The man took a deep breath, obviously relieved. “Their trailer was the last one I rented. Because I’m selling the park, I didn’t want to complicate any future sale of the park by having tenants in the park with an active contract that extended beyond my projected settlement date. But she told me that they would be out of there in a month. I knew there was no way I could sell the park and settle in that short a period of time, so I agreed. It would also provide me with a little transitional money since I’m no longer active in the rental business.”
Fred asked, “Can you remember anything about the people who rented it?”
“Sure, except it wasn’t people, it was one woman. She was in her mid- 30s, perhaps a little older. She wore a cap and had on black shorts, and oh, yes, she was very small.” He gestured to Fred showing him that she only came up to the bottom of his neck. “She said there would be another woman and a man joining her. One was her sister, I believe she told me, and the other her husband. The woman signed a rental contract; I have it in my office.”
“We’ll need to take that with us; we’ll return it.”
“Yes sir, no problem.”
“Anything else, anything at all that you can remember?”
“No, as I told you in the beginning, I was rarely in the park. We had one other renter who was scheduled to vacate a few days ago. Other than that, the park has been deserted.”
“Did you ever see the other woman and the man?”
“Nope, never did. The woman paid the rent for the month in cash when she signed the contract. I also took a month’s security deposit. Even though she was just staying a month, she didn’t object to paying a security deposit. She didn’t argue over anything—a real nice lady.”
“I think you’re safe in keeping that security deposit. They won’t return, and I’m sure you won’t be sued for its return. What kind of car was she driving?”
“I really didn’t get a good look at it, red I believe, but I have no idea of the year or the make. To me, all the cars since the 80’s look alike.”
“OK, thanks; and if you can think of anything else, give me a call anytime, night or day. Give me the rental contract and we’ll be on our way.”
As they left, the patrolman asked Fred if he had gotten anything out of the conversation.
“No, not a damn thing.”
He rang Jim from his cell phone and briefed him of his visit.
“So you really got nothing out of the guy?” asked Jim.
“No, he was cooperative, but he really had no information. He gave me a copy of the contract that Donna apparently signed, but I can’t even read her writing. Even if I could, I’m sure it was an alias.”
At that moment, the patrolman who had taken Anderson to AU entered Jim’s office.
“Oh, sorry, Jim, I was looking for Lieutenant Harris, but he wasn’t in his office.”
“He’s on the phone with me now, he’s in Venice. What did you want to say to him?”
“Tell him that I delivered Dr. Anderson to AU as he directed me to.”
“Wait a minute, why didn’t you stay with Anderson?”
“I wasn’t told to.”
Jim realized that he had earlier removed the sole police guard from AU. The only protection remaining now to guard Anderson was the company security guard.
Jim said to Fred over the phone, “Fred, Dr. Anderson is at AU but he’s there alone! He has no police guard remaining!”
Fred said, “I’m a distance away, but I’ll give Sergeant Lewis a call to get over there right away. I’ll get back to you.”
Fred kept the cell phone numbers of all his subordinates in his cell phone directory. He dialed Lewis. Fred bellowed out his order, “Lewis, get over to AU right away! We delivered Dr. Anderson to the building a few minutes ago; but due to a major error on our part we didn’t provide any police protection for him.”
“Fred, you forgot, this is my afternoon off. I’m visiting a friend in Bradenton. I’m driving my personal car with no police radio. I’m glad you contacted me via my cell phone, or I never would have received your call. I’ll try to get there as soon as I can, but in the meantime I’ve got Stewart’s number. I believe he’s home and he lives just down the street from AU. I’ll give him a call and send him over there right away.”
Fred said, “Okay, I’m approaching I-75 now. I’ll head directly to AU; I’ll meet you there.”
In a half-hour Fred arrived at AU’s front door. He pushed the buzzer and waited a couple of minutes. He buzzed again—still no response. Finally Sergeant Stewart came to the front door.
“Where the hell were you? I buzzed twice!”
“I’m sorry, I just got here and—well, you’d better take a look.”
Just inside the door, to the right was the body of big Don, a bullet hole in the middle of his head.
“My God!” Fred said.
“That’s not all the bad news, come with me.”
Sergeant Stewart led Fred into the Science Division. About ten feet in the room, blocking the medical unit’s door was the lifeless body of Dr. Anderson. He also had a bullet hole in the middle of his head.
“Donna’s trademark,” Fred said. “Sergeant, was anybody here when you arrived?”
“No, the door was open, which I found strange; I entered and immediately saw the body of the security guard. I checked his pulse but I knew he was already gone; then I came in here and found Doctor Anderson’s body.”
At that moment Sergeant Lewis arrived in his new Ford Fusion. Recognizing Fred, he stopped just past the front door of the gigantic lobby.
“Hi, Fred, I’m terribly sorry. I wish I could have gotten here sooner.”
He looked at the guard’s body and said, “Damn, he was such a decent guy. And, oh God, after all we did to find Anderson, we’ve lost him as well. I’m so sorry that I wasn’t closer to AU when you called, Fred.”
