Mind Switch

by Lorne L. Bentley

  But up until now, thought Ford, the money he had been making was small time stuff; he had now entered into a plan which would bring him much more. It had already started. He laughed to himself; the clowns at police headquarters would never uncover his grand design.

  Chapter 23

  Three days had passed since the bank shooting. Fred was asked by Bernice, Ernest James’ widow, to deliver the eulogy. Fred recounted to the overflowing audience how he had been friends with James since grammar school. He brought smiles to the audience when he told of James’ host of practical jokes. Many in the audience had been the butt of those jokes; but because of James’ good nature they all took it in good humor and smiled recalling those incidents. Fred recounted how James especially enjoyed it when the focus of the joke was on him.

  The funeral home was filled with pictures taken from James’ life. Two of the pictures showed the weekly poker gang which brought tears to Fred’s eyes.

  When Fred finished, Bernice embraced him and said, “Please, Fred, whatever you do, make sure the bastard who killed my husband gets what’s coming to him.”

  “I will do what I can humanly do, Bernice, I hope you know that.”

  “You better or Ernest will come down and haunt you until you do; and I promise you he won’t be smiling. You know Ernest; he just hates to leave things unfinished.”

  Fred thought, “That’s healthy, her sense of humor is coming back, maybe she is starting to pull out of this. And time—a lot of time—will help her recover.”

  John Stevens and Bill Cole were talking in a corner of the room. When they saw Fred moving through the mourners, they pulled him aside. John said, “How is the case coming?”

  “I’m still working on it, but you know how it is; I can’t release any of the details.”

  Cole said, “Have you looked into the possibility that it was a mob killing?”

  “Now why on earth would you say that, Bill?” Fred asked.

  “Ernest told me one day that he had played a trick on a guy who got really angry. Ernest said that he found out later that the guy was part of some Italian mob. He was some guy named Jack Foley, I believe. But I guess that wouldn’t made sense, though would it? You know for him to kill all those people just to get revenge on poor old Ernest?”

  Fred started to ask Cole for more details, in case he was on to something; but then he remembered that Cole was a conspiracy nut who believed that aliens had landed in Roswell, New Mexico and had been mating with humans for decades. It was only green moles on their backs that disclosed their true identity. According to Cole, plastic surgeons had been given a bundle of money over the years to remove them and keep it secret. Cole even had assembled data which indicated that plastic surgeons were one of the nation’s highest paid doctors. That, of course, Cole revealed, was because of the increasing payoff monies they were receiving. With that in mind and the realization that Foley was an Irish name and the Irish were not traditionally associated with the mob, Fred decided not to pursue this lead. He said, “I think you’re probably right, Bill, even the mob wouldn’t kill innocent people like that.”

  It was still early in the day, so Fred decided to say his goodbye to Bernice, and put a few more hours in at work.

  *

  As Fred expected, neither Jim nor Paul was in the station when he arrived. He had directed both to get hot on the bank address list the first thing in the morning and not to report back to the office until the end of the work day. He was to be briefed on their progress at 5 p.m. that day. Normally he would defer the briefing until they had completed their entire assignment, but he had to be prepared in case either the chief or the DA asked for a memory dump, which he feared could happen at any time.

  He had spent a sleepless night thinking about what Maureen had said. Her theory of a multiple personality seemed to fit the circumstances of the case. Now he was agonizing whether he should tell the chief and the DA about it.

  Of course, he reasoned, it would do no good to brief the chief on his wife’s theory. Hell, it was obvious that the chief didn’t want to hear anything remotely linked to an insanity defense. On the other hand Fred wondered how ethical it would be to let the defense know about his wife’s theory so they could prepare a meaningful defense; because at this stage Fred was beginning to think Slivers was innocent in some yet undetectable way. He couldn’t understand how Slivers could be innocent, but his gut was telling him so. Hell, Fred was terribly conflicted—conflicted between different theories as to why the murders were committed, and conflicted between what his gut was telling him and what his rational mind was saying.

  Finally, he decided to defer any action because there were at least two pieces of the puzzle not explained, and either of which could shift his investigation in a new direction: Why did Slivers stop firing his weapon periodically? And what or who was he looking at, or for, shortly after he entered the bank?

  Jim had left a copy on Fred’s desk of the list he had compiled which encompassed the names of all the individuals that he and Paul were visiting. Fred reviewed the list and then called Jim. “Jim, I want the interviews to be sequenced in a new order. The first priority will be all of the immediate relatives of all those killed in the bank who were to the left of Slivers as he first entered the bank. The second priority would be those that were to the left of Slivers who were only wounded. Give Paul the second list.”

  “Okay, Fred, but why this new approach?”

  “Well, I may be crazy, but I hope that structuring the interviews in such a sequence will isolate the victims and near victims that Slivers seemed to be focusing on as he initially started his rampage. I am not sure where else to logically proceed.”

  “I understand, Fred, will do.”

