“So I approached the van. It was so hard to see inside, the interior was dark, and I wasn't getting any help from the streetlights. At first he didn't say anything, so I asked him if he wanted to party. He said yes. Then he said get in, so I did. Once inside the van, I knew it was him, even sitting down in the poor light I knew it was him. He looked exactly like the picture Oona had given us, except stockier. He must have put on weight since he left MemoryLock. Obviously he got off the macrobiotic diet they had him on. He also had put on a lot of bulk in his upper body. Wherever he was working, he was doing hard labor. His shoulders and arms were so big. I thought about your description of his interrogation in Denver Carly, and I knew it was him.”
She took another sip of water, clearing her throat. The others sat around her, their attention undivided as they listened to a woman who was lucky to be alive, and they were lucky if not privileged to have her with them.
“The realization of what I discovered, along with the realization of my vast stupidity and the ensuing danger I willingly put myself in, put me off guard. Before I could do anything he hit me on the back of the head. It didn't knock me out but stunned me enough that he was able to drive away. Stopping around the corner out of sight of you all, he gagged me and tied me up on the floor of the van. Despite the head blow I was in a panic. It took everything I had to concentrate, but I figured my only chance was to stay alert and be ready for an opening.”
Lying on the floor of the van she had no ideas where he was taking her. “I tried not to despair, but I realized that not only didn't you all know where he was taking me, but you might not even know he had.”
She stopped again for a drink and Carly knew from the telltale tremors of her hands, she was using the moment to cover up her anxiety as she recounted the horrors of that night. Carly reached for her hand and she clutched it furiously in turn.
With a clearing of her throat, she resumed. “It seems like we drove for hours. I don't think he consciously took me to that motel, as he seemed to steer into the lot really quickly, like it was an afterthought that he almost missed. Maybe it was Jonathan who was driving, but then it seemed as if Dombrowski suddenly remembered the place and jerked the van into the drive.”
“When we got to the motel he parked just down from the office and went in and got a key. Again I don't think it was pre-arranged as he was in the office long enough to pay, maybe do a registration. When we pulled in front of the room, I got my only chance to make a move. He pulled me out of the van, and sort of kept me standing up while he positioned me to carry me in the door. Maybe he wanted to give the illusion that I was cooperating, but considering that dive, no one would have cared if I weren’t. He keyed the door open with me leaning on the wall next to it.”
“When he pushed me into the room I fell straight onto the bed. He started to untie my legs so he could re-tie them to the bed frame, that's when I got a kick in right to the head. It was a pretty good roundhouse despite doing it from my back! I managed to stagger the bastard backwards a couple of feet, which gave me enough time to get a couple of more kicks in, but without the use of my hands he just waded forward into the fray so to speak which was too close for me to kick. I tried to get him with a head butt, but that was like hitting a rock. I damn near knocked myself out doing that move. I honestly don't think there was much going on in that brain, obviously pain was not a motivator for that thing. Finally using his weight, he knocked me back to the bed and I was a goner then as he beat the tar out of me. He was as strong as anyone I have ever met.”
“Once he had me subdued, he started his games. First he started beating me with a leather strap. The pain was incredible. A searing burn crossed my back every time he laid the whip to my skin. It was strange, but the whole time he was going through his ritual he mumbled. Sometimes I could make out words or phrases, and when I could he was saying things about Jesus. Other times it seems as if he was conducting parts of religious rituals. He said things in Latin, almost like the chanting Catholics used to do at Mass. Other times, his voice changed to almost a falsetto, and he began to chastise himself.”
“He would say things like, 'Petr you bad boy. Evil Petr.’”
“I believe he was playing mom, while I was Petr, and Petr was getting scolded and beaten for being bad.”
Against his will, Carly let out a low whistle. He had never had an opportunity to find out what Dombrowski did with his victims, what he said, what might have been going through his mind. Diane’s story was the final key into what made Dombrowski tick. “I had no idea!” Carly muttered.
