The Memory Thief

by Don Donaldson

  IN THE basement of Gibson State Hospital, as Vernon Odessa made the first cut with his sharpened case knife, he had to bite his tongue to keep from screaming. He knew no one would hear if he did, but it was a matter of pride that he keep silent.

  Chapter 28

  BREATHING HARD and sweating like a longshoreman, Quinn unlocked his car with his remote, but hung back in the shadows of the hedgerow until he was certain there was no traffic coming. Then he dashed for his car, pausing at the rear just long enough to pull the plastic bag from his license plate. Since he traveled this road regularly, once he was under way it wouldn’t matter if anyone saw his car in the area.

  Moving as fast as he could, he went to the driver’s door, yanked it open, and piled in sidesaddle so his feet were still outside. He stripped off his surgical shoe covers and stuffed them into the bag he’d used to hide his license plate. His rubber gloves went into the bag next.

  As he pulled away from the shoulder, he glanced in the direction of the barn and saw smoke curling around the loft door. He checked his watch. From his call to Segerson to now had taken twenty-three minutes, so he’d have to really hustle to meet the hour deadline he’d set himself.

  CLAY HULETT looked at the cottage phone and thought again about calling Marti. He was dying to know what the idea was she’d mentioned before heading back to the hospital after he’d helped her get in touch with the McNairy County sheriff. But it seemed to Clay that if she wanted to talk, the ball was in her court. She must have seen his truck when she drove past, heading home a little while ago. So she knew he was there.

  Maybe she felt she was imposing too much on him with her problems. And wouldn’t that be an unfortunate situation . . . for her to believe such a thing when it wasn’t true. Having reasoned himself into taking the initiative, Clay picked up the phone. He entered the first digit of Marti’s number, and was reaching for the second, when he heard the wail of the fire siren. Heeding the call, he slammed the receiver back in its cradle and charged out the door and into his truck as fast as any volunteer in the department.

  QUINN MANEUVERED the mobile EEG lab through the hospital parking lot toward the hidden alcove beside the furniture storage building, not at all happy to be driving the thing that could help put him in prison. But it could also help keep him safe, which made the situation one of weighing the debits against the credits. And right now, he couldn’t see any other way to do things.

  IT HAD only been around forty minutes since Sheriff Aiken had called Marti, but every few minutes, she still looked out the window that gave her a view of the road to her cottage. She couldn’t see Clay’s house from the window, but she’d heard the fire siren and assumed he was out answering the call. So, between wondering what Aiken wanted to discuss and thinking about her investigation of Quinn and Odessa, she worried about Clay’s safety.

  QUINN UNLOCKED the door to the east wing of the hospital, darted through it, and headed for the stairs to the basement. He was carrying a fresh plastic bag containing a flashlight, a pair of rubber gloves, and some clean surgical shoe covers so Odessa wouldn’t get any bat shit on his shoes when he went through the tunnel. The weakest part of his plan was that even if Segerson hadn’t spoken to the authorities about whatever she’d learned, she could have told a friend, like Clay Hulett, the guy he’d seen her with at the restaurant. But that was just something he’d have to live with. He’d do what he could, then try to weather what followed. Maybe he’d succeed, maybe not.

  At the foot of the stairs, after unlocking the big door to the seclusion facility, he flicked on the feeble lights in the main room and picked up the cell key from the trestle table. He’d given all the ward personnel standing orders that no one was to be placed in any of these cells without his permission. And it looked like they were following orders, because all the cell doors except the one for number three were standing ajar.

  To be absolutely sure no one would overhear his conversation with Odessa, he went to each of the unoccupied cells and made sure they were empty. Only then did he go to cell number three, where he reached in his pocket and got out the black control box he’d picked up in his office just before coming down there. No way he’d confront Odessa without that.

  “It’s Quinn, and I am prepared. Step away from the door.”

  Holding the control in his left hand, thumb poised over the button, he keyed the cell lock and pulled the door open.

  He expected to see Odessa standing a few feet from the door, eager to get out. Instead, his prize patient was sitting on the floor against the left wall, his legs sticking out of deep shadow that obscured the rest of him.

  Senses alerted, Quinn stepped inside. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Odessa replied. “Are we going out tonight?”

  Quinn had realized from the start that Odessa would be the first suspect the cops would consider when the Blake victim was discovered. Though he believed county sheriffs to be rubes with little investigative ability, he nevertheless wanted to cover his tracks as much as possible.

  To make sure Odessa wouldn’t give himself away in any trick questioning or other interrogation techniques, Quinn had connected Odessa to the memory movie equipment in the mobile lab right after Odessa had showered following the murder. He’d then taken the memory before it had a chance to move from short-term to long-term storage, where he might never find it.

  Because Odessa’s short-term memory had been erased before they had returned to Gibson, and he had made his way back to his cell through the tunnel while Quinn took the hospital route, Odessa remembered all that part of the trip. But he had no memory of the murder itself. He had deduced what had happened and his role in it when he saw the story of the killing on TV the next day, an event Quinn had anticipated and had accepted as the cost of doing business.

