The Door To December Part 43

'It's a common syndrome in cases like this, in almost all all child-abuse cases,' Laura said. child-abuse cases,' Laura said.

Although Laura's voice was for the most part low and even, Dan could hear tension and fear just below the surface. Clearly, she was making a major effort to control the emotional turmoil that Melanie's deteriorating condition stirred in her.

She said, 'There's so much shame shame involved. You can't imagine. Their sense of shame is overwhelming, not just in cases of s.e.xual abuse, but in other kinds of abuse as well. Frequently, an abused child isn't only ashamed of having been abused, but she actually feels involved. You can't imagine. Their sense of shame is overwhelming, not just in cases of s.e.xual abuse, but in other kinds of abuse as well. Frequently, an abused child isn't only ashamed of having been abused, but she actually feels guilty guilty about it, as if she were somehow responsible. See, these kids are confused, shattered by their experiences. They don't know what to feel, except that they know what happened to them was wrong, and by some tortuous logic they come to blame themselves rather than the adults who abused them. Well, after all, they're accustomed to the idea that adults are wiser and more knowledgeable than kids, that adults are always right. G.o.d, you'd be surprised how often they fail to realize they're victims, that they've nothing to be ashamed about. They lose all sense of self-worth. They hate themselves because they hold themselves responsible for things they didn't do and couldn't prevent. And if they hate themselves enough, they withdraw ... further and further ... and the therapist finds it increasingly difficult to bring them back.' about it, as if she were somehow responsible. See, these kids are confused, shattered by their experiences. They don't know what to feel, except that they know what happened to them was wrong, and by some tortuous logic they come to blame themselves rather than the adults who abused them. Well, after all, they're accustomed to the idea that adults are wiser and more knowledgeable than kids, that adults are always right. G.o.d, you'd be surprised how often they fail to realize they're victims, that they've nothing to be ashamed about. They lose all sense of self-worth. They hate themselves because they hold themselves responsible for things they didn't do and couldn't prevent. And if they hate themselves enough, they withdraw ... further and further ... and the therapist finds it increasingly difficult to bring them back.'

Melanie seemed totally insensate now. She lolled limply, silently, almost lifelessly in her mother's arms.

Dan said, 'So you think when she says she hates herself because she's done terrible things, she's really just blaming herself for what was done to to her.' her.'

'No doubt about it,' Laura said emphatically. 'I can see now that her guilt and self-hatred are going to be even worse than in most cases. After all, she was mistreated - tortured tortured - for nearly six years. And it was extremely intense and bizarre psychological abuse, even considerably more destructive than what the average child-victim endures.' - for nearly six years. And it was extremely intense and bizarre psychological abuse, even considerably more destructive than what the average child-victim endures.'

Dan understood everything Laura had said, and he was sure there was much truth in it. But a minute ago, while listening to Melanie, a monstrous possibility had occurred to him, and now he could not dismiss it. A shocking and disturbing suspicion had planted itself with hooks and barbs. The suspicion didn't entirely make sense. The thing he suspected seemed impossible, ludicrous. And yet ...

He thought he knew what It It was. was.

And it wasn't anything he had previously imagined. It was something far worse than all the nightmarish creatures he had thus far considered.

He stared at the girl with a mixture of sympathy, compa.s.sion, awe, and cold hard fear.

After Laura had gone through all the necessary steps to talk Melanie up from her deep hypnotic state, the girl's condition did not change. Both in a trance and out, her withdrawal from the world was virtually complete. They would not be able to elicit any more information from her.

Laura appeared to be almost physically ill with worry. Dan didn't blame her.

They moved Melanie to one of the unmade beds, where she lay in a catatonic state, moving only to bring her left thumb to her mouth so she could suck on it.

Laura called the hospital where she was on staff and from which she had taken a leave of absence, to make certain that no emergencies had arisen that would require her attention, and she checked in with her secretary at her own office to ascertain if all of her private patients had been placed with other psychiatrists for the duration of her leave. Then, not yet having had her shower, she said, 'I'll be ready in half an hour or forty-five minutes,' and went into the bathroom and closed the door.