Diane squeezed his hand, acknowledging the revelations she had presented Carly gave her lover closure after all these years. “It's hard to say what he was really doing. I don't know for sure. After all, I wasn't thinking too well at this point. Between the rap on the head when he got me in the van, the blows I took trying to fight him, and the whipping I had gotten, I was beginning to lose my wits.”
Diane suddenly stopped talking and visibly shuddered. Carly at her side, stroked her head and slid a reassuring arm about her shoulders.
“Maybe that's enough for now,” he suggested. “You've given us the gist of what happened. Shortly after that we arrived and you've heard the heroics of ’Ol Shotgun’ Sully here. Tomorrow we can talk some more.”
Softly she began to cry, but soon the sobbing racked her body. “Oh Carly, I was so afraid. I thought I was going to die, like Le, like all the others. No one knew where I was. He beat me...,” the sobbing muffled into Carly chest as he drew her tight. With a jerk of his head he sent the others out of the room. Slowly the crying subsided and she fell asleep in his arms, her head nestled against his chest.
Carefully, so as not to disturb her, Carly laid her head on the pillow, covered her with a light blanket, killed the overhead fluorescents and quietly left the room. Joining his newfound partners out in the waiting room, the three men shared a long silence over cups of coffee. Finally, Sully interrupted the lonely thoughts,
“We found his room.”
“Dombrowski's?”
“Yeah. It seems he had been living in a flophouse about three blocks from the last murder scene. He'd been there a month or so according to the manager. When we took his picture around the bars and strip joints quite a few of the regulars knew of him. It seemed that Jonathan had been making the rounds for quite some time, well before Merriwhether and Oona knew. Even before he disappeared from them. Seems he had a real taste for hookers, strippers, and the like. Used to take them to the dive motels and hotels all along the neighborhood. Nothing real kinky, but he was very steady in his appetite from the description we got out of a couple of the girls."
"Once he disappeared from Merriwhether's little utopia out in Rosemead, he wasn't quite as regular in his visits. We found check stubs and pay envelopes in his room. Checking them out it seems like he was doing a little carpentry as a casual laborer. Sometimes cash work on a day to day basis. It was probably enough to get him by. Hell he didn't need much, the flophouse cost a few dollars a day, and he didn't own anything. The bartenders our officers talked with said he didn't drink much, as he usually nursed a glass of draft beer during his stops while he watched the dancers. The van he picked up from a used car lot just before the first killing, paying a couple of hundred dollars’ cash for it. He had stolen plates on it so there was no registration for it, and of course no insurance. We didn't find any identification on him or in his room for that matter. For all intents and purposes he didn't exist.”
“Did you find the 'Stations'?”
“Nope. They weren't in his room or in the van.”
Carly was puzzled by that bit of news, as he thought the acquisition of the Stations seemed to be the focal point or triggering aspect for recent events. “I wonder if he had another place somewhere else. He seemed to need the stations so much before in Denver. This time as he wore on in his intensity and duplication of the Denver murders, it became apparent he had reassembled the first blueprint for his crimes.”
“Don't worry they'll turn up, professor. I can see your mind working already. It was him. His precious 'Stations' are sitting and brooding in a dark motel room somewhere. The missing 'Stations' are out there somewhere, we just haven't found them,” Sully said forcing a smile, hoping that his words were as convincing as they needed to be.
He knew that Carly dared not face any more ghosts that still needed to be buried. He made a mental note to place the recovery of those 'Stations' as his highest priority for the next few weeks.
“Relax Professor, the pastor for St. Mike's, out in Rosemead confirmed that Jonathan had been a parishioner right up to the time he disappeared. It had to be him who lifted those Stations, it's more than coincidence.”
