A Fragment Too Far

by Dudley Lynch

  Gideon’s Trumpet had been right about one thing. There were a couple of people who owed me explanations. I’d start with the one I’d once thought I could trust with my life.

  Chapter 56

  The first question I wanted to ask Dr. Malachi Rawls was if he’d taken advantage of my grief seventeen years ago.

  Because when the South Tower had gone down, my fiancée, Mary Austin, was in New York. She and her visiting cousin from San Angelo had been on either the 107th or 110th observation floor.

  Mary Austin and I had been engaged for four months. We’d planned to marry the following summer. She’d have finished her master’s degree in divinity at Union Theological Seminary by then and I’d have finished mine at Yale. We planned to honeymoon in France. Then she planned to work while I did further graduate study at the University of Tübingen.

  Blinded by grief, I’d called the Prophet to tell him I was dropping out of Yale and coming home. He’d persuaded me to stay and finish my degree.

  The following summer, my father announced that his health was forcing him to quit his job. To my disbelief, the Prophet said he was going to ask the county commissioners to appoint me to fill my father’s place. They’d done that. This was why, six weeks later, I’d become the third member of the McWhorter family to pin on an Abbot County star. Those had been emotional times. It had seemed like the right thing to do.

  Professor Rawls had his chair pushed back from his desk. His knees were jammed together to support the book he was holding open with one hand in his lap. The other hand was holding a cell phone up to his ear. When he saw me walk through the door, he greeted me with a quick nod. Leaned forward in his chair. Moved the book to his desk. Concluded his phone conversation with a few words. And laid the phone on his blotter pad.

  I wanted to keep the benefit of surprise on my side. “You’ve been lying to me from the first.”

  I was expecting to see at least mild shock in his face at my bluntness and audacity. That never arrived. What I saw instead was calculation. A look not unlike what I’d learned to watch for in Jude Mayes’s face when he was starting to dissemble.

  Only, this person wasn’t a still maturing man-child trying his best to deceive. If Gideon’s Trumpet was to be believed, this individual was part asp. A master practitioner of the deception game. A dangerous one. One so accomplished at the game that powerful people in far-flung places would stop at nothing to discover what he was planning next. Not to mention those closer to home.

  Professor Rawls’s forehead wrinkled. “What ‘first’ would that be?”

  Good.

  This was where I wanted our contest to begin.

  I could have taken a chair, but I wanted the benefit of the higher ground. I approached his desk, placed both hands on it, and leaned forward. “That tirade you launched on the phone, lo those many years ago. About religion ruining Abbot County’s arteries. About how if fresh blood wasn’t brought in, we were going to be naming our parks after the twelve apostles and the thieves on the cross. And playing golf at the Five Loaves and Two Fishes Country Club.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut as if remembering. “Kind of ridiculous, I admit. But why would those hyperbolic assertions be on your mind now?”

  “Because I now realize what you were doing.”

  “You need to tell me.”

  “You were plotting to get the Abbot County Sheriff’s Department in your hip pocket. Worked too. I came, you saw, you conquered.”

  “Why would I want the sheriff’s department in, as you put it, my hip pocket?”

  Now was time to spring the trapdoor. “Because of the benefits you thought it would bring the Society of Ezekiel’s Wheel.”

  I’d been expecting him to deny he’d ever heard of something called the Society of Ezekiel’s Wheel. Or I’d thought he might make light of it. Call it Ezekiel’s Sewing Circle or some such and profess concern about my mental health. Suggest I talk to a shrink about my paranoia. What I didn’t expect was the torrent of frank admissions that began to tumble from his mouth.

  “Yes, you’re right. I wanted you here. Thought you were a godsend. You may still be. If there was ever a place in America that needs a sheriff who understands the hearts of people religious to the point of being farcical, it was Flagler.

