Amnesia (43 page)

Just as he was finishing his call for backup he heard Putnam call from the other room. Leaving everything exactly as he found it, he returned to the main room, joined by Bill coming from the other direction.

“I think I have something,” Roger said as they approached. Della and
Maritza
joined the others as they followed the African-American officer into the furnace room. He had pulled on a pair of latex gloves they noticed, and had opened the incinerator door. When they got there he reached in and removed the bag from the ashes inside.

“
¡Usted está haciendo un lío todo sobre mi piso!”
Maritza
cried.

“Calma de la estancia, estará bien,”
Bill answered.
Then to the others he translated, “She’s asked us not to mess up her floors. I assured her she didn’t need to worry about it.”

“You bet she doesn’t,” Jack commented. “With what I found in the other room, she’ll never have to worry about him again.”

“I think this might help as well,” Roger commented. He reached into the bag and pulled out a change of clothes covered with ashes, including a pair of work boots whose soles were completely black.

“De mod qué causó el lío en mi vestíbulo,”
Maritza
commented, interpreted by Bill as referring to the footprints covering the hall carpeting.

“This matches what the suspect was wearing when he left the note on Lissa’s wall,” Jack observed. “I do believe we have our man. And I think I understand why, I just need proof. Bill, ask her where he does his work, like a den or office, something like that. He has to be keeping notes of some sort.”

“She suggests the library upstairs,” Lowell answered after speaking with the housekeeper for a moment.

“Take me there,” Jack commanded. “Putnam, as they say on TV, ‘bag and tag’ that stuff and keep looking. Good job!”

She led them up to the second floor and down the hall to the accursed room. When they got there she said something to Bill, pointing to the table inside the room. He retrieved a pair of Latex gloves, and then opened the drawer. He bent down and studied the false back as
Maritza
instructed, removed it, and retrieved the cell phone. Holding it up victoriously he showed it off to Jack.

“Your mystery number, I believe?”

Jack smiled in return, sifting through the papers on the desk. He too now sported the ubiquitous latex gloves, ensuring he did not disturb any trace evidence on the papers. Seeing nothing he sat in the chair and started opening the drawers, rummaging through them one at a time, and then closing them all. A scowl of deep concentration crossed over his face, knowing his instincts were right, but not finding what he needed.

He stood up and looked around the room more carefully. He just knew Marcuse would keep a journal of some type, memoirs to his followers as it were. He just didn’t know where to look. There was no computer in the room, so that couldn’t be it. Nor was there a typewriter. No he would have written it in long hand, to preserve the authenticity, and prevent others from stealing his ideas. It had to be here somewhere.

He paced around the room, looking through all the cabinets and drawers he came across, all to no avail. Completing a full circuit around the room, he found himself gazing out the balcony windows, much the same way Marcuse had earlier that day, not seeing the simple beauty that surrounded them all. Instead all his concentration was focused on finding the final nail to seal the coffin on the depraved miscreant.

He sighed deeply, shook his head and walked back toward the desk. He noticed the bar directly behind the desk. He stepped up to it and picked up the decanter, pulled out the stopper, and inhaled its fragrance. Cognac, and rather expensive.

He then picked up an empty glass which had been recently used, and studied it, noting that it had a small chip in the bottom, obviously well used. He grabbed a different glass and studied it with the same intensity, only to find it was in perfect condition. Obviously this man drank alone. He set the glass back in its holder and looked curiously at the design of the rack
.

The woodwork was exceptional and obviously handmade. The odd thing about it, however, was the layout. There were four crystal decanters set in the center of the bar, with a mirror directly behind it, causing it to look more like eight. All but one of these was empty, and appeared just as unused as the glasses.

On either side of the decanters were the glasses, ten on each side, made into a triangle, four creating a base, then three, and so on, with a single glass on top. Of these, only the top right glass appeared to be used, and was missing from the holder; ostensibly the one sitting next to the decanter.

However the glasses appeared to be sitting more on what appeared to be wings that would unlock and fold in, creating a box that could be slid in and concealed, with the top sliding down in front. On this “lid” there were several book spines carefully attached to give the appearance that the bar was really just another section of books, hiding the alcohol completely.

