Mind Switch (18 page)

Lyons became serious. “Let’s just say I would rather not talk about it.”

Wow, Fred thought, he
has
witnessed it.

As Fred left the office he noticed that all of the three office modules were vacant. The area was as quiet as death, yet Fred sensed a presence near him. That’s insane, of course, nothing is there, he said to himself.

But as he exited the division, the hairs on his neck begin to rise.

Chapter 32

When Fred returned to his office, Jan told him that Sgt. Brown and Penrod needed to see him right away. Fred had hoped that he could be alone to evaluate the new facts that had emerged with his interview with Schultz; however, he knew that he had to wait for a rare free period to accomplish that.

He called for the two policemen. Brown and Penrod entered his office and told him that they had completed their canvassing of the boat rental offices.

Brown said that a total of 127 people had rented boats during the period in question. The renters indicated that normally the number is much higher than that, but with the unprecedented amount of rain they had during the time in question, business had been way down.

Fred felt fortunate for that at least. He asked to see what they had. They had completed individual cards for each renter, displaying the name, address and phone number of each. In some cases the social security number was also listed.

Fred noted that about half had addresses outside of the state. He pondered if out-of-state people should be included in the investigation. If it was a hit man scenario, outsiders would be just as likely to have conducted the killing spree in the theater as the locals. His gut, though, told him that this was not the act of a hit man. He directed that all out of state renters be temporarily removed from the stack. That decision resulted in a reduced batch of 47 potentials. Since the killer was identified as a male, he also eliminated all female renters. This further reduced the list down to 42 people.

As Fred had expected, Paul was making waves in the department. Jan advised him that Paul had been in to see the chief numerous times while Fred was out of the station. The office rumor was that Paul was highly critical of the limited progress on the case; and in no uncertain words he had told the chief that. Fred tended to dismiss this as another dog-bites-man story, but he also realized that the chief recently seemed too willing to embrace this type of criticism, especially when a solution to the case was starting to appear more and more distant. To buy time and to neutralize Paul, he decided to assign him the duty of interviewing the remainders on the boat rental suspect list.

Fred suspected that it was going to be another blind alley, but at least it would keep Paul silent for awhile. Of course, when the leads came up dry, it would simply be another nail in Fred’s casket as far as Paul was concerned. Before Fred made his assignment to Paul, he innocently mentioned that he thought he had seen him on Main Street the day of the bank robbery. A guilty look suddenly replaced the perpetual air of confidence on Paul’s face. He said “No—I—I was in Orlando that morning and I just got back when I heard about the bank robbery.” Fred didn’t press the issue but found Paul’s response highly suspect, especially since Paul’s wife had indicated that Paul was sick that day.

* * *

That evening he briefed Maureen about recent developments. He revealed that he was troubled that he couldn’t identify the company associated with the box found in Sarasota Bay with the letters YO on it.

“What was the box like?” Maureen asked.

“It was a strange shape, about a yard long, about 3 to 4 inches deep and maybe 6 to 8 inches wide.”

Without looking up, Maureen said, “I know what it is, and I know the company’s name that was on it.”

Fred was flabbergasted. “How could you?”

“Based on your description, the box seems to be the shape used by florists to deliver flowers-—you know, long and narrow. And since you don’t ever take the time to send flowers to your mother during Mother’s Day, I have to do it. I always use Young’s Flower Shop on Bahia Vista. Check it out, I’m sure you will find out I’m right.”

“Amazing,” said Fred, “but I need to ask you another question. Slivers is stating he has no memory of his crime. Do you think that’s possible?”

“Again, Fred, without examining him I can only provide you with generalities. It could be a neurological cause such as a stroke or temporal lobe epilepsy. Or if the loss was precipitated by a great stress it could be dissociative amnesia. Certainly from what you told me about Slivers, he is not a typical murderer. So, acute stress, after he realized what he had done, could have triggered the memory loss. Without an examination, I can’t be sure.”

Fred wanted to continue the discussion, but suddenly he experienced a severe headache.

Great, he thought, now I probably have a brain tumor.

* * *

The next morning Fred took the box to Young’s and showed it to the clerk.

“Where did you get this box,” he said, “from the middle of the ocean?” The box still hadn’t dried out from its temporary residence in Sarasota Bay.

“Never mind, is it yours?”

“With the shape it is in I would hate to admit it but, yes, I recognize it—or what’s left of it. Actually this is our newer style box. We just started using it about a month ago.”

“Is that box used for all the flowers you sell?”

“No, it’s just for our long stem roses. We use two different size boxes for our roses; this is the larger of the two, used for a dozen roses.”

“Can you tell me who you sold them to if I give you the time frame I am interested in?”

“I can, if they used a credit card.”

“Ok, look at these dates on this piece of paper. That’s the time frame I am interested in. Now, do you have a ledger that you can show me?”

“Sure, you can borrow it if you like. The amount of the sale you should look for is $35.75. That’s what we charge for the a dozen long stem roses including taxes.”

Chapter 33

At the office Fred had Jan go thru the florist sales ledger to pick out the all the sales which matched the price of the roses within the time frame specified. A total of ten names appeared. He had Jan match those names to the boat renters—no match. Based on the small number, he decided to have the ten florist’s customers investigated immediately. If that turned up nothing, he would revert back to investigating the larger list of boat renters.

