Walter was so impressed with the expediency of his rookie that he smiled and asked,
“Anything else?”
Because that was already enough to interest Judge Clemens, his question was intended as rhetorical. However, Isaac missed the rhetorical part and added,
“Breaking and entry. Willful damage to the exterior of the house and theft of Gary’s whatever that thing was.”
Walter shot up his hand in a halting fashion and although Isaac had more, he understood the signal.
Walter went into deep thought and Isaac was wise enough to allow the thought process to run its course. Finally, and with dejection Walter said,
“Those are all minor charges that could easily be dismissed at the higher courts. If they have the lawyers that I think they have, it would take months and even then we would not win. Other than the testimony of two kids, we need something substantial to show the judge before he would be persuaded to sign a search warrant.”
Isaac summed it all up.
“Then we have nothing.”
Walter added weight to the disappointment and said,
“We need substantial proof.”
Chapter 47
Just then, that substantial proof walked into the precinct and Edith quickly buzzed Walter’s intercom.
“There is a husband and wife here to see you.”
There was a heavy emphasis on her next words,
“I think you better see them right away.”
Walter explained to Isaac,
“When she gets bossy like that I should snap to and obey.”
Isaac teased,
“Been married too long huh?”
“Sometimes you have to know who the boss really is.”
He then said to the intercom,
“Send them in.”
When the couple entered the precinct Sam looked up and with an expression of surprise ran over and hugged her dad. She asked,
“Dad, what are you doing here?”
Still in full embrace he explained,
“Your mom ordered me to do something and so here I am.”
Sam looked to her mom, who explained,
“For some reason your dad knew you were here and finally decided that I was right, it was time to do something.”
Sam asked,
“But how could he have known we were here?”
“Don’t ask me honey. I gave up a long time ago trying to make sense of what was happening to him. He wanted to come here and so we did.”
Isaac and Walter came out of the office and were introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Jackson. When Walter reached out to shake Gordy’s hand, he was shocked to his very core. Instead of a flesh and blood hand, Walter was inches from grasping what looked like a hand of pure pulsing energy. It wasn’t fear that snapped his hand away but rather shock and surprise. When Gordy spoke, it sounded as if his voice was coming through an echo chamber, mechanical and eerie.
“Now you know why I am here.”
Gloria said,
“No he doesn’t. Show him.”
He opened his jacket and to the shock of everybody in the room, including Grant who was sitting at his desk taking it all in, half of Gordy’s body was glowing and looking as if massive atoms and sparks were twisting and turning in a mad orbit. Like his hand, it was a torso of pulsating energy.
Stunned eyes saw what subatomic particles and atoms might look like through an electron microscope. Gloria explained,
“For days on end he can be normal but for some reason his whole body can go like that and sometimes only half of him like now. He said he can sometimes be in two places at once.”
Gordy looked to Walter and his strange voice continued,
“I heard your interview with Sam and came to help.”
After seeing the phenomenon of a man half joined with the material of the universe, somehow the question of how he heard his daughter’s voice from the precinct was a mote mystery. Except for Grant who stayed at his desk but attentive to every word, the rest sat at the big table and listened to Gordy’s incredible story of how the crystal cave was discovered and what happened to them when walking into it. Voices from solid stone walls and places that had no gravity were stories only Sam and Gary did not find impossible to believe.
When it was finished, Gordy looked to Walter and said,
“So now you know the whole truth of what is really happening in the Factory. Sam was right. The three missing children are in the lower bowels of that hell on earth.”
Isaac asked,
“Why didn’t you seek medical help or come to us?”
Gordy laughed and said,
“Medical help? Does it look like medicine can help me? They think I’m dead. Knowing that they would do anything to keep their secret, including killing my family, and me I hid out at home. The only thing that can help me is the destruction of those crystals. I don’t know how but the combination of the underground river surging through the crystals and the copper in the ground created a strange energy. My coworkers died in that cave. Although looking at me, you have to wonder if I didn’t die as well. The people up there are trying to strengthen that energy by using a brain wave energy of specific kilohertz transmitted by those special kids. They are trying to control the energy and open up another dimension.”
Isaac was the first to accept the story. He said,
“There is some scientific validity here. Wherever fast moving water crashes into boulders, a minuscule measure of electrical field is created. If you couple that with crystals already capable of transmitting energy and with the conductivity of copper in the mine, what they are trying to do up there might be possible.”
Walter was dumbfounded. All his career he was trained to accept only scientific evidence and hard proof of a crime and now this, a story not even a science fiction writer could imagine. There was only one thing he wanted confirmed and therefore asked,
“So what you are saying is, aside from all this other stuff is that the three missing kids are up there somewhere.”
