Fifty-six
On the kitchen table stood a two-foot-square multilayered pane of sandwiched glass, held in a steel frame between two three-inch-diameter steel cylinders. Red light shown within a penny-size hole near the top of each cylinder. The device plugged into a wall outlet but also into Paul Jardine’s laptop.
Cammy had been told that lasers scanned her eyes for responses of the irises, recording a continuous measurement of the dilation of her pupils, which assisted in determining the truthfulness of her answers because the pupil involuntarily opened wider when a lie was told. Other changes in the eye, unspecified by Jardine, were also evidently analyzed.
At the start of the session, the lasers also mapped her face as expressionless as she could make it. Thereafter, a continuous record of her facial topography detected the subtlest nuances of expression that researchers had found to be associated with either truth-telling or prevarication.
This laser polygraph had been developed exclusively for Homeland Security. Jardine used it in conjunction with a tightly fitted glove woven full of electronic sensors that measured changes in the body activities that were of interest to more traditional polygraphers: pulse, blood pressure, perspiration.
Before being subjected to the session, she had been provided with a statement signed by Jardine in the presence of a witness, stating that no information obtained herein could be used against her in any court of law and that she was immune from prosecution for any matters touched upon by his questions and her replies.
“We are more determined to get the full truth of all this than we are interested in prosecuting anyone for anything,” Jardine had said.
On the other hand, once she had been granted immunity, if she still declined to be polygraphed, she could be prosecuted under two statutes that, upon conviction, allowed for consecutive sentences totaling as much as four years in prison.
When Cammy had still hesitated, Jardine said, “Look at it this way. If you want to lie your head off, you can do so with no fear of punishment. You’ve got immunity. But if you lie, it’s still worth my time to conduct this debriefing, because I’ll see when you’re lying and I’ll have some hope of deducing why.”
“I have no intention of lying to you.”
“By the time we’ve gotten this far,” Jardine had said, “no one ever intends to lie.”
Now, an hour into the interrogation—which Jardine insisted on calling a debriefing—the blinds were closed over the kitchen window and door. Light came only from the soffit lamp over the sink and the screen of the deputy director’s laptop.
Cammy couldn’t see the low-intensity lasers. They were of a single specific wavelength of light or a narrow band of wavelengths, and all the crests of the individual waves coincided. Although the beams were invisible to her, she sometimes thought she saw shadows tremble or leap in her peripheral vision, where in fact nothing moved.
She had not once lied to him. His questioning was meticulous but unimaginative, therefore tedious. Then one of two moments came that were different from all the rest of the session.
He looked up from his laptop and regarded her through the pane of sandwiched glass. “Dr. Rivers, have you been to the state of Michigan in the past two years?”
“No.”
He returned his attention to the laptop. “Have you ever been to the state of Michigan?”
“No.”
“Have you ever heard of Cross Village, Michigan?”
“No. Never.”
“Have you ever heard of Petoskey, Michigan?”
“No.”
“Have you ever known anyone from Michigan?”
She thought for a moment. “In college, veterinary college, there was this woman from Michigan.”
“Where in Michigan was she from?”
“I don’t remember. We weren’t close friends or anything.”
“What was her name?”
“Allison Givens. We called her Ally.”
“Is she in veterinary practice in Michigan?”
“I assume so. I don’t know. I didn’t stay in touch with her.”
“Have you stayed in touch with anyone from vet school?”
“Yes. A few.”
“Have any of them stayed in touch with Ally Givens?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. They’ve never said anything. What’s all this about Michigan?”
“Please remember, as we discussed, I ask the questions, you answer them, not the other way around.”
Either he had come to the end of that subject or he did not want to pursue it with her curiosity raised. He moved on to her experiences with Puzzle and Riddle.
Almost an hour later, as the session was drawing to a close, he asked a question that was a verbal punch.
“Dr. Rivers, have you ever killed anyone?”
Stunned, she met his eyes through the glass.
He repeated the question. “Cammy, have you ever killed anyone?”
“Yes.”
“Who did you kill?”
“My mother’s boyfriend.”
“What was his name?”
“Jake Horner. Jacob Horner.”
Jardine didn’t bother consulting the graphics on his laptop screen. He knew that she was telling the truth.
“That was on your fifteenth birthday, wasn’t it?”
“Those police records, the court hearing—that’s all sealed.”
“That was on your fifteenth birthday, wasn’t it?”
“Sealed. It’s all sealed. I was a juvenile. Nobody has the right to know about that.”
Jardine’s eyes gave out no light in the gloom, but in the glow of the computer screen, Cammy could see them well enough to recognize his contempt.
He said, “Was it ten years aboard Therapy? Ten years? Was it ten years, Cammy?”
In addition to his contempt, she saw his rich satisfaction in her reaction, her distress.
He had the power to reveal her ten-year ordeal and thereby to ensure that, ever after, when people looked at her, they would see her past in her present and would disdain her or, worse, pity her.
This was his way of guaranteeing her perpetual silence about Puzzle and Riddle, and her meek cooperation.
She stripped off the glove woven full of electronic sensors and threw it on the table.
“That’s it,” she said. “I’m finished.”
“Yes,” Jardine said. “I believe you are completely finished.”