The Devil's Analyst (36 page)

This was a set of possibilities he could not explore. He was not a quantum physicist dealing with the strange paradoxes of entanglement and superpositioning. He would not contemplate all of the alternative universes that might coexist and thrive. He was not willing to consider the possibility that he was the outside observer. It could not be his destructive actions that forced this continual branching of good and evil.

Besides, he wasn’t alone. He had his allies, people like Jesus Lopez, who were always so eager to follow up on Josh’s suggestions, even when they weren’t aware of their being manipulated. With Lopez, the man’s novels reflected his character. It’s what attracted Josh and why Josh thought it would be funny when he loaned Pete’s hat for some of Jesus’s recent errands. He could always count on Jesus to say or do whatever Josh requested.

But he wasn’t going to let himself relive decisions and choices involving Pete and Danny and Jesus. There was too much time on his hands in the old camp. He had to stop thinking and start doing. He needed to design the ultimate experiment. It was time to stop skirting around the core matter. Until he knew Danny—fully and completely—Josh could never know who and what he was, nor could he be truly independent again. He needed to understand his own soul.

In this box with the poison ready to pour out, there were two cats, and their names were Danny and Josh. Which was dead? Which was alive?

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Whirlwind

Storm clouds darkened
the horizon. With rains and winds rushing in from the Plains States, the air promised the kind of summer storm that prompted tornados to dance through the woods as they toppled trees in mad patterns and skipped across lakes.

There were many places Danny might want to be. The camp was not one of them. Life marched on—and at the moment it appeared that the way forward no longer required Josh. Actuades had completed its purchase of Premios, placing the company inside an international media conglomerate and making it part of Danny’s past. Orleans landed at a Silicon Valley investment firm, a position likely achieved with the help of Barbara Linsky. Before leaving southern California, Orleans put order to Danny’s finances by liquidating Josh’s various real estate investments, refinancing both the camp and the mansion with proceeds from the sale of Premios, and consolidating various trusts. She counseled Danny to put one or the other of his homes on the market, telling Danny he wasn’t as rich as Josh always claimed.

Still Danny felt financially, if not emotionally, secure, and was surprised to discover that he was happy to have Josh continue to remain missing. Wherever Josh had gone or whatever he had done, Danny felt he no longer needed the man—who seemed to have planned his exit well, covered his tracks carefully, and left behind no sign of ever intending to reappear.

But then Cynthia called.

A worker from Lattigo Industries had been fishing in front of the Wisconsin camp. He saw someone lurking in the windows of the upper floor and alerted Cynthia out of concern for the widow of his dead boss. She requested a home check by the local police, who reported that the house, although now empty, had recently been occupied. Both she and the police thought the same thing: Josh Gunderson had been using the place as a hideaway.

Danny hated the call when it came.

“Danny, I don’t want to have to tell you this but I think Josh is here in Wisconsin,” Cynthia said, “or at least he was here. Maybe you should come back.”

“And do what?” he asked. He really meant it. What good would it do for him to examine the hulking log mansion on the lake? What would he look for? Another hidden room? So what if there were empty TV dinner trays or slept-in sheets? By seeing the signs in person, what would he learn that he didn’t already know? He did not need to reinforce the reality that he never really knew Josh and that the man was not trustworthy. He wanted Josh to flee to another country and be gone forever, because he was happy without him.

It was best to be cautious. Josh was a patient spider weaving a web, but if Danny didn’t fly into the trap, he couldn’t be caught. Already he had followed Barbara’s advice and burned every one of Josh’s files concerning Project Big Stick. That included all of the written notes about the suspected funders of Endicott-Meyers. Danny never told anyone, not even Barbara, about Josh’s documented case for where Oliver’s money was derived. He also destroyed the tapes but only after torturing himself by listening a second time. They provided the strongest reason for Danny to resist returning to Wisconsin, because they fully convinced him of Josh’s insanity.

Cynthia had no patience for Danny’s reluctance to come home but he had avoided telling her anything of what was revealed by the tapes. Danny knew that Cynthia was trapped by her vision of what she would do were she to discover a sign that Chip was still alive, but he knew there was nothing similar about their two situations. She lost a beautiful lover; he uncovered a crazed man.

