Mystery: The Sam Prichard Series - Books 1-4

by David Archer

  Sam was officially a prisoner of the Denver detention center.

  When he was dressed, he was handed a rolled up mattress, with sheets, a towel and something that was supposed to be a pillow but was about as thick as his living room carpet, and taken into a cell block. He was shown to a cell while other inmates shouted insults and comments about fresh meat. The cell he was taken to held two men, and he saw that the bottom bunk was open, so he made it up for himself and then decided he might as well get it over with. He went out into the day room, and into the cellblock's population of gang bangers, drug dealers, murderers and everyone else.

  He saw several faces he knew, people he had once arrested and put in this same facility. The looks they gave him said that they knew him, as well, and a few of them were gathering up and whispering. Sam was looking around, trying to find a spot where he could get his back against a wall, when a hand landed on his shoulder, and he spun, ready to fight—to find Carl Morris smiling at him.

  “Hey, Sam,” the big man said. “Marilee said you were in here, and told me what happened. I asked her to bunk you in with me, I hope you don't mind. I know your leg is bad, and I moved to the top bunk so you can have the bottom.”

  Sam swallowed. Just the sight of the big bodybuilder smiling at him was enough to make the others suddenly want to find something else to do, and Sam could understand why; Carl made Stallone and Schwarzenegger look sort of small.

  “Marilee?” Sam asked.

  “Yes, she's that little lady jailer who's always so nice. She said she's talked to you a few times, and she likes you. She told me what happened, that it's like what happened to me. Is it really?”

  Sam nodded. “Yeah, it is, and maybe more than you can imagine. Carl, I'm pretty sure you are not the person who killed your family. I'm still working on some of the details, but there's a very good chance you may be a free man again one day soon.”

  Carl looked at him for a moment. “Sam, are you saying someone else killed my wife and kids?” he asked softly.

  Sam nodded again. “Yeah, Carl,” he said. “It's complicated, but that is exactly what I'm saying. And now we just both have to hope that I can prove it.”

  Carl stared at him for a moment, then turned and walked over to one of the stainless steel picnic tables that were mounted into the concrete floor and sat on the bench. He leaned his elbows on the table and put his face in his hands, and began to weep.

  Sam sat down beside him and put a hand on his shoulder, but didn't say anything while Carl cried his heart out. The sobs got louder and louder, but no one in the room would make a comment, and after a few moments, everyone there became quiet as the big man wept. Sam heard a rattle and turned to see four of the jailers, including Marilee, standing at the door in silence.

  Sam waited until Carl had gotten himself back under control, and then went to the phone on the wall of the day room. It required him to call collect, so he called his house number, rather than Indie's cell.

  He gave the automated system his name and waited while it called Indie and asked her if she would accept the call. When she did, he heard her saying, “Hello? Sam? Hello?”

  “I'm here, babe,” he said. “They got me booked in, and I'm doing okay. How about you?”

  She sighed. “Sam, I'm strong,” she said, “and I'll do whatever I have to do to help get you out of this mess. I called Mom, and she said Beauregard won't tell her what I'm supposed to do, because he says I have to find the answer on my own, or I won't understand it. And I called Harry; he says he'll try to find out what he can, but he isn’t normally allowed any interference in local police matters unless they involve National Security, and this won't. If you've got any ideas...”

  “Actually, baby, I do,” he said. “I was talking with Carol, the lawyer, and we came up with a game plan. I need you and Herman to go through Connors' patient list and find as many of them as you can. Then, call them and find out if any of them have had any crazy episodes, especially if it involved breaking the law or getting into trouble. If they've had weird experiences at any time, then check and see if they saw Connors right before it. And, we're particularly looking for any women who have found themselves having sex with him; there were a couple that Carol knew of, but Connors was able to prove that they were the ones who came after him, so the cases never went anywhere.”

