“And the numbers? What are the numbers, Parker?”
“Seven…one…nine…”
“Seven one nine?”
“Yes. Yes. I see it very clearly. HRT seven one nine.”
Dr. Fredericks looked over at us and gave a thumbs-up. Then she turned back to Parker.
“Now, the movie is still frozen. Can you see inside the car, Parker?”
“No. Black windows. Tinted. I can’t see inside.”
“Can you look around for me? Do you see anyone else? Is there another car on the road? Anyone walking on the trail?”
“There’s no one…no one but me…. I’m going to start the movie.”
“Parker, you don’t need to—”
“No, I’m going to start it again….”
“Parker, don’t start the movie.”
“It’s moving. Oh my God! My God!” His body stiffened and his right hand gripped the couch’s armrest. “He’s going to hit them! Get out of the way! Clear out of there! He isn’t going to stop! Oh, for the love of Jesus! Feathers! Feathers! Blood and feathers! And oh God, he didn’t even slow down, the son of a bitch! He didn’t even swerve! Oh God, they’re flat as pancakes, but look—one’s still alive! Half its body is smushed and it’s crying! ‘Mommy! Daddy!’ And they’re screaming. Mommy and Daddy are screaming and flapping their wings and their necks are stretched as far as they’ll go, and oh, the rage! The rage and loss! Bloody road! Oh, the babies! The little itty-bitty baby birdies!”
I heard a sound beside me. Felicia had a hand over her mouth. Tears glistened in her eyes, but the sound I thought I heard coming from behind her hand was the sound of suppressed laughter.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
DR. FREDERICKS SLOWLY WOKE PARKER HUDSON FROM HIS movie memories, and when she asked him how he felt, he said, “Very thirsty,” and she left the room to fetch a glass of water. He was a little breathy and sweating pretty hard.
“Well, Teddy. I suppose you were right and I was wrong.”
“You remember what just happened?”
“I remember everything now. HRT seven one nine. That was the tag.”
“You’re sure?”
He nodded. Dr. Fredericks came back with an Evian. She turned up the lights, went to her desk, and sat down.
“There’s something we all need to remember,” she said. “Hypnotic regression has not been shown to be one hundred percent reliable. I’m sure you’ve heard about cases that have gone to trial, particularly cases of past sexual abuse, where the victim has not actually accessed repressed memories, but invented them out of whole cloth, usually through the hypnotic suggestion of the therapist. I was very careful not to ask Parker any leading questions, but the danger remains that he is taking postevent information and inserting it into the event.”
“Wow,” I said. “What’s that mean?”
“For example, after your encounter with a black SUV near your apartment, you told Parker you thought the letters on the tag were HRT. Obviously, since these letters were on the same type of car Parker saw, you assumed it was the same vehicle. You planted both the letters and the connection to the event in Parker’s mind. Just now, as he was reliving it, it is possible he overlaid that information on the event matrix.”
“So he could have seen different letters?”
“The likelihood, if that is what happened, is that he saw no letters at all, and his mind supplied the missing detail with information provided by you.”
“But what about the numbers? I didn’t see any numbers.”
“He might have seen the numbers that day and they very well may have been seven one nine, just as he might have actually seen the letters HRT. But they could also represent any number of things—a date that’s significant in his life, or numbers from a tag he casually glanced at in traffic two weeks ago. Or they may be completely random. The point is, you have to take any information gathered in hypnosis with a grain of salt.”
“No,” Parker said firmly. “I know what I saw. I saw them as clearly as I’m seeing you right now.”
“This is terrific,” I said, trying to stay upbeat. Dr. Fredericks had practically killed the party. “It gives us something to work from. It might be nothing, but it could be everything. Thanks a lot, Doc.”
We said good-bye to Parker in the parking lot.
“That woman is wrong,” he said. “I remember now. HRT seven one nine. That was the tag number.”