In the end Danny was too much a son of the Midwest to ignore the call to be responsible, so he returned. The lake house was much as he expected. The kitchen was stocked with easy-to-heat canned goods and the freezer contained a variety of one-serving meals. Dirty dishes remained in the sink, as though the squatter had quickly vacated the place. One of the upper-floor bedrooms looked well lived-in. Dirty towels were scattered on the floor of the attached bathroom. At the same time, the dust was thick throughout the major public rooms of the ground floor, and there was little indication of any recent activity. Apparently the camp had only been a way station on Josh’s overall journey.

After going through every room in the mansion and the servants quarters that were built over the old stables now converted into garages, Danny felt certain Josh was gone forever. Sitting on the stone terrace outside the living room and gazing toward the dock and boathouse, he contemplated seeking freedom by prepping the suspended powerboat in that building. He could motor it out on the flowage and away from the house. Almost twenty miles in length, the flowage had been formed years ago when the Coeur de Lattigeaux River was dammed to generate power. Channels from the resulting flowage offered connections to many of the true lakes, including this one, Clearwater Lake. Danny could speed for miles across these waters and let his thoughts go where they might. Maybe he could decide whether to reach out to his father and try to reconcile He could take his old man fishing. He hadn’t ever invited his father to see the place after its refurbishment. For too long, they had acted as though they lived in different universes. Maybe together they could visit his mother’s grave. That was at least one thing that still connected them. It wasn’t too late.

Danny looked across the lake and watched the dark skies that were transforming the water below into a black mirror. The rising wind was driving the water frothy with whitecaps as the front edge of the rain raced toward him. He headed back into the house because it wouldn’t be long until the storm hit. Inside, he turned on lights, placed a CD in the player, lit the fireplace, poured himself a glass of wine, and sat by the fire. Maybe he should call Cynthia. Instead he stared toward the lake and decided to wait out the storm.

That’s when he saw it—the dark funnel shape descending from the clouds, skirting the opposite edge of the lake, heading northeast toward the border of Wisconsin and upper Michigan, and ripping the forest apart. Outside, the roar of the wind grew monstrous, and rain pelted the window until it completely obscured what lay beyond. It was foolish to sit in the living room near so many enormous panes of glass, as though he was tempting the churning tornado to shift direction and slam into the camp. Danny didn’t move.

The lights flickered and then went out. Danny reasoned the funnel touched the transmission lines that went from Thread toward the power plant in Timberton. If the twister had pulled up the lines, trees were also likely downed across them and it might be hours before the power would come back on. In the distance across the lakes, as the rain abated, he could see a glow rising from the American Seasons complex. Apparently, the resort still had its power. But he was alone in a dark house.

In the quiet dimness
of the swirl of the stormy twilight, he heard a creak and then a voice.

“Reminds one of New Year’s Eve, doesn’t it?” said a familiar voice.

Josh.

“Were you looking for me?” he asked. “I had to move out when someone sent the cops to check on the place. But I couldn’t leave entirely. I figured eventually you would show up. Wanted to be here when you did. And now here you are.”

Danny said nothing.

“I know you found my room in Los Feliz,” Josh said. “Did you like what you found?”

Danny wondered if he was safe, but if not, where could he flee? Could he get to the car? If only he had already placed that boat in the water. Even in this storm, he would rather be on the lake than in this room with Josh.

Josh seemed not to care. “I just need you to know something. There’s one thing left to discover, and that’s why I’m here. Everything I’ve ever done is for you. You believe that, don’t you? I wanted to give you everything you could ever want. A career. Money. Friends. A lover.”

Danny felt unreasonable hope.

“Know why? Because if you didn’t have everything, I couldn’t take it away.” And Josh laughed.

Hope vanished. “Who are you?” he asked.

“I am your nemesis,” and Josh laughed again.

Danny remembered some Greek myth about Nemesis and Narcissus. He seemed to recall that it didn’t end well. “Do you think you can break me? Are you hoping I will commit suicide? Is that what you want?”

As Josh sat on the chair across from Danny, he looked at him in a way that Danny once would have considered an expression of love, but now he wondered what it really meant. Josh smiled sadly, “Don’t you think suicide is best left to your mother?”

