by Paul Bagnell
*****
McBridle and Tom were on their walk back to the office to continue their investigation.
“I’ll just be a minute,” she said, and ducked inside a ladies’ designer boutique. Tom followed, and waited.
He stood at the front window and watched the skirt show from between the security bars. He heard McBridle’s voice floating out from the back of the shop and assumed she’d soon finish her transaction. He was getting bored and rubbed his sleepy eyes; when he withdrew his clumped hands, he was back at that posh hotel room.
Again, he saw McBridle and the other woman; they were nesting on the bed. He stepped closer like a shy ghost; they couldn’t see nor hear him. They were talking about some spent-minded guy who couldn’t calculate the sum of two-plus-two without the aid of a supercomputer--also a crime and how clever they were at fooling everybody, including the acting authorities.
Tom grew more paranoid; they could have been talking about him. He walked over to the foot of the bed and saw a suitcase that contained a lot of cash. Hundred dollar bills were bundled together with U.S. Federal Bank seals; the notes were crisp and authentic-looking. “What in tarnation is my boss-lady up to?” Tom muttered.
McBridle slammed the case shut and slid it under the bed and switched off the bedside light.
Tom snapped from the dream when he heard McBridle’s voice.
“I’m ready to go,” she indicated with a snappy, impatient set of fingers.
She had concluded her personal business, but he didn’t inquire what she bought. It may not have been intended for his curious x-ray-like eyes. After what he experienced in those visions, he wasn’t sure that he wanted to extend his relationship beyond the office.
McBridle and Tom entered Belk Tower’s front lobby. The front desk information clerk held the elevator doors open for them. Tom felt like telling her last night was a hasty mistake, but he needed her. She held a piece of the case puzzle, a key piece that he required if he were to solve this axed mystery. If he told her what he truly felt, he’d probably be out searching for another crummy replacement job, and he didn’t want that, not yet.
The elevator doors slid open at floor fifty-one, and they continued onward to the office.
“Stella, are there any new messages for me?” McBridle asked as she entered through the door.
“Two.” Stella handed them to her. “Your daughter called and said that she wants to come home because she misses you.”
“Stella... thanks for your concern,” McBridle replied. “Come on, Tom, we’ve got plenty of work ahead of us; and there’s no time to stand around chitchatting when there’s bills to pay and money to earn,” she scolded him as she continued onward to her office.
A good fifteen minutes later, Tom sat across from her desk. He settled into the investigation. Yet he couldn’t help notice her flipping through the pages of a recently published Carravecky shareholders’ statement as if it were a trendy fashion magazine.
She saw him watching her as she looked up and smiled in a friendly way. “Anything you want to say?”
“No,” he replied quickly and continued to explore the files for any inconclusive data malfunction information, or so he thought.
The afternoon was slipping away. McBridle noticed Tom eyeing his cracked watch dial; she realized that she had scheduled an appointment for 3:00 p.m. “I have to go,” she said, and got ready to leave. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Wait for me?”
“Yeah, I’ll wait, but don’t be all night.” He closed the door behind her, and he selected another folder, one - about a hundred pages; it was very elaborate with lots of colourful charts and graphs, something that would surely entertain a graphic designer. He flipped through it but wasn’t too interested in testing any of the glossy numbers. He knew it didn’t relate to what he was searching for. Instead he viewed the diagrams and tangled graphs with little or no job-related interest until a group of plain pages fell out from its slick content. It was obviously a dubious filing error.
The opening page was titled: SECURITY RESOURCES AND OPERATION CONCERNS RELATED TO THE TR-110 SECURITY SYSTEM. The second page revealed a totally different report. This report was titled: SPECIAL INVESTIGATION CONDUCTED BY PRIVATE SECURITY SERVICE INC. Below that: PREPARED BY KEN SANDLE. Perhaps, Tom thought, this was the mystery item McBridle, seemingly, had been searching for and didn’t find.