Occasionally casting a glance at Melanie, Dan sat at the small table and paged through books written by Albert Uhlander, which he'd obtained at Rink's house the previous day. All seven volumes dealt with the occult: The Modern Ghost; Poltergeists; Twelve Startling Cases; Voodoo Today; The Lives of the Psychics; The Nostradamus Pipeline, OOBE: The Case for Astral Projection; The Modern Ghost; Poltergeists; Twelve Startling Cases; Voodoo Today; The Lives of the Psychics; The Nostradamus Pipeline, OOBE: The Case for Astral Projection; and and Strange Powers Within Us. Strange Powers Within Us. One had been published by Putman, one by Harper & Row, and to his surprise the other five had been published by John Wilkes Press, which was no doubt an operation controlled by John Wilkes Enterprises, the same company that owned the house in which Regine Savannah Hoffritz now lived. One had been published by Putman, one by Harper & Row, and to his surprise the other five had been published by John Wilkes Press, which was no doubt an operation controlled by John Wilkes Enterprises, the same company that owned the house in which Regine Savannah Hoffritz now lived.

His first reaction to the colorfully jacketed books was that they were trash, filled with junk thoughts aimed at the same people who faithfully read every issue of Fate Fate and believed every story therein, the same people who joined UFO clubs and believed that G.o.d was either an astronaut or a two-foot-tall blue man with eyes the size of saucers. But he reminded himself that something inhuman was stalking the people involved with the experiments in the gray room, something that was probably more understandable to and believed every story therein, the same people who joined UFO clubs and believed that G.o.d was either an astronaut or a two-foot-tall blue man with eyes the size of saucers. But he reminded himself that something inhuman was stalking the people involved with the experiments in the gray room, something that was probably more understandable to Fate Fate's regular readers, even with all the junk thought cluttering their minds, than to people who, like he himself, had always viewed believers in the occult with smug superiority or outright disdain. And now, since observing the hypnotic-regression therapy session with Melanie, he had an unsettling theory of his own that was every bit as fantastical as anything in the pages of Fate. Fate. Live and learn. Live and learn.

He found the publisher's address on the copyright page. The office was on Doheny Drive in Beverly Hills. He made a note of it, so he could compare it with the address of John Wilkes Enterprises' corporate headquarters, which was one of the things Earl Benton would be looking into this morning.

Next, he went through all seven volumes, reading the dedications and acknowledgements, in hope of coming across a familiar name that would further tie Uhlander to the McCaffrey-Hoffritz conspiracy or perhaps identify other as-yet-unknown conspirators, but he found nothing that seemed to be of value.

He looked at all the books again and chose one for closer examination. It was the volume that, at a glance, seemed the most likely to offer confirmation of the horrible possibility that had occurred to him while he'd been observing the hypnotic-therapy session with Melanie. He had read thirty pages by the time Laura showered, gave Melanie a bath, and declared herself ready to begin the day; in those pages he had indeed found things that lent substance to his worst fears.

The mists were clearing, the mystery dissolving. He felt that he stood on the edge of an understanding that would make sense of the events of the past two days: the gray room, the hideously battered bodies, the fact that the men in that Studio City house had been able to do nothing to defend themselves, Melanie's miraculous escape from that carnage, Joseph Scaldone's death in a locked room, and all the poltergeist-like phenomena.

It was madness.

Yet ... it made sense.

And it scared the h.e.l.l out of him.

He wanted to share his ideas with Laura, obtain her point of view as a psychiatrist. But what he would be proposing to her was so shocking, so horrible, and so hopeless that he wanted to think it through better than he had thus far. He wanted to be very sure of his chain of reasoning before he broached the subject. If what he suspected was true, Laura would need all the physical, mental, and emotional strength she could muster in order to deal with it.

They left the motel and went to the car. Laura sat in back with Melanie, because she didn't want to stop holding, stroking, and comforting the child, and the computer terminal left room for only two people up front.

Dan had intended to make a brief stop at his place to change clothes. His jacket, s.h.i.+rt, and trousers were limp and rumpled, for he had more or less slept in them. However, now that he believed that he was on the brink of a breakthrough in the case, he no longer cared if he looked seedy. He was eager to find and talk with Howard Renseveer, Sheldon Tolbeck, and others who had been a part of the conspiracy. He wanted to confront them with the ideas that had come to him during the past hour and see how they reacted.

Before driving out of the motel lot, he turned in his seat and studied Melanie.

She was slumped against her mother.

Her eyes were open but vacant.

Am I right, kid? he wondered. Is It It what I think It is? what I think It is?

He half expected her to hear the unspoken questions and s.h.i.+ft her eyes toward him, but she did not.

