Irrefutable Proof: Mars Origin I Series Book II

by Abby L. Vandiver

  Yes, I was planning on Professor Abelson going to jail, (“if, in fact, she did kill him,” Greg kept reminding me). And, I was going to use her and make her, if I had to, help me decipher the Voynich Manuscript. She did say she could decode anything.

  Addie, of course, was of a different mind. She not only didn’t trust Professor Abelson, she thought she was too dangerous. But most of all, she said she couldn’t believe anything Professor Abelson had deciphered and didn’t want me to use whatever she had. Addie believed that probably the only thing Professor Abelson had written in her translation notebook was redrum, redrum, redrum, redrum, redrum . . .

  Chapter Forty

  Cleveland Heights, Ohio

  I had planned on being in New Haven a week, but seeing as soon as I showed up at Beinecke they turned me around and showed me the door, I only had stayed two days.

  So, I went back to work the day after I got home. I spent the morning and early afternoon trying to catch up on what I missed over the last week. I wanted to clear everything up because I planned on reading the Book of Enoch, in Ge’ez, and the Latin/Hebrew/Aramaic version, from cover to cover, again, and find out exactly what Dr. Sabir saw as proof.

  So, it wasn’t until about two o’clock in the afternoon that I finally took a break and decided t0mgo out to grab something to eat. I knew I wouldn’t be going home before six or seven that evening. But before I could get out the door, I got a letter marked urgent.

  Who marks a letter urgent?

  When I opened it, I found a note. A single page, handwritten note. In Sanskrit. Perfect Sanskrit.

  Of course, I went back and sat down. I wanted to translate it. I didn’t recognize the handwriting on the note, so I quickly looked at the envelope. No return address. No postage. Was it hand delivered?

  Each line written like it was a poem. But whoever wrote it knew that I would never be able to translate the words exactly the same as it was written. With Sanskrit being such an old language, there were too many words that could have the same meaning.

  But some things came through loud and clear. Because they also knew, whoever wrote it, that I knew the world of the Bible and the Vedas.

  It started ‘A renegade’s route’, or it could be translated path . . . Certainly, I was that renegade.

  And sleeping outside the garden’s wall being the cause of a fall . . . That couldn’t mean anything but the Garden of Gethsemane.

  But who was my Judas?

  They wrote, Apauruşeya. Not by humans. Śruti tat upari smṛti . . . Heard above that remembered. That meant, as I understood it, that I should just concern myself with what I learn from my excavations and not any of these stories I’d heard. Siitha . . . belonging above the world.

  Mars?

  And then they had written ‘death.’

  My death.

  There were no two ways about what that said.

  It was a warning. Warning me to do what? Or was it “what not to do.”

  I sat dumfounded. I pulled out a curl of my hair, twirled it around my finger, let go and found another strand to twist.

  This couldn’t be good.

  Maybe it was Professor Abelson. She was a professor of Semitic.

  But that didn’t include Sanskrit.

  Maybe it was a conspiracy plot. Those old thoughts came gushing up from somewhere I thought no longer existed within the confines of my soul. Someone definitely wanted me dead. This was not my imagination.

  Jack had almost taken a bullet I’m sure was meant for me. This time, my murder and mayhem theories were coming true.

  I looked down at the letter again. It was definitely a warning. Not directly quoted, but it was parts from the Book of Enoch, the Holy Bible when Jesus went into the Garden of Gethsemane, and part of it was taken from the Fourth Vedas. It was the Kandas, specifically verses 8-12. The Kandas was the part of the Vedas that speculated on the nature of the universe and of humans.

  Just like I was trying to do.

  I read it again.

  I felt my heart skip a beat. Reading it, I knew what it said was, “Cease your actions, Justin Dickerson. Or. You. Will. Die.”

  The phone rang. “Oh, my God.” I grabbed my chest.

  It was Claire and Addie. Addie was just talking loudly in the background. I thought I heard Mase’s voice too, but Addie made it hard to even hear Claire, who was actually on the line.