“You did all you could,” said Fred. “It was my and Jim’s fault that we didn’t make sure we had adequate protection for Anderson before we left him here unprotected.”
* * *
An hour later Fred was sitting in Jim’s office. “Fred, it was totally my fault; I should have told you that I had removed the police security at the AU building. If we had even one cop there to protect Anderson, this never would have happened.”
“I’m not sure about that. With Donna’s powers she might have easily eliminated anybody in her way. But something else bothers me about the two murders.”
“And that is?”
“About four years ago Don had some information which would have incriminated Donna; that happened before she was even considered a suspect. Donna didn’t kill him then; she simply used her powers to make him forget what he had learned. When I talked to Donna just before she was apprehended, she told me at the time that she liked Don and that there was no reason for her to kill him; in effect it was much easier to erase his memory.”
“But, Fred, you said since her confinement she’s not the same. She has no compassion for anyone anymore, even though I can’t say she had much before she was sent to prison.”
“You’re right, Jim, but there’s something else. Why did she kill Dr. Anderson? I doubt that he had any special information concerning her that would lead to her arrest. They had already deserted their hideout. Anderson was her pawn; she had needed his expertise to re-install the device. In fact I’m sure she purposely kept him alive even after he operated on her, perhaps in case something went wrong. I really don’t have any technical information concerning the device, but I would assume it might need some fine-tuning over time. I don’t know why she would have killed him; she certainly couldn’t have considered him a threat. Think about it, whenever she left the trailer she apparently secured him to the vent pipe to make sure he couldn’t escape. Wouldn’t it have been easier if she had just killed him while she had him in captivity?”
“I see your point,” Jim mused, “but you said that Dr. Anderson was killed with a bullet in the middle of his for
ehead. And that is her special macabre trademark. In addition, it appears when Donna gets angry, her reasoning goes by the wayside. She must have been extremely revengeful toward Anderson when he escaped from her. It appears killing him was her form of getting even.”
“There’s no question about that,” Fred agreed. But look at how limited the time frame was for Donna to have learned the location of Anderson, drive to the AU site, kill two people, and escape before the police arrived. What was her rush to get rid of him? I was certainly a much higher priority on her food chain than he was.”
“Fred, who on earth knows about the tendencies of crazies like her? Were there any clues at the trailer that might give us some idea where she might be headed?”
“No, but Donna can’t be too far away. Let’s assume she read our minds when we had Anderson confined to the county jail. As I stated, she would have had a very limited time to drive to AU. So her starting point had to be very close to downtown Sarasota. But that time line still bothers me.”
“Fred, if she read your mind, she most likely reacted immediately.”
“Yeah, Jim, I give you that, but how did she know that you had removed the police guard at AU?”
“I suppose that she read my mind as well.”
“But, Jim, you weren’t even in the cell block; you were back at the station.”
“That’s true, but how do we know how strong and flexible her powers are? Remember she had this device in her previously. Her learning curve to adapt should be fairly fast.”
“I don’t know; maybe you’re right. Her capabilities may be evolving at an unprecedented rate, which I might add scares the shit out of me.”
Fred’s cell phone rang; it was Detective James who was at AU in charge of investigating the murder scene.
“Lieutenant, sorry to bother you but the phone rang in AU; it was your wife on the line. She wanted you to call her back right away.”
“Yes, thanks, I usually call her back from the AU conference room for the sake of privacy.”
“You have to take her calls from here?”
“Yes, but don’t question me on that. I’ll be over there in a few minutes.”
When Fred reached Maureen he said, “Honey, it’s great to hear from you.”
“Fred, I’m quite a few miles past Seattle and still heading due east. Any luck on catching Donna? Please, please tell me that you did!”
“Sorry, honey, we located her hiding place but she got away just before we got there.”
Fred decided not to tell her about the death of Anderson; that would just scare her more, and the information would be of no practical use to her.
Fred said, “I have to ask you something about Doctor Anderson where your insight into the psyche could be of immense value. First of all, I told you previously that Anderson had been kidnapped by Donna. But he managed to escape from the trailer where he had been held captive.”
“That’s good news, but what do you want to tell me that I can help you with? And let me tell you I’m not sure I’m in the mood to be able to analyze anything at the moment, but go ahead.”
“Anderson was terrified of Donna.”
“Nothing strange about that, if I was killed in your presence and then you were kidnapped by the same person who killed your wife, you would be terrified as well.”
“Yes, but we held Anderson in a jail cell to protect him. He was emotionally distracted so he was given a sedative to sleep through the night. That didn’t seem to help, he started to believe Donna was in the same cell block with him; and he became more terrified as the night wore on.”
“Sounds to me as if he simply had nightmares about her and that amplified his fear.”
“I guess, but with her powers I suspect she may have projected herself into his mind.”
“Fred what you are talking about is not psychology; it’s a field I know nothing about and didn’t even believe in until you told me about Donna’s extraordinary powers. There’s absolutely nothing in my studies or my research that applies to this situation.”
Maureen started to tell Fred about her phone call but, considering the comments he had made about Sue, she decided it was best not to mention it..
