On Harrow Hill

The mini-mart in the Bastenburg gas station was a disheartening exemplar of its type. A shabby seller of beer, cigarettes, lottery tickets, and rewarmed pizza slices, it radiated rural malaise.

Gurney scanned the refrigerated compartments that lined the walls, finally settling on an overpriced pint of orange juice. He then searched the freestanding shelves for something to eat. Finding nothing whose labeled contents didn’t take his appetite away, he went to the counter with his juice.

The young man standing by the register was enormous. His bulging cheeks had reduced his eyes to slits. He had a metal stud through his lower lip. A tabloid was open on the counter in front of him.

The headline on one page said, “Python Swallows Poodle.”

The headline on the opposite page said, “Child-Porn Sting Nets Top Cop.”

The young man looked up at Gurney. “Y’all set?”

“I am. Do you happen to know anything about that storefront a couple of blocks down the road? The sign in the window says ‘Church of the Patriarchs.’”

The young man shook his head emphatically. “Couldn’t say.”

“Do you know anyone who goes to that church?”

The head shaking continued. “I’m not really from here, you know?”

“Me neither.” Gurney paid for the orange juice and left.

By the time he’d put the last few scattered houses of Bastenburg in his rearview mirror, he’d finished half his juice and was beginning to feel revived.

His mind kept returning to Peale’s embalming room and his efforts to imagine Tate’s experience. He realized what he was lacking was a sense of the medical effects of being struck by lightning. There’d surely be a wealth of information on the internet, probably too much. Better to speak directly with someone. But whom?

Fallow would be convenient, but he might slant the facts in his own self-­interest. And pathologists in general might not be the ideal experts on this situation, since they knew mainly about victims who’d died, not survived. He needed to ask someone who would at least be in a position to direct him to the right party.

Rebecca Holdenfield came to mind.

On the positive side, she was an influential psychotherapist, a respected academic, a prolific contributor to the literature on neuropsychology, and she knew everyone. She’d worked with Gurney on several cases, and they had a special personal chemistry. On the negative side, there were occasions when that special personal chemistry could have put his marriage at risk. However, he’d always stopped short of making a serious mistake.

At the next place on the road where the shoulder was wide enough he pulled over, took out his phone, found her number, and made the call.

She answered surprisingly quickly. “David?”

“Hey, Becca, how are you?”

“Busy, as always. What can I do for you?” The sound of her voice brought with it an image of her ironic smile, intelligent eyes, and mass of curly auburn hair.

“I’m hoping you might be able to recommend someone. I’m looking for an expert in a couple of unusual areas—survivability of lightning strikes and sudden revivals from deathlike states.”

“What do you want to know?”

“It’s a long story. You want me to get into the details, or save them for the expert?”

“That could be me.”

“You? I didn’t realize—”

“I have a long-term therapy patient who was struck by lightning—with fascinating consequences. I also happen to know something about shock-induced comas and seemingly magical resurrections. But if you’d prefer that I find someone else—”

“No need for that. If you have time now, I’ll tell you what I’m dealing with.”

He related the basic facts of the case, including Tate’s fall from the church roof, his embalming room revival, and the evidence of his presence at the Russell, Kane, and Mason murders.

“Remarkable,” said Holdenfield after a pause. “So, what do you want to know?”

“To start with, how common is it to survive a lightning strike?”

“Fairly common.”

“With no ill effects?”

“I didn’t say that. The effects in some cases can be catastrophic, in others superficial. The effects can be muscular or neurologic, straightforward or bizarre.”

“Bizarre?”

“A pleasantly bizarre feature might be the appearance of a new talent. An ear for music that the individual didn’t have before, a sudden facility with arithmetic, a greater sensitivity to colors. These benign neural realignments are extremely rare. There could also be a personality change. A new propensity for violence, for example. But that’s also quite rare. Some brain damage with a variety of functional deficits would be more common. The brain is an electrochemical organ. A massive voltage surge can wreak havoc.”

“Okay. Question number two. What might cause a physician to pronounce a living person dead? I’ve read stories of supposed ‘corpses’ coming to life in morgues. It does happen. But why?”