Dehan said, “Except that Danny next showed up in Soundview Park, dead.”
He knocked the smoldering ash from his pipe into his ashtray. “Quite so. I can only say that I am glad, whatever the others may say, that I stopped Jasmine from going.” He shook his head and gestured at the two paperbacks. “Everything else is in your books. I suggest you read them, and if you have any more questions after that, you are welcome to phone me, make an appointment, and come and see me.”
I studied his face a moment. He met my eye. I nodded and turned to Dehan, making a question with my face. She shook her head and said, “I have no more questions.”
“Then we shall leave you to your work.” I stood. “Thank you for your time and for the books. You have been very helpful.” I turned to his wife. “Jasmine.”
She looked at the floor and Kirkpatrick rose and led us to the front door. There I stopped and said, “Paul Estevez and Jane Harrison. Have you got contact information for them?”
He pulled a pen from his pocket and made a note on the back of one of his own business cards. “We lost touch with Jane. This is Paul’s address and phone number. He’s not far, up Sound View Avenue. He runs some form of martial arts school. He’s become a little disillusioned, like all of us I suppose.” He hesitated a moment, then said, “The day after tomorrow, there’s a small conference at the Marriott, on Bassett Avenue, near the hospital. There will be a hundred people or so, perhaps a little less. We have a very distinguished speaker coming. He’ll be discussing the intentions of the Visitors, whether they are friendly or hostile, whether they have killed before. You may be interested.” He reached over to a small table by an umbrella stand and picked up a couple of leaflets. “Come along as my guests.”
We thanked him again and he let us out into the early afternoon glare. As we strolled down toward Gildersleeve Avenue, on our way back to the Maravillas Grill, I thrust my hands deep into my pockets, took a deep breath, and asked, “Impressions? Thoughts?”
She stared up at the perfect blue sky. “It’s not the distance stopping me from seeing the stars, but the interference.” She matched my sigh with one of her own. “I don’t know, Stone. He is a very believable witness. So is she. If they were telling me any other story, I would be inclined to believe them.” She shrugged. “Maybe I am just a narrow-minded, bigoted cop, but it’s going to take a lot more than their testimony to convince me that Danny Brown was shot by an alien with a ray gun.”
I didn’t answer and we walked on in silence. The street was empty and quiet, but for the lazy, midday song of the birds in the nearby park and the buzz of an occasional bee. After a while she added, “I’ll say this though. I am pretty sure that they believe their testimony.”
I looked at her and thought about it. “You may be right.”
She ignored me and went on, “They go up to this very remote place, at night. They are surrounded by…” She shook her head, “What is it, six million acres of dense forest. The daily bread of these people is the X-Files, Close Encounters, Roswell and the infinite number of books that have been written on the subject of UFOs, aliens and the Men in Black. They see, or persuade themselves that they have seen, the strange phenomena in the sky and then they sit around the camp fire and start talking, building themselves up into a state of high suggestibility. Right?”
“OK.”
We turned into Gildersleeve and started walking toward White Plains Road. Dehan shrugged, half nodding and half apologizing for what she was about to say. “Now, Jasmine is very sweet and nice, but she is also servile and obedient and, let’s be honest, Stone, a bit simple. I’m not saying she’s stupid, but she isn’t exactly a soaring intellect either.”
“Granted. On both counts.”
“So some deep unconscious desire kicks in and she puts herself into a trance.” She stopped dead, turned to face me and poked he in the chest with her finger. “Listen! She has an internal conflict. She has been conditioned since she was a kid to be servile and obedient to her father. But she also has a craving, a need, to be special for him. She knows that Kirkpatrick admires Danny, so her unconscious mind creates a fantasy, which she plays out as a trance induced by the aliens, who have selected her and Danny to be their chosen messengers, while her husband is elevated to the position of patriarch—the rock on which they build. Which is a direct borrowing from the Bible, by the way.”
I stared at her. “Wow, that is pretty deep, Dehan. It would take some confirming, but my gut says you may be onto something. It rings true. Even if you are assuming a lot and also straying out of our field a little.”
She shrugged and turned and we carried on walking. “Screw fields. We go where we need to go, right? But what it doesn’t do is get us any closer to who did kill Danny.”
“Perhaps.”
“What do you mean, perhaps?”
“I am being cryptic. It is my prerogative as Holmes to your Watson.”
“Screw you, Sherlock. You know I’m right.”
We rounded the corner into White Plains and started toward the fork in the road. I could see my Jaguar parked facing us and allowed myself a moment of sentimental pleasure. It was a magnificent beast in an elegant, understated burgundy, a Mark II from 1964, with
