The Truth Chamber E-Book

Robin Brande

• Herausgeber: Ryer Publishing
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

The mind is a mysterious place…

Retired psychology professor and clairvoyant Dr. Winifred Parsons is always game to find out more about—and improve—her psychic abilities.

So when the invitation comes to join a group of visiting British and Russian scholars who want to test their skills in the parapsychology lab, Winnie jumps at the chance.

But she soon finds so much more than she ever bargained for.

And it might just change her life.

Leseprobe

THE TRUTH CHAMBER

WINNIE PARSONS MYSTERIES

ROBIN BRANDE

RYER PUBLISHING

THE TRUTH CHAMBER

A Winnie Parsons Mystery

By Robin Brande

Published by Ryer Publishing

www.ryerpublishing.com

© 2025 Robin Brande

www.robinbrande.com

All rights reserved.

Cover art by Vantuz/Depositphotos

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-952383-72-4

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-952383-73-1

Hardback ISBN: 978-1-952383-74-8

* * *

All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

More from Robin Brande

Secret Code for The Truth Chamber Readers

A Mind for Mysteries

The Secret Juror

The Miraculous Unknown

Life with the Afterlife

About the Author

Also by Robin Brande

1

“Oh, good. You saved me.”

The monthly bookkeeping was something that had to be done, but it didn’t mean Winnie Parsons enjoyed it. It was like cleaning the bathrooms and dusting: must be done, glad to have done it—but not necessarily glad while she was doing it.

But just as she neared the end of reconciling the credit card statement with her bookkeeping program, Winnie felt that familiar tug at the base of her abdomen. Like a small rock dropping in her insides.

A second later, her cell phone rang.

And Winnie knew without looking at Caller ID who was calling.

Amanda Birkauer—Dr. Amanda Birkauer, PhDs in both Psychology and Neuroscience—had been Winnie’s best friend and colleague for many years. Winnie knew a kindred soul when she found one.

Twenty-five years ago, Dr. Birkauer had only recently joined the faculty of the University of Arizona Psychology Department when the annual Brain Day came up on the schedule.

A Saturday event when faculty and students could showcase their most fascinating research projects.

Winnie loved to see what everyone else was working on. She stopped showcasing her own work once she achieved tenure—for reasons those who knew her best understood—but she still loved to come poke around and observe. People were so clever. She loved seeing what everyone was up to. It always inspired her.

Dr. Birkauer had been newly hired as an associate professor after graduating from Purdue and then Oxford.

Winnie had a soft spot for anything British. In another lifetime she would have loved to attend Oxford herself.

In another lifetime, in fact, maybe she had. She didn’t know either way, but she wouldn’t put it past herself.

Winnie knew what Amanda Birkauer looked like, from her picture in the faculty bulletin that month. Winnie scanned the crowd at Brain Day, and quickly found her.

Dr. Birkauer was in her late twenties then, sporty-looking with long brown hair she wore in a high ponytail threaded through a University of Arizona navy blue baseball cap. In fact, she was decked out in all U of A attire: navy blue running pants with Wildcats printed in red down the sides; a bright red UA Wildcats T-shirt; a navy blue windbreaker with UA Faculty printed on the front.

The only way she could have shown more school spirit was by waving a little U of A flag.

To this day, Amanda still typically dressed that same way: running pants, T-shirt, a zip-up windbreaker or hoodie if it was cold, all of them bearing the University of Arizona logo. She still threaded her long brown ponytail, now laced with strands of gray, through her U of A baseball cap. It was as if she had chosen her uniform on the first day of school, and there was no need ever to change it.

“Welcome,” Winnie said, handing her a slice of carrot cake on a plate. “Tell me all about the accents.”

Amanda accepted the cake and dug in with the white plastic fork. She took a bite before answering.

“Gorgeous.”

“Cake or accents?”

“Both,” Amanda said.

“Were you ever tempted to start speaking that way?”

“All the time,” Amanda said, taking another bite of cake. “Couldn’t pull it off.”

“I probably couldn’t, either,” Winnie said. “But I’d want to do it so badly.”

