The Invitation-kindle (5 page)

“Then I’ll see you on Sunday for dinner.”

“I’ll be there. Take care.”

“Bye-bye.”

As the First Lady makes her way to the waiting car, she is understandably preoccupied with making sense of what she just heard. The drive back to Pennsylvania Avenue affords her a brief time of quiet, to gather her thoughts. She reasons that only one of two possible explanations can account for her mother-in-law’s strange story: either she had an extremely vivid dream that she’s mistaken for reality, or , Carol thinks,  remembering the nightgown with its unusual burn mark, what Kathryn described actually happened, something that all reasonable people would regard as inconceivable. How likely could that be? Logic and common experience call it into serious question. Slowly and reluctantly, Carol’s mind begins to turn. Uncomfortable considerations begin to seep into the current of her thoughts. Perhaps Kathryn has been alone for too long. It’s not healthy being by yourself too much, Carol thinks. In another moment Carol’s mind blinks, and a consideration more crass than kind begins to take hold. If Kathryn ever tells someone else about this, there could be a political spectacle. The tabloids would paint the sky with it. Added to that, would be the personal ridicule heaped on the President’s mother. That alone would be unbearable. The more she thinks about it, the more problematic it seems. The election is only months away. She will keep her thoughts silent, and hold closely this secret. She regrets not telling Kathryn to keep her story confidential, for what might be called “practical reasons.” Dinner on Sunday should secure that assurance.

Not wanting to needlessly distract her husband from his important work, Carol resolves to keep this knowledge to herself, at least for now.

At FBI headquarters, Frank Slaughter is expecting his first in-depth briefing from his subordinate Tim Colby regarding the Phillip Garrett case. Having been told of the recording that Phillip Garrett provided to Agent Colby, he’s curious as to what it might reveal. As Director Slaughter peruses the file on Mr. Garrett the familiar voice of his secretary is heard.

“Sir, Mr. Colby, and Mr. Pennington are here.”

“Send them in, Connie.”

Mr. Slaughter rises to greet his colleagues as the door opens, and agents Tim Colby and Sid Pennington enter. Mr. Pennington carries with him a copy of
The Yale Shakespeare.

“Hi, Tim.”

“Hello, Sir. This is Sid Pennington. He’s going to guide us through what we’ll be seeing today.”

“Hi, Sid.”

“Hello, Sir, good to be with you.”

As Sid Pennington places the book on the desk, Agent Colby takes from his pocket two DVD’s and places them beside the tome.

“So that’s the surreptitious recording that Phillip Garrett made of Ken Myers.”

“That’s it, Sir.”

“What did our technical people say about its authenticity?”

“They found no evidence that the recording was altered in any way.”

Pointing to one of the DVD’s, Tim Colby says, “This one is the original, and with this one we enhanced the viewing angle, and magnified the image to get the clearest possible view. Other than that, the original recording is unchanged.’’

“Hmm. Before we watch this, let me ask you: how much time did you personally spend with Mr. Garrett?”

“Oh, I’d say  we talked for nearly six hours.”

“That’s enough time to get a feel for someone. What’s your intuition tell you?”

After a thoughtful moment Colby replies, “Sir, I can see nothing in this guy’s background that would call into question his veracity. That’s my intuition,  but I could be wrong.”

“Garrett’s friend, who was with ̓em that night the bridge collapsed…”

“Mike Tanner.”

“He corroborates Garrett’s account?”

“Yes, Sir, in every detail. He lives now in Atlanta. Married, three children, high school math teacher, he’s an assistant Deacon at his church. He’s had no contact with Garrett since college.”

“Is he aware of what Garrett is saying about the President?”

“No Sir, he isn’t.”

Turning his attention to Mr. Pennington, Director Slaughter continues.

“OK, Sid. You’re going to walk us through this.”

“I’ll do my best, Sir.”

“You’re a psychologist.”

“I’m a psychologist by trade, but my specialty is physiognomy.”

“You read facial expressions.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Some people think physiognomy is a pseudoscience, that it’s unreliable. What do you say to that?”