  Was Addie ever going back to Baltimore?

  “In the days right before the fire, two people asked about your book.” Claire told me.

  She and Addie had been doing some digging on Professor Abelson. It was triggered by Mase checking on his email. He’d seen on Today on AOL, the news stories offered by logging onto the site, that Meredith-Wilcox Publishing had burned down. An explosion, due to flammables in the basement print shop, did more damage than it would have otherwise. The fire had been determined to be arson.

  Addie, who had remembered the names of the people who were involved with my book, and Claire, had decided to check in with them. They found out that most of the staff had been killed, but Kate Gianopoulos had made it out alive, thanks to her chasing the UPS man down the street.

  “One person came in and one called on the day of the fire,” Claire said into the phone. I could hear Addie in the background, muffled, but loud none the less, saying that that was her when she had called about The Dead Sea Fish. Then Claire, not directly into the phone, said “Will you let me tell the story?

  “Kate said that on the day when the one person stopped in, UPS was there picking up the box of your books that they were shipping. The advanced copies.”

  “The ones they were sending to me,” Addie must have got closer to the phone because she didn’t sound as muffled.

  “Yeah, they were the ones Addie got because she remembered sending them to someone in Maryland,” Claire said. “Plus, those were the only advanced copies they had sent out, except for the two sent to Cleveland. I’m assuming that one was your proof copy, and I have an idea of who the other one was sent to.

  “Anyway,” Claire took a deep breath. “Kate said that about an hour or so before the UPS guy came in, a woman was there asking about your book. So, I asked her did she remember anything about the woman.”

  “Was it an old woman?” Addie jumped in again. I heard her in the background saying, “That’s what I asked her because Claire had said that Professor Abelson was old.”

  “Shh,” Claire said.

  I really didn’t even have to participate in this conversation. They were going full steam ahead without even an “uh-huh” or “really?” from me.

  “So listen to what Kate said.” Claire took in another deep breath. “Kate said, ‘Oh, I remember everything about that day. It was horrific and I’ll never forget. And yes, it was an older lady. She had a slight accent. And . . . ’” Claire paused. “And this is a big ‘and’ Justin. You listening?”

  “Yes, I’m listening. What did she say?”

  “She said the woman smelled like roses.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  I didn’t know what Simon and Hannah Abelson were up to, but I was going to find out. Come hell or high water.

  I had gone home after finding that Sanskrit note and getting the call from Addie and Claire, and had gone straight to my study. I sat there for a long time thinking about everything.

  Me getting shot at. The written warning. Ghazi being poisoned.

  I was having a hard time believing that Simon could have anything to do with us getting shot at in Jerusalem. But he sure did just show up. I needed to call him and find out exactly what was going on.

  And that Hannah Abelson - that little – old woman was a psychopath.

  I got up and closed the door to my study. I had gotten back from Connecticut with new motivation. Save the world and avenge Ghazi’s death.

  Yeah, I know. It sounded so Hollywood, big screen production like. And I was definitely not the superhero type. But I felt I could do this. I felt it down deep in my soul.
Everyday people can make a difference. Well, that’s what CNN thinks. In their quest in “searching the globe for unheralded heroes” -- CNN believed that everyday people could change the world. Except for my bouts of depression, tendencies to be overly emotional and mean, and crying all the time, I was an “everyday kind of people.” Wasn’t I?

  Whatever I was any other day, today I was the type of person that got to the bottom of stuff.

  I picked up the phone and called Simon.

  “Did you try and kill me in Israel?” was the first thing I said to him when he picked up the phone.

  “What did you say?”

  “You heard me, Simon. You show up at my hotel room, after I told you not to come to Israel. Then you leave right after my brother did. Did you follow him? Is that how you knew where I’d be. Where did you get a gun from?”

  “Whoa! Justin. Calm down. I did not try to kill you. Did someone shoot at you? It wasn’t me.”

  “Really?”