  In the back of Fred’s mind was the haunting thought that the interviews were going to be a total waste of time since this crime appeared in all aspects to be a random shooting. Maybe Slivers was seeking some type of retribution against the financial or banking world in general, and this particular county bank was simply chosen at random. But Fred’s gut just wouldn’t let him embrace that theory.

  *

  It took only three days for Jim and Paul to complete the majority of the list. Paul had found that five people who had been wounded had some link with Slivers. One had attended the same high school, two were customers of his, and one was a neighbor living nearby on the next block. None of these individuals knew him well; and none ever had an argument with him, let alone a disagreement of any type. In all cases the links were transitory at best. The links certainly could be classified as coincidence and falling well within the separation by six theory—that there’s a connection between any person on earth and any other person through a chain of acquaintances that has no more than five intermediates.

  Ironically, there appeared to be no links with respect to those who were killed. However, failing to realize this, Paul was excited that he had identified a causal relationship between Slivers and the wounded. Fred said, “Check it out, Paul, and please do a thorough job, take as much time as you want.”

  In a millisecond Paul was out of the office. Fred was sure he was headed directly to the chief’s office to brag about his new productive assignment.

  Jim asked, “Why send Paul on a fool’s errand and exhaust precious investigative time?”

  Fred said, “It will take him a week to find out that what he thinks is a lead is in fact a dead end. Meanwhile, I want you to interview the balance of people on the list. While Paul is tied up, the two of us can work on constructive things.”

  The only problem was that at that moment, beyond the scheduled interviews, Fred had no idea what his next step would be.

  Chapter 24

  George Schultz was extremely worried but he consciously didn’t know why. He had recently lost some very good employees, but so what, he reflected, he had lost good employees in the past and survived. In fact, as he recalled, he usually made out better with their departures. Schultz didn’t believe that he had an equa
l in this world; so by his definition everybody else was expendable and readily replaceable. His business was highly successful and he was making loads of money. So again, why was he so worried? Furthermore, he didn’t really care about people or their problems. The only person under his management that he was decent to was his secretary, and only because she could potentially do more damage to him than anyone else by forgetting his appointments, hanging up on prospective customers and potentially instigating any other nefarious deed that might hurt his business.

  This morning, however, his emotions overtook him and he totally ignored her as he entered his office and locked it from the inside. He sat down, then immediately got up and went again to his office door to make sure it was locked. He sat silently for five minutes and then checked on the door lock again. “Of course it’s locked,” he said to himself. Nevertheless he decided not to see anyone today; he called his secretary and said, “Cancel all appointments and don’t forward any calls to me.” He felt somewhat better. He realized that his office was impenetrable; no one could possibly get in if he didn’t want them to. And then he checked his office locks again, returned to his chair and stared into space wondering once again why he was so damned worried.

  He was a control freak, one who believed he alone had the solution to all of life’s problems. He hated to admit that some issues just might be beyond his capacity to handle.

  “Maybe I do need some external help,” he thought, “but I’ll have to make sure no one knows about it, although with my money and extensive contacts in the community, that might not be easy. But, hey, hell, I can solve anything. And certainly I will solve this.”

  At that point he started to relax. But shortly thereafter he again checked the door locks, for probably the tenth time in the past hour, all the time knowing that all the locks in the world would do no good.

  Chapter 25

  Fred spent the rest of the morning mulling over both cases. He walked over to the police artist’s room and asked him what progress had been made in his drawing of the theater killer. The artist said, “I’m sorry, but so far we’ve made no headway whatsoever.” He showed Fred four versions of what the ticket taker had tried to describe to him. The best seemed to be a cross between George Bush and Batman. It was not funny under the circumstances, but Fred still had to suppress his laughter.

  The artist said, “Some people just can’t provide me with the essential details of the person they saw, even though that information is recorded somewhere in their brains.”

  Fred asked, “If you tried it again, would it help?”

  “No, I don’t believe so,” was unfortunately the response Fred had expected.

  Back at his desk Fred looked over the list of the people at the bank at the time of the shooting. Nothing registered. They were simply names on a sheet of paper. Jim had recorded their ages and sex. Fred didn’t understand why this was done; but most likely because it was available and Jim simply recorded the data rather than dispose of it. There were almost an equal number of men and women, and their ages were all over the page from 17 up to 87. Fred thought, “God, this is getting me nowhere.”

  He decided to return to Joe’s Diner, which had been closed when Fred first visited it. Fred took with him a picture of Slivers.

  After looking at the picture, Joe said, “Sure, I know him. He’s a real nice guy and he always leaves a generous tip. He always orders the same thing for lunch, a tuna sandwich and unsweetened ice tea. He has been doing that for years. He’s here at the same time each weekday. I know because our morning waitress leaves at 11:15 and that’s when Jane arrives for our second shift. Within a couple of minutes of that time Slivers predictably will walk through our door. He never changes his routine. He’s an interesting guy because he always asks to see the menu and looks it over in great detail, but he never changes his standard order. Jane took a bet once that she could convince him to take the daily special—she lost. Is he ok?” Joe asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” Fred replied, “He’s ok. Did you see him Thursday?”

