The Memory Thief

by Don Donaldson

  Glaser stepped in and picked up the stack. “Sorry, no. Are you ready to begin?”

  Odessa’s eyes flicked from Glaser to the partitions on the opposite side of the room, and Marti wondered if he’d spotted Packard back there. She looked in that direction, trying to see Packard herself, but the opening between partitions was too small to give him away. When she glanced back at Odessa, his eyes were riveted on her, as though he were wondering what she’d found so interesting on the other side of the room.

  “Mr. Odessa . . . are you ready to begin?” Glaser asked a second time.

  Suddenly looking ill at ease, Odessa didn’t answer. He looked again at the partitions, then did a general fidgety survey of his surroundings.

  Marti’s heart moved into her throat for fear he was going to balk at continuing. But then he looked at Glaser and said, “Can’t wait.”

  Marti made it a point not to watch the monitor during the test, but she did keep her eyes on Odessa’s face, which grew flushed as he viewed the carnage flashing past him. And he gradually began to breathe harder. Seeing his excitement grow as one victim after another sped by, Marti felt like picking up a chair and bashing him in the head with it. Fortunately, the only one that was unoccupied was the one behind her desk, and it was too heavy to lift.

  So she endured and did nothing.

  Finally, when she felt she couldn’t take another minute of seeing Odessa wallowing in the horrors they were showing him, Glaser said, “And we’re finished.”

  He went around to Odessa’s side of the table and removed the EEG headband.

  When Odessa stood up, Marti saw that there were now large sweat stains under the armpits of his shirt. He looked at her and shook his head. “Great show, Doc. Anytime you want to go again, I’m available.”

  “Good,” Marti replied. “Because I’m sure you’ll be doing it one more time.”

  Sensing there was some hidden meaning in her comment, Odessa’s brow knitted as he tried to figure out what it was. But the moment was cut short by Bobby moving in to re-cuff his free hand.

  “Bobby, would you take him back?” Marti said. “I need to stay here and discuss some things with Dr. Glaser.”

  “No problem.” He put a hand on Odessa’s shoulder and pushed gently. “Let’s go home.”

  “Ruben . . . thanks for the help . . . you too, Bobby,” Marti called out as the group moved away from the table. With his chains clanking, Odessa short-stepped to the door, and Ruben opened it for him. Before leaving, Odessa looked over his shoulder. “Don’t talk about me when I’m gone. And that goes for you, too, whoever’s behind those partitions.”

  When the door closed, Packard came into the open. “Have I mentioned how much I hate that guy?”

  “Not nearly enough,” Marti said. She looked at Glaser, who was working the keyboard at his computer.

  “What’s the verdict?”

  “I’ll need just a few minutes to collate the data.”

  “I think he was getting off on those pictures,” Packard said.

  “No question about it,” Marti replied.

  While Glaser worried his keyboard, Marti wandered over to her desk chair and sat down. Packard leaned against the wall and tended his fingernails with a clipper from his pocket.

  With each second Glaser worked, the tension in the room mounted until Marti’s nerves were sizzling. Packard, though, didn’t seem fazed by the wait.

  Unable to sit still, Marti got up, walked over to where Glaser was sitting, and tried to decipher the data on his monitor herself. But it was all unintelligible.

  She turned to say something to Packard, then, thinking it might disturb Glaser’s concentration, she kept quiet and returned to her chair.

  Exactly twenty-eight seconds later, Glaser announced, “Well, we got a brain wave recognition signature on each of the six targets whenever they appeared in the mix.”

  Marti rocked her chair forward and stood up. Packard put his clippers in his pocket.

  “What about Lee’s pictures?” Marti asked.

  “Negative. Absolutely no sign of recognition.”

  Marti came around her desk fast. “That’s impossible. He did it. I know he did. I was there.”

  “I’m sorry,” Glaser said, pushing his chair back and standing up, “but the data we just generated don’t support that.”

  Marti steamed over to confront Glaser. “You said this test was infallible.”

  “I’ve never known it to be wrong.”

  “So how do you explain what happened?”

  “I can’t. All I can say is his brain isn’t carrying the fingerprint of that event.”

  Marti was so devastated she didn’t know what to say. Years of planning . . . washed away in an instant. There was nothing now to take to the Los Angeles DA. Lee’s murderer would go unpunished.

  “He must have found a way to beat the test,” Marti said.

  “He’d be the first,” Glaser replied.

  Packard came over and put his hand on Marti’s shoulder. “That’s the way it goes sometimes, kid. You think you’ve got your man in the bag, and he wiggles out of it.”

  “I feel like hell,” Marti said. “Not only because we didn’t get him, but because of all the time you two put it into this. And with nothing to show for it.”

  “Never count on anything until it’s in your hand,” Glaser said, starting to pack up. “I learned that a long time ago.”

  Though her mind was reeling, Marti was still able to address the last remaining threads of the disaster that had just taken place. “Since I arranged this without permission, I figured we’d need to get out of Linville right afterward, so I made motel reservations for you both at the Memphis Hampton Inn on Millbranch Road. It’s the closest one to the airport.”