“When people use face reading to infer underlying personality traits, which are psychologically far more complex, then it can be unreliable, but if your aim is to determine a person’s current emotional state, face reading can be very accurate. All individuals use the same muscle groups to express what their feeling. We use what’s known as a facial action coding system to provide a highly accurate predictor of a person’s emotional state. We all recognize a smile as being a friendly gesture, and a frown as a sign of distress. Nonverbal body and facial cues are very revealing. There are exceptions. Poker players make it a practice of controlling their expressions, but most normal people tend to reveal their emotions in their faces.”

“So you think it’s reliable.”

“Absolutely, Emotions are fairly easy to read, because their usually expressed in body language, but a particular emotional response, and how deep that response is varies greatly from person to person.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning we know what emotion a person is experiencing, but not always why. In the case of Mr. Myers we can, I believe, accurately read the range of emotions he experiences when he was reading these plays.”

Reaching for the Shakespeare collection Mr. Slaughter says, “So this is what he was reading. Wow, what’s this thing weigh?”

“Almost ten pounds, Sir. Over fifteen hundred pages,” says Tim Colby.

“He read the whole thing in how long?” Frank Slaughter asks.

“Total reading time was a little under two hours and thirty-eight minutes.”

“How fast is he reading”?

“It varies from between two hundred and three hundred words a second.”

“Could you repeat that, please?”

“Sir, he averaged between two and three hundred words per second.”

“Are you serious? What’s normal?”

“For you and I, much less of course, but a good speed reader can read about twenty or twenty five words a second.”

“So, he’s reading ten times faster than a speed reader.”

“That’s correct, but it’s also what he’s reading. Shakespeare uses phrases that often have double meanings. His use of irony and paradox is uncanny. You can read a play twenty or thirty times and still pick up details you missed,” Mr. Pennington says.

“I may be revealing my ignorance here, but why is that?” Mr. Slaughter asks.

“It’s because the language he uses is rich and highly condensed. It’s just hard to comprehend it quickly.”

“Hmm, okay. Sid, you can start whenever you’re ready.”

As the television is turned on, a palpable sense of expectation comes over the three men. Mr. Pennington then begins his presentation.

“Okay, what you’re first going to see is the empty chair that will soon be occupied by Ken Myers. Nine minutes pass before he eventually sits down.”

“So Garrett must have known that Myers was likely to sit there some time in the course of the evening, correct?” Mr. Slaughter asks.

“When we interviewed Mr. Garrett, he said Myers had such regular habits that he was sure the recording would capture his image.” Tim Colby says, as Mr. Pennington continues.

“What I wanted to show you was this. You see the window in the background?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“We can see it’s still daylight when the recording starts, which was about eight p.m. When the recording is halfway through about an hour later, it’s dark outside. We can see the glare from car headlights, and the corresponding shadows from objects just outside the window.”

“That’s no accident. Garrett said he chose that angle to verify the recording was done in real time,” Colby says.

“This guy Garrett was thorough. He didn’t leave anything to chance,” Director Slaughter says as Mr. Pennington continues.

“I’m going to fast forward until just before he sits down.”

As the three men watch, they see a young man enter the picture, sit in the empty chair, and reach forward for a copy of
‘The Yale Shakespeare
’. At a point where his arm is fully extended, and his face is projected forward, Mr. Pennington freezes the image.

“Sir, at this point I want to show you our facial recognition comparison so we can be sure of just who we’re looking at.”

Manipulating the facial image of the young Ken Myers, Mr. Pennington works the image until a full-frontal view is displayed. Beside it, a second image of President Myers is shown. Merging the two images for comparison, Mr. Pennington explains:  “Sir this second image of the President was taken a year ago, and as you can see they superimpose perfectly. Halfway through the recording someone knocks on the door, and asks for Phillip, Phillip Garrett of course being the roommate of Ken Myers. Myers stops reading, and answers the door. We picked up enough of the audio to compare it with the sound of his voice today, and found the vocal signature patterns to be identical.”

“So there is literally no doubt that we are looking at Ken Myers here,” Mr. Slaughter says.

“That’s right. I wanted to nail this down before we watch the rest of the recording,” Mr. Pennington says, and continues.

