by Ronald Kelly
Lowery nodded solemnly. “You and me both. It’s creepy, isn’t it?”
“I’ll say,” agreed his partner. “Even creepier than those murders Dwight Rollins pulled a few years back.”
Lowery shuddered. He vividly recalled the crazy, old blind man who had murdered several people in his apartment building—as well as his own seeing-eye dog. And for what reason? Because it was the dead of winter and he needed their warm eyes to fill empty sockets that his pawned glass eyes had left behind.
“I never thought we’d see one that beat the Rollins case,” he said, starting up the car. “But I guess I was wrong.”
***
The next morning Lowery and Taylor came in to find a message waiting for them. It was from a Doctor James Arendale. All the doctor said was that his call concerned Phillip Bomar. He had left his office address and requested that they see him as soon as possible.
When they arrived at Arendale’s downtown office, they were surprised to find the words “clinical psychologist” beneath his name on the door. They had just assumed that he was a physician of the body, rather than one of the mind.
Arendale was a tall, lean man with graying brown hair and a neatly-trimmed beard. He shook their hands, then motioned to two chairs located before his desk. “Please, have a seat.”
When they each had one, Doctor Arendale paused, then began to speak. “I am surrendering the restrictions of patient confidentiality on the request of Phillip Bomar’s parents. They felt it might assist you in your investigation if I were to clarify exactly who and what poor Phillip was.”
“So Phillip Bomar was a patient of yours?” asked Lowery.
“Yes,” for nearly twenty-two of his twenty-six years.”
“Was he mentally unstable?” asked Taylor.
“In a sense, yes. But in another sense…well, this is sort of difficult to explain. If I don’t phrase this very carefully, it might actually sound crazy and impossible to you.”
“In light of what we saw last night,” said Lowery, “I don’t think we’d consider anything crazy and impossible.”
The psychologist was silent for a moment, privately choosing his words. “Phillip suffered from a very rare mental/physical condition. He was a stigmachondriac.”
“A what?” asked Taylor. “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard that term before.”
“That’s because it is one of my own making,” said Arendale with a half-smile. He regarded the two homicide detectives opposite him. “Do you know what the phenomenon of stigmata is?”
“Sure,” said Lowery. “That’s when someone’s body plays tricks on them due to some devout belief, mostly of a religious nature. Like someone bleeding from the hands and feet in imitation of Christ’s crucifixion.”
“Correct,” agreed Arendale. “But there are some cases of non-religious stigmata as well. People exhibiting an inflamed handprint in remembrance of a childhood beating, or women exhibiting all the physical characteristics of pregnancy, simply because they believe it to be so.”
“And Phillip Bomar was like that?”
“To the extreme. Since the age of four, Phillip exhibited numerous episodes of stigmata. His mind and body were always at a constant war with one another. He could watch TV, see a child being beaten on a show, then dream about the incident and wake up with identical bruises. Once he had a nightmare of falling off a cliff and woke up screaming with a broken leg. He had to have a surgical pin implanted in his knee for that episode.”
“His parents were suspected of child abuse at first, but then I was called in. I kept him under clinical observation for a period of time. It was horrifying and, yes, I admit, professionally intriguing, to watch burns and abrasions appear on a body that had been assaulted only in the mind.”
“Was that the extent of Phillip’s phenomena?” asked Lowery. “Bruises and broken bones?”
“No,” said Arendale. “He could just as easily be tricked into thinking that he was suffering an illness, even a fatal one. Once a team of doctors even believed that he was suffering from advanced leukemia. But once I convinced Phillip otherwise, the symptoms of the cancer disappeared completely. And then there was the matter of the gunshot.”
“Gunshot?”
