The Memory Thief

by Don Donaldson

QUINN GOT off the plane in Memphis and hurried to his car in the long-term parking lot close to the terminal, his mind still occupied with trying to think of a way to get rid of the mobile lab when he got back to Linville. He’d cleaned the shower up as best he could after Odessa had used it, but he’d never gotten around to checking the result with Luminol, the chemical any forensic team worth a damn would use to look for blood. But this issue aside, the mere presence of all the equipment in the vehicle would give him away. So he needed it out of his garage and hidden where no one would ever find it. But how could such a trick be accomplished? As he pondered the problem, he tried to put the possibility out of his mind that when he got home, he might discover it was already too late.

  IT HAD now been two hours since Marti and Harry had been chased from room to room in Quinn’s lab. As she passed Clay’s cottage on her way back to the hospital, she saw from the presence of his truck that he was home from the retirement party he’d attended.

  She stopped and looked at Clay’s front door, thinking it would sure be a lot more comforting to have Clay with her than Harry Evensky. But she needed Harry. And three seemed like too big a troupe to be sneaking through the hospital’s corridors. So, reluctantly, she stepped on the gas.

  During the short drive to the hospital, she worked on an explanation for why she would be taking Harry out of the ward again tonight and at such a late hour. By the time she reached the hospital parking lot, she’d decided to just say the memory test he’d been taking required another session.

  She’d closed the blinds in Quinn’s lab when she and Harry broke in, but it seemed likely that if the overhead lights were now on, she’d be able to see them from the lawn along the building’s west wing. And if the lights were on, the security guy was probably still there.

  She parked her car at the westernmost part of the lot, got out, and stepped up onto the curb, where she set off on a diagonal course across the newly cut grass.

  The lights from the wards on the first three floors were soon obvious. The fourth floor, where Quinn’s lab was located, looked dark. But she needed a better angle to make sure.

  Ten seconds later, because she was looking at the hospital instead of where she was going, she stumbled over a knee-high evergreen tree. Thankful it wasn’t a big oak, she untangled herself from the little tree and resumed walking, this time keeping her eyes on the ground.

  When she reached what she believed to be as good a vantage point as she could get, she turned her attention back to the hospital. And now there was no doubt . . . a thin rim of light could be seen around each of the windows in Quinn’s lab. She couldn’t go back up there now. As difficult as it would be, she’d just have to return home and wait a while longer.

  QUINN SLOWLY drove past his home, appraising it with a suspicious eye. Everything looked just the way he’d left it . . . no crime scene tape strung around the garage . . . no official vehicles in the drive, the only lights on, those that should be. But was it a trap? Were cops hiding on the property, ready to grab him when he appeared?

  He drove down to the pine forest and turned around on a wide part of the shoulder. On the way back, he stopped and stared at the house.

  Go in or run?

  It was as difficult a decision as he’d ever had to make.

  Finally, deciding he had to know one way or the other, he nudged the gas and slowly approached his driveway. When he reached it, he almost drove past, but at the last moment, he turned in.

  As tense a situation as this was, his hands weren’t sweating, his blood pressure was normal, and his heart was beating at its usual rate. For while it was true he couldn’t control what was about to happen, he could control his reaction to the situation, and he wasn’t going to tremble over it like a child.

  He made it to the garage with no surprises. A little more optimistic now about the next few minutes, he got out of his car and signaled the garage door to open. The fact that it did so without disgorging a contingent of cops was gratifying.

  He went into the garage, turned on the lights with his remote, and closed the door behind him. Now, believing he already knew the answer to the question that had haunted him all the way back to Memphis, he nevertheless walked to the bench with the hidden button and opened the room where he kept his mobile lab.

  And once again, there were no surprises.

  Now it was time to create one for Marti Segerson.

