by Nye, Laine
“You have gone quiet. I’m afraid that you are going to refuse me.”
Brad wanted to say that he was refusing her. He wanted to gracefully get out of the conversation and drop the whole thing. But instead, he found himself saying. “Okay. I will do it for you. But mainly for Albert.”
“Oh. Thank you Brad. Thank you. I will pay to have you flown out and back. I’m hoping you can do it soon as possible. I don’t know how long the exhumation order will stand.”
“Barbara, I hope he was well preserved before burial. I really don’t relish the idea of seeing a desiccated corpse. No offense intended toward you.”
“I talked to the funeral home that took care of him. They assured me that they are not sparing on the preservative agent they use. He should still look like he did at death. Like he is sleeping. I had the same concern when I thought it would be me that viewed his body. I just don’t dare go now with this threat hanging over my head.”
“How was he murdered?” Brad asked.
“An ice pick in the ear. Straight into the brain. Whatever blood came out, and which would have been minimal, was cleaned out with Q-tips and alcohol.”
“How do you know this Barbara?” Brad asked her perplexed.
“I found someone who knew about the whole situation and she told me. She was very upset about it.”
“But your father had incredible strength and speed. He could not possibly have been overcome by someone else. If the murderer brought about six guys with him, maybe they could get it done. But then there would have been marks on him from the struggle. They could not hide those from an investigator. His murder would have been obvious.”
“No. You don’t understand. He was murdered while he was asleep. Dad reached a point where he could not sleep hardly ever so when he did he was dead to the world. Nothing would wake him for that three or four hours that he was out. That would have been when it was done.”
Brad was becoming skeptical. This just didn’t sound right to him. What kind of a person was Barbara? Did she have flights of fancy? Some delusional ideas? She began to cry on the phone.
“You don’t believe me.” She sniffed. “You are the only person that I know about that could help me and you don’t believe me.”
“I don’t know what to believe right now. And you are asking that I walk away from my job for a couple days for an unscheduled event.”
“I really hoped I could count on you to do this. You were closer to my dad than anyone and I just thought maybe you would want to do this for him.”
“Barbara, I will make you a deal. I will pay for myself to fly out. I want to bring my wife with me. You pay me what the airline ticket would have cost and we will use that to help with expenses. And I would like to meet you before I see Albert.”
There was silence on the phone for about ten seconds. Then she spoke. “Okay. It’s a deal. I can’t tell you how grateful I am for this.” She sniffed. Trying not to cry. How soon can you come?”
“Give me a couple days to make arrangements. By the way, if it is not your dad in the grave, where do you think he has been placed?”
“I can’t tell you about that on the phone. I will tell you in person though when you get here.”
“Okay. I will see you soon. I will call you when arrangements are complete.”
∆∆∆
Charlene sat next to Brad on the jet. Of-course they were traveling under his alias, so she had been a little more careful not to call him Brad. Charlene had not lost her good looks since she had married Brad. She was still highly attractive and had been able to slowly get back her dynamic figure after Steve had been born. It had taken her about a year, but she was satisfied with the results. So was Brad.
They had tried for a second child, but she could not conceive. They had tests run and it wasn’t due to her physiology. It was Brad’s. Charlene and Brad wondered if his experience at the hole those three times had something to do with it.
She was gravely concerned about him ever since the trip to The Philippines. She could tell he was deeply uncomfortable from all the energy he had absorbed from the giant hole in Palawan. Brad still did not have his G-force back and that bothered both-of them. It had been very useful to them as a defense, as a tool to help with moving things and it was also how he had saved her life during the earthquake when the roof collapsed on her and he stopped its fall.
The jet they were on was making its final approach into Tampa International Airport. From there they would use a shuttle to get to St. Petersburg and get a hotel room. After they secured the room and put some of their belongs there, they went to Lake Seminole Park in the town of Seminole to meet with Barbara. They had rented a car to get around. They waited in the park for two hours at the trail head to a walking trail. That was where Barbara said she would meet them. They watched people park around them and many of them started down the paved trail. Some walked. Some rode bikes. Some were on roller blades. As they waited for her, they wondered if maybe she had taken the trail. The longer loop was two miles. The shorter one was one mile. They surmised that she may be taking her leisurely time on the walk and lost track of time.
After two hours of waiting to see if she would come from the trail or if she would drive up and park, they knew she was unlikely to be coming. Brad had tried to call her several times, but all calls went to voice mail.
“Well, now what?” Charlene asked her husband. “Should we just get on a jet and fly back home? It’s no skin off our nose.”
“The appointment time at the cemetery is at 4. Arrangements have all been made to have Albert exhumed, if it is him. They need to see my I.D. before I can see him. She made arrangements for me to be there without her and they agreed. So, I don’t know what to say, Charlene. This is not going very well is it?”
“I want to go home and forget about it.” She responded.
“I made a commitment to her Char.”
“Yes. Based upon her meeting with you before the exhumation. She broke her word.