  “Okay, I can do that, and I can get a jump on it; I'll tell Herman to look for any police records that involve his patients right after they saw him, and see if any of them are for strange stuff. Those would stand out like a sore thumb, I think. And I'll check with all of his female patients about the sexual angle. Now, what about Annie and Carl? Is there anything I should be doing about them?”

  “No, not at the moment. Al is on his way to go see Annie, and I'm hoping that'll help her memory, and Carl is in here with me. I've let him know that he may not actually be responsible for his family's deaths, and it's hit him pretty hard. Carol will build his defense on what we've got on Connors, if we can get any kind of supporting evidence. We may never get Connors, but we have a good chance of getting acquittals for me and Carl, and I'll take that, for now. Connors I can get another day.”

  Indie laughed coldly. “Not if I get to him first,” she said, but Sam cut her off before she could go any further.

  “Indie, don't you go near him! I just went to talk to the man, and look at where I'm at. We can't afford anything happening to you.” She was quiet for a moment, and Sam said, “Indie?”

  “Okay, okay, I won't go near him. But if he happens to step out in front of the truck, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna have brake failure!”

  “Stop it! I mean it, Indie, no! Now, get with Herman and see what you can dig up over the next few days. I'll call you now and then, and we'll compare notes. I love you, baby girl, don't you forget that!”

  Indie made a sound that might have been a sob. “I won't,” she said, “and don't you, either. I love you, Sam Prichard! And I almost forgot—you've already made the news. Chris and Candy called fifteen minutes ago. I assured them you didn't do it, and they said to let them know when your bail is set.”

  Sam chuckled. “Okay, babe. Tell 'em I said thanks. I gotta get off here, we only get a few minutes at a time. I'll call you later, before bedtime.”

  “Okay, Sam. Bye.”

  “Bye, baby.” He hung up, and felt like sitting down to cry himself.

  * * * * *

  Indie got off the phone with Sam and checked on Kenzie, who was watching TV quietly. She hadn’t said much since Indie told her Sam would be gone for a day or two, and Indie guessed that she could sense something was wrong from her mother's emotional state.

  She left the child watching TV, and went to the office to get Herman on the job. She fed him the data she wanted him to search through, and turned him loose on it, then went back to the house to make dinner for herself and her daughter. It seemed like a pizza night, so she popped one into the oven and sat down to watch old Sponge Bob episodes with Kenzie until it was done, and then brought it into the living room on a platter so they could eat it while they watched.

  Kenzie looked up at her mother and said, “Is Daddy gonna get shot again?”

  Indie did her best to smile. “Nope,” she said. “He's just working on a case, and has to be gone for a little while. He'll be home soon, I'm sure.”

  Kenzie stared at her for a moment, but then she smiled. “I'm glad,” she said, “I don't like when he gets shot.”

  Indie couldn't help laughing, then. “Me, neither!” she said, and Kenzie climbed up to sit beside her on the couch while they ate.

  When they'd finished, Indie told Kenzie she had some work to do in the office, and Kenzie opted for a movie. She got into their stash of DVDs and found Despicable Me, one of Kenzie's favorites, and put it in, then went to check on Herman.

  The program had been busy. Indie scanned the lines of data on the screen and began clicking the provided links, one after another.

  Many of Connors' patients had exper
ienced minor run-ins with the law, and Herman had cross-referenced them with the dates of their appointments. Several had found themselves in trouble within twenty-four hours after visiting the dentist, and Indie started going through the various cases.

  Robert Morgan, seventeen: The night after his tooth was pulled, he was arrested for indecent exposure, while taking a leak at nine PM on his front lawn. Several neighbors were out on the street, and when one of them asked him why he was doing it, he asked, “Why, don't you?” Later, he told police that he had no memory of the event at all.

  Susan Bergen, twenty-four: The night after she went in for a filling, she was arrested for driving through town with no clothes on. According to the arresting officers, she seemed dazed, and thought the arrest was funny. She woke up several hours later with no idea how she'd gotten to jail, and no memory of anything from the night before.