The first line of print read: PRIVATE SECURITY SERVICES CONDUCTED AN EXTERNAL INVESTIGATION. ALL CASE FACTS WERE COMPILED WITHOUT DIRECT AUTHORIZATION FROM CARRAVECKY AND SONS...
The author made it quite clear that an inside informant had disclosed top-secret information. The evidence indicated that the leak was traced to several persons. The report also acknowledged that Ken Sandle was the prime investigator, who operated in secrecy; and according to his findings, four suspected personnel could have been responsible for the security breaches.
The first person was transferred from the company’s European division six months earlier. The second person had scientific information technology, and he was also one of the chief scientists assigned to a family of classified projects. The third person in question was in charge of internal security matters. The fourth person’s identity was a mystery. Although, external sources confirmed that a fourth person was involved, the details were excluded from the report. The reason given was that there wasn’t any concrete evidence that could positively identify the alleged suspect to the security breach. The closing paragraph indicated that Mr. Sandle highly recommended further investigation be carried out in deeper secrecy.
Tom felt ghostly chills crawling on his skin after reading the short piece of lost documentation. The hair on the back of his neck was standing on end. He digested the theory that it couldn’t have been too difficult discovering the first three people; however, locating the fourth, would be like contacting the dead to call the living. Tom placed the report inside a folder and unconsciously fanned himself with it. He swivelled around in the leatherback chair and gazed out the high-flown windows as he tried to assemble each piece of the bizarre puzzle into their rightful places. He began to slide into a mind-crash and couldn’t pull out of it.
Tom’s mind was shot through a fiery barrel with the force of an explosive device that sent him through space and time. He fell from a gloomy sky onto an earthly soil where he landed face down in front of a rickety, old two-story structure with a kicked-in wooden-panel door and cracked glass window caked with years of haunting grime, enough to keep the local kids away and frighten off the curious visitors. He could barely see his own miserable reflection in it. He pushed open the slanted door and went inside.
The interior was uninhabitable and smelled like dead rats. In the main foyer there was a long, straight stairway that led to the second level. The steps didn’t look safe, but Tom walked them anyway. The front door slammed shut, and he felt a cold wind on his back, which didn’t deter him from climbing on. “It’s just a dream; the evils of this world are not real; there’s no turning back now,” he repeated.
The boards cracked beneath his feet, but he was driven to find the reason why he was here. He reached the top of the stairs and looked out through a broken window, which overlooked a small community. “I wish I were home in bed sleeping off a bad case of wine,” he muttered, and advanced in the direction of the two sealed rooms at the end of the long hallway. With one forceful thump of Tom’s foot, he shattered the door on the right; the room was stripped empty. Then he repeated the same vandalizing process with the door on the left. The room was also emptied except for a party of rats that scurried back into their hole.
He entered the rodent-sweet area; the floor felt soft under his feet as if it could collapse at any moment; somehow that dangerous probability didn’t matter. A large amount of moonlight shone through the square hole in the roof that used to be an attractive skylight. The night ambience drew his eyes upward as he heard clumping footsteps above him. He started to climb and grabbed hold of the decayed rafters. The wood
was brittle and weak; it practically crumbled in his fisted hands, but he still managed to lift himself through the unstable opening to the roof.
Tom stood there alone. Weathered patchwork indicated the roof was unsafe in places so he didn’t want to wander too far from his safe footing, but he defied his sound instincts and walked to the opposite side anyway. His senses were keen, like that of a Nukyi Salient. He heard a small squeak and spun around. “Who is it?” he demanded.
A figure stepped forward. “I brought you here so don’t be alarmed.”
Tom looked closer. “You brought me here for what reason?”
“I need your help and your powers.”
“Why, what’s the problem?”
“A major problem that only you can command; you must finish my investigation at Carravecky’s lie factory,” the man said as he limped into a path of moonlight and revealed his gruesome appearance.
