The Monolith Murders (2 page)

Finally the blonde spoke, “Do you really want my gun?”

“Damn it, bitch, give to me, I’m tired of shitting around with you, and in the future you will always address me as Ma’am! Do you understand me clearly, young lady?”

“Yes, Ma’am, loud and clear. And by the way it’s not shoe polish, its grease. Sorry I’m so messy.”
 

The “fake” revolver issued a low puff sound, its subdued noise concealed by the constant screams and loud curses emanating from the over-filled prison cells above.
 

The large lady crumbled quietly to the ground without releasing a word of protest or pain.

The smaller guard said, “Shirley, get up! What the hell’s the matter with you? This is no joke.”

The blonde said, “Ma’am, Shirley would love to get up for you but she’s indisposed right now because she’s fucking dead. Now, Ma’am, do as I say and you won’t have to wind up like Shirley down there.”

“Okay, okay, now, take it easy, Ma’am. What do you want me to do?”

Donna smiled, realizing that the guard was now condescendingly addressing her in the same servile way that she had been forced to address her guards for four unbearably long years.
 

“To help us escape, stupid; what else? Now go to the mike over there and tell them in no uncertain terms that you want out. If you give them the wrong code, you’ll join Shirley, wherever in hell she’s residing now.”

The skinny brunette tapped her leader on the shoulder.
 

 
“For Christ’s sake, Jane, now what do you want?”

“I’m still not sure how we’re gonna escape from here; you never told me that part of your plan. At least I don’t think you did.”

“Jane, you just follow right behind me and do what I do; understand?”

Jane nodded.
 

The blonde had no idea what the correct code was to open the steel door, but she had closely observed for years, the consistent communication that went on between the outer and inner guards as they exited and entered the passage to each other’s chamber. Outer guards often rotated in their duties; over an extended observation time, she had been able to discern the degree of commitment each put into their shift’s work activities. She knew that the two that currently manned the outer area were the least trained and regimented of the entire guard staff. She depended on that vulnerability in part to make good her escape. For the moment she and her friend were encased in a huge open area, above which were three massive floors of overcrowded cells. None of the few guards assigned to the immediate area in which she was standing were allowed to carry weapons; the threat was too high that an inmate would overpower them and take their weapons away. Instead the system relied on heavy oak clubs, voice control and the physicality of large strong women to maintain the requisite degree of vigilance and discipline.

Two experienced prison guards normally staffed the outer area. Unlike in the inner area, each of the outer guards carried a fully loaded 45-caliber revolver. When prisoners were permitted to enter the outer area, the move was always executed as quickly as possible.
 

Whatever the magic word was, the nervous guard communicated it to the outer guard and the heavily reinforced steel door gradually swung open.
 

When the two prisoners entered the outer area, one of the outer guards, seeing the blonde’s weapon shouted, “You won’t get away with this; you’re being very foolish!”
 

There was not an instant of indecision; the blonde shot her in the stomach immediately. Realizing that the prisoner’s threats were real and sustainable, the other guard fully cooperated in aiding the prisoners’ escape to the main parking area.
 

A small beat up faded red sedan was waiting next to the exit door, its tinny radio playing the chirpy tones of Dolly Parton, pleading with the evil Jolene to “Please don’t take him just because you can.”
 

 
“Damn it, hurry up, get into the back of the car,” the male driver said. “Both of you lay flat down on the floor, one on top of the other. I’ll put a blanket over you. Make sure you don’t move until we get well past the gates.”
 

From beneath the blanket, Jane uttered, “Donna said I was more curlier.”
 

“Shut the hell up, Jane, and lie perfectly still. Pretend you’re dead, for God’s sake.”

In a short time the car was headed due east on the flat Florida panhandle in the direction of freedom and delayed revenge. The blonde was smiling, internally congratulating herself on the effectiveness of her escape plan. Jane was having pleasant visions of being able to soon hold a small puppy while having a shiny gold badge pinned on her blouse.

Chapter 3

Lieutenant Fred Harris abruptly woke from a deeply troubled sleep; a bottomless, seemingly unending slumber, flooded with nightmarish dreams of pursuit, capture and ultimate death—his own. As the fog in his eyes gradually cleared, and the stupor still resident in his mind washed away, he repeated the first thing he mechanically did every morning upon rising—he stared angrily and uncertainly at the tiny metal monolith sitting on his dresser.
 

It was not even remotely a monolith; he employed that term only in a sardonic context.
 

 
He recalled many years ago, in his high school creative writing class, he was shown a picture of NASA’s lunar module not too long after its magnificent technical creation. He was allowed thirty seconds of intense concentration to examine and mentally catalog all of its harsh unconventional features before it was taken away. He was then handed a blank paper and given five minutes to fully depict the indescribable thing. That was the entire exercise, just to describe the object, to give it substance and structure via the strength of words. After one minute passed, his mind had already sorted over a thicket of possible descriptions but Fred’s page remained blank, after three still unmarked, after five he received his first and only
F
in the class. In fact, he was a bright student, and that was the only
F
he ever received in any of his classes. During the fourth minute, he had put down his singular sarcastic answer to the problem—monolith. He selected that response out of sheer frustration because monolith was the opposite of what the thing looked like to him; and nothing whatsoever had come to mind. Although his instructor smiled broadly when he read Fred’s paper, he immediately scrawled a large bold
F
on the failed effort, together with the insulting words
better luck next time
.
 

