The Monolith Murders

by Lorne L. Bentley

  Don handed Fred a piece of paper with Anderson’s phone number and address. Fred moved to the reception desk and placed a call to the number provided. The number rang at least ten times; no one picked up; no answering machine responded.

  Fred said, “It appears the phone number is still good since I didn’t get a disconnect recording. However, I’m concerned that there was no answer.”

  Acting if he were now in charge of the investigation, Schultz said, “Me too—let’s go to his house.”

  Chapter 10

  Fred didn’t fancy taking Schultz with him to Anderson’s place. Schulz would likely be in the way and certainly a major liability if Donna was already there. On the other hand, he was driving Schultz’s car, and Schultz would be left stranded if he left him at the company this late at night. Reluctantly, Fred agreed to have Schultz accompany him.

  Fred jumped into the driver’s seat leaving Schultz no choice but to return to being a reluctant passenger again. Schultz commanded, “Fred, adjust the damn seat this time.”

  At this time of night Sarasota’s streets were free from their daily commuters; Fred made excellent time getting to the Gulf Gate subdivision where Anderson lived.

  A distant street light cast a slight yellowish neon glow on Anderson’s stucco house. The house was dark; a sale sign was posted in the middle of the front lawn. Fred silently walked up to the set of double walnut front doors; Schultz followed a few feet behind, crouching as much as a 6’5” person can. Fred noted something disturbing. The front door was cracked open about three inches.

  “That’s not good,” he said to Schultz. “Get down, and stay outside!”

  Schultz dropped back even further and said, “Of course, if you don’t need me.” Schultz really didn’t want to be needed at this time.

  Fred had a small LED blue light on the end of his key chain. He activated the light and silently entered the house.

  The house showed no signs of life. Fred found the light switch to his right and flicked it on. The house remained dark and foreboding. With his small pen light, and the open door allowing limited illumination from the outside street light, Fred realized he made himself an easy target for anyone hiding inside. He closed the front door, switched off his pen light and moved slowly through the foyer into the living room. By now his eyes had almost fully adjusted to the darkness. He crouched down and softly called out, “Dr. Anderson?”

  No response. He silently moved to the kitchen, and finding nothing he methodically proceeded to the den. As he pushed open the door, he jumped as he saw a figure reposed in a desk chair. He yelled, “Put your hands up, and put them up now!” No reaction from the figure and no movement.

  Fred turned on his light, shined it at the figure and gasped.

  Chapter 11

  The figure in the chair was a middle-aged woman, her previously attractive face now marred by a single bullet planted in the middle of her head. A minimum amount of blood had escaped from her wound. To Fred this was a clear indication that her heart had shut down immediately and she had died instantly.

  He felt her arm, it was cold; he gently moved it up and down. Rigor mortis had not yet set in that part of her body. He checked her eyelids and then felt her face and neck since he knew that was the usual site for the start of the process. They were still in the early phase of

  hardening. “That’s interesting.” Fred said to a vacant house, “She’s obviously been dead for a while, likely at least three hours.”

  He recalled that rigor mortis normally sets in within three to four hours after death, but it usually disappears in from 36 to 48 hours. Fred looked at his watch. It was roughly an hour and a half since Donna had appeared in his house. If I’m correct, Fred thought, Donna visited Dr. Anderson’s house before she came to my place. Fred initially couldn’t understand how Donna knew where the monolith was. But if she kidnapped Anderson before going to Fred’s house, perhaps the doctor revealed its source. Or, knowing that I had been her arresting officer in her case, she might have assumed logically that I had it. At any rate he reasoned that Dr. Anderson had almost assuredly been kidnapped by Donna.

  He glanced at the papers on the desk. With only a pen light for visibility he had problems reading some of the paperwork. He noticed an open envelope sent from the Neurological Surgery Unit at Fort Myers Hospital, but further search failed to find the letter associated with it.

  Fred was sure there was no one else in the house, but he explored it anyway. He went through to the spacious garage via the kitchen door. It was there that he found the house’s main electrical switch. He threw it, activating lights in both the house and garage. Two cars were parked in the doublewide garage. Fred felt each of their hoods. Both were cold.

  He left the garage and called Schultz, still standing outside. Fred brought him into the den and asked, “Do you know who this woman is?”

  Schultz said, “God, yes, I do. She’s Dr. Anderson’s wife.”

  Fred suspected as much. “How many cars does Anderson own?”

  “Two, I believe.”

  Then Donna has her own means of transportation, Fred thought. She had no need to steal one of Anderson’s cars. Fred called his station, issuing orders to send the coroner and an investigating unit to Anderson’s house. The officer on duty notified him that all-points had already been released for Donna. Fred said, “Fine, also put an all-points out for Dr. Anderson because I believe he’s been kidnapped.”

  Fred waited for the first patrol car to arrive; and only after the arriving officer took control of the scene did he have Schultz drop him off at his house.

  When he returned home, everyone from the party was gone except his wife and Dan. His former chief asked what was going on. Fred provided him with only a scant outline, telling him about the murder and the kidnapping; he made it clear he didn’t want to provide any additional details.

