"Yeah, well as you note, the police report omitted the fact he was tied to the chair. We just wrote it up as a suicide. He soaked himself with petrol, and lit a match - Guilty man goes to judgment day. My boss said to tie up the loose ends and end the investigation. We BOTH thought it was Timmy, Ms. Charmers. How he did it, I have no idea, but when the wheel spins and always ends up on the same notch, you know it isn't a coincidence. But, there was absolutely no way to prove it, and the kid had the perfect alibi no matter what we did. Any lawyer would have wheeled him in front of a jury and asked, 'Do you REALLY think this boy committed these atrocities? HOW did he do it? WHY would he? WHY are the police pegging a defenseless child?' and so on.
"If the fires had continued, it would have been a different story, but they stopped after that. I understand you are representing Tim Glimmer and his partner in an insurance case?" John Carrigan looks directly at her. She got the message. She got the message as a sharp chill all the way up her spine. What in God's name has she walked into?
"Yes," she answers.
"Take care," was all the detective added.
Insurance
Emmett Klutch was a typical bureaucrat. Dull, OCD and beyond pedantic. "Significant errors, many questions, there are things here that need answers," he said to his exasperated secretary.
She sighed under her breath. This new boy was a total pain, and his incessant digging up of old files like this just made everything so difficult. What was it going to prove? Saving pennies by costing pounds like this was pointless. "Would it not have been best to let sleeping dogs lie? They have gotten a pro-bono solicitor, a very good one, and she is raising questions we can't easily answer. This is going to cost more in time, money and effort than it is worth." she spoke up.
"It is NOT about the money, Sarah. I know this makes a lot of extra work, but if there are large holes like this in the background of the company we took over eighteen years ago, there may be other sorts of exposures we are at risk for. Deal with this Charmers woman as best you can."
"She is asking to SEE you, I expect to offer some sort of settlement. I urge you to agree, as it may resolve a whole lot of issues and save a lot of time and money." Sarah Parker was a legal secretary, and smarter than most of the lawyers the company employed.
"Alright then, I take your advice. Schedule a time and place. Where are her offices, Kensington? We still have an office there, yes?" Klutch picked up another pile of the endless stream of old paperwork, this was going to take years to sort through. But, one thing at a time, step by step, and all that.
oooo000oooo
Ten days later, he was facing a striking woman, clearly well-bred and smelling of money. Gloria Charmers possessed a strong Roman nose, blue eyes, intelligent, with a well-formed symmetrical face, oval, lacking makeup. "Rhode Island family? I believe you are the daughter of Max Charmers? You have to admit, a suitable name given his advocacy for the NRA and how many other lobbies does he represent?"
"Demonstrating you can research things is only proof you know you need to settle this matter. You also know you have underpaid my clients, and that you lack any paperwork to argue with. Why are we dragging this chain? All it will do is cost you and I time, and mostly cost your company money?" Gloria knew this type well. They claw their way into positions of influence, then they go out of their way to prove how useful they are. Time and money were never the real issue - promotion and recognition were what he was after.
"However," she continued, "As you have mentioned my father, you would also know he knows the heads of many boards, including several in your own company. A good word in the right ear might help everyone move things along, yes?"
Emmett smiled. Good, what he really wanted - offered upfront. "There are still questions, so many incidents and they all revolve around this boy. Did you get the medical evidence I need to shut this matter down?"
"Not so quickly, Mr. Klutch. Your company has clearly broken several rules in the settlement and underpaid the carer for some twenty years. You get your medical records, you get whatever you need, we get an increase in the carers payment of $150 per week and an upfront payment of $200k."
"I didn't know we were bargaining. Show me the records and I will consider your request."
"Do you really think this is fraud?" Gloria asked. "I agree, there is a whole lot of weirdness about all of this, but no evidence of fraud. The medical records of the day are all you technically need, and we only need provide updated records in the matter of a court trial."
