Shadow of a Broken Man

last time I saw him alive.'

She looked shaky. I took her elbow and guided her into one of the chairs. 'We know he was killed in his office,' I said gently. 'Someone must have been there when he arrived. He surprised them, and he was killed. The police report said nothing was taken from the office. Is that true?'

'I really have no way of knowing. I was cooperating with the police, but they just seemed to lose interest at some point along the way. One day they simply stopped asking questions. I called them a few times, but all they would say was that they were working on it.'

'Did anyone else come to see you besides the police?'

'Yes. A Mr…. I can't remember his name. A strange man. It was summer, but he was wearing a heavy overcoat. He was always shivering. He said he was from some government agency, but I don't remember which one.'

I set my drink down and straightened up in the chair. 'About when was this, Mrs. Vahanian?'

'It was August; the second or third week in August, but I can't be sure. That was 1969.'

'What did this man want?'

She pursed her lips. 'He said the government had an interest in the case and he wanted to ask me some questions about Arthur's work.'

'Did he ask specifically about Victor Rafferty?'

'Only once. He seemed more interested in how much Arthur talked to me about his various patients. I told him what I told you: Arthur didn't discuss his work at home. Then he asked me about Victor.'

Lippitt had been touching all the bases, I thought; he'd been retracing steps, determining who knew what about Victor Rafferty.

'The house was broken into a few days after the murder,' Mrs. Vahanian added. 'Did I mention that?'

'No, I don't think you did.' And there'd been no mention of it in the police report.

'The only thing they took was a file Arthur had kept at home on Victor. I reported that to the police, but…'

Her voice trailed off. She sat in silence for a few minutes, then abruptly stood up, once again in control of herself. She looked at me hard. 'It would give me a great deal of satisfaction to see Arthur's killers finally brought to justice,

Mr. Frederickson. I'm happily married now, and, frankly, I'm closer to Khalil-my husband-than I ever was to Arthur. But Arthur didn't deserve to die like that.'

'I agree, Mrs. Vahanian.'

'I don't know whether this has anything to do with the matter, but Victor was drinking a great deal after the accident. It wasn't like him. I saw him once or twice after the accident and he always smelled like a brewery. It was strange, though: he never seemed to be drunk. Even his eyes didn't show it. The only way you could tell he'd been drinking was by smelling his breath. I believe he took to carrying a flask with him.' Her eyes went out of focus again and her voice became distant. 'Poor Victor. He must have been in a great deal of pain.'

'Did you know Mrs. Rafferty?'

'Yes. We weren't really friends, but we occasionally saw each other socially.'

'What was her reaction to the first accident?'

Marianne Vahanian cleared her throat. 'I'll be frank with you: Victor and Elizabeth didn't have a particularly happy marriage. Which is not to say that they didn't love each other; but it's difficult being married to a man of genius. I know. Their work is always their first love. Victor was like that. Anyway, it became even worse after the accident. Elizabeth became increasingly upset-and aloof. She gradually stopped seeing her friends. I tried to contact her a few times, but she didn't seem to want to talk to anyone. In fact, she didn't even come to Arthur's funeral. I haven't seen or talked to her since. I don't even know if she's still in the area.'

'You've been very helpful, Mrs. Vahanian,' I said. 'Is there anything else? Anything at all, no matter how small?'

She gazed down into the depths of her glass, finally shook her head. 'I don't think so,' she said carefully. 'It all seems so … long ago.'

'I understand.'

'There are some books up in the attic,' she said. 'They were all packed in boxes when we moved, and we've never gotten around to unpacking them. Many of the books were Arthur's. I have no idea what's there, but you're welcome to rummage around if you don't mind getting sweaty and dirty.'

I told her I didn't mind getting sweaty and dirty.

Mrs. Vahanian guided me through the cathedral-like house to the second floor, then up a drop ladder to the attic. She pointed to a section filled with packing crates and cardboard boxes, then returned to the cool, air- conditioned world below while I waded through the sea of heat surrounding the boxes.

I wasn't at all sure exactly what I was looking for, and there was always the risk that I'd miss something important just because it had a fifteen-word title. After opening two boxes I estimated that there were more than two thousand books to examine-everything from gothic romances to barely decipherable tomes on brain surgery. Still, I knew I had to make the effort.

Mrs. Vahanian appeared a half hour later with a tall glass of ice-cold lemonade and a towel. I needed both. She looked at the books a little sadly, then left. I wrapped the towel around my neck to absorb the dripping perspiration and went back to work. After an hour I'd worked myself into such a rhythm that I almost missed what I'd been looking for. A large book, bound in black leather, carried the title Parapsychology: An Inquiry and Overview. It filled the bill for a book on psychology with a P in front of it.

I opened the volume and scanned the title page. The first thing that struck me was that this book was qualitatively different from the other medical texts, since it seemed written for the sophisticated layman. It was also massively comprehensive, covering a wide range of topics under the general heading of Extrasensory Perception. There were sections on everything from mental telepathy to occult spirit guides, with additional sections on tarot cards and the use of hallucinogens to alter perception.

It was hard to tell what part of the book Morton had been interested in, as I could see by leafing through the volume that, regrettably, he hadn't been in the habit of underlining.

I toweled off, finished the lemonade, then leaned back against one of the packing crates and began to go through the book more slowly. There was a chapter on psychic healers, from Joshua to Oral Roberts to a man known only as Esteban who could affect the growth of enzymes in glass tubes merely by holding the tubes in his hands. In a long section on Research, the Institute for Parapsychology in Durham, North Carolina, was prominently mentioned. It seemed that the Institute had been carrying on research experiments for many years and enjoyed a good reputation.

There was a chapter on dreams, and another one on telekinesis-the ability to move objects simply by willing it. The book mentioned a Russian woman who could supposedly move small objects simply by passing her hands over them, and another Russian woman reportedly able to tell the color of objects by feeling alone.

And still more: the intelligence of plants, and Kirlian photography-a process for photographing the 'aura' of life energy around living things. The book ended with a section on witchcraft.

It all seemed like an odd grab bag of fact, speculation, and pure fantasia: curious reading for a neurosurgeon; perhaps not so curious for a psychologist-which could tie in with Mary Llewellyn.

Halfway through the book on my second run-through, a five-by-seven manila envelope fell out. I'd missed the envelope on the first scan because it had been compressed tightly and wedged into the binding, as though whoever put it there had wanted to make sure it wouldn't fall out. I opened the envelope and carefully spread the contents on the floor. There were a half-dozen newspaper clippings which seemed to indicate that Arthur Morton had been interested in rather specific areas of parapsychology-namely, mental telepathy and its ramifications.

I was mildly surprised to find from the clippings that a sizable number of scientists took things like Kirlian photography and telepathy seriously. It seemed the Russians were considered pioneers in the field. The Pentagon, not to be outdone, had ordered up a series of experiments of its own; most of the testing had been done at the Institute for Parapsychology in Durham.

There was also a piece of paper that was not a newspaper clipping. The paper seemed to have been folded and refolded a number of times, as if by someone who had been very nervous; the creases were worn thin.