relationship modes and that keep them separate. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“I think so,” said Gurney.
“A bit over my head,” said Hardwick, who’d been quietly observing the exchange between Ashton and Gurney.
Ashton shot him a glance of disbelief. “An effective therapy for that kind of trauma needs to rebuild boundaries between the parent-child repertoire of responses and the mating repertoire of responses. The tragedy is that no therapy can match in force-in sheer megatonnage of impact-the violation it seeks to repair. It’s like rebuilding with a teaspoon a wall smashed by a bulldozer.”
“But… wasn’t that the problem you chose to focus your career on?” asked Gurney.
“Yes. And now it’s perfectly clear that I’ve failed. Totally, miserably failed.”
“You don’t know that.”
“You mean not
“So… what now?” asked Hardwick sharply.
“What now? Ah. The voice of a practical mind.” Ashton closed his eyes and said nothing for at least a full minute. When he spoke again, it was with a strained ordinariness. “What now? The next step? The next step for me is to go downstairs to the chapel, show my face, do what I can to calm their nerves. What your next step is… I have no idea. You say you came here because of a gut feeling. You’d better ask your gut what to do next.”
He got up from his massive velvet chair, taking something resembling a remote garage-door opener from the desk drawer. “The downstairs lights and locks are operated electronically,” he said, explaining the device. He started to leave, got as far as the door, came back, and switched on the large computer monitor behind his desk. A picture appeared: the main interior chapel space, with a stone floor and high stone walls whose colorless austerity was broken by intermittent burgundy drapes and indecipherable tapestries. The dark wood pews were not set in the rows typical of churches but had been rearranged into half a dozen seating areas, each made up of three pews formed into a loose triangle, evidently to facilitate discussion. These areas were filled with teenage girls. From the monitor speakers came a hubbub of female voices.
“There’s a high-definition camera and a mike down there, transmitting to this computer,” said Ashton. “Watch and listen, and you’ll get some sense of the situation.” Then he turned and left the room.
Chapter 75
The computer screen showed Scott Ashton coming in through the chapel’s rear door behind the groupings of pews and closing it behind him with a heavy thump, the small remote unit still in one hand. The girls filled most of the space in the pews-some sitting normally, some sideways, some in cross-legged yoga positions, some kneeling. Some seemed lost in their own thoughts, but most were engaged in conversations, some more audible than others.
The surprise for Gurney was the ordinariness of these girls. They looked at first glance like most self-absorbed female teenagers, hardly like the inmates of an institution ringed by razor wire. At this distance from the camera, the malignancy of the behavior that had brought them here was invisible. Gurney assumed that only face-to-face, with their expressions in sharper focus, would it become obvious that these creatures were more than ordinarily self-centered, reckless, cruel, and sex-driven. Ultimately, as it was with his murderer mug shots, the sign of danger, the ice, would be in the eyes.
Then he noticed that the students were not alone. In each of the pew triangles, there were one or two older individuals-probably teachers or counselors or whatever Mapleshade called their providers of guidance and therapy. In a rear corner of the room, almost invisible in the shadows, stood Dr. Lazarus, his arms folded, his expression unreadable.
Moments after Ashton entered, the girls began to notice him, and the conversational din began to diminish. One of the older-looking, more striking girls approached Ashton as he stood at the back of the center aisle. She was tall, blond, almond-eyed.
Gurney glanced over at Hardwick, who was leaning forward in his chair, studying the screen.
“Could you tell if he called her over?” Gurney asked.
“He may have gestured,” he said. “Sort of a wave. Why?”
“Just curious.”
On the super-sharp screen, the profiles of Ashton and the tall blonde were clear to the point that their lip movements were visible, but their voices were indistinct-words and phrases merging with the voices of a group of students near them.
Gurney leaned toward the monitor. “Do you have any idea what they’re saying?”
Hardwick focused intently on their faces, tilting his head as though that might heighten the discrimination of his hearing.
On the screen, the girl said something and smiled, Ashton said something and gestured. Then he walked purposefully down the center aisle and stepped up onto a raised portion of the floor, presumably the area the altar had occupied in the time of the building’s liturgical use. He turned to face the assembly of students, his back to the camera. The murmur melted away, and soon there was silence.
Gurney looked inquiringly at Hardwick. “Did you catch anything?”
He shook his head. “He could have said absolutely anything to her. I couldn’t pick the words out of the background noise. Maybe a lip-reader could tell. Not me.”
On the screen, Ashton began speaking with a natural-sounding authority, his chocolate baritone composed and satiny-and deeper than usual in the resonant Gothic nave.
“Ladies,” he began, inflecting the word with an almost reverential gentility, “terrible things have happened, frightening things, and everyone is upset. Angry, frightened, confused, and upset. Some of you are having trouble sleeping. Anxiety. Bad dreams. Just not knowing what’s really happening may be the worst part of it. We want to know what we’re facing, and no one is telling us.” Ashton radiated the angst of the mental states he was referring to. He had turned himself into a depiction of emotion and understanding, and yet at the same time, perhaps through the steady richness of his voice, its almost cellolike timbre, he was managing to communicate at some unconscious level a profound reassurance.
“Man, that’s good shit,” said Hardwick, in the tone of one admiring the legerdemain of a superior pickpocket.
“Definitely a pro,” agreed Gurney.
“Not as good as you, ace.”
Gurney screwed up his face into an uncomprehending question mark.
“I bet he could learn a thing or two from your academy gig.”
“What do you know about my acad-”
Hardwick pointed at the screen. “Shhh. Let’s not miss anything.”
Ashton’s words were moving like clear water over polished rocks. “Some of you have asked me about the progress of the criminal investigation. How much do the police know, what are they doing, how close are they to catching the guilty person? Logical questions, questions a lot of us are wondering about. I think it would help if we knew more, if we each had the opportunity to share our concerns, to ask what we want to ask, to get some answers. That’s why I’ve invited the key detectives working on the case to come here to Mapleshade tomorrow morning-to talk to us, let us know what’s happening, what’s likely to happen next. They’ll have questions, we’ll have questions. I believe that it will be a very useful conversation for all of us.”