"He is still being stubborn about seeing doctors then?" laughed Emment. "You have to agree, this is a red flag, and the reason all of this started. Send me the records that prove the case, we can talk. Otherwise, I hand you over to my legal division and you can have fun for the next few years."
Well, she didn't really expect him to roll over and die just like that. She pulls out a folio from her briefcase. "MRI shows significant stenosis at L5 and L6, T3 and C5. No question, the boy needs to be in a wheelchair, but this is not the issue. You insured the family for loss, not just the house but for loss of income. Yes, the boy cannot work, but you didn't insure the boy, you insured the father. You have lost all the records to that effect, however, so you have no leg to stand on - if you can pardon the pun."
Emmett shook himself. He just hated untidiness like this. "The whole thing makes no sense!" he exclaimed. "Why are we paying this boy a loss of income for his father? Why are there so many things that do not add up here?"
Gloria decided to open the door a little for him. "I looked up the police records, as would have you. But you didn't speak to the detective in charge of the investigation, who told me directly that they wrote in information to shut the case down. Your local manager did not commit suicide, he was murdered. The fire was intentional, his murder was intentional, and someone was covering their tracks. We have no way of knowing who that someone was, but it was a dirty business going back to a time before your present company owned the one that covered the insurance.
"Now we CAN rake all this through the courts. We CAN bring up all these questions. And yes, it will take years and probably make the newspapers. The real question is - do you want to be famous or do you want to move on up the chain? Because I promise you, the real story, whatever it is, will be dirty and that dirt will fall over the face of your company image. But if that's what you want?" Gloria let the question linger and just stared at him, waiting for the flinch.
There it was. She continued, "Now, I don't know what happened back then, you don't know. What we DO know is that a twenty-year-old autistic kid in a wheelchair somehow survived a devastating fire and that his family held some sort of life and household insurance with a company that your company now owns. You ALSO know that the boy was paid out too small a sum and that the bank records of that day do not tally up with many of the payouts made around that time. We WILL bring up these inconsistencies in a court and you can be certain we will be insisting on court-appointed auditors to explain them. We WILL win this request and as a result, your company will be paying their $1500 dollars an hour charges for MONTHS. How do you reckon that will run for your chances of promotion?"
Emmett nodded. It was starting to add up. "One hundred extra per week, 150K settlement, and I have the medical records to prove to the board the reason why we are doing this." Mr. Klutch, despite his name, knew when to let go of the dragon tail.
"I will ask my clients, and I expect they will say yes. You have to put this in writing first, though. The boy has major trust issues."
They shook hands on the tentative agreement, which left Gloria with only one more thing to clear up. Poor Billy, trapped with a monster. How on earth was she going to tell him? DOES she tell him? If she doesn't and Billy does something that Tim perceives as a breach of trust, what happens to him? So many questions.
She knows it is best to say nothing and hope that Timmy's aberration has departed. But can she really trust that strange little boy with his bear? She knew she had to take Billy aside and explain the ge
neral framework of things and allow him to decide what course to sail. Not too hard a thing to arrange, just invite him in to sign a form, which doesn't need to inconvenience Tim.
Meeting
Billy has tears in his eyes as she hands him the cheque. All that extra money in HIS account, and one hundred and fifty grand for Tim. "I just cannot thank you enough," he said, his hand shaking as he took the payout. "I didn't know WHAT we were going to do."
Gloria smiled. Should she speak up? Something inside her was ringing an alarm bell. What could it be? She had learned to trust her instincts, and her instincts had her asking a question. "Tell me, Billy, how long have you known Tim?"
"Oh, we went to school together," he said. "We were both picked on, because, you know, I looked and acted so gay. He was a cripple, I was an emotional mess. We didn't have a good time, but that is what probably threw us together. Funny how things work, hey?"
Finally the pieces slot into place. Gloria finally sees the truth. "I see, so YOU were the one who burnt down the houses. I am not judging Billy, I am just genuinely curious."
Billy's gentle demeanor changes. He stands up, shaking, "I, I can't believe... I cannot believe... You cannot be saying this. It's NOT possible. How could you, we TRUSTED you!" he starts shouting, the gentle boy gone, a raging crazy man was now shouting at her.
