Brain Trust

by A W Hartoin

  “He’s in custody for throwing a hissy fit on a plane. My hair is the least of his worries.”

  Mom clenched her jaw and Fats said quickly, “I’ll cut it.”

  “Nobody’s cutting my hair,” I said. “Enough.”

  There was a knock on the door and a gentle voice said, “Excuse me.”

  Grandad went to the door and I heard him exclaim, “Avery, my brother, how are you? Good. Good. He’s one of us, boys.”

  He came back into the room with a man I recognized from Dad’s days on the force, but his full name escaped me.

  Mom sat up and smiled. “Avery, how sweet of you to come.”

  Avery gave Mom a bunch of glorious, enormous daisies. “Ace called me. Is there anything I can do? I’m all yours.”

  Tiny pulled up a chair for Mom’s visitor and it was a good thing, too. Avery wasn’t looking so good. I remembered him as a stocky guy with a full head of curly black hair and a booming laugh. Dad described him as an excellent detective, but they didn’t work together that much.

  Now Avery’s hair was thinning and not so well-kept. He’d lost a ton of weight and I doubted laughing was in his near future.

  “You remember my daughter, Mercy?” asked Mom.

  “Of course. How could I forget?” Avery shook my hand and Mom went on to introduce the rest of the group. She called Fats Mary Elizabeth and I saw a flicker of recognition in Avery’s eyes, but he said nothing.

  He and Mom started talking about her condition. Avery’s brother had had a similar stroke and recovered very well. His words seemed to fluff Mom up. She needed good news so bad.

  Tiny and Fats excused themselves under the guise of getting coffee. From the look in their eyes, I doubted coffee was on the menu.

  “Bring me some,” I said with a smirk that hurt my mouth.

  “Yeah, yeah,” said Tiny, rushing out and dragging Fats with him.

  I rolled my eyes and found Avery looking at me. “I have to ask. What happened to you?”

  Mom told him about Hunt and I put the ice pack on my lip while texting Pete, saying I needed antibiotics. He said he’d be up in a half hour or so.

  “It sounds like you’re getting closer,” said Avery to me.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe.”

  “Tommy keeps me up-to-date. I know all about your abilities. I’m sure you’re close.”

  “My dad talks about me?”

  Mom crossed her arms. “Of course, he does.”

  I wasn’t sure what to do with that. Dad seemed to think I wasn’t very good at anything. Chuck was his favorite child and he wasn’t even related.

  “Okay,” I said. “So how have you been?”

  “Mercy! What a thing to ask,” said Mom.

  Avery patted Mom’s hand. “It’s fine, Carolina. It’s been over three months.”

  “Dixie still struggles with Gavin’s death,” said Mom. “And the man is in prison.”

  That’s when I remembered. Avery was Avery Sampson. His wife, Lainie, was killed in a drive-by shooting in College Hill on the North side of St. Louis. She’d been delivering Meals on Wheels to the elderly. My parents went to the funeral and I remembered how upset they were.

  “They never caught anyone?” I asked.

  “No,” said Avery, seeming to shrink in his chair. “It was gang-related. Lainie was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s a real mess up there and no one will say who it was for fear of retribution.”

  “They have no leads at all?” asked Mom.

  “The detectives, Conn and Bartlett, think it may have been a gang initiation, but of course, they can’t prove it.”

  “I don’t understand. I thought it was random.”

  “They think it was, but whoever did it was out to kill someone. The shots weren’t sprayed at the car haphazardly.”

  Mom took his hand and rubbed it. “It’s not over. New leads happen all the time. They get a weapon off a robbery suspect and you’re in business.”

  “That’s what I’ve been praying for,” said Avery.

  Gang-related. Targeted.

  A feeling came over me, a Tommy Watts kind of feeling. Something wasn’t right. Who targets a sixty-year-old woman for a gang initiation? Killing Lainie Sampson in her car at a distance would hardly make some young punk a bad ass, which I assumed was what they were going for.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “I’m going to get my own coffee. Anybody want some?”

