by David Archer
His eyes narrowing again, Chance continued looking Dixon directly in the eye. “Not so good,” he said. “That’s kinda my thing, that I have to deliver justice. If I killed someone innocent...”
“That’s what I’m saying,” Dixon said. “You’ve appointed yourself as their judge and executioner, but a judge has to examine facts that were gathered by an investigator. If you’re going to do this, you’ve got to learn how to determine the facts for yourself. Otherwise, sooner or later, you’re going to make that bad a mistake. Now, what you do isn’t exactly legal, but I wouldn’t be the only person who ever thought that the world is a little better off with you doing your thing. That being said, I don’t want see you get yourself ruined.”
Chance shrugged. “I’ll admit I wouldn’t want to screw up,” he said, “so what should I be learning? I mean, so far all I see is you asking a bunch of questions, and most of them are the same questions I would’ve asked.”
Dixon nodded. “Good,” he said. “That tells me you’re paying attention, at least. How about this: after we eat lunch, I’ll let you take the lead for a while. I’ll speak up if I think you’re missing something, but let’s see how you do at getting to the answers.”
“Okay,” Chance said. “That might be the best way to do things.”
Dixon nodded. “Yep,” he said. “Sink or swim, the best way to learn anything.”
Their meals arrived a few minutes later and they ate without a lot of talking.
Dixon looked at the time again and saw that it had been almost an hour since he'd called Oregon, so he looked over at Chance. “Okay, you’re up,” he said. He dialed the number again and handed the phone to Chance. A moment later they were put through and a man’s voice said, “This is Doctor Albertson.”
“Doctor Albertson, my name is Bill Simmons. I'm working with a private investigator named Pete Dixon here in Nevada, and we’ve been looking for a woman who went missing a few months ago. I think there’s a strong possibility she may be your Jane Doe.”
“Really?” the doctor said, sounding excited. “Can you give me any idea about who she is? We’ve been trying to find out for quite some time.”
“I believe her name is Mary Dalton, and she disappeared from Las Vegas about six months ago. I understand she was acting strange for a while before she disappeared. Can you tell me how she's doing?”
The doctor sighed. “I honestly wish I knew,” he said. “She sits around and stares out the windows, and sometimes we see her crying, but she won’t talk about whatever she’s feeling. Our staff says it's all they can do sometimes to get her to eat, and she rarely even speaks. Is she married?”
“She is, yes. Her husband's name is Michael Dalton, and they have two kids, a boy named Jason and a girl named Katie. Has she ever mentioned having kids?”
“No, and she’s always said she doesn’t recall ever having any. Let me go and talk to her, and see if any of this might jog a memory. Give me a number and I'll call you back.”
Chance gave his own number and said goodbye, passing the phone back to Dixon. “How was that?” he asked.
“Pretty good,” Dixon said. “I would’ve asked about the scars on her leg, just to confirm they match before we get anyone’s hopes up.”
Chance scrunched up his face. “Yeah, that’s a good point. I didn’t think about that.”
They sat and drank another cup of coffee, and then Chance’s phone rang. He looked at the number and recognized it as being from the hospital in Oregon.
“Bill Simmons,” he said.
“Mr. Simmons, this is Doctor Albertson in Portland,” came the doctor's voice. “I wanted to confirm with you that our Jane Doe is your Mary Dalton. I walked up to her a few minutes ago and asked, ‘Mary, are you ready to eat?’ and she turned around and looked at me and said, “‘Oh, yes, I'm just about starving!’ She stared at me for a moment, then said, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s my name! I’m Mary!’ She remembers that she has a husband and kids, but it took a minute before she could remember their names. She can’t recall where they lived, and has no idea why she left, but it’s definitely her.”
“Well, that's great,” Chance said. “I'll contact her family right now and let them know. Can they come up to see her?”
“Oh, I think that would be a wonderful idea, but you might have them call me, first. I'm not sure she'll be ready or able to leave, just yet. First, I'm sure she's going to want to try to remember her life with them.” She paused for a moment. “Mr. Simmons, is there any reason to believe that there was any kind of abusive situation in the marriage?”