Impressed with the exquisite design and workmanship, Jack closed the wings of the box, pulled the lid out and down, and slid the box back in place. He noted the smooth, silent movement of the heavy box on its glides, and wondered whom the carpenter was that could create such a masterpiece. He pulled the box back out, the bar reappearing, and locked the wings back in place, inadvertently knocking the right wing against the shelving, the box not completely extended.

He quickly pulled the box back out, and then took a close examination of the side of the wing, to see if he had nicked or marred the wood in any way. As he did so, he noticed that the wood facing on the outside of the wing was knocked askew, and nearly panicked fearing he had destroyed the beautiful piece of art.

But then he took a closer look, and found that the piece was actually removable, the ends sliding snugly into a set of grooves at the top and bottom. He slid the facing out slowly, and found a set of handwritten pages underneath. Pulling them out he replaced the facing, and put the papers on the desk. He then examined the other side and pulled out another stack of papers, in all about a hundred and fifty sheets, writing on both sides.

He placed the two stacks together in the center of the huge oak desk, and stared at the title of the piece, not yet understanding the significance. It simply said “My Struggle.” Just then his cell phone rang, interrupting his thoughts. He answered it glumly, and then looked up at Bill, fear creeping into his eyes. He spoke for several minutes with the man on the other end, then thanked him and hung up.

“Della, you stay here with
Maritza
and call for backup, the bomb squad, forensics, FBI, and anyone else you can think of, just don’t touch anything. Bill, we have to go now. Marcuse is hot on Drake and Lissa’s tail down at the river, and they need our help!”

The word “brother” echoed in Drake’s reeling mind, searching desperately for some context to connect the disparate ideas of Marcuse and any relation. It must be a ruse to catch them off guard, to tease their tortured minds, to hurt them deeply. Unfortunately he wished these things in vain.

Slowly a small memory came to his mind, a reenactment of a painful scene that seemed so very long ago, yet it was in reality only a matter of months. He had been doing some research for his Family History Sunday School class,
he began relating to Lissa,
and had pulled out a box full of his mother’s important papers. He found something quite disturbing, and had run to her, praying that it was all a mistake, yet knowing it wasn’t.

“I found this in an old box in the attic,” he accused, thrusting the document in her face. She took it, scanned its contents, and handed it back to him.

“Yes, you knew I was married once. That’s where you came from.” She responded simply, her shoulders slumping slightly at the memory.

“But you didn’t tell me it was in Idaho, and you especially didn’t tell me it wasn’t in the temple. I always thought we were sealed together as a family!”

She sighed, put down the needlecraft project she was doing for an upcoming Enrichment Night, took off her glasses reserved for close work, and looked him steadily in the eye.

“No, I didn’t get married in the temple, and no, he wasn’t even a member of the church. I met him while I was in college at what was Ricks, now BYU Idaho. We fell in love and got married. It was all very romantic, the son of a wealthy family, a bit of a bad-boy in the charming sort of way. Of course your grandparents weren’t very happy about it, but I did it anyway. They were right, incidentally.”

“But all those lectures about temple marriage, and eternal family, that was all a lie?”

“You keep a civil tongue in your head or this conversation is over!” she snapped.

“I’m sorry, it’s just that—that….”

“I know it’s come as a bit of a shock,” she forgave him. “And no, none of it is a lie. I learned the hard way just how right temple marriage is, or should be anyway, so I have taught you hoping you wouldn’t make the same mistakes I had.”

She leaned over to the other side of the couch where he was sitting and took his hand. “I thought love was the most important thing, and I decided that I was in love. So I married him, assuming he would someday change and we would be sealed.” She paused, the pain evident on her face.

“In a way I’ve never really forgiven myself for that, even after all these years. I know how important it is to be sealed as a family, and I have faith that
someday
we will. But it couldn’t have been, nor will it ever be to that man. I have regretted that decision my entire life, especially for what it means to you.

“I have done all I can do for you, in this area. I have taught you the correct principles of the gospel, especially eternal families, so you won’t make the same mistakes I have. Then I’ve left the rest up to our Heavenly Father.”

Mollified by her words, but still resentful for the supposed slight, he glumly said, “You should have told me, and let me make up my own mind about it, rather than lie to me.”

“Perhaps I should have,” she responded, a thoughtful look crossing her face, “but the fact is I didn’t. If you want to be angry with me about it, that’s your decision. However I feel right about it and I believe my Father in Heaven agrees. If you feel the need to second-guess the two of us, that’s up to you.”