  Avery said yes, but Mom said she was holding out for Aaron’s next delivery and so was Grandad. I went out and found an empty room to call Spidermonkey in. I would’ve called Uncle Morty, but I wanted him on the encryption. Plus, I didn’t want to hear the crabbing. Spidermonkey was usually happy to hear from me and that would be welcome for a change.

  “I’m so glad you called,” he said in his comforting way and I instantly relaxed. No yelling. Sweet.

  “Sorry,” I said. “It’s been crazy.”

  “I know. How’s the lip?”

  “It’s fine. Sort of. How did you know?” I asked.

  He laughed and said, “I have sources. You know that. Did you read the file?”

  I blanked and he could tell. “Dr. Bloom’s file.”

  “Right. Sorry. I didn’t, but I will. When did you contact him?”

  “After I made sure he was no danger to you and the good Dr. Bloom is exactly what he says he is. I found the police report on the office break-in. His files on WWII were stolen back in the eighties. All was correct. He’s very well-respected in the world of military history, particularly with the Resistance in France, Belgium, and The Netherlands.”

  “Good,” I said.

  “But that’s not what you called about,” said Spidermonkey.

  “No. I need a little research done. Nothing big.”

  “On your mother’s case?”

  “Sort of. On Lainie Sampson.”

  Spidermonkey remembered the case, but he’d had no reason to look into it. I gave him one. I asked him to see who the detectives interviewed on the case, in particular, gang members. Then I wanted to know if any of them had a connection to Waylon Parks. I explained my theory of the timeline, the FBI, and the Unsubs.

  He was quiet for a time. Unlike Uncle Morty, Spidermonkey was more quiet consideration than pounding the keyboard. “You’re trying to get to the killer through the back door, so to speak.”

  “Through his accomplice. Yeah,” I said. “You don’t like it?”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I hope you’re wrong.”

  “About the FBI?”

  “I want there to be a better explanation for them holding back your father than self-protection,” he said.

  “This happens all the time. People decide that an institution has to be protected at all costs,” I said.

  “Like what the Catholic church did.”

  “Exactly, and I can’t think of a better reason.” To change the subject that was so obviously disturbing Spidermonkey, I went back to more comfortable territory. “Any idea what Dr. Bloom put in that file for me?”

  “No. But I told him about Stella’s portrait at the mansion.”

  “All of it, the flower and its name?”

  “Yes. He was very intrigued and said he would go through his files.”

  Someone down the hall called my name and I told him I had to go. He said he’d see what he could dig up on Lainie Sampson’s murder and I had a feeling that wouldn’t be the end of it. Like all hackers, Spidermonkey was intensely curious about nearly everything. He wouldn’t let the FBI thing go. He couldn’t.

  I went into the hall and saw Fats charging down toward me. She stopped short and said, “Don’t do that.”

  “I’m fine. I just needed a moment.”

  Avery Sampson and Grandad left Mom’s room and Tiny hurried to take their place. They came over to me and we said goodbye. Grandad said he’d walk him to the elevator.

  Fats and I trailed them down the hall, stopping at Mom’s door and watching th
em go. Avery was older than my dad but younger than Grandad, but you wouldn’t have thought that from the stoop in his broad shoulders. It was like he was carrying Lainie and could never set her down again.

  Grandad clapped him on the back and I heard him say, “I never thought this would happen to the best and the brightest.”

  “Not so untouchable now,” said Avery and then they were out of earshot.

  Fats looked down at me. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “If you’re thinking Lainie getting killed by a mysterious gangbanger is an odd coincidence, then yes.”

  The cops looked at us. “Who got killed?” asked the one on the right. His name tag said Weiss.

  “Avery Sampson’s wife,” I said.

  “Oh, yeah,” said the other one, named Spitz. “You never think something like that could happen to people like them.”

  Fats raised an eyebrow. “People like them?”

  The cops got a little nervous. “You know, top-flight detectives. They seem untouchable.”

  “Nothing gets to them,” said Spitz.

