The Near Death Experience (Thaddeus Murfee Legal Thriller Series Book 10)

by John Ellsworth

  “These fellows were drilling for water out here one afternoon,” Thaddeus told him. “It’s used in the pumping stations. They didn’t find water here and so that’s why there’s no station here. But right here—” Thaddeus stepped ahead of the truck and pointed down, “right here is where they drilled.” He pushed the Sicilian ahead of him and they both peered down into a hole.

  “That, sir, is a dry hole.”

  Luchesi took a step away. “No.”

  “Yes. You can jump in or I can shoot you right here. Now if you jump in, I might not let you die down there. But if I shoot you right here, I’m going to throw you in any way. No one will find you, either way, unless I say so. Now, which is it?”

  He stood back and extended his arm, placing the muzzle of the 9mm against the man’s forehead.

  “I—I—”

  “Can’t decide? Tell you what, I’ll decide for you.”

  Thaddeus stepped around the man before he could resist and shoved him toward the hole. Luchesi dug in the heels of his running shoes but Thaddeus had the leverage on him. Luchesi found himself skidding up to the opening. Without a word, Thaddeus swept the captive’s legs out from under him and the man plunged into the dry hole.

  Down, down, down, he remembered falling when he regained consciousness. Above him was a disk of light the size of a dime. He was still handcuffed and his claustrophobia set in as he stood there, thirty feet below the surface, unable to bend or even turn. His breath came in gasps until he thankfully blacked out.

  Thaddeus climbed back inside his truck and started the Cummins Diesel. It loped along in neutral, pleasant enough in its powerful sound.

  Without another thought about the dry hole and the man it held he drove back to his home.

  The school bus was coming down the gravel road just as Thaddeus arrived.

  “Not today,” he told them, and waved the school bus on by.

  “Why not” said Parkus, the youngest. “Snow day?”

  “No, we’re going to go inside and have some hot chocolate. Then we’re going to talk about Mommy.”

  “We went to kiss her and she was gone. Back to the hospital, Dad?” said Sarai, the middle child of the three young ones.

  “Nope. We’ll talk inside.”

  “Dad, I’ll race you,” said Parkus. Without a word Thaddeus broke into a loping, losing run for the house.

  Parkus looked down at him from the deck, having won the race by a ten good yards.

  “You know I’m getting too old for that trick, Dad?” said Parkus. “Letting me win? Really?”

  The girls climbed up onto the deck and went inside.

  Parkus and Thaddeus followed.

  Thaddeus closed the door behind them and gathered everyone around the table.

  “Who wants hot chocolate?” he said.

  “Dad, what’s in your pocket?” asked Parkus.

  “Nothing. Keys, I think,” said Thaddeus. He remembered he hadn’t taken the Glock 26 out of his pocket since XFBI found it in with the 4x4 sponges. It was the same gun that Luchesi had purchased, according to XFBI’s copy of the paperwork created from the purchase at Iron Mountain in Prescott.

  He thought of Luchesi caught down inside the dry hole and he thought of the gun and fifteen rounds he had brought into Thaddeus’ and Katy’s home.

  XFBI would take the gun and dispose of it.

  Mother earth would take the killer and dispose of him.

  57

  It was a week after the ashes and the mountainside ceremony. Then, court resumed again. Judge Hoover had, without asking, continued Dr. Sewell’s trial a full seven days.

  Thaddeus called his last witness, Dr. Sewell himself.

  Dr. Sewell testified that while he was in Nadia’s room before he turned off the ventilator, Nadia came to him and asked him to set her free. She asked him to act as her doctor and remove the ventilator so she could go. He told the jury that he had only done what she asked. Thaddeus tried to read the juror’s faces, but they were mostly impassive. Which made it difficult if not impossible to know how well the first words cast toward them were received.

  So he continued asking the doctor more questions. Sewell said that, following his own near death experience, it had taken him months to accept what had happened to him. For one thing, it was medically impossible that he had been conscious during his coma—but there you were: he had been. Which paled in comparison to the scenarios he had experienced while away. He told the jury that in the beginning there were clouds around him. Just like some of the New Yorker cartoons depicted heaven: clouds and angelic figures talking. As he rose among the clouds, his vision stretched out and he became aware that there were gigantic beings shimmering above the clouds—beings with wings and voices that were filling the universe, casting down the song that played on and on. It was coming from them as they sang music unlike anything on earth. This music was his best self stretched across the entire sky and being set to music. It was the best of him and it was singing glory. When asked by Thaddeus, he said simply the beings above were more complex creatures than we knew on earth. They were a new level of consciousness and he wanted to join them. But he did not.

  Seeing and hearing were not separate in this place where he journeyed. He could hear the visual beauty of the silvery bodies of those gleaming beings above, and he could see the surging, joyful perfection of what they sang. Seeing and hearing were transposed until they both became the same sense. It seemed that you could not look at or listen to anything in this world without becoming a part of it—without joining with it in some mysterious way. Again, from his present perspective, he would suggest that you couldn’t look at anything in that world at all, for the word “at” itself implied a separation that did not exist there. Everything was distinct, yet everything was also a part of everything else, like the rich and intermingled designs on a Persian carpet...or an exotic bird’s face.