The doctor explained. “When he was a teenager, he and several of his friends went to see a movie, one of the Dirty Harry films I believe it was. When they left the theater and were walking down the sidewalk, a passing car backfired. The noise frightened Phillip. His mind kicked in, convincing him that a gun had been fired. He fell to the ground, bleeding from a large hole in his shoulder. When he was wheeled into surgery, they sutured a wound the exact size that a .44 magnum round would make. You see, his mind was convinced that he had been shot, and so his body reacted to the suggestion. He nearly died from that one.”
Lieutenant Lowery sat there quietly for a moment. “So what you’re saying is that Phillip was probably killed by his own mind and body?”
“Yes,” said Arendale. “If, in fact, it was Phillip Bomar’s remains you found.”
Taylor nodded grimly. “It was. We got a positive ID from the coroner this morning. The fingerprints on the surviving hand matched Bomar’s prints precisely.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” said Arendale. He sank back in his leather chair. “Tell me, exactly how did Phillip die? I haven’t been able to find out so far.”
Lowery didn’t think it would do any harm to tell him. “He was totally incinerated by some unknown catalyst. Do you believe it could have been self-generated?”
“Yes, I’m certain that it could have.”
“Tell me this,” he continued. “Could it have been suicide?”
Dr. Arendale shook his head. “No, that is out of the question. Phillip had problems, but he had a great zest and love for living. That was the main reason he survived such a chain of severe occurrences. Also, he had done much to insulate himself against experiencing his stigmatic tendencies.”
“What do you mean ‘insulate’ himself?” asked Taylor.
“Did you notice anything strange when you were in his apartment last night? Phillip did not own a television set. He purposely limited his exposure to TV programs, as well as newscasts. The violence he saw on television was potentially dangerous to him. He stopped going to movie theaters for the same reason. And he purified his musical tastes as well. You may have noticed that he listened only to classical music. Music with absolutely no lyrics. If he had listened to rock or rap music, the lyrics alone could have actually killed him.”
“Damn,” said Taylor beneath his breath. “Then the poor kid was like a walking time bomb. But only to himself.”
“I couldn’t have said it any better,” Arendale told him. “But Phillip took great pains to isolate himself from such influences. He was a computer genius and he worked at home, processing data for various corporations. He made quite a comfortable living at it, too. Incidentally, his only interests were listening to classical music and playing non-confrontational computer games. He didn’t even read books, afraid of what the printed word might conjure inside his psyche.”
“Did he have friends? A girlfriend perhaps?”
“No. Unfortunately, Phillip was something of a recluse. He had no social life whatsoever. He was afraid of loving another human being. He actually feared that rejection might cause something within him that could not be mended with steel pins or stitches.”
“So what you’re saying, doctor, is that Phillip’s death was due to no fault of his own.”
“That’s what I’m saying, Lieutenant.” The psychologist stared at Lowery and his partner somberly. “I believe in my heart that Phillip was murdered. Murdered by someone who knew precisely what he was. And, with that knowledge, used his own condition against him. Yes, someone murdered him, just as sure as if they’d shot him with a gun or stabbed him with a knife.”
***
On their way back to the office, the two discussed their meeting with James Arendale.
“Was
he just being melodramatic?” asked Taylor. “Or was he on the money?”
“I think he’s on the right track,” said Lowery. “I’m actually beginning to believe that someone turned Phillip Bomar against himself and caused him to spontaneously combust.”
“Maybe Blakely has something for us in Forensics,” said Taylor.
He did. When they walked into the lab, Tom Blakely looked excited, the way he always did when he had discovered some particularly damning piece of evidence. “Just the guys I’ve been waiting for,” he said with a big grin on his face.
“Looks like you found something,” said Lowery.
“Several things in fact,” said Blakely. “From the crime scene, we’ve gathered that Bomar was sitting in front of his computer, right?”
“Right.”
“Well, I was curious as to exactly what he was doing at the moment of his death,” said the forensics expert. “So I took the liberty of bringing his computer system to the lab. And look what I found in the CD-ROM drive after I pried the drawer loose.”
He handed them a CD-ROM in a protective evidence bag. Taylor read the title on the silver disk: You Are There…Famous Disasters!
