Mind Switch (38 page)

Her expression had been frozen since he had first noticed she was no longer swimming in his direction. Roberta was a good swimmer, but he realized she now was having trouble just staying afloat. Fearful that she had experienced a cramp he cried out, “What’s wrong, Roberta?” She didn’t speak but pointed to her right.

Floating right next to her was a badly decomposed human body.

* * *

Sergeant John Vignola was on his way out the door to smoke his first morning cigarette. His break had been interrupted several times by a series of routine police calls and now he could hear the phone ringing again. He realized that the longer he went without a smoke, the better his chances would be to stop forever. He had earnestly promised his wife that he would definitely do it this week, but he now realized that the habit was overpowering; he really needed that last cigarette.

“Damn,” he muttered, realizing that as a good officer he had to answer the phone and defer his overwhelming nicotine fit for another few minutes.

“Sergeant Vignola,” he answered briskly. Make it fast, is what he wanted to say next; but he remained silent hoping that the caller would not stutter, be verbose or not quickly get to the point. Damn, he wanted that smoke and he wanted it now!

“John, this is Pete Smutters.”

Vignola knew Pete well, in fact he had been expecting a call from Pete to set up one of their deep sea fishing trips.

“Hi Pete, what’s happening?” He hoped the open-ended social amenity would not prolong the conversation.

“A lot, John. My kid just discovered a body in the old quarry lake.”

“Ok, Pete, I’ll check it out later today, most likely it’s some large animal that drowned. You know that’s not an uncommon experience in that lake, they get in and can’t make it back to the shore.”

“No, John, I checked it out myself from the shore. It sure looked like a human body to me, even from a distance.”

“Thanks, Pete, I’ll check it out right away and we can arrange for our fishing trip after I get back.”

Not taking time for his cigarette break, Vignola hooked the police boat trailer on to his patrol car. In the trailer was an aging wooden Bass boat owned by the department. Vignola had a rookie patrolman drive him to the lake, so that, as a passenger, he would finally be able to light up a cigarette.

* * *

Less than an hour later, Vignola got his first look at the body floating face down in the lake. Vignola had seen far too many dead bodies during his experience with the police force, but he never got used to it. To calm his nerves he lit up again.

He contacted the medical unit who subsequently recovered the body, loaded it into the ambulance and brought it directly to the medical examiner’s office. Sergeant Vignola followed closely behind, smoking one cigarette after another in the patrol car.

Vignola waited outside the coroner’s office, enjoying still another cigarette. When he entered, he asked the coroner if the unlucky individual could be identified.

“I’m afraid it won’t be easy in this case.”

“What do you mean, Antonio? You’ve always been able to identify stiffs based on their fingerprints or dental X-rays.”

“Well that’s normally true, Pete, but have you taken a good look at the body yet?”

Actually, Sergeant Vignola had never taken a close look at the body. Once he realized that it was a human floating in the lake, he had immediately called medical personnel.

The body was lying face down on the examining table. The coroner turned it over.

Vignola gasped, “My God, I’ve seen plenty of assaults and automobile accidents, but this takes the cake!”

Sergeant Vignola was staring into a mound of fleshy pulp. No part of what was at one time a human face could be recognized. There was no way this poor soul could be identified by fingerprints either; all of his fingers had been surgically removed.

Vignola asked the coroner, “What about the teeth? Can we trace his identity that way?”

The coroner shook his head no, while concurrently opening the corpse’s jaw. All the teeth had been pulled.

“What a bastard to have done this!” Vignola cried out. “He had to be a sadist of the worst type.”

The coroner responded, “He may well have been a bastard but he wasn’t a sadist. Note the sparse amount of blood in the mouth. If the teeth had been pulled while he was still alive, we would see a lot of residual blood. This man was killed first, teeth and finger removal took place after death.

The coroner continued, “The killer didn’t want anyone to recognize the victim. It wasn’t a murder of brutality in the broad sense. The victim was killed by a knife to the heart. If you look closely, you can see a small puncture wound in his chest. As far as I can determine, it was a single insertion, well aimed. Death would have been instantaneous with virtually no suffering.”

“Well,” Vignola replied, “we know he is a male, at least that part of him remained intact. Can you determine his age?”

“I can only estimate that, based on his muscle mass, he’s between 30 and 45. After I complete my autopsy, I may be able to make a better estimate.”

“I’ll check with missing persons; but I don’t expect to get a hit there,” said Vignola. The victim’s face had been crushed; it appeared that every bone had been shattered. No way to post a photo of this poor guy, Vignola thought.
 

After Vignola left the autopsy room, he immediately lit up another cigarette. Fifteen minutes later he lit up again. After what he had just seen, he would need all the nicotine he could get.

Chapter 64

Fred found his meeting with Schultz informative, but he was still nowhere close to determining the brains beyond the rash of killings. He decided not to return to his office; instead he invited Jim over to his house for some brainstorming without incurring the interruptions of the station. Jim was finally convinced that neither the killings at the bank or at the theater were what they originally seemed to be.

Fred said, “‘Jim, let’s look over what we have up to now. We have those directly responsible for the murders in custody. Neither one of the two is acknowledging that they were responsible for the crimes; but certainly that in itself is not unusual. However, I have never in my life witnessed such a strong emotional denial. We took lie detector tests on both of them, basically to convince them that they should plead guilty. Both tests indicated they were telling the truth when they stated that they did not commit the crimes. Either that would mean they somehow knew how to fool the machine; or in their own minds they really believed they were not involved.”

