Death & Other Lies

by Carol L. Ochadleus

  Chapter Twenty

  Piecing through the fragments of someone’s life to determine what may be missing is difficult, especially when you don’t know the owner of the pieces. The police sifted and sorted Matt’s apartment based on what they believed should be there. What may be clues to his disappearance could be right there next to his dirty laundry for all they knew. Nothing stood out and screamed at them, or gave them any indication who had ransacked the place or why, or what they may have been looking for.

  “Pretty boring existence,” one officer noted, “not a Playboy in the place.”

  Matt Errington appeared, to those who analyzed his belongings, to be a straightforward guy, who led a simple life. But people who fit that description don’t usually piss someone off enough to have their home taken apart, and then disappear for no apparent reason.

  It didn’t add up, and the police detective in charge of the case decided he wanted more information from Dr. Nowak.

  Eager to learn what happened to Matt, Dr. Nowak was glad the Detective called. “I’ve been waiting to hear what you found. Any sign of Matt?”

  “Nothing conclusive yet. There was little to go on, so we checked Matt’s apartment. Found it pretty torn apart. Other than the obvious damage, there was nothing out of the ordinary. No sign of personal violence, no indication he was harmed. You reported he was leaving on vacation. His shaving things and toiletries are gone. Empty hangers in the closet. His apartment was probably ransacked in his absence. Can’t tell if anything was stolen, but a computer and TV were there, and some cash in a drawer. Hard to know what else a guy like that owned. Did you know where he was headed?” the detective asked Dr. Nowak.

  “No. He did say at some point he wanted to find a place to live in Washington. He was under a lot of pressure. He’d had some personal health problems, didn’t tell me much, but I know he took a long time to decide to move to Washington and the new position the company offered him.”

  Detective George Jorgenson nodded, “Not much to go on. We have no idea where he was headed or if he got back. He could be staying with someone leaving us empty-handed. Without a destination we’re at a dead-end, we don’t have the manpower to search. He could have gone anywhere in so many weeks. The only thing we have to go on is the guy never returned to work when he said he would, and his place was thoroughly demolished. It looks like someone deliberately tore the place apart, but we have no apparent motive.”

  Dr. Nowak recognized there was no more anyone could do, but asked the detective to keep him informed anyway.

  “I will let you know if we find anything, and just to be certain we haven’t missed something here, I am putting a bulletin out on him throughout the different state agencies, it might generate some information we can use.”

  DETECTIVE DON ORLISS couldn’t believe his eyes. Scanning a police report, the name Matt Errington grabbed his attention. Missing. Those dummies over in the Fairfield Department. The guy’s not missing; he went to England. Glancing at his calendar, the detective counted the weeks since he remembered speaking to Matt about his trip. Four, almost five weeks since then. Guess the guy decided to stay there. Must have found what he was looking for, but he should have let someone know. He’d grab a fresh cup of coffee and give Fairfield a call.

  He was even more surprised when he reached Detective Jorgenson and heard about Matt’s apartment. Filling in some of the details about Matt, he agreed to fax a copy of their department’s report to Jorgenson. He had to admit the whole thing was strange. First, the guy was looking for a non-existent missing girlfriend, and now he had failed to turn up as well. It was obvious something was going on with the guy, and perhaps there was more to it than Matt’s apartment being trashed.

  Once again, he thought back to their doubts about Matt’s mental state, although he declined to share that bit of info with Detective Jorgenson. There was no need to go in that direction yet. He wanted to talk to Brian York first before he said any more about Matt. The Fairfield Department might read between the lines of the report he was sending them, even though he finished his report for the file without adding his opinion that Matt’s girlfriend was all in his head.

  If the Fairfield cops came to the similar conclusion that Matt was a lonely-heart, it was their case after all and their call, but they might drop the investigation, and Detective Orliss wasn’t sure that was a good idea. He liked Matt. If the guy truly disappeared, and it somehow involved a mysterious girlfriend, Don wanted them to do whatever they could to find him, and he wanted to help.