“I know. I know. Forgive me if I'm trying to put everything in a tight little package. Considering that I watched Dombrowski die…TWICE, I'm not wanting to let him have a third shot at it all. Those artifacts from St. Mike's are important. They’re his blueprints to the frenzy. Without them we're a little bit vulnerable. I don't what someone else getting their hands on them and deciding to be a copycat. “
“Will find them amigo, we'll find them...” Hernandez echoed Sully’s sentiments.
“What might interest you Carly, is the triggering event to this second round of madness,” Lassiter piped in. To Carly's surprise he hadn't seen her in the waiting room when he first entered, the perfect undercover cop, entirely undistinguishable he thought.
“What do you mean? Triggering event?”
“As you know I lived in Rosemead for a while. Like any off-duty cop, I ended up hanging out with other off duty cops. Got to be pretty good friends, so when I called an old sergeant friend of mine looking for the story on Jonathan Carter, he pitched me a real earful. It seems that the night good sweet Jonathan got popped for drunk driving he got a little more than just a couple of nights in the drunk tank before his court appearance. My friend tells me that Jonathan got in trouble on the wrong night and in the wrong place. Seems that several members of biker group out of Arizona had been popped earlier in the evening. Typical type of stuff for that crowd: drunk and disorderly, public menacing, vandalism, and so on. “
“Actually it wouldn't have been a big deal except this was the first night of their big annual run and getting busted so early put a bit of a wrinkle in the festivities. Topping off the ordeal for the motor-heads was a judge with a real axe to grind with bikers. It seems the local magistrate and his Missus had been roughed up by a biker group a few years back. You know the scene...regular citizens out for an evening, along come the cretins, something happens between the two groups, and before you know it 'Joe Regular' has a black eye. Maybe his old lady gets felt up, a car door gets kicked in. Nothing spectacular, but the victim remembers it for the rest of his life.”
“Well this ‘Joe Regular’ life happened to belong to a judge. When he saw those bikers in his courtroom he went ballistic. Got pretty mouthy with them for a judge, of course having a couple of bailiffs and the usual retinue of cops in the courtroom added to the sense of security necessary for a successful tirade. What really iced the situation was the imposition of maximum bail on each defendant for each count. Accrued, they were looking a small fortune. Obviously they didn't have the money and being from Arizona, plus being less than responsible citizens no sane bail bondsman would put up bail. On a one to ten scale these guys were a solid eleven for risk to flee. Can you imagine a bail bondsman trying to drag these guys out of the Arizona desert once they got back? To make a long story short, these guys had their vacation screwed on the first day, and were looking at doing jail time to boot once they made it back in front of that judge. Happy little campers they were not.”
With a wrinkled brow, Sully looked at Lassiter, “I hate your stories Lassiter, it takes you so damn long to get to the chase. What's this got to do with Jonathan?”
“Patience my dear,” Lassiter leered, flecks of tobacco staining her front teeth, “If you'd let me get a word in edgewise once in a while Sully, I wouldn't make such a big deal out of it when I finally get a chance to talk. Besides, you telling me I'm long winded is the pot calling the kettle black.”
With a pretended huff, she continued, “As I was saying, the bikers had an enormous bad attitude. So when Jonathan, ‘dear sweet Jonathan’ as Oona referred to him, waltzed into the drunk tank with these bikers it was like snapping a wounded lion with a rubber band. Keep in mind, this picture of a brutish hulk like Dombrowski with the gentle soul of Jonathan programmed into his disposition. It just brought out the gunslinger in the bikers. It seems they started pushing him around and they didn't let up. The more passive he was, the more aggressive they became, which made him cower more, which made them pick on him more. It was a vicious circle. They kept it up all evening. By late night they were getting pretty rowdy. Somewhere along the line, the teasing and bullying took a perverse turn. Scuttlebutt around the station was the group eventually had their way with poor little Jonathan. All of them. More than once.”
Carly let out a long low whistle. “You mean they molested him?”
“Sodomy. Oral sex. Whatever biker boys do when they're having fun.”
