The Memory Thief

by Don Donaldson

  “No more than thirty minutes.”

  “You saw the hospital on the way in, so you know how to get there. Come in the front door of the main building, go up the big set of stairs directly in front of you, and take the right hallway on the second floor. I’m in two thirty-three. I’ll be waiting for you. When we’re ready, I’ll go get Odessa.”

  “Where’s a good place to eat?” Packard asked.

  Marti gave him directions to The Fishin’ Hole, then left and drove to the hospital, where the first thing she did was cruise by Quinn’s parking place to be sure his car wasn’t in it.

  Satisfied he really was on his way to Atlanta, she parked her car and went inside, too nervous to even think about lunch.

  MARTI CHECKED her watch for the fifth time. Twenty-nine minutes after one; a minute later than the last time she looked.

  She paced the floor. Soon she’d find out if this was going to work. She still had done nothing to prepare Odessa, because she didn’t want to give him any advance warning. If he resisted . . . the thought made her sick to her stomach. Beyond the fact it would ruin everything, she didn’t want to tell Packard his trip had been a waste of time. Glaser, she could handle, but Packard was a tough old bird who—

  Someone knocked on the door.

  They’re here.

  She opened the door and froze. It was Oren Quinn.

  Jesus. And with Packard and Glaser arriving any minute. Why the hell wasn’t he on a plane to Atlanta? Fearing that he could hear her heart hammering in her chest, she tried to appear calm. “Dr. Quinn. I was just on my way to the restroom. What can I do for you?”

  His eyes traveled to a point over her shoulder as he apparently inventoried the furniture she’d obtained from storage. “Some of the staff are calling you a hero for saving that patient’s life last week. Do you feel like a hero?”

  “No. My response to the situation was simply a reflex action.”

  “And now she can return to her rich existence as a human manikin.”

  “What would you have had me do?”

  “I suppose what you did was necessary.”

  “I don’t mean to be rude, but I really need to make that trip I mentioned.”

  “I’m leaving for the airport in just a few minutes. I’ll be back on Wednesday. I’d like to see you sometime Wednesday afternoon to discuss the amount of time you’ve been absent from the hospital during working hours. Make the appointment with my secretary. Have a nice day.”

  Then he turned and headed for his office.

  To keep him from becoming suspicious, Marti followed him as far as the women’s restroom, where, before ducking inside, she took a quick look at the main stairs. And sure enough, there were Packard and Glaser, coming up to the second floor, carrying the equipment they’d need.

  Damn. Damn. Damn.

  Seeing them, Quinn paused.

  Immobile, with her hand on the restroom door, Marti’s heart was now about to rip from its moorings. If Quinn questioned those two . . .

  Quinn called out to them. “May I help you?”

  “We’re looking for Dr. Segerson,” Glaser said.

  And there it was . . . right out in the open.

  Marti did the only thing she could. She took two steps toward the stairs and said loudly, “My office is two thirty-three, down this way. Just go inside. I’ll be with you in a minute.” Though she was dying to see what would happen next, she thought it would look suspicious if she stayed in the hallway any longer. So she retreated to the restroom and went in.

  She remained beside the door and looked at her watch. Two minutes should be long enough to make her trip there appear genuine.

  While she waited, she listened hard to determine if Quinn was still talking to Packard and Glaser, but, of course, she couldn’t hear anything. Then one of the toilets flushed.

  Not wanting the occupant of that stall to see her with her ear pressed to the door, she hurried to a sink and began washing her hands.

  In a few seconds Howard Rosenblum’s secretary emerged from the stall and went to the adjacent sink. “Dr. Segerson, how are you doing?”

  “I’m adjusting quite well, thanks.”

  “We don’t usually have as much excitement around here as we had last week. You just never know what these people are going to do next.”

  Marti’s mind was so focused on what was happening in the hall, she could barely think of a response. Finally, she managed to say, “It’s best to always expect the unexpected.”

  “Yes, I suppose that’s true.”

  Marti didn’t want to leave the restroom first, so she fiddled with her hair until the other woman said, “See you later.”

  Marti waited about five seconds after the woman was gone, then she went out into the hall and looked toward the stairs.

  No one was there.

  As she hurried to her office, she was convinced Quinn had thrown Packard and Glaser out, and that everything was ruined. But when she pushed open her door, the two men were setting up the necessary equipment.

  “Do you know who that was at the top of the stairs?” she asked. She answered her own question without waiting. “Oren Quinn, the superintendent of the place. And just the guy I didn’t want to know you were here. Did he ask you anything?”

  Packard shrugged. “Didn’t seem to care who we were.”

  “Well, it’s not a good start.”

  “It’s not how you start, but how you finish that matters,” Packard said.

  They had pulled the long table to the center of the room and had two laptops sitting back to back on it the same way Nadine had arranged their computers for Marti’s mind-reading test.

  “Are those partitions for me?” Packard asked.

  “I figured we could arrange them so you could see what was going on, but he couldn’t see you.”

  “That’ll work.”

  Packard set about moving the partitions into place.

