Let the Devil Sleep

Chapter 18



Pattern Resonance





Cooperstown was situated around the southern end of a long, narrow lake in the rural hills of Otsego County. It was a town with a personality split between quiet money and baseball tourism, between a main street glutted with sports-memorabilia stores and sedate side streets where Greek Revival homes were shaded by century-old oaks. It was Middle America in the middle of town and Brooks Brothers under the tall trees.

The drive from Walnut Crossing took a little over an hour, longer than he’d expected, but it didn’t matter, because he’d left early enough to get to the Otesaga well ahead of his appointment time. He had a notion in the back of his mind that he might like to hear Holdenfield’s speech, or at least part of it.

Late March was not a popular upstate vacation season, especially not for lake resorts. The parking lot was barely a third full, and the estatelike grounds, though perfectly groomed, were deserted.

Gurney believed he could tell how expensive a hotel was by how quickly and smilingly the front door was opened for him. By that measure he concluded that a room at the Otesaga would be well beyond his means.

The elegance of the lobby confirmed his impression. Gurney was about to ask for the location of the Fenimore Room when he came upon a wooden easel supporting a sign with an arrow that answered his question. The arrow pointed down a broad hallway with classical panel moldings on the walls. The sign indicated that the room was reserved that day for a meeting of the American Philosophical Psychology Association.

A duplicate sign stood next to an open door at the end of the hallway. As Gurney approached it, he heard a burst of applause. When he reached it, he could see that Rebecca Holdenfield had just been introduced and was taking her place behind a raised podium at the far end of the room—a high-ceilinged space in which a gathering of Roman senators would not have seemed out of place.

Not bad, thought Gurney.

His quick guesstimate put the number of chairs at about two hundred, of which most were taken. The vast majority of the attendees were male, and most seemed to be middle-aged or older. He stepped inside the room and took an end seat in the back row—an echo of his behavior at weddings and other events at which he felt out of place.

Holdenfield caught his eye but gave no sign of recognition. She smoothed out a few sheets of paper on the top of the podium and smiled at her audience. The expression conveyed confidence and intensity rather than warmth.

Nothing new in that, thought Gurney.

“Thank you, Mr. Chairman.” The smile was switched off, the voice was clear and commanding. “I’m here today to bring you a simple idea. I don’t ask you to agree with it or to disagree with it. I ask you to think about it. What I bring you is a new view of the role of imitation in our lives—and how it affects everything we think, feel, and do. I suggest to you that imitation is a survival instinct of the human species—as indispensable as sex. This simple idea is revolutionary. Imitation has never been classified as an instinct—a tendency to action, driven by the buildup and release of tension. But isn’t that exactly what it is?”

She paused. Her audience was perfectly still.

“Perhaps the most revealing and overlooked fact about imitation is that … it feels good. The process of imitation provides the human organism with a form of pleasure—a release of tension. In everything we do, there is a bias in favor of repetition—because it feels good.”

Holdenfield’s eyes were shining, and her audience seemed entranced.

“We enjoy seeing what we have seen before and doing what we have done before. The brain seeks pattern resonance because resonance provides pleasure.”

She stepped away from the podium, as though to connect more directly with her listeners. “The survival of any species depends on each new generation’s being able to replicate the behaviors of the previous generation. The replication may arise from genetic programming or from learning. Ants rely heavily on genetic programming for their behavior. We rely heavily on learning. Insect brains are born knowing virtually everything they need to know, while human brains are born knowing virtually nothing they need to know. The survival imperative of the insect is to act. The survival imperative of the human is to learn. The insect’s instincts drive it through the specific acts of its life cycle, while our imitation instinct drives us through the process of learning how to act.”

As far as Gurney could judge from the back of the room, everyone was hanging on her words. In this room she was a rock star.

“Within this instinct lie the roots of art, habit, the joy of creativity, the pain of frustration. Much human misery results from the imitation instinct’s being directly opposed by external rewards and punishments. Consider the case of a parent who hits a child to punish him for hitting another child. Two lessons are being taught: that hitting is the wrong way to deal with behavior we find objectionable (since it is being punished) and that hitting is the right way to deal with behavior we find objectionable (since it is being modeled as the way to punish). The parent who hits a child to teach him not to hit is, in fact, teaching him to hit. The potential for psychic damage is enormous when the behavior being modeled is the behavior being punished.”