The suit that he wore upon his last days of life still clung to his cold, lifeless body. The dead man pointed toward Tom with his fish-eaten, bony finger. “Our active time is short so you must listen to what I speak; then you will understand what it is you will have to do.”
The man walked with a stiff foot and stopped a couple of steps from the edge of the roof and looked across the way. “Oh, how I long for this place.”
“So, you’re from this area or, like me, just visiting?”
The dead man crunched back his head, “I was born, raised; and lived in Fall City all my breathing life.”
“That’s where we are right now?”
“Yes.”
“So this isn’t a dream?”
“I cannot say whether it’s a dream or not. I only know my reality is hell bent and growing worse.”
“Let me guess that you asked the forces of evil to bring you here.”
“Evil or good was my only way of seeking your help.”
“Then explain what it was that you were investigating at Carravecky’s.”
“The profession of unearthing corporate dirt was never easy. I pissed a lot of people off; and now I live, for the time being, in total seclusion.”
“So the jest of it is that somebody whacked you, and now you’re walking with the dead?”
“Yes, alone, with the shadows of others.” The man’s eyes were admiring the distant lights, but he turned away in sadness and approached Tom. “I must trust you to finish this case and get me out of here,” he said hopefully. The light of the moon revealed the top of his lopsided skull, which appeared to have been bashed in with a heavy object. “You only know me in words--from a report you just read.”
“The report I just read--how do you know that?” Tom was almost sickened by the wormy infestation, which was consuming the man’s exposed temporal lobe.
“My name is Ken Sandle if you haven’t already figured that out.”
Tom’s curiosity was affected; he seemed surprised.
“So, you believe who I am?”
“I believe all of this is a deceptive dream--nothing else, a façade created by the evil guy to screw my head on backwards.”
Sandle struggled to remain vertical, “That’s what he wants you to believe. My earthly friend, you must trust me as I trust you,” and hunched forward. “My firm was hired by someone within the Carravecky group.”
“So, tell me who.”
“That person was never identified” as he choked up a mouthful of chewed seaweed, “but I suspected this person was a middle-aged man who has or had strong ties with the Carravecky name.”
“Like a family friend or relative?”
“Yes, I believe so.”
“What made you suspect that?” Tom inquired.
“He always sent cash, never questioned the cost. He just wanted the problem solved without being discovered.”
“Didn’t that make you suspicious?”
“I enjoyed the excitement so I never questioned where the money came from. I was only concerned with uncovering the truth; and, in the process, pleasing my client.”
“What about this fourth person? What do you know about that guy?”
“I was supposed to meet in secrecy with him. Yet, I suspected people wanted him dead just like the others before him.”
“There were others?”
“Yes, as I stated in my report.”
“Well, refresh my mind; what did you report?”
“My initial objective was to investigate the disappearance of three top-level personnel who worked for Carravecky. Soon I realized that I was getting into something deeper than I could handle.”
“Three men vanish, and no one questioned their disappearance?”
Ken Sandle hunched even closer to Tom. His fleshy mouth stunk like a fermenting sewer. “Silently, the police were called in but could do little. Doctor Carravecky invented some lame excuse about what happened to them, but I knew these men were murdered. Yet, at that time, there was no evidence to support my gut hunch. Corrupt people within Carravecky and Sons are up to no good, and you must stop them. Make them pay for their wrongdoings.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
“That’s not good enough” and extended his deformed hand. “I assume you know there was a long-term project that was nearing completion.”
“Yeah, I’ve been hearing lots of scrambled, contradicting facts concerning an illicit weapon system.”