  The chief got up to leave and said, “I hope you catch her, Fred; I’ll call you tomorrow to see what’s happening. By the way, Maureen will have a police watch around the clock.”

  Fred had not filled the chief in on all the details for a couple of reasons. First, Don was now retired from the force, and no longer officially in any investigative loop; and secondly Fred had a secret he didn’t want the chief or others to know about until he sorted it out for himself. Very few people knew about the operation that Donna had undergone to remove the monolith from her brain. Fred had reluctantly given the authority to Dr. Anderson to proceed, feeling at the time such an action was critical to neutralize Donna’s powers. Marv Atwell also knew about its removal, since it was he who had convinced Fred to give permission for the operation to proceed. However, only Atwell and the doctor were in the operating room with Donna, and it was Atwell who had retrieved the extracted monolith and subsequently provided it to Fred.

  Fred wasn’t even sure Schultz or Dodd, who was Dr. Anderson’s immediate superior, knew about the device, although he strongly suspected that Schultz did. But in the past four years Schultz, who had been in frequent contact with Fred, had never mentioned it. Fred knew it had been developed for some secret government agency, most likely the CIA because a CIA plant had been put into AU to determine who in the company had illegally provided a duplicate copy of the unit to the Chinese.

  That plant was Debra Black of the CIA, but in the ensuing four years, she had never discussed the monolith with Fred. He had assumed that knowledge of it had either fallen through the cracks or the CIA didn’t really care. He knew that the latter explanation was pure rationalization on his part, because there was no way in which the CIA would not be concerned with such a dangerous weapon on the loose. It was more fathomable that somehow the CIA had lost track of it over the years. Terrorist activities were breaking out all over the globe; and it was logical that Black had to move from one case to another with little breathing room in between, so any institutional memory had likely been lost. The existence of the device was never brought up during Donna’s trial for security reasons; and of cou
rse, the local media had no knowledge of its existence.

  Fred knew he should have immediately given the unit to the CIA the moment Atwell gave to him, but he had decided not to. So in a very real way he had been in control of a state secret, which had now been stolen from him. Fred knew he should talk to someone in authority about it. But at the same time he feared that if he did so he might be arrested, or at a minimum he would wind up incriminating someone else. Even his wife didn’t know, nor had she asked, about the details surrounding the unit, even though it had sat in plain sight on their dresser for years. Maureen had a favorite saying, “If you don’t want to know the answer to a question, never ask the question.” His friend Jim, who was also now his immediate boss, had not been in the loop; and Fred did not want to include him at this late stage.

  Fred thought, eventually I’ve got to tell someone because if Donna has that damn device re-inserted she will return to her murderous ways of old. Of course, Fred thought, she already has, because he was sure Donna was responsible for Mrs. Anderson’s murder. At this stage, though, with her limited powers she was a conventional murderer. But should that device be inserted in her brain again, Fred knew she would become an extraordinary murderer. In a short time people would become curious as to why Dr. Anderson was kidnapped by Donna, so Fred had to do something very quickly - but what? He was dead tired, so he decided to sleep on it and think about it in the morning when was refreshed and could think more clearly.

  Chapter 12

  When Fred awoke, his first thoughts were of Donna. He perceived that if Dr. Anderson operated on Donna, she would have to be anesthetized and rendered unconscious for a prolonged period. Unless Donna had complete confidence in Anderson, she would be reluctant to assume such a risk. The fact that Donna killed Dr. Anderson’s wife made Fred sure that the relationship between Donna and the doctor was far from a blissful one. How was she going to accomplish this and maintain control of the situation, Fred wondered?

  Donna was brilliant, so she must have considered this problem beforehand. I’m missing something, Fred thought, but I just don’t have the details yet to know what.

  His wife lying beside him was just starting to wake up as was their pet Yorkie, Molly, who during the night had nestled close between the two of them. Molly had been settled peacefully; but she was now climbing over Fred’s chest, rapidly moving her tiny paws over his stomach as if digging a hole. It was her way to get his attention, and it was always successful.

  Fred recognized that no matter what other critical issues were on today’s agenda, taking Molly out first thing in the morning was the most important thing to do right now. He tossed a robe on and followed the tiny canine as she trotted purposefully downstairs and out the front door. She religiously canvassed the front and back lawn for any new smells that might have arrived that night while she was asleep. Satisfied there were none, she did her business and preceded Fred into the house, wanting to replenish the bathroom break with as much compensating sleep as she could muster. Fred had one last task; he needed to provide peanuts to Abraham and Dennis, the Harris’ pet squirrels, who had become very tame in the years since Maureen and Fred started feeding them. They had learned to beg for their peanuts just as Molly would for her daily treats. Fortunately neither of the squirrels had advanced to the stage where they dug on Fred’s stomach to get his attention.