  Sergeant Brian York called his cousin Jeremy and was relieved to hear Matt had arrived and had been deposited at his hotel. Jeremy told Brian he half expected Matt to take him up on his offer to tour London, but never heard from him again so there was little he could report about the guy.

  “Thanks anyway,” Brian told him, “at least we know he stayed at the Royal Arms. We’ll get in touch with the manager there and see what else we can find out. It’s a good lead; it will help a lot.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “I hears ye at night ye know.”

  “What?” Matt barely heard the whisper from the drooped gray head. “What did you say, Franny, I’m sorry I couldn’t hear you?”

  “I hears ye when ye cries for ye lassie, ahh and a mournful sound it is too.” Matt was standing in the doorway, watching the sea terns swoop and dive off the bluffs. Far below the craggy walls, the Irish Sea roared as it crashed thunderous waves upon the bulk of rock protecting the western side of Great Britain.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Matt hesitated, unsure if he wanted to start a conversation about his nights.

  “Ye cries, and ye moans and calls out for a lassie. I hears ye, and it breaks me heart, ye are in sich a painful state.”

  Matt’s bad dreams haunted him he knew, but he didn’t realize he was vocal or let any part of them escape his lips.

  “What exactly do I say?” he asked, half afraid of the answer.

  “Ye say, ‘Kate, oh Kate, have I lost ye?’ Then the moaning and thrashing starts. I can hear ye through the walls, it’s a sad keening, and I ache for ye.” Completely unsure of what to say, Matt turned back to the door and tried the name over in his mind. Kate? Kate? It sounded right, like it fit in his mouth. He liked the way the name made him feel.

  “I don’t know who Kate is,” he finally answered. “I don’t even remember my own name yet.”

  “Aye, I know,” she nodded, “but I do.” Shocked by her answer, Matt spun around again and stared at the bowed back once more.

  “What do you know of me,” Matt asked, “please, Franny is there something you can tell me?”

  Franny raised her frizzled head, and her cloudy grey eyes bore into his. “I can tell ye, but ye will not believe me.”

  “Yes, I will, I have no reason to doubt anything you say, please tell me what you can.”

  Concern for this young man was strong in her heart, but a warning was needed here. Laury urged her to be cautious. She could not hide the truth from him any more than she could hide the horror she saw all about him, the horror she knew he would cause. Each time she looked at his face, she had to look away, the vision too strong. She wanted to show Elizabeth, but Elizabeth wouldn’t see it, she never could. Not like Laury. Her Laury had the sight. Together they saw a world only a few others shared.

  Franny’s voice started low but rose in timbre, and she grew agitated. “There will be scores of people, dropping like the fish flies when their time is gone, dropping with their eyes bulging out of their heads. Staring they will be at ye, and ye will only watch them struggle. Ye will walk among them and hold out ye hands over them. Young and old, men and wimin, they will gurgle and choke. Ye made them sick; ye will cause them to die.”

  A horrible, sick feeling washed over Matt as he listened to her weird premonition, so similar to his recurring nightmare. Franny sat as if in a trance, waving her gnarled fingers in the air, reading him and the future like the pages of a book. Did I say a
ll this in the night? Are my nightmares being described out loud for the women to hear?

  “Franny, how do you know this, what have I said to make you say these things?” Franny slept on a small bed directly beneath his bedroom. If she had heard him, then Elizabeth must have as well. She crooked her head to the side and sat with her mouth slightly ajar, a little glint of spittle sat at the corner of her lips and threatened to spill down her chin.

  “Laury told me to heed ye, and I hears the voices in ye mind, I listen, and I hear them. Ye cannot stop them; they will come as they will. It is not a thing to be undone. But ye must remember and bring the secret, or they will all die.”

  Reeling from her words, Matt believed, without knowing why, that she spoke the truth. “You said you know my name, Franny, what is my name?”

  Her head dropped so low he thought it would hit her knees. In a voice so low as to be barely audible, “Death,” she whispered. “Your name is death.”