“So exactly what is it?”
“Well, as you know, I’m something of a computer buff myself,” said Blakely. “This is an interactive CD-ROM in which the participant experiences actual historical disasters, both natural and man-made.”
Lowery looked at Taylor, thinking the same thing. “Interesting. So what sort of disasters are on this disk?”
“Tornados, earthquakes, mostly stuff like that,” he told them. “But then there are others, like the crash of the Hindenburg and the atomic blast at Hiroshima.”
“Sounds like either one of them could have done the trick,” said Taylor.
“No, I believe it was another program entirely that killed Mr. Bomar,” said Blakely. He walked toward a computer in an adjoining office. “Step this way, gentlemen.”
“Talk about melodramatic,” said Lowery beneath his breath.
They watched as Blakely inserted the CD-ROM into the drive. “I’ve already programmed this into the system, so it’s ready to go.” A menu appeared on the monitor screen, displaying the choices available. Blakely used the mouse to click on the one he desired, then took them through the program. They found themselves following a line of several people dressed in pale blue coveralls with NASA patches sewn to the upper sleeves.”
“I think I know where this is leading,” said Taylor in amazement.
“In this particular program, you’re playing the part of a particular person who was supposed to be the first civilian teacher in space,” said Blakely. He followed the group with the aid of his mouse. Soon they had entered a chamber whose walls and roof were covered with electronic consoles. DO YOU WISH TO PROCEED? asked a box that appeared on the screen. Blakely clicked on YES and found himself strapped into a seat with the others similarly seated around him.
Lowery and Taylor waited breathlessly as the countdown came, followed by the lift-off. A clock in the corner of the screen counted off the seconds until the expected disaster took place. Then it happened. A burst of bright light flashed at the far end of the chamber, followed by a roaring rush of pure fire as the inhabitants were fully engulfed.
“Okay, we’ve seen enough,” said Ken Lowery. He felt as though someone had just sucker-punched him in the stomach.
“It was the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger,” said Taylor. “That was what incinerated Phillip Bomar?”
“I’d stake my reputation on it,” said the forensics expert.
“Well, that tells us how,” said Lowery. “That just leaves who and why.”
Blakely looked pleased with himself. “I believe I’ve figured that out for you, too.”
“You’re really earning your paycheck on this one, Tom,” said the police lieutenant. “What have you got?”
He handed them a five-page printout. “I found this on Bomar’s hard drive. It seems that he made a record of people he communicated with through the Internet on a regular basis. Just hold onto that and I’ll show you something else.”
They waited while he brought out a brown padded mailing envelope. “I found this in Bomar’s wastebasket. I believe the killer sent him the CD-ROM in this envelope.”
Taylor read the return address. ‘Rom Exchange.’ What’s that?”
“It’s a computer software exchange network,” said Blakely. “I’ve used it before. You can rent CD-ROM games from this company in Seattle. They have their own website on the net.”
“So does this murderer work for this Rom Exchange?”
“No. I think they forged a mailing label and sent Bomar this CD-ROM on the chance that he might use it.” Again, that look of smug satisfaction. “I peeled the mailing label away and found another one underneath. The name and address had been scratched out, but it didn’t take much work to lift the impressions from the envelope underneath.”
Lowery looked at the name and address that had been lifted from the mailing envelope, then looked at the Internet record. It was there, several dozen times in the past month.
The last entry was four days ago.
Susan Graham, 577 Oceanview Drive, Jacksonville, Florida.
“But what I want to know is how come Bomar even put the disk in his system and checked it out?” asked Taylor. “He must’ve known how dangerous it could be.”
“Maybe he was just bored,” suggested Lowery. “Or curious. And, like the proverbial cat, his curiosity ended up killing him.”
“But not without some help,” said Blakely.
***
It was the following morning when they made their move, with the assistance of the Jacksonville Police Department.