Gordy nodded and said,
“Trust me. They are there”
In unison both Sam and Gary nodded and interrupted,
“We saw them.”
Walter then looked to Isaac and said,
“It looks like we just found something more tangible to present to Judge Clemens.”
Walter signaled Isaac to follow him into the office. While walking past Grant’s desk Walter said to him,
“Forget about your traffic duty today. Stay here. I have a job for you in a minute.”
Once inside the office, Walter revealed his plan to Isaac.
“I think what we have up at the Factory is very dangerous not to mention very secretive. They have already proven that they will protect that secret with extreme malice. Even with the search warrant from Judge Clemens, we will no doubt be met with resistance at the gate. I am sure that by now they know we have Sam and Gary and will make efforts to silence them. I hope you understand the seriousness and danger of that.”
Isaac fully understood what was implied and when he nodded, Walter continued,
“I want you to take the two kids and Mrs. Jackson over to the Riverside Hotel and get them rooms there. Ruth Albright is already there. She will want to see Gary anyway. The father is coming with me to see Judge Clemens to get that search warrant.”
As Isaac got up to leave, Walter added,
“They have eyes everywhere so take the unmarked car and drive around a bit with them just to make sure you are not followed.”
When Isaac left the office, Walter picked up the phone and called Judge Clemens.
Chapter 48
As Isaac walked past Grant’s desk, Grant looked up and asked,
“What’s going on?”
Isaac took it as an innocent question asked within the parameters of police security. He had no idea of Walter’s suspicions of Grant and thereby made a major tactical error when answering Grant’s not so innocent question.
“I
’m taking the kids and Mrs. Jackson over to the Riverside Hotel for protection.”
He then approached the big table and explained the situation to them. When finished, he looked to Gary and added,
“Your grandmother is there waiting for you.”
Then to Gordy he said,
“You will be going with the Sheriff as proof that the Factory is not a Department of National Satellite Weather Research Station. Just tell the Judge what you told us and everything will fall into place.”
When everybody walked single file past Edith’s front counter she looked up and wondered what was going on. Isaac saw her question but his response was a finger to his lips. Looking through the front window, she watched as they all got in the unmarked car and drove off. She knew Mr. Jackson was still in the precinct somewhere and that Walter was on the phone with somebody. It is not like her to be kept out of the loop and so reasoned whatever was going on was important.
When Walter came out of his office, he approached Grant and said,
“I’m cancelling your General Duty for today. I don’t want to arouse suspicion by closing the precinct down so stay here and protect Edith for me. Mr. Jackson and I will be gone for a while.”
Grant nodded his approval of the assignment. It fit well into the private phone call he needed to make.
When Grant was all alone in the precinct, he made another call. Aware that the line was still not secure, he spoke ambiguously. Warric was not polite.
“Be careful what you say deputy.”
Grant accepted the warning and as if it would help, spoke softly.
“The two kids are at the Riverside hotel. The sheriff is on his way to get a search warrant from Judge Clemens.”
Grant then hung up and Warric was ecstatic. He was finally given some good news.
Chapter 49
After a couple of soothing drinks, Warric thought of a deadly solution, a way to guarantee his budget. Desperate times called for desperate measures. He called his secretary.
“Get me Rick Calhoun on the phone and tell Hanz to get in here immediately.”
Hanz, the consummate trusted employee was in the office as Warric was talking to Rick on the phone. He stood at attention waiting for the call to be finished. When it was, Warric laid out his plan to Hanz.
“Go to the armory and pull out two unregistered pistols with silencers. I want you to go to the Saddle Bar and Casino and pick up Rick Calhoun.”
Warric then handed Hanz a picture and said,
“Here is a photo of who I want killed.”
Hanz took the photo and looked at it. Confused, he asked,
“That’s just two kids. I can look after that myself. Why do you want me to pick up Rick Calhoun?”
There seemed to be pleasure in the answer,
“Because when it is all done, I want you to make it look like he was the killer. That will take any suspicion off us. You know what to do.”
Hanz snapped to attention and bellowed,
“Yes sir, I understand.”
Armed to the teeth, Hanz pulled his Escalade up to the front of the Saddle Bar and Casino. Waiting outside was Rick Calhoun. After jumping in, the Escalade drove through the parking lot and pulled up next to Rick’s pickup truck. Puzzled, Rick asked,
“What’s going on?”
As befitting the plan to blame Rick for the murders, the idea was to have his truck seen at the scene of the crime. Hanz reply was cold and direct.
“We are taking your truck. My car will attract too much attention.”
A few minutes later, Hanz was in the passenger seat and Rick was driving east on Maple Street. Rick asked,
“So, where are we going?”