  The longer-range version of the black control box Quinn had installed in the mobile lab had ensured Odessa’s return to the lab after the murder, but it wasn’t needed to get him to go on the hunt. The film of the intended victim Quinn had shown him in the seclusion staging room before they departed, and Odessa’s predatory personality, had made him more than willing to do that without coercion. In Quinn’s world such evil was a valuable commodity. So it was with great sadness that when Odessa returned from dealing with Segerson, he would have to be made like Molly Norman.

  Knowing what had happened the last time he was put in the basement, it was natural that when Quinn sent him there tonight, he believed he’d be going out again.

  “Yes, but this time you’ll be on your own.”

  “How is that going to work?” Odessa replied, still sitting in darkness.

  “I discovered your psychiatrist, Segerson, snooping in the mobile lab. I don’t know how she learned of its existence, but it suggests she’s figured out everything . . . or at least enough to be a danger to us.”

  “And you’d like for me to take care of her.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “No. I’ve actually been thinking about her a lot lately. This other problem aside, she’s a smart-ass who needs to be taught a lesson. And there’s something else about her . . . I can’t put my finger on it, but it makes me feel that I’m supposed to hurt her . . . like it’s unfinished business.”

  “This is exactly that . . . business, not pleasure, although I expect the difference may be difficult for you to appreciate. In any event, this one must be done only with a knife. No hammer. I don’t want your signature on it.”

  “You said I’m going to be on my own. Where is she?”

  “At home, waiting for a fictitious police officer to arrive.”

  “You did that?”

  “I needed to be sure she’d stay put.”

  “And you think I’m the psychopath?”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “You may be rich as hell and have the world fooled in
to thinking you’re this genius who writes books and invents shit, but you’re just as fucked up in the head as I am.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “At least I don’t try to fool myself about who I am.”

  As much as Quinn appreciated Odessa’s uniquely wired brain, to be spoken to like that by such an inferior creature got under Quinn’s skin. “I hardly think someone like you is qualified to judge me.”

  Odessa laughed, a guttural snort that sounded to Quinn as if the effort caused him pain.

  “Doc, you just proved my point.”

  Quinn felt like pressing the button under his thumb and holding it down until Odessa screamed for mercy, but there was too much at stake for such an indulgence. Instead, he swallowed his anger and stayed focused. ‘We don’t have time to debate the status of my mental health. I arranged for Segerson to remain at home for one hour. And that time is rapidly running out.”

  “Where does she live and how am I going to get there?”

  “She’s renting a place on the property just west of the hospital grounds. That would be to your left as you face the front entrance to the hospital. A few days ago, a rotten tree fell on our fence over there and flattened it. It hasn’t been repaired yet, so you can go on foot and cross over at that point.

  “Around fifty yards from our fence you’ll find a dirt road on the other property. She lives at the right end of that road down another hundred yards. But she’ll probably be watching out a window for the cop who isn’t coming, so don’t approach her house by the road. Go through the woods on the far side.”

  “Any other houses over there?”

  “One . . . near the point where you’ll first see the road. She’s much farther in. You don’t have to worry about the occupant of the closer house. He’ll be gone for at least another hour. When I leave, you go out through the tunnel, and I’ll meet you where I left you off last time.”

  Even though Odessa had returned to his cell through the tunnel the night of the Blake trip, his memory of going the other way had been erased. So Quinn went over the route with him.

  “That means when you reach the point where the tunnel branches into four choices, you bear left. You can’t get out any other way. At the top of the stairs you’ll encounter when you leave the tunnel, go out the door to your left. I’ll meet you there and give you the weapon I want you to use.”

  Quinn threw the plastic bag he’d brought onto the bed. “There’s a flashlight in there, some rubber gloves, and shoe covers. Put on the gloves and the shoe covers before you enter the tunnel. Take the covers off after you’ve cleared the bat droppings and put them in the bag. And bring the bag out with you. Do not leave it behind.”

  Quinn disliked the tunnel, but knew that later in the evening, after all of Odessa’s memories were gone and he had become like a newborn child, he would be incapable of finding his own way back through the tunnel to his cell. Quinn would then have to escort him, just one more annoyance Quinn would have to tolerate until this situation was resolved. And somehow he’d have to come up with a plausible rationale for why another person at Gibson had suffered a complete loss of memory.

  But he couldn’t think about that at the moment; maybe later, while Odessa was taking care of Segerson. Right now he had to reiterate some things to Odessa to make sure the man completely understood the situation. Quinn held out the control box so Odessa could see his thumb poised over the button. “The mobile lab is on the grounds, so I not only have the ability to track your movements for a considerable distance, I have long-range control of you. I’ll give you reasonable leeway, but if you stray out of the set limits, I believe you know what will happen. Now come on, we’ve wasted enough time talking.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Odessa said as he got to his feet.

  For a second or two after he stood, he remained in the shadows, where Quinn could barely discern his outline against the brick wall behind him. Then he came into the light.