Chance looked at Dixon, who shook his head. “None that we know of, and I don't think there was anything like that. On the other hand—Doctor, maybe you can help me. I'm working on a couple of cases now, and Mary’s may be one of them. There have been several cases of women disappearing from this area, and then turning up a month or so later with no memory of where they’ve been or what they’ve been doing. A couple of them have then been arrested for murders they can’t remember committing while they were missing, but the evidence against them is overwhelming. What we’ve found so far seems to indicate that someone is deliberately tampering with people's minds, using some kind of mind-controlling method, like brainwashing or hypnosis. Have you ever heard of anything like that?”
“Oh, dear Heavens, Mr. Simmons,” Dr. Albertson said. “No, I haven't, but as a clinical hypnotist myself, I can tell you that the very thought of it is terrifying! There are a number of powerful drugs that can have serious effects on our inhibitions. If a calculated dose were given to someone who was already in trance, and suggestions planted to take more at a later time—my God, it's conceivable that a post-hypnotic suggestion could be planted that would override all of our natural inhibitions! With the right dosages and careful attention to detail and the types of suggestions implanted, it would certainly be possible to cause someone to do just about anything, including commit murder.”
Chance nodded to the phone. “That’s pretty much what we had concluded. Doctor, it's actually very likely that Mary Dalton was programmed this way, but in her case it appears that something went wrong. Could such a suggestion possibly result in wiping her memory?”
“I couldn't say with any reasonable certainty, but I would have to say that it’s definitely possible, yes. What worries me a lot more, however, is how to approach any kind of treatment program for her; without more information, I have no idea where to begin!”
“Doctor, we are trying very hard to determine who is behind this,” Chance said. “I don't know if we’ll get any answers that will help you or not, but we’ll certainly let you know whatever we find out. Right now, we’re going to call Mary’s husband and give him your number. And doctor, we’re not going to tell him what we suspect just yet; we’re gonna imply that the problem might be a side effect of medication. Can you cover us on that for a bit, till we know for sure what we’re dealing with?”
“Certainly, Mr. Simmons,” the doctor said. “I won't say anything until I hear from you.”
Chance ended the call and looked at Dixon. “Sounds to me like we’re definitely on the right track,” he said. “How about you call Mr. Dalton?”
Dixon grinned at him. “It’ll be my pleasure,” he said. “Fifty thousand dollars worth of pleasure. We, um, we are going to split that, right?”
“You can have it,” Chance said. “Trust me, you need it more than I do.”
Dixon’s eyebrows went up. “Yeah? Independently wealthy, are you?”
Chance grinned back. “No, but I’m not hurting for money. I’m just hoping you’re not going to take that money and fall back down the neck of a bottle.”
Dixon’s grin faltered, and his face grew somber. “You know what, kid?” he asked. “I think maybe I’m ready to try coming back to life.” He looked away quickly and took out his phone, then dialed Michael Dalton’s number.
“Hello?” Dalton said as he answered.
“Mr. Dalton, this is Pete Dixon,” he s
aid. “I'm calling to tell you that I've found your wife.”
Dalton gasped. “Oh, God, Mr. Dixon, is she—is she alive?”
Dixon sighed into the phone. “She's alive, Mr. Dalton, but there are complications. Mary is in a hospital in Oregon, and has amnesia. Until just a bit ago, she didn't even know her own name, and she just barely remembers you and your kids at the moment. I have the number of her doctor for you, and he'd like you to call as soon as possible.”
Dalton said, “Oh, my God, oh, my God—I'll call right now! Let me get a pen, oh, my God! This is—Mr. Dixon, how can I thank you? Can I tell the kids?”
“I think you should take that up with her doctor, but I'm sure he'll be glad to work out a plan with you for her care. Now, there's something else I want to talk to you about; when Mary came home from the Rivers Center, did you notice anything odd at all about the way she acted?”
