by Kay Wyont
“Okay, thanks.”
“What do you suppose is on those tapes?” Gloria asked.
“We’ll find out. Someone at the department will go over them. If we can find anything at all, we’ve got him.”
“I heard you tell him that he was under arrest for possession of drugs.”
“You heard that?” Randy asked, immediately concerned. If she heard that, did Higgins hear Frank whispering in the hallway?
“Sound travels pretty well down that hall when I crack the door open just a bit.”
Randy rolled his eyes. “You are so sneaky.”
“Was that LSD in those vials, like they found in Saul?”
“Yes, ma’am. I won’t say much more than that, but it was LSD.”
“You probably need to look up information about MKUltra. It was a secret project from the 1950s, and I know the CIA used it in conjunction with LSD to try to control people’s actions. Maybe that’s what he was doing.”
Danny looked at her in surprise. “Now, how do you know that?”
Gloria shrugged. “I did a little research after they found LSD in Saul’s system. I wanted to see if LSD could cause someone to do something bad. It took a while, but I ended up reading about the CIA using LSD in their MKUltra project.”
“You positive you don’t want a badge? You’d sure make a great detective,” Randy replied.
“I’ll pass. But thank you for the compliment.”
“Personally, I think you should consider acting,” Frank told her. “You had me thoroughly convinced you were surprised to see us.”
“Thank you. Now you gentlemen go find Susan, and I’ll wait out here in one of those comfortable chairs in the waiting room. Call me if you need anything. I promise not to eavesdrop. Now that the doctor is gone, I’m quitting the spy game.”
“Thank you, Gloria,” Randy replied.
“Man, she is something else,” Frank said as they went back down the hallway. “I’d sure hate for her to have been my mother. I wouldn’t have gotten away with anything.”
“Actually, I think I’d like her for mine. If I got in trouble, I’m pretty sure she’d figure a way out,” Danny said. “Yep, I’d definitely want her on my side.”
“Me, too.” Randy poked his head through doorways until he found Susan in the projector room. “What’s up?”
“Would you do me a favor, Danny?”
“Of course. What is it?”
“Sit down.” Susan pointed at the chair bolted to the floor.
“Okay, what now?”
“Hold on a sec.” Susan brought a box over. Almost before Randy could process what she was pulling out, she slipped straps onto Danny’s arms and secured him to the chair.
“Really? Where did you find those?” Danny nervously eyed the straps.
“In that secret room.”
“I figured you guys found it when I saw Marty carrying out the reels,” Danny said.
“I’ll say this for him. Higgins is good. I’m amazed Gloria found it, when I didn’t. It’s very well hidden.”
Randy laughed. “When did this become a competition? She thought she noticed a difference in the floor plan and searched until she found the cause. Her Spy vs Spy lessons paid off.”
“I saw something she probably didn’t think anything about, though, so we’re even. And if you weren’t as smart as you are, Randy, we might be in big trouble.”
“I appreciate the compliment, but what are you talking about?”
“There’s another door inside the room. It locks from this side, so you can’t open it from the other side unless you have a key to the deadbolt, and then you’d still have to get past the swing arm guard at the bottom of the door. It connects to the beauty shop next door. Under the original floor plan of this strip mall, that was probably their storage room, since both rooms are about the same size. I guess they just built super small storage rooms. Dr. Higgins must have worked out a deal to get both of the rooms and created the moving panel in the connecting wall.”
Frank still looked confused. “I guess that makes sense, but why is Randy so smart?”
“He had the forethought to get a second warrant,” Susan explained. “If we’d stayed with the original, Dr. Higgins had a chance at getting the search thrown out in court, unless we could find the paperwork saying it was his. A small chance, but a chance, nonetheless. We’d have his laptop, but we wouldn’t have the film, or these straps.”
“Speaking of straps, my arms are going numb. I understand they might be important, but so what? Why am I sitting here?” Danny asked.
“Sorry, I got distracted.” Susan produced another set of straps and bound his legs to the chair. “I also found these.”