  “The wife’s dying did,” said Weiss. “He’s not the same man. How’s Tommy doing with this?” He inclined his head toward Mom’s room.

  “I barely got to talk to him, but he knows what’s happened. You know him?”

  “Not well, but he was a great cop,” said Spitz. “That’s why we volunteered for this assignment.”

  “It’s not right what the Feds are doing to him.”

  “You know about that?” asked Fats.

  They nodded. “Everybody knows. Pretty damn obvious,” said Weiss. “Have you got a plan? We’d love to help.”

  “I’ve got the beginnings of a plan.” I turned around. “I have to get something.”

  “Then I do too,” said Fats.

  I couldn’t shake her, not that I tried that hard. And she turned out to be handy, as usual. Nobody likes to say no to Fats Licata. I asked for a surgical tray with forceps, tweezers, bandage scissors, and a scalpel. Your basic kit.

  “You’re not going to try and stitch that chin, are you?” asked Daphne, who was a little braver than the rest.

  “Nope,” I said. “I’ve got a little project I need to work on.”

  “Well, we don’t usually—”

  Fats coughed and I got my tray posthaste. We hurried back to the room and I asked her, “Do you enjoy scaring people?”

  “Not always.”

  The cops were very curious about my tray, but I wasn’t ready to let anyone but family in on it. Fats counted as family in my book. I guess I had a lot of my dad in me. Only he would consider Uncle Morty family and make everyone do the same. Fats was a lot easier to absorb.

  “What have you got there?” asked Grandad, back from the elevator.

  “I’m going to do a little surgery,” I said.

  “On what?” asked Mom, petting Wallace rather harder than necessary.

  “Not you. Don’t panic.”

  “There are scissors. We can fix your hair,” she said cheerfully.

  “It’s not for my stupid hair.” I pulled out the packet. “It’s for evidence.”

  I set the packet on the tray, took pictures from every conceivable angle, and then set to work, carefully using the scalpel to slice open the layers of plastic. Then I clipped on the forceps to hold it open and removed the folded piece of paper with the tweezers. With two sets of tweezers, I gently unfolded the paper. The whole thing was about four inches by two inches and had a handwritten message on it in purple ink.

  Keep to the path or say goodbye to your girlfriend.

  I flipped the paper over and said, “Yes!”

  “What is that?” asked Tiny.

  “That, my cousin, is the bottom of a prescription pad.” I pointed at the Dispense as Written block and the Generic Substitution block along side the line for the signature of the Prescriber.

  “Too bad it’s not signed,” said Fats.

  “Blankenship didn’t write that,” said Grandad. “Someone threatened him.”

  Mom took my hand and pulled me close. “You’re the girlfriend.”

  “I would assume so,” I said.

  Tiny dropped down in a chair and grabbed a coffee cup, rolling it between his big hands. “But what’s the path?”

  “Probably some kind of Unsub creed.” I told them about Greta’s catatonia and the phone call she overheard.

  “They’re going to kill Blankenship once they get a load of what he handed over today,” said Fats.

  Tiny looked at my lip, glowering. “Works for me as long as they don’t hurt Mercy.”

  “Fats will take care of Mercy and we need Blankenship alive,” said Grandad. “For now.”

  “What can we do with that scrap?” asked Tiny. “They won’t release Tommy for that.”

  I smiled widely and winced. “They will if they don’t know what’s on it and we have the laptop. I say we combine the two.”

  Grandad clapped his hands together and rubbed them furiously. “I like it, but we need more information on the writer.”

  “Handwriting analysis,” said Mom. “Tommy has a guy. His information is at the house.”

  “Good. Good,” said Grandad. “But I want to know whose pad that is.”

  “Me, too,” I said, dialing my phone.

  Shelley answered and she wasn’t thrilled to hear from me, but she asked, “How’s your lip?”

  “Hurts like hell. I have a question for you.”

  She paused and then sighed. Resigned, I guess. “Fine. What is it?”

  “Do you know anyone at Hunt that uses a purple pen?”