  The punch of Franny’s words hit Matt squarely; the blow knocked him to the floor. Franny had labeled him “death.” His body physically recoiled from the impact of her words, but his mind subconsciously assessed them to be true. Instinctively he knew in his past life he handled death, manipulated, and controlled it. Somehow, someway, he felt it all the way to his core, something about his past told him he was an instrument which could cause great pain and suffering. His nightmares hinted at this knowledge, but his waking mind refused to follow the thread to enlightenment. The conflict within shot him through with lightning bolts of pain as his eyes beseeched Franny for a retraction. Slumped in her chair, eyes closed, her body was rigid while her head danced up and down, up and down, from right to left and back, reminding Matt of a bobblehead doll.

  A pounding in his ears matched the crashing waves out on the bluffs, and a mist swirled the room making the air heavy. Franny’s eerie words opened a portal from his nightmares to the room in which they sat, and malevolent electricity jumped the gap from one to another, enveloping them, running through them and setting his hair on end. The pounding became louder, and he could feel the vibration of it on the floor beneath him. A voice from beyond the door, deep and demanding rudely shocked them both from the murky reverie, but it saved him as it did from a decline into an abyss.

  Matt lurched to his feet, his vision dimming as the blood drained instantly from his head, blacking out his sight. He felt his way to the door with his hands to keep from falling. Unsure of what just happened, and still reeling from the oppressiveness of the event, he looked back with narrowed sight at Franny who made no sound, her head lolled sideways so her eyes could follow him.

  Two men stood side by side, filling the doorway as Matt yanked open the old heavy boards. Quizzical looks on their faces told Matt he must appear as deranged as he was feeling. “Matt Errington?” The taller of the two barked.

  Suspended in silence, seconds ticked passed.

  The pounding in his head grew. His face pale, no sign of recognition lit his eyes as his vision returned. Matt made no answer but looked from one man to the other, then back again. He shot a quick look back at Franny, half expecting her to challenge the name and substitute it with her grim tag for him. When she remained silent, he turned back to the strangers who once again demanded, “You are Matt Errington, aren’t you?”

  “I ... I’m not sure,” he began, his voice distant in his ears. “I, uh, was in an accident and have no real memory of anything.”

  “We know about your accident, and we’ve just come from the hospital where you were treated, but we assumed your memory would have returned by now, it has been several weeks, hasn’t it?”

  “Well, yes, but more importantly, you called me Matt, so you know who I am?” The mist from the outside poured in to swirl with the dark vapors inside the cottage, and the two entities battled for possession.

  “May we come in Madame?” the shorter man addressed Franny. She nodded permission and the closing door crisply cleaved the tail of the entering fog.

  “I am Ted Mannion, and this is my partner Averil Brindly, we are from Interpol.”

  Confusion flashed across Matt’s face erasing the hopeful look which had eased his features only a second before. “I thought you said you were from the hospital,” Matt stammered, looking again from one to the other.

  “No, the hospital gave us your location; we just arrived from London this afternoon. Why didn’t the hospital tell you of your identity? They knew who you were.”

  “What? What are you talking about, I’m not even sure that is my name, and even if it is, why would the doctors keep it from Elizabeth ... or from me?” Matt’s confusion picked up steam and spun him around once again to seek confirmation of his words from Franny’s eyes. Her face toward the floor gave him no sanction.

  “Elizabeth? You mean Mrs. Champion?” Ted Mannion asked.

  “Yes, Elizabeth Champion, she is letting me stay here in her cottage. She has been in touch with the doctors after my accident and while I recuperated. She is a friend and has opened her life and her home to me. Why would she ... or they hold back my information?”