“That’s why I can’t go to Australia,” Amanda said. “Not a chance on that one.”

The two colleagues grinned at each other.

You’ll do, Winnie almost said out loud.

I want to be your friend, also might have slipped out.

But Winnie slipped back into professionalism and formally introduced herself as a fellow professor in the department.

“What subject?”

“Consumer Psychology,” Winnie said.

“Good one. I’d like to hear about that.”

“You first,” Winnie said. “I’m going to need you to come have lunch with me and tell me everything about Oxford.”

“Will do,” Amanda said. “Thanks for the cake.” She gestured around the crowd with her plastic fork. “Anything you think I should know?”

Winnie laughed. “Oh, yes.”

She could have sworn Amanda’s eyes lit up with a mischievous sparkle.

The young professor checked her watch. “Oh, look,” she said, even though it was only a little after nine A.M., “it’s lunchtime already.”

Amanda Birkauer was an onion to get to know. Lots of exterior razzle dazzle, lots of layers, all of them impressive enough, none of them revealed through any kind of bragging.

They would just come out, here and there.

“The year I spent in Spain…”

“When I did that diplomatic internship…”

“That round I did at the morgue…”

“How old are you?” Winnie asked at one point early in their friendship. “Because you have to be at least a hundred to have done all the things you’ve done.”

“Multitasking,” Amanda answered. “It’s amazing what you can pile on.”

It also helped that she only needed about five hours of sleep a night. Winnie was no good without at least seven. She was fifteen years older than Amanda, but it wasn’t a matter of their ages. Amanda Birkauer was obviously born with extra gears.

And it wasn’t just in her professional life. Amanda also had a separate athletic life she didn’t advertise to the rest of her colleagues. But Winnie discovered it quickly enough.

As the two of them stole away from the Brain Day exhibitions and sought out the food tents set up on the grassy mall, Winnie caught a brief glimpse of this new professor’s other life when it suddenly flashed across her mind.

“You’re a runner?” Winnie hadn’t meant to blurt it out, but sometimes her mouth did that.

“Um … kind of.”

And a swimmer. And a rock climber. And a cyclist. And—yes, there she was, sparring at a gym—a boxer.

Winnie did a quick reassessment of the woman walking beside her.

“Triathlons,” Winnie said. It was a statement, not a guess.

Amanda smiled. “You are very good at this. What’s my middle name?”

Winnie was rarely tempted to show off—in fact, just the opposite. She usually kept her abilities as private as possible.

But something about Amanda’s tone made Winnie want to answer. Like they had known each other all their lives, and this was a game they had always played.

“Gable Rae,” Winnie answered, not knowing why those were the names, but certain that they were.

Amanda stopped in her tracks. She stared at Winnie with a look of delight.

“Oh my god,” Amanda said. “Right out of the chute. This is how it works.”

“How what works?” Winnie asked, feeling now like she had said too much. What had gotten into her? When had she become so reckless?

Amanda leaned in. “Do you know why I’m really here?”

Winnie shook her head.

“Come on,” Amanda said. “I bet you do.”

She gave Winnie an expectant smile. Encouraging her. Maybe challenging her.

Winnie saw the cards. One by one, Amanda holding them in front of herself, while a young female student sat across from her at a wooden desk in some small bookcase-lined room. Winnie could smell the books. Leather-bound and old. And there was a lingering tobacco pipe smell, like someone’s grandfather might have just left the room.

Amanda drew the next card and looked at it.

Winnie studied Amanda. Like watching a close-up from a movie playing just for Winnie inside her mind.

Amanda Birkauer looked younger, but not by much. Maybe around twenty-five or twenty-six. She wore a white button-down shirt—an Oxford, Winnie realized—with a thin black tie at her throat. Over both she wore a thick gray wool V-neck sweater. She looked very dapper. A proper English scholar.

The girl sitting across the desk from her had dark curly hair and wore an oatmeal-colored wool sweater with a thick blue scarf that brought out the blue in her eyes. Right now she closed her eyes for a moment and concentrated.

When she opened them again she said, “Star,” in a light and lilting British accent. Quite lovely.

