

  May 25, 4 P.M.

  Apparently I had a slow hemorrhage that was undetected. Yesterday it ruptured, causing a massive loss of blood. I remember the sensation that I was drifting down a stream as people began rushing about me. I wanted to tell them that it was all right, they could let me go into the current.

  Dad told me this afternoon that my heart stopped beating for two minutes. That I was dead. I do not remember seeing a light as people have spoken of. Just the feeling of floating in a current, and peace . . . I wish they had let me go.

  June 1, 2 P.M.

  Diane, I am sitting up in a wheelchair for the first time. I had a dream last night that I was lying on the floor of the safe house bleeding, and I could hear the sound of Windom laughing. Something about it disturbed me a great deal. The doctors say that tomorrow I can see him, though they warn me that he will not know who I am.

  June 2, 4 P.M.

  Windom sits in the corner of a room, an unmoving, solitary figure. The doctors wheeled me in to see him. For a long time, minutes maybe, he stared unblinking at me. Then a change came over him and he stood up, and began to laugh. I attempted to communicate, but it seemed futile. He spoke only two words: "Chess, anyone?" As I was being wheeled out, I stopped and looked back at Windom. He had stopped laughing, and his eyes were locked on mine. He then spoke again.

  "Your move."

  He started laughing again and I left. Windom would have been the last person in the world that I would expect to snap like this. I cannot escape the fact that I am in part or wholly responsible for his condition.

  June 7, 10 A.M.

  Though it will be many weeks before I will be physically prepared to resume my duties, I am being discharged from the hospital today. When I will be mentally and emotionally prepared to begin my duties, I cannot say.

  June 10, 4 P.M.

  I am at Caroline's gravesite. There is a small stone of red granite. It says "In memory . . ." Who could have done this?

  July 14, 9 P.M.

  My wounds are much healed. My spirit, however, is far from well. I have decided to ask Gordon for a leave of absence when my medical leave expires.

  July 20

  I take full responsibility. I have failed.

  * * *

  Cooper made only two recordings over the next six months. His whereabouts during this time are not clear.

  * * *

  I don't know who I am. We search and search, and always end up looking into the same mirror, at the same reflection, hoping that we will find something different.

  Heal . . . heal . . . heal . . . heal . . . heal . . . heal . . . heal . . . heal . . . heal . . . heal . . . heal . . . heal . . . heal . . . heal . . . heal . . . please.

  * * *

  Part 6

  Chapter 1

  February 1, 1980, 12 P.M.

  I believe I am ready, and have asked Gordon to return me to active status. My body is strong, my mind clear and without guilt. What I am about to mention, I am not ready to believe.

  Windom Earle was insane long before the events of that terrible night, and is guilty of the attack on me, and the murder of his wife. I cannot prove this, for he is far too brilliant an opponent, but I am sure of it in my heart.

  How and why Windom crossed this line I do not know. His own abduction I now believe was one of the spirit as opposed to a physical kidnapping. Windom was taken over by evil. The Windom I knew before that moment no longer existed. He was playing with us after that. Every event that took place beyond that moment was of his doing. He kidnapped Caroline. He gave her the drug that took her to the edge of insanity. He allowed Caroline and me to fall in love so that he would have the pleasure of destroying it. I must do all that I can to make sure that Windom never again sets foot outside of that hospital.

  February 10, 11 A.M.

  It took a call from Gordon to the doctors, but I have the okay to see Windom. I have told no one of my suspicion. Perhaps after my visit I will have some evidence to back it up.

  February 11, 3 P.M.

  I recorded the following a short time ago. Windom was in a straitjacket as we talked.

  COOPER: Hello.

  WINDOM: You are a very good dresser. My gloves . . . do not have fingers.

  COOPER: Do you know who I am?

  WINDOM: Yes . . . you are selling something.

  COOPER: Where is Windom?

  WINDOM: He left.

  COOPER: Where did he go?

  WINDOM: Around, here and there, over hill over dale . . . dale, I will hit the dusty trail.

  COOPER: Why did you kill Caroline?

  WINDOM: Caroline?

  COOPER: Was it because she loved me?

  WINDOM: You know, I don't think I want to buy what you're selling.

  COOPER: Did you stab me? WINDOM: Define stab . . . spear, gore, impale, pierce, ram, stick, lance . . . That's it! That's the one.

  COOPER: Why?

  WINDOM: To heal all the sick little children of the world.

  COOPER: Where were you taken when you were missing?

  WINDOM: A rest stop, with the biggest goddamn bathrooms you've ever seen.

  COOPER: What does evil look like, Windom?

  WINDOM: You always ask the wrong questions. I don't think you've learned anything.

  COOPER: What is the right question to ask?

  WINDOM: What doesn't evil look like? (Laughs)

  COOPER: What did the old man teach you?

  WINDOM: Old man?

  COOPER: The old man on the island who hung himself.

  WINDOM: Hung? . . . He taught me everything.

  At that point Windom refused to say another word. I have played this tape for Gordon Cole and told him, off the record, of my suspicions. While we both agree that in and of itself it proves nothing, it is clear to the both of us that Windom Earle should not leave that hospital for the rest of his life.

  March 1, 11 P.M.

  Have finished all the back paperwork that had accumulated over the course of my recovery. Expect to receive my new assignment tomorrow. Gordon and I both agreed that remaining in Pittsburgh would not be to my benefit or the Bureau's. Gordon has really gone to bat for me. I will soon find out if the Bureau has the same confidence.

  March 12, 9 A.M.

  Diane, pack your bags, we're going to San Francisco.

  May 1, 6 A.M.

  The car is gassed up, the trailer filled. I have a cooler full of sandwiches, pickles, marshmallows, trail mix, and milk. Pick Dad up in two hours at the airport, then it's due west, the future. I can only hope it is more promising than the recent past.

  May 1, 11 A.M.

  Terre Haute, Indiana. Dad's bladder is definitely not as strong as it once was. Expect the added rest stops may add an extra day to the trip.

  I wish I could articulate my feelings as we drove out of Pittsburgh, but I can find no words. Tomorrow, St. Louis. Kansas City and the Great Plains. I would surely like to see a buffalo.

  May 2, 2 P.M.

  Fourth stop today. Have told Dad that I think an annual v
isit to his doctor when he returns home may be a good idea. Have crossed the mighty Mississippi and am taking a quick swing up to Hannibal to see the home of Samuel Clemens.

  May 2, 10 P.M.

  Diane, I think I can say with great certainty that I should have been born one hundred years ago. It's too late for all the Toms and Hucks.