  Joe called over to Jane, “Hey Jane, was Four Eyes here Thursday?”

  “Na, never saw him, I assume he was sick.”

  Fred said, “You called him ‘Four Eyes’? Didn’t he ever get angry at you for that?”

  “Na, he has a great sense of humor; even when we direct it to him, the guy is always smiling. Like I said, he’s a real nice guy.”

  Fred asked, “Have you recently noted any change in his personality?”

  “No not at all, he was in here last week telling some great jokes, he was certainly himself that day.”

  Fred found it interesting that no one in the diner seemed to know that Slivers was in custody for a killing. Amazing how life goes on, he thought, we are not even conspicuous to others by our absence, and it is obvious that at least a few people in this town don’t even read the newspaper.

  *

  Leaving the diner, Fred reflected on what he had learned there, and how it fit with what he already knew. Fred now knew the exact time that Slivers left his office and the time he arrived at the bank. He also knew he had not stopped at his favorite eating place for lunch. Three hours were unaccounted for. Slivers’ wife had indicated she had not seen him during that unaccounted time frame, so where the hell did he go?

  What about the assault weapon? Fred knew that the fingerprints on the weapon were those of Slivers and he also knew the bullets that were removed from the victims and those that were lodged in the bank walls were from Slivers’ weapon. But he didn’t know where the weapon came from. Slivers’ wife had insisted that he never owned a gun. Fred felt sure she was telling the truth.

  Some states require the registration of all guns purchased, and some states fire the weapons prior to purchase to create shell casing signatures. Florida was heavily influenced by the votes of the NRA, so those types of reasonable checks were not available to law enforcement. Fred recalled that there had been a gun show at the fairgrounds the week before. On a long shot he checked where the show had moved to. Fortunately it had moved to Bradenton, which was only about ten miles from his station.

  Fred decided to check out the gun show himself. In less than 20 minutes he arrived in downtown Bradenton. The parking lot was full but three empty spaces were identified as “Law Enforcement Personnel Only.” Fred was sure it was meant to be earmarked for local police but he decided to worry about that later. He took a blank sheet of paper from his glove compartment and wrote, “I am a Sarasota police officer here on police business.” He placed the note under his windshield wiper and walked briskly to the entrance.

  The gun show consisted of several small booths each displaying a wide array of guns and ammunition of various vintage. Although Fred had been a cop for some time, he never imagined that so many different types of weapons existed. Some of the weapons were obviously for collectors only, with a few dating back to the Revolutionary War. Other booths consisted solely of hunting rifles of various calibers.

  Most of the booths displayed small caliber pistols. A large area in the rear of the auditorium had a large banner with bold black letters of the NRA. Several pictures of Charlton Heston were posted in the rear of the building. The U.S. flag was waving behind him. Fred thought this was a perfect setting for the NRA to solicit new members and encourage past members to renew their memberships.

  He walked the entire perimeter of the auditorium and was able to find three booths that sold what was commonly referred to as assault weapons. From his experience, gun shows were the place of choice for a felon to obtain a weapon while encountering only a minimum of background checks. With that underlying assumption he hoped that Slivers had used the same logic.

  He had a picture of Slivers with him and showed it to the first of the three dealers. The dealer glanced fleetingly at the picture and said, “Nope, don’t know him, never saw him, sorry.”

  “Okay,” Fred said, “Let’s take another look, and be sure to concentrate this time.”

  The dealer, ob
viously irritated, grabbed the picture and after studying it for some time said, “No! I am sure that I’ve never seen him.”

  Fred had no luck at the next booth. The third booth was manned by a stocky individual who looked like he had not shaved in a week. He wore a plaid shirt with both sleeves cut off allowing everyone to view his bulging muscles. On his left arm he sported two black and red tattoos, each were exactly alike with the annotation, Freedom is not for the timid. On his right arm he wore a tattoo with a drawing of an elderly woman with Mother written over it.

  After looking closely at the photograph of Slivers the dealer said, “Yeah, I remember him. He seemed to be totally absorbed with buying a weapon, it was around noon time as best as I can recall, one day during the earlier part of the week. I was going out for a sandwich just as he came over to my booth. At first I thought he was just another looker and I had enough of those already that day. I didn’t have a single sale up to that point and I had already been open over three hours. A hundred people must have come by and asked questions but no takers. This guy asked me for any sort of weapon that would fire several rounds in the shortest amount of time.

  “I asked him a few questions about the type of manufacture and the caliber he might prefer, but he seemed to have no knowledge at all about guns. He just kept repeating the same request over and over again. At first I thought he was playing games with me, so I brought out the most expensive weapon I could find and assumed that would get rid of him fast so I could take my lunch break. To my surprise he didn’t quibble at all, he just asked how much? I still thought he wasn’t really serious since he was not like any gun purchaser I ever met. I told him the price and he pulled out a bunch of twenties from his wallet and that was it, except that I asked him did he want bullets and he didn’t seem to know what to say. Finally I said, ‘Look, I’ll throw them in for free,’ and again he said nothing, not even thanks.”