  Donald Miller, fifty-six: Early in the morning after a late afternoon appointment to get three teeth extracted, neighbors called police when they saw him in his driveway, hacking his own dog to pieces with an ax. A few hours later, he broke down while in police custody after they had to tell him what he'd done. The dog had been a beloved pet of his wife, who had passed away a year earlier, and neighbors said they couldn't believe he'd done it because he treated the dog as if it were a child.

  Nathan Sparks, eighteen: The night after he got a tooth filled, he reportedly asked three teenaged girls to strip naked on top of his car, while he drove through town. He was not arrested, but was warned against making any further such requests. His parents later filed a lawsuit against police that alleged they had made the whole thing up, since their son couldn't remember anything about it at all, but it was dismissed when the entire police report was shown to them, including recordings of their son laughing and telling police that if they had waited a few more minutes, they would have gotten a free show.

  Kate Milligan, nineteen: Kate had two teeth filled, and later that night was arrested at the home of Dr. Connors, where she was standing on his wife's car and calling for him to come and have sex with her. She woke up in jail, completely unaware of what had transpired.

  Alan Batts, thirty-four: The night after an extraction, he had gone to bed with his wife, but she said he got up an hour later and said he wanted something to eat. He seemed out of sorts, she had said, so when he was gone downstairs for more than half an hour, she went down to see if he was okay, and found him eating their children's pet mice. He was popping them into his mouth and chewing them up, she said, as if they were pizza rolls. When she tried to make him stop, he accused her of trying to steal them from him and threatened to kill her, so she called police, who took him to a mental facility. The next morning, he couldn't remember a thing, but complained of pain in his mouth, where the mice had apparently scratched and bitten his tongue many times.

  Darren Pickford, sixty: The night after he got his last seven teeth pulled, in preparation for new dentures, he went to bed as usual, according to his wife, but then rose around 2 a.m. She thought he'd gone to the bathroom, but a few minutes later she saw flashing lights outside her window and looked out to see two officers wrestling her husband to the ground. She ran outside to find that he was being arrested for aiming a gun at people in cars driving by, and his shotgun was lying on the ground beside him. Like all of the others, when he awoke the next morning in jail, he couldn't remember any of it, and refused to believe he'd actually done it until he saw dash cam video from the police car.

  And then she hit the one that made her skin crawl.

  Betty Morgenstern, twenty: Late in the night after having three teeth pulled, neighbors found her in the bedroom of their twelve-year old twin boys, attempting to instruct them in the arts of sex. She was arrested and taken to jail, but woke up several hours later unable to remember what had happened or how she'd come to be in jail. When she learned what she had done, she went back into her cell, took off her jumpsuit and hung herself. She was seen by a jailer, who tried to save her, but it was too late. Betty had been a student at a theological seminary school, and had planned to become a missionary.

  Indie read through several more such cases, including five more that resulted in suicides, and compiled a report that she emailed to Carol Spencer. She added a note that she planned to contact as many of them as she could the next morning.

  Sam called just as she was finishing up, and she glanced out the window to see that it was dark. She waited for the recording to tell her to press five, then pushed the button.

  “Hey, babe,” she said. “I won't waste our time with the details, but I've got a couple dozen cases of people getting into legal trouble after appointments with Alex Connors. Some of the stories are almost funny, but some of them are just tragic. Six people who got messed up after seeing him have killed themselves, including one girl who only had sex with him, and couldn't live with the things people were saying about her.”

  Sam sighed. “I can't say I'm surprised. If I didn't know what was going on, this might be more than I could handle. See if you can talk to any of them, and get them to remember the connection, but be careful. We don't know whether any of these folks might be friends of his, and I don't want him to know what you’re doing.”

  “I'll be careful,” she said. “How is it in there?”