“Carravecky’s activities are extremely sensitive. Several days into my investigation, I was beaten and told to keep my nose out of it, but I kept my nose to the grindstone.” Sandle straightened away from Tom’s face. “The night of my death, I was confronted by four men--soldiers--big, heavy, mean-looking men. One man did all the talking. I could identify from the tone of his voice that he was Russian; his men called him Remmie Take. They beat me badly, and I ended up in the cold ocean depths. This East Slavic killer that I could identify by his sharp accent is the most vicious person I’ve ever encountered in my entire professional life. Barely alive and facing death, he grabbed me by my jacket and threw me into the Pacific waters. That’s all I remember.” Ken walked several feet closer to the un-railed edge and gazed into the night sky. “My body has yet to be discovered; it’s lost forever.”
“What about the three men who disappeared?”
“I only know what Remmie Take told me before he killed me.”
“Tell me before the mind-crash dies.”
Sandle wrenched his mouth; it was an unsightly jaw realignment procedure that produced a bone-crunching sound loud enough to wake the dead. “Ty Crowley was the European group’s top consultant. He vanished about four months ago under strange conditions. It was assumed that he ran off with a dancing lady. Six weeks later, his body washed up on the shores of the Cross River. He was pulverized from head to toe; every bone in his body was snapped, cracked; and popped like he was rung and spun in a washing machine for a week. The other two, a security chief and a scientist, were buried together on a mountain.”
“Which mountain is that?” Tom asked demandingly.
“Marsh’s Peak as I recall,” he said with a slow haunting voice.
“Where is this elevated part of earth?”
“It’s in a place called Stamp Line County. I beg you not to let these deaths go unheard. Use your ignited powers and bring justice to the world. If not, we’re all doomed.”
“I promise; I’ll do what I can.”
Ken seemed emotionally relieved. “I remember when I was just a kid, I talked about haunted houses and ghosts,” he said, as if his mental will to survive was restored, “yet, I never thought I’d become one.” There was a beastly tone that was getting louder. “There’s not much time left. I can only tell you to go to the mountain and search for the Rabbit,” Ken said as he began to dematerialize.
“Rabbit--what does that mean?--you must tell me,” Tom demanded, but it was too late. The ghostly investigator faded into the night air as he was kicked back to his own tormented world.
Moisture beads dropped from Tom’s chin an
d formed a pool of sweat on McBridle’s desktop. The glossy report was still in his heated possession; he was flipping the same page back and forth like a record needle skipping on a scratched forty-five.
“Tom, are you okay?” a man asked in a concerned voice.
Tom looked at the blurred figure. His eyes were adjusting to the fluorescent lights; and he could tell by the shape of the man’s face that it was Mr. Lankenbury, the founding partner of the firm.
“You look as if you just saw a ghost,” he said, his voice commanding concern.
“No, it’s been a long week; and I’m about ready for a vacation,” Tom replied as he dabbed the wetness from his chin with the tip of his tie. “So, sir, what can I do for you?”
Lankenbury stood manicured and pampered in front of Tom as if projecting his limitless wealth and success toward his lowly servant like he’d order Bronze to wash and wax his fleet of imported wheels.
Tom’s immediate thoughts were focused on finding the Rabbit; this diluted his somewhat strict attention from Lankenbury’s dominant personality.
“I called Celia on her cell phone, but there’s not answer. Would you give her a message for me?” he instructed.
“Yes sir.” Tom had to search for a pen but found one in McBridle’s desk drawer.
Lankenbury dictated: “Got in from China earlier this morning. Negotiations went extremely well, but there’s a small kink that needs to be adjusted. I’ll be working late tonight and would like you here for a conference call with one of our Asian friends. I’ll be in my office.” Then he left without saying goodbye.
Tom placed the pen back in the desk drawer. A yellowish piece of paper caught his attention. He eased it out from beneath some light paperwork. Attached were two airline tickets. This seemed fishy. McBridle hadn’t mentioned anything about taking an unscheduled excursion. The date for departure was this Friday evening for the Hawaiian Islands. Tom thought the tickets and the vision he had experienced earlier weren’t coincidences. Now he was certain McBridle was involved in something other than forensic auditing. “The Rabbit--I must find this Rabbit--and make it dance for its carrot,” he expelled, quietly deranged.