  Barry Glaser was the chief technician from Brain Fingerprinting Laboratories, Inc., a firm that had developed a technique for determining if the brain of a criminal suspect contained any memory of the crime he was accused of committing. Though quite new as an investigative tool, the test appeared to be 100 percent accurate in linking a criminal to his crime, even if he was trying to conceal his participation. The test consisted of showing the suspect crime-related images his brain would recognize only if he had been at the scene. And it didn’t matter how many years had intervened between the commission of the crime and the brain fingerprint test. Not only had the test been ruled admissible in court, it had recently been involved in exonerating a man serving a life sentence in Iowa for a murder he was accused of committing decades ago.

  Douglas Packard was the LA detective who had worked the murder of Marti’s sister. He, along with Marti and her parents, had been incensed when the LA district attorney had declined to prosecute Odessa for that murder, citing a lack of evidence, even though Marti had been there. So Odessa had simply been returned to the mental hospital from which he had escaped.

  A year ago, in reviewing the case at Marti and Packard’s insistence, the current LA district attorney had agreed to take the case to a grand jury if any new evidence linking Odessa to Lee’s murder could be produced. Today, with the help of Glaser’s company, which was donating their services for the publicity it would generate when the case came to trial, Marti would get that evidence. And this time, with the tougher standards in California for copping an insanity defense, Odessa would receive the death penalty he deserved.

  There wasn’t much for Packard to do to get ready, so he slouched in one of the chairs at the long table and read a paperback. Glaser likewise didn’t need any help.

  With nothing else to occupy Marti’s mind, she worried. What if Quinn returned to his office in the middle of the
test? What if Trina came to see her? Suppose Odessa refused to cooperate? All this made her want to get started as soon as possible.

  Finally, sitting at the keyboard of the control computer, Glaser typed in a few last commands and stood up. “It’s showtime.”

  Chapter 16

  INSTEAD OF going right up to the ward and getting Odessa, Marti first went out to the parking lot and checked Quinn’s slot.

  It was empty.

  At least now she didn’t have to worry about him.

  Two minutes later, she paused at the door to Two East B, calmed herself, and went in. Odessa wasn’t in the dayroom, but Bobby Ware was over by the smoking enclosure talking to Chickadee.

  Before she could head in that direction, Ada Metz came out of the nursing station. “Good afternoon, Doctor.”

  Her emphasis on the word afternoon made Marti think it was probably Metz who had called Quinn’s attention to her irregular work hours.

  “I’m going to take Vernon Odessa down to my office for some psychological tests.”

  Metz’s face looked as though Marti had slapped her.

  “That’s very irregular. He’s usually not allowed to be in that part of the building.”

  “Nevertheless, that’s where we’re headed.”

  “I don’t think Dr. Quinn would approve.”

  “He already has.”

  “Then you won’t mind if I call him.”

  Knowing that Quinn was out of the building, Marti cavalierly said, “Not at all.”

  But then she thought, Oh no . . . Quinn must carry a cell phone. If his secretary relayed Metz’s call to him . . . Or maybe Metz had his cell number and could call him directly. Sensing everything starting to unravel, Marti said, “But I should tell you that I saw him a few minutes ago, and he was in a particularly foul mood.”

  It wasn’t a very creative ploy, but it was all she could think of.

  Metz looked at her for several seconds without blinking, then said, “I don’t know why I’m bothering myself over this. It’ll be your skin if anything goes wrong. But we’ve got orders that whenever he leaves the secure part of the facility, he’s to be shackled. Bobby knows how to do it.” Then she went back into the nursing station.

  Marti was burning a lot of bridges, but since she’d be leaving the state for good in just a few hours, what did it matter?

  She walked over to Bobby, took him aside, and explained what she wanted. He then went to the nursing station and got a drawstring bag containing the necessary restraints.

  They found Odessa in his room at his computer.

  “Sorry to bother you,” Marti said, “but Dr. Quinn would like for you to take a short psychological test.”

  “When?”

  “Now.”

  “He didn’t say anything to me about that.”

  Odessa’s comment made it sound as though he and Quinn were old friends who chatted on a regular basis. As ridiculous as this was, Marti went along with it. “He’s away at a conference, so he probably had a lot on his mind the last few days getting ready.”

  “How long will this take?”

  “Just a few minutes.”

  “I’m not a trained animal that’s here to perform for you anytime you feel like it.”

  “I understand. But the doctor who will administer the test has come a long way, and I’d hate to tell him we can’t proceed. And, of course, Dr. Quinn would be very disappointed.”

  When she mentioned Quinn, she could see Odessa’s resistance weaken.

  “All right. Let’s get it over with.”

  “We’re going to do it in my office.”

  Odessa’s lips curled in a malevolent grin. “We’re going to do it? I can’t wait. I’ll bet you’re a tight fit.”

  Then Bobby spoke up. “Since you’ll be going into an unsecured area, you’ll have to be restrained.”

  A storm gathered in Odessa’s face. “I won’t be paraded through the dayroom like that.”

  Marti was surprised he would care what a bunch of mental patients thought about him. But then, in this situation, they were his peers.

