'FBI.'
'Like I said, a cop. You ever make a mistake? Arrest the wrong man? Ruin someone's life, maybe send them to death row?'
'I did my best and trusted the system to get things right.'
'Well, bully for you, brother, because the system sucks. I had nothing to do with that girl's death. The university didn't ask my permission to settle that lawsuit. They gave away their money and my reputation. Now you want to talk about the dream project, I've got time. You want to dredge up what happened at Wisconsin and I'm busy.'
Ask any con on a cell block and he'll tell you he's innocent, that his lawyer screwed up his case or that the guy in the next cell confessed that he did it. Ask anyone who's ever paid big bucks to settle a lawsuit and they'll point you to the fine print that says the settlement is not an admission of liability, which liability is expressly denied, thank you very much, adding that they settled so that everyone could get on with their lives.
Then there are the people who do terrible, inexplicable things and convince themselves they didn't because that's the only way they can look in the mirror. Mixed in with all of them are the ones who are innocent and blameless. Picking those hapless ones out of the crowd is dicey at best. I hadn't made up my mind about Corliss.
'Walk me through the process your volunteers go through from how they are recruited until you're done with them.'
'It's pretty simple. We're not like research programs at universities. When I was teaching at Wisconsin, we got all the volunteers we needed from students who wanted extra credit for participating in psychology studies. They worked for free. Here, we have to pay people, just like the drug companies doing trials. We put ads in the local papers, things like that. They fill out a questionnaire, we do the brain scans, the EEGs, we make the video where they tell us about their dreams, and we teach them about lucid dreaming. That's the quick and dirty.'
'How much do you pay?'
'Couple hundred bucks. Not enough to give up their day jobs. It's more to get their attention. The real hook is the chance to get past their nightmares. That's what these people are looking for. Some of them are flat out scared to go to sleep.'
'You recruit many people on your own, like you did Walter Enoch?'
'Walter was the exception. He was too good a candidate to pass up.'
'Tell me about the videos. How does that work?'
'We got a room here we use. My research assistants shoot most of them.'
'What about Maggie Brennan? Does she take any of the videos?'
He shook his head. 'Maggie isn't what you'd call a people person. Getting subjects to open up about their nightmares isn't in her skill set. She can read an fMRI or an EEG like nobody's business, tell you what part of the brain is lighting up and why, but that's where it begins and ends for her.'
'And you?'
He laughed. 'I am a psychologist. If I didn't like people, I'd have to find another line of work.'
'How many volunteers have you videoed?'
'Not more than a few. I fill in if the research assistants aren't available or if they think the subject is particularly interesting.'
'Like with Walter Enoch?'
'He was a mess, wasn't he? Can you imagine going through life with a face like that? People are afraid to look at you or can't stop staring. What a burden. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying he's better off dead. People can adapt to all kinds of things. But he wasn't exactly living the good life.'
'Can I get a look at the room where you and Walter made the video?'
'Didn't do it here. Walter was real shy. Hard to blame him. It took me forever to talk him into volunteering. He didn't want to come down here, so I said we could do it at his house and he said okay.'
'I watched his video last night.'
'You always go to this much trouble just to trip someone up? If you watched that video you knew where it was made.'
'And I knew you lied to me yesterday when you acted like you didn't know that Enoch had stolen all that mail. You want to be friends? Friends don't lie to friends.'
'Course they do, all the time. Hell, lying is one of the necessities of friendship. Your friend asks how do I look and you say great even if you'd never leave the house looking like that. That's what friends are for. I promised Walter I wouldn't turn him in. That was the only way he'd talk to me. Maybe that was a mistake. If it was, I wasn't going to give myself up to you on our first date. I didn't know you from Adam when you walked in that door or what you were after.'
'I think you had a pretty good idea what I was after. The alert software on your computer told you that I had accessed your files.'
Corliss flattened his palms on his desk, looking first at the floor then at me. 'You do your homework. I'll give you that.'
'Why did Enoch agree to do the video at his house? Having company would have been the last thing he wanted. It would have been safer to do the video at your house or the institute.'
'Doing it at his house was my idea. I wanted to know more about him. Best way was to see where he lived. Took me a while, but he finally trusted me enough to let me in. That was a big step for him.'
'How many times were you in Enoch's house?'
He sat back in his chair, arms crossed. 'Just the one time. When we made the video.'
'Did you take anything from the house?'
'No. Why would I do that?'
His phone rang. He answered and listened, his face turning pale. 'Okay,' he said and hung up. 'Two FBI agents named Kent and Dolan are here. I wonder why they want to talk to me.'
I decided to let Kent and Dolan tell him, not wanting to step on their interrogation. He would tell them about our conversations and I didn't want to give them any more ammunition for obstruction of justice or witness tampering charges.
'Don't worry,' I said. 'You look great.'
Chapter Thirty-two
I could keep some parts of my investigation from Milo Harper but I couldn't let him be blindsided by the FBI. His door was open. He was standing behind his desk, rifling through papers, opening and slamming shut drawers, his hair disheveled, his eyes wild. I knocked and waited.
He looked up, stared, and squinted as if to bring my face into focus, tapping one hand against his thigh. 'What?'
'We need to talk.'
He waved me in. 'Sure, sure.'
He pursed his lips, squinted some more, and pounded his fist on his desk. 'Damn it! I can't remember your fucking name!'
People walking by his office slowed, rubber-necking like they were passing an accident on the freeway. I closed the door and met him at his desk.
'It's Jack Davis. I'm the director of security.'
'I know what you do. I hired you for Christ's sake, but I lost your name. Frustrates the living daylights out of me. Same with this mess,' he said, pointing to the papers scattered on his desk. 'I write myself notes in a little spiral notebook-reminders of what I'm supposed to do, who I had lunch with today and who I'm having breakfast with tomorrow. I used to keep that stuff on my iPhone but I was making so many notes, it was just easier to write them down. I came in this morning and I can't find the damn spiral. I don't know what I did with it.'
I looked around his office. The spiral pad was sticking out from under a pile of papers that had fallen to the floor under his desk. I picked it up and handed it to him.
