The Cantor Dimension (19 page)

"Did he happen to say what he was trying to prove?"

"That they exist I guess. I don't know."

"I thought you were his best friend?"

"Well I am, but... I don't believe in all that."

Chief Hunsinger thought Mark had been awfully uptight during their previous meeting for a kid who didn't believe. "Then why were you so afraid to talk to me?"

"I dunno. What if Eric was right? I mean, he could be right, couldn't he?"

Chief Hunsinger sighed. He'd be glad when this case was closed. "Is there anything else you can tell me?"

"No, that's it I guess."

That was enough, Chief Hunsinger thought. He had hoped Mark would be more of a help but all he did was fuel the superstitions that surrounded the Starnes' farm and reiterate Eric's preoccupation with UFOs. He may have solved the mystery of the Starnes' lights, though. If Eric had been out there nosing around then he was probably responsible for the lights in the windows. Maybe he was there when Don went in and the young boy mistook Eric for a ghost. Still it was important to be sure. They would check out the place tomorrow and hope that Eric had left some evidence so that they could assuage the fears of the townspeople.

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Of the death of Edmond Halley the soap-boiler in 1684, while most suspected murder, there were some who believed that Halley had committed suicide.

His youngest son, Humfrey Halley, died in 1684 on the high seas. Humfrey's personal belongings were granted to his brother Edmond the astronomer on April 10, 1684, so his death may well have been known on the day his father left home never to return.

A biography of the astronomer Edmond Halley, published in 1757, described his father the soap-boiler as receiving rents of a thousand pounds per year before the Great Fire of London in 1666 which destroyed a significant portion of his rental properties. He then entered into "an imprudent second marriage" referring to his marriage to Joane, during which his fortunes "mouldered away by degrees" leaving him unable to renew the leases on his houses when the old ones expired.

Sub-leasing was common practice and Halley may have been sub-leasing some of the rental properties, in turn leasing them out for a profit. The biography portrayed the soap-boiler as having "sunk at last into a low ebb" upon losing much of his fortune during this "imprudent second marriage."

Edmond Halley had suffered through the plague, the great fire, and the war with the Dutch in the span of three years. He would have spent the next years rebuilding his empire but instead of reaping the rewards, he married a woman who apparently spent his money faster than he could earn it. One by one his rental properties were falling off as he could no longer pay for them, and then his son died. His mental state would surely have sunken into a great depression.

The body of Edmond Halley was found naked except for his shoes and socks. He was found with four socks on one foot and three on the other which suggested a "mental aberration" according to one account of his death. It could be argued that Halley was suffering from a disease such as Alzheimer's compounded by the mental anguish over his son's death and his wife frittering away his fortune.

Such a dementia affects a person's memory, problem-solving ability, and judgement. The afflicted are often confused, have trouble completing simple tasks such as driving to a familiar location, and have difficulties with personal grooming as evidenced by Halley's mismatched socks. They may accuse others of stealing and become suspicious, fearful and depressed. This would have amplified his reaction to his new wife's spending habits.

Alzheimer's and similar mental disorders can be caused by chemical toxicity, and as a soap-boiler and salter Halley was exposed to a number of toxic chemicals which may have slowly built up in his system.

According to Dr. Donald Crapper McLachlan, high aluminum content in the body is a risk factor for Alzheimer's. Autopsies of Alzheimer victims showed concentrations of aluminum in their brains equivalent to those in the brains of experimental animals who had been injected with high doses of aluminum and which subsequently showed neurological symptoms similar to those found in Alzheimer patients.

Researcher Daniel Perl studied the relationship between aluminum and Alzheimer's and his research included the neuro-degenerative diseases and dementia which were found "in epidemic proportions" in the Chamorro people of Guam, along with the people of the Kii peninsula in Japan, and the Auyu and Jakai people of New Guinea. Microscopic x-rays showed a dramatic increase of aluminum in their brains and all three areas have aluminum-rich bauxite soil.

