One of the gunmen brushed against her, grunting as he collected the cash, tossing it into a bag.
She was terrified and prayed to God for help.
“Then the man next to me—” Lisa’s voice broke “—tells me he’s a cop and asks me to help him reach his gun.”
Lisa recounted how she tried to help but dropped the gun; how the gunman rushed to them; how he put the gun to the agent’s head; how the agent looked into her eyes before the explosion splashed his brains and skull fragments on her face; then feeling the gun drilling into her head; expecting to die.
Lisa remembered how everything smelled like lemon floor cleaner; how she was numb, feeling nothing except the dead man’s warm brain tissue.
“It burned on my skin, searing me, branding me, because it was my fault he was dead because I dropped the gun and now I was going to die!”
Lisa saw her reflection in the face shield of the killer’s helmet; then how, for a burning moment, she saw through its semitransparency, saw the killer’s eyes, ablaze through the blood flecks.
Speaking haltingly in spasms, Lisa explained how she lay on the floor waiting for death; how her heart hurt, hammering so hard against her ribs; how when she was waiting to die she saw Bobby, the kids; that time stood still until the police came.
Lisa closed her eyes. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she gasped for air.
“I’m sorry, I can’t remember any more.”
Sullivan saw Morrow watching from his chair in the corner. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and cupped hands to his face in frustration. Sullivan resumed concentrating on Lisa.
This was a process.
It took time.
“It’s okay, Lisa. You’re doing fine.” Sullivan passed her a tissue, then poured a glass of water for her and waited as she collected herself.
“Are you ready to continue?”
Lisa blinked back her tears and nodded.
“For this next stage I need you to try to remember every single detail, no matter how trivial. Don’t hold back. No matter how unimportant it seems, I need you to tell me, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Good. I want you to try to recall everything in reverse, going back from when the police arrived until when you walked into the center. Okay? Please, try recalling it all in reverse and noting every little detail that comes to mind.”
“Everything?”
“Yes, like how the shooter held the gun, what angle, the grip he used. Did he wear gloves, how was his arm and hand extended. Did you see his neck, his skin, his wrist, a watch, a scar, moles, hairs? Did he have an accent, the tone of his voice, everything.”
Lisa nodded, repositioned herself, and for the next twenty minutes narrated events starting at the end and then going backward. Sullivan made notes and was encouraged at the outset, but eventually this technique, like the previous one, failed to yield anything new.
Lisa apologized.
“It’s okay,” Sullivan said. “This is hard. Not many people can do this the first time. Are you up to trying one more method?”
Lisa nodded.
“This will be the most difficult. You can decline and we’ll end the session, but I’m asking you to put yourself in the position of the shooter and then the agent.”
Lisa gave Sullivan an are-you-serious look.
“This sometimes works,” Sullivan said. “Try thinking what they would see from their perspective. If it’s too traumatic, I can end the session.”
Lisa contemplated what Sullivan had asked, then imagined herself back at the center, but as the killer, extending his right arm and the gun, pressing it against the agent’s head with such malevolence.
Squeezing the trigger, the deafening bang, the instant explosion, like Kennedy’s head in the Zapruder film, firing brain tissue across her face, marking her for death with the agent’s skull fragments.
Now he presses the gun into her skull.
“I am the killer. I see Lisa’s fear. I taste it. I savor it as she begs for her life. This is it. This is my chance. I should pull the trigger; just kill her while she’s lying there begging to live, the agent’s blood on her face, oozing under her. But I hesitate. Why? The other gunman is yelling that we have to go. It’s over.”
Lisa shook her head and stared at the hotel room carpet as if she saw herself on the truck stop floor, as if watching the entire scene unwinding right in front of her.
“It’s over.”
She did not feel Morrow’s gaze on her.
He was on the edge of his chair, poised to somehow reach into her memory and haul in everything, the way a trawler’s crew pulls in a drift net. He could no longer hold back.
“Lisa, wait.” Morrow still believed critical details were locked in her head.
“Frank.” Sullivan’s tone cautioned him, but he shrugged her off.
“Lisa, you were right there, practically touching the killer,” Morrow said.
Lisa nodded, eyes fixed on the carpet.
“You must’ve seen something about the shooter. What did you see?”
For a time Lisa did not speak. She just looked at the carpet.
“Lisa?” Sullivan’s tone was softer. “What do you remember?”
Lisa said nothing.
Frustrated, Morrow stood, hands on his hips.
“What do you see?” he asked.
Lisa started shaking her head again until her face gave way to anguish. She caught her breath as a great choking sob burst from her throat and she crumpled into tears.
“I see the dead agent’s face staring at me and it melts into Bobby’s face staring at me and both of them are telling me it’s my fault. I dropped the gun. It’s my fault…he was going to kill me. Why didn’t he just kill me?”
Sullivan went to her, put her arms around her.
“It’s all right,” she told Lisa softly. “We’re going to end the session. It’s all right.” Sullivan took her hand in both of hers. “It’s not your fault. What happened was not your fault. What you’re feeling is natural and you did very well today. None of this is your fault.”
Sullivan gave her tissues and water. Soon Lisa’s crying subsided and she went to the bathroom to recover her composure. Morrow went to the window where he cracked the curtain, looked out at New York and contemplated all that he was facing. Then he turned to Sullivan, who was making notes.
“She’s our only hope,” Morrow said. “I
“I know. But it’s like she hits a wall. Like something’s blocking her from retrieving the information we need.”
“What is it?”
“It’s the trauma. Her ordeal has obliterated her recollection of details.”
“Even the smallest thing?”
“Frank, you have to allow for what she’s been through—having brain matter splashed on her, having been that close to the murder, having a gun to her head, preparing to die. She’s grappling with guilt over the agent’s death while still mourning her husband. We’re asking a hell of a lot of this woman.”
“I’ve got four homicides and four killers at large and right now she’s my best link to finding them. There has to be something more we can do.”
Sullivan bit her bottom lip and looked at the bathroom door.
“There’s another method I could try.”
“Let’s do it then.”