  “Why would I try to kill you, Justin? I’m trying to get you to leave your husband and be with me.” I could hear the teasing in his voice.

  “Don’t play with me, Mister. Don’t try to brush this off by trying to act like everything is okay. Like everything is back to normal between us. That we’re back to our old jokes, because we’re not. And everything isn’t okay.”

  “It’s not?”

  “No. Not after you tried to kill me.”

  “Justin. I don’t know where your brother went when he left. I stopped by your hotel room to talk to you. Because I was in Jerusalem. I swear, I had nothing to do with you getting shot at. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “C’mon, Justin. Don’t be like that. Haven’t I always been a good friend? We’ve worked on so many things together. You’ve always been able to count on me. How could you doubt me now? It was just a coincidence that I was there and someone shot at you. Justin, I would never do anything to harm you. You mean a lot to me. All kidding aside. And, I’d still do anything to help you. All you’d have to do is call.”

  Now he was quoting lines from songs.

  I really did find it hard to believe that it was Simon. I’d met him after I wrote that book. I never told him about it, but I had shared all my other work with him. And he had always been a good friend and trusted confidant. Always. Maybe I was just letting my emotions get the best of me. I needed to be more like everyday people. Calmer.

  “Okay, Simon.”

  “Okay? So you believe me?” he asked, his voice still edged with a little pleading.

  “You promise it wasn’t you?”

  “I promise.”

  Taking in a deep breath, I hung up from Simon. I believed him. But then, if it wasn’t Simon who could it have been?

  I’d worry about that later. Now I was going to deal with Hannah Abelson. Greg told me I didn’t have enough evidence for her to be charged with anything. Not even if she was the woman Kate Gianopoulos saw at the publishing house before the explosion.

  This thing with getting “proof” for everything was beginning to really grate on my nerves.

  But what if I could get her to confess? I dug through my desk drawers.

  “I know it’s here somewhere,” I said. Then I snapped my fingers. “I know where it is.” I got up and went into the kitchen, and pulled open the draw where I kept miscellaneous stuff. Somewhere in that drawer I had a digital tape recorder. I pushed stuff around. Maybe, I thought, I could get Professor Abelson to confess.

  “Here it is.” I grabbed it.

  “What are you doing?” It was Mase.

  “Oh!” I jumped, and pushed the drawer shut. “You startled me.”

  “Then you must be doing something wrong if I startled you?” He must have walked into the kitchen when I was concentrating on finding the recorder.

  “You startled me because I was deep in thought,” I said, and started back down the hallway to my study.

  “You plan on cooking anything?” he called out.

  “No. But whatever you fix to eat, make me some, too. I’m starving,” I said, rounding the corner into my study. I closed the door behind me, turned on the recorder, dialed Professor Abelson and put her on speakerphone.

  “Hello, Justin.”

  She must have Caller ID. “Hello, Professor Abelson.”

  “I see you’re back from Jerusalem. Did you have a nice trip?”

  “As a matter-of-fact, I didn’t. I found out that one of my old friends had died.”

  “Death is part of life, Justin. Everything and everyone must die.”

  “My friend was murdered.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “I think you may know him.”

  “I don’t have many acquaintances in Israel anymore.”

  “He was poisoned. With Belladonna, while he was sitting at a café on Hillel Street. Do you know that café?

  “I heard that the place had been bombed. It isn’t there anymore.”

  “So you know of it.”

  “Only what I’d heard on TV about the bombing.”

  “Professor Abelson. I know what you’ve been up to. I just want to know why.”

  “Why what, dear?”

  “Why you killed Ghazi. Why you blew up the company that was publishing my book.”

  “Don’t you have quite the imagination?”

  “I know that you did those things.”

  “Knowing something and proving it are two different things. Haven’t you learned that? Isn’t that what you’re trying to do, prove something you found in some manuscripts in Israel?”

  I had her now.

  “How do you know that?” I asked.

  “You told me.”