I hope I'm wrong, he thought. Because if that's what's been killing all these people, and if it's going to come after you when all the rest are dead, then there's nowhere you can hide, is there, honey? Not from a thing like that. Nowhere in the world you can hope to hide.

He s.h.i.+vered.

He started the car and drove away from the motel.

The previous night's fog continued to linger in the city. Rain began to fall once more. As each cold drop snapped hard against the winds.h.i.+eld, the frigid impact seemed to be transmitted through the gla.s.s, through Dan's clothes, through his flesh and bones, and into his very soul.

34.

Dan and Laura accomplished nothing of importance that morning, though they didn't fail for lack of trying. The renewed rainfall hampered them because it slowed traffic to a crawl throughout the city. The weather was bad, but the real problem was that the rats who could provide some answers were all deserting the s.h.i.+p: Neither Renseveer nor Tolbeck could be found at work or home. Dan wasted a lot of time tracking them down before he finally had sufficient reason to believe that both men had fled the city for destinations unknown.

At one o'clock, they met Earl Benton at the coffee shop in Van Nuys, as they had arranged the night before. Fortunately, the head wound that he'd suffered at the hands of Wexlersh had not appreciably slowed him down, and his morning had been more productive than Dan's and Laura's. The four of them sat in a booth at the back of the restaurant, as far as possible from the jukebox that was playing country music. They were beside a large plate-gla.s.s window, down which a gray film of rain rippled, blurring the world beyond. The place smelled pleasantly of french fries, sizzling hamburgers, bean soup, bacon, and coffee. The waitress was cheerful and efficient, and when she had taken their order and gone, Earl told Dan and Laura everything that he had uncovered. First thing that morning, he had called Mary Katherine O'Hara, the secretary of Freedom Now, and had arranged to see her at ten o'clock. She lived in a neat little bungalow in Burbank, a place half shrouded in bougainvillea, so typical of the architecture of the 1930s and in such good repair that Earl had half expected to see a Packard parked in the driveway.

'Mrs. O'Hara is in her sixties,' Earl said, 'and she's almost as well kept as her house. She's a very handsome woman now, and she must have been a knockout when she was young. She's a retired real-estate saleswoman. Though she isn't rich, I'd say she's definitely comfortable. The house is very nicely furnished, with several superb Art Deco antiques.'

'Was she reluctant to talk about Freedom Now?' Dan asked.

'On the contrary. She was eager to talk about it. You see, your police file on the organization is out of date. She's no longer an officer. She resigned in disgust several months ago.'

'Oh?'

'She's a dedicated libertarian, involved with a dozen different organizations, and when Ernest Cooper invited her to play a major role in a libertarian political-action committee that he had formed, she was happy to volunteer her time. The problem was that Cooper clearly wanted her name in order to lend some legitimacy to his PAC, and he expected her to be manipulable. But manipulating Mary O'Hara would be about as easy as playing football with a live porcupine without getting hurt.'

Dan was surprised and pleased to hear Laura's laughter. She had laughed so little in the past couple of days that he'd forgotten how deeply affected he could be by her delight.

'She sounds tough,' Laura said.

'And smart,' Earl said. 'She reminds me of you.'

'Me? Tough?'

'Tougher than you think you are,' Dan a.s.sured her, with the same admiration that Earl evidently felt.

Outside, thunder rolled like great broken wheels of stone across the day. Driven by a gusty wind, rain pummeled the window harder than ever.

Earl said, 'Mrs. O'Hara was there almost a year but, like several legit libertarians before her, she finally walked away from it, because she found out the organization wasn't doing what it was supposedly formed to do. It was taking in a lot of money, but it wasn't supporting a wide array of libertarian candidates or programs. In fact, most of the funds were going to a supposedly libertarian research project headed by Dylan McCaffrey.'

'The gray room,' Dan said.

Earl nodded.

Laura said, 'But what was libertarian about that project?'

'Probably nothing,' Earl said. 'The libertarian label was just a convenient cover. That's what Mary O'Hara finally decided.'

'A cover for what?'

'She didn't know.'

The waitress returned with three cups of coffee and a Pepsi. 'Your lunch will be ready in a couple minutes,' she said. She considered Earl's battered face and the bandage on his head, glanced at the bruise and abrasion on Dan's forehead, and said, 'You guys in a wreck or something?'

'Fell up some stairs,' Dan said.