“Correct,” Amanda answered in her plain American accent. She set the card with a star on it face down on the rest of the deck. She drew another card and studied it.

“Wavy lines,” the student said.

“Correct,” Amanda said, and Winnie could see that it was.

The cards were part of an ESP deck. Extrasensory perception. Winnie knew all about them. They were called Zener cards after their creator, Karl Zener. They were the standard in parapsychology research to test someone’s psychic and telepathic abilities.

Winnie had once—foolishly, she realized in the middle of it—volunteered to participate in a study one of her colleagues in the psychology department was conducting to see if the cards really worked.

Winnie didn’t want to do it. She didn’t need to do it. She had known since she was a little girl that her mind operated differently from other people’s.

But … something drew her. Curiosity, she assumed, since that was usually the reason she did anything outside her normal routine.

Winnie had been hiding her clairvoyant gifts for most of her life by then. She had no desire to expose them to anyone, let alone a fellow faculty member. People’s responses could run anywhere from fascination to fear. Usually, fear. Winnie had a very safe, satisfying position at the university, and it made no sense to jeopardize it.

But the colleague running the experiment was a friend, and by the time Friday came along that week, Bernadine was desperate. She had reserved lab space and camera equipment and advertised in all the places they usually did to attract volunteers among students and university staff and faculty and even people in the community—and no one had come forward. Not a single person.

“I can’t fail that completely,” Bernadine said. “I’ve been talking about it for weeks. Please, Winnie, let me get at least one set of data. This is embarrassing.”

So Winnie decided, for the sake of friendship—and maybe at least twenty percent out of curiosity—to give up an hour or two of her Saturday morning to sit at a lab table and be filmed guessing every card wrong.

That was the challenge Winnie gave herself. She was going to be a hundred percent wrong. If she accidentally said the right thing, she lost a point on her own personal scoring sheet. She was going to prove that she didn’t have a single ounce of psychic ability. Bernadine wouldn’t be surprised about that. She would probably expect it.

Psychics were special. They were woo-woo and mystical. Winnie was a just a boring psychology professor. She lived alone in a townhouse a few miles from campus and usually rode her bike into work. No pets. No significant other. No exciting vices. She preferred to spend her Friday nights at home reading a good mystery novel or watching a movie rather than going out drinking with her fellow professors. She wasn’t unfriendly—far from it. She had lots of friends in the department—but she liked her privacy and her quiet. Nothing wrong with that.

And Winnie had learned the hard lesson back in her twenties that no one really wanted to be with someone who might know as much about them as Winnie did. People felt very exposed. Vulnerable. Even though Winnie’s insights into their lives and personalities and feelings could just as easily come from her understanding of psychology as her from clairvoyance.

But the few times she let herself slip and revealed information she had no logical way of knowing, she ended up paying for it with lost relationships. She prided herself on learning from her mistakes. It was a mark of maturity and wisdom.

It was also pure self-protection. Winnie wasn’t stupid.

By the time her friend Bernadine begged her to come sit for the experiment, Winnie was thirty-four and very comfortable with her well-rounded life. She didn’t want or need any more than what she had. And as for love, she had a brother and his children to give her all the family she needed.

But Winnie’s path led her one way.

And on a Saturday morning in a lab in the basement of the Psychology department, someone else’s path led to that exact same spot.

2

He was tall. That was the first thing Winnie noticed. She was five-foot three, average weight, plain, as far as she could tell, and never bothering to try too hard to up her appeal with makeup or any kind of hair style or fancier clothes than what she usually wore to teach: dress pants, button-down shirt, maybe a professional-looking jacket if she wanted to take it up a little. She wore her wavy light brown hair in a simple cut just above her shoulders. Wet it, comb it, good to go.

That Saturday, October 11, the weather was still warm. Tucson’s temperatures wouldn’t start feeling like winter until early December.

Normally on a Saturday at home Winnie would be cleaning and cooking for herself for the week. Maybe head out for groceries or some other errand, but generally just hang out at home in T-shirt and shorts or sweats.

She wasn’t going to dress up for the lab work, but she wasn’t going to show up looking like a slob, either. She chose a pair of jeans, a white cotton T-shirt, and a loose denim overshirt. Nothing special, nothing memorable.

