Eye Sleuth (30 page)

“It was built in the late eighteen-fifties,” I said as I emptied the plate of soba noodles into the shabu-shabu pot’s bubbling water. “The Quakers used it for about a century but then transferred activities to the Meeting House at Stuyvesant Square. Neighborhood activists finally got it designated a New York Landmark. They wanted it to be a performing arts center but that didn’t happen. Then the building went to the United Federation of Teachers, but they ended up not using it.”

“Let’s shelve that discussion for later,” I told Dan. “Time for shabu-shabu,” and I placed the plate of beef slices on the table between us. We sat down to eat.

“The age-old query, what’s mine?” I said as I took slices of crimini mushrooms, red pepper, onion and cabbage and dropped them in the water then picked up a slice of the paper-thin beef. I’d have to congratulate Pete, the beef was exactly right. I waited a few seconds and pulled out the beef.

“That’s cooked the way I like it,” I said and fished out noodles and veggies.

Dan didn’t waste any time. Adept with chopsticks, he had his veggies in quickly and a slice of beef in and out of the bubbling water as rapidly I had.

“Holidays like New Year’s are celebrated with days of feasts. My family didn’t bring in the new year exactly the way it’s done in Japan but one day I’ll tell you all about the marvelous meals.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

We ate in silence, content to save conversation for later. Eventually we reached the stage where our chopsticks found nothing when we fished around in the water, which was now a delicious broth. I spooned some into my bowl and Dan filled his bowl.

What was Dan going to say? His cell phone rang. Talk about a rotten time to be interrupted. Dan must have felt the same way. He rolled his eyes.

“If I could ignore that I would.” He took the call, listened for a moment then said quietly, “I’m five minutes away. Be right there.” Standing, he made a wry face. “I’ll call you when I can but it may not be until the morning.”

That night I lay in bed and though about what I’d learned. It was never made public, not at the trial or later, but the value of Dr. Anders’ work to terrorists would have been immense. The ways to use the prototypes beyond the therapy they’d been designed for were staggering. The software of one, let’s call it Unit A, could gather a lot of valuable information from a covert scanning of an individual’s vision. If mind control was the ultimate goal, surveillance begun with Unit A would set the groundwork brilliantly. It was a perfect tool to analyze potential behavior and know how to manipulate someone.

The grapevine whispered that the Aum Shinrikyo cult led the bidders for Unit A. They’d been responsible for the attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995 that flooded the place with lethal sarin gas. The cult was rumored to have a billion dollar kitty and a dangerously large number of members who were scientists. It was believed that one of their main projects was developing ways to make the brain more susceptible to suggestions through microwave technology or high magnetic fields.

Unit A could also detect drug use with distance surveillance. The possibilities were staggering. Barnes saw the prototypes as future unconventional Weapons of Mass Destruction. What a perversion of equipment designed for benign use. How to guard against fanatics, whether homegrown Timothy McVeighs or someone from another country?

The trial ended. Allan Barnes and Matt Wahr were sentenced and went to prison.

Lanny and Lars left on a short trip to Sweden, the first such venture for Lanny since she was released from the hospital. Lars planned the travel carefully. He knew that sleep deprivation and extended travel schedules could bring on fatigue and emotional swings in TBI victims, even those considered fully recovered. The few e-mails they sent me were filled with good news. Their relationship was deepening and holding. Survivors of traumatic brain injury are different, for their personalities are affected and altered. Often divorce is added to the trauma. A widow, Lanny had escaped divorce and her new friendship with Lars hadn’t been affected. Altered perhaps, but it was resilient and would grow stronger.

My dad always said you learn from experience. Turned out, that’s what Mark Sanders, the suave Chief of Detectives at the Thirteenth Precinct believed. He called with the strangest invitation I’d ever had. I was taken aback. To tell the truth, I was horrified.

“Dr. Kamimura,” he began, “We hope you’ll consider joining the 13
^th
as a civilian consultant.”

“Why are we asking you?” Sanders didn’t wait for me to speak but briskly listed what he obviously thought were important reasons for the invitation.

“Your optometric training means you have a certain expertise in understanding behavior. In fact, your studies of psychology and pharmacology are excellent preparation for police work. You’re licensed by the state to prescribe pharmaceuticals for the eyes and this means you know the effects of many drugs—including narcotics. All of this gives you valuable insight, no pun intended.” Sanders chuckled at his own wit.

I couldn’t argue with the captain. I’m a behavioral optometrist, one of the specialties in optometry. Everything he said about my training was accurate but I still was against the idea. Sanders wasn’t done.

“Your quick thinking and appropriate action––even when threatened by someone you knew was a murderer––resolved an important case, one that could have had serious ramifications. That’s significant in these days of heightened security. Last but not least, you worked well with my two top detectives, Dan Riley and Zoran Zeissing.”

“But I didn’t do any real detecting,” I protested, thinking of the whirlwind of murder and mayhem that engulfed me from Day One. I winced as I recalled the few efforts I’d made to find connections between the almost nonstop sequence of bizarre happenings. I’d kept putting off any attempt at serious sleuthing, partly because of the pressure of work, partly because I’d been thwarted over something like finding someone’s address when they don’t have a land line and weren’t in the telephone directory.

“Detective Zeissing might not agree that you didn’t do any detecting,” Sanders said. “He recommended you be hired as a civilian consultant because of the way you reasoned your way out of trouble and also for the initiative you showed in visiting Mrs. Wahr.”

Now I really was surprised. Hmm, Zoran Zeissing was a brainiac. If he thought I had some ability, I might mull over the invitation.

“I don’t know,” I said cautiously. “I need time to think about it.”

That got me off the hook for the time being. Every now and then I revisited the question. Was it my civic duty to help? I knew Gus Forkiotis would tell me it was. He’d worked with the Connecticut Police Academy for decades, and other practitioners had followed his lead, sharing their time and expertise. But what could I do to help New York’s police if I did become a civilian consultant? Did I really want to get close to murder and mayhem again? If I said Yes to being a civilian consultant, perhaps I’d work with Detective Dan. Was that a good thing? How much fun would togetherness be if you were chasing perverts?

For the immediate time being, I focused on what I knew. I’d learned I cared enough about Dan to believe what he said about the situation between him and his ex being over. Besides, playing it safe is dangerous. We’d navigated our first major roadblock. Others would undoubtedly come but I had faith that in the future we could negotiate like adults. I trusted Dan. Not bad for someone divorced from a charming liar of an alcoholic gambler.

News about the way I’d thwarted Barnes spread through optometric circles like wild fire. Bob Bertolli called to compliment me and I learned that good-natured man was way more bloodthirsty than me.

“Quick thinking, the way you stopped the bad guy,” Bob congratulated me. “Mind you, I’d never have tried to dislodge his contacts. I’d have delivered a thumb strike. That damages the tender area surrounded by the mandible. I’d have liked to see his eyes glaze over. Why stop there? I’d have wanted the pain to send him unconscious. That’s actually possible.”

“Wow,” I cringed at the gruesome image. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Hey, it’s lifesaving technique for quarrelsome swimmers,” Bob said. “My second choice would be to hook my pinky through the lacrimal bone in one orbit. Okay, that’s really bad, I wouldn’t go that far. Seriously, have you thought about taking karate classes?”

Good advice. I might even follow it. For sure I’ll think about it. I’ll add it to the list, second to the question of becoming a civilian consultant to New York’s 13
^th
Precinct. In the interval between thought, decision and action, it’s onward and upward. Just like old times. The times when danger was indulging in too many pizzas. Hadn’t been old times for so long.

Postscript

Elements of Truth

Behavioral Optometry, a specialty in the field of optometry, is available in more than forty countