By the time Gurney reached the state route that wound down out of the mountains toward Plattsburgh, the sun was up and the color of the sky was shifting from pinkish gray to pure blue.
He was organizing the various conundrums of the case in the order in which he imagined they’d need to be explored and solved. This mental process so thoroughly absorbed him that forty minutes later he nearly drove past the sign for the Cold Brook Inn.
At the front desk a pudgy woman with a welcoming innkeeper’s smile answered his inquiry about the location of the dining room with a graceful sweep of her hand in the direction of an open archway at the side of the reception area.
“Black-current scones with clotted cream today,” she said in a lowered voice, as though sharing a valuable confidence.
He spotted Rebecca at a table next to a window overlooking Lake Champlain. Next to her coffee cup was a laptop on which she was typing rapidly. Her auburn hair had that look of casual beauty that comes from good genes and good taste. Good genes had also given her a sharp, linear intellect—a quality he found dangerously attractive.
She flipped the laptop shut and smiled a bright, businesslike smile. The warm, sculpted appearance of her lips looked like it had been enhanced with a subtle lipstick, but he knew from interested observation on past occasions that she never wore makeup.
“You’re right on time.” Her voice was on the low side of the female register.
He nodded at the computer. “Did I interrupt something?”
“Nothing important. Just dashing off a scathing review of an article on the survival value of guilt. The research design was flawed, the conclusions inconclusive, and the interpretation pathetic.” Her eyes flashed with the competitive spark that made her such a formidable presence in her field. “So you’re working on an incredible case. Everything you’ve told me about it is nuts. Sit down and tell me more.”
He sat across from her, her contagious energy making him feel like he’d had three cups of coffee. “Not a lot more to tell. I met a local lunatic, connected with the lodge, eager to offer me a supernatural view of things.”
“Like Dalton Gall’s wolf dream and its supposed fulfillment?”
“Did I tell you about that?”
“Found it in an online historical blog—‘Strange Tales of the Mountains’—popped up in a ‘Gall’ Internet search. It’s the kind of story stupid people love. Even some smart people.”
“Speaking of wolf dreams—”
“What do I think about Wenzel’s, as narrated by Cox?” She uttered a derisive little laugh. “A candy store for a Freudian analyst. But I’m not a Freudian analyst. Dreams are useless vehicles for getting to the truth about anything. Dreams are the dust kicked up by the brain as it catalogs the experiences of the day.”
“Then why—”
“Why do dreams seem like narrative scenes in weird movies? Because in addition to being a cataloger the brain is a coherence seeker. It’s always trying to connect the dots, even when the dots have no natural connection. The brain takes those random dust specks it’s stirring up with its right hand, and tries to arrange them in order with its left hand. That’s why ‘dream interpretation’ is total nonsense. You might as well throw a handful of goulash at the wall and pretend it’s a map of Hungary.”
A young waitress arrived at their table. “Can I get you folks some breakfast?”
“Oatmeal, coffee, whole wheat toast,” said Rebecca.
“Same,” said Gurney.
The waitress jotted a few words on her order pad and hurried off.
Rebecca continued. “Dreams are as random as raindrops. So, you ask, how could four people have the same one? The answer is, I have no idea. Everything I know tells me it’s impossible.”
When their breakfasts arrived they ate briefly in silence. At one point, they held each other’s gaze long enough that if they’d held it any longer it would have taken on an inescapable significance. Gurney broke the mood with a question.
“You told me on the phone that some of Hammond’s work was ‘on the cutting edge’—something about his using hypnotherapy to form new neural pathways, changing people’s behavior in radical ways?”
“I don’t honestly know that much about it. But I’ve seen the abstracts of technical papers he’s published recently that suggest he’s exploring areas of behavior modification that are beyond the generally accepted limits of hypnotherapy. It struck me that he wasn’t being completely open about his latest achievements.”
“That’s interesting. Look, I know how busy you are, but—”
She grinned unexpectedly. “If you want to get something done, ask a busy person.”
“It’s a huge favor, actually. Could you take a closer look at Hammond’s published work and see if anything pops out at you?”
“What am I looking for?”
“Anything that might relate to the police theory of the four deaths. Anything that . . . Jesus, Rebecca, I don’t even know what questions to ask. I have no idea what’s new and scary in that field.”
“I love a helpless man.” Her grin widened briefly, then disappeared. “There’s some potentially disturbing work being done these days in the area of manipulating memories, especially manipulating the emotional tags on certain memories.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that a person’s feelings about past events can be changed by altering the neurochemical components of their stored emotions.”
“Christ. That’s really—”
“Weird-ass, brave-new-world stuff? I agree. But it’s happening. Of course, it’s positioned in the most positive therapeutic language you can imagine. Ideal way to cure PTSD panic, and so forth. Just separate the specific event from the feeling it generates.”
Gurney was quiet for long while.
Rebecca was watching him. “What are you thinking?”
“If the emotional charge on the memory of a past event could be altered, could the same technique be used to change how a person might feel about a hypothetical future event?”
“I have no idea. Why?”
“I’m wondering whether someone who normally would be appalled by the idea of suicide . . . could be made more receptive to it.”