Touching Cottonwood

by Randall Simpson

  A short while after talking to Dr. Reese, as Rebecca was leaving a resident’s room and entering the hallway, someone firmly grabbed her arm from behind, almost causing her to drop the glass she was carrying. She spun around. It was Eddie. His eyes were the fire she remembered during their golf cart ride home, perhaps even hotter—angrier.

  “You’re just confused,” he said to her in a biting tone.

  “What do you want, Eddie?” she said, stepping back from him. “I’m very busy right now.”

  Rebecca followed Eddie’s eyes as they trailed down to the ring on her finger and then right back up at her.

  “It’s a pretty ring, Becky,” he said, “but he can’t buy you like that. Doesn’t he know that? Haven’t you told him that?”

  “Eddie,” she said, “no one has bought me, and no one owns me. This ring isn’t about that. Besides, it’s none of your business. It’s between me and my fiancé.”

  “Your fiancé!” Eddie said. “Cut the crap, Becky. Why don’t you just come out and say his name—Matthew—are you afraid to say it?”

  She didn’t answer right away. She studied his face for a moment, searching for intentions. She could see nothing but a twisted and contradictory jumble of coldness mixed with fire. A sickness welled up in her stomach. There was an unrelenting darkness in his face, and she knew it could come to nothing good.

  “I really have to get my work done, Eddie.” She turned and walked away from him, expecting to feel his hand once more on her arm, perhaps even more forcefully, but no hand touched her. Once she had gotten quite a ways down the hall, she took a quick glance over her shoulder—the hallway was empty.

  Rebecca went directly to her office, closing then locking the door. She picked up her phone and called the Reynolds. It was Gayle who answered.

  “Hi, Mrs. Reynolds, this is Rebecca,” she said with her voice a bit weak and shaky. “I’m calling to find out if the judge has heard anything about whether I’m going to get to see Matthew or not?”

  “Rebecca,” said Gayle, “you sound dreadful! I know this has been hard on you. Let me get Richard on the phone, so he can talk to you directly.”

  Rebecca kept watching the window next to her office door as she waited for the judge to pick up the phone.

  Finally, she heard someone pick up another line in the Reynolds’ house, and then she heard a click that sounded like the first line had been hung up. “Hi, Rebecca,” said Judge Reynolds. “I was going to call you later tonight, but I guess you just couldn’t wait for the good news.”

  Her heart beat a little faster. “Good news? I can see my husband?”

  “Well, it took the mayor doing a little arm twisting on the sheriff, but, yes, he finally conceded. You can meet Matthew anytime during normal business hours at their office. The only requirement is that you’ll need to call in advance to arrange a scheduled time, since they can be out of the office so much.”

  Rebecca looked at her watch. “What time do they close?”

  “I believe the normal hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.”

  “I won’t be able to make it today. There’s just no way I can leave with the short staffing we have right now.”

  “I understand,” said the judge, “but there’s something else I think you ought to know. I’ve heard that someone from the state of Washington has arrived in Cottonwood—Matthew may not be in town much longer.”

  Her temporary elation was just as quickly flattened and crushed, but her mind raced for alternatives. “Is there any chance of getting special after-hours visitation?”

  “That’s probably out of the question. I threw my weight around enough just to get the mayor to put pressure on the sheriff to let you in at all. I think special visiting hours would be asking too much. But I suspect Matthew will at least be here until tomorrow. Just make certain that you call the sheriff’s office and get in to see him first thing in the morning.”

  After Rebecca and the judge finished their conversation, she sat in her office for a few minutes, blankly staring toward the door. A few tears trickled down her face. She knew it would now be a struggle to make it through the rest of her shift. She then faced the bike ride home, past Eddie’s house, and it would be getting dark. She wondered when Dr. Reese would be going home this evening; she thought that perhaps she could catch a ride with him in the golf cart he’d been using. She phoned Dr. Reese’s office. His answering machine picked up.