Brad sighed. “I know. It’s my loyalty to Albert that is compelling me to follow through. The contribution he made to my life is considerable.”
She put her hand onto his arm. “I know Brad. I will agree with whatever you want to do.”
“Thanks hon.”
He kissed her with deep affection. Charlene had always been and still was the best wife that Brad could have chosen. Except that she chose him.
At four O’clock there would already be personnel at the grave site available to dig up the Shallow grave and bring the casket out of the vault it was in so that it could be opened. In Florida, graves were not six feet down as was tradition in most places in the U.S. Florida had such a high-water table that they could not go that deep. Some cemeteries had caskets or vaults only eighteen inches below the surface. Brad was definitely-not looking forward to this experience. He hoped that Albert was well preserved, so he would not have to look upon a corpse that was deteriorating.
The time came for them to go to the cemetery. It was a smaller cemetery just north of another much larger one and just west of a hospital. It was a pretty-little place with oak trees growing in several places. There were a few nice memorials here and there as well. When they parked the rental car on the street not far from the open grave. It was easy to see where they were going on the grounds. There was ground moving equipment and three people standing around waiting for them. One man was standing there with a crank handle watching them approach. The court officials looked at Brad’s driver’s license and a letter he had received by Express mail through Barbara from the courts officially authorizing Brad to be the one present at the exhumation.
When they arrived, Charlene stayed on the backside of the casket. She was there to support her husband, but she wanted nothing to do with an open casket that had been in the ground for years.
“Are we ready?” the man with the crank handle asked. He looked to be at least sixty-five and seemed a bit frail.
Brad nodded gravely. “Let’s
do it.” He said softly. He was still reluctant but was as ready as he could make himself be. The other two men that represented the court that had agreed with the exhumation looked at each other. They nodded also.
The older man stepped up to the casket and inserted the crank at about the mid-point. He began cranking it to unlock the seal. After three full turns, he pulled the crank out and bent down to pull open the lid. Suddenly there was an explosion of sound. The lid flew open violently. Both lids. Top and bottom. The lid at the head of the casket slammed into the old man so hard that it knocked him flat on his back. With a loud grunt, he fell, stunned and unable to rise.
The pent-up energy that had been in Albert Belasco’s body at death had slowly eked out of him after his death. The intense amount of energy that he was filled with had put incredible pressure inside the closed, locked casket. Brad had not detected the energy that had filled Albert’s resting place because it was sealed inside the metal casket. He had no idea that built up energy was waiting to be released.
Now that it was unleashed, the energy escaped with a loud sound hitting the curvature of the casket lids, it was deflected away from the casket towards Brad instead of up. Brad caught the full impact of the explosive force and was thrown backward into an oak tree behind him. He fell unconscious to the ground having absorbed all the energy that had once been in Albert. It had not oozed into his body slowly like it did when he was over the hole in Utah or like it did to Albert. It all hit him at once with great force. Now the level of his energy was nearly half again what it had been after Palawan.
His body lay still at the base of the tree. Charlene ran to him barely comprehending what must have happened. Before she reached him, he started rising slowly off the ground. Floating like he had done when asleep many times in his life. She reached out to him as he came up waist high. She kept her body far away and leaned out. Grabbed his arm and pulled him toward her hoping he would leave the non- gravity field behind. But no. It stayed under him as it always did.
The two men from the court stood there in shocked silence with mouths open. They had witnessed things they could never imagine.
Charlene jumped on top of Brad’s limp body. His legs were hanging down his arms outstretched and drooping behind him as much as was possible. Her weight on top of his slowly pushed him back to the ground. She stayed on top of him. Yelled to the two men to call an ambulance. She had to get Brad awake so he would be aware of his floating involuntarily. The realization had already struck her that his g-force had returned. Good or bad she could not tell. She knew that he had absorbed more of the energy and she feared what it might do to him.
She started to vigorously shake him. She was taking a chance that she might injure him further. But she knew that they could not afford anymore witnesses to his hovering off the ground. She knew damage control was paramount. No one could know what Brad was capable of. He had already had serious problems with that before. She knew that as bad as things had been for him, it would be worse now that he had a family to consider. All of them could be in danger if this got out to the public. Certainly, his old enemies would love to find him, and this incident could put them hot on his trail once again. She could not allow that to happen. She continued to shake him vigorously yelling “Brad. Wake up.”
Slowly he came to. He looked at her on top of him while she was still shaking him. He said quietly. “Hey,”
“Brad you are emitting anti-gravity energy. You must stop.” She said to him emphatically.
“I am?” he questioned. “Wow. Didn’t know I could do that anymore.” The low gravity field evaporated under them. He fell back into unconsciousness. She got off him carefully, expectantly. He did not rise above the ground again.
Brad woke up in a hospital bed looking up into his wife’s smiling eyes. “Well, hello sleepyhead.” She said tenderly then bent down and kissed him.
“What am I doing here? I thought I was supposed to be at the cemetery.”