“Back then? No, nothing at all, she was back to being our old Mary. You still think there’s a connection?”
“I’m afraid we’re just about certain of it,” Dixon said. “There’s just too many coincidences involved, but at least there’s no indication yet that your wife is involved in any crime. If it turns out that she was, then be sure to give me a call. I hope to have information soon that would clear her of any wrongdoing.”
Dalton was quiet for a moment, as if thinking, then said slowly, “Thank you, Mr. Dixon,” he said. “I’ll certainly be in touch if anything like that comes up.”
“Good. The other cases I’m working on right now indicate that there was some sort of deliberate brainwashing involved, and it’s just too much to believe it’s only a coincidence that all of the victims were at Rivers Center at the same time. I just want you to be aware that this isn't Mary’s fault, none of it.”
Dalton sighed. “Mr. Dixon—thank you. Let me confirm that it’s Mary, and the reward is yours. I’ll be back in touch.”
Dixon gave him the doctor’s number and hung up, then looked up at Chance. “Do you feel that?” he asked.
“You mean, that satisfied feeling that you’ve done something good?” Chance asked with a grin. “At least somebody might get a happy ending out of this, right?”
Dixon nodded. “You and me, kid, we do things a little differently,” he said, “but the end result should still be the same. Somebody gets peace of mind, somebody gets a happy ending. Am I right?”
Chance held up his coffee cup and saluted. “You are correct,” he said. “Now, what’s next? We still have Yolanda to worry about, and Maggie. I don’t want to leave them stuck in the situation they’re in.”
“Neither do I,” Dixon said. “The problem is that we have evidence of a connection to the Rivers Center, but we don’t have a suspect. We need to find some way to identify the person most likely to be behind this thing, but that isn’t Loftin. Unless he’s found some way to hide money that we don’t know about, he’s not the one selling murders for hire.”
“Something else I’ve been thinking about,” Chance said. “Everyone involved in these murders and disappearances was there two years ago. I can’t help wondering why none of them have involved later groups, or earlier ones.”
Dixon’s eyes went wide, and he stared at Chance. “See? You’re definitely learning. I hadn’t even thought about that angle, yet.” He took out his phone and called Josephine. “Josie, I need you to check something out for me.”
“You do realize this is the third time you called me today, right?” Josephine asked. “Your tab is getting pretty damn full, Pete.”
“Well, then I’d better come settle it. Your help just got me a pretty hefty reward. How much do I owe you by now?”
“Are you serious about paying? If you are, I’ll give you my special discounted rate. That would put you at about six grand.”
“No problem, and yes, I’m serious. Now, can you add one more thing to it? It’ll probably be a day or two before I have the money in hand.”
“Well,” Josephine said, “I guess you’ve never lied to me about money before. Okay, what you need?”
“I need you to check other groups from the Rivers Center and see if there had been any disappearances that match up to the people who were there. Check the last few groups before the one two years ago, and a few at random since then. If there had been any, you should find something.”
“Well, we already got a backdoor into their computers,” she said. “This shouldn’t take but a few minutes, so hang on. I’m going back six months further than the last one, and running all of them up till the one we already know about, and then six months after. We’re talking about ten thousand people, so I’m setting up a bot to compare all of them to missing person reports. Give it a few minutes to work.”
“No problem,” Dixon said, “we’re on your dime. This may help us narrow down our suspect list.”
The two of them chatted for a few minutes, talking about where they would be going for dinner and catching up on each other’s lives a bit, and then Josephine said, “Bingo. Okay, out of all of those people, I’ve got a total of six missing person reports that match up. That seems pretty odd, considering we got eleven out of one group. That tell you anything?”
“Sure does,” Chance said. “That says that our brainwasher person is mostly connected to that particular group. Are there any similarities in those new disappearances to the ones we already know about?”
“Just checked them all out,” Josephine said, “and four of them turned out to be drug relapses who ended up dead. Those cases are closed. The other two are still missing. The last one was about three months ago, but he’d been in and out of jail several times since he got out of the Center. Probably another relapse.”
