Barnes had brought in a police hypnotist, but that had availed them little.
Gloria had certainly had a family at some time, and she was sure that she’d had a puppy. The puppy had seemed to have been the best thing in her life. He’d gotten big, he’d become a great dog and his name had been Wolfen. Then, Barnes told them, Gloria had begun to cry, and they’d had to end the session.
They were at the hospital, outside Gloria’s room. Vickie still seemed baffled—willing to help, but baffled.
“A hypnotist got nowhere, but you think that I can do something?” Vickie asked Barnes.
“I think she reacts to you,” Barnes said. “Vickie, this case just seems to grow and grow. Gloria’s a connector. She could remember things today. She could remember them in five years, according to both the doctor and the hypnotist. Unless something jars her memory.”
“And I’m that something,” Vickie said.
Barnes shrugged.
“Okay. But here’s a suggestion. Get me a puppy.”
“What?”
“She reacted to having had a puppy. Did she mention what kind?”
“A yellow Lab.”
“Find me a yellow Lab,” Vickie said.
“I can do that,” Barnes said. “You want to go in with her now?”
“Where’s her doctor?”
“Her primary physician is off today,” Barnes told her. “The on-call doctor is seriously busy with a patient down the hall.”
Griffin shook his head, wondering how Barnes had managed to get another patient to keep the doctor occupied.
“I’ll go in with Vickie,” Griffin said. “Barnes, find that puppy, please. Oh! And what about Milton Hanson?” He’d told Barnes that the man who had apparently been with Helena Matthews when she had last been seen was a dead ringer for the professor.
“I have men looking for him. He didn’t respond at his residence. But don’t worry—we’ll find him.”
Vickie looked at Griffin. “Smarmy,” she reminded him beneath her breath.
Gloria looked better than she had the last time they had seen her—even though it hadn’t been long at all. Her color was better—she didn’t seem as pinched and strung out as she had, either.
She blinked, and then almost smiled when Vickie walked in ahead of Griffin.
And then she said her name.
“Vickie.”
Vickie nodded, smiling. “You remember me.”
“You saved my life. You and...” She paused, looking around and seeing Griffin, but no one else. “The other agent,” she said. “Oh, nothing against you, sir!” she told Griffin. “But I was told that Vickie and her agent friend saved my life.”
“And that’s true,” Griffin assured her.
“We still need to know why you wanted to take your life, Gloria,” Vickie said.
“I don’t want to take my life!” Gloria said fervently. “I don’t know why I did what I did, except that they’re out there. And I know that if we don’t do what we’re supposed to do, it’s worse. He’ll find us.”
“Who will find you?” Griffin asked.
Gloria thought about that. “Satan himself, I think.”
“Satan,” Griffin murmured.
“He told us that we believe in God, and if there is God, then there is Satan,” she said. “And...if we carry out his tasks, we sit with the great and those who are rewarded. If we don’t... I’ve seen what they do. It was better...” She stopped speaking, perplexed again. “And I’m so sorry. I know I should remember things, but I don’t. There are snatches of things that come back, but...” She broke off, shaking her head.
“I think you’re already doing better,” Vickie said pleasantly.
“Yes?” Gloria asked hopefully.
“Yeah. Well, you were living somewhere before you came here. I don’t think that you were staying in Boston. I think you were out by the Quabbin somewhere,” Vickie said.
“The Quabbin,” Gloria said softly. “Yes, the reservoir. We used to do nature walks there.”
“When you were a child?” Vickie asked her.
“No. No...not long ago. We would walk and look for things. For landmarks.”
“By the Quabbin,” Vickie said.
“And do you know what you were looking for?” Griffin asked her.
“There was a hill, a very pleasant hill, with a beautiful valley. And it was all surrounded by rich forests. There was an area where granite struck out of the earth, and it formed a natural podium, and it was where the high priests could speak to their flocks. And it was where...”
“Where what?” Griffin persisted.
Gloria turned to look at him. “It was where they gave to him that which was his. It was where they were before, years before... It’s where he will come now.”
Griffin glanced at Vickie.
“He had you looking for Jehovah?”
“Yes. Jehovah is out there, so near. Jehovah is key. He must find Jehovah. When he is there, he will find the granite high altar. The place where the words were written is there, by the granite. And when he finds it, we will bring Satan to earth, and be richly rewarded,” Gloria said. She blinked and shook her head. “I don’t want a reward. I just remember that there would be a reward. I—I don’t know what I wanted,” she said. “They...they all liked me. It was like...having a home.”
“You were with a group of people. There was someone who was a high priest, and you all flocked around him, right?” Vickie asked.
“Yes, I think so.”
“And you remember walking around the Quabbin?” Griffin asked.
“Yes, we had to find the hill and the granite shelf that made a podium. And there was a patch of land before it. Ezekiel Martin wrote into the earth. He knew that Satan was coming.”
“Satan was coming,” Vickie murmured, “but Captain Magnus Grayson, under the authority of King Charles II, made it first.”
“I didn’t even want Satan to come!” Gloria whispered. She frowned. “But... Martin. I thought that maybe we were related. I think that it was one of my names. That’s what he told me.”
“That’s what who told you?” Griffin asked.
“The high priest. He serves as Satan’s voice and body on earth, while we await the coming.”
“Do you remember where you met the high priest?” Vickie asked.
Gloria stared at her blankly. Then it seemed that her face brightened and new energy filled the whole of her body. “Music! I was at a concert. A concert in the park. It was...a big park. It wasn’t far from that big building that used to be a museum. It was full of all kinds of arms and armor, but now...they moved the stuff to an art museum. But the park isn’t far. There were a number of acts. A really great Beatles group. Some guys who did... Dylan! They did a bunch of Dylan.”
“Guys? Or a brother-and-sister act?” Vickie asked.
Gloria nearly jumped out of the bed. “Yes! A brother-and-sister act. They were very good!”
The duo. Cathy and Ron Dearborn.
She went on to name several of the cover songs the sister and brother did, songs that Vickie had seen them perform.
“So, you met the high priest at a music concert. What did he look like?” Griffin asked her.
“Oh, he...”
Gloria went dead blank again. “I... I remember his voice. I remember him saying that I should join with him, that it was wonderful, that it was sweet music all the time. He had such a way about him, such a smile, such a tone of voice...”
“But you don’t remember what he looked like?”
“Red. He wore red. Like a sheet over his face. No...like a cloak and then a weird headdress kind of a thing, and then—I think it hung from the hood he was wearing.”
“He wasn’t wearing anything like that at a concert, was he?” Vickie asked.
“No...”
“Will you help a sketch artist lay out what you do remember?” Griffin asked her.
“Of course—but it’s just a mask. Or a scarf, or a little sheet. His eyes...they gleam. I think that they gleam all the time. As if hell’s fires are really alive in him.”
Griffin and Vickie looked at one another.