Atwell smiled, “Of course you do, Fred; and so do I—when it suits me.
“What do you think, Fred? My former boss would be impressed, would he not?” Atwell pointed to his massive desk. “The gold on my nameplate is solid 24 karat. Do you know that Schultz’s name plate is nothing but cheap gold paint?”
Both Schultz and Atwell had overbearing egos, but Schultz’s paled by comparison.
“I guess Schultz would be impressed,” Fred responded.
The small talk was over for Atwell, “What can I do for you?”
“Donna Lang has escaped from prison.”
“Yes, I know. I continue to keep up regularly with the Sarasota news. But what’s that got to do with me?”
“You helped me capture Donna the last time, so I hope you will do it again.”
“Fred, I have no desire to leave these elaborate surroundings to help you capture that dumb bitch. I make about five million a year; and of that, one million goes to grease the palms of politicians who will give rich guys like me a tax reduction and screw the dumb middle-class. As far as Donna is concerned, I hated her guts. She turned me down for a date—said I was too short. Can you imagine? I’m at least four inches taller than that dumb bitch.”
As Fred recalled, Donna was the taller of the two. But he didn’t want to activate Atwell’s highly sensitive area, so he remained silent while fighting to hold back a smile.
Fred thought that if he could get Atwell talking about his successful business enterprise, he might be more receptive to Fred’s request.
Fred said, “I didn’t know you had the business acumen to open this type of operation.”
“I don’t. I casually met a guy at a bar when I first relocated to San Diego. It turned out he was a successful businessman who was having great difficulty making a decision about one of his investments. I entered the portal of his mind and found out what he thought was the best course of action; I also mentally extracted some details about the investment. I fed him back what he already knew, but coming from me it seemed like an independent reinforcing opinion. His investment turned out to be highly successful, and he logically recommended me to others. So that’s how I got started, simply parroting back what these millionaires already knew and intuitively felt. But they were too damn insecure to go along with their gut instincts.”
“How did you get the start up money?”
“Simple, I placed a picture in their minds of how successful they would be if they fronted me.”
“That must have been difficult.”
Atwell smiled.
Suddenly Fred was no longer in an office! He was now precariously perched on the end of a ten foot diving board wearing too-tight red and white plaid swimming trunks; below him was a huge swimming pool with inviting robin’s egg blue waters reflecting back an untroubled sky with passing silk, white clouds. The temperature was perfect; air in the 70’s with low humidity, and a slight breeze at his back completed the picture. He could smell the heavy salt air generated from the Caribbean Sea which lapped the shore line just beyond the resort. Wild parrots were opening their wings, and about to take flight from the copse of palm trees in the thick jungle forest to his right. He noticed a series of lacquered bamboo tables across the pool and a smiling Mexican waiter pointing to a rum and coke in his tray—it was Fred’s favorite drink. He forgot the lime slice, Fred thought, when suddenly it appeared in the top of the drink.
Fred wondered how he got here and how he was going to get back to the States, when suddenly, still clad in his swimming trunks, he looked down from a slight rise in the terrain and saw only blue ice, miles and miles of it. The temperature had immediately dropped at least 100 degrees; his reddened feet had already entered the first stage of frostbite. He wrapped his frigid body tightly in his unclad arms, a wholly symbolic gesture which did nothing to corral the cold or reduce his increasing pain.
Then, in an instant he was back in Atwell’s office, shivering uncontrollably.
“See, Fred?” Atwell was saying. “It’s not hard at all to place vivid images in one’s mind. By the way, I’m sorry I forgot your lime slice. Your signals were not quite that clear to me.”
Fred still had residual thoughts of the uncontained cold that had just ravished his body as he said through frozen lips, “You win that one.”
At one time Fred had thought he could compete with Atwell on an equal basis, but no more. Somehow Atwell had continued to develop his amazing powers during the four years that they had been apart.
“Not true,” Atwell said, reading Fred’s mind. “It used to be pure entertainment for me, but I have now focused only on developing that segment which makes me rich. I improved my ability to read thoughts and to place vivid pictures into my potential client’s minds. Actually, I suspect my other ESP abilities have waned significantly since I haven’t used them in years.”
“That may be so, Atwell, but you still can read minds; can you tell me anything about what Donna is doing now, what she’s thinking, where she’s located?”
“Harris, you recall that incident years ago when I read your wife’s mind when you hid her away in an insane asylum to protect her from Donna, don’t you?”
Fred thought there is no reason to even have to articulate words to Atwell since he seems to be a master at reading my mind. Fred said defensively, “I still cringe from that experience, but I felt that was the only way I could have protected her at the time.”
“Look, Fred, she was physically near us at the time, was she not—in Sarasota or Bradenton?”
“No, she was in Fort Myers, about eighty miles away.”