  ONCE AGAIN, Marti almost stopped at Clay’s cottage when she passed it on her way home from the hospital. As much as she wanted to see him and tell him what she’d found, she was afraid such a talk would naturally lead into a discussion about what she was going to do next. And she didn’t want to hear any arguments about why she shouldn’t try to get that disc from Quinn’s office. Better to wait and tell Clay what she’d done after it was finished. So, once more, she resisted the temptation to see him.

  As she walked into her cottage a few minutes later, the phone rang.

  “Dr. Segerson . . .”

  “Doctor, this is Sheriff Aiken here in Hardeman County . . . I know it’s late, but I’d like to talk to you tonight about one of your patients named Vernon Odessa. Would it be okay if I came over? It’s extremely important.”

  Marti’s curiosity was intensely aroused. What could the Hardeman County sheriff want to talk to about? “All right. Do you know how to get here?”

  “I believe I do. I’m on the other side of the county right now, finishin’ up with somethin’ we’ll be discussin’, so it’ll take me about an hour to get there.”

  “I’ll see you then.”

  “One other thing . . . this is a very sensitive matter, so we would need to discuss it in private.”

  “I understand.”

  With any other patient and on any other night, Marti would probably have told Aiken to come to the hospital in the morning to talk. But he’d mentioned the one name she’d drop everything to learn more about. And his visit would help pass the time until she could make another run on Quinn’s office.

  QUINN HUNG up the pay phone at the Circle K convenience store on the west edge of town and shoved the paper towel he’d used to distort his voice into his pocket. With his first call from the phone, in which he’d pretended to have reached a wrong number, he’d learned that Clay Hulett was indeed in the way, just as he’d feared. With the second call, he’d bought himself a little time to work, but an hour wasn’t very long, so he’d have to move fast.

  Chapter 27

  STILL STANDING in front of the Circle K, Quinn took out his cell phone and called the hospital. Without waiting for the call menu to finish reciting all the options, he punched in the number for the nursing station on Two East B.

  “This is Quinn. I want Vernon Odessa sent down to seclusion in the basement immediately for lack of cooperation with a member of the medical staff. I will not have the patients obstructing our routines. Have I made myself clear? This is to be done immediately. He’s to be put in cell number three. I’ll call back in a few minutes to verify that my orders have been carried out.”

  Quinn went to his car and got in. He was under no illusion that this was all going to end the way he wanted. There was just too much out of his control. He didn’t even know how Segerson had figured out what had actually taken place the night of the Blake murder. And she must have done so, or she wouldn’t have been in his hidden room. But on the positive side, the lack of police activity around his home tonight suggested she hadn’t yet gone to the authorities with what she knew.

  Even if everything did work out tonight, it would be the end of Odessa’s usefulness, which was truly a shame. And Segerson . . . she was a bright, resourceful woman with the potential to be a fine psychiatrist. Her death would be an even greater loss. If she had only stayed in California, none of this would have happened.

  IT WAS past the time for lights out on Two East B, but Harry Ev
ensky was sitting on the edge of his bed reading a “Spider Man” comic book in the beam of a penlight. Even though it was a pretty simple story, he found it hard to concentrate because he was still tingling from his caper with Marti earlier in the evening. He liked the word caper and had long wanted to be part of one. But to this day, he’d only been involved in two . . . the one tonight and the visit to Marti’s home while she slept. And both of them had made him want more.

  He looked at the empty bed normally occupied by Chick, who was still on ward lockdown for his outburst in the cafeteria. That was a caper . . . not as good as his two, but it was one. Old Chick had manufactured a caper right under everyone’s nose.

  He reflected for a moment on how Chick’s caper was so out of character; then Harry’s other roommate, Frank Hoyt, or was it Holt, he wasn’t sure because Frank didn’t talk, began to snore. Harry got up, walked over to Frank’s bed, and shook him by the arm. His sleep disturbed, Frank rolled onto his side where, except for an occasional lip smacking, he was usually quiet.

  As Harry was walking back to his bed, he was galvanized by the sound of clanking chains from the hallway. Pretty sure he knew what that meant, he went to the door and looked out.