  “That’s out of left field.”

  “Do you?”

  She spoke to someone in the background and then came back with Dr. Angelica Rohner, one of the psychiatrists at Hunt. She’d been there two years and was well-liked, if a little idealistic, hence the purple ink.

  “Does she have an office?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Prescription pads?”

  “What are you getting at?” asked Shelley.

  “Bear with me.”

  Dr. Rohner had a small office, which was always locked. Even the cleaning staff didn’t go in unless the doctor was there. It was standard procedure for Hunt with all the sensitive patient information they had. There’d been breaches in the past, journalists getting in and trying to get files on patients. There was always talk about whether certain patients ought to be in prison or in the hospital.

  “Could a staff member get into the office if they really wanted to?”

  “I suppose. Dr. Rohner leaves her keys around sometimes, but why would anyone want to?”

  “I’m not sure. Is Blankenship one of her patients?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Shelley said slowly.

  And there it is.

  “Are you still at work?”

  “Yep. Twelve-hour shift.”

  I asked her to find Dr. Rohner, get in the office and see if Blankenship’s file looked out of whack. Then I asked her to go through the trash and look for a blank prescription with the bottom cut off. She wasn’t keen on digging through trash, but I told her there was a very good reason or I wouldn’t ask. She said she’d call me back.

  My phone rang. Without thinking, I answered it. But it wasn’t Shelley. It was Spidermonkey and everyone was looking at me.

  “I’ve got something,” he said.

  “Who is it?” asked Grandad.

  Say something smart.

  “A guy.”

  Grandad frowned.

  Say something better.

  “It’s Pete,” I said. “About the antibiotics.”

  Yeah, me!

  “Did someone say my name?” asked Pete, walking in the room—not holding his phone, I might add.

  How can I be this unlucky? Seriously. How?

  “Mercy’s talking to you on the phone,” said Mom, giving me Aunt Miriam-level stink eye.

  “She’s what?” he asked.

&nbs
p; “It’s another Pete,” I said.

  Nobody bought that. It sounded stupid, even to me.

  “I’m going to go do something that is not here,” I said, dashing out of the room.

  “Mercy, I have to look at your face,” Pete called after me.

  “In a minute. I have diarrhea.” That was all I could think of. A new low point in the life of Mercy Watts. Everyone heard, including the cops at the door, Chuck and Sydney, a gaggle of nurses, and normal patient visitors who were anxious to get out of my way.

  “Mercy!” called out Chuck.

  “Bathroom!” I ran to the closest bathroom, thankfully a single-toilet room with a lock. “What did you find?”

  “You have diarrhea?”

  “No. What did you find?”

  “You’re an odd duck,” he said. “Did you know that your father and Avery Sampson were on some task forces together?”

  I went cold. “Serial killers?”

  “Yes. Three, I think.”

  “Was Waylon Parks involved?”

  “No. These were in the ‘80s, and ‘90s. One went into the 2000s, but that was before Park’s time and he wasn’t top-notch anyway. He wouldn’t have been on anything high-profile.”

  “Any connection to Shill?” I asked.

  “Not that I’ve seen, but this just popped up,” said Spidermonkey. “This is interesting. It was really just one task force, known as Collective Inquiry, but everyone called the group The Brain Trust because—”

  “They were the best and the brightest,” I said.

  “Exactly. Have you heard that somewhere?”

  “Yes, I have.” I flung open the bathroom door to find Chuck, Sydney, and Grandad standing there with amused expressions.

  “Get Avery back!”

  “What?”

  “Get Avery Sampson back here right now.”

  “Why?” asked Chuck.

  “Because he’s a member of The Brain Trust.”

  “That old task force?”

  “Yes, get him. He’s probably in the garage by now.”

  “Mercy,” Spidermonkey’s voice came out of my phone.

  “Yeah?” I said. “Can you give me the other detectives’ names?”

  “Just a second,” he said. “Here they are. Keely Stratton, Scott Frame, your dad, Gavin Flouder, and John Jameson.”