Jim said, “So that’s where you believe Ford might have somehow hypnotized them into committing the crime without knowing what they were doing? Under such a condition they would be able to fool the machine.”

“Yes, there’s just too much coincidence to believe that Ford was not involved. He had prior contact with some of the victims, as well as the president of the company where two of the division heads were murdered. We now know, based on Ford’s involvement with jewelry robberies, that he has used his hypnotic powers to commit crimes, so the precedent is certainly there.”

“I understand, Fred, but he seems to be a competent and well known hypnotist, isn’t it just possible that some of those connections were just happenstance? This is a relatively small town, and the yellow pages don’t show that many hypnotists in the area. Maybe he was just recommended based on word of mouth from past satisfied customers.”

“Certainly that’s a possibility; but until we find Ford and get a chance to talk to him, he remains my number one suspect.”

“Ok, but what about the hanging of one the division heads from Schultz’s company? In that case you noted a perfume smell. Unless Ford is some type of cross-dresser, you can’t link him to that murder.”

“I understand your point, Jim, but Ford is very clever, it wouldn’t be a total escape from logic to believe that he planted that perfume smell to mislead us. Also, the paper boy saw a male on the steps of Flynn’s house the early morning of his death.”

“Fred, at some point you just have to look at the facts that you have and move on from there, otherwise it will be like the Ramsey murder where the police focused so much on the wrong suspect that they lost precious time and let the real killer get away.

“Besides, what possible reason would Ford have to commit the murders? Up to now, the only thing we have on Ford is that he commits burglaries. Hell, none of his victims were even injured.”

Fred said, “I still need to interview a few more people at Schultz’ company. I have to determine if any of the female employees use Chanel Number 5. Meanwhile, check with Motor Vehicles, and determine if any of Schultz’s employees own a gray Buick sedan.”

“Ok, Fred; I know you are frustrated with the case but it seems to me that we are generally heading in the right direction. By the way, you had asked me to check into the actions of Paul at the time of the murders. I had no luck. I know he was not in the office during those periods, and he wasn’t playing his daily round of tennis. To check further, I would have to talk to his wife and I know you don’t want me to do that. Beyond that, and other than his being a royal pain in the ass, and one that is seeking your job day and night, I couldn’t find any wrongdoing.”

“Thanks Jim, I deeply appreciate your helping take some of the fog out of my brain.”

“No problem boss, anything I can do, you know that!”

Fred thought, thank God for Jim. He is the only one in the department I can place total reliance on.

As Jim was leaving the house he looked back at Fred and thought, it’s too bad I didn’t get the lieutenant’s slot; I need money badly, and that promotion would have been a welcome present. Well, who knows, it still can happen with the right combination of events.

* * *

Fred arranged for a meeting with the Reading division head, Louise Jones.

She was in her mid thirties, not particularly well dressed but at the same time not at all difficult to look at. She wore a bright green dress suit with a sharply contrasting royal blue blouse. She had on no jewelry; instead of dress shoes, her feet were graced by a pair of worn out tennis shoes. Fred noticed her big toe was trying hopelessly to find its way out through a large hole in her right shoe contained only by a few remaining stands of cotton. She was certainly trying to send some sort of a message, but Fred had no idea what it was. He thought, this is one really strange cookie.

“Miss Jones, I am Lieutenant Harris.”

“I know who you are.”

“I am investigating a murder case and I need to ask you a few questions.”

“Ask away!”

Ok, first of all, do you or have you ever worn the perfume Chanel Number 5?

“I never wear any perfume. I think it conflicts with the skin’s normal aroma and that can cause all sorts of physical problems. If it’s artificial I don’t believe in it, it’s as simple as that.”

Fred had never heard that one before but he continued, “What kind of car do you drive?”

“A Toyota Prius. It’s for sale, want to buy it? It only has 225,000 miles on it.”

“Not right now, thanks. Have you even met a man by the name of Harry Ford?”

“No. Should I have?”

Fred was highly intuitive and he could usually tell if a person was lying by their facial expressions and physical movements. But in this case, her caustic behavior provided a solid block that he couldn’t penetrate.

“Have you ever heard his name mentioned here at work?”

“No! Now, are you almost done?”

“No, I’m not! How close were you to the two division heads that were killed and the one that committed suicide?’

“They were men, weren’t they?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean that men see no place for women in this world. None of the division heads respect me; so why should I cry when they are murdered?”

“How do you feel about Mr. Schultz?”

“He’s a man, too, isn’t he?”

“But he hired you, didn’t he?”

The sound she emitted was not exactly a laugh. “Ha! Do you really believe that? Look, he didn’t hire me. His wife did. How do you think I was able to hire Ann Darby? It was only by getting the support of Julia.”

Fred found it interesting that Jones referred to Mrs. Schultz by her first name; and for the first time he realized that Mrs. Schultz was more involved in company operations than he had been led to believe.

“Do you think Mrs. Schultz will replace the male division heads that died with women?”

Miss Jones started to respond, and then paused. “You will have to ask Mrs. Schultz about that.”

“I will,” said Fred. “Other than yourself, do you know of anyone else who would have a grudge against the three division heads that were . . . that died?”

“I never said I had a grudge, it is just that they acted like they had a chip on their collective shoulders. And, no, I didn’t kill them, if that’s your next question.

“Lieutenant Harris, from what I have read, two of the division heads were killed by being in the wrong place at the wrong time; and the other one committed suicide. Is the media distorting the reality of what happened, or am I missing something completely?”