“You could have just told me about them,” he said. “I really can’t move now.”
“That’s the point. One more.” Susan secured his head to the backrest of the chair. “Comfy?”
“Not really. What’s the point of all this?”
“I don’t know, but I think it’s rather cool.” Randy pulled out his cell phone and snapped a quick picture. “This will look nice on the bulletin board, don’t ya think?”
“If you want to die, then you just go right ahead and post it.” Danny tried to twist in the chair. “Get me out of here, Susan.”
“It might almost be worth it! Thanks, Susan,” Randy said as he studied the photo. “I’ve dreamed about doing something like that to him for years. Now if you have a gag in that box, we’re in business.”
“Sorry, no gag. He does look rather cute all strapped in, don’t you think?” She stood back to admire her handiwork. “You know, we could probably blackmail him. He’d pay big bucks so we wouldn’t show it to his wife. I’ll bet she doesn’t know he’s into bondage.”
“Unless you plan on permanently leaving me here, I hope you know what will happen when I get out. If I get out.” Danny unsuccessfully tried to escape again. Finally giving up, he said, “Okay, I give. Let me out. I’ll pay you. I’ve got about seventeen dollars in my wallet. It’s yours if you’ll undo these.”
“Not yet,” Susan said. “Sorry, Danny, but I needed a guinea pig. Just one more thing, I promise.”
“If you pull a whip out of that box, I’m going to kill you.” Danny warily eyed his captor.
“Nope. But watch this.” Susan flipped the projector on.
A waterfall flashed up on screen, peaceful and serene.
“That’s nice.” Danny said.
Next was a quiet forest, then children on a playground, then a lovely beach.
A more sinister character with wads of cash handing bags of white powder through the fence to waiting school children appeared.
“Oh.” Danny grimaced, but he couldn’t move. “At least the waterfall is back.”
The pictures flipped by in sequence, faster now. Waterfall, forest, children, beach, drug dealer. Again. The speed increased, and new pictures showed up in the sequence. Addicts strung out in the gutter, then more dealers. The pictures changed every few seconds now. Waterfall, forest, people shooting heroin, children on the playground... The ugly side of drug use was prominently displayed among shots of schools.
Now adults appeared to be injecting students. I wonder where Higgins found photographs like that. Randy was drawn to the pictures, unable to turn away.
VIA buses drove down dark alleys, the gaunt faces of druggies pressed against the glass.
Children’s faces, screaming, crying.
Scrolling so fast it was hard to focus.
Mesmerizing, hypnotizing.
Randy shut his eyes and turned away. “Turn it off, Susan.”
They basked in the quiet for a moment.
“That really gets to you, doesn’t it?” Frank said. He had also turned away.
Susan knelt in front of Danny to undo the straps. “How did that feel, Danny? Did it bother you?”
“More than you can imagine,” he replied, rubbing his eyes. “I wanted to turn away, but with my head strapped to the chair, I
couldn’t. All I could do was close my eyes. Even with them closed, though, the lights kept flashing every time the picture changed. The faster they went, the more irritating it was. It’s a good thing I’m not epileptic. All that flashing would’ve brought on a seizure.”
“Well, you can thank me for one thing. I didn’t take it as far as I could have.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look at this.” She held up a box of Steri-Strips.
“Isn’t that what they put on small cuts when they’re not bad enough to need stitches?” Frank asked.
“Yup. But I would be willing to bet the good doctor used them to hold his clients’ eyelids open. They couldn’t close their eyes like Danny did.”
“Remind me to buy you something chocolaty as a thank you for not using them,” Danny said. “If I hadn’t closed my eyes, I’m pretty sure I’d have wigged out.”
“Why in the world would someone let Higgins do that to them? I mean, they came here to lose weight, not get tortured,” Frank said. “What’s he say? ‘Hi, welcome to my clinic. Do you mind if I brainwash you while you’re strapped to a chair?’ How’s that even work? Who in their right mind would agree to something like that?”