“No wonder he triggered. The very thing that started his entire life into one mindless quagmire of depravity happened again. Can you imagine what must have happened in his mind? All that programming, medicine, and techno voodoo stuff must have popped like a balloon. Proma or not, there was no way the memories could have stayed submerged in that kind of situation. Poor fucking Merriwhether, he and his alchemy didn't have a chance,” Carly laughed, almost choking as his mind reeled at the folly the MemoryLock programming had turned out to be.
Hernandez chipped in, “That explains why Jonathan never went to court, or returned back to his job. He was carrying the same shame little Petr Dombrowski had carried. It hadn't worked out back then when he told his mother, why would it work out now. Who was there to help him? The humiliation and frustration must have boiled over until the rage returned.”
“Bingo. L.A. ends up with 'Son of Dombrowski'. Along the line he snatches another set of 'Stations' and starts playing with himself in the dark. Sooner or later his taste for hookers, given to him by MemoryLock, kicks in and he goes out soliciting for sex. Somewhere in the process Dombrowski takes over and we have our first murder. Slowly, bit by bit Dombrowski takes control. The real memories get stronger, while Jonathan and the fictional memories recede further and further away. Dombrowski either remembers his previous capture or innately senses he has a limited time to do his thing and accelerates the process to lightning speed. He kills and kills and kills. Maybe he figures he can reach whatever end he has in mind, but he knows he has to be fast. He had to know how it was when Denver shut him down.”
“An amazing story Lassiter,” came the apologetic response from Sully. “It was the best I've heard in a while.”
Lassiter smiled. “Damn straight Detective Sullivan. But I've got one more twist for you. It seems that Jonathan was released on his own recognizance early the next morning. Since he was a county resident, they only held him until he was sober the next day. That's when he disappeared. But interesting enough, when they did lunch roll call that day, one of the bikers didn't show up. Seems they found him dead in his bunk. Now granted, he and another biker had been bickering all night long, so the police had a sure suspect for what appeared to be murder. But I wonder.”
"Why's that?”
“Guess how he died?”
Without wasting a second, Carly chipped in what seemed to be the obvious, “A broken neck?”
“Bingo, Professor. You win the cigar.”
Chapter Eighteen
By the next day, Diane had recuperated enough that the doctors decided she could go home by the weekend. Her spirits buoyant from the news, she hosted an impromptu luncheon of pizza and sodas in the waiting area across from her room. Carly, Sully, Lassiter, and Hernandez joined her for the feast, as they chatted idly they were joined by Marsha McCullogh from the D.A
.'s office.
“What an unexpected surprise,” Diane hailed the visiting lawyer. “What brings you down to the sanitarium, Marsha?”
“A little birdie, said you were buying lunch,” as she coyly winked at Hernandez. “So I figured a poor public servant could mooch a little food. But I think I can pay for my lunch.”
“Marsha,” Diane cried in aghast, “I won't hear of it. This is my treat, well actually it is the department’s but there's plenty. Sit down, I insist.”
“Well I had thought about paying in cash, but I thought if I updated you on things happening around the old D.A.'s office it would be a fair trade. A little pizza for a lot of gossip?”
“Pull up a chair, I'll push these other moochers out of the way if you need. I'm anxious to hear how things are going with you legal eagles.”
Chiming in, Carly added, “Got any news on the good doctors, Merriwhether and Erickson?”
Settling back in the chair, the petite well-tailored woman tried an answer between bites of pizza. “Yes,” she said with a muffled breath. As she cleared her throat and took a long drink of soda she offered more information. “There's plenty on the doctors. Oona and her lawyer have continued to be more than cooperative, almost expansive. She's got nothing to lose anyway. The way this thing plays out she will be okay. Who knows what her next life gets her? As for her husband, he is nowhere to be found.”
“Surely the press will dog him won’t they?” Carly asked.
“Not necessarily Professor. You see we are not telling anyone about MemoryLock, Dombrowski and the whole Colorado thing.”
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