Fred never forgot the sting of that unpleasant experience. And now, many years later, he was looking at a goddamn tiny, squarish, stainless steel contraption containing several crevices of inconceivable purposes, with barely visible wires extending from all parts of its core like a newborn octopus flinging out its tentacles seeking to feel its first grasp and understanding of life.
 

Fred remembered that his father once told him about a TV quiz show that took place during the mid 50’s. Celebrity contestants were asked to identify the functions of objects of various sizes, colors, composites, and shapes. The key was that the physical appearances of those objects provided absolutely no hint as to their functionality so it made them virtually impossible to identify. Since the home audience was notified of the object’s purpose on the TV screen, viewers enjoyed, from their vantage position of superior knowledge, watching the mindless verbal meanderings of the “experts” as they unsuccessfully attempted to unearth the right answer. The success rate of the celebrities, his dad said, was no higher than ten percent, which made the show even more appealing to the audience. They loved to see the “experts” fail.
 

Fred figured no one would even begin to reach that threshold if they looked at his monolith, trying to sort out its purpose. Hell, he suddenly realized that, in his mind he was calling it
his
monolith; but the last thing he wanted to do was to claim ownership. For the moment he wanted its ownership rights to remain in limbo until he made a decision what the hell to do with it. He was just its temporary and transitional steward, nothing more.
 

The longer Fred stared at the thing the greater his vacillation grew, and Fred hated to be indecisive. Fred’s former boss had often made caustic remarks about Fred’s inability to conclude his cases, to put that declarative period at the end of his sentences. However, Fred felt that in his job ethics were everything; and letting the innocent go free was infinitely more important than apprehending someone who just might be guilty. So Fred never felt any internal uneasiness when he took an exceedingly long time in solving his cases. But when Fred picked out a pair of new socks he didn’t give a damn if they were ten percent cotton and ninety percent wool or vice versa—even color didn’t matter, he just picked the first available socks he found in the sock aisle which matched his size, regardless of the myriad choices open to him. Fred often abandoned deep decision making in other parts of his personal life as well.
 

So now, looking at the damn thing, he couldn’t decide what to do with it. He weighed his options—giving it up to the proper agency, destroying it, or having it medically used again. The last alternative made him visibly tremble when he pondered about it. His inability to decide forced him to continue with the unacceptable prolonged decision to do nothing. So for four years it had remained as a haunting presence on his dresser—the goddamn thing.

Chapter 4

Maureen and Fred were sitting across from each other at their aging maple kitchen table. Scars of past cigarette burns decorated Fred’s edge of the table, a constant reminder of the time when he had been heavily dependent on the weed to get through his initial trying days at the police academy. During both the celebrated and melancholy periods of their time together, the table had become their symbolic place to unite and cope with life’s joys, fears and sorrows. From the countless times they had extended their arms across the table to comfort and encourage each other during their worst and best days, its shiny lacquer had gradually eroded.

The wood beneath had become a magnet for the absorption of spilled food and drink. Fred recalled one time in particular, when the table had served as a material catharsis as they verbally volleyed across the table, based on an uncomfortable encounter they had experienced in the courtroom. He remembered that day so clearly….

That particular morning, as Fred departed for work, Maureen yelled out from the open kitchen window that she had to tell him something important. Fred yelled back, “Whatever it is can wait; tell me this evening.”
 

That day Fred was scheduled to testify against an attempted murderer. As the investigating detective, Fred certified that he had found both the suspect’s fingerprints and DNA sample at the scene of the crime. Fred succinctly directed his responses to the jury, clearly laying out an array of facts that he had uncovered as to the suspect’s motive and opportunity.
 

As he exited from the witness stand he glanced at the jury; numerous members were nodding positively in his direction. This is locked, he thought; I’ve finally got the bastard.

When the defense called their first witness, an attractive tall redhead in the back of the courtroom slowly rose from her seat and proceeded methodically toward the witness chair.
 

Fred was shocked. It was his wife Maureen. Fred thought, what the hell is she doing here?

The defense offered an exhibit supporting Maureen’s extensive background as a successful clinical psychologist. The prosecution issued no challenge.

The defense asked some preliminary questions which served to stress Maureen’s experience in the evaluation of dysfunctional patients. Then Maureen was asked, “Did you conduct a thorough examination of the defendant?”

“Yes –it was a very thorough examination.”

“Did you find any neurological issues associated with the defendant as a result of your examination?”

Maureen offered that the defendant had a physical imbalance condition that she referred to as porphyria. When asked by the defense what porphyria was, she explained that it was a genetic defect which produces a severe mental disorder. She claimed that the defect makes it impossible for the body to metabolize porphyrin in the hemoglobin of the blood. She explained, “As a result porphyrin accumulates in the blood and produces a severe mental dysfunction. The defendant has that medical condition which made it impossible for him to control his actions.”

When it came time for the cross examination, the recently appointed assistant prosecutor pressed the issue forgetting the lawyer’s creed that if you don’t know in advance what the answer will be to your question, then for God’s sake don’t ask it.
 

“How can you possibly make that exact a medical prognosis?” he asked.

“Because,” Maureen testified, “Excess porphyrin feeds into the body’s fluids and produces an unmistakable red wine color in the urine. I have in the past diagnosed several cases with the same malady.”

The prosecution attempted to recover. “I understand, but can you give any example of how a person so affected would react abnormally?”