“If I had to guess, I’d say they didn’t know what he was doing. LSD first, straps second. He had to have used it before he got them in that.” Randy looked at the chair again. Anything to get his mind off those pictures still scrolling through his head. “That certainly explains why the chair is bolted down. He didn’t want them thrashing around and moving the chair to where they couldn’t see the screen. I’d be willing to bet that’s the film he showed Saul Young, since his greatest fear was drugs. If Saul thought the bus was full of drug dealers and he needed to save the children, he might drive it off an overpass.”
“That’s a good bet. Look here.” Susan tapped a number inked onto the reel. “Seven. While Marty was getting the tapes, I got the laptop and the notebook you mentioned. I noticed each person in the notebook has numbers under the name. Saul is number seven. I think that references the films. Based on that and the number of reels we found, I’m guessing there are multiple films for each client. They probably increased in intensity the further he went into the sessions. Who knows how awful they got by the final film? That could warp anybody.”
“Yeah.” Randy grimaced. I can’t wait to see this monster put away for good. “That’ll make it easier on us, at least. We match up the films with the notebook and see if it tracks. Sure looks like we’ve got him dead to rights. Higgins may have thought he could outsmart the cops, but he didn’t count on Gloria. He’s going to have a hard time squirming out of this one. Anything on the laptop?”
“I don’t know.” Susan retrieved the laptop from her box. “He’s smart enough to have it password protected on wakeup. They’ll have to crack it at the station.”
“Hang on.” Randy left the room.
Danny was still rubbing the marks on his arms when Randy returned. “Can we use the straps on Higgins? Make him watch us present the evidence against him? Please?”
Randy chuckled. “If you can find a judge who will allow that, I’m all for it. I’m going to take great pleasure in proving he’s not as smart as he thinks.” Randy grabbed the laptop and sat in the unbolted chair, balancing the computer on his lap. He opened the cover, typed a few keystrokes, then proudly turned the screen around for all to see. “Ta da!”
Danny stared in amazement. “How’d you know his password? Was he stupid enough to use ‘password’ even though everyone knows that’s a bad idea?”
“Nope,” Randy said with a grin. “IM2gd4EV1. That’s his password.”
Susan’s brow furrowed. “I said you were smart, Randy, but when did you develop Kreskin-like abilities?”
Randy waved the sticky note like a tiny, yellow flag. “I found this yesterday. Took me a while to realize what it was, but it finally dawned on me it was probably a password. I left it there in case he noticed it was missing.”
“Crap! You mean I missed that, too?” Susan rubbed her temples in frustration. “I may have to find another line of work. Amateurs and detectives are more observant than I am.”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself. I almost missed it, too. He stuck it to the backside of the blotter. Unless you lifted the blotter completely up, you wouldn’t notice it.”
“Maybe, but I should have found it,” Susan grumbled.
“What do you think that stands for?” Danny asked. “'Imagine twice guarding for everyone? That doesn’t make much sense.”
“I meant to get drunk for every venture I won?” Frank got in on the game. “That won’t work. There’s no ‘I’ in there.”
Susan rolled her eyes in disgust. “Geez! I am too good for everyone. What’s wrong with you two?”
“And...she’s back! Took me a few tries to get that, Susan.”
Marty stepped into the doorway. “I’ve got everything ready to go. You guys through? I want to get that laptop downtown, so they can try and figure out the password.”
“Randy’s one step ahead of us.” Susan handed him the laptop and tapped the note stuck to the cover. “Higgins wrote it down.”
“What an idiot!” Marty shook his head in disbelief.
“Go on and head to the station, Marty. I want to make one final check before I leave. I’ll bring the box of straps with me.”
Marty gave Susan a quick salute and hurried off.
“Okay if I ride back with you guys?” Susan asked.
“It’s fine with me,” Randy said, “but Danny’s driving today. I’m not sure he’s forgiven you yet.”
“Danny, may I please ride back with you? I’m sorry.”