“Okay, so let’s begin where we left off. He starts reading the first play,
‘A Comedy Of Errors
,’ which is rather light, as Shakespeare plays go. He exhibits an unmistakable smile for the duration of his reading time which in this case is all of eighty-eight seconds.”

“Wow! He read the entire play in eighty eight seconds?”

“Yes Sir, start to finish,”

As the presentation resumes, the three men sit transfixed by the performance they are seeing. Turning pages every two or three seconds, the actions of Ken Myers appear highly automated, and unnatural, while at the same time the expressions on his face seem normal, and empathetic. After a minute and a half of quickly turning pages, he comes to the end of the first play where he pauses and briefly looks away in subdued laughter. Director Slaughter notes. “Freeze it Sid.”

The recording paused, the Director asks, “Why is he laughing? It seems out of character with what we just saw.”

“I can only speculate, but I think you’re seeing two different aspects of human cognition on display here. First, reading, and assimilating the written material, and secondly comprehension. That is deciphering the meaning of what’s been read. I think that because Mr. Myers has such phenomenal reading skills his mind is putting first priority on assimilating information as quickly as possible, and then comprehending the meaning afterward.”

“So in a sense he performs like a machine, but he responds like a human being,” Mr. Slaughter says.

“Exactly, He does the same thing after reading every play. His expression matches the psychological, and emotional tenor of what he’s just read.”

“What does that suggest to you?” Mr. Slaughter asks.

“It clearly suggests to me that he’s comprehending this material.”

“That’s incredible,” Agent Colby says.

“If that’s not enough, about twenty minutes after starting, he accelerates.”

“What?”

“I know it’s hard to believe. He peaks at about two hundred and ninety words a second.”

“You’re not serious,” Tim Colby says incredulously.

“Yes I am, Mr. Colby. Serious is what I do for a living,” Mr. Pennington says.

In silence the three men look at each other, then Mr. Slaughter says, “How do we know he’s not on some kind of performance-enhancing drug?”

“I’ve considered that, and in my opinion it’s not likely,” Mr. Pennington says.

“Why not?”

“Drugs typically used for that purpose like amphetamines, cocaine, and hallucinogens all increase heart rate and breathing. Eyes become dilated. The nervous system becomes hyperactive. They look wired. Mr. Myers exhibits none of those characteristics. In a strange way, he looks very calm and composed even when he’s turning pages every few seconds. In the middle of the recording he stops reading when someone knocks on the door asking for his roommate. He gets up, walks over to the door in a very relaxed, normal manner, opens it, and very calmly tells the person his roommate isn’t there, then walks back, sits down, and starts reading again. Completely normal behavior, that is until he starts reading again.”

“Hmm, Tim, when you interviewed Phillip Garrett, he never mentioned seeing any drug use by Myers.”

“That’s right, Sir. We asked a number of people from his college days. We found no association with drug use.”

“Hmm, okay, let’s watch it through. I’ll let you know if we need to pause it.”

“Yes, Sir”

As they continue viewing, an unnatural silence comes over them. Rapt in curious amazement, they say nothing for over twenty minutes, when they see Kenneth Myers pause with an expression of pensive sadness after finishing
The Merchant of Venice.
Director Slaughter interjects, “Stop it for a moment Sid. He looks sad. We haven’t seen ̓em look like that before.”

“He just finished
‘The Merchant of Venice’
. It’s not a happy story,” Mr. Pennington says.

“What’s it about?” Director Slaughter asks.

“It’s about a man who borrows money from a Jewish money lender. When he can’t pay it back he finds out he has to forfeit a pound of his own flesh. It’s very anti-Semitic. The Jew is portrayed as a pitiless bloodsucker, who would rather take a pound of Christian flesh than be repaid with money. In the end the Christian is saved. The Jew is humiliated, and forced to renounce his Jewish faith.”

“So it’s a story of persecution,” says Mr. Slaughter.

“That’s essentially what it conveys, in my opinion. What makes the play so anti-Semitic is the dialogue.”

“Give me an example.”

“When two friends of the man who must forfeit a pound of flesh are talking, one says to the other, in effect, I hope it all works out unless, ‘the devil crosses my prayer, for he comes in the likeness of a Jew.”