by the way, it doesn't matter a bit if you're good or bad, shit happens and forgive and forget is overrated. The bad memories take root in the brain and poison our dreams. Digging them out is harder than yanking out a tree stump with a pair of tweezers. Isn't that right, Maggie.'
She nodded. 'We fill our dreams with the things we can't cope with when we're awake,' she said. 'The things we are afraid of, ashamed of. The things we want but believe we don't deserve. The things we'd like to say and do that we lack the strength to make real and the things we've said and done that could bring us down. All those things run wild in our dreams. They are beneath the surface but not so far that we can't learn to control them so they don't control us, so we can make peace with them.'
'And you can teach people how to do that?'
'We're trying real hard,' Corliss said. 'Our brains have to process and manage traumatic memories so we can live with them without beating our kids, robbing banks, or just plain going nuts. A lot of that work is done in our dreams. Maggie and I are studying how that work gets done and how we can learn to do it better. We think that if people can learn to recognize when they're dreaming, they can learn to control their dreams and flush out their bad memories. If we're right, a lot of shrinks will have to find another line of work.'
'Any side effects from what you do?'
'Like what?'
'Like people shooting themselves in the head or falling off buildings.'
Maggie Brennan flinched, her chin snapping down to her chest, then up to the ceiling. If tics were contagious, I'd have thought she had caught it from me. Corliss shot her a hot glance; his eyes and mouth narrow darts.
'The police,' she said, her voice so soft I wasn't certain she'd spoken until she said it again. 'The police looked into what happened to Tom and Regina. It had nothing to do with our project.'
'What Maggie means,' Corliss said, 'is that Tom Delaney committed suicide and Regina Blair slipped and fell. It's a sad coincidence that both of them were volunteers, but that's all it is.'
'You're not troubled by the fact that both of them died in the same way they dreamed they would die, dreams that you were teaching them to control?'
'Hell, yes, it bothers me. It bothers me more when people like you come around trying to blame it on us. Look, every volunteer signs a waiver acknowledging that we are not treating them for any mental or physical condition and that they should consult their own doctor, whether psychologist or psychiatrist or podiatrist, before participating in the project. We are not responsible for their choices or their carelessness,' Corliss said.
'Delaney's and Blair's families have hired a lawyer named Jason Bolt. He's got both of your names on a lawsuit. And he's got an expert witness who will testify that you are responsible.'
'Lawyers and lawsuits don't intimidate me, Jack. That's what insurance is for and I'm betting Milo Harper has a shit-bucket full of insurance.'
'Insurance will buy you a lawyer and pay a claim but it won't keep your name out of the paper. How do you feel about that, Dr. Brennan?'
She looked at me without feeling or expression. 'When you've seen the things I've seen, the things people do to one another, it numbs you to something so trivial as a lawsuit. No one knows my name. If it's in the paper, it will be forgotten soon enough.'
'If neither of you are impressed by Jason Bolt's lawsuit, why did you erase Delaney's and Blair's records from your project files?'
Maggie Brennan repeated her head bob, facing me. 'We didn't do that.'
'Who did?'
'Sherry Fritzshall,' she said.
There was another label I left out-person of interest. It was reserved for people who hadn't earned the suspect label but had demonstrated great potential to make the jump. Sherry Fritzshall had moved to the top of that short list.
'When did she do that?'
'Right after the police finished looking into everything,' Corliss said.
'Why did she do that?'
Corliss shrugged. 'You'd have to ask her. My guess is she was afraid Delaney's or Blair's family would sue the institute, waiver or no waiver.'
'What about Walter Enoch?'
Maggie Brennan fixed her eyes on her lap. Corliss shook his head.
'Wasn't he something? I about fell out of my chair when I read about him in the paper,' Corliss said. 'Squirreling away all that mail. Damn!'
'You keep losing volunteers, you're going to have to start drafting them.'
'Hey, Walter was my mailman,' Corliss said. 'I talked him into volunteering. He went through the intake process, did the video, the initial EEG and fMRI testing, and then he quit before he ever did any of the lucid dreaming training.'
'What did he dream about?'
'Walter had nightmares, not dreams. Nightmares are bad dreams that wake you up screaming at the demons,' Corliss said.
'Suffocation,' Maggie Brennan whispered. 'He couldn't breathe. That's what he dreamed about. He was terrified to go to sleep.'
'That boy was something else,' Corliss said. 'I wonder if he stole any of my mail.'
Corliss thought he was a better dancer than I was a wrestler. He was trying to slip away before I could get a grip, let alone win the best two out of three falls.
'I imagine the FBI will want to know too.'
Corliss's eyes popped. 'The newspaper said that the postal service was responsible for returning the stolen mail. What's the FBI got to do with it?'
'Walter Enoch was murdered. You be sure to hold on to his file.'
Chapter Twenty-one
Corliss's office was in the middle of the floor across from a maze of cubicles that occupied a third of the interior space. Down the hall from his office, away from the elevators, was the entrance to a break room. That's where Janet and Gary were standing when I left Corliss's office. She was lecturing him, her back stiff against the wall, punctuating with her hands, chopping and circling the air, bouncing fingers off his chest. Gary stood at her side, nodding while looking at me.
Janet was full-figured and short enough that she had to look up to make eye contact with Gary as she brushed her shoulder length auburn hair to one side and then poked him to get his undivided attention. He was big and soft, a few strands of his finger-combed, tousled brown hair hanging down his forehead, his cheeks and chin flecked with a patchy scruff.
He broke her rhythm, tilting his head at me. She spun my way, peeled off the wall, and grabbed his hand. They walked past the break room and into an office, closing the door.
I couldn't tell whether they were waiting for me or avoiding me. Either way, I wanted to talk with them. Corliss hadn't wasted any of his charm on them. Some people who are embarrassed by their bosses in front of others are reluctant to trash them behind their back, too afraid their rant will get back to their boss; others can't wait for the chance.
I knocked and opened the door. It was a cramped, windowless office, two desks pushed together, a crowded bookshelf on one wall, file cabinets against another, journals stacked on top of the cabinets, room carved out for a framed photograph of the two of them, Janet in a wedding dress, Gary in a tux. They were sitting at their desks, silent, their faces tense and expectant.
'I didn't get a chance to introduce myself before,' I said, letting the door swing closed. 'I'm Jack Davis.'
Gary looked at Janet, nominating her. 'I'm Janet,' she said. 'He's Gary.'
One wall was papered with their undergraduate diplomas from Indiana and master's degrees in psychology from Wisconsin. The dates on the sheepskins put them in their mid-to-late twenties.