“Sure, but only if we can stop for lunch on the way. My stomach is seriously queasy, and I need to put something in it.” Danny couldn’t stop rubbing his arms and eyes.
“As long as we do Sonic so we can sit in the car and eat,” Randy said. “We’ll have evidence in the vehicle, and I don’t want to do anything Higgins can use against us, like having a sloppy chain of control. I really want to nail this guy.”
“You’re not alone. Watch that box while I do a quick check.”
Susan hurried out and Randy heard a door opening. Chuckling, he turned to the other men. “She’s paranoid now. Wouldn’t surprise me if she’s taking apart the toilet to see if there’s something she missed. While we’re waiting, you want to watch a few more tapes?”
“No!” Danny and Frank yelled in unison.
“Okay. Well, I guess we’ll just cool our heels until she comes.”
“Fine. But I’m not sitting in that bolted chair. Nothing good can come from that.” Danny sat in the other chair and stubbornly crossed his arms.
“Killjoy!” Randy paced the room, not willing to sit in the chair himself. ‘I am too good for everyone.’ Not this time, Doc!
Susan came back empty handed. “Nothing else.” She grabbed the last box of evidence and they headed to the front. “This is the weirdest thing I’ve seen, and you know we’ve seen a lot of strange stuff. It’s bad enough that people got killed, but he’s also destroyed the lives of his victims, those that are still alive, that is. I know I’d sure have a hard time living with what I did if I was one of them.”
“So would I. At least now it looks like we’ll be able to give them an explanation as to why they did it, so that might help. And, it certainly isn’t their fault.” Randy opened the door to the reception area. “We’re all through here, Gloria.”
“Okay. Thank you. I’ll lock up.”
“We’re the ones who should be thanking you. Again. By the way, they’re putting you in for the Citizen Hero award. I wanted to let you know. But it won’t be until we find out if we can put him away. If we can’t, they won’t. We don’t want him to know of your involvement. It’s too dangerous.”
“That’s not necessary, Randy. Just clear my son’s name. That’s really all I care about.”
“I know. And we’re certainly going to do our be
st. I think we probably have a good chance of that now, thanks to your help.” Randy smiled fondly at his co-conspirator.
“Did you get the laptop and notebook?”
“Yes. Susan found them in his office.”
“Thank goodness!” Gloria put her hand over her heart and breathed a sigh of relief. “I knew he had the laptop with him, but I wasn’t sure about the notebook. Is there anything else you need from me?”
“Just call his lawyer, if you haven’t already, then lock up and go home. Don’t do anything that would draw suspicion.”
“You’ll let me know if they find anything that clears Saul, won’t you?”
“I’ll let you know everything I can,” Randy replied. “I promise.”
“Okay, that’s good enough for me.”
“Again, thank you for all your help, Gloria,” Randy said. “We wouldn’t be halfway as far along as we are without you. You should be proud of what you did.”
“And, remember, if you ever decide to open a detective agency, let us know,” Danny said. “We’ll send clients your way.”
Gloria’s smile turned sad. “Thanks, but it’ll be good to get back to medical transcription. At least those doctors are trying to cure people, not kill them.”
SIXTEEN
After lunch, Susan went her way and the others headed up to see Chief Sanchez. His door was open, but his computer screen absorbed his full attention. Randy tapped on the door jamb. “Chief? Are we interrupting you?”
Without looking up, Sanchez motioned for them to come in. “Check this out.”
“What are we looking at?” Danny asked as they moved around the desk.
“This is one of the videos from Higgins’ laptop. Forensics sent it to me. Evidently, he filmed the sessions and this one is Caldwell. Looks like our brainwashing theory was on the mark. You can see part of the images flashing on the projector screen. Happy families, then pictures of someone beating a child, happy family, parents yelling at kids, happy, abuse, et cetera. You get the gist. It speeds up like that. Kinda hypnotizes you. This is my second time through. Wanted to see if I missed anything.”
“At the risk of stealing your thunder, we already know that.” With a heavy sigh, Randy sank into a chair.
