Van Slyke’s expression changed again. Now he looked at David as if David were deranged. “Of course not,” he said with scorn. But then the anger came back: “How did you know about the navy?”
“I told you, I know a lot about you,” David said. “And I want to help you. That’s why I’m here. But I can’t help you until I know everything. I want to know who ‘they’ are. Do you mean the voices that you hear?”
“I thought you said you knew a lot about me,” Van Slyke said.
“I do,” David said. “But I don’t know who is telling you to kill people or even how you are doing it. I think it’s the voices that are telling you. Is that true?”
“Shut up and dig,” Van Slyke said. With that, he aimed the gun just to David’s left and pulled the trigger. The slug thumped into the root cellar door, which then creaked on its hinges.
David quickly resumed his digging. Van Slyke’s mania terrified him. But after a few more shovelfuls, David took the risk of resuming talking. He wanted to regain his credibility by impressing Van Slyke with the amount of information he had.
“I know you are being paid for what you’ve been doing,” David said. “I even know you’ve been putting money in banks in Albany and Boston. I just don’t know who’s been paying you. Who is it, Werner?”
Van Slyke responded by moaning. David looked up from his digging in time to see Van Slyke grimacing and holding his head with both hands. He was covering his ears as if shielding them from painful sounds.
“Are the voices getting louder?” David asked. Fearing that Van Slyke wouldn’t hear him with his hands over his ears, David practically shouted his question.
Van Slyke nodded. His eyes began to dart wildly around the room as if he were looking for a way to escape. While Van Slyke was distracted David gripped the shovel, gauging the distance between himself and Van Slyke, wondering if he could hit him, and if he could, whether he could hit him hard enough to eliminate the threat of the gun.
But whatever chance there had been while Van Slyke had been momentarily preoccupied was soon gone. Van Slyke’s panic lessened and his wandering eyes refocused on David.
“Who is it, who is speaking to you?” David asked, trying to keep up the pressure.
“It’s the computers and the radiation, just like in the navy,” Van Slyke yelled.
“But you’re not in the navy,” David said. “You are not on a submarine in the Pacific. You are in Bartlet, Vermont, in your own basement. There are no computers or radiation.”
“How do you know so much?” Van Slyke demanded again. His fear was again changing to anger.
“I want to help you,” David said. “I can tell you’re upset and that you’re suffering. You must feel guilt. I know you killed Dr. Hodges.”
Van Slyke’s mouth dropped open. David wondered if he had gone too far. He sensed that he had evoked a strong paranoia in Van Slyke. He only hoped Van Slyke’s rage wouldn’t be directed toward him as Angela feared. David knew he had to get the conversation back to whoever was paying Van Slyke. The question was how.
“Did they pay you to kill Dr. Hodges?” David asked.
Van Slyke laughed scornfully. “That shows how much you know,” he said. “They didn’t have anything to do with Hodges. I did it because Hodges had turned against me, saying I was attacking women in the hospital parking lot. But I wasn’t. He said he would tell everybody I was doing it unless I left the hospital. But I showed him.”
Van Slyke’s face went blank again. Before David could ask him if he were hearing voices, Van Slyke shook his head. Then he behaved as if he were waking from a deep sleep. He rubbed his eyes, then stared at David as if surprised to find him standing before him with a shovel. But his confusion quickly changed to anger. Van Slyke raised his gun, aiming it directly at David’s eyes.
“I told you to dig,” he snarled.