“It still sounds pretty crazy to me,” said Detective Art Stafford as they pulled up in front of 577 Oceanview Drive.”
“I don’t know, Art,” said his partner, Steve Kraft. “We’ve had some weird cases ourselves. Remember when that teenager disappeared for three weeks and then showed up in the middle of that shopping mall, claiming he’d been abducted by aliens? And the polygraph claimed that he was telling the truth?”
“That kid was a nutcase,” said Stafford.
“We’re not here to argue whether this case is plausible or not,” Lowery said from the backseat of their unmarked car. “We’ve got arrest and extradition warrants for this Susan Graham and that’s what we’re here for. So let’s get to it.”
“Okay,” said Stafford. “But I hope you guys aren’t making fools of yourselves.”
The four men left the car and walked up the concrete sidewalk to a clapboard house painted coral pink. The front yard was decorated with pink flamingoes standing on wire legs and seashells collected from the beach, which was just a stone’s throw away.
They opened the screen door and paused for a moment, unbuttoning jackets and unfastening holsters. Then Stafford knocked on the door.
They heard someone stir inside, but no one answered the door.
He knocked louder. “Miss Graham, this is Detective Stafford of the Jacksonville Police. Please open the door…right now.”
They half expected some resistance, but they were surprised. They heard the rattle of a chain being disengaged and then the door opened.
Susan Graham didn’t look like a murder suspect. Instead, she looked like a sadder, heavier version of Phillip Bomar. Her shoulder-length hair was a lusterless red, she wore tortoise-shell glasses, and her plain face was pimply and utterly devoid of makeup. She wore a Miami Dolphins T-shirt, white shorts, and green flip-flops.
“Come in,” she said softly, almost in a whisper. The two Atlanta detectives received the same impression. She was shocked and scared by their appearance on her doorstep, but there was a grim acceptance as well. In a way, she had hoped to get away with her crime scott-free, but in another she knew that she never would.
The four policemen stepped into a cramped living room decorated with second-hand furniture
and the type of framed prints you can buy at Wal-Mart. The only point of sophistication in the entire room was a desk bearing an expensive Hewlett Packard computer and laser printer. Taste wise, it was as far from Phillip Bomar’s upstairs office as you could get. But it still held the same dreary air of isolation.
“Susan Graham,” said Lowery. “Were you acquainted with a Phillip Andrew Bomar?”
“Yes,” said the young woman with a sigh. “But only through the Internet. I never actually met him in person.”
Taylor took the CD-ROM from his jacket pocket. “And did you mail Mr. Bomar this?”
Susan Graham stared at the disk for a long moment. “Yes, I did.”
The lieutenant showed her the papers. “Miss Graham, I have a warrant for your arrest on the charge of the willful and premeditated murder of Phillip Bomar.”
She stared at them silently, then began to back away. “Okay,” she said in resignation. “I did it. I admit that. But before you take me, let me tell you why I did what I did.”
“Maybe you ought to wait until you talk to an attorney, Miss Graham,” suggested Detective Stafford. “This is a serious crime you’re being charged with.”
“I know how serious it is!” she snapped at him. She stopped her slow retreat and stood in the center of the living room. The computer was to her left, while a doorway leading into the back of the house stood to her right. “Just let me tell you and get it over with, okay?”
Stafford shrugged and looked over at Lowery. “It’s your ballgame, pal. If she wants to talk now, that’s okay with us.”
Taylor took a micro-recorder from his pocket, showed it to the young woman, and turned it on. “Be advised that anything you now say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”
They stood and waited, giving her time to gather her thoughts. Then Susan Graham began to talk.
“I met Phillip on the net. We were both lonely and we just sort of lucked upon each other by accident. We found we both had a lot of the same interests and started talking to each other through the computer. I fell in love with him and told him so. But then I guess he got scared. He refused to communicate with me anymore. For a couple of weeks, I left messages on his E-mail, but he wouldn’t answer them. I was crushed at first. Then I guess I sort of lost my temper.”