“Well, there’s still no proof it’s connected to Lydia Marks, but if you’re right, we’ve got your goose killer.”
“And it’s been worth every penny. I want that SOB prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
I told him I’d have an answer for him in a few days. I could get the name from Deputy Paul, but I wanted to talk to the driver first, to see if I could wrest a confession out of him. Parker Hudson agreed that probably was the best course of action. He didn’t look good. He looked like somebody who had been laid up in bed with the flu for a couple of weeks.
I drove back to Kingston Pike and made a left toward downtown.
“You know,” I said to Felicia, “we could grab half a dozen to celebrate.”
“Are you always thinking about food?”
She started to laugh.
“What?” I asked.
“ ‘The babies! The itty-bitty baby birdies!’”
“Felicia.”
“Well, I’m sorry. It’s funny.”
“It’s grotesque.”
“Your first case solved. How’s it feel, Ruzak?”
“It isn’t solved yet.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I CALLED GARY PAUL’S NUMBER THE MINUTE I GOT BACK TO the office. The dispatcher told me he was off duty and refused to give me his home number, even after I told her it was a matter of the utmost urgency. I managed to wrest a promise from her that she would page him and give him my message. Felicia was staring at me as I hung up.
“Are you done? I have to make a phone call.”
“I had a couple more calls, but go ahead.”
She disappeared around the half wall and I leaned back in my big leather chair and congratulated my big bulldog self. My PI exam was coming up and I was sure I’d ace it with flying colors. Though there were lots of questions about Tennessee law. I had gotten hold of a sample exam from the administrating company, but I had no idea what some of the questions meant. I was brimming over with confidence, though. The newspaper article might have been Felicia’s idea, but hypnosis had been mine, and it looked like hypnosis was going to be the hammer that cracked this case wide open.
“I’m changing my name to Teddy ‘the Hammer’ Ruzak!” I called out to Felicia.
“I’m on the phone!” she shouted back. Then she came into the room and said, “I have to go.”
“Is something wrong?”
“No, nothing’s wrong. I just have to go.”
“Felicia, wait….”
“What is it, Ruzak? I’m in a hurry.”
“It’s just that—well, you’ve been missing a lot of work lately….”
“You’re not going to try to fire me again, are you?”
“I didn’t try the first time. I was going to ask if everything was all right. I mean, you’ve been pretty upset and distracted over the past few weeks….”
“It’s nothing. Okay? Everything’s fine. I don’t need anything from you, Ruzak, just a paycheck, which, by the way, has been sitting on your desk for two days and you still haven’t signed it.”
“Really? It has?” I dug through the papers on my desktop. “Jeez, I’m sorry. Here.”
She snatched the check from my hand.
“We had a deal, Ruzak. Personal lives stay personal. Maybe if things ever got busier around here, my being gone would matter more.”
“I get a feeling they will now.”
“You and your feelings.”
“Look, it isn’t personal. I’m not trying to pry; I just want you to know if there’s anything I can do.”
“There’s nothing anyone can do. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I thought there was maybe a fifty-fifty chance of that, but I didn’t say anything but good-bye. As usual, I felt smaller when Felicia wasn’t around. The office got bigger and I got smaller. I went back to my desk and started to dial the number for the task force, then set down the receiver before I hit the last number. I really didn’t have anything yet, and Detective Watson already thought I was a borderline kook. It would be better for the case and better for me if I waited till I had a name.
I set the tape recorder on my desk and played back the tape of Parker Hudson’s hypnotic session. He whispered in some parts, but the part about the tag was very clear, because he was nearly shouting by that point. I turned it off before it reached the part about the itty-bitty babies. That was too tough to listen to. Parker Hudson had lived a long time, by statistical standards, and it was reassuring to know that not all of us go completely numb by the time our hair’s white. The lives of six goslings still matter to some of us.
The phone rang. It was Deputy Paul.
“You’ve got the killer,” he said.