When she saw him, she felt … what else could she call it but a recognition?

He was talking to Bernadine, this tall man with excellent posture wearing khaki slacks, new-looking sneakers, and a short-sleeved light blue button-down shirt tucked in and bordered by a belt.

Winnie saw him and took a small step back. She suddenly felt underdressed. It was so strange. She shook off the thought.

She didn’t think of herself as self-conscious. Or vain. And yet for that moment she wished she wore her regular professor uniform to seem more impressive.

Ridiculous. Stop it.

Bernadine greeted her and resumed describing the experiment to the man. But he wasn’t paying much attention. His warm brown eyes held Winnie’s gaze. She cleared her throat and turned away. “I’ll be back in a minute…”

She escaped into the hallway.

The lab room where they were meeting was smaller than any of the classrooms. It held a row of four wooden tables with chairs on opposite sides. Psychology experiments usually involved a questioner and a subject, sitting across from each other.

Winnie had participated in experiments from both sides of the equation. None of this was new to her. Bernadine wasn’t going to have to explain any of it to Winnie.

But right now, standing in the hallway outside the lab, Winnie felt incredibly nervous. She knew it wasn’t because of the test. It had to be that man.

She blew out a breath. Told herself to calm down. Her heart wasn’t exactly fluttering—that wasn’t it—but it did feel like it was beating a few extra beats.

She almost turned around and biked home right then. This whole thing was ridiculous. She wasn’t a teenager. She wasn’t a girlish ingénue swooning at the sight of some new man.

That wasn’t how Winnie’s heart or mind operated. She was far too practical for that.

But that feeling of recognition. It was real. And Winnie realized that was the problem. This wasn’t the reaction of a normal woman to a tall, handsome stranger.

She was reacting like a clairvoyant.

That was where she had to look.

Winnie closed her eyes. Calmed her heart. Show me, she asked her deeper mind.

What she saw made her eyes spring open.

She wasn’t sure whether to laugh or run away.

But she was sure of something, and that was that her mind had shown her the truth. Winnie never doubted that. Her mind was her most reliable partner and friend. It never, ever lied to her or steered her wrong.

Winnie had made plenty of mistakes over the years, but that was from not following what her mind was trying to tell her.

So she had a choice right now: Stay or go? Accept or run away?

Her legs felt weak. Her palms were sweating. She felt light-headed. It was all so ridiculous.

Don’t be a coward, she heard herself say inside her mind.

Winnie sighed. Things were about to change. Not just a few things—everything.

Winnie steeled herself. Straightened her own posture to match the man’s who stood on the other side of the door.

Then she pulled the door open, let her green eyes lock onto his, and she made herself relax as she let the experiment begin.

* * *

Nine years later, on another beautiful Saturday morning in October, Winnie met Dr. Amanda Birkauer at the Brain Day exhibition.

As they sat at a white plastic table under the food tent, sharing a giant paper plate of nachos—at 9:15 in the morning, even though Winnie had already eaten oatmeal and fruit for breakfast—Amanda still wasn’t saying why she joined the faculty at the University of Arizona. She was still waiting for Winnie to divine it herself.

And Winnie already had. But she wasn’t ready to say it. Because the implications were uncomfortable. She wanted to enjoy this conversation with a new potential friend without adding any layers of conflict.

“I think you know,” Amanda said, giving her a piercing look. “In fact, I’m sure of it.”

Winnie shrugged and pulled out another cheese-smothered tortilla chip. She dipped it in her plastic cup of spicy, excellent salsa. The restaurant the food booth belonged to was one of Winnie’s favorites. Their bean burritos were too big for a regular dinner plate. They had to be served on a platter. Winnie always told herself she’d eat just half and save the other half for later, but somehow she managed to clean her platter every time, and then didn’t need any other meals for about the next two days. Perfection.

Amanda tipped back her baseball cap and leaned across the white plastic table. There were people sitting at a few of the tables nearby, eating heuvos rancheros or giant cinnamon buns or other breakfasty snacks, but none of them were paying attention to Winnie or Amanda. Why would they? A middle-aged woman who was clearly a professor and a younger woman who looked like she might work in the athletic department. Nothing interesting about that. Winnie knew their conversation was completely private.

