He nodded, blowing a smoke ring. “I’m Allen.”

“Have we met before?” Judy asked, hoping the trembling in her voice wasn’t obvious.

“I’ve been here a few times when you or Gary came to talk about the case.”

“But we’ve always talked to you as Billy Milligan.”

He shrugged. “We all answer to Billy’s name. Saves a lot of explaining. But I never said I was Billy. You just assumed it, and I didn’t think it would do any good to tell you otherwise.” “Can I talk to Billy?” Judy asked.

“Oh, no. They keep him asleep. If they let him on the spot, he’d kill himself.”

“Why?”

“He’s still scared of being hurt. And he doesn’t know about the rest of us. All he knows is that he loses time.”

“What do you mean by ‘loses time’?” Judy asked.

“It happens to all of us. You’re someplace doing something. Then suddenly you’re someplace else, and you can tell that time has passed, but you don’t know what happened.”

Judy shook her head. “That must be awful.”

“You never get used to it,” Allen said.

When Sergeant Willis came to take him back to his cell, Allen looked up and smiled at him. “That’s Sergeant Willis,” he said to the two women. “I like him.”

Judy Stevenson left the Franklin County Jail with Turner. “You see why I called you,” Dorothy said.

Stevenson sighed. “I came here sure I’d be able to see through a phony act. But I’m convinced I’ve talked to two different people. Now I can understand why he seemed so different at times. I attributed it to changes of mood. We’ve got to tell Gary.”

“It was difficult enough for me to get permission to tell you. I don’t think Milligan will permit it.”

“He has to,” Judy said. “I can’t carry the burden of this knowledge by myself.”

When she left the jail, Judy Stevenson found herself in turmoil, awed, angry, confused. It was all incredible. Impossible. But somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew, she was beginning to believe it.

Later that day Gary phoned her at home to tell her the sheriff’s office had called to inform him that Milligan had attempted suicide again by smashing his head against the wall of his cell.

“Funny thing,” Gary said. “Looking through his records, I just realized todays February 14, his twenty-third birthday. You know something else … its Valentine’s Day.”

(5)

The next day Dorothy and Judy told Allen it was important to let Gary Schweickart in on the secret.

“Absolutely not.”

“But you’ve got to allow it,” Judy said. “To save you from prison, other people have to be told.”

“You promised. That was the agreement.”

“I know,” Judy said. “But it is essential.”

“Arthur says no.”

“Let me talk to Arthur,” Dorothy said.

Arthur came out and glared at both of them. “This is getting very tiresome. I have a lot of thinking and studying to do, and I’m weary of all this badgering.”