Margaret Truman's Experiment in Murder Read Online Free Page B

years after having joined the MPD didn’t go over well with his superiors. They tried to persuade him to stay, but Tatum, whose decisions in life were carefully thought out and resolute, declined their vague promises of great things in his future and left to establish a private practice and to teach. Although he was no longer on MPD’s payroll, he was often called in to help with a particularly baffling case in which his expertise in profiling criminal behavior was needed.
    He sat alone in the faculty lounge and picked up that day’s Washington Post . Dr. Mark Sedgwick’s death received a surprising amount of column inches considering it had nothing to do with government or the presidential election a little more than a month away. Had Sedgwick died as a result of a vehicular accident, it wouldn’t have commanded much space. But the reporter had cited an anonymous source within the MPD who’d told her that it was being considered a homicide and that the driver had, according to eyewitnesses, deliberately aimed for and struck the doctor. Being a diligent reporter, she tracked down those eyewitnesses and got their statements. The headline read: H IT-AND -R UN ON V IRGINIA A VENUE A D ELIBERATE K ILLING? The question mark had been inserted by her editor to cover for not having proof of the allegation.
    Tatum dropped the paper on the table and drew a breath.
    He’d known Mark Sedgwick. They weren’t friends, but they had run across each other numerous times at NIH, where they were colleagues in federally funded experiments, and had sat together on various panels over the years. Tatum had always considered Sedgwick inaccessible, buttoned-up and defensive when it came to his personal life, and his professional life, too, for that matter. They’d socialized only a few times, including a dinner party at Sedgwick’s home years ago. Tatum reflected on that night as he waited for his class to resume.
    It had been a pleasant evening, although he’d soon tired of the conversation. The six male guests were all M.D.’s or Ph.D.’s, which limited the scope of topics, although politics did come up a few times. Based upon Sedgwick’s comments, Tatum assumed that he leaned right on the political spectrum. Far right. He knew that Sedgwick had connections with the intelligence community, although he wasn’t sure of the extent of them.
    Deliberately run over?
    He returned to the classroom, where his students had again gathered. “Okay,” he said, “I know that you’re wondering how this will benefit you with clients or in a courtroom.” He proceeded to ask a series of questions of individual students, going to them and standing close while posing his questions. He also asked them to look straight at him and then to roll their eyes up as far as they could toward the top of their head. After twenty minutes of this, he resumed his place behind his desk and asked, “How many of you have ever been to a nightclub where the entertainment was a stage hypnotist?”
    One hand went up.
    â€œStage hypnotists are very good at quickly identifying the Dionysians in the audience. Their answers to the hypnotist’s questions, as simple and silly as they may sound, provide him with clues to how suggestible certain audience members are. And he watches their eyes.”
    â€œWhy their eyes?” a student asked.
    Tatum went on to explain how the ability to roll one’s eyes up and display a lot of white cornea indicates how suggestible and hypnotizable a person is.
    â€œObviously,” he said, “what I’m telling you represents only the bare bones of the science behind the theory. Doctors who use hypnosis in their practices utilize what’s called the Hypnotic Induction Profile. It was created by one of the giants in the field of medical hypnosis, Dr. Herbert Spiegel. I had the privilege of studying medical hypnosis with Dr. Spiegel at Columbia University