For the next half hour, it seemed to Gurney that Holdenfield was just repeating in other words what she’d already said. But far from boring her audience, she seemed only to be enthralling them further. Pacing and gesturing dramatically in this grand meeting room, she looked like a woman in the heaven she’d always imagined.

Finally she returned to her position behind the podium with an expression that struck Gurney as nothing short of triumphant. “Therefore I ask you to consider the possibility that the drive to satisfy the imitation instinct may be the most important missing ingredient in our understanding of human nature itself. Thank you for your attention.”

Strong applause spread through the room. A florid-faced, white-haired member of the audience rose in the front row and addressed his fellow attendees with the reassuring voice of an old-time radio announcer. “On behalf of the group, I’d like to thank Dr. Holdenfield for that remarkable presentation. She said she wanted to give us something to think about, and there’s no doubt she did exactly that. A most intriguing concept. In about fifteen minutes, we’ll have our open bar and a nice buffet. In the meantime you have an opportunity for questions and comments. Is that acceptable to you, Rebecca?”

“Of course.”

The “questions” that followed were largely composed of praise for the originality of her thinking and expressions of gratitude for her presence. After twenty minutes of this, the white-haired man rose again, deferentially thanked Rebecca once more on behalf of the group, and announced that the bar was now open.


“Interesting,” said Gurney with a wry smile.

Holdenfield gave him a look that was half assessing, half combative. They were sitting at a small patio table on a veranda overlooking a manicured lawn, dotted with boxwood shrubs. The sun was shining, and the lake beyond the lawn was as blue as the sky. She was wearing a beige silk suit and a white silk blouse. She had no makeup on, no jewelry—with the exception of a pricey-looking gold watch. Her auburn hair was loosely arranged, neither long nor short. Her dark brown eyes were studying him. “You showed up quite early,” she said.

“Might as well learn as much as I can.”

“About philosophical psychology?”

“About you and the way you think.”

“The way I think?”

“I’m curious about how you reach your conclusions.”

“In general? Or do you have a specific question you’re not asking?”

He laughed. “How’ve you been?”

“What?”

“You look great. How have you been?”

“Okay, I guess. Busy. Very busy, in fact.”

“Seems to be paying off.”

“What do you mean?”

“Fame. Respect. Applause. Books. Articles. Speeches.” She nodded, cocked her head, watched him, waited. “So?”

He looked out over the lawn at the shimmering lake. “I’m just remarking on what a remarkable career you’ve put together. First a big name in forensic psychology, now a big name in philosophical psychology. The Holdenfield brand is growing and glowing. I’m impressed.”

“No you’re not. You’re not that impressionable. What do you want?”

He shrugged. “I need some help understanding the Good Shepherd case.”

“Why is that?”

“Long story.”

“Give me the short version.”

“The daughter of an old acquaintance is producing a TV documentary about the families of the Good Shepherd’s victims. Wants me to look over her shoulder, act as sort of a police sounding board for her, et cetera.” Even now, as Gurney was speaking, the ill-defined “et cetera” part was eating at him.

“What do you need to know?”

“A lot. Hard to decide where to start.”

There was a restless twitch at the corner of her mouth. “Anywhere would be better than nowhere.”

“Pattern resonance.”

She blinked. “What?”

“It’s a term you used in your presentation today. You also used it as the title of a journal article you wrote nine years ago. What does it mean?”

“You read that article?”

“I was intimidated by the long title and figured the rest of it would be over my head.”

“God, you’re such a bullshit artist.” She made it sound like a compliment.

“So tell me about pattern resonance.”

She glanced again at her watch. “I’m not sure I have enough time.”

“Try.”

“It refers to the transfer of energy between mental constructs.”

“In the vocabulary of a humble retired detective, born in the Bronx, that would mean …?”

There was a flash of amusement in her eyes. “It’s a rethinking and revision of Freud’s concept of sublimation—the forcible diversion of dangerous aggressive or sexual energy into safer alternative channels.”

“Rebecca, humble retired detectives speak plain English.”

“Christ, Gurney, you’re so full of crap. But okay, we’ll do it your way. Forget about Freud. There’s a famous poem about a young girl by the name of Margaret who experiences grief at the falling leaves of autumn. But the last two lines are, ‘It is the blight man was born for, / It is Margaret you mourn for.’ That’s pattern resonance. The intense emotion she feels at observing the death of the leaves is really coming from a deeper knowledge of her own inevitable fate.”