“That was two days ago. You were there. Don’t you remember?” She asked him with concern on her face. She took his hand into hers and squeezed lovingly.
He concentrated. Then spoke. “Two days, huh? Yeah. I was there. We opened the casket. Right?”
“Yes.” She nodded her head.
“What happened to me?” He asked genuinely confused. She spent the next several minutes telling him what had happened. When she was done, he decided to say something profound. “Wow.”
“Yeah. Wow.” She repeated and smiled.
“Was it Albert?” He asked. “Wait. You wouldn’t know.”
“I do know.” She responded. “It was him. Remember I told you the energy burst out of the casket? Who else could it be?”
“Oh. Yeah. Sorry. I’m still a little foggy I guess.”
“Are you okay? Really?”
“I’ve got a headache. That’s all. I guess my head is not as hard as you thought.”
Charlene got up and closed the door to his room, so she could talk to him privately. “Brad, almost as soon as you fell unconscious, you began to float. I had to jump on you to get you back on the ground, which thankfully worked. Your G-force is back Brad.”
Brad looked at her with surprise in his eyes. “My abilities returned?”
“Well, I don’t know about your other abilities, but you definitely showed gravity control like you used to in your sleep.”
“Now that you have told me and as I continue to wake up more, I can feel the energy in me again. Only it is worse now. Much worse. It really bothers me. So much pressure inside. I wonder how Albert handled this problem.”
“You told me he kept transferring his energy to you. Remember? That probably helped him to not feel overwhelmed.”
“But that was only on the one occasion that I know of. Yet, if I can find someone who is susceptible to this, maybe I could transfer this energy out of me.”
Charlene nodded. “Maybe. But I don’t know how you could do that. You can’t go around asking people.”
Brad shook his head in frustration which was a mistake. “Ouch.” He said. I guess I have a concussion. Right?”
“Yes. And almost a skull fracture. You hit that tree so hard that I’m surprised something didn’t break.” She told him.
“You mean the tree?”
“No silly, your head.”
“So, it was a lot of energy then. All hitting at once. Not absorbing slowly like when I rode the hole. Come on, let’s get me out of here. I want to go home.”
“Nope. Not so fast mister. The doctors thought that you should stay in here at least two days after you woke up to be sure you are good to go.”
Brad frowned in frustration. “I don’t like that one little bit.” He told her. “I have a lot to do at work and I’m already one day late as it is.”
“Sounds like you’ll need restraints then.” She said lightly. Then she got more serious. “Brad, your health is more important than any business deals you had on the fire. Besides, your partner can handle it. I already called him.”
He argued. She won. Then the doctors came in and she won again. Brad resigned himself to a long couple of days stuck here. He did have a lot to think about though. She was gone the next day for many hours before she came to see him. He spoke with her then.
“Char, what did they do with Albert?” He asked when she came back.
Charlene frowned, took a deep breath and explained. “He was simply reinterred. Brad, that woman is off her rocker. She has been readmitted into a mental hospital. If the court had been cognizant of how crazy she was they would have never given her the exhumation order. As it was, they almost reversed their decision to dig poor Albert up because of her decision to not be there when he came out of the ground. It was only after we came that they realized how nuts she was. She went into a store nearly naked and started pushing over the displays and screaming about finding her dad’s killer because she knew he was hiding there in the store. Getting all this information cost me five hours of time to run it all
down. But I found a friendly records keeper in the police station that told me more than he should have. I think he was a bit smitten with me, so he opened-up to me. Told me more than he was supposed to.”
She batted her eyes at him as if she were flirting with him. “This worked for me just fine.” She said with a smile.
Brad laughed. Then stopped. What do you mean readmitted her?”
“That’s the thing. She has been in and out of mental hospitals many times. I guess it started when she was very young.”
“Probably lost her marbles after her sister was murdered.” Brad said thoughtfully. “But how did she ever learn about me? More importantly, why didn’t Dad learn any of this when he had people do a background on her.”
“Turns out your dad tried to call you when we were on the way to the cemetery. But you had left your phone in the hotel. He was trying to warn you that more information had come through about her.”
“But it’s not like my dad or his friends in intelligence to miss something like this.”
“I talked to your father about it. He said that she had some hot shot lawyer get some of her court records expunged and other ones about her mental health removed. When your father’s associates dug a little deeper, they found enough to know she was a very delusional woman. Most of the time she is high functioning. But when she slips off her meds, then she changes very rapidly.”
“Why would Albert have trusted her with information about me or the hole or even Albert’s abilities?” He asked rhetorically.
“Perhaps she was doing very well at the time and he didn’t recognize the signs until it was too late. He had already told her everything. Not having anyone to talk to about these things was probably hard for him.”
Brad nodded, then thought of something she had said. “Wait a sec. You said that she had records expunged. They only do that with criminal cases, don’t they?”
“Maybe the reasons she kept getting committed was because during her episodes she was breaking the law. She certainly broke some laws going in the store half naked and breaking things up.”