  * * *

  Jim had attempted to assign only the most capable officers to protect Maureen. One of the officers he hand picked was Officer Stewart. Stewart had just knocked on the front door as Fred was re-entering his house. Stewart was viewed by the force as a dedicated officer; he had moved quickly through the ranks since his start on the force four years ago. Many of the cops on the force during that period had resented Fred because of his rapid rise up the ranks. But now most of them respected him; he assumed that was because of his success in breaking the mass murder case. In recent days, though, Stewart had seemed less and less friendly to Fred. Fred tried to reason what he could have done to Stewart that would make him behave the way he did.

  Fred offered Stewart a cup of coffee. Stewart said, “Sure, why not?” Fred attempted to get into small talk with him but all of his questions were greeted by terse ‘yes and no’ answers without the benefit of elaboration. Fred asked about his love life, an easy subject that most men seem to find comfortable to discuss. Stewart simply said that he had recently been dating an attractive young woman. Fred pried Stewart for greater detail. “I see, but is she skinny, fat, tall, thin, redhead, brunette, blonde—what?”

  Stewart said laconically, “She’s blonde and I would do anything for her, anything. She’s had a hard life; she’s been misjudged by—by a lot of people. I’m going to do all I can to help her.”

  Fred said, “Well, if you love her that’s what you should do.”

  Then Stewart responded in an enigmatic way. “You know that societies are not always correct, don’t you? Shit, they consist of humans whose judgment is not invincible—damn it, you’re not always right either, Fred. Sometimes society makes mistakes, major ones.”

  Fred said, “Sure I know that. Look, bring your girlfriend over to the house some evening, and we can talk about all of that. Maureen’s a great cook.”

  “I don’t think so, Fred,” Stewart replied tersely.

  Fred didn’t know what had set off Stewart; but at that moment Maureen came downstairs. The conversation was over and Fred was no further along in understanding why Stewart had the burr up his ass than he was before he started talking to him. Fred was no longer sure that Stewart was the best cop to safeguard Maureen’s life.

  Stewart uttered a brief hello to Maureen as he departed with his coffee into the living room.

  Maureen’s first words to Fred were, “Good morning, Fred; I have to talk to you.”

  Fred re-filled the coffee container from his coffee machine, knowing that if he didn’t, Maureen would. He turned the machine on, and sat down at the kitchen table.

  “Fred, all night long I was thinking about Donna.”

  “Who wasn’t,” Fred responded.

  “Fred, my point is that Donna has changed.”

  “You mean she suddenly has turned bad,” he said smiling.

  “Fred, you’re kidding, but actually you’re correct. She obviously was vile before, but now she’s turned even worse.”

  “I don’t get you,” Fred said. “I really don’t see the word bad as having a lot of gradations. It’s a binary, one is either bad or they are not.”

  He found Maureen’s comments more emotional than scientific; she had uttered almost the words that a layman would have used in this situation. Normally Maureen overlaid a buffered psychological analysis to such a situation; her perceptions had always been processed and distilled through a controlled, objective view of the world. Her insight was gained by studying the works of past psychological greats such as Freud, Jung, Maslow and Pavlov. That process seemed to provide an effective shield for Maureen where she didn’t have to experience the unfiltered rawness of the real world, and where she could apply a cold analytical analysis and escape unscathed into the purity of the academic world. Now she had seemed to lose that wall of protection and was speaking as a lay woman would, full of fear and one who could not see beyond the brutal clarity of the pure hatred that Donna possessed.

  Fred had noticed that Maureen had clung close to him all last night. She was now functioning more like a child seeking protection than a mature, educated woman who had become the ultimate problem solver for hosts of people encountering emotional experiences that they could not begin to solve themselves. Fred didn’t like the change in her—he didn’t like it at all.

  “Fred, I worked with you on the previous case with Donna, when you and I tried to uncover the reason for the actions of what was an unknown murderer at the time.”

  “So?”

  “Remember she was a ruthless murderer, but in her mind her murders were justified and necessary. She selectively killed innocent people to co
ver up the murder of those people at AU who she either disliked or she perceived were in her way of obtaining a promotion.

  Certainly it was extreme anti-social behavior, I give you, but still one that had certain limited constraints on it.”

  “Okay, I know that, but I guess you’re saying she was not really a cold murderer at the time, only a lukewarm one.”

  “Fred, that’s not funny.” She knew humor was an effective defensive mechanism for Fred but she felt this was not the time for him to use it.

  Maureen went on, “Please recall that in the past she would not kill women; her hatred was directed to men in general but even then she was able to exclude those men who were decent to her. My point is that she was a mass murderer but she had governing values, limited as they might have been. But last night she was ready to shoot me and all those around our table without a thought, and you told me last night that she shot Dr. Anderson’s wife.”

  “Yes, that’s correct.”

  “What possible threat could Mrs. Anderson have been to her? As dangerous as she was four years ago, there was an element of predictability and selectivity about her. But now she seems like a rabid animal killing not for food or in self-defense, but killing because of what she has become.”

  Maureen’s eyes were no longer looking at Fred, they were now staring vacantly at the floor and her voice had unconsciously lowered to an almost inaudible soft whisper. “The veneer of thousands, perhaps millions of years of civilization, has been stripped from her,” Maureen continued, “And she is now the raw killing thing that man was when he first slithered out of the quagmire.”