The Monolith Murders (13 page)

“I’m impressed,” the woman said. “You received a nurse’s degree from Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, Virginia, with top honors. And you served for ten years in operating rooms in the mid-west area. You are certainly what we are looking for, but you understand that if you’re hired you will only be a temporary employee until our regular nurse returns after her maternity leave.”
 

 
“Yes, I understand, that will be fine.”
 

“Normally we check applications out quite extensively; but your application is so impressive, and we really desperately need someone right now . . . I’m going to take the chance and hire you, but I want you to know I rarely do such a thing.”
 

“Thank you so much,” the woman said, smiling. “You won’t be sorry.”

“Can you start tomorrow?”

“That would be fine, but since I’m new to the hospital I would like to familiarize myself with the operating rooms; would that be possible?”

“Yes, I’ve no meetings for a couple of hours; I’d be happy to show you around. By the way, your first operation assist will be 8 a.m. tomorrow morning; you have to be here not later than 6 a.m. Would that be acceptable?”
 

“Sure; and perhaps during the tour, you will introduce me to the surgeon who is doing the operations as well?”
 

“I think I can do that. This will work out great for the two of us. Now, please complete the information for Social Security, print your past addresses over the past ten years, complete all that nasty bureaucratic stuff that we need, and then we’ll get started with your hospital tour.”

The woman completed the necessary forms, putting down false addresses and a false Social Security number. I will be long gone before they find out any of this, she reasoned.
 

* * *

A couple days had passed, and Fred contacted the police chief in Tallahassee whose office was working the case of the prison breakout.
 

Fred identified himself, and the chief said, “Yes, the warden told me about you and that you thought Donna, Jane, and her boyfriend Slim Woods might have escaped to your neck of the woods.”

“Yes, that’s correct. I’m wondering if you have more information from your side?”

“I checked the Wood’s homestead, Slim’s mother and brother still live there. I brought them both in for questioning; both the mother and her son claim they never saw Slim after the breakout. They claimed they were not close to him and that he didn’t communicate with them often. I didn’t believe them, but there wasn’t much else I could do to get the information out of them. Since Slim had served his full sentence, he didn’t have to report to a parole officer. I interviewed the few neighbors that reside in their rural area, and they professed ignorance as well. We put a watch on their house in case he returns sometime in the future. I also checked for stolen cars in our general area but had no luck; so I have no idea what type of vehicle they used for their getaway. Slim’s brother is a trucker and he goes into the Oklahoma City area once every four days. He could have taken Slim with him at any time. But that’s a lot of miles for us to cover; Slim could have stolen a car from virtually any town on the way.”

“Thanks, Chief, give me a call if anything breaks.”

“Sure, you do the same.”

Fred hung up, thinking—another damn dead end! Sarasota is a major vacation town during the winter, he thought, vacationers and snowbirds from all over the country and from Europe come here for its warmth and white quartz beaches. There’s no use looking for an out of town car, he thought, that was an impossible exercise.
 

He recalled that one time while visiting an in-law he had traveled to the small town of Pineville, West Virginia. He guessed its population was well under a thousand. There was not much there to attract visitors, and it was quite a few miles from the state border; so basically all the license plates in the town were from West Virginia. After he left the area and returned home, he got a call from his sister-in-law. She had picked up the local police frequency on her scanner and found out the police had been tracking his car while he had been in town because it was not only out of state, but was all the way from Florida. And that alone was enough to raise their suspicions. At times he wished he lived in that small town; because anyone out of that world of sameness would become an immediate suspect. He had no such luck living in such a large transient community.

Chapter 21

When Fred arrived at work, Detective Grimes was sitting in his office with his feet on the top of Fred’s desk.

Fred sarcastically said, “Comfortable, I hope?”

“Yes—ah, sorry, Boss, but I’ve got some news for you. I got in contact with someone who thought she might have known Donna about ten years ago. I showed her the picture and she said the problem was the young woman she knew year ago was a brunette and her hair was always combed into a bun, but the face was very familiar. I told her you might want to talk to her just in case it was the person we’re looking for.”

“Thanks, it’s most likely a dead end; but I’ll check it out anyway.”

The woman’s address was in the Pinecraft sector of Sarasota. The area consisted of several small houses and crowded, almost non-negotiable narrow streets. Three wheel bicycles populated the entire area; cars parked in the area were the exception. As Fred got out of his car, he was almost run down by one of those three wheel bicycles with a large carrying box secured over its back wheel. All around him were women, void of any makeup, wearing long skirts, and men dressed in black, each wearing long untrimmed beards. Some of the men wore what seemed like a half stovepipe hat reminiscent of the mid 1800’s. It seemed as if each house had its own clothesline; all were crammed with spotless cotton clothes. This is an area where technical progress was left behind eons ago, Fred thought. I suspect none of the residents work for Maytag.

Fred’s contact was a middle-aged woman who all her life had been taught not to worry about her appearance. Her one-piece dress was draped well beyond her knees and she was adorned in a white see-through bonnet cap. Fred could not detect a hint of makeup on her.

“Ma’am, Detective Grimes told me you might be able to identify this person.” Fred showed her a picture taken of Donna about four years earlier.
 

“Yes, the person I knew looked very much like her; but she was one of us and always wore a long solid black dress and black stockings. This woman has on bright colorful clothes and her dress is—well, just let me say that no one in this community would even think about wearing such a thing.”

“You wouldn’t have a picture of her, by any chance?” Fred asked.