“Hey,” I said. “Sorry to bother you on your day off.”
“I’m always happy to hear from my favorite detective.”
“Thanks, but technically I’m not a detective yet. Still working on getting my license.” I told him about Parker Hudson’s revelation during the hypnosis session. I repeated the tag number twice for him.
“Looks like we might have him,” he said. “Did you call the task force with this yet?”
“The therapist said it might be a blind alley—you know, a false memory or something like that. I couldn’t exactly follow everything she said.”
“Right. And we still don’t have a connection between ol’ HRT and Lydia Marks. Better to wait. I’ll call my contact with the DMV and call you right back, okay?”
“That’d be great.”
“Okay. And Ted? Good work on this, bud.”
I hung up, my cheeks positively glowing. Maybe this detective thing wasn’t such a dopey idea after all.
“HRT seven one nine, here I come,” I said aloud in the empty room.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I SPENT THE REST OF THE AFTERNOON STUDYING FOR MY PI exam and waiting for Gary Paul to call back with the identity of HRT 719. At 4:45, he still hadn’t called, so I watered the plants, shut down Felicia’s computer, and locked up for the night.
I went downstairs to the street. The lights were still on inside the dry cleaner’s and I could hear the machines humming through the walls. When I first leased the place, I thought renting above a dry cleaner’s was a savvy move on my part. Your businessmen and other professional types—who else would be dropping off dry cleaning downtown? Every time they came by, they’d see my sign on the side of the building, and who else except a professional could afford to hire a PI?
I didn’t feel like driving home to my empty apartment. As I was waiting for Deputy Paul’s second call, I was thinking I should celebrate solving my first case and figured I should eat at the Old City Diner, where I’d celebrated getting my first case. Technically, there was nothing to celebrate yet, but I was still hungry, the diner was close and, after studying for hours for an exam I had no prayer of passing, I didn’t have the mental capacity to think of another place.
I ordered a steak, medium-well, a baked potato, and a house salad with Thousand Island dressing. Freddy, the owner of the diner, must have seen me sitting there, because he came around the counter in his white smock and thick-soled running shoes and walked to my table.
“Ruzak,” he said. Freddy had bright red hair and a face full of freckles. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”
“I’ve been pretty busy with my new business.”
“Oh, yeah. Detective, right?”
“Investigative consultant—at least until I get my detective license.”
“Well, that’s terrific. Good for you. How’s Felicia doin’? She went to work for you, didn’t she?”
“Yeah.” I averted my eyes. He might be sore for me taking her away from him. He didn’t act sore, though.
“She’s a good little girl. Did you know she was about a semester shy of getting her nursing degree at UT before she dropped out?”
“I didn’t know that. I just thought—well, I thought she was just a waitress.”
“There’s always more to folks than meets the eye, Ruzak. But you’re an investigative consultant now; you know all that.”
“We don’t discuss personal issues in the office,” I said. “Why did she drop out?”
“Never said.”
“Can I ask you something, Freddy? Did Felicia miss a lot of work?”
“Called in sick a lot, but she always found somebody to cover for her.”
“Was she? Is she? Sick, I mean.”
“I don’t see her anymore, Ruzak.”
“Is something wrong with her, like some kind of disease she doesn’t like to talk about?”
“There’s a lot Felicia don’t like to talk about.”
“Like what?”
His small blue eyes narrowed at me.
“Maybe she wouldn’t like me telling you things.”
“I’m not being nosey.”
“Sounds like you are.”
“It’s just—well, I don’t know what I’m going to do. She’s in only three days a week at most, and then those days she does come in, she usually ends up taking off early.”
“Here’s a radical suggestion: Fire her.”
“She keeps daring me to.”
“I know you got a kind of thing for her—”
“Freddy, I don’t have a thing for Felicia….”
“You always did. Got those puppy dog eyes for her. Everybody around here saw it. Hey, Lacey!”