As a soap-boiler and salter, Halley would have come into contact with a number of chemicals including aluminum, arsenic, mercurial salts, potash lye, sulphur, and others. Sulphur can add to aluminum exposure. Burning sulphur creates sulphur dioxide which reacts with atmospheric water and oxygen to produce acid rain. A byproduct of acid rain is that it leaches large quantities of aluminum from the soil exposing the local flora and fauna to aluminum's toxic effects.

Arsenic exposure could also affect Halley's mental health. Albertus Magnus of the famed Philosopher's Stone was the first to isolate arsenic as an element by heating soap with arsenic trisulfide. The latter was used in dyes and pigments, both of which were products sold by a drysalter. Arsenic can cause confusion and depression when the exposure is over a period of time rather than intentional and acute.

Mercury poisoning really pounds on the psyche as well causing anxiety, sleeplessness, depression, hallucinations, memory loss, delirium, and even mania. Halley, who would already have been depressed over the state of his rental business, the loss of his son, and an imprudent marriage, may simply have lost his marbles after years of exposure to chemical toxins and jumped off a bridge.

The hideous state of Halley's body may have been the result of 40 days in the river rather than murder. He would have initially sank to the bottom and not resurfaced for days or even weeks. The colder the water, the longer until the body resurfaces and the water in March would have been very cold indeed.

Dead bodies in the water undergo a process which erases many of the signs that help to determine cause of death. After two weeks in the water, the skin, hair and nails peel away like a glove or stocking. The body enters into a state of bloat where gases build up and force their way out through the nose, mouth, and eyes causing ruptures in the surrounding skin.

Fish and other marine animals feed on the body, particularly the eyes and lips. The body floats around bumping into things such as boats, rocks and piers causing further damage, and post-mortem head injuries are common. It is not always possible to determine whether injuries were caused before or after death when a body has been in the water for several weeks as Halley's had been. Just look at the carcass of a dead fish in your aquarium after a couple of weeks - it no longer resembles its living brethren.

Medical examiners in the 1600s were not equipped with the technology to pinpoint the cause of death. The coroner would have relied heavily on the wife's testimony of her husband's mental state and potential enemies in determining his cause of death rather than factual forensic evidence. As his body could only be identified by the shoes he was wearing, the sight of a body so ravaged might easily have led to a verdict of murder when the true cause was just a man who lost all hope and jumped off a bridge.

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Officer Hartley was studying the blueprints they'd found in Max's apartment. How had Max gotten his hands on blueprints that had been destroyed in a fire? Perhaps there'd been copies that no one knew about. Officer Hartley felt an inner peace at having such a strong piece of evidence against Max. It wasn't really important how Max had gotten the blueprints - the important thing was that they linked him to the First National Bank robbery in St. Charles.

The red brick building had originally been a soap-boilery built by the Vandeberg brothers to be used as a cover for a moonshine operation. It was the perfect cover business with its boiling tubs, variety of chemicals and noxious vapors. The Vandebergs had built several underground tunnels leading out of the basement which hadn't been drawn on the original blueprints, but had later been added to the blueprints after the Vandebergs were caught and the tunnels revealed.

After that, the building changed hands several times and had been redesigned, updated, and added onto. The tunnels had been forgotten, their entrances bricked over long ago and all record of them destroyed in the fire. Nobody had any idea that the tunnels existed until the bank was robbed. Even the people who owned the building and the person who had drawn up the new blueprints weren't aware of the tunnels. The only people who had knowledge of those tunnels were the bank robbers and Maxwell Cantor. It wasn't difficult to put two and two together.

Officer Hartley laughed at the ingenuity of Max's plan. The Cantor papers! What a scheme! He'd obviously built up the importance of the papers so that if he were caught he could use them to cop an insanity plea. Officer Hartley had to give the man credit for covering his bases well. He'd obviously been planning the bank heist for a long time.