Right then, Tim walks in, without a limp, without his wheelchair, carrying his Teddy. The one-eyed bear is pulled up to his ear and Tim says in a guttural sort of voice. "Teddy said she would sort things out, he never said we could trust her, you idiot. We need to kill her and burn this place. It is full of recording equipment, so it has to burn, including the secretary."
Billy was excited and, still shaking with rage, shouts, "Yeah! Let's BURN the place down. And let's BURN her, the WITCH!"
In the background, Gloria sees her secretary is tied up and gagged. Gallons of petrol is sitting there, waiting to be poured. Gloria now knew what she always suspected. She takes out her pistol, the one her father had always insisted she keep - A Walther PPK, the James Bond gun. She takes it out, releases the safety, and shoots - the bear.
It's stuffing flies everywhere as it is blown out of Tim's hand: hollow point rounds do that. Her father had always said, "Don't shoot to maim, Honey, shoot to kill."
The spell is broken. Tim immediately collapses to the floor, Billy looks like he has just woken up from a dream. "How did I get here?" he asks. "Ms. Charmers, where are we? What are we doing?"
Gloria, shaking, stands up. "You need to cut my secretary free now, Billy - and take the petrol out of here. Collect Timmy, and just go. Get out of here NOW! Leave the bear."
Epilogue
The jaded detective looked thoughtful. "Yeah, that kinda makes a weird sort of sense. How did you pick it was the bear?"
"I had invisible friends when growing up. They were completely real to me. Tim never grew out of his and that bear was a sort of psychic link with every bit of repression he has ever suffered. Somehow it stretched across and controlled both boys. Just hit me, I don't know where it came from, I just knew the bear was the link. And I had more bullets in case I was wrong."
"And this is the only call you will make to the police about it, yes?" Carrigan laughs. "They wouldn't know what to do with it, anyway. Twenty-year cold case with no evidence. Even a confession wouldn't hold water. Clearly mental disability - no judge would believe they were in charge of their senses. You are certain the bear was what held them to it?"
"As soon as I shot it they both woke up, as if from a dream, and seemed to become nice boys again."
"Gloria, they are forty-year-old men. Have you considered they simply realized you had a gun and they better start behaving?"
"It crossed my mind at the time. But I feel it was a genuine reaction, something that snapped them out of the madness."
Carrigan paused and looked straight at her. "I want to thank you. That was one of those cases that stuck in my head. I knew the boy was responsible in some way, I just never figured the accomplice. How did they happen to be put together by the insurance company?"
She smiled, "That was the easy part. Billy was a registered nurse, the only male nurse in town. With the parents dead, the boy needed care, and insurance would pay for it. He was strong enough to pick up Tim for bathing and volunteered to help. I don't think that part was planned. I don't think they planned anything. I reckon Billy went half-crazy when he saw what happened to his only friend, and was smart enough to realize Bob Turner was not going to stop there, so he did what he had to do - what he had done to all the other people who had threatened them.
"What I see, two gay boys in a small world that hated them got this weird notion that they could set things to rights by killing their tormentors AND they were paid to do it. Turner's insurance agency covered everyone in town and he would have just wanted 'x' number of houses burned. How he got to meet Tim in the first place, I have no idea. And yes, I am pretty certain this is the end of it, but just in case, I am forwarding you a copy of the office video showing what they did here."
John Carrigan just nodded. "As long as you don't think you are in danger I will let it ride. Again, thanks for breaking the case. You got my son's number in town, call him if you are worried about anything. Good speaking with you." He flicked off his Skype.
Gloria poured a whiskey over some ice and sat there looking at the remains of the One-Eyed Teddy. She went over the fireplace, stoked up the fire she had lit, and tossed it in.
"See you in Hell, Teddy." she said.