  When he saw Odessa clearly for the first time, Quinn gasped, for there was blood on Odessa’s neck, and both his hands were covered with it. There was something shiny in his right hand . . . a knife. As Quinn’s mind reeled with what he was seeing, he thought for the briefest moment that Odessa had killed someone, then as Odessa raised his left hand, turned it palm up, and opened his fingers, revealing what he held there, Quinn knew that all the blood was Odessa’s. Because in his palm was the electrode Quinn had implanted in his neck months ago so he could be controlled.

  The thought was almost beyond comprehension . . . Odessa had cut the electrode out of his own body.

  Among the thoughts flooding Quinn’s mind was the awareness that he was now in more trouble than he had ever been.

  “Now say good-bye, old man,” Odessa hissed, suddenly charging across the cell.

  Odessa’s first knife thrust went into Quinn’s belly with such force an inch of the handle disappeared inside him. The power of the blow was so great Quinn’s abdominal wall buckled hard against his intestines, allowing the tip of the knife to nick his aorta.

  Quinn went down on his back with Odessa on top of him. Even if Odessa had known that his first thrust had inflicted a mortal wound, it wouldn’t have mattered, for he was finally free to be himself. And as he stabbed Quinn again and again, first in the abdomen, then in the chest, driving the knife through Quinn’s ribs, crushing them with the force of his blows, Odessa realized he had underestimated the pleasures that could be had with the knife.

  And when he finally stood over Quinn’s devastated body, Odessa was already thinking of Marti Segerson and how the knife could be used as a phallus . . . penetrating into her deepest reaches where he could become her total master. The thought had come into his mind as something that could be done at his leisure, after she was dead, but then he realized it would be far more fun to do it while she could still appreciate it.

  Chapter 29

  THE THREE-QUARTER moon was bright enough to navigate by while Odessa was in the open, but made the going tough in the dense woods flanking the road leading to Marti’s cottage.

  When he had emerged from the storage building after coming through the tunnel at the hospital, he’d replaced his sharpened case knife with a big hunting knife Quinn had waiting for him in the mobile lab. And he found he liked the feel of it in his hand almost as much as a claw hammer. He also had the flashlight Quinn had given him, but it was stuffed in one pocket because he feared that using it might betray him. So he moved forward along the fringe of the woods as a shadowy specter, there one minute, gone the next.

  The exertion he was putting forth should have made the fresh wound in his neck throb with pain, but the excitement of killing Quinn, and the anticipation of showing Marti what the fox could do, dominated all other sensation. Even so, he was aware this would be the final chapter in his life, for he would never allow anyone to lock him up again. And, knowing that, he decided to make the most of it. Segerson and Quinn would just be the beginning of the end.

  MARTI CHECKED her watch and looked out the window one more time. It was now eight minutes beyond the hour Sheriff Aiken had said it would take for him to get there.

  Eight minutes . . .

  Not long enough to worry that he was going to keep her pinned at home to where she couldn’t make another run on Quinn’s office. Besides, it was probably still too soon to even be thinking about that.

  As she turned from the small window overlooking the road, she pivoted to her left, so a split second before the big window with the lake view exploded inward, she saw the dark shape hurtling toward it.

  Amid a shower of glass and wood, Odessa hit the floor and stumbled forward, but remained on his feet. Through her confusion and shock, Marti recognized who it was. At nearly the same instant she saw the big knife in his hand. She lunged for her cell phone on the small table by the door. In her confusion, she forgot that
Clay was not home, and she punched the preset for his number.

  AT THE barn fire, which was now raging, Clay’s face felt like his skin was cooking, but he held on to the throbbing hose and directed its powerful flow at the barn roof, where the intensity of the flames seemed to be turning all the water to steam. He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket, but it was beneath his fireman’s protective gear where he couldn’t reach it. And, even if it had been accessible, he couldn’t have taken the time to answer.

  ODESSA CHARGED across the room to Marti, and with a vicious swipe of his arm, backhanded the phone from her grip, sending it hurtling into the far wall. Turning to face him, Marti now saw blood streaking his skin under his left jaw line. Believing he must be wounded, she instinctively brought both her fists around in an arc and slammed them into each side of his neck.

  Marti’s fist missed the epicenter of the fresh wound where Odessa had cut out Quinn’s electrode, but she hit close enough to send him to his knees in pain. She should have finished him then, but her first response had bought her a moment to think and that had reminded her to be afraid of the knife.

  So she wasted the edge she’d gained and ran for the back door, which, even with the deadbolt she had to open, she managed to get through and out into the night before Odessa could recover.

  To Marti’s right was the field in which the flowers and weeds were no more than waist high. If she took the path through it to the creek, Odessa was sure to see her in the moonlight. So her only choice was the woods to her left. She’d traveled the path that led into those woods from the backyard a couple of times since she’d moved in, so she wasn’t heading into unknown territory. But as she ran for their protection, she realized she’d be able to see very little once she was inside.