“So,” Dixon said, “all of the ones that fit with what our client went through are from that one particular group. That’s an awfully big coincidence. Josie, can you tell me if there was somebody new working there at the time of that group? Would’ve been one of the medical staff, probably a psychiatrist or psychologist.”
“I’m checking,” she said. “Hey, hey, look at that. There was a psychiatrist there who started with that group and was fired just a short time after they finished.”
Dixon was grinning and nodding. “That sounds like our boy,” he said. “Give me all the information you can on him.”
“On her,” Josephine said. “It was a woman, her name is Elizabeth Cardwell. She’s about thirty-five years old, been practicing for six years. She worked for a hospital in Sacramento for a couple of years, then transferred to another rehab center. She was there for a year, then did another year in a hospital in Albuquerque before taking the job with the Rivers Center. She was only there for six months, and was fired after she accused Loftin of sexual harassment. The official grounds for termination were that she was incompetent in her job, but there aren’t any records of disciplinary actions or complaints before that time.”
“Okay,” Dixon said. “And where is she now?”
Josephine was quiet for a moment, and then she said softly, “Pete—Pete, I’m not sure you really want to know.”
Dixon and Chance both looked at the phone, their eyebrows lowering. “Why not?” Dixon asked.
“Because she’s running a counseling center here in Vegas,” Josephine said, “and it’s owned by Daniel Finnigan.”
THIRTEEN
Dixon did a double take, but then just stared at the phone.
“Daniel Finnigan? My Daniel Finnigan?”
“Yeah, I’m afraid so,” Josephine said. “According to the documentation, Finnigan filed paperwork to create a nonprofit called Empower Counseling. Dr. Cardwell is the director, and she’s living in an apartment on the top floor of the building. It hasn’t even opened yet, the opening is set for the first of next month. This make any sense to you?”
“Hell, yes,” Dixon said. “It means Finnigan has his own pet Dr. Frankenstein, and she can turn out monsters for him on demand. Josie, is there any connection between Cardwell and any government programs?�
��
“Let me take a look,” she said. “I’m not seeing anything, but she did do an internship with the government, her first year out of college. According to the records, that was in the VA hospital in Los Angeles.”
“Could be a connection,” Dixon said. “Okay, right now she’s our number one suspect, but we don’t have any evidence that we can take to a prosecutor. What we need to do is find other witnesses we can use to determine whether she was actively involved with everyone who’s been affected by this thing. Josie, keep your computer warm, because I’ll be back in touch.”
He hung up the phone and turned to Chance. “We need to look up the rest of the people on that list, the ones who went missing. Who’s next?”
Chance took the list out of his pocket and unfolded it. “There are several,” he said. “Next one up would be Melinda Cummings. According to her address, she lives about a mile from here. I’m going to call and see if she’s at home.” He took out his phone and dialed the number that was on the sheet of paper in front of him, and got an answer after a couple of rings. “Ms. Cummings? My name is Bill Simmons, and I’m working with a private investigator here in town, trying to find out what’s happening to folks like you who seem to have chunks of time missing. Would you have time to sit and talk with us for a bit today? Okay, that would be great. Where would you like to meet? All right, we can be there in probably ten minutes or less. See you then.”
He ended the call and looked up at Dixon. “I actually caught her just as she was getting home from work,” he said. “She’s working part-time and just got off duty a little bit ago. She said we can come out to her place, and sit down to talk there.”
Dixon finished off his coffee. “Well? What are we waiting for?”
Chance paid their tab and they headed for the pickup truck, then he fired it up and followed the GPS directions to Melinda’s house. It was a small bungalow on Lewis Street, and there was room to pull in to her driveway when they got there.
Dixon showed his ID when they knocked on the door, and she invited them to come inside. She offered them coffee and they accepted, and then sat in the living room. The two men took the sofa, while Melinda sat in a chair that faced it.