“Oh no, she was a neighbor, she lived a couple of houses down the street.”

“Did she live by herself?”

 
“No she lived with her sister until—well, until the killing.”

“Killing? What killing?”

“Well, you should know, you’re a policeman; I’m talking about the gruesome murder of Amy Brown’s sister.”

“Amy Brown?”

“Yes, that’s the girl that looked like the person in the photo that you showed me.”

Fred remembered the case well. He had been out of town when it happened. He wasn’t the investigating officer, but he recalled that a young girl had been decapitated. Amy Brown claimed that she was hiding in the closet when the murder occurred, and that as a result she really had seen very little. She claimed that an intruder had broken in and stole all of the money that they had recently inherited from their aunt. Both sisters had agreed not to put their sizable inheritance into the bank, but to keep it in a shelf above a large closet in the house.
 

Amy Brown was never considered a suspect since she displayed such authentic grief towards the death of her sister and was so deeply religious, a fact confirmed by all of her nearby neighbors. She claimed that she only had the benefit of a transitional glance at the murderer just before she was able hide in a bedroom closet and escape. The case had never been solved.
 

“Do you recall if either of Miss Brown’s parents is still alive?”

“I have no idea; but back then her parents lived in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, as I recall.”
 

“Were they Amish as well?”
 

“Yes, they were.”

Fred returned to the station and pulled the files on the Brown murder. There was nothing in the file that he didn’t already remember, but he found a single photograph of Amy Brown. Fred was now positive that Amy Brown and Donna Lang were one and the same!

* * *

For the third day in a row, Fred felt sick to his stomach. Today was worse than yesterday. When he got out of bed, he almost fell over from a sudden spell of vertigo. When he checked his weight on his bathroom scale, he was shocked that he had lost four unintended pounds.
 

As he entered the chief’s office, Jim immediately noticed Fred’s pallid complexion.

“Fred, what the hell’s the matter with you? You look terrible, like your life’s blood has been sucked out of you.”

“I’m not sure, Jim. I guess it’s a virus of some type that I can’t get rid of. My stomach aches like crazy and now I seem to be dizzy all the time. I even had a couple of severe nosebleeds during the last two days. None of the over the counter medicines seem to work for me.”
 

“You know, Fred, your symptoms are a lot like that guy who came into see us last year because he thought he was being poisoned. It turned out that he was correct.”

“Oh, yeah, I remember. As I recall the poison was cyanide. His wife put a small amount in his milk each morning. With that small a dose he couldn’t taste it but it had accumulated in his system. He eventually died from it. Over the length of time he had consumed it, it had permeated all of his vital organs; and it was too late for the doctors to do anything for him after it was discovered in his system.”

“Well, Fred, he had some of the same general symptoms and look as you do now.”

“What are you saying, Jim, that I’m being poisoned by Maureen?”

Jim paused. “No, of course not—but is it possible that Donna might have gotten into your food supply somehow?”

“Come on, Jim, that’s too far out.”
 

“Fred, why don’t you see your friend Dr. John? He’s an excellent physician and I’m sure he can diagnose your problem right away.”

That afternoon Fred was awaiting the results of a blood test that Dr. John had ordered.

Dr. John walked slowly into the examination room. Since Fred had last seen him, the doctor’s full black beard had been gradually eclipsed by emerging white strands.

Fred sat in a chair next to the examining table. As was his habit when he was anxious, his left foot was exhibiting a constant up and down motion as he awaited the results of his medical tests.
 

“Well, Doctor, what’s the verdict? Please tell me that I’m not being poisoned.” Fred released a nervous laugh.

Dr. John softly put his hand on Fred’s shoulder. “I wish I could tell you that, Fred, but I can’t. You have a significant amount of poison in your system.”

Fred was bewildered. “Good Lord! Uh, I’m not going to die, am I?”

For one of the few times in his life the talkative Dr. John said nothing.

Chapter 22

 
At that same moment Donna and Polish were again getting hot and heavy in front of Dr. Anderson, who made no attempt to suppress his total disgust as he watched from his position on the sofa.
 

At that moment they heard the sound of police sirens in the distance. “Damn,” Polish said. “We have to get away, somehow they’ve discovered where we are.”
 

“It’s too late,” she said. “They’ll be here before we even get to the car. Where did you screw up?”

“Me?? I’m not the one prancing around the damn world for everyone to see. They probably traced you back here. I’ve either been here or at work, so don’t you try to blame this on me!”

At that moment the sirens reached their highest pitch. A few seconds later, just after the police cars reached the entrance to the trailer park, the sounds started to fade. The occupants of the trailer now knew that the cops were not coming to their location. Donna and her lover smiled in relief.
 

None of the trailer’s occupants knew that ten miles down the same highway, a local real estate agent had found out that a prime piece of land was going to be released from probate and would soon be available for development. That agent contacted a developer who had visions of putting up a hundred or so homes in the area, constructing a guard house, and building a continuous stucco cement wall all around what was to become his prized gated community.
 

As the two men had been inspecting the property, they noticed an area in which Jane’s body had been carelessly buried. The spot had recently been covered with fresh dirt. The men, sensing something was not right, had called the police. The first cop who went to the site uncovered the body and called for backup help. In a few short minutes, the newly arrived cops would know that Jane Doe had been murdered. But that knowledge wouldn’t help at all in their attempt to determine where Donna was hiding, even though they had just passed within fifty feet of the trailer in which she was residing.