  Sam laughed. “Well, there are half a dozen of my old arrests from vice in here, and I'm sure they'd love to beat me to death, but Carl is my cellmate, and he makes the Incredible Hulk look tiny. About the time they realized that he liked me, they all decided to let bygones be bygones. Carl saw how they were looking at me a bit ago, and walked over and said something to them, I don't know what, but a couple of them have even offered me soda pop and candy bars!”

  “Yikes, don't take any! You never know what might be in them!”

  “Don't worry, baby, I won't. Indie, thank you for what you’re doing. I know this isn't the kind of thing you're used to, but...”

  “Sam, stop,” she said. “I'm not doing anything more than any other woman would do to save her man. I just happen to have the right skills and resources, is all. I can do this, honey, I can. And Kenzie sends her love, by the way.”

  “You tell her I love her too, and can't wait to see here when I get home. Does she know that might be a while?”

  Indie gave a sigh. “I told her you're gone on work, and we don't know how long, yet, but that you'll be home as soon as you can. She's okay with that, she says, as long as you're not gonna get shot again.”

  Sam laughed again. “Tell her I agree with that, completely. I love you, babe, but I gotta go, there are others who want to use the phone.”

  “Okay,” she said, but then, “hey, wait! Is Carl there with you? Can I talk to him?”

  “Um, yeah,” Sam said, “just a sec.”

  A moment later, a deep, cultured voice came on the line. “Hello?”

  “Hi, Carl, this is Indie, Sam's wife. I just wanted to say thanks for watching out for him in there.”

  She could hear the big man's smile. “It's my pleasure, Miss Indie,” he said. “He tells me you're the one who's working on proving we aren't as bad as they say we are, so I want to thank you, too.”

  “Believe me, Carl, it's my pleasure,” she said, and then Sam came back on.

  “Babe? I gotta go, I love you!”

  “I love you too, Sam, I love you!”

  The line went dead, and Indie sat there for a moment holding the phone to her ear. She finally hung it up, and then sat back and let the tears flow. A few moments later, she broke down and called her mother and told her everything.

  7

  Indie woke at seven the next morning and got Kenzie up and ready for an adventure. She had called Anita Mitchell, the neighbor whose twins Kenzie often played with, the night before and arranged for Kenzie to spend the day with them. Kenzie was excited about it, because it would be the first time she'd gotten to see them in a few weeks; during Sam and Indie's honeymoon, she had stayed with her two grandmothers, who
lived out in Aurora, and hadn't had the chance to go and play since they'd gotten back. Since Jim and Anita didn't mind, even Samson got to go along, so Indie would have the whole day free to start working on the case.

  She dropped kid and cat off about eight, and headed back to the house to get started. Her plan was to first try calling each of the people who had been affected and see if they would be willing to cooperate, holding out the incentive that they might get their records expunged if it could be established that they were not in any way responsible for their actions. She sat down at Sam's desk and started going through the list.

  Herman had managed to identify and get numbers for most of them the night before, and she had the list printed out in front of her. She gathered her courage and dialed the first number: Susan Bergen.

  “Hello?” came a sleepy voice.

  “Hi, is this Susan Bergen?” Indie asked.

  “Um—who's calling, please?”

  “My name is Indiana Prichard, and I work with my husband Sam, who's a private investigator. We're working on a case involving some people who have had some bizarre behavioral episodes after a dental treatment, and your name came up as a possible victim.”

  “Dental treatment? I'm not sure I understand...”

  “Susan, you were arrested for driving nude the night after you had a cavity filled. You said you had no idea why you were doing it and didn't even remember it afterward, right?”

  “Um—yeah, that's right. Are you saying it was because of the filling?”

  “Not the filling, but other people who have gone to the same dentist for different treatments have had similar incidents, although some of them had far worse consequences. Do you remember going to get a filling that morning?”

  The woman was quiet for a moment, then said, “Well—not really. I mean, I remember being arrested, well, not being arrested, but waking up and finding out I'd been arrested. The whole thing seems like a nightmare, now, to be honest. I got two years of probation over it, and I'd never been in trouble in my life before that.”