  She went to her desk and got the map she’d drawn for them. “Here’s how to find it. Douglas, I was thinking you two could ride back together.”

  “What are you gonna do?” Packard asked.

  “At the moment, I just don’t know.”

  Five minutes later, with the two men on their way to Glaser’s van, Marti stood in the middle of her office, arms folded across her chest, eyes closed, trying to shut out what had just happened. But it was a pain she couldn’t avoid.

  Odessa had escaped her trap. How had he done that? But more importantly, what was she going to do now? She couldn’t simply walk away, but what other option did she have? Tears welled behind her closed eyes, and she opened them and looked at the ceiling.

  “Lee, I am so sorry. I was sure this would work.”

  She shuffled to the chair behind her desk and dropped into it, where she sat tilted forward, elbows on her thighs, staring at the floor.

  Then, like a bubble escaping from the slimy bottom of a stagnant pond, an idea slowly began to work its way from the darkest recesses of her brain into the light. She fought its ascent, but it was so buoyant it eventually slipped around her attempts to constrain it. When it reached the surface, it popped, expelling its repulsive contents in a gaseous belch.

  Kill him yourself.

  Chapter 17

  KILL HIM . . .

  At first the idea seemed too monstrous to consider, but then, what other options were there? Odessa had to die. There was no other way to satisfy the fire that had raged within Marti for nearly two decades. But being the instrument that funneled him onto death row legally was a far different thing than ending his life with her own hand.

  Could she do that?

  Wouldn’t she be as evil as he was if she did it herself?

  Of course not, emotional Marti argued. You’d simply be ridding the world of a plague. It would be an act no different from those who’d cleansed the world of smallpox. Odessa was just a different kind of pathogen.

  Very different, objective M
arti said. He’s a human being, not a microbe.

  He may not be a microbe, but he’s not human either. So why give him that consideration?

  But what would happen to her if she killed him? She’d be arrested and likely either be executed herself or sent to prison for the rest of her life.

  Do you really care about any of that? You had one chance of snaring him legally, and he beat you. Now you have to put up or shut up. You promised Lee you’d see that he would pay for killing her. Are you going to break that promise? Are you going to fold like a paper hat or will you keep your word? Are you strong or weak?

  Suppose I did want to kill him myself? How could I do it?

  Her mind now turned to possible courses of action.

  What about poison?

  Very complicated. She’d have to slip it into his food, which would not only be difficult to do, but he might survive. It should be a way that left no chance for error.

  She could get a gun somewhere, walk right up to him in the ward, and blow him to hell. But then he wouldn’t know why it was happening. She wanted him to see it coming and know who she was before he died. She needed to see that smug look change to fear, needed to see him know what it was to face death the way Lee had.

  She’d had no trouble getting him down to her office for the brain fingerprint test. She could probably do that again. Bobby Ware could shackle him to a radiator, and then she could send Bobby and Ruben, or whoever came along, out of the room on some pretense. It wouldn’t take more than a minute or two.

  But where could she get a gun? Didn’t it take seven days for some kind of background check before a dealer would sell you one?

  A pawnshop . . .

  Surely you could buy a gun in a Memphis pawnshop without a background check. She could be there and back in just a few hours. Then, tomorrow . . .

  What? What exactly would she do?

  Her mind took her back to her med school rotation in the emergency room, and she remembered the frightful damage gunshot wounds to the head inflicted . . . how they blew away huge pieces of skull as they exited, carrying away pieces of the victim’s brain. Damaging him as he had done to Lee was undeniably appealing, but regardless of how much she hated Odessa, she could never cause something like that.

  Seeing what she was planning in such stark terms, she realized she couldn’t kill him at all. It just wasn’t in her. And that made her miserable, because she had no other way to make him pay for what he’d done.

  She began to pace the room, at a loss for what to do. If only the brain fingerprint test had worked. Why the hell hadn’t it? Why wasn’t the memory of her sister’s murder there?

  Then she began to think of how she had lost the memory of Harry Evensky’s visit the night he escaped. Two memory losses by people associated with the hospital . . . could that be mere coincidence?

  Wait—

  Clay Hulett had said Jackie Norman’s sister, who used to work at Gibson, had experienced some kind of brain trauma that caused her to forget everything she once knew. Three people in one hospital experiencing memory loss . . . no way that was coincidence.

  She hurried to her desk, grabbed her cell phone from her bag, and punched the preset for Clay’s number.

  “Clay . . . this is Marti. Do you know where Jackie Norman’s sister lives?”

  “Right after her illness she was staying at a school for the retarded in Jackson, where they could watch her and teach her how to feed and dress herself and things like that. I don’t think she’s there anymore. But I can find out.”

  “Do you have time to do it now?”

  “Sure. I’ll call you right back. Should I use this number?”

  “Yes.” She ended the call and stood with the phone in her hand while her mind tried to fit the three cases of memory loss into a workable hypothesis that would explain why they had occurred. But it was like trying to spin flax into gold with no flax. There was simply no raw material to work with. But if she could talk to Jackie’s sister, or maybe Jackie herself, about the circumstances surrounding her sister’s trouble—

  Marti’s thoughts were shattered by the sound of her cell phone.

  “Okay, I found out where she lives,” Clay said. “Did you want to see her for some reason?”

  “As soon as possible. Is there a problem?”

  “I’m not going to ask you why you want to see her, although that question is burning a hole in my brain. But I learned that she lives with Jackie now. And Jackie just left the college to go home . . . so, if you go over there now—”

  “I’ll run into her, too.”

  “Exactly. So maybe I should go along . . . just to sort of act as a referee.”

  Marti wasn’t prepared for Clay’s suggestion, and her first reaction was to tell him she didn’t need his help. But that could turn out to be wrong. Jackie’s resentment against Gibson was so strong there was a good possibility she’d be extremely uncooperative. In that case, Clay could make the difference.

  “Good idea,” she said. “Where are you?”

  “My office at the college. Do you know where the campus is?”

  “No.”

  “Then it’ll be easier if I pick you up.”

  “I’m at the hospital now, but I’m going to leave and drive right home.”

  “See you there in ten minutes.”

  AS HE drove, Clay remained true to his word and, at least outwardly, let the reasons for Marti’s interest in Molly Norman go unclarified. But from his silence, Marti felt he was actually waiting for her to volunteer an explanation. A part of her wanted to tell him everything, but she had lived privately for so long, it was hard to suddenly go public with the secrets she had protected for most of her life. So she said nothing. With neither of them speaking, the trip took place in an awkward silence that made Marti hope it would soon be over.

  Jackie Norman lived in an old two-story farmhouse that needed paint even more than the Edwards Brothers funeral home.

  “This isn’t what I expected,” Marti said as Clay stopped his truck in the dirt driveway and cut off the engine.

  “Why not?”

  “Jackie seemed more like the upscale chic apartment type.”

  “If they ever build a place like that around here, maybe she’ll move.”

  They got out of the truck and went up on the wooden porch, where Clay knocked on the door. Jackie answered, looked briefly at Clay, then leveled her dark eyes on Marti.

  “Why are you interested in my sister?” Jackie asked.

  “I told her I was inquiring about Molly for you,” Clay said. Then, obviously feeling that Marti might be miffed at his disclosure, he added, “Couldn’t be avoided.”

  “Clay told me she experienced some sort of brain trauma while she was working at Gibson,” Marti said. “And as a result, lost all her memories.”

  “What is that to you . . . you want to study her, so you can write a paper about her . . . pad your bibliography at her expense?”

  Marti had anticipated this moment and had considered the effect what she was about to say would have on Clay. She’d lied to him when she’d explained her call from the hospital asking why he’d changed her locks. Now she was going to tell Molly the real reason behind that call. But if she kept her response generic, Clay wouldn’t catch on.

  “The same thing happened to me a few days ago,” Marti said to Jackie. “Not to the same degree, of course. I just lost the memory of one event, but I have to think your sister’s problem and mine are related.”

  Marti could see by Jackie’s expression that she had lowered her defenses.

  “You think there’s something in the hospital that causes memory loss?”

  “I know of at least one other case in which it happened. So, yes, I believe it’s likely.”

  “I’ve always thought Gib
son was at fault. I mean, she was a healthy young woman when she went to work there. And look how she came out. What do you think’s going on?”

  “I have no idea. I was hoping by seeing your sister and talking to her, I might pick up a clue.”

  “She’s still struggling with relearning language as well as a lot of other things. So I don’t think she’s going to be much help.”

  “I don’t know where else to turn.”

  “Then you better come in.”

  The living room of the farmhouse was comfortably decorated, but largely unremarkable, except it contained a sofa and a chair made of the same tree limb construction she’d seen in Clay’s house. Evidence Jackie and Clay were more than just friends? Maybe.

  “As I understand it,” Jackie said, “there are two kinds of memory. One for facts and one for skills like typing, or riding a bicycle. Even people with nearly total amnesia always retain their skills. But that wasn’t the case with Molly. She used to be an excellent tennis player. After her . . . I don’t even know what to call it. After it happened, she was worse at tennis than I am, which means she was horrible. So she lost both kinds of memory . . . the first case like that in history, I guess. And there were no physical findings to account for it . . . nothing on CAT scans, nothing on MRI.”

  “My loss was a minor one, but I didn’t have any physical findings either,” Marti said. “What was Molly’s job at Gibson?”

  “She was a nurse.”

  “Do you know on what wards?”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t.”

  “May I see her now?”

  “She’s in the dining room with Mrs. Martin . . . she’s the retired schoolteacher I hired to work with Molly after I took her out of the home for the retarded.” Jackie’s eyes grew flinty. “Molly’s not retarded and doesn’t belong with those who are.”

  Jackie went to a tall pair of sliding doors and parted them to reveal that the dining room had been converted to an elementary school classroom; a big rolling blackboard stood on the far side of the dining table, a long bulletin board bristling with tacked-up sheets of paper on the left wall . . . a playhouse in one corner with lots of stuffed animals piled into a container made of black fishnet.