  “I know,” Bobby said. ‘We’ll go out the back way.”

  In the bag was a waist chain with cuffs to hold Odessa’s hands at his side. There was also a set of ankle chains that would restrict the length of his step. Despite his obvious anger over being shackled, Odessa didn’t resist as Bobby locked him in.

  “Regs state that we need another orderly to go along,” Bobby said to Marti when he was finished preparing Odessa for the trip.

  “I’ll get someone.”

  Marti turned to leave, but met Ruben Hernandez, one of the other orderlies, at the door. He wasn’t nearly as big as Bobby, but still looked as though he could handle himself.

  “Nurse Ratchet told me you need some help,” Ruben said, grinning at his own joke.

  “We’re going to take Mr. Odessa to my office,” Marti said.

  “Then let’s go.”

  The rear door to the dormitory hall and the back stairs was the way the ward’s occupants went to the cafeteria on the fourth floor at mealtime. On each floor there was a corridor connecting the back stairs to the front hallway. With Odessa jingling at each step, they made their way to that hallway, through the metal security door, and to the administrative access, where Marti called the parade to a halt.

  “Bobby, you do have the key to his cuffs don’t you? Because he’s going to need one hand free to take the test.”

  “I have them, but is that a good idea?”

  “We don’t have any choice.”

  “Don’t be afraid,” Odessa purred. “I would never hurt you . . . much.”

  Marti hadn’t considered it might require two orderlies to take Odessa out of the ward. In constructing her plan, she had anticipated it would just be Bobby escorting Odessa to her office, and she had spent more than a few minutes trying to figure out what to do with him during the test. At first it seemed obvious he shouldn’t be there to witness what was going on. But without him, she thought Odessa might try to take advantage of the situation. Packard would be there for damage control, but she didn’t want Odessa to know of his presence. So she’d decided that the only thing she could do was let Bobby watch. Faced with this necessity, she’d realized it didn’t really matter if Bobby was there. So it likewise wouldn’t matter if Hernandez was also present. Once the test was over, nothing about Gibson would matter.

  Marti opened the door to the administrative area and took a quick look into the hall. Seeing no one around, she stepped out and held the door for the others.

  They made it to her office unseen, and Marti went inside first to alert Packard to conceal himself. Then she let the three men waiting come in.

  She introduced Glaser as though this was some kind of social event, and Bobby unlocked one of Odessa’s handcuffs. Bobby guided Odessa into the chair in front of the test computer and stood beside him. As Ruben hovered nearby, Glaser explained what was going to happen.

  “Mr. Odessa, we want to test your memory for complex events with an emotional context. So I’ll be showing you a number of photographs on the screen in front of you. Each of these images will involve a homicide.”

  “Sounds like fun,” Odessa said.

  “We’ll begin by showing you six reference photographs that we’ll call targets. During the test, you’ll be shown the target photos mixed in with a large number of other pictures. We want you to pick out the target photos from all the others. To do that you’ll press the left button on the mouse when a target photo appears. I’ve taped a small note to the table to remind you that left means it’s one of those six.

  “When you see an image that is not a target, press the right mouse button. Each image will be flashed on the screen for a short time, then there will be approxima
tely a three-second delay before the next image appears. The test will consist of two blocks of seventy-two images with a short rest period between the two blocks. In each block you will see a given image more than once.

  “We’d also like to see how your brain processes the images you recognize, so you’ll need to wear this . . .” Glaser picked up a headband connected by a bunch of wires to a four channel EEG amplifier. “May I put it on?”

  “Sure, but I thought you said I was supposed to wear it.”

  Glaser grinned amiably. “That’s what I meant.”

  Glaser put the headband on Odessa, pulling it down until the frontal electrode made contact with Odessa’s forehead, and all the other electrodes across his scalp were equally secure. Glaser fiddled with the knobs on the amplifier, then asked, “Do you have any questions?”

  “So where are the six target pictures?”

  Glaser picked up a different manila envelope than the one Packard had brought and put a small stack of black-and-white eight-by-ten photos in front of Odessa. Marti was standing on the opposite side of the table, so the photos were upside down. Even so, she distinctly saw that the first picture was of a woman with her face mutilated by knife wounds. Disgusted and sorry she’d looked, Marti averted her eyes and moved away.

  As Odessa looked at the target photos with obvious interest, Marti wondered if they were teaching him some new tricks. Then she thought about the pictures of her sister’s murder that Glaser had scanned into the system that morning and which would soon be flashing onto the monitors, mixed in with a lot of other homicide photos. Just being in the room with digital images of Lee’s death was starting to make her sick to her stomach.

  Packard had not brought all the available photos of Lee. Some would be held back so they could be pressed into service during an official court-ordered brain fingerprint test of Odessa after he’d been indicted. A part of Marti found this parading of Lee in front of her murderer profane and a violation of her memory. But it was the only way she knew to bring her sister—and herself—ultimate peace.

  After spending what seemed like an inordinate amount of time examining each target picture, Odessa looked up at Glaser. “Can I keep these?”