  “Hello, this is Doctor Paul Reese. I will be back in the office on Tuesday morning. Please leave a message, or if this is an emergency, please call—”

  Rebecca hung up without listening to the rest of the message. She didn’t want to hear the name, as she knew the rest by heart. It would direct her to call the one staff member she knew she could never call in any emergency now.

  The person that Dr. Reese’s phone message directed callers to contact in the event of an emergency was once more hidden in his secluded and darkened security office. He was watching Rebecca at that very moment—through the window next to her door—using the same camera he’d used so many times before. This time was different though, for this time he watched tears streaming down her tender cheeks. He could tell she was distressed, and he was happy for that. He now knew far more about Rebecca D’Arcy and Matthew Duncan than all but a few people in Cottonwood. The secret he had discovered both angered and energized him. The tears he watched rolling down Rebecca’s face, he thought of as payment for the pain she’d caused him. He reveled in that payment as he strummed his strong and pointed fingers on the security console countertop.

  Sixty-Six

  The Investigation Begins

  Akash Mudali was not only one of the best technical investigators in the state of Colorado, he was also one of the most resourceful. After stopping in and meeting briefly with both the Cottonwood fire chief and the mayor, he knew they could provide only minor assistance in his research of the anomaly the community was experiencing. He needed to go out into the surrounding area to gather hard factual information and data related to the Dead Zone. He had formulated a plan of attack during his drive from Denver, and he realized early on that it would require some local help.

  Mayor Gilmore made the suggestion that, since the whole episode seemed to involve motorized internal-combustion vehicles, Akash might want to visit Vince Pasternack, the owner of Al’s Garage. Vince, the mayor insisted, was the “best damn mechanic in the whole county, if not the whole region,” and he might prove useful, as he had already spent many hours looking under the hoods of several stalled-out vehicles.

  Akash drove from the town hall over to Al’s Garage where he found the sign hanging on the door flipped to CLOSED and the door locked. On a piece of white paper taped beneath the sign, in very messy handwriting, were written the words For Emergencies call Vince, followed by a phone number. Akash entered the number into his cell phone.

  After several rings, Vince answered, and Akash explained who he was and that he was looking for someone to assist him with his investigation.

  “I’d be happy to assist you,” said Vince. “Hell, I’ve got nothing better to do, and until this thing is solved, I’m losing money every day. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  “I’d be happy to come and pick you up,” offered Akash.

  “No, that’s fine. I’m just up the street. Just stay put and I’ll meet you there.”

  After he hung up, Akash opened the trunk of his car and moved aside Agent Westmore’s overnight bag, underneath of which was a medium-sized gray case. He unlatched the case and retrieved two pieces of equipment—a small one, labeled Portable Global Positioning Unit, and a larger and more complex looking one, labeled Electromagnetic Spectrum Analyzer.

  Except for the occasional song from a bird nearby, which went unnoticed by Akash, it was quiet near the garage. He sat on the front seat of his car with the door open to the fresh afternoon air—intensely focused on making adjustments and initial calibrations to both electronic units and carefully making notations in a sm
all notebook. When he was done with the calibrations, he set the equipment on the front passenger seat, along with the notebook, and leaned back in the seat, closed his eyes, and took a full deep breath of the clean air and bird-song-accented silence. A moment later, that peace was broken.

  “I wondered how long it would take before the government sent someone to do some real investigation,” said Vince, walking up to Akash and the open driver’s door.

  Akash got out of the seat and stood up quickly. “You must be Vince?”

  “I am,” replied Vince as the two briefly shook hands.

  “Well, again, I really appreciate your assistance. I was told you’re the best mechanic around and have already been inspecting these stalled-out vehicles. You’ve found nothing unusual?”

  “Not a damn thing. Let me show you….”

  Vince showed Akash every vehicle he had tried to start and told him every possible mechanical problem he thought could be the cause. Akash was convinced that Vince had been thorough in his troubleshooting. There was simply no logical reason why the vehicles would not start; there was nothing mechanically wrong with them.