  Thaddeus saw that the jury was rapt. Pens and pencils were set aside as they hung on every word.

  The doctor continued, saying it got stranger still. A three-part message began flowing through his body. The message—and he had to translate it into earthly language—ran something like this:

  “You are loved and cherished, dearly, forever.”

  “You have nothing to fear.”

  “There is nothing you can do wrong.”

  The message flooded him with a vast and crazy sensation of relief. It was like being handed the rules to a game he’d been playing all his life without ever fully understanding it.

  “We will show you many things here,” the message said, without actually using these words but by driving their conceptual essence directly into him. “But eventually, you will go back.”

  To this, he had only one question.

  Back where?

  Which was as far as Thaddeus had permission to go. There were certain spiritual moments that the doctor demanded to be kept quiet. He had purposely left them out of his book as they were intended only for him. All he would say is, “All is well. All is more well than you can ever begin to imagine.”

  Then came the cross-examination.

  “Doctor,” D.A. Sanders began, his voice already bordering on mimicry, “you are asking this jury to believe that a dead woman spoke to you, correct?”

  “No.”

  Ignoring the answer, Sanders continued.

  “In other words, your witnesses have said she was brain dead and therefore legally and medically dead. And now you come in here and say even so, ‘she spoke to me.' Isn’t that what you’re asking the jury to believe, that the dead speak?”

  Unflustered, the doctor’s mouth formed a polite smile. “No. While the body is dead, the consciousness continues. That’s all I’m saying.”

  Which caused Sanders to come fully upright in his bullish manner.

  “So we die but we don’t all parts die?”

  “That’s definitely one way of putting it.”

  “If she were still alive and you withdrew her life sup
port then you killed her, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “I wouldn’t disagree since you base your question on her being alive.”

  “Then you tell us that you were likewise brain dead during your own illness but that you came back. Came back with this terrific story you just told the jury, correct?”

  “I definitely came back. Whether her condition and mine were the same is impossible to say. As other physicians have testified, there is no instrument that pegs brain death at one, five, or ten. It is a phenomenon that is more subject to a physician’s interpretation than some instrument’s reading.”

  “You always do that—always say it can’t be measured. Don’t you think you’re weaseling when you do that?”

  “I’m not making the rules about this. The whole field of medicine has made these rules. I simply accept them and play by them.”

  “Well, to whatever degree, your condition and Ms. Turkenov’s condition were very similar, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you got a get out of jail free card and came back and she didn’t get one.”

  “That’s not how I would put it. But if you need to, go ahead.”

  “Thank you, I will. Point being, you got a miracle and came back to life. How do you know she wouldn’t have been granted the same miracle?”

  “I don’t. I only know what she told me.”

  “There we go again. The dead speaking to the living. I dare say, doctor, that no one in this room has ever had a dead person speak to them.”

  Thaddeus watched the jury. He wasn’t certain they all agreed with the prosecutor on that point. Many were sitting back, arms folded on their chests.

  Looking directly at the jury, Dr. Sewell answered, “Like Dr. Rachmanoff said, how do you know the animals don’t speak just because they haven’t spoken to you? Look, Mr. Sanders, I’m not here to convince anyone of anything. I’m simply telling you what happened to me. I am a vital, forty-something physician trained at the finest medical school in the world and acknowledged by my peers with all the licenses and board certifications that a neurosurgeon can achieve. I have no reason to come here and tell you fairy tales. I am telling you what happened to me, both in my own case and in Ms. Turkenov’s case. That’s the best I have to offer. You can agree or disagree until they turn out the lights and force us to go home, but my story isn’t going to change and neither is your skepticism. Whether you’re a skeptic because your job demands it for this case or because you hold certain lack of evidence as a kind of truth for your life, I can’t say. I only know my own truth. So ask away, but nothing is going to change what I know.”

  Sanders appealed to Judge Hoover. “Your Honor, that was a nice closing argument to the jury, but it was unresponsive to any pending question. I would ask you to tell the jury to disregard everything the defendant just said.”

  “No,” said Judge Hoover without hesitation, “I believe that what has just been said was a hundred percent responsive to the argument you were making. In fact, it was quite well done. Please continue, sir.”

  Flustered, Sanders cried out, “But you claim the dead speak!”

  “I claim that someone’s consciousness communicated with my own.”

  The air went out of the D.A. “Then we’ll have to agree to disagree.”

  “I expect so.”

  “That is all,” said the District Attorney, throwing up his hands in feigned dismay.

  Again, Thaddeus made a judgment about the jury. That judgment was simple. They had heard all they needed to hear and they had heard all they were going to listen to. But trials always came down to that: at some point, the jury’s patience was exhausted. At that moment, it was time to pack up and go home.

  “No further questions,” Thaddeus said. “The defense rests its case.”