Diary of RUIN
The Human mind hides many secrets, often from itself. Like a pearl, we wrap one layer of reality over the grain of sand that irritates and disturbs us - But does it grow to a perfect creation, or a distorted, ugly mess? Why do some go through trial and difficulty and come out with a priceless wisdom, while others simply curse and live in regret?
The stiff, white halls of the consulting rooms were purposefully bare. There was no imagery to excite or draw attention, the carpets were bland. Everything was designed to create a lack of response. The doctor looked at the client sheet and was surprised. The practice specialized in eating disorders, and it was quite normal to see fat or bone-thin girls in waiting rooms, but this one was different. They sat there in the consulting room like a thousand other patients, but it was different.
The young girl was fully disassociated. Not autistic, prior to the kidnapping she had normal grades, friends, social life. It looked like she had been sexually assaulted, but there was something more. How she knew, she did not know - but Caruthers just knew another 'thing' had happened, and she had shut down. Pretty, blonde, blue-eyed thirteen-year-old. It wasn't the usual story, not just some sort of sex predator. She looks through the file - A straight forward kidnap case according to the report sheet. But what else? The mother was distraught, crying openly, wailing, "I don't know what to do, Doctor. It has been like this for seven weeks, she refuses to eat, speak, do anything. She drinks water, that is all. She will starve and die!"
Doctor Sandra Caruthers specialized in Bulimia. This was not the sort of case that should have been referred to her, this child needed a specialist in abuse. She was not really qualified in the girls' problem and hadn't read up on the latest drugs for withdrawal like this. The good doctor sighs and is about to explain to the poor woman that someone has made a mistake bringing the girl to her when the power cuts out.
The girl did not flinch. This intrigued Sandra. They still had natural light, she could see her features. Aryan blonde, small nose, wide-set blue eyes high cheekbones, perfect teeth. The square shoulders were unusual in the modern-day, where children usually hunched over phones or computers. The girl sat upright, straight-backed, and strangely fierce. The air-con was now off, so Sandra went to the window to let in some fresh air.
Music from some radio below in the street came up to her ears. Dylan howls across the wilderness of her urban office block, "Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go ..." Sandra stops and reme
mbers that time so long ago. It was all part of the reason she was here, in this office. "Mrs. Close, are you prepared to do something ... something different to help your child?"
The mother sits there, confused. "Your child, Mrs. Close. She needs help that is outside the realm of drugs and conventional psychotherapy. Now I can refer you to a specialist in the field, but I can tell you, in simple honesty, all you will do is spend a fortune to get drugs that do not work. Suzy here is in lock-down, but she sees and hears everything I am saying. She hears me, smells me, knows where she is, knows why she is here. She is NOT catatonic, she is simply choosing not to be here.
Amanda Close sits there, mouth agape, like a trophy fish mounted on a wall. The woman was also traumatized, somehow trying to survive in a place of absolute helplessness. Dylan triggered the thought. The ONE person Sandra knew who would be able to shine a light through the darkness of paradox that had formed in the core of the girl loved Dylan. He also smoked pot, drank excessively and was so abusive towards what he called the 'clods' that he eventually got kicked out of Columbia. Ostensibly it was for his rudeness faculty members, "anti-social behavior" she had been told when she asked after him.
But really, the truth was that his extraordinary methods worked, and they hated him for it. "There is ONE man I know who can treat your daughter. He is not conventional, completely the opposite. He used to be a professor at Columbia, however, and I believe he will be able to treat this type of withdrawal condition."
Amanda finally finds her voice, "Well, if you can give me his card, Doctor," she stammers.
Sandra laughs. "Oh, if only it were that easy. To be honest Mrs. Close, I cannot promise you that the good Professor will even accept the case, but if we go there together it is possible he will." Sandra looked at her sheet, her day was light and the power would be out for a while. No more clients till three. "I have time right now. Look, my computer is down and I can't do any other work. You have already paid for an hour's consult, and it may be coincidence, but you have come to one of the few people who know the only man in this city who could help your daughter. I say we take the time you have already paid for and go find him."
Witch Hunters and Other Stories (2018-2019) Page 4