Chapter 42
Fred was just beginning to stir from a disturbed nighttime sleep. Molly had two of her paws on his face and was lightly whimpering to be taken out. Who Knows, who hadn’t had enough seniority to sleep in the bed, had stretched up as far as she could with her paws just reaching the edge of the mattress. Fred said, “Okay, okay, I get the message from the both of you.” His cell phone rang. Now what, he thought?
“Fred, this is Debra.”
Fred was still trying to wipe away his mental cobwebs.
“Debra, oh yes, how can I help you?”
“Two things, one I need for you to stay in the area for the next couple of days; at this point I can’t tell you why. But also you told me you would get back to me relative to what you found out from Mrs. Brown’s census records.”
“Yes, I’ve been so involved with a murder case—well, you know the story. Meet me in my office if you will. I need one more favor from you. I need you to pull out some additional census records. This time the location is Sarasota.”
Fred provided Debra with the necessary information to pinpoint the area he was interested in.
* * *
An hour later Fred was at back at his desk with Debra, going over both the old and new batch of census records.
“Not what I expected,” Fred said.
“Want to let me in on what you’re looking for, Fred?”
“Yes, sorry. In the first batch of census records, there were four girls living at Mrs. Brown’s house.”
“So?”
“Oh, I forgot to tell you that Donna is Mrs. Brown’s daughter.”
“I see, and according to the census records she had three sisters.”
“Yes, and one sister was murdered at her aunt’s house in Sarasota. I’m sure the murderer was Donna.”
“And the second batch is a record of the census taken at her aunt’s house in Sarasota?”
“Right, and it provides a record of Donna and her sister who was subsequently murdered. But it shows no record of the other two girls.”
“So where does that leave you?”
“Mrs. Brown seemed to have some hidden secret when I met with her, which was painful for her to divulge. If you look at the census records, you will see that her husband had been unemployed at the time of one of the census reports; actually the information about his being unemployed appeared during two census periods. On the other hand, I know that Mrs. Brown’s sister in Sarasota had built up quite a fortune. The Browns felt they could no longer care for their children properly, so they shipped two of them off to her sister. I bet they put the third and fourth ones up for adoption. My gut tells me that.”
“Well, it’s certainly interesting, Fred, but I have to get back to work. I’ll check in with you later.”
Fred placed a call to the police chief in Lancaster. “Chief, I need for you to check into something for me. I need to know if any of Mrs. Brown’s children were put up for adoption. The names that were recorded when they were living in Mrs. Brown’s house were Jane
and what looks like Theresa Brown. According to the census records Jane was born around 1975 and Theresa about a year later.”
“Does this have anything at all to do with the murder case I’m investigating at the Brown home?”
“I don’t know, but it’s a remote possibility that one of her children murdered her. It’s just a hunch, mind you, but it might be worth pursuing. My gut tells me that Donna murdered her mother, but I’m not sure why.”
“Fred, pulling out adoption records is no easy task with all the court restrictions nowadays. But my brother runs the local agency; so with that in, maybe I can find out the information you’re after. I’ll give you a call.”
“Okay, but in case I’m not in, please provide the feedback to my boss, I’ll make
sure he knows what’s going on.”
Just after Fred hung up the phone he received a call from Debra Black.
“Fred, I told you earlier that something important had come up. The call I just received provided the details. I don’t want to answer any questions, but you have to trust me. Pack your suitcase for a few days. I’ll pick you up in a half hour outside of your house; be there.”
“Wait a minute! I have a meeting later with Jim this morning at the station and—”
“—He already knows you will be gone for the day and perhaps more, perhaps many more. See you in half an hour, Fred.”
What the hell is this all about, he wondered.
Fred quickly dressed, took the dogs out, and deposited peanuts for Abraham and Dennis. He was just refilling the dog’s food dish when Debra sped into his driveway and impatiently beeped her horn. Still confused over the mystery of Black’s call, Fred dashed to the waiting car and entered the passenger seat.
“Now Debra what’s the big mystery and the big rush?”
“It’s a affair, Fred, what do you think? Don’t think I didn’t notice you observing my legs?”
Fred blushed and Debra smiled. “I’m kidding, we’re flying to Washington. You’ll be fully briefed when we get there.”
In a few minutes Debra was driving south on route 41 passing the Sarasota-Bradenton airport.
“Where the hell are you going?” Fred asked. “We just passed the airport!”
“Fred, Fred, Fred—when will you learn to trust me? Just sit back, enjoy the ride and don’t be a nag.” In a half-hour she was turning in at the small Venice airport.
Fred said, “I know this airport; it’s where the 9-11 terrorists trained. In fact I sometimes play golf at the club next to it; and there’s a great bar on the right side of the road that sits right next to the Gulf.”
“Yes, ironic isn’t it, concerning the airport; now the good guys are using the same airport to further our objectives.”
They left the car and started walking out toward the runway. Fred moved in the direction of the closest small jet.
“It’s not that one, Fred.”
“There’s no other plane nearby.”
The Monolith Murders Page 19