“I don’t know what to think,” he responded, shamed by her words. “For all I know he’s out there now, wondering what ever happened to me. I’d like to find out who he is. Maybe we could get together, do stuff, you know, like a father and son.”

Horror crossed the sweet woman’s face at the remark. “Drake, you don’t know the man. He’s dangerous, and I promise, you don’t want to ever meet him.”

“How can you say that, he’s my father, isn’t he?” he countered.

She sat back into the sofa cushion, a look of fear in her eyes. She weighed the options in her mind as to what to say to her son, and decided he needed to know the whole story.

“It wasn’t long after our marriage,” she began, looking older and more haggard than he had ever seen her before, “that I started to see your father as he truly was on the inside. We lived in a huge house, he was a rather well-off and soon to be a prominent physician, and we had everything money could buy. There were several expensive cars, pricey vacations, and even servants waiting on us hand and foot. It was every girl’s dream. At least at first.

“Your father was very wealthy, handsome, charming, and somewhat mysterious, all the makings of a perfect romance. But he was also very controlling and demanding. He kept late hours, always had me watched, and started meeting with some rather unsavory gentlemen at the house. I started to feel neglected.  Then one night I confronted him, demanding that he pay me the attention a wife was due.

“He flew into a rage, listing off all the material possessions he had provided, how he was extremely busy, and how ungrateful I was to make such demands. I countered by saying that it was all meaningless without his companionship, and that I’d give it all up in a heartbeat if we could just be together. It was absolutely the worst thing I could have said. For the first time since I had met him he turned violent.”

“He hit you?” Drake interrupted incredulously.

“No, not then. He just started throwing things around the room, smashing everything he could get his hands on. Then he stomped out of the room and went back to his precious library, where he spent nearly every minute of every day. However, after that he tightened his reigns on me, so that I couldn’t even breathe without a report getting back to him.

“Of course, as most men will, he would come back periodically, offer some expensive bauble and insincere apology, and then we’d kiss and make up. But then he’d be back in the library before I woke the next day and I might not see him for days at a time. Then came the day I told him I was pregnant.

“He was ecstatic! He ran out and started buying all sorts of baby things, you know, clothes, furniture, toys, and we turned one of the rooms into a nursery with everything a baby and toddler would need. Those months were perhaps the happiest of our marriage.” She broke off her narrative for a moment, a smile crossing her lips as she relived the memories. But the moment was short-lived. A look of deep aching crossed her face as she picked the story back up.

“The day my little boy was born was the worst day of my life. I only had a few minutes alone with my baby before some doctor I had never seen before came in and ripped him out of my arms. I laid there in the hospital bed completely dumfounded, and started buzzing and yelling for the nurse. Instead my husband walked in and announced that I would not be seeing ‘his’ son anymore, that my job was completed. Then he turned and walked out, leaving me distraught and sobbing.”

Tears streamed down her cheeks as she told of the moment, spurring a deep melancholy within Drake. He’d never heard the heart-wrenching story before, and was beginning to regret bringing the whole thing up. Still he felt he had a right to know. He just wondered how much worse it might get before it got better. His mother began again, verifying that there was indeed much more sorrow.

“For days I wailed, cursing the evil man, praying for relief. I begged and pleaded for him to relent, but his resolve only seemed to strengthen with each request. Finally, a few weeks later, I decided that I had put up with enough, and would see my child no matter what the cost.

“I put together a plan to get past the security, and plotted how I would get my child back. I went to breakfast down in the kitchen this one day, something that had become a regular practice. I was rather lonely you see, and there was always someone down there. Anyway, I took out a prescription bottle that I had been given during the pregnancy, and secretly filled it with aspirin. I took it back upstairs, followed by my ‘bodyguard’ and went to my desk in the bedroom.

“I wrote out some nonsense lines on a piece of paper, stuck it in an envelope, and handed it to him, asking him to give to my husband. Then I took the bottle out, dumped the majority of the contents into my mouth, and went over and lay down on the bed. It didn’t take long for the oaf to put two and two together and run out the door yelling for help.

“I got up, spit out the medicine in the adjoining bathroom, and then ran carefully down the hall to the nursery, skirting everyone I saw. Somehow I made it all the way to the nursery unseen. As quietly as I could I stepped into the room, and walked up to the crib.