  “It still does. What I didn’t count on was how smitten you’d be with law enforcement. Figured you’d serve out your daddy’s term, maybe win one of your own, and then be off to Germany. I thought by the time you left, Flagler would have matured a little.”

  Would playing dumb keep this informative skein going? I decided to see. “Lots of little podunk towns in America have never gotten around to taking down the Jesus directional signs at their city limits.”

  His head bounced a couple of times. “But only one of them holds the destiny of humanity in its hands.”

  I wrinkled one side of my mouth. “You truly buy into that? I mean, you really think Thaddeus Huntgardner’s purported piece of alien junk puts the world’s major belief systems at risk?”

  He closed his eyes again, left them closed, stayed silent. Then opened them. “Dear Thaddeus. Such a tragedy. Who’d have thought he would literally lose his mind over this?”

  “So you know about his fragment?”

  His smile was tight but not as strained as his voice. “If ever there was a word to be careful with, it’s the word know. You could be asking if I’ve seen Thaddeus’s reputed fragment. Or you could be asking if I believe there is such a thing. Or inquiring if I truly understand his fragment. There’s so much in life to know about knowing.”

  Ah, so the academician was back in the room. “Works for me. You pick one. What can you tell me about this fragment?”

  He actually turned his back on me and directed his gaze out the window. “Very little. Personally, I’m not sure it exists. The whole thing may be a figment of a very diseased imagination.”

  Chapter 57

  I was about to make my first visit ever to the clinic of Dr. Judson Mayes II, primary care physician and gerontologist. And, judging by the growing testimony, someone who saw himself as a world-class ufologist and alien greeter. His offices were close to Flagler General Hospital, so I was going to make one other stop en route. This way, I could relieve a concern that had been keeping me awake at night.

  Had our poisoner or poisoners struck again?

  I needed to brief the hospital’s staff on aldicarb poisoning. And make sure they hadn’t seen any signs of it.

  I could have parked close to the hospital’s ED unloading bay. Gone through the swinging doors. Dodged at least two teams of paramedics whose ambulance rigs were parked near the emergency entrance. And been only steps away from the ED director’s offices.

  But that would have violated my rule. One that had served me well the past sixteen years. Better to look like a little shot who can keep shooting than act like a big shot.

  So I parked in a visitor’s parking spot at the front of the hospital. I was getting ready to walk into the lobby when I spotted a familiar truck pulling into a parking spot not far from me. I slowed my gait and waited to let the lumbering young Judson Thomas Mayes III approach me.

  Only he didn’t. When he saw me, he froze in place and stared. So I closed the gap. “Judson, somebody ill in your family?”

  At first, he didn’t respond. When he did speak, his voice was tremulous. Squeaky. He cleared his throat. “No.”

  “So you’re visiting someone?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t tell me you volunteer here too.”

  “No.”

  “You’re meeting someone?”

  It had been awhile since I’d seen someone look this cornered. He kept half-turning to glance back down the hallway. “Professor Huntgardner.”

  “You’re meeting Professor Huntgardner here?”

  “No, we brought him here. He’s had
a stroke.”

  “Where is he?”

  He glanced over his shoulder again and pointed toward the corridor he’d emerged from. “Intensive Care.”

  We were both walking toward that wing of the hospital when a massive figure rounded into view.

  I’d always thought of myself as tall, but this was the second individual I’d met today who left me feeling malnourished. The look on Jude’s face was a giveaway. At last, I was about to meet the elusive Dr. Judson Thomas Mayes II.

  I knew this was one of those guys who always ended up standing in the middle in group pictures. He was a good four or five inches taller than I was and had to have weighed almost as much as his son.

  But he was sculpted from a different mold. He was bald all the way to the North Pole. Had puffy dimples like Santa Claus. Close-clipped gray whiskers at the bottom of his chin. And the confident air of someone who always expected to be the authority figure in the room.

  The good doctor put a huge arm around his huge son. Gave him a playful hug. Then extended a hand as wide as a ping-pong paddle toward me. Then he retrieved his other arm from around his son and laid that hand over mine too.