Hans handed him the address and after glancing at it said,
“Yeah that’s the Riverside Hotel, I know it well.”
On the way, Rick was always one to talk business before the job. He looked to Hanz and asked,
“Mister Warric said he would pay me fifty grand if I did a job with you. That’s a lot of money for one job.”
In half joking manner he asked,
“Who do I have to kill?”
With a stone face looking straight ahead, Hanz handed him a photograph. He looked at the photo and with a smirk straight from hell seen only on the ruler of that kingdom, he said,
“Yeah, what the hell I was planning on killing one of those kids anyway.”
He then asked a most important question.
“Where’s the money?”
Hanz took a large thick envelope from his jacket pocket, showed it to him and while stuffing it into the glove compartment said,
“You get it when the job is done.”
Hanz then asked,
“Are you armed?”
“Yes, I have a semi-automatic Smith and Wesson.”
“That’s no good for this job.”
He then handed Rick a smaller semi-auto pistol equipped with a silencer. Hanz said,
“When we are finished the job, throw it in the river.”
For what he hoped would be worth millions, shooting two kids didn’t concern him much at all. His only concern was the order of the inheritance. In a perfect world, the old lady should be killed first. Goodness knows he tried. However, as he knew, it was not a perfect world and her turn will come soon enough. He only had one concern. He remembered what Grant had spitefully said at the Albright house. ‘If something goes wrong then they put a bullet in your head and blame everything on you’. Was he really nothing more than the sacrificial goat? Nevertheless, the lure of a fortune often clouds evil minds and shields instincts from danger. Rick’s lure of a fortune ignored the dire warning. A few minutes later, Rick pulled the truck over a half block away from the hotel and on the other side of the street.
The Riverside Hotel was aptly named, sitting on a bluff facing the Great Swanson River. The lure of the hotel was a serene view of the river and the forest on the other side. Although it was one of the newer hotels in Twin Rivers, it was designed and built to resemble the old English Tudor style. The lobby was grand with a massive chandelier high in the ornate ceiling.
While walking through the plush lobby, Hanz and Rick drew the attention of the doorman and Concierge. Anybody coming in wearing jeans and cowboy boots with no luggage would have drawn attention. Because Rick thought he was the most sophisticated, he told Hanz to let him do all the talking. With a sly grin, Hanz agreed. After all, it fit the plan perfectly. Hanz held back and watched Rick approach the counter.
Lincoln was on the front desk and watched an unbefitting creature approach his counter. Somehow dirty cowboy boots trotting on a Persian Rug just didn’t seem right to him. With greasy combed back hair and a snobbish look permanently glued to his face, Lincoln looked as if he was born for the job of a pretentious front desk clerk. When seeing Rick approach, his repeated prayer of, ‘please don’t come to the desk’ was unanswered.
While standing sideways and leaning on the counter with one elbow, Rick made a big deal about holding a five dollar bill in his hand. While projecting a shady grin, Rick said,
“Listen sir, my dear grandmother just checked in yesterday. Her name is Ruth Albright. You wouldn’t happen to know what room she is in would yea.”
Ignoring the insulting bribe, Lincoln, hoping he would go away, quickly tapped the keyboard and eventually without looking at him or the five dollar bill, said,
“Her and her party have the King Edward suit on the top floor. Shall I call and warn them of your arrival?”
“Nah,” said Rick, “we wanna surprise them.”
Lincoln watched as both men approached the elevator. Rick still holding the five dollar bill. When they stepped in and the door closed, Lincoln picked up the phone and made a phone call.
Chapter 50
Ruth was pleased to see Gary and for the longest time would not let him leave her side. Not wanting to cause undo concern to herself, she lied about her ankle injury and the reason for the cane. Gary had already suffered a devastating
loss from a hit and run driver back in Lexington so why add more grief to his life. She had trouble believing his wild and fanciful story about what happened to them in the Factory and why they were hiding in the tree house. All the while she nevertheless intently listened and attributed it to the fanciful imagination Gary was so bountiful and adept at.
Ruth had never met Isaac or Gloria Jackson. When she was introduced to Gloria she had a bit of an inkling and asked,
“Jackson? Your father owned the TV and radio repair shop over on Hill Road didn’t he?”
“Yes,” admitted Gloria, “but that was a long time ago. My dad has passed on now. Did you know him?”
“No,” said Ruth, “but my husband did. Half of the radio and TV things my husband has in our basement came from the generosity of your father. He was a kind man.”
“Thank you. As was your husband I am sure.”
Sam was more interested in the big screen TV than being introduced to an old woman. She was sitting on the couch watching cartoons and didn’t want to be disturbed. However, when the adults finished their introductions, Gloria pulled her daughter forward and said,
The Factory Page 26