But even though the risk of exposure was low, she still didn’t want to say it. She knew she liked Amanda Birkauer—instinctively and immediately—but decades of habit had made Winnie keep her secret to herself. It was always safer that way.

Amanda Birkauer gave Winnie an encouraging smile. “Come on. I can tell you’re not the kind of person who’s going to make me beg.”

“Really?” Winnie asked. “How can you tell?” She continued chewing her nachos and avoided Amanda’s eyes.

But already Winnie could feel her defenses weakening. Even asking Amanda that question was a step in the wrong direction.

“Because I don’t like people like that,” Amanda said, “and I already like you. So.” She leaned back again and pulled the brim of her cap snugger against her forehead. Like some kind of sign from a catcher to a pitcher: Curve ball. Fast ball. This batter’s gonna swing.

Winnie sighed. She leaned away from the table now, too, and risked looking into Amanda Birkauer’s lively gaze.

Winnie muttered something.

“If you’re cussing me out,” Amanda said cheerfully, “I didn’t quite hear that.”

“Assistant Director of the Parapsychology Lab,” Winnie said more clearly. She might have made it sound a little like cussing. “They’re reviving it. I sort of knew something about it a few months ago. But I was hoping it wasn’t true.”

“Because…?” Amanda prompted.

“The last time was a disaster.”

Which felt almost like a betrayal to say, since Winnie had met the love of her life there.

But there was no question things had gone quickly downhill after that. Her friend Bernadine eventually quit. It wasn’t a happy memory—at least that part of it.

“We’re going to do it right this time,” Amanda Birkauer promised. “Wait and see.”

Winnie gave a small shrug. It didn’t have anything to do with her. She wished this new professor well, but considering their paths, this might be the last time Winnie shared a meal with her.

“What are your clairs?” Amanda asked.

Winnie could have pretended she didn’t understand the question. But she did. It didn’t mean she had to answer.

“Clairaudience,” Amanda recited, counting them on her fingers, “clairvoyance, clairsentience, clairgustance⁠—”

The sound slipped out before Winnie could catch it. A light snort, the way a kid might snort at a fellow student who had just made a fool of himself in class.

Clairgustance was an inelegant name for a strange ability Winnie only rarely felt: being able to taste something without it being in her mouth. She once tasted a Butterfinger candy bar her brother Steven was furtively eating underneath a scraggly bush near a Circle K in their neighborhood. It was Winnie’s first clue that something was wrong. Then she saw the rest of the mini-movie in her mind: Steven and his friends had all dared each other to shoplift something. This was Steven’s version of the crime.

Winnie confronted her older brother about it the moment he walked through the door of their house.

“I saw you.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“I could taste it. Butterfinger. You’re busted.”

Her family knew all about Winnie’s abilities. It had been an adjustment at first—she couldn’t imagine any family would automatically know what to do with a clairvoyant child—but by the time Steven stole the Butterfinger, he and Winnie’s parents had already learned to take her abilities in stride. No one was going to kick her out or ostracize her just because she could taste chocolate and peanut butter she hadn’t eaten.

It wasn’t so easy explaining to the boyfriend Winnie dated for a few months in college why she knew he was lying about where he had been. She could taste the vodka on his tongue … an hour before he showed up at her apartment and claimed he had just woken from a nap. “Sorry I’m late. I overslept.”

“Um … you didn’t. You were at a bar with your old girlfriend.” Winnie knew it was reckless of her to say it, but she felt too angry and justified to keep it inside. First the taste of vodka had invaded her mouth, then the whole scene played out in her mind. She could see the two of them drinking and pawing at each other. It was only a matter of time. The relationship was clearly over. But Winnie had no patience for any lies.

“What, you followed me?” the boyfriend demanded. “That’s sick. You have a problem.”

He left in a huff and that was that.

So yes, it was one of her clairs. Not one that brought her any pleasure. It wasn’t as if she could taste the scrumptious-looking cinnamon roll that young woman was eating over at the next table.