  I felt like I was in the grasp of a giant, fleshy clam. He shook hands like a born politician. He didn’t just follow up with a smile. He’d started with the smile. “Dr. Simpson-Mayes tells me you’ve been wanting to talk about airborne teacups.”

  I retrieved my hand and flexed my fingers. They still worked. I had no patience for his feeble joke about flying saucers. “No, sir. Not really. I’m focused at the moment on finding who’s been killing people in our county. That is, once I understand what’s been happening to Professor Huntgardner. Judson tells me you’re just the person I need to talk to.”

  The doctor gave his son a dark look. “Judson’s at his happiest when he can be helpful.”

  I chanced a chuckle, hoping it would defuse matters a bit. “It’s a relief to know where the professor is. Can I assume that he’s okay?”

  This brought a nod from Dr. Mayes. “Just old.”

  “And where exactly is he?”

  “Room one eighteen.”

  “And you’re directing his care?”

  “I am.”

  “So may I kindly ask you to fill me in on what this is all about?”

  His right hand moved to his well-manicured chin and began to stroke it. I recognized the movement as a tic. He was nervous. I’d noticed the same repetitive tendency in his son. “You’ve heard of Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall, Sheriff?”

  I didn’t answer. Didn’t move. Couldn’t imagine where Dr. Mayes was going with that.

  He continued anyway. “It was a unique moment in history when the temples fell. A sad moment for the Jewish people. Unimaginably strange as it is, Flagler is facing a similar crisis.”

  Mayes’s smile had not diminished. Not in the slightest. I was finding that as distracting as his improbable tale.

  “Question is, is Flagler going to be a place where people come for the rest of history to wail? Or a place where they celebrate because this is where the new future of the universe began? Your ten victims at the Huntgardner place are martyrs to the latter possibility, Sheriff. Your job and mine is to see that they didn’t die in vain. And do our damnedest to see that no one else does.”

  When puzzled or stressed, I tended to purse my lips. If necessary, chomp down a bit on the lower one. I had to say something. When in doubt, swing the conversation about. I repeated Mayes’s words. “Martyrs to the future of the universe, eh?”

  “I’m not sure you’re understanding me, Sheriff.”

  “That’s entirely possible, Dr. Mayes. I’ve been having a lot of trouble understanding people lately.”

  “I think we need some place more private, so we can talk.”

  “Couldn’t agree more.”

  I’d been resisting the urge to load both big Mayes men into my patrol car and continue on to my office for in-depth conversations, but I was feeling a distinct sense of urgency. The Mayeses knew things I needed to know, and the quicker I knew them, the better.

  Dr. Mayes hugged his son again and asked him to tell his mother that he’d be back as soon as he could. Then he grasped my arm and pulled me down the corridor like a dentist trying to extract a reluctant molar. “I know just the place.”

  To our benefit, the hospital chapel was empty.

  Instead of pews, folding chairs provided its seating. Mayes moved two chairs out into the open space in front of the modest altar. Turned to face each other. Widened the space between them once, perhaps appreciating for the first time that he needed to show a bit more respect for the law.

  “I’ve been talking a lot. Your turn now,” he said.

  I had to take a moment to gather my thoughts. I was forced to review my options, particularly what I’d do if I needed to slap handcuffs on this huge fellow and he resisted.

  Chapter 58

  I’d been in this chapel several times before. On each of those occasions, it was to deliver bad news to families of a deceased person. My tendency was to do it with dispatch. It felt right to do that with Mayes. This encounter needed to get to the point.

  “Do you think Professor Huntgardner is a serial killer?”

  I was going to have to start renting myself out as a refrigerator. My questions kept causing people to freeze. He struggled for words. “Professor Huntgardner . . . you think . . . Oh, my goodness! No, no, no, no. Dear God, where did that idea come from?”