'Fell up up?' she asked.

'Four flights,' Earl said.

'Ah, you're kidding me.'

They grinned at her.

Smiling, she hurried away to take an order at another table.

As Laura unwrapped the straw, put it in the Pepsi, and tried to get Melanie to drink, Dan said to Earl, 'Mrs. O'Hara sounds like the type who would've done more than just walk away from a situation like that. I would expect her to write the Federal Elections Commission and get that PAC closed down.'

'She did write them,' Earl said. 'Twice.'

'And?'

'No reply.'

Dan s.h.i.+fted uneasily in the booth. 'You're saying the people behind Freedom Now have a grip on the Federal Elections Commission?'

'Let's just say they apparently have influence.'

'Which means this is a secret government project,' Dan said. 'And we were smart to get out from under the FBI.'

'Not necessarily.'

'But only the government would be able to pinch off an inquiry by the elections commission, and even they would find it difficult.'

'Patience,' Earl said, lifting his cup.

'You know something,' Dan said.

'I always know something,' Earl said, smiling, pausing to sip his coffee.

Dan saw that Melanie had drunk some of her Pepsi, though not without difficulty. Laura had already used up one napkin, blotting spilled soda from the girl's chin.

Earl said, 'First, let me back up and explain where Freedom Now gets its money. Mrs. O'Hara was only the secretary, but when she began to sense that something was rotten, she went behind Cooper's and Hoffritz's backs and checked the treasurer's records. Ninety-nine percent of the PAC's funds were received as grants from three other PACS: Honesty in Politics, Citizens for Enlightened Government, and the Twenty-second Century Group. Furthermore, when she looked into those groups, she discovered that Cooper and Hoffritz had roles in all of them and that all three of those PACs were primarily funded not, as you would expect, by contributions from ordinary citizens but by two other nonprofit organizations, two charitable foundations.'

'Charitable foundations? Are they permitted to mix in politics?'

Earl nodded. 'Yes, as long as they tread very carefully and if they're properly chartered to support "public-service and better-government programs," which these two foundations were.'

'So where do these foundations get their money?'

'Funny you should ask. Mrs. O'Hara didn't explore any further, but I called the Paladin office from her place and had some of our people start making inquiries. Both of these foundations are funded by another, larger charitable organization.'

Laura said, 'My G.o.d, it's a Chinese-box puzzle!'

'Let me get this straight,' Dan said. 'This larger charity funded the two smaller ones, and the two smaller ones funded three political-action committees - Honesty in Politics, uh, Citizens for Enlightened Government, and the Twenty-second Century Group - and then those those committees contributed toward the funding of Freedom Now, which did virtually nothing with its money but fund Dylan McCaffrey's work in Studio City.' committees contributed toward the funding of Freedom Now, which did virtually nothing with its money but fund Dylan McCaffrey's work in Studio City.'

'You got it,' Earl said. 'It was an elaborate laundering system to keep the original backers well separated from Dylan McCaffrey in case anything should go wrong and the authorities should find out that he was performing a series of cruel and abusive experiments on his own child.'

The cheerful young waitress arrived with their lunches, and they exchanged innocuous comments about the weather while she put the food in front of them.

When she was gone, no one touched lunch. To Earl, Dan said, 'What's the name of the charitable organization at the center of this Chinese-box puzzle?'

'Hold on to your hat.'

'I don't have a hat.'

'The Boothe Foundation.'

'I'll be d.a.m.ned.'

Laura said, 'The same one that supports orphanages and child-welfare groups and senior-citizen aid programs?'

'The same one,' Earl said.

Dan had been fumbling in a coat pocket. Now he produced the computer printout of the mailing list of customers from the Sign of the Pentagram. He leafed to the third page and showed it to them: Palmer Boothe, heir to the Boothe fortune, current head of the Boothe family, owner and publisher of the Los Angeles Journal Los Angeles Journal, one of the city's most prominent citizens, the guiding force of the Boothe Foundation.

He said, 'I saw this last night, in Joseph Scaldone's office, behind that weird occult shop he was running. It amazed me that a hardheaded businessman like Boothe would be interested in the supernatural. Of course even the hardest heads have soft spots. We all have some weakness, some foolishness in us. But considering Boothe's reputation, his enlightened image ... h.e.l.l, it never occurred to me that he'd be involved in something like this.'

'The devil has advocates in the least likely places,' Earl said.