“That’s interesting. Normally my mind reading ability can only extend so far; the farther away the subject, the more conflicting and washed out images my mind sees. Donna, I assume, is somewhere in Florida. So, even if I wanted to, and I don’t, I couldn’t receive any mental images from that great a distance. That’s why the distant readings that the Russians and our own military attempted during the cold war era never worked consistently and was never tried again.
“Fred, I recall when you were interviewing me at AU you were able to make an object move, just through the use of your mental facilities. You didn’t even know you had the power back then. Remember this; since we had the device removed from Donna, she’s become just an ordinary individual. You have a hell of a lot more innate power than she does—just use it!”
Fred looked down. “I never developed it any further; I found it more satisfying to employ conventional police methods.”
“Fred, you’re an idiot; I gave you that device so you could use it; well, you still can.” Atwell paused. “Wait a minute, you can’t use it. Donna stole that device from you, didn’t she?”
“Yes. But, Marv, if you went to Florida, you could read her mind, find her, and help me capture her again.”
“You don’t understand, Fred. I could but I don’t want to. You’re totally on your own now.”
Fred made one more frustrated attempt, “Face facts, Marv, Donna tried to kill me because I was the arresting officer. But you were the one that provided me with all the assistance. She will at some point in the future try to kill you as well. Let’s combine our forces and get her now before she gets that damn contrivance re-inserted.”
“Fred, do you really think she could ever be the equal of me? Hell, it was mainly my capabilities that were programmed into that device; and I never came close to transferring all of them for the development of the prototype. Fred, she could never kill me, she’s no match for me, and she never will be!”
Just then the intercom buzzed. Atwell picked it up and said, “Sure, send him in.
“Sorry, Fred, it’s a paying customer who’s about to come in. You have nothing further to offer me. Have a good life; and don’t even think about coming to see me again.”
As a well dressed man started to enter Atwell’s office, Fred made one more futile attempt.
“If I could offer you something, then would you reconsider?”
As he left Atwell’s office, Fred thought, Damn, I hate that man!
“I know you do, Fred,” Atwell loudly responded from the other side of the office door.
The trip to San Diego had not been as successful as Fred had hoped. But as an optimist he envisioned distinct possibilities emerging from the visit.
Chapter 19
Jim and Fred were reviewing the details of the case in Jim’s office.
Jim said, “I’ve been curious; do we know anything at all about Donna’s family?”
“None whatsoever; I asked the Tallahassee warden and she said her parents were both dead. She had no other information.”
“Fred, that information might well be bogus. And if, by a remote chance, her parents are still alive we might get a lead there.”
“Okay, Jim, good thinking. Let me start with AU and determine if they retained any records back when she was employed there.”
Fred called George Schultz and asked him if he kept any old personnel records and if so, would he check into what he had on Donna Lang.
Schultz said, “Generally we keep the records only a short time after an employee leaves, but I’ll check it out and get back to you.”
In a couple of minutes Fred’s phone rang.
“Got the records Fred, you’re lucky. For some reason we didn’t destroy them, maybe because of all the calls we were getting from the media after Donna’s arrest. At any rate all we have is an address for her, actually two addresses. On her application for employment, she said her parents were deceased and she had no other family. As a matter of routine, our personnel department asks for a prospective employee’s addresses over the last five years to get an accurate picture of how they paid their rents and mortgages, how they behaved, if they were receiving threatening calls from finance companies and the like. Normally we would have had much more extensive information than we retained on Donna because most of our employees have to obtain a classified clearance from the feds. But Donna was hired as a receptionist, so she didn’t require a clearance.”
“I see, give me the two addresses that you had for her.”
Fred checked the landlords for the two places that Donna resided prior to her being hired by AU.
John Temple, the landlord of the first apartment that Donna had lived in, had nothing negative to say about Donna. His comments were so positive that Fred might have hired Donna at the time, had he not known about her troubled background.
“She always paid her bills on time and I never got any indication she had credit problems. No, sorry, I don’t know anything about her family.”
Donna’s last known landlord had equal praise for Donna. Donna had told him about her parents being both killed in a car crash. He believed it was in Indiana, but he didn’t know the city.
“Anything else?” Fred asked.
“Just one thing which I doubt is important.”
“What’s that?”
“Well when she left she left behind a -–I really don’t know what it’s called, but it looked like an Amish cap to me. As you know, we have an extensive Amish community in Sarasota and the cap looked like one that the women wear in that region. The strange thing is that, to my knowledge, Donna was far from religious. She never went to church while she stayed here and her dresses were very short, not the sort that the Amish would ever wear.”
Fred wasn’t sure how to proceed with the limited information he had received. He called in Detective Grimes and asked him to canvass the entire Amish neighborhood, and to show each resident a picture of Donna.
“See if anyone ever had contact with her.” he directed.
“Boss, that could take weeks.”
“No, the community is fairly small, it’s mainly concentrated in one area. We don’t have weeks at our disposal, get to work.”
