Mind Switch (49 page)

— The Marvel

Fred was not surprised as to the contents of the letter. Of course,
The Marvel
’s use of the term “settling differences” was a euphemism for his impending death. He also knew in his heart that he could not protect Maureen from a person with superior talents who was intent on killing her. President Kennedy once said he could not be protected if someone really wanted to kill him, and he died without ever having to face an assassin with such overpowering weapons as Fred would. Fred had few options.

That morning he brought his will up to date with his lawyer’s assistance. He made sure that Maureen was the beneficiary of all his investments. He provided his lawyer with the key to his safe deposit box where his old coins had been stored for over a decade. He advised his lawyer that in the event of his death, the attorney should contact his wife immediately to bring her up to date on the details of his estate. After he completed his final financial transactions, he had two more things to do.

He was sure that his adversary would not want the ongoing investigation to continue indefinitely, so Fred’s elimination would have to look like suicide. Any hint of another murder would, without question, prolong the investigation. From Fred’s perspective, if Maureen felt that Fred was murdered, she herself would be relentless in keeping the investigation active and focused. He knew
The Marvel
could not tolerate that, so regardless of past promises, her life would be in constant danger. Besides, Fred was physically hurting badly. He had never fully recovered from the damage inflicted on his body during his various encounters. His body had been in constant pain for weeks, now he was weary and tired. He could no longer protect Maureen. It was time to end this.

Fred’s only alternative was to create a paper trail which would indicate to investigators that he intended to end his own life. He completed a suicide note stating that the constant stresses of his recent promotion, combined with his inability to solve the multiple murders, were the reasons that he chose to end his life. He closed his letter with a sentence indicating his deep love for Maureen. He would mail the letter the day before his meeting, back to his own address; so if under some miracle he survived, he could recover it from the mail before Maureen read it. He also placed a copy of the note in his wallet. He knew that upon his death, the killer would examine his personal affects, read it and be satisfied that the game was over. Maureen would then be safe for the rest of her life.

He now had one remaining job to do; in the arena of probability, its odds for success were minuscule. What the hell he thought, as Sundance had said to Butch Cassidy who feared drowning in the river far below, we will be killed from the fall from the cliff anyway, so go ahead and jump. He made a phone call. When he put down the receiver, he was still not sure what the outcome would be.

Fred spent most of his remaining time with Maureen. They talked and talked some more. They took a stroll on the beach, they enjoyed the maze of flowering tropical plants at the Selby Gardens, they were mesmerized over the genius of Thomas Edison as they strolled though his grounds of his home on the Ft. Myers shoreline. Together they watched a recording of the seniors playing softball at the 17th Street Park; and were amazed at the power of some of the hitters and the acrobatic catches the aging men made. Fred had hoped that some day he could join their ranks after he retired from the police force, but he now knew that would never be.

The last day, Fred rented Abbott and Costello movies from the 40’s and 50’s. He and Maureen laughed uninhibitedly at their crazy antics. They continued to laugh as they watched the two comedians through to the early morning hours. Fred turned off the Christmas tree lights and realized that Christmas had quickly passed by; but with all the excitement, for the first time in their married life neither had exchanged presents. Maureen sleepily said it’s too late to exchange presents tonight, let’s wait until tomorrow. Fred nodded yes, realizing at the same time he would not be alive to exchange presents. At 3 a.m. he carried an exhausted Maureen to bed. He even allowed Molly to officially join them as his final and last treat to her.

With the realization of his impending doom, he could not sleep. At 6:30 on the morning of December 27, Fred rolled over in bed and gradually eased his feet onto the soft bedroom carpet. He dressed silently, made and tasted one last cup of vanilla flavored coffee out of homage to Maureen, and crept out of his house, driving directly to the designated warehouse site.

The card key he had been given opened the large gun metal gates surrounding the site without incident. As he drove through, the gates closed automatically, metaphorically and literally sealing him in impending doom. The front of the warehouse was a monolithic stream of white enamel coated sheet metal. It contained no windows; one single front door and large garage doors provided the only access to its interior. Several cameras were mounted in various sites throughout the exterior of the building.

He moved slowly to the front door, silently turning the door knob. As he expected, it was unlocked. He sensed that
The Marvel
was already here. Inside were hundreds of boxed appliances filling the entire length and width of the storage area. After Fred hit the switch, bright fluorescent lights illuminated half of the warehouse.

Fred called out, “Here I am!”

First complete silence and then a voice, from the middle of the building responded. “I know you are; are you armed?”

“No, but I suspect you already knew that. Come on out.”

Forty feet from him a figure appeared; she was tightly holding a gun in her left hand. She causally moved toward Fred, halving the distance between them. She was in no rush; there was much needed critical and final communication to be exchanged before she completed the “act.”

Fred smiled and said, “I knew it would be you!”

“How could you possibly have known that?” she said with obvious disdain.

“Oh, it wasn’t that hard. You made a couple of slips, the first when I spoke to you at your office you had made some very esoteric comments which a person of limited I.Q, that you were pretending to be, could not have made. Nevertheless, the fact that you were hiding your intelligence didn’t prove that you were a murderer; but it did cause me to include you as a suspect.”

“I don’t understand, I am sure that I dumbed down very effectively whenever I spoke to you.”

“When I first met you, Donna, I noticed that you were looking at a strange formula on your desk. You said it came from the Science Division, but I noticed its handwriting was similar to yours. I observed in your written notes that the strange way you wrote the letter “e” was replicated in the formula on your desk. I figured at the time, you had just copied the formula from something that you had received from the Science Division; and its genesis was not of your doing.