  Closing arguments and jury instructions followed. The jury seemed to pay little attention to either until Thaddeus hammered home the fact of Nadia Turkenov’s conservators taking her money without a court order and the fact of them keeping her alive to keep taking her money. That was real and tangible and they could make of it what they would. The rest of it was argument—tenuous, far-fetched, faith-based although predicated on scientific theory, and the two sides totally inconsistent. Ordinarily in criminal cases, there is a general set of facts that remains after all the testimony and all the exhibits, and the jury can pick among those pieces and reconstruct the most compelling view of the evidence. But not here. In Dr. Sewell’s case, the evidence was diametrically opposed, one side saying the dead are silent, the other side saying the dead can speak. There was no middle ground, no half-dead, no half-speaking. You either believed one way or the other. It worried Thaddeus; his entire case was bizarre. It was with great discomfit he finally turned the case over to the jury and sat down from his closing argument.

  As Thaddeus sat down, for the first time in his career he had to admit he had no feel whatsoever for which way the jury was leaning. Even after the jury was taken out to deliberate and he discussed their strengths and weaknesses with Shep and Dr. Sewell, he had little to offer regarding predictions. He simply did not know what was coming.

  So they walked back across the street to wait for the verdict.

  * * *

  Years later he would remember every detail of the dream. Shep had gone around the corner to his office to wait for the verdict; Dr. Sewell had faded into the shops along West Aspen Street to shop for gifts to take home to San Diego.

  Thaddeus, alone and missing Katy with every fiber in his being, told Katrina he wasn’t to be disturbed unless the court called, and he shut his office door, laid down on his couch, crossed his ankles, and folded his hands behind his head. He thought of her and couldn’t quit thinking of her. For a moment he thought he could smell the shampoo she used. He thought he could feel her fingers touch his face.

  Then he was asleep.

  She appeared as a young girl, a child. There was a beach and when he first saw her she was on her knees, wearing her swimming suit, digging in the sand with her sand shovel and packing the wet sand into her sand bucket. The sand bucket was very distinct when he saw it: it featured a whale blowing bubbles, and a yellow beach and blue sky. It occurred to him that the bucket was exactly the bucket she should have had. It was what he had known all along it would be.

  He walked up to her and leaned down, his hands on his knees.

  “Want to go in the water?” he asked.

  “I do.”

  She stood up and, without being asked, placed her hand in his. Together they approached the foamy surf and stepped into its ebb and flow. She danced from foot to foot, shivering. “Cold!” she cried.

  But it was a cry of joy. The day was a day of joy. There was no sun in the sky but there was a brilliant light all around. There were people everywhere but no one spoke yet there were no strangers. She and he were part of them and yet separate. They were themselves.

  She stretched out in the water and he pushed her by her feet. She crumpled and turned under and came up laughing and splashing water at him. She did a good job of it too, soaking his face and his glasses. Always the glasses. Even there.

  “I’m hungry,” she said.

  “What do you want, Biscuit? A biscuit?”

  “You always call me Biscuit. Why do you call me that?”

  “Because you’re my biscuit. Do you want a burger?”

  “Yes. And a day-long sucker.”

  Together they trudged across the sand to the green sandwich shop with its hinged shutters pinned in the open position. There was no line; the smell of burgers and onions wafted through the air as they drew near. They hurried the last thirty yards as the sand was hot on their feet. Quickly they made the shade of the burger stand and she bellied up to the counter and planted her elbows on the green wood surface.

  “I want a day-long sucker,” she told the young man.

  He plucked a large pinwheel of a sucker from a display. “This one good?”

  “Perfect,” she said.

 
“You, sir?”

  “I’ll have a burger with fries and a cherry Coke.”

  “I’ll have the same thing,” she said.

  While they waited, he watched her turn cartwheels in the sand, coming up each time and dusting her hands off, complaining about the hot sand. Hot sand or no, she persisted. Each time she came around she looked up from her upside-down position, making sure he was watching. He was. He applauded. He whistled. She stood up and bowed.

  Food and drink in hand, they walked back to her bucket, shovel, and a hole in the sand. Water had filled the hole and she kicked at it in disgust with her size five foot. He arranged two towels for them to sit on and they both sat and opened their brown bags. The fries were hot, not greasy, and salty enough. “Shall I pass them to you?” he said, indicating the fries. “Please do,” she said and opened her mouth. He placed several fries on her tongue and she took a sip of Coke and washed them down.

  “You should chew your food better,” he told her.

  “You should mind your own beeswax,” she told him.

  His heart moved in his chest then, and he felt the unbearable love he had for her.

  But she ignored his gasp, chewing dramatically and looking out at the ocean.

  “What would you be if you weren’t a man?” she asked.

  “I’d be a whale on the side of your bucket.”

  “I’d be a doctor for horses,” she said. “That’s what.”

  They chewed and drank, drank and chewed.

  They flew a beach kite and laughed when it dipped and caught the waves. Finally, she pulled it in and kissed the thin paper. “I like you!” she cried to the kite

  She laid back on the sand and made sand angels. He sprawled back on his towel and put his arm across his eyes.

  They dug in the sand and made a sand castle. She told him all about her life. She told him what it was like, where she lived. She told him about the music.