"Not at this point. Not about the actual...allegations. Later, during the final forensic interview, which I conduct, I will. We want to match those responses against not only her individual patterns of brain reactivity, but against those of other individuals who experienced similar events at similar times in their development."

"Okay," I said, thinking it through. "But what if someone did a lot of reading? You know, on child sexual abuse. They'd already know what people who'd been abused were supposed to feel, right?"

Perry's face tightened, but his voice went on smoothly, as though he hadn't caught what I was really asking him. "One of the most useful procedures we will use this next couple of days is during the sleep study. In some people, we can see changes in their brain activity when they're exposed to sounds or smells associated with the original trauma. 'Lying' under those conditions, clearly, is not possible."

"But how do you know- "

"Excuse me for interrupting, Mr. Burke. Look, the brain develops over time. It doesn't just come as this minibrain that grows into a big brain, like a pumpkin from a seed- it grows sequentially and almost all in the first three years of life. First the brain stem, then the midbrain, then the limbic system, and finally the cortex- that part that allows us to 'think.' When we look at the data from all these comprehensive evaluations, we can literally place in what part of the brain the dysfunction resides. This allows us to fix the time, to some degree, when the disrupting event- the trauma- took place.

"See, when adults are traumatized, they will have eventaspecific changes in brain functioning. But when a child is traumatized- while the brain is still in development, still organizing- the trauma acts like a fault line, impacting everything that grows around and over it. The neurobiology of the traumatized adult will be different from that of the traumatized child. The alterations will be more pervasive. And those vulnerabilities may not show up until later in life."

"Like a scar? A scar you can't see unless you know...?"

"More like a substance that fluoresces under a special light, or turns color when exposed to a specific reagent. Like the field test for cocaine...?"

"Yeah, I get it," I told him, meaning it.

A young woman with the face of an Indian princess and braided black hair to match rapped against the jamb of the open door to Perry's office. She was wearing blue surgical scrubs, face set in severe lines. When he looked up, the nurse said: "She got a court order. She's coming to visit him. This afternoon. At three o'clock. What should we...?"

"Set up the Munchausen camera," he answered her. "You know, the fiberaoptic one? Tell Ronnie to monitor. If she makes a move on the kid, you stop her, right then and there, understand?"

"Yes!" The woman flashed a smile, like someone just gave her a present.

Perry turned back to me like he'd never left the track. "The key to understanding the brain is to understand its role in mediating every signal that the organism receives. The brain processes information, and some earlyachildhood damage changes the way the brain works. If you wave at a little baby," he said, waggling his hand to show me what he meant, "the baby coos and giggles, right? But for some babies, when they see an adult's hand raised, you get a startle reaction instead. That's not because the baby has learned a raised hand means a blow; it's because, to that baby, the brain translates that raised hand so it becomes a blow, you see? It's not learning; it's processing."

"And once that's locked in..."

"Yeah, that's right," he said sadly. "It takes an enormous amount of work, highly skilled work, over a long time, to even have a chance of modifying it. Trauma generalizes- that's its nature. So instead of the child being afraid of the man who hurt her, she becomes afraid of all men, understand? The brain takes the baby to a safe place in response to chronic pain and terror. After a while, the baby does whatever it takes to get to that place. Sometimes that means dissociation. Sometimes it means hair pulling."

"Or homicide?"

"Yes. The mystery of life isn't why a tortured child becomes a serial killer- it's why so many children don't. If we could only understand how the brain learns new accommodations...But we do know this: it's some form of interference later on."

"Interference?"

"Some other input. A friend, a counselor- hell, a puppy...the brain develops over time, and even if it's set in motion one way, it doesn't have to continue on that path. Child abuse connects to crime, no question. Abused children are more likely to be arrested than nonabused children. But the overwhelming majority of abused children never get in trouble with the law," Perry said, fury suppressed in his voice. "There's nothing 'inevitable' about it. Anyone who says that abused children are doomed to carry on that same behavior is a hopeless idiot."

"But until they learn new ways, you can see how they react to stuff, right? So the younger the kid, the easier to prove abuse?" I asked him, trying to move him away from the social philosophy to the reason I was there.

"To prove trauma, certainly," he said. "Then comes the investigative component. We have to rule out all other possible causes of the trauma as well. But when we have a history...or physical damage...or a sexually transmitted disease..."

"Or pictures?"

"Photographs?"

"Kiddie porn."

"Yes. But that's relatively rare. We have to rely on other evidence. And that means accumulating a large enough sample from the heart rate monitoring and evoked potential- sorry: the brain wave- studies. Then we apply multivariate computer analysis to crunch all the data- the tests, the interview, the history, everything. There's the ultimate forensic value of our work. We eliminate the impossible, then the improbable, and finally..."

"You nail it."

"Sure. Once you've proved the existence of the trauma, the question becomes, What else could cause this totality of data? When we crossacompare to other, documented cases, the task simplifies radically."

"So when they say kids make lousy witnesses, that they have different memories...?"

"Kids may not be articulate, Mr. Burke. But they are great communicators. Their internals speak volumes- it's just a matter of gathering the data, developing the protocols, training the personnel....It can be done. And we're doing it, right here."

"How much does all this cost?" I asked him.

"In real money?" he shot back.

"What does that mean?"

"The work we're doing on your...client, that's the gold standard. Best of everything. When you include the full week's stay, all the personnel involved, the tests themselves...it's costing your Mr. Kite around fifteen thousand dollars."