Chapter 20
That next day the same woman who had visited the National Institute of Health’s library, entered the personnel area of the Fort Myers Hospital. Earlier, she had filled out a host of papers applying for the position of a registered nurse in their operating room. The head personnel specialist looked suspiciously over her half spectacles at the woman’s basic application, along with two attachments—glowing recommendations from two major hospitals in the Chicago area.
“I’m impressed,” the woman said. “You received a nurse’s degree from Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, Virginia, with top honors. And you served for ten years in operating rooms in the mid-west area. You are certainly what we are looking for, but you understand that if you’re hired you will only be a temporary employee until our regular nurse returns after her maternity leave.”
“Yes, I understand, that will be fine.”
“Normally we check applications out quite extensively; but your application is so impressive, and we really desperately need someone right now . . . I’m going to take the chance and hire you, but I want you to know I rarely do such a thing.”
“Thank you so much,” the woman said, smiling. “You won’t be sorry.”
“Can you start tomorrow?”
“That would be fine, but since I’m new to the hospital I would like to familiarize myself with the operating rooms; would that be possible?”
“Yes, I’ve no meetings for a couple of hours; I’d be happy to show you around. By the way, your first operation assist will be 8 a.m. tomorrow morning; you have to be here not later than 6 a.m. Would that be acceptable?”
“Sure; and perhaps during the tour, you will introduce me to the surgeon who is doing the operations as well?”
“I think I can do that. This will work out great for the two of us. Now, please complete the information for Social Security, print your past addresses over the past ten years, complete all that nasty bureaucratic stuff that we need, and then we’ll get started with your hospital tour.”
The woman completed the necessary forms, putting down false addresses and a false Social Security number. I will be long gone before they find out any of this, she reasoned.
* * *
A couple days had passed, and Fred contacted the police chief in Tallahassee whose office was working the case of the prison breakout.
Fred identified himself, and the chief said, “Yes, the warden told me about you and that you thought Donna, Jane, and her boyfriend Slim Woods might have escaped to your neck of the woods.”
“Yes, that’s correct. I’m wondering if you have more information from your side?”
“I checked the Wood’s homestead, Slim’s mother and brother still live there. I brought them both in for questioning; both the mother and her son claim they never saw Slim after the breakout. They claimed they were not close to him and that he didn’t communicate with them often. I didn’t believe them, but there wasn’t much else I could do to get the information out of them. Since Slim had served his full sentence, he didn’t have to report to a parole officer. I interviewed the few neighbors that reside in their rural area, and they professed ignorance as well. We put a watch on their house in case he returns sometime in the future. I also checked for stolen cars in our general area but had no luck; so I have no idea what type of vehicle they used for their getaway. Slim’s brother is a trucker and he goes into the Oklahoma City area once every four days. He could have taken Slim with him at any time. But that’s a lot of miles for us to cover; Slim could have stolen a car from virtually any town on the way.”
“Thanks, Chief, give me a call if anything breaks.”
“Sure, you do the same.”
Fred hung up, thinking—another damn dead end! Sarasota is a major vacation town during the winter, he thought, vacationers and snowbirds from all over the country and from Europe come here for its warmth and white quartz beaches. There’s no use looking for an out of town car, he thought, that was an impossible exercise.
He recalled that one time while
visiting an in-law he had traveled to the small town of Pineville, West Virginia. He guessed its population was well under a thousand. There was not much there to attract visitors, and it was quite a few miles from the state border; so basically all the license plates in the town were from West Virginia. After he left the area and returned home, he got a call from his sister-in-law. She had picked up the local police frequency on her scanner and found out the police had been tracking his car while he had been in town because it was not only out of state, but was all the way from Florida. And that alone was enough to raise their suspicions. At times he wished he lived in that small town; because anyone out of that world of sameness would become an immediate suspect. He had no such luck living in such a large transient community.
Chapter 21
When Fred arrived at work, Detective Grimes was sitting in his office with his feet on the top of Fred’s desk.
Fred sarcastically said, “Comfortable, I hope?”
“Yes—ah, sorry, Boss, but I’ve got some news for you. I got in contact with someone who thought she might have known Donna about ten years ago. I showed her the picture and she said the problem was the young woman she knew year ago was a brunette and her hair was always combed into a bun, but the face was very familiar. I told her you might want to talk to her just in case it was the person we’re looking for.”
“Thanks, it’s most likely a dead end; but I’ll check it out anyway.”
The woman’s address was in the Pinecraft sector of Sarasota. The area consisted of several small houses and crowded, almost non-negotiable narrow streets. Three wheel bicycles populated the entire area; cars parked in the area were the exception. As Fred got out of his car, he was almost run down by one of those three wheel bicycles with a large carrying box secured over its back wheel. All around him were women, void of any makeup, wearing long skirts, and men dressed in black, each wearing long untrimmed beards. Some of the men wore what seemed like a half stovepipe hat reminiscent of the mid 1800’s. It seemed as if each house had its own clothesline; all were crammed with spotless cotton clothes. This is an area where technical progress was left behind eons ago, Fred thought. I suspect none of the residents work for Maytag.
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