“You know what I’m going to ask,” Amanda said.

“And I respectfully decline.”

Amanda surprised Winnie then by suddenly standing up and wiping her hands on the paper napkin that came with their nachos and tossing the napkin in a perfect arc that landed in the plastic garbage bin a fair distance away. All in one smooth, continuous move, as if she had practiced it over and over.

Winnie caught a flash of that, too: high school-aged Amanda Birkauer running the basketball court, fans in the stands cheering as she paused and lined up her shot and sent the ball upward in a perfect arc that landed in the center of the basket. It fell with a quiet swish. Nothing but net.

“State champions,” Winnie said. “Two years in a row.”

“You can’t resist me,” Amanda said with a smile. “It’ll be fun. You’ll see. I promise.”

She was right, Winnie didn’t want to resist her: not her friendship, not the fun, not any of it.

Even if it might turn into another disaster.

But somehow Winnie didn’t think so.

And there was something else. Maybe it was because of the way Amanda spoke about Winnie’s abilities as if none of them were a surprise, but Winnie felt in that moment, there in the food tent, the giant plate of nachos nearly polished off between them, that she could let down her guard around this person. That she could actually be honest with Amanda Birkauer.

That was a rare feeling. One Winnie didn’t take lightly or dismiss.

In fact, something about Amanda Birkauer made telling the truth feel like the most relaxing thing in the world.

“It has to be anonymous,” Winnie told her.

“Of course. No problem. We’ll assign you a number. We’ll never use your name.”

It was how Dr. Winifred Parsons came to be Test Subject 2143.

“You already have over two thousand subjects?” Winnie asked when she heard the number. She was both shocked and impressed.

Amanda scoffed. “Never start at zero. You look like an amateur.”

Winnie incorporated that into one of her own Consumer Psychology lessons the following week. Because Amanda was absolutely right. Perception was everything. Telling a customer that thousands of people had already bought this product confirmed them in the wisdom—and coolness—of their choice.

Was agreeing to be one of the parapsychology lab’s test subjects wise? Was it cool?

It had certainly led to knowledge Winnie knew she couldn’t have uncovered herself. Amanda Birkauer and her boss, Dr. Robert Kuhlman, took their time rebuilding what they rebranded as the mind lab, and before long they were able to attract a steady stream of volunteers eager to test their abilities. Volunteers not just from among the University of Arizona faculty and student population, but ultimately from around the world.

Birkauer and Kuhlman took psi abilities seriously. They were clearly doing real science. They didn’t apologize for believing that psychic abilities were real and that they could be measured and—more important, from Winnie’s point of view—improved.

The idea that she could learn more and build her own skills was very, very attractive.

And the fact that she could do it in secret, as anonymous Test Subject 2143—that was the best part.

And now, on the phone with Winnie, saving her from having to finish her boring but necessary bookkeeping, Amanda Birkauer laid out some very tempting bait.

“The Brits are here,” Amanda said. “And a few Russians. I’ve had two days with them already, and I think you’ll love what we’re doing tomorrow. It’s their last day. Are you in?”

Winnie saw a flash of what Amanda had in mind. Little snippets of the experiments on her agenda.

Winnie laughed. “It looks crazy,” she told Amanda, “but yes, I’m in.”

“Not to make you competitive,” Amanda said, no doubt knowing that was exactly what she was doing, “but some of these people are gonna to blow your mind. Can’t wait to get you in a room with them.”

When they hung up, Winnie stared at the bookkeeping program still open on her screen.

She had made a promise to herself three years ago when her whole life took an unwelcome turn that despite her sorrow and the pain, she would still keep her spirit alive.

And part of that, she realized, was the new motto she created for herself: NBB. Never Be Bored. Otherwise her wounded spirit had nothing to look forward to when she woke up every morning. Winnie still wanted to learn. She needed to learn. It had been the constant thread in her life.

She closed out the bookkeeping program. She could finish that tedious chore later.

Thanks to her friend Amanda Birkauer, Winnie was about to engage in another new project guaranteed to help her keep her promise to herself.