“Don’t bring my mom into this.” Danny almost shouted, surprised at how much it stung to hear his mother mentioned.

“What do they say? ‘Like mother, like son.’ Genes run deep.”

Danny wanted no more of this. “I can’t believe that I never knew who you really were. Maybe if none of this happened, I never would have. But you would never have let that happen, would you? You made sure I discovered the real you, didn’t you? So now I know what you are: a killer.”

Josh didn’t protest. “My goal isn’t to make you know who I am. It’s just the opposite. I want to make sure you know who you are. I need you to look into the mirror and see yourself for who you really are. Listen up. This is who you are: Your mother’s son. Pete’s special boy. Oliver’s plaything. You’re a fraud.”

“Shut up! This is about you. Not me. You’re the crazy one . . . the criminal . . . the terrorist. I read your notes and listened to your tapes.”

“Funny the words you chose. Terrorist. Killer.”

Danny suddenly felt wary. Something had shifted and he remembered how he feared the house was a giant trap, but he couldn’t keep himself from asking, “What do you mean?”

From the way Josh leaned back against the chair, Danny knew that he wanted to be asked that very question. Josh pointed toward the goblet that Danny had set on the coffee table. “I’m getting a glass of that wine. My story might take a while.”

Again, Danny debated fleeing. Could he outrace Josh in this rain and make it somewhere safe? Why hadn’t he invited Cynthia over?

“Do you still carry around that picture of you as a baby with your mother?” Without thinking, Danny nodded his head to indicate yes. “Remember that other woman? The one you said was your mother’s friend?” Again without wanting to, he agreed.

“Her name was Pauline Newmann. You probably knew that. Did you know that she grew up in the same town as your mom, and that she was her dearest friend? Did your dad ever tell you that?”

Josh knew that Danny’s dad never talked about the past, especially not when it came to his dead wife.

“I bet he never said a word about how Pauline died, did he? Let me tell you the unhappy story. She was blown up on Christmas Eve in 1968 when a terrorist bombed a building at Bremen College where she worked, the same place your mother worked. An anti-war protest, and she was the one who died. Not a politician. Not an army general. No, your mother’s friend. At Bremen College in Milwaukee where your parents lived in 1968, the year you were born.”

Danny felt uncertain. He should know about Pauline. He still carried a photo of his mother and her but he had just been born then. Maybe his dad had mentioned it. Danny felt shaky, reminded of the day he discovered his mother was dead.

“I bet no one ever told you about your mom’s role in that. Did you ever hear that she was part of the anti-Vietnam War group that claimed responsibility for the bombing? The FBI always thought she was the one who set it in motion, but they could never prove it. But she was. She was the one responsible for killing her best friend. Maybe that’s why she committed suicide. Maybe she just felt guilty.”

“You don’t know that,” Danny’s voice had sunk to a whisper. It couldn’t be true, but yet somehow he felt Josh was telling the truth.

“Yes, I can know it,” Josh replied. “You know how I like to check things out. A while back, I filed a Freedom of Information Act request on your mother’s files. I just wanted to know your past. That’s how I discovered there’s a lot you don’t know about your roots. Maybe it’s time.

“I always thought that you and I were somehow entangled in a way that meant for our lives to be connected. Even if I wanted to exist without you, I couldn’t. But here’s the problem: I can’t exist
with
you either—at least not until we both know who you are and what really defines you. I can’t rest until I know your true colors. Because you are my reality, and I am yours.

“So are you your mother’s son? And if so, how will you react to the truth? I’ve always wanted to tear away everything until we face ourselves in abject nakedness, unable to hide behind anything but our essence.”

Josh walked over to one of the bookshelves and pulled out a book. Behind it, there was a folder that he had apparently hidden. “You can’t guess how much I have been looking forward to this day.”

He handed over the file.

“Sometimes, it seems you can look at yourself and not change. Maybe that mirror has no power on you. But can you look at your mother and still not escape your past? Let’s find out.”

And then Josh said something odd. “I think the cat is finally dead. And it’s time for me to go. Forever.”

And he walked toward the entry, into the darkness, and exited into the storm.