“Later, I recalled from my courses in physics that it was Planck’s formula that you had written. Part of his complex theory, as I recall, dealt with the realization that it was not possible to absorb and emit energy in a constant range. That’s why we don’t get sunburned from a hot cup of coffee, which was the clue you gave me.

“What you said to me at the time sounded inane, but subsequently I realized you were providing me with a very subtle message that you really knew more than you were admitting. The very simple words, the almost childlike words, that you used to expose your thinking about that very complex formula were, in fact, all clues, weren’t they?”

“Geez,” said Donna, “I never expected a dumb cop would have been exposed to quantum physics. You startled me when you came into the office. I realized that you were looking at what I had written. I was completing the formula when you appeared at my desk. That forced me to pretend that I had no idea what was in front of me.

“I have always enjoyed the purity of physics,” she continued. “It offers measurements which are accurate and reproducible yet at the same time it’s often paradoxical. It’s so much cleaner than the real world. I couldn’t help but pass off some subtle clues with the expectation that you would just consider me some type of dumb blonde full of innocuous remarks. I was careless in not realizing you might figure out my clues. I have always been a bit of a risk taker, but normally once people perceive me as being stupid, they never consider me anything else. It usually gives me a great advantage.”

“There was one other thing,” said Fred. “I used the term Cerberus to describe the three headed dog on the outside of your building. You pretended you didn’t know what I was talking about but then you mentioned your dog’s name—Kerber. It turns out my heritage is Greek. A few days after our first meeting, it hit me that Cerberus is Latin from the Greek word Kerberos. I thought that was too much of a coincidence that you named your dog that way; but I was still not convinced I was reading you correctly. So three days ago I went back to your high school and spoke to your teachers. Interestingly enough, that was the same school that Mr. Ford had attended.”

“I don’t understand, I consciously got low marks throughout my high school tenure. What would my high school records prove?”

“It was not your grades that I was curious about, but the more subjective evaluation of you by your teachers. One of your former teachers mentioned to me how smart she thought you were when you took her freshman English course. She said you got into a debate in class and she was astonished at your knowledge and how you verbally demolished one of the brightest students in school. She couldn’t understand why you were so poor in test taking.”

“I remember, I got angry during the debate and didn’t realize what I was saying. I thought when I played stupid again, no one would remember. It was easy to intentionally flunk my exams; but altering positive impressions by the teaching staff was apparently not that easy.”

“Yes,” said Fred. “I understand, sometimes brilliance is hard to suppress. Later on, though, when I was in your apartment I didn’t see any sign of a dog. There was no food dish, no cage and no dog hair. Scotties are notorious shedders so I would have found some indication of its one time presence, even if the dog was no longer with you. It came to me that when you threw out the name Kerber during our first meeting, you were simply playing games with me.

“One other thing, when I was interviewing personnel in your conference room you provided me with hot water and an assortment of tea bags, but nothing else.”

“And that is supposed to mean?” asked Donna.

“Most people would have provided coffee. I hate coffee, but I never told you that, or anyone else in your company. It has always been my secret. When I thought back on that, I realized you must have been capable of searching my mind.

Lieutenant Harris continued, “I also noticed some comic books in your house when I investigated your alleged intruder. But I knew you worked the Times Crossword Puzzle, which I know is quite incompatible with a comic book reader.”

“Yes, Lieutenant, I knew you would be coming to search my house, so those comic books were of course a plant. But I told you that I always looked up the answers to the crossword puzzles.”

“You told me that at one of our meetings, Donna, but at the time you were working Friday’s New York Times puzzle, which is by the way very difficult. It was early morning but you were already three quarters of the way through it. Additionally, the answers would not have been available to you until a day later; so I knew that the solution had to be entirely your effort.

“By the way, Donna, I hope you are a good shot; you are still quite a distance from me.”

“Oh, don’t worry, Fred. And I hope I can call you Fred, since we have gotten to know each other so well. When the bullet enters your brain it will be from a distance of only a couple of inches. We do want remnants of gunpowder on your face when the medical examiner conducts his examination. After all, you couldn’t have committed your impending suicide from a gun fired from a distance of a few feet. Of course the bullet will enter from the left side of your head to be consistent with your left-handedness.”

“Donna, or do you want to be called
The Marvel
; may I ask you a few questions before that distasteful event occurs?”

“Donna is fine, Fred, I actually like you. In fact, if it weren’t for the fact that you cannot find it in your tenacious nature to let up on your investigation, we could have become friends. I should also tell you that no one will be here for the entire day. I reserved the time for us to speak privately and openly to each other. I have respected you from a distance, as I suspect you have me, so we have much to talk about. I at least owe you that. I, of course, realize that the video cameras, which are positioned outside the building, will be scoured thoroughly by your personnel for clues. They will have no recorded record of my arrival; unfortunately only your arrival will be on display. As far as Monday’s papers are concerned, you made a solo drive up here and ended your life on your own terms and of your own free will.”

“Why did you let me live as long as I have?”

“As I said, Fred, I like you. But you give yourself too little credit. I tried to have you killed, but you seem to have some sort of extreme luck or a sixth sense that I don’t even possess. You somehow managed to escape each time. But I suspect that I did wind up giving you a few headaches. Even in cases where I cannot fully get into someone’s mind, they always seemed to wind up with powerful headaches.”

Fred at first felt relieved. He thought, great, now I know why I had those headaches and I don’t have some type of terminal disease. But then he realized, what the hell, I will be dead anyway in a couple of minutes. Regardless, he still needed his curiosity satisfied. “Why did you commit the murders?”