  Sure enough, two of the night orderlies were taking Odessa out the back door in chains, and they were almost certainly headed for the basement.

  Convinced another woman would be killed that night, Harry was infused with purpose. He had to tell Marti what was happening. He tossed the penlight onto his bed, then bolted from his room and charged down the hall to the dimly lit dayroom, where he headed for the nursing station.

  Seeing him approaching, Olivia Barr came out to meet him.

  “I have to use the phone.”

  “Why?”

  “I need to tell Dr. Segerson somethin’ important.”

  “I’m sure it can wait until tomorrow.”

  “It can’t. She’ll want to hear what I have to tell her, believe that.”

  The remaining orderly, a stocky guy with long hair and a mustache, came up behind Harry and took him by the arm. “C’mon, Mr. Evensky. Go back to bed. You can talk to Dr. Segerson in the morning.”

  Harry pulled his arm free. “Tomorrow will be too late, you idiot.” He turned and tried to push past Olivia, but the orderly rushed in and got him in a bear hug from behind. Harry kicked and flailed to get free, but he was no match for the younger, heavier man. “Damn your hide, let me go. Somebody’s gonna die tonight.”

  Mistaking Harry’s last comment for a threat, Olivia said, “Just hold him right there.”

  She went into the nursing station, got a small bottle from the refrigerator, and quickly plunged the needle of a syringe through the rubber top. Even though Harry put up a good fight, the needle was soon in his arm, dispensing the Haldol and Ativan cocktail that would calm him down.

  “Now let him cool off in the lockdown,” Olivia said, putting the plastic cover back on the syringe needle.

  “Chickadee is in there already,” the orderly reminded her.

  “Take him up to the third floor, then.”

  By now, Libby Sullivan, the redheaded junior nurse on the night shift, had joined the group.

  “Libby will get the doors as you go,” Olivia said. “I’ll let them know you’re coming.”

  “You all are aidin’ and abettin’ a felony,” Harry shouted as the orderly hauled him toward the door. “I know what I’m talkin’ about. Will someone listen to me? There’ll be blood on your hands if you don’t.”

  Olivia went into the nursing station and punched in the extension for Three East. “Carrie, this is Olivia on two. Hope you don’t have anyone in lockdown, because I’m sending you one of ours for a time-out . . . You don’t? Good . . . We rarely have two go off on the same night, but that’s what we’re dealing with. He’s been given a bolus of H and A, so he shouldn’t be any trouble. Thanks. Any time we can reciprocate . . .”

  As she hung up, Olivia realized it wasn’t two of her patients that had warranted punishment tonight. Counting Vernon Odessa, it was three. Months without any problems like this, then all these on the same night. If she didn’t know better, she’d think the three events were somehow related.

  VERNON ODESSA’S opportunity had come sooner than expected. Now it was up to him to make the most of it. But was he able to take the first hurdle? And could it be done in the dark? Not yet ready to proceed, he sat on the floor of his dank cell, closed his eyes, and tried to prepare himself.

  IN THE third floor lockdown, Harry Evensky stood at the heavy Plexiglas panel that allowed him to be viewed from the hall, screaming, pleading to be taken to a phone, his fist slamming against the door. But the orderly, who’d just locked him in, was already thinking about something else.

  QUINN PARKED his car well off the shoulder, being careful to choose a spot that wasn’t so soft he might get stuck. He was also worried about imprints his tires might leave that could be used to link him to this place. Because of the latter, he’d drive to Jackson tomorrow first thing and have them all replaced, and he’d pay cash so there was no record of the transaction. He wasn’t happy that he’d had to use his own car, but in the time available, there just wasn’t any other option.

  He checked the road in both directions.

  No one coming.