  “From reports I’ve received from the state’s mechanics, I was actually anticipating everything you’ve shown me here,” said Akash. “We know that vehicles towed out of the Dead Zone will start again. The problem doesn’t seem to be with the vehicles at all, but rather with the area they are in. Our first task, therefore, is to map out the size and the shape of the Dead Zone. To do this, I’m going to need a motorcycle—and a trailer to haul it.”

  Akash was never opposed to getting his hands dirty, as he was much more of a “hands on” type engineer than what he referred to as a “desk monkey.” Working together, he and Vince pulled a small trailer from behind the garage out to the front. Vince then hooked up a temporary towing ball to Akash’s electric car.

  “I’m not so sure an electric will have enough power to pull anything,” said Vince, lying on his back on the ground at the rear of the car, tightening the last bolt on the towing ball.

  “It’d better work,” said Akash. “Otherwise, you and I are going to be doing a lot of walking this afternoon.”

  Vince and Akash connected the small trailer to the towing ball, and then Vince went over to the side of the building and came back pushing a motorcycle. He pushed it up the ramp onto the trailer and latched it in. He then put a full five-gallon can of gas on the trailer bed, next to the motorcycle. They were ready to go.

  Akash got behind the wheel, and Vince began getting in on the passenger’s side, but he stopped when he saw the electronic equipment and notebook on the seat.

  “If you could just hold those on your lap,” said Akash, “I’ll be using them soon.”

  Vince nodded and picked the items up and climbed in.

  “So, which way are we gonna head first?” Vince asked as they were ready to pull out onto Main Street.

  “Eventually, we’re going to need to travel in every direction we can drive from Cottonwood,” replied Akash. “So it really doesn’t matter where we start.”

  “Well, I guess just take a left here and head south to Tooley Road where we can head toward the west.”

  Akash pulled out of the lot and headed south on Main Street—the electric car showing no strain at all in pulling the small trailer and motorcycle. The plan that Akash had devised was simple but elegant. From Colorado State Patrol reports, it was known in general that the Dead Zone extended approximately five miles north and south of the town—but that was about all anyone knew. Akash wanted a far more exact map of the size and shape of the anomaly, and to get it he planned to use Vince and his motorcycle as the measuring stick. They would drive out to about five-and-a-half miles from town where they’d stop, and Vince would get out and climb onto the trailer and attempt to start the motorcycle. If it failed to start, they would drive another half mile or so away from town and try again. They would keep doing this until the motorcycle started, at which time they would leave it running and turn around and head very slowly back toward town until the motorcycle stalled. Akash would then stop and make an exact marking of that point on his global positioning unit. They would then drive in a different direction to the next road out of Cottonwood, and in this way, by using all the roads in the area, they would complete a detailed map of the Cottonwood Dead Zone. In areas where there were large gaps with no roads, Akash planned to have Vince ride the motorcycle off-road, if necessary. Akash did his best to explain his plan to Vince as they drove south.

  At the junction of Main Street and Tooley Road, Akash slowed and reset the vehicle’s odometer before turning and heading west from Cottonwood. Ever since leaving his garage, Vince had been carefully eyeing the equipment he held on his lap.

  “It looks like I was right—you didn’t tell me everything you know,” Vince said, looking over at Akash.

  “What do you mean?” replied Akash, glancing over at Vince but keeping a careful eye on the odometer.

  “The GPS unit makes sense, but you know that electromagnetic-pulse weapons were involved, don’t you?”

  “What? I know no such thing. Why would you think that?”

  “This electromagnetic spectrum analyzer I’m holding—why else would you have it—except to see how potent your weapon had been? I’m no dummy, Mr. Mumbali. I spent some time in the military—I know about such things.”