She yelled back, “What?”
“Didn’t Ruzak here have the hots for Felicia?”
“You bet he did. Everybody knew it.”
“Everybody except Ruzak!” he yelled back, and that cracked everybody up, including strangers who were staring at me as they chewed.
He turned back to me triumphantly.
“It’s business, Ruzak. You can’t let your feelings get in the way. Fire her and tell her if she needs a job, I could always use a good waitress.”
He walked back behind the counter, wiping his hands on his filthy apron before slapping a couple more burgers on the grill. My face was burning and I was sorry I had brought the whole thing up. He was hiding something, probably to protect her. Or maybe he was trying to get me to fire her so he could hire her back.
I ate my meal faster than I should have; you always eat faster when you eat alone. It sat like a brick on my gut as I drove home. I didn’t really want to go home, but I had no idea where else to go. That’s pretty lousy, home being the place you go when you have no place better to go.
You should feel good, Ruzak, I told myself. Why don’t you feel good? You would think living alone would free me from all the normal burdens of responsibility that people complain or worry about, but all living alone does is increase your psychological weight, as if your soul were living on Jupiter. It tends to make you more important to yourself and exaggerate your problems to the point that they’re insurmountable afflictions. This was probably what was behind my wanting a dog. It wasn’t just about companionship; it was about responsibility, too. There wasn’t a damn living thing that depended on me, except the plants in my office.
There was a message from Felicia the next morning, saying she wouldn’t be in. She didn’t offer an explanation. I dialed her number, thinking that when she picked up, I’d ask for one, but she didn’t pick up and I hung up without leaving a message. Hiring her may have been premature, as rash as opening a detective agency without having a license or quitting a job without having the slightest idea how to run a business or actually solve crimes.
Parker Hudson called around ten and asked, “So, who is HRT seven one nine?”
&nb
sp; “When I know, Mr. Hudson, you’ll know.”
“Why so testy, Teddy?”
He was a chipper old codger. Life will grind you down to a bitter nub if you let it, but Parker Hudson had come to terms with his. Of course, having lots of cash lying around in his old age didn’t hurt. As that old saying goes and even some scientific studies have shown, money doesn’t bring happiness, but the poor people I knew didn’t seem any happier than your average millionaire. I’d take the cash and risk the misery.
“Do you have a dog?” I asked him.
“Yes, we do. A golden retriever named Prince.”
“I’ve been thinking about getting a dog, but it’s forbidden in my lease. When my mother died, I thought about subletting and moving back into the old homestead, but too many ghosts, you know? I don’t mean my parents. I’m not too concerned with the paranormal, though that’s been all the rage—I guess because we’re living in such uncertain times. Like those TV psychics communing with dead relatives and bringing back messages from beyond. Everybody’s looking for some reassurance, and to me, it all boils down to justice. You know, that life’s so screwy and messed up, there better be a payoff when it’s over.”
“Oh,” Parker Hudson said. “I firmly believe in justice, Teddy. Otherwise, I never would have hired you.”
“What would you like to see happen to this goose killer, assuming HRT seven one nine is our man?”
“I’ve been thinking some sort of restitution, perhaps a generous donation to the World Wildlife Fund.”
The door swung open and Gary Paul stepped into the room. He was dressed in his civvies—a pair of crisp, brand-new blue jeans and a plain white T-shirt that accentuated his pectorals.
“That’s terrific,” I told Parker Hudson. “I’ll call you back….”I gave Gary the eye as he slipped into a visitor’s chair.
“Soon?” Parker asked. Gary nodded. “Soon,” I told Parker Hudson. I hung up and Gary broke into a big smile that reminded me I hadn’t been to the dentist in over two years. If there were no evident disparity between the rich and poor, we wouldn’t have half the wars in our history. Maybe no wars at all, but that was old thinking. Theodore Ruzak, the Bolshevik detective.
The Highly Effective Detective Page 14
