Mind Switch (32 page)

“That does sound strange.”

“You bet it does. The reason Marvin had was brought here was because he enjoyed torturing small animals. He had a long history of doing it. The investigation all started when his neighbors complained that their dogs and cats were missing. Marvin had been seen with the animals prior to their disappearance. About ten cats and dogs were found buried in the back of the Atwells’ yard. The authorities said marks on their bodies indicated that they had all been tortured. Marvin admitted to the crimes and he actually seemed to take pleasure in his confession. He even explained in some detail the experiments that he had been conducting. His mother was shocked; his father unfortunately had died when he was five. His mother was concerned that his conduct might be irreversible without some type of intervention by authorities. She supported the very difficult decision to send him here.”

“Did you see any signs of a successful rehab?”

“Well, we took him out of the environment where he had access to animals. But I don’t have to tell you, that type of behavior tends to get worse as the kids grow up; and it often shifts from animals to humans. Frankly, I don’t think he ever became socialized; he remained a loner and had no friends here.”

“I had quite a few detailed sessions with him. We try to determine if the reason for the juvenile’s admittance has been corrected. Marvin verbally spoke of remorse; but over the years I have learned that communication takes many forms. His body language indicated that he had zero remorse. At times he almost seemed to anticipate my questions; he had a well constructed and rote packaged response ready for me right after I finished asking my questions.”

“Do you keep in touch with him since he left?”

“Not really, his mother moved from this area to Sarasota where she got a job as a real estate agent. I did contact her a few times as a standard follow-up procedure. She said he had made good progress, but I didn’t really believe her. She was a good person but I started to believe he was running the family, not her.”

“Is there anything else that you can recall?”

“After Marvin had been here about two weeks, one of the boys who had pestered Marvin was found hanged in his room. Some of the kids blamed Marvin; but we were never able to prove that, since he was nowhere near the room when the suicide took place. More than one kid came in to see me to tell me that Marvin was responsible; but I believed that it was just a form of mass hysteria. The kid that hanged himself had wedged a chair underneath his door handle. We had to break down the door to find him. There’s no way anyone else could have been responsible.”

“Thanks,” said Jim. “Oh, by the way, did you ever discern why the other boys said that Atwell was responsible for the boy’s death?”

“Very simple—he told them he did it.”

* * *

It was a welcome sight when Fred returned to the relative comfort of the station and saw Jim standing in the hallway. Fred always felt a dim disquiet while he was at AU. The whole company was functioning in a world that just a short time ago he did not believe even existed. Beyond that, there seemed to be something very ominous and hidden associated with the company.

Jim provided Fred with the detailed background report on Atwell. After Fred had been thoroughly briefed, Jim added, “I guess he’s not the type of guy I would invite to a church social.”

“And I certainly wouldn’t eat any food that he might have brought,” Fred countered. “At least we now have some revealing information on him, although all signs still point to Mr. Ford as being the person who is somehow involved in the bank and theater murders. Ford is definitely linked to Schultz’s organization, but I still don’t know how. And to make matters worse, the only people who could provide me with the details are both dead. At any rate I’ll continue my interview with Mr. Atwell tomorrow.”

“Fred, I thought you disliked talking to Atwell!”

“Do I ever! However, in a certain respect it is like being drawn to an auto accident, you don’t want to look, but somehow you are compelled to. Beyond that, I believe he may be able to help us solve this crime in some way. And of course it is distantly possible that he is our Mr. Saperstein, alias The
Marvel
.”

Chapter 54

Early the next morning, Fred’s sleep was interrupted by the melodious sounds of robins chirping outside his open bedroom window. Normally, Fred found that it was a delightful sound to be awakened to, but today he was scheduled to finish his interview with Atwell. So, even the cheerful melodies of song birds now seemed unpleasant and irritating.

Fred dreaded the prospect of the interview. He would never admit it to Jim, and he had a hard time even admitting it to himself, but Atwell unsettled him more than any other person ever had. As gifted as Miss Moore seemed to be in the ESP arena, even she acknowledged that Atwell’s special talents could prevent her from penetrating into his mind. At any rate he would rather have a root canal than face Atwell once again. The evidence was becoming so overwhelming against Ford that he almost rationalized that he really didn’t have to pay Atwell a return visit. But Fred’s professionalism would not let him escape from his new and increased responsibilities.

On the way to AU, Fred attempted mentally to construct a method which would help him to interact more effectively with Atwell. Then it hit him! Atwell thinks he is so superior to me and the rest of the world as well, so perhaps it is best to try to let him open with his free flowing ideas and thoughts to see what he has to say. I suspect Atwell’s massive ego will force him to display his superiority.
 

When Fred entered the company conference room, a steaming hot cup of tea was already on the table. Fred appreciated Donna’s efficiency. A couple of minutes later, Atwell entered.

“Better watch out, tea kills brain cells and you don’t have a hell of a lot to spare,” were the first caustic words out of Atwell’s mouth.

Fred held back the urge to knock Atwell to the other side of the room.

Atwell pulled back as if he had read Fred’s mind but couldn’t discern if he was serious or not.

Fred said, “I need your help with my murder investigation.”

Atwell said nothing.

“I seem to be getting nowhere, so any help you can give me will be appreciated. You have a superior mind, so tell me, how would you commit a murder and make sure it was a perfect crime?”

Atwell smiled. “Am I now an honorary member of your police force, Lieutenant?”

“If you help me out, maybe you will become one.”