  Akash shook his head and snickered. “First of all, it’s Mudali, and second of all, I can assure you that I know no more about the cause of the Dead Zone than you do. That unit measures a wide variety of electromagnetic fields across a wide range of frequencies and polarizations. It’s an extremely sensitive and extremely expensive unit, especially suited to this type of investigation. If the military is involved here, that unit will tell us, and you and I will be the first to know it—together. Please, be careful with it.”

  Vince took a closer look at the expensive electronics he was holding. “Don’t worry, I’ll be careful with it, but I reserve the right to be skeptical for now. It sure looks like you’re here to measure the effects of some test the military dreamed up. They’d love to know how a town reacts to one of their secret weapons.”

  Akash was more than familiar with the deep popular current of belief in “general government conspiracies,” especially among more rural populations. An overall dislike and distrust of government seemed to go hand in hand with the independent spirit of many of Colorado’s smaller towns.

  “You give the government too much credit for being so imaginative,” said Akash, “at least to the extent that they planned this whole thing. I’ve got friends up in some pretty high places in the military, and, while they don’t know everything that’s going on, from my initial checking around, this doesn’t sound or feel like something the military was intentionally involved in. I’m not saying for certain that they weren’t involved, because there are a lot of black-ops programs, but this doesn’t seem like something they would intentionally do. If the military is involved—I think it would have been an accident.”

  “I’ve read about the government releasing somethin’ like LSD or some other drug into a subway air-ventilation system, just to test the effects on people,” said Vince. “I think some of them went on to kill themselves.”

  Akash knew the LSD story well, as it was a favorite example circulating among government-conspiracy circles. Before responding, he checked his odometer—three-point-two miles. “The experiment you refer to was actually never proven to have been implemented but only on the drawing board—but they did test the effects of LSD on individual subjects without them knowing about it. That part is true.”

  “The point is,” Vince said, “the government is not beyond these kinds of things. I know, for a fact, that they have pulse weapons that can knock out electronic gear. That’s a fact.”

  “Well, for now,” said Akash, “let’s just say that I’m hoping you believe me that I know nothing of the cause of the Dead Zone. Let’s both try to keep an open mind. If the f
inger begins to point at the government or military, we’ll know that soon enough.”

  The two men drove and talked for a few more minutes until Akash slowed down and stopped. His odometer indicated that they were now approximately five-point-six miles west of Main Street in Cottonwood.

  “Vince, if you will be so kind as to climb up into the trailer and attempt to start up the motorcycle. If it starts, I’ll turn around and head slowly back toward town. I promise to drive slowly. I’ll have my window down and will also be watching you through my rear-view mirror. Give me the cut-sign when the motorcycle stalls out,” Akash said, dragging his fingers across his throat.

  Vince handed the electronic equipment to Akash and got out of the car. He jumped up into the trailer and started up the motorcycle’s engine on his first attempt. When Akash heard it was running and saw that Vince was ready, he reset his trip odometer and turned around, slowly driving back toward Cottonwood. He watched the tenths of miles slowly click by on the odometer—one-tenth…two-tenths…three-tenths. He also carefully watched his electromagnetic spectrum analyzer. He had it set to alarm mode, as the device was scanning across a wide range of frequencies, and the alarm would go off if there were any change beyond a certain threshold. He also kept listening to the motorcycle engine and watching for Vince’s cut-signal.

  The odometer kept rolling. It was now almost up to six-tenths since he had reset it. They were just a little over five miles from Cottonwood. Six-tenths was just about to roll over when it happened. Akash simultaneously heard the motorcycle engine quit and saw Vince give the cut-sign. His electromagnetic spectrum analyzer, however, showed no change.

  By the odometer, they were just slightly over five miles from Cottonwood, but Akash knew he could be even more accurate than that. He noted their position on his GPS unit and then set it to calculate the exact distance to Main Street. To the point where the road they were on intersected with Main Street was exactly five-point-zero-two-five miles.

  Akash got out of the electric car and walked back to where Vince was standing in the trailer. “Success, my friend. We’ve got our first data point!” Akash said, holding up the global positioning unit to Vince.