This Maxwell must be one cold dude, though. Officer Hartley felt a little sorry for Brody Myers. He had come to the conclusion that Brody really didn't know anything about the bank robbery and that Maxwell Cantor had intentionally left his friend behind to take the heat. Some friend. Brody Myers was definitely in for a rude awakening when he realized what Max had done to him. Innocent people always seemed to get sucked into the schemes of ruthless people like Max. Ah well, all that was left for Hartley to do was to find Maxwell Cantor.

Coggins had been easy to catch. Not awfully bright, he'd practically turned himself in when he started spending the stolen money. Officer Hartley was surprised to discover a bank robber so dim-witted that he didn't realize the money could be easily traced. Professional bank robbers usually knew how and where to swap the traceable money without getting caught. Hartley laughed out loud - Coggins and Cantor, a couple of bumbling idiots. They could turn their story into a hell of a movie.

Cantor wasn't much smarter leaving those blueprints on his coffee table for all the world to see. You'd think a man with a ten thousand dollar computer set up would have more brains than to leave behind crucial evidence, the
only
evidence in fact, that tied him to the robbery. A man as careless as Maxwell Cantor would undoubtedly turn up soon. They always did. A fingerprint, a credit card, a cashed check, their picture on
America's Most Wanted
... somehow these crooks always got caught. You'd think they'd give it up and quit trying after awhile. Officer Hartley had made sure that Max's photograph was plastered from one end of the United States to the other. If he was still in the country, they'd get him.

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Ellen and her mother had a friendly, but not overly close relationship so Ellen hadn't confided to her mother that her best friend was missing. The strange looks she'd gotten from the police and now Jimmy - even Jimmy had begun to pussyfoot around her, shying off when he should be at the forefront campaigning to find Pat. Ellen didn't know where to turn. She needed to talk to someone so she picked up the phone and called her mother.

"Hi, Mom?"

"Ellen, hello! How've you been? I haven't heard from you in awhile. Is everything okay?"

"Yes, everything's fine. Same old, same old. And you and Daddy? Are you loving all this snow?"

Mrs. Beamon laughed. "Your father's out shoveling the driveway, as usual. I keep telling him to hire that kid down the street but you know your father, can't bear to part with a penny. I said, 'Stan Beamon, you're not getting any younger. You keep this up and you'll be knocking on those pearly gates,' and do you know what he told me?"

"No Mom, what?"

"He thumped on his chest and said, 'Dorothy, this old ticker isn't about to give out on me, not for a long time yet! Strong as an ox.' But Ellen, I'll tell you, when he comes in from shoveling all that snow, seems to be more of it every year, he looks like an old, old man." She let out a long, sad sigh.

"Maybe you should get the doctor to talk to him."

"I've tried, I've tried, but it's no use. Enough of my troubles. Have you heard about your cousin Mallory?"

"No, what?"

"Well, I heard she suffered a nervous breakdown. Her mother's not saying much about it but I heard that Mallory is in a bad way. They were even thinking of institutionalizing her. Not permanently of course, just for a month or two."

"Good god, Mom, that's awful! Do you think she's going the way of Martha?"

"Who knows? It's that bad blood from your great-great-grandfather Johnny Miceli, that's what I say. Thank god Mildred had the sense not to marry the man, but his blood still runs in our family fouling up the works every once in awhile."

"Like with Martha."

"Exactly."

"Hey Mom, tell me about Martha. How did it all start? I mean, was she... well, you know... spaced out all her life or was there ever a time when she was normal?"

"Oh, Martha was a beautiful young woman from what I've heard. The boys flocked around her like toms to a cat in heat. She fluttered and teased and kept them all at bay, charmed them right out of their senses, you might say. In the end, she even married one of them."

"She did? Martha got married? Nobody ever told me that!"

"Sure! Martha was no different from you or I - at least not at first. But then things started happening, a little at a time. Sort of like with your cousin Mallory. Nobody thought much of it in the beginning."

"What kind of things?"

"Why are you so interested all of a sudden? You've never showed much interest in Martha before."

"Oh, I don't know. I've always wondered, especially now with Mallory. Everybody was always so close-mouthed about it that I didn't dare ask. You all treated it like some big sin or something, asking about Martha."