Poltergeist

Ben called while I was staring at the pile of inadequate files.

"Hi, Harper. Sorry I didn't call you back earlier—things have been a little crazy here.”

"That's OK. I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions about Tuckman. His former grad assistant told me he'd been let go from UW during cutbacks to avoid having to fire him. Does that sound likely to you?”

"Yes, actually.”

"What cause would they have had?”

"Didn't the assistant say?”

"Yes, but she has a grudge, so I'm interested in someone else's ideas about it. What do you think?”

He made thinking noises for a moment. "I told you I think Tuck's a bit of a jerk, didn't I? So I'm not the most objective person, either. But when I worked with him I thought he was rigging his financial reports. It was small and subtle—he'd find ways of getting things free or cheap but report them as if he'd had to pay for them. He was always doing better financially than the rest of us at the same salary grade, even without a family to support.”

"OK. What about the projects themselves? Would they be cause to unload him, even if they were successful?”

Ben clicked his tongue. "Oh. You heard about that. Umm. . yeah. Tuckman has a documented bad habit of setting up his experiments to push his subjects to the limits. He doesn't just study, he manipulates. One of his subjects was hospitalized a couple of years ago, but it was another subject who caused the accident. Still, he's continued to do studies in stress reactions and justification that lead to some ugly territory.”

"Would he be looking for that in this experiment? This group has a lot of sexual tension and control issues.”

I could hear him shuffling papers. "I wouldn't have thought of it until you mentioned it last time, but, yeah. The original Philip experimenters mentioned that they got more phenomena when the group had some level of internal tension. I had wondered why Tuckman was interested in this, so I looked into it a bit more and I'm thinking that Tuck's real interest is in the stress reactions and how the subjects rationalize and justify their own behavior or the phenomena. If he's on his usual course, the subjects could justify all kinds of nasty things by blaming the poltergeist.”

"What kind of nasty things?”

He blew out a breath, hesitating. "Well. . almost anything. Temper tantrums, assault, theft certainly—if they get high-level PK phenomena, they would claim the poltergeist took the objects, or hurt the person, or broke things, and no one person would bear any guilt for it. It's a collective phenomena, but they would soon reach the stage of separation—where they think of it as separate from them and therefore acting on its own. It's unconscious. So long as the subjects don't acknowledge their own desires as the poltergeist's motive, they let themselves off the hook. If any of them did recognize their motive, they would have to acknowledge control of the poltergeist and, in theory, the phenomena only works when it's an unconscious consensus, so the poltergeist would break down.”

"I can't believe it's so fragile that if one person stops believing in it, it falls apart.”

"No, that's not it. If the group itself stops believing in the collective quality of it, then it breaks down. If they all give up belief, it falls apart. Or if they believe it's no longer collective—that one person controls it.”

"Do they all have to believe that? Or just one of them?”

"I'm not sure. The collective has to break down, though. That's the key.”

"What if the poltergeist didn't break down?”

"Theoretically impossible. But you know more about the impossible than most people, so what do you think?”

"I think I shouldn't say. But I'm not a psychologist and I noticed this, so… I can't imagine what Tuckman is thinking he can get away with here.”

"Probably that's all he's thinking. It's almost grant-review time, so he may just be trying to cover himself. He never had a high opinion of PNU—I was surprised he took the job—so maybe he thinks he can get away with something if he has other things to distract the committee with. He's the kind of guy who doesn't do the right thing because it's the right thing. He does the right thing because he can't find a way to get away with not doing it. He's been skirting the edges of professional censure for a while and if he gets caught with his hands dirty, he'll be out on his butt this time.”

"I see." I ground my teeth on my anger and cursed Tuckman in silence.

"Harper?”

"What?”

"Are you OK?”

"Yeah. Thanks, Ben. I have to go.”

"Um… all right. Hey. We really enjoyed having you to di

"It was nice.”

"Except for the flying pudding part, right at the end.”

I laughed. "Well, he is just a kid.”

"I blame the company he keeps. God knows he doesn't learn that stuff from us. I hope you won't stay away because of Albert and Brian's bad behavior.”

"Don't worry. I'll be around, I'm sure. Now I really have to get back to work. Thanks for the help, Ben." I hung up before I lost my temper.

Damn Tuckman. I had to think that when he'd asked Ben for the name of an open-minded investigator, what he'd meant was someone gullible. I'd thought it when he hired me, but I'd let my own knowledge—and smugness—get in front of better judgment. I was as angry with myself as with him. He appeared to be setting me and Quinton up for his misdeeds and that made me furious. He'd abused my professional trust, lied to his committees, probably defrauded PNU of money on the equipment swap, and engineered an experiment that had gotten someone killed. That was far more important than my pride.

As attractive as ruining the arrogant shrink was, it wouldn't do anything to solve Mark Lupoldi's murder or stop Celia, no matter how much I'd like to see Tuckman hoisted by his own petard. But perhaps I could use all that as leverage. . If he shut the project down, Celia might dissipate before more damage was done, though I didn't have much hope on that score; this poltergeist defied so many of the Philip experiment's conclusions and theories and I wasn't certain what would happen, but I was sure that the project had to end. Now I just had to find Tuckman and push him to do it.

I poked about some more, made more calls, and checked a lot of papers; then I went looking for Gartner Tuckman in earnest.

It took several hours to track Tuckman to a regional psychological association di

He was wearing a suit and looking spiffy and a little pissed off. I made him come to me. When he stopped and glared at me I flicked up the folder full of reports I'd typed, holding it between us where he couldn't ignore it. He gave it a disdainful glance, then transferred the look to me.

"What did you call me out here for?" he demanded.

I felt cold with my disgust. "The sooner I give you this, the sooner I'm shut of you," I replied. "You lied to me, Tuckman. I thought I'd been pretty clear about the fact that I don't like to be made a scapegoat or played for a sucker.”

"I have no idea what—”

"Save it. You don't have a saboteur, you never did, and you know it. You used the heightened phenomena as an excuse to call me in and create cover for your financial misconduct and the way you've lied about your experimental goals.”

"We do have a saboteur!”

I was very calm on the outside. If I bit off my words a little, it was only to stop myself from screaming at him. "No, you don't. The people with the opportunity don't have the skills or the motive. Those with the skills and motive don't have the opportunity. Your own protocols guaranteed that and your recordings prove it. I have checked and double-checked every physical possibility and there is none. Your phenomena are real. What's faked is your books, so you don't want the grant committee breathing down your neck and checking the financial statements too closely. Reviews are, what, next month?”