  Already wearing surgical booties over his shoes, so he wouldn’t leave any identifiable footprints, he grabbed the flashlight and the plastic bag on the seat beside him and got out of the car. Before setting off down the dusty farm road into the cotton field beside the car, he stopped at the license plate and wrapped the plastic bag around it so the numbers were obscured.

  There was a three-quarter moon in the sky, providing enough illumination that Quinn didn’t have to use his flashlight as he traveled along the hedgerow. But it also made it more likely he could be seen by anyone passing on the road where he’d parked. To minimize that possibility, he tried to stay in the hedgerow’s shadows.

  About seventy yards from where he’d started walking, he came to an intersecting hedgerow that ran to his left. This one didn’t have a road beside it, but the cotton field it bordered was no impediment to his progress. And he was now shielded from the road.

  Worried that this was taking too much time, he picked up the pace and hurried along the second hedgerow for about eighty yards. Then, through a break in the trees, he saw he was almost directly across from the barn he’d chosen before making his calls from the Circle K.

  Quinn picked his way through the trees and bushes and ducked through the metal fencing surrounding the pasture on the other side. There was now nothing shielding him from the road, but the barn obstructed the view of anyone in the farmhouse, so he didn’t feel too uncomfortable using his flashlight to avoid the piles of horse dung that littered his route.

  He soon arrived at the big open side door of the barn and went inside. Playing his light over the interior, he quickly found the ladder to the hayloft. But before going up, he needed to find some rope.

  He wandered down the row of stalls, looking in all the places where he imagined a coil of rope might hang, but found none. Then he encountered a horse in one of the stalls. He’d never been this close to a horse before, and he was surprised at how large its eyes were and how expressive. He considered freeing it, but a big portion of the fenced area just outside the barn could be seen from the house. And if someone saw the horse roaming around loose, they might come down to lock him up and ruin everything.

  It was a hard decision, but the welfare of humans had to come before animals. It was even in the Bible . . . or at least he thought so. Of course, since the human in this case was Quinn, it didn’t really matter whether it was there or not.

  But that was all a moot issue until he found some rope.

  You would think if there was a horse, there would be some rope nearby. But there wasn’t. W
hat kind of farmers were these people anyway?

  After another futile two minutes looking for rope, the time crunch began to get serious. Damn it, he should have brought it with him. Now that he couldn’t find any in the barn, it was easy to forget he’d come without it because he couldn’t think where to get some at that hour anywhere else either.

  He’d chosen this barn because he’d driven past it every day on the way to the hospital and knew the layout was perfect . . . had even seen them storing hay in the loft.

  But without rope how could he . . .

  Then he got an idea.

  He hadn’t climbed a ladder in twenty years. And he discovered as he ascended to the hayloft that he wasn’t as agile as he imagined. And by the time he stepped onto the flooring up there, his knees ached.

  There was a chance his idea wasn’t going to pay off . . . If they used some kind of cable instead of . . .

  But his flashlight quickly showed him that the pulley used to haul hay bales up to the loft was strung with a nice cotton rope.

  With his pocketknife, he cut a sufficient length of rope off the pulley and took it back to the ladder, where he wedged one end of the rope between two floorboards and let the other drop to the ground below. Even if the baled hay hadn’t been so heavy, working in the dark with only a small flashlight that just couldn’t be set anywhere so its beam did much good, made it hell trying to get a bale on top of the rope to keep it from coming loose.

  But eventually he managed to do it.

  Sweating from the exertion, he gathered up an armful of loose hay and piled it on top of the rope on the lip of the loft flooring.

  Finished up there, he grabbed the flashlight and backed down the ladder. Reaching solid ground, he went over to the dangling rope and cut it at chest level. After making sure there was no hay on the ground anywhere near the rope, he took out a book of matches and set the tip of the rope on fire.

  He watched it for several seconds until the fibers were well lit and the flames were climbing steadily toward the loft. Satisfied that he’d have time to get back to his car, or at least be nearly there, before the fuse he’d made would set the place on fire, he headed for the big door through which he’d come.