Jim was out of town, so as much as he hated it, he called in Paul for the assignment. He had Paul contact Carl, the sole person who could identify the theater killings murderer; and he directed that the two of them to go to the addresses associated with the ten names. He told Paul to be extremely careful, because it was very possible one of the names on the list could be a killer.

Paul was reluctant to take any orders from Fred under any set of circumstances, but this one he was excited about. He might be just a few hours away from capturing the theater killer. Now they would know who should have been promoted to lieutenant!

Paul contacted Carl at the downtown theater. Carl was working that day and tried to explain to him that he couldn’t take off. Paul would not hear about it. He said “This is police business, son. I’ll be by the theater to pick you up in ten minutes; you had better be there!”

Carl was standing out in front of the theater when Paul arrived. “Get in,” Paul ordered. As they were driving to the first address on the list Carl said, “I’m afraid I might be fired because of this.”

Paul said “Look, kid,” although he was no more than five years older than Carl, “you stand a good chance of being a hero and help in solving a murder case. Now, isn’t that more important than your job?”

Carl said nothing.

On the way, Paul started worrying about Fred’s note of caution concerning the risk associated with the assignment. He decided to let Carl get in front of him when they rang the doorbells since he rationalized that Carl was the only one who could identify the killer. He told Carl to use a signal when he recognized the theater killer. The signal would be a simple cough.

Carl rang the doorbell at the first house. Paul waited directly behind him with his hand on his gun. A small, almost emaciated man about five feet tall answered the door. From behind Carl, Paul asked, “Are you Mr. Fish?”

“Yes, what do you want?” Carl didn’t understand why Officer Lewis was continuing the conversation because this man was much shorter than the man he had identified at the theater; and Paul must have known that.

Paul continued his questions. “Did you buy a package of red roses from Young’s florist recently?” he asked.

The small man said, “Can we talk about this outside out of earshot of my wife?” The man walked out on the front steps, closing the door behind him. “Look, I did buy roses but I don’t want my wife knowing about it.”

Paul said in a tone that could be heard around the block, “Are you a rotten adulterer?”

The man said “Quiet, please! What is this all about?”

Paul said, “None of your business, you damn adulterer!”

Carl was starting to have increased apprehension why he was even here. And, my God, he thought, we still have nine more houses to go.

Paul turned abruptly and directed Carl to get in the car. As they were leaving, Carl observed the man’s wife join him on the front door steps. Through the car’s closed window it appeared that the man’s wife was screaming at the top of her voice at the small man.

The interviews at the next three houses were conducted without incident. At the fifth house, Paul took his established place behind Carl as he rang the bell. The door was opened by a tall, dark haired man. Paul looked at his list and started to ask him if he was Charles Athens. Before he got the words out, Carl coughed loudly.

Paul was caught unprepared, but reacting quickly he pulled the tall man from the doorway and threw him to the ground. In seconds the man was handcuffed. Paul kicked his foot hard in the man’s side and yelled, “You bastard, you rotten killer!”

During the entire episode Carl had been trying unsuccessfully to get Paul’s attention.

When Paul finally noticed Carl waving frantically he asked, “What in hell do you want?”

“He’s not the man!”

“But you coughed!”

“That was because my throat was dry!”

“You fool! You dumb, dumb ignorant fool, I could have killed this guy! It’s totally your fault!”

Being totally ignored during the heated dispute was the man on the ground screaming in pain.

Finally responding to the noise, Paul removed the handcuffs and said, “No problem, no problem at all, sir, it was just a minor mix up.”

He helped the man up, opened the front door and led him in, while promising him two free tickets to the next policeman’s ball for all the troubles he experienced. Paul closed the door in the face of the bewildered man. Paul grabbed Carl and the two quickly took off to visit the next house on the list.

Chapter 34

Three days after his last visit, Fred returned to Schultz’s house to continue the interview.

Most of the bandages had been removed from Schultz’s face. One remaining bandage covered his left eye. Fred asked how he was feeling and Schultz replied, “It looks as if my eye can’t be saved.” Fred felt a resurgence of the sympathy that he had felt for Schultz during his last visit.

As interested as Fred was in the paranormal testing that Schultz’s organization was conducting, he realized that he had to now focus on those who might be suspects and were employed by Schultz’s company. First Fred asked about the killer of the County Bank victims. He pulled out a photograph of Slivers from the folder he had brought along and asked if Schultz knew him. Schultz studied the photograph intensely and finally said, “No, I can’t say I do.”

Fred asked if he would check personnel to see if Slivers had ever applied for work there.

Schultz said, “Sure, I’ll call our personnel head now and I can let you know the results before you leave. Is it your theory that if Slivers had been refused work here, that he might have been seeking some type of predatory revenge?”

Fred said, “It’s a long shot, but who knows?”

Fred waited while Schultz placed a call to his office; then he asked about the two AU employees killed at the bank and theater.

Schultz said, “I expected you to ask me about them. Of course, I’ve heard about their deaths and I feel a deep loss, both professionally and personally. But until you visited me I never thought that their deaths were any thing but a bizarre circumstance. Long and Jackson were both division heads. Long’s group was working on a remote viewing effort, and Jackson was involved with the mind over matter component of our work. Both areas have shown significant successes and advancements.”

Fred asked, “Can you identify anybody who had a grudge against them?”

Schultz thought for a minute and then replied, “I don’t know if you could call it a grudge, but two of their subordinates had submitted formal grievances. Neither had any merit and both were denied. Other than that, both Long and Jackson seemed to have been liked by everyone.”