  “I can’t say, Mr. Errington, but I can assure you, that is your name. We have a copy of your passport photo and additional information about you in the car, let me run back and get the folder.” Averil Brindly opened the door and seemed to almost flee the ominous feeling of the small cottage. He noticed as soon as they entered how something acrid assailed his sense of smell and burned his eyes. Thinking it was smoke from a fireplace, he scanned the room, but it gave him no hint of the bad aura’s origin. Ever since he was a young man, Averil was sensitive to feelings and sensations around him others did not detect. The cottage had a definite bad feeling to it, and he found it difficult to stay within the walls and maintain his composure, so he welcomed the excuse to bolt back outside.

  Catching his breath, he retrieved the documents from the car and slowly made his way back to the door. With a hand on the doorknob, he chastised himself to get a grip on his senses. Entering a second time, he found the atmosphere a bit less overwhelming and let out his pent-up breath. His partner stood rooted to the same spot. Matt had collapsed to a chair.

  With the information thrown at him, Matt found it difficult to think. Truth, knowledge, doubt, betrayal. Thoughts and emotions flooded through him and caused his legs to buckle.

  “Please tell me everything you know about me; I want to know, I need to know. Who am I?”

  Averil opened the folder and took out a passport photo. The picture was grainy and of poor quality, probably a faxed copy. The photo appeared to have been taken several years prior: a man’s face—younger, heavier and less anxious, but it was Matt’s face staring back at him. The revelation should have been uplifting, but it had no such accompanying impact. Matt stared at the photo as if for the first time, no hint of memory, no emotion stirred to remind him of his life. Inked words filled the page of the report, but meant nothing beyond the telling: Matt Errington, 360 Alstead, Philadelphia. Age thirty-four.

  Philadelphia. He had felt he was from the east coast. Other than confirmation, the information gave him no relief, just more questions. “I guess I am Matt Errington,” he said finally, his eyes never left the page before him. “I am sure Elizabeth was never told any of this or she would have told me. She would have no reason to keep it from me. Would she?” he said, finally looking up at the visitors.

  “Don’t know about that,” Ted nodded, “but the doctors knew, which makes me think she did as well. In any case, Matt, we need you to come with us back to London, there are some things I would think you want to clear up, and we have a lot of questions for you.”

  “What kind of questions? Go ahead, ask me anything, right here and now. I’ll tell you what I can, but just because I have my name doesn’t mean I have any clue about my life yet.”

  “No,” Averil nearly snapped at him, eager to put distance between them and the cottage. “We are here to escort you back to London, and we need to get going now to cat
ch the last flight back. Get your coat and shoes.”

  This latest development, in a very strange day, kept Matt frozen in his seat. Unable to rationalize the fragments of data bouncing from brain cell to brain cell, Matt could not get his thoughts to coalesce. He heard the man’s instructions but could not make his body respond. Franny’s bony hand on his arm broke the spell.

  “Ye need to go,” she whispered. “Ye will remember, and they will not die.” The visitors could not catch her words, but they saw the instant effect on Matt. He bolted out of the chair as if launched by catapult. Whatever she knew, he must follow. Truth was in her words, dark and thick, and menacing, but salvation was also there. If he was to escape the macabre premonition her words and his nightmares evoked, he must heed it.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Elizabeth sat in Ben Madison’s office staring at the calmly folded hands in her lap, totally belying the turmoil seething within. “How could this have happened Ben?” she spoke through barely moving lips. “I trusted you to protect the girls, how could they just disappear?”

  “Now, Elizabeth, I know you are worried, but don’t lose hope.” Ben was sitting on the edge of his desk but moved into the chair at Elizabeth’s side, trying to give her as much comfort as he could with his presence.

  “They will be found! I know it.” Ben nearly whispered. “I have always kept my promise to you and Karl; the girls would not be involved in dangerous situations if at all possible. The leads they were following are not like TV drama espionage, where everyone is a super spy and has to shoot their way out of trouble hour by hour. If anything, the only complaints I ever got from the girls is how boring it all is. The spy business is so much more attractive in the movies.”

  In spite of her concerns, Elizabeth laughed. They had told her themselves, how unbelievably boring the spy business could be. “I know you have done what you can, Ben, but what’s the answer, where are they? Have you rechecked all of the cemeteries in the area?”