Atwell sat back in his chair and tilted his head toward the ceiling. “Ok, let’s see, a perfect murder—hmm. Well, I guess I would employ the same type of diversionary strategies used in chess and in war.”

“Such as?”

“Well, we often believe the conventional wisdom that the ultimate victor in war will be the side with superior weaponry. That is really not the case; it is the side that gains a time advantage, and secures a focused weapon superiority.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Go back into history,” Atwell continued, “and look at the Normandy invasion; we knew if Hitler had expected the invasion to take place at that specific geographic site, he would have thrown enough of his weaponry to neutralize any type invasion that we could have devised. The issue is not who has the most overwhelming military force. It’s rather which force can be concentrated the fastest. We used deception effectively against Hitler playing off what we knew about his psychological profile. The German regime was run on the principle that the leader’s word is the absolute law. If we knew the tendencies of a single man and that man was the absolute decision maker, we could use such knowledge to affect the outcome of the war.

“We realized that he expected the invasion to take place in an area that would not incur the magnitude of potential allied logistical problems associated with the beaches of Normandy. So what did we do, we dropped off a body of a person dressed in a military uniform from a British sub knowing the strong currents would take it to an area infested by the enemy. On the body we placed false documents that revealed where the alleged invasion would take place. The area identified was the area where Hitler had already expected the attack to occur, so we effectively reinforced his existing bias. He diverted his forces to a meaningless area while we gained a critical time advantage as well as a comparative military superiority which he never overcame.

Atwell continued, “We did something comparable during the mid-east war by using CNN as a false news source. We knew Saddam watched that particular news source so we fed on his bias to drive his defenses to the wrong area.

“In chess, even good players sometimes forget that the goal is to checkmate. It’s not to take as many of the opponent’s pieces as one can; nor is it to gain superior development. The chess master lays traps wherein the opponent strikes at what he believes to be an opportunity. In fact it is the start of his downfall. Part of this process, of course, requires an understanding of how his opponent thinks.

Atwell went on,” Why do you think a chess master lost to a computer during the 80’s? Because he didn’t understand the mental makeup of the computer; there were simply too many chess masters who contributed to the programming for him to be able to read tendencies and understand strategies.

“A perfect murder is no different. First, one must obscure the reason for the murder. As in the case of war, create diversions by throwing in as many suspects as you can into the mix. Create false clues; understand the thinking processes of the people who will be assigned the case. Recognize the political pressures external to the system, and create ways to force them into the picture to further pollute the situation.”

Fred said, “You seem to have forgotten one thing, Mr. Atwell. The murderer would have to know who was going to be assigned to the case as well as fully understand how that police officer operated.”

Atwell started to voice a rebuttal to Fred’s argument. But he paused, almost as if he had revealed too much and said simply, “You’re correct. That represents a serious flaw in my theory.”

“Of course,” Fred said, ignoring Atwell’s comment, “if the culprit were armed with extraordinary abilities, he could do just that, couldn’t he?”

At that moment a gold fountain pen which had been lying in the center of the table started moving, slowly at first. Then suddenly it picked up speed and virtually flew off the edge of the table.

Fred observed that Atwell seemed highly distressed. Fred realized that this had not been an intentional act; Atwell seemed to have developed an emerging talent that even he did not know about, nor could he control. This guy is a mental Frankenstein, Fred thought, and I’m watching his draconian evolution before my very eyes.

Atwell said, “There must be too much of a breeze in here.” Both men knew there were no windows in the conference room. The door had been tightly closed since they first sat down. The source of movement for the pen had to come from a source in the interior of the room—more specifically from one of its occupants.

“Are we done?” Atwell nervously asked.

Fred said, “Sure, for now,” and watched Atwell leave the room. When he looked back at the conference table, the pen was sitting at the same spot it had been before it tumbled off the table. Am I imagining things, Fred thought?

As Fred was leaving the company, his cell phone rang. It was Jim.
 

“Fred, meet me at the Arco rental site at 1650 Tuttle Avenue. I really think you will want to see this!”

Chapter 55

Jim’s call whetted Fred’s curiosity. When he arrived at the rental site, two patrol cars were parked in front of storage site number 38. The steel accordion garage door was fully opened. When Fred first looked inside the ten by twenty storage area, all that he observed was an empty garage. Jim was kneeling down at the far corner.

Fred called out, “Jim, what is this all about?”

“Believe it or not, this is Mr. Ford’s rented storage site. Ford gave a false name when he rented the site six months ago. Ford had paid his rent in advance but about a week ago his advance payments had run out. The owner of the storage site sent a late payment notice but it was returned, address unknown. The owner had a record of Ford’s license plate number and knew one of our cops at the station and asked him to trace it. When it turned out to be Ford, the cop realized he was the guy on the all points and alerted me.”

Fred said, “I really hope you didn’t break into the garage without a search warrant.”

“No problem, when Ford neglected to pay the rent, the control of the rented site reverted to its owner. He graciously cut the lock and allowed us access. Don’t worry, Fred, everything is legal.”

“Ok, but the garage looks totally empty to me.”

“It is
virtually
empty, but take a look at what I found in this corner.” Jim held in his hand a pearl necklace.

“Fred, do you remember the jewel robbery on Longboat Key? We never did find out who was responsible for it. But if you recall, the woman who was robbed had been using the hypnotic services of our Mr. Ford. I will bet you anything this is a part of the stolen loot. Otherwise, what would be the reason for him to stash expensive jewelry in a rented garage?”