  Oh yeah, I did tell her that. I needed a different tactic. Greg said not to tell her what happened. For a confession, I needed her to tell me.

  “You should probably change your perfume, Professor Abelson. It’s going to get you thrown in jail.”

  “Justin, I am an old woman. I couldn’t kill anyone. It’s just not in my nature. And if you think you can prove I did because of the kind of perfume I wear, you are not a very good detective.”

  Then she hung up. She hung up on me!

  What the heck!

  “I’m going over her house,” I said, looking at the telephone. “You want to kill my friends and blow up things, Hannah Abelson, well, you’ll have to answer to me.” I was yelling down at the phone, pointing my finger at it. “I’ll make sure you go down for what you did. You’d better watch out,” I said, turning the recorder off. “I’m coming to get you! No one’s afraid of you, especially me.”

  “I’m going over there and make her give me answers,” I mumbled as I punched numbers into the dialer of the phone, and waited while it rang. “She does not scare me.” I was saying when Greg picked up the line.

  “Greg, I need you to go with me over Professor Abelson’s house . . .” I said into the phone, my voice faltering ever so slightly.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  University Heights, Ohio

  “I have to be reasonable about this,” Hannah Abelson said. “I can’t keep thinking I’m up for all of these shenanigans.”

  I am just going to have to hire someone to kill Justin Dickerson.

  Hannah Abelson sat in her green Lay-Z-Boy recliner in her small living room after flying in that morning from Tel-Aviv. She had spent a restless night in her hotel room, and was up and ready to go by 4 am for her 9 am flight. And finally home, she was coming to the realization that she might no longer be up to the task.

  Writhing in her chair, she felt itchy all over. Her mouth was dry, and she felt dizzy. “I don’t even know who I shot. If, I shot anyone.” She slammed her hands down on the arms of the chair, but even the cushiony upholstery couldn’t prevent the shock waves that funneled under the cast into her arm.”

  “Eww.” Tears stung in her eyes. I can’t understand why the doctor wanted to leave this thing on longer. Taking in a deep breath she pulled he
rself up from the chair, and went to the bathroom medicine cabinet to find something for the pain.

  And what if I hadn’t put a stop to her sinister activities?

  Dread crept in as she closed the medicine cabinet. Twisting off the cap of the Advil bottle, she turned on the water, cupping her hand to catch some to down the pills.

  “What were they doing at that tree?” she spoke to herself. “What could Justin be looking for underneath a tree in Israel, for God’s sake? It had been so dark I couldn’t get a good shot.”

  Trying to follow them from the hotel had been hard enough, much harder than following them all day had been. She was still fairly familiar with the city, but once it got dark, especially since she wasn’t used to driving all that much, it got more difficult. She had been was waiting for an opportunity to get Justin alone. But Justin had kept those people around her the whole time.

  Hannah had stayed in a room at the Mamilla Hotel on Shlomo HaMelech. It was just down the street from the David Citadel Hotel on King David Street where Justin had stayed.

  That hotel, Hannah had found out, was very expensive. Only rich people stayed there. Tuh, she had thought. Justin acting all hoity-toity.

  She had been so nervous after she shot that gun. Oh, not because she was afraid that she may have hurt someone. That thought never had crossed her mind. She hoped she had. She hoped it was Justin. She wanted to kill Justin. Kill her dead. But being unsure of not getting the job done was wearing on her nerves. Not being able to stop Justin . . .

  She closed the medicine cabinet and looked at her reflection in the mirror. Tucking strands of her hair into the French twist on the back of her head, she left the bathroom and returned to her chair.

  She should have enlisted help. She hadn’t been able to think of anyone, though. And, she had taken care of Ghazi herself. But this hadn’t been as easy as killing him.

  She had been clever, though. No doubt about that. She smiled at just how clever she’d been in planning Justin’s death. Doing it all on her own. Getting the gun. Going down to the post office and mailing the gun in one package. The ammunition in another. She wiggled down in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. A great big grin spread over her face.