“Your point being that the emotional energy in one experience can be transferred to another without—”

“Without our realizing that what we’re feeling right now may not be coming from what’s happening now. That’s the point!” There was a proprietary pride in her voice.

“How does all this apply to the Good Shepherd?”

“How? In just about every way possible. His actions, his thinking, his language, his motivation—they fit the concept perfectly. That case is one of the clearest validations of the concept. This kind of mission-driven killing is never about what it seems to be about on the surface. Underneath the killer’s conscious motive, there is always another source of energy, a traumatic experience or set of experiences that occurred much earlier in his life. He has a storehouse of repressed fear and rage generated by that experience. Through a process of association, he connects his past experience with something happening in the present, and the old feelings begin to animate his current thoughts. We’re hardwired to believe that what we’re feeling now is the result of what we’re experiencing now. If I feel happy or sad, I assume it’s because something in my current life is going well or badly—not because some bit of emotional energy has been transferred from a repressed memory into the present. Normally this is a harmless error. But it’s not so harmless when the transferred emotion is a pathological rage. And that’s exactly what happens with a certain kind of killer—the Good Shepherd being a perfect example.”

“Any idea what kind of childhood experience provided all that transferred energy behind the murders?”

“My best guess would be traumatic terror of a violent, materialistic father.”

“So why do you think he stopped after six?”

“Has it occurred to you that he might be dead?” Holdenfield looked at her watch with an alarmed frown. “Sorry, David, I really don’t have any more time.”

“I appreciate your fitting me into your hectic schedule. By the way, during your study of the case, did you ever speak to Max Clinter?”

“Hah! Clinter. Yes, of course. What about him?”

“That’s my question to you.”

Holdenfield sighed impatiently, then spoke very quickly. “Max Clinter is a furious narcissist who believes that the Good Shepherd case is all about him. He’s full of conspiracy theories that make no sense. He’s also a self-indulgent drunk who screwed up his own life and his family’s life in the course of one calamitous evening—and ever since then he’s been trying to connect the dots in any weird way he can to blame everybody but himself.”

“Why do you think he’s dead?”

“What?”

“You said the Good Shepherd might be dead.”

“That’s right. Might be.”

“So why else would he have stopped?”

She uttered another impatient sigh, more theatrical than the last. “Maybe one of Clinter’s wild bullets came too close for comfort or even hit him. Maybe he had a breakdown, a psychotic decompensation. He could be in a mental hospital or even prison, for events unrelated to the shootings. There could be any number of reasons he dropped out of sight. There’s no point in speculating without additional evidence.” Holdenfield stepped away from the table. “Sorry. Got to go.” She gave Gurney a quick farewell nod and started to head for the door that separated the veranda from the hotel lobby.

Gurney spoke to her back. “Is there any reason someone would want to prevent a reexamination of the case?”

She turned and stared at him. “What are you talking about?”

“The young woman who’s making the documentary I mentioned earlier? Strange things have been happening to her. Things that could be interpreted as threats. Or, at the very least, as hostile suggestions that she back away from the project.”

Holdenfield looked perplexed. “Like what?”

“Unauthorized entries into her apartment, personal objects moved, kitchen knives missing and reappearing in places they shouldn’t be, drops of blood, flipped circuit breakers cutting off the lights, a sawed step in the cellar stairs rigged to break …” He was about to mention the whispered warning, but his insecurity about it stopped him. “There’s a chance she’s being harassed for another reason, that the threats are not directly related to the case—but I think they are. Let me ask you something: In the event that the Good Shepherd is still out there somewhere, do you think he’d want to keep the case from being discussed on television?”

She shook her head definitively. “Just the opposite. He’d love it. You’re talking about someone who wrote a twenty-page manifesto and then mailed it to every major media outlet in the country. These psychopaths with societal grudges want an audience. They crave it. They want the importance of their mission to be recognized. By everyone.”

“Can you think of anyone else who might want to get in the way?”

“No, I can’t.”

“So I’ve got an odd little mystery on my hands. I don’t suppose Agent in Charge Trout would be willing to talk to me?”

“Matt Trout? You must be joking.”

“Yeah, that’s me. Old laugh-a-minute Dave. Thanks for your time, Rebecca.”

The perplexed look was still on her face as she turned and went into the lobby.