“The tiny form that I saw was the most beautiful sight I could imagine. A soft face surrounded by wisps of curly blonde hair, and lovely blue eyes that I could have fallen into. He was just lying there staring into the air like babies do, perfectly content with the world. It broke my heart so see how well he had gotten along without me. I was grateful he was okay, but I decided he would never have to go without a mommy again.

“I picked him up ever so gently and held him to my chest as tightly as I felt I could, then grabbed the diaper bag sitting next to the crib, and turned, ready to leave my home and husband for good. To my horror, there stood your father right behind me, fire flashing in his eyes, fury burning just beneath the surface.

“Apparently he had heard the guards yelling and had guessed at the truth, coming straight to the nursery. He gently took the baby from my arms, handed it to a nurse he had hired as a nanny, and dismissed them all. Then he forced me to the ground, beat me mercilessly, and forced his will upon me. The next thing I remember was waking up back in my room covered with blood, and feeling pain like I had never felt before. That was the last time I saw either your father or my baby boy again.”

Absorbed in the story it took Drake a moment to realize what she had just said. His mother simply sat watching him, waiting for him to catch on to her subtle hint. Finally it made it through. “The last time you saw your baby boy? Isn’t right now the last time you saw your ‘baby boy?’”

“No,” she answered wearily, “the last time I saw your big brother. Sometime after that incident I found I was pregnant again, and ran away, not willing to give another child to that man. I came back here to your grandparents, begged for forgiveness, and like the prodigal son they took me back in with open arms. Your father has no idea that you even exist, and I plan on keeping it that way. Forever.”

*
             
             
*
             
             
*

“Nice story, Drake,” Darrion cut in
to his brother’s recitation
. “‘Cruel, overbearing lecher takes advantage of innocent, naive Mormon girl.’ Fits right in with Father’s description of our mother: neurotic, infantile, self-absorbed, self-righteous do-gooder that got what she wanted out of the marriage, and ran away when she didn’t get her way.”

Drake felt his ire building at the words, but knew his brother was simply baiting him. Instead he ignored the taunt and concentrated on the memories now flooding into his mind. He looked back to Lissa, found support and encouragement in her eyes, and pressed forward with his remembrances.

“Well, I decided to be stupid, and ignore my mother’s pleas to let it go, and hopped a flight to Idaho to find my father. Instead I found that he had died several months earlier, but that my brother here had taken his place in the community. I decided I had to meet him….”

“Yes, the prodigal son returns to claim his inheritance, and they all live happily ever after,” Stanton interrupted sarcastically. “Did you find what you wanted, little brother?”

“What I found was that my mother was right,” he scowled at the other man, “an evil, malicious man, intent on destroying anything in his way.”

“That’s right,” Darrion snapped menacingly. “And what’s currently in my way is you.”

Ignoring the outburst, he turned to Lissa to explain. “I went to his house, and his maid let me in. I wandered through the house, exploring, and ended up in the library. There was something I found there, can’t quite place what it was now, but he flew into a rage when he found me. I tried to explain who I was and that I just wanted to get to know my family, but he wouldn’t have any part of it.”

“What do you mean ‘you can’t quite place it? ’ You know very well it was….” His voice trailed off, his expression moving from anger to confusion to bemusement before settling on crazed glee. “You really can’t remember!” Stanton threw his head back, laughing. He was giddy with the sudden revelation.

“You have amnesia, don’t you?” he asked, and then roared with laughter again at their expressions confirming his supposition. “I don’t believe it! So that’s why you didn’t turn me in. Oh well, it’s all too late now. You should have stayed in San Diego with ‘Mommy’ Drake.”

“Wait a minute!” cried Lissa, lost in the dialogue between the two. “Why are you trying to kill your brother? Just because he’s your brother? Is he a threat to your inheritance or something?”

“No,” answered Drake, the last pieces falling into place, “because I learned of his plans. I remember now. I remember it all.

“He has a document he wrote, hidden in the library. I came across it entirely by accident, but I figured out what he was planning. He couldn’t risk me exposing it, so he hired Scardoni and his thugs to take me out of the picture. They tied me up, put me on a plane, and tried to throw me out. I escaped, ending up in the water. You know the rest,” he concluded.