The Memory Killer (Carson Ryder, Book 11)

by J. A. Kerley

  It was one of the rare moments of levity in the case.

  Despite the investigative frenzy on a dozen fronts, the case produced no new leads, nothing from the pool, nothing from MDPD, and I had found my way to the Palace near midnight, just enough strength left to press the “up” button on the elevator, and I swear I sleep-walked the final feet of hall.

  The night seemed to blow by in seconds, and dawn was breaking through purpled cirrus when I returned to the hospital to check on Derek Scott, alone, Gershwin attending the funeral of a third cousin on his half-uncle’s side. Between his Cuban mother and Jewish father, the kid seemed related to half of Miami. I was hoping Scott’s memory was improving. Both Morningstar and Costa had said pieces might return as the botanical deliriants metabolized and left his system.

  I jumped into the elevator. As the door closed I heard, “Hold, please!” I jabbed the button as Patrick White bolted into the lift, breathing like he’d been sprinting for blocks. He leaned the wall and caught his breath.

  “You ever try walking, Patrick? Some people actually like it.”

  He grinned. “I could say the same thing to you, Detective Ryder. I think I saw you sit once. The rest of the time you either pace the floor or you’re running in or out like Usain Bolt.”

  Busted. “Some cases I get to sit and think, Patrick. For this one I need track shoes.”

  He watched the floor lights blink and cleared his throat. “I, uh … can I ask how the investigation’s going? Is that allowed?”

  I turned to him. “It affects your world, Patrick?”

  He nodded. “I’m not big on the bar scene myself – I have too much going on right now – but I have friends who spend too much time in party mode. I’m concerned for their safety.”

  “Tell your friends to keep their drinks in hand at all times. And be wary of everyone.”

  “I have been.”

  The door slid open, and we entered the long hall smelling of antiseptic. White flicked a wave and resumed his sprint, dashing to the nurses’ station to check in. I continued past the station, checking my watch as I picked up speed. It had been two hours since Scott’s admission. Morningstar was in an alcove talking to Brianna’s favorite nurse and I figured the lovely pathologist wanted to check Scott’s condition before heading to the morgue.

  She saw me and hustled over, looking stunning in a blue summer dress that showcased the long legs. Her dark hair was unbound and flowing to her bare shoulders. At the morgue or in the field it was always pulled back and held by a scrunchie or, in a pinch, a rubber band.

  “I got the lab report,” I said, trying to keep my eyes off the gorgeous pins, “with Scott’s tox screens.”

  She nodded. “Datura and robinia, but at lower levels than Kemp and Caswell, especially the robinia, which supports the idea of daily dosings in captivity. Scott was weakened but not incapacitated, and the hallucinations seem gone, though I wouldn’t want him driving for several days.”

  Others were nearby and, except for a wink, I maintained the businesslike demeanor, nodding and progressing to Scott’s room, peeking inside and watching unobserved from the hall. I was pleased to see Scott sitting up in a chair with a copy of the Herald at his side. His color had gone from gray to pink. Patrick White had come on duty, the two chatting merrily away as White held Scott’s wrist and checked his watch. “Your heart rate is down fifteen from yesterday,” White said. “To sixty. Is that close to normal?”

  “Maybe a bit higher than usual.”

  White studied Scott’s chart. I’d noted the nurse seemed totally absorbed in every case, trying to add something rather than just going through motions. It was good to see.

  “So your rate’s in mid-fifties, generally?” White said, eyeballing the pages. “That’s good. Are you athletic?”

  “I b-belong to a gym. I try to go at least three times a week. And call me Derek.”

  “Make it four gym trips, Derek, and I’ll give you the Patrick White gold star for achievement.” He hung the chart back on the bed and smiled. “Outside of that, you’re much improved. But I expect Dr Costa already told you that.”

  “I much prefer hearing it from you, Nurse White. You’re s-so much nicer.”

  Was that a shadow of flirtatiousness in Scott’s voice? White was turning to tap a shunt on Scott’s IV drip and Scott seemed to be evaluating the attractive nurse. It lasted but a split second. When White turned to his patient Scott’s eyes broke for the wall. It was the same veiled flirtation I’d given attractive nurses when I was the one in the bed, and White did what all those female nurses had done, that is, ignored it, resetting the water pitcher and glass on the bedside table.

  I shot an appraising look at Scott. One of our theories was that Donnie had an anger toward attractive males who were most likely to have more sexual activity – sex figures into a lot of things, overt or sublimated – than less gorgeous specimens. Scott blew that one out the door, unfortunately. Unlike the two other victims, attractive to the point of pretty, Scott was average shaded toward plain: widely spaced blue eyes, thick nose, flat cheekbones. Where the others were slender, he was husky and thick shouldered, and it may have been strength that helped him elude his potential captor, even as his mind raged with distortions.

  “Howdy, Derek,” I said, finally entering the room. “You’re looking good.”

  “He’s doing good,” White said, greeting me with a nod. “I think the toxins have about cleared Derek’s system.”

  I nodded at a used syringe on the bedside table. “So the antitoxin’s working?”

  “Less an antitoxin than a boost for protein synthesis,” White corrected. “But it seems to blunt the effect.”

  “Now that your head’s clear, Derek …” I pulled a chair to bedside. Patrick White nodded and raced off to his other charges. “Anything you can add to your recollections? Like your assailant’s vehicle make and model?”

  He closed his eyes and thought. “I don’t really know cars. It seemed silver … uh …” His voice sounded like he was trying to bring something into focus.

  “What, Derek?”

  “I think … I think I see a-a metal thing on back, like a b-bike rack.”

  “Bike rack.” I jotted it into my notes. It jived with a work-out type and I’d have the pool guys take Donnie’s pics to bike shops. Anything.

  “I’m not sure. It could have been on a car nearby, or a luggage rack or—”

  “It’s all right, Derek. You were messed up.”

  “I want to stop this bastard.” There was sudden anger in his voice. “I hated being taken so … so easily.”

  “We’ll nail him, Derek, with your help. Do you recall the vehicle’s interior color?”

  “Buh-black or at least dark. But it was night.”

  “And the parking lot had turned into a swimming pool,” I grinned, trying to move him past anger, which muddied recollections.

  “Yeah,” Scott nodded, a small smile returning. “Th-that too.”

  I pulled out the photo sheet. “This still seems the face?”

  He winced. “He seemed big, too. Tall. Strong.”

  “Any idea about weight or build?” I needed as much confirmation of Donnie’s size as possible, concerned about a future trial using witnesses with hallucinogen-influenced minds.

  “It’s still fuzzy and—” He paused, pointed out the door. “There. The guy who just went past. He s-seems about the size.”

  I saw a blue-garbed orderly pushing an empty gurney down the hall. “Hey, partner,” I called, jogging after him. “Do me a favor and step back here a sec, would you?”

  He shrugged and followed me to Scott’s room.

  “This?” I said to Scott, nodding at the perplexed orderly.

  Scott walked to the guy, looked up. “He reminds me of the guy somehow. He was taller, I’m sure.” Scott held his hands three feet apart. “And his chest seemed huge.”

  The orderly carried a chest more barrel than flat, and wide shoulders. It was how I expected
Gary Ocampo would look if he lost a couple hundred pounds. Was Scott’s subconscious speaking again?

  “How tall are you?” I asked the orderly. “Weight?”

  “Six three. Two forty, give or take. What do I win?”

  “My eternal gratitude,” I said, sending him back to his labors. “A confirmation of our suspicions,” I told Scott. “Anything else coming through?”

  He stared at his hands a long time, thinking. Then turned up his arms and studied his forearms. “I saw … drawings. One on each arm. Maybe it was when we were …” He squeezed his eyes tight. “I think he tried to choke me, then hit me with s-something. I saw the inside of his arms.”

  “Tattoos?”

  “Inside … the elbow. The same thing, but one was ruh-red, the other blue. I’m trying to get them in focus.”

  I reached to my briefcase for another sheet of paper, the one where I had taken a black Sharpie and replicated the scratchings found on the victims’ backs. “Like this?” I said.

  “That’s it!” He stared wide-eyed like I’d performed magic. “Gemini. The Twins.”

  “Gemini?”

  “Except for the circles or whatever on top, they were like Gemini symbols. One was red, the other, uh, blue.” He adjusted his thumb and forefinger to the size of a quarter. “Abuh-bout this size, I guess.”

  “How do you know that? The symbols?”

  Scott did sheepish. “I used to be into astrology, getting my birth chart made, ch-checking forecasts before I did anything major. Cost a fortune. These day I think it’s pretty much b-bunk, though I uh, check the paper for the daily forecast.” He took another look at the symbol and raised an eyebrow. “You know what the top part reminds me of, Detective?”

  “An infinity symbol?”

  “Looked at one way, sure. But if you look at it another way, it’s like two p-people kissing.”

  I looked. It was like one of those optical illusions where you don’t see a shape until someone suggests it, then it’s all you see. I thanked Scott for his time and went to disseminate the information to Ruiz and beyond.

  Morningstar was still at the station and I wondered if she was getting psyched for the big jump. She waved me over, like the big eyes didn’t have a gravity of their own. The intern waved and hustled away.

  “He give you anything useful?” she asked.

  “We’ve now got an identifying feature: tattoos. And an idea how Ocampo looks, at least for now. It also appears one methodology is to dose the vics in a bar – like we thought – and follow them until they start to become disoriented, when he lures them into his vehicle.”

  “Bold, but appearing benign? Doesn’t that also say something about his personality?”

  I nodded at her insight. “It says that when he feels in control, he’s fearless. Also that he can portray himself as harmless, perhaps even charming. Both are hallmark traits of an intelligent sociopath, by the way.”

  Her cell rang and she pulled it from her pocket, answered, listened, said, “Thanks, I’ll tell him.”

  “That was the lab, Carson. The scrapings from beneath Scott’s nails? The DNA came from Donnie Ocampo. But you knew that, didn’t you?”

  We had another piece of evidence. Now all we needed was Ocampo.

  After giving the pool detectives the heads-up on bike possibilities, I headed to Roy’s office to give him an update. He was tucking a shiny black fishing reel into a box on his desk, the Miami skyline shadowed and dramatic in the window at his back.

  “A new Hatch Finatic 7,” he said, lofting the box. “Maybe one of these days we can get out and test it.”

  I sat in the chair before his wide, clean desk. “We caught a break on the abductions.”

  He tossed the box aside. “Gimme, gimme.”

  I laid out the latest: Donnie’s stealth and aggressiveness, the dark vehicle, maybe a bike rack, and especially the tats.

  “The twins?” Roy said. “That for real?”

  “Scott saw the sign for Gemini before he saw an infinity sign.”

  “And kissing, too. You believe his memory about the ink?”

  “He saw one sign as blue, the other as red. That may be the drug. But I’m convinced Donnie’s twin-tatted himself. It fits.”

  “Why does Scott remember and the others don’t?” he said.

  “Scott had a single dose, the knock-down dose. The others were pumped with the stuff on a daily basis. Plus Morningstar says the toxins affect people differently. Body chemistry, weight, age, all can make a difference. Scott weighs twenty pounds more than any of the other victims. Scott got lucky.”

  “Otherwise Scott might now be somewhere getting his head pumped full of nasty visions?”

  “The victims are subjected to days of induced delirium. Lingering hallucinations could destroy a trial. Even if a victim points to Ocampo in a courtroom, a smart lawyer will prove the witness remains prone to mental instability, an open door to reasonable doubt.”

  “How about Scott?”

  “Right after Scott testified that his abductor resembled Donnie Ocampo, cross-examination would reveal that seconds before seeing Donnie, Scott saw a swimming pool where there was a parking lot.”

  “Think Ocampo figured this all out beforehand? Tell me it was accidental.”

  “Donnie is Gary’s exact replica, and Gary Ocampo’s made a good living by selling comic books. He knows the market and plays it like a first-rate stock-picker. He’s shrewd and canny, and leverages it to his advantage. I figure Donnie is just as smart.”

  Roy sighed. “Scott’s memories are messed up, right? Even though he got away?”

  I nodded. “Scott got lucky. We didn’t.”

  I started to the door but Roy called to my back. I turned. “Correct me if I’m wrong, bud. But doesn’t Scott’s escape mean Donnie’s now got an empty space on his dance card?”

  27

  I was heading to my office when my phone went off. When I saw the name DONNA. I cut into the restroom, ducked into a stall and hit the Talk button, hoping she’d been able to come through.

  “You answer your own phone down there at the FCLE, Carson?” the amused voice said. “I figured you’d have a secretary for that. Or a valet.”

  “Funny, Donna.”

  Three days back I’d called Donna Cherry of the Kentucky State Police, a special investigator now based in Jackson, Kentucky, about thirty-five miles from Jeremy’s mountain hideaway. When Jeremy had lured me to Kentucky several years ago, I’d found myself involved in a local case. Cherry and I had started out as adversaries and evolved into something altogether different. I had called to ask a favor: that she personally contact Dr Auguste Charpentier and request he call me. She knew Jeremy only as a retired professor of psychology who had provided a bit of assistance on the case, and assumed I wanted to re-establish contact with a question about a new case. Of course, what I wanted was for Jeremy to open his door to a cop asking that he call me.

  It would make my point: I’m serious.

  “Like I said,” Cherry continued, “I’ve seen Doc Charpentier a time or two, once at the Campton library, once at the grocery in Stanton. He was his usual reserved, polite self. Plus he looked super great, like he’d been working out. But then, he was always a kind of sexy dude …” She paused. “For a middle-aged guy, of course.”

  As Charpentier, Jeremy used simple tricks to age himself. Though almost forty-five, my brother’s clear blue eyes and flawless skin made him appear closer to my age of thirty-nine. Charpentier looked in his mid-fifties.

  “You finally got a chance to personally pass on my message?”

  “I needed to run down the Mountain Parkway into Slade, so I dropped by his place. You’ve got bad luck, my friend. That big ol’ cabin was as empty as a ghost town. I peeked in every downstairs window. The only thing inside were echoes.”

  “Damn,” I whispered, feeling my heart sink.

  “I stopped by the local post office. He cancelled his box last week and left no forwarding address. You mi
ssed him by days, hours maybe.”

  “Nothing to say where he’s headed, Donna?”

  “Zippo. I figure he got tired of retirement and took another university position, Crown Prince of Oxford University, maybe. Charpentier had way too much candlepower to wither away in the woods, Carson. That guy could be anything he wanted.”

  Debro flicked on the lights and peered through the window in the metal door. Jacob Eisen was naked on the floor and seemed to be trying to swim. But instead of a foamy path in his wake, he was leaving blood. It looked like someone had followed him with a paint-smeared mop, spreading red in a foot-wide swash.

  Eisen stopped paddling and tried to push up on his arms, his mouth, chin and chest glistening red. His hands slipped in the scarlet viscosity and his face banged to the linoleum. One of Eisen’s trembling fingers slid into the red hole of his mouth, digging deep until stopped by his thumb.

  His eyes grew as wide as if seeing a demon and he tried to crawl from the hideous vision, slipping and sliding in his own fluid, blood spattering from his mouth as screams came out in a red and silent spray.

  Debro stood at the window, but his mind was far away, tumbling back in time and as it tumbled, his body grew round and clumsy and his knees quivered with its weight. His hands swelled until his fingers were as plump as sausages, his knuckles like dimples in the fat …

  the hands atop a barroom table with a half-consumed daiquiri beside them.

  “Hey, you,” calls a voice from a dozen feet away. “Yeah, you – Chubby. Does your ass beep when you back up?”

  He’s in a bar trying to make friends. It’s late and the boys at a table across the way have noticed him. They’re tough boys in paint-tight jeans and leather jackets, hard little monsters who make themselves big by making others small. Debro had seen them noticing him and laughing among themselves, but it’s the wiry boy with hard dark eyes under kinked red hair who’s been laughing the hardest. He’s the leader. The others are as meaningless as dust.