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She repacked her kit, left a tube of numbing cream on the table for Eve, and hurried out.
chapter eighteen
Eve paced the soft, pretty carpet in Dr. Mira’s office, hands jammed in her pockets, head lowered like a bull preparing for the charge.
“I don’t get it. How can his profile not fit? I’ve got him cold on the lesser charges. The little prick’s been playing with people’s brains, reveling in it.”
“It isn’t a matter of fitting, Eve. It’s a matter of probabilities.”
Patient, calm, Mira sat in her comfy, body-molding chair and sipped jasmine tea. She needed it, she mused. The air was foaming with Eve’s frustration and energy.
“You have his confession and the evidence that he has been experimenting with individualized brain pattern influence. And I quite agree he has a lot to answer for. But as to coercion to self-termination, I can’t, in any decisive manner, corroborate your suspicions through my evaluation.”
“Well, that’s just great.” She spun on her heel. Reeanna’s treatment and the hour’s nap had restored her. If anything, her color was high, her eyes overbright. “Without your corroboration, Whitney’s not going to buy the package, which means the PA won’t buy it.”
“I can’t adjust my report to suit you, Eve.”
“Who’s asking you to?” Eve threw up her hands, then dug them into her pockets. “What doesn’t fit, for Christ’s sake? The man’s got a God complex any idiot before vision reconstruction surgery could spot.”
“I agree that his personality pattern leans toward an excess of ego and his temperament has a high caliber of the artiste under siege.” Mira sighed. “I wish you’d sit down. You’re making me tired.”
Eve dropped into a chair, scowled. “There, I’m sitting. Explain.”
Mira had to smile. The sheer drive and unrelenting focus was admirable. “Do you know, Eve, I can never understand why impatience is so attractive on you. And how, with such a high volume of it, you still manage to be thorough in your work.”
“I’m not here for analysis, Doctor.”
“I know. I only wish I could convince you to agree to regular sessions. But that’s another subject, for another time. You have my report, but to summarize my findings, the subject is egocentric, self-congratulatory, and one who habitually rationalizes his antisocial behavior as art. He’s also brilliant.”
Dr. Mira signed a little, shook her head. “A truly fine mind. He was nearly off the scale in the standard Trislow and Secour tests.”
“Good for him,” Eve muttered. “Let’s put his brain on disc and give him a few suggestions.”
“Your reaction is understandable,” Mira said mildly. “Human nature is resistant to any sort of mind control. Addicts rationalize by deluding themselves that they’re in control.” She rolled her shoulders. “In any case, the subject has an admirable, even astonishing skill for visualization and logic. He’s also fully aware, and smug if you will, about those skills. Under the surface charm, he is—to use your unscientific term—a prick. But I cannot, in good conscience, label him a murderer.”
“I’m not worried about your conscience.” Eve set her teeth. “He’s able to design and operate equipment that is capable of influencing behavior in targeted individuals. I have four dead bodies whose minds I believe—no, I know—were influenced to self-termination.”
“And logically, there should be a connection.” Mira sat back, reached over, and programmed tea for Eve. “But you don’t have a sociopath in holding, Eve.” She passed Eve a fragrant, steaming cup they both knew she didn’t want. “As there is, of yet, no clear motive for these deaths, and if they were indeed coerced, it’s my considered opinion that it’s a sociopath who is responsible.”
“So what separates him?”
“He likes people,” Mira said simply, “and wants, quite desperately, to be liked and admired by them. Manipulative, yes, but he believes he’s created a great boon to humankind. One he’ll make a profit on, certainly.”
“So, maybe he just got carried away.” Isn’t that what he called his use of Roarke the night before? Eve thought. He’d just gotten carried away. “And maybe he isn’t as much in control of his equipment as he thinks.”
“That’s possible. From another angle, Jess enjoys his work; he needs to be a party to the results of it. His ego requires that he see, experience at least a part of what he’s caused.”
He wasn’t in the damn closet with us, Eve thought, but was afraid she understood Mira’s meaning: the way Jess had looked for her, at her when they’d come back to the party, the way he’d smiled. “This isn’t what I want to hear.”
“I know that. Listen to me.” Mira set her cup aside. “This man is a child, an emotionally stunted savant. His vision and his music are more real to him, certainly more important than people, but he doesn’t discount people. Overall, I simply find no evidence that he would risk his freedom and his freedom of expression to kill.”
Eve sipped tea out of reflex rather than desire. “If he had a partner?” she speculated, thinking of Feeney’s theory.
“It’s possible. He wouldn’t be a man who would happily share his accomplishments. Still, he has a great need for both adulation and financial success. It might be possible, if he found himself in need of assistance on some level of his design, he entered into a partnership.”
“Then why didn’t he roll over?” Eve shook her head. “He’s a coward; he’d have rolled. No way he’d take the heat for this alone.” She sipped again, letting her thoughts play out. “What if he were genetically imprinted toward sociopathic behavior? He’s intelligent, canny enough to mask it, but it’s simply part of his makeup.”
“Branded at conception?” Mira nearly sniffed. “I don’t subscribe to that school. Upbringing, environment, education, choices both moral and immoral form us into what we are. We are not born monsters or saints.”