  “The old warehouse.”

  At those three words, the doctor’s face instantly changed. As the men in the Mayes family tended to do, he was considering whether to equivocate. He started to. “Old warehouse?”

  “The old Cromwell Company building, down by the railroad tracks. It’s owned by one of Huntgardner’s physicist pals. Somebody’s been remodeling it. Somebody with the most depraved mind since the Borgias, from the looks of what’s inside.” The sharp edge to my voice told him I was in no mood to play games.

  “And you think it’s going to be used for what?”

  “Like I say, housing and torturing people earmarked for murder. What I want to know is this: are Huntgardner and his pals behind all of this? And if so, how did they get away with their depraved activities for so long? Without somebody knowing? Without me knowing?”

  “Sheriff, you’ve got this all wrong — so very, very wrong.”

  “Then, Doctor, you need to help me get it right.”

  “Yes, I most surely do.”

  The doctor clenched, unclenched, then re-clenched his fists. Then parked them on his legs, still clenched. “Dear God . . . Dear God . . . Dear God.”

  The theatrics were getting a little old. “Look, Doctor. Some information might be helpful. You seem to be wanting to tell me the warehouse isn’t what I think it is.”

  “Oh, it’s not. Most definitely not.” He seemed to decide he had no choice but to tell it like it was. “It’s about housing and protecting extraterrestrials. Beings that aren’t from our neck of the universe, you know. ETs. Aliens. The warehouse is all about keeping alien visitors safe and secure in Flagler. If and when they come.”

  Expletives were becoming a staple in our conversation. The next one was mine. “Jesus H. Christ! Please don’t tell me you’re serious.”

  He said he needed to explain.

  I agreed.

  Chapter 59

  Mayes started with a single word. “Thaddeus.”

  Not a bad choice of beginnings. Because it sounded like I was about to get the professor’s life story, Reader’s Digest version.

  “Bright lad. Born and raised on a ranch northwest of Roswell, New Mexico. You’ve probably heard how he liked to get up early and watch the sun rise. Because of this, he witnessed the light from the world’s first atomic explosion — the Trinity test. You’ve probably heard that story too.”
<
br />   I gave him a nod.

  “Affected him profoundly. He was about to be a junior in high school. Talked about the experience incessantly to his classmates for the next two years. That was what led to what happened the summer before he left for college. That was the summer the UFO crashed northwest of Roswell. Late July 1947. The flying saucer crash was confirmed by the government, then denied. First told reporters it was a flying disk, then passed it off as a weather balloon.”

  Mayes explained how the military tried to gather all the debris from the crash. One of Huntgardner’s classmates, a teenage girl, lived on a neighboring ranch. One of her daddy’s ranch hands found a strange metal fragment with mysterious writing on it. He believed it was from the crash and showed it to her. Somehow, she’d managed to hide it. By and by, she’d heard Thaddeus describe seeing the Trinity test in one of her classes. Knew he was interested in science. Sought him out. And gave the fragment to him.

  “And Thaddeus did what with it?”

  Mayes gave an outsized shrug. “Wish I knew. But I can tell you he brought it with him when he came to Flagler to go to college. And then spent most of his time over the next sixty years consumed by the object. Obsessing, actually, over what he thought he was meant to do because it had ended up in his possession.”

  I knew my eyes must have gotten wider. “And that was what?”

  “Get Flagler ready for the aliens’ next visit.”

  “Who told him they were coming back? More than that, coming to Flagler?”

  “Nobody that I know of. But eventually in his physics studies, Thaddeus learned about dark matter and dark energy. They intrigued him. He got it in his head that the fragment held an explanation for that.”

  “Surely, he had some reason to think so.”

  “Well, he could spin quite a yarn. Said the fragment was a weird piece of — he called it liquid metal. Metal-like, at least. A sheet of it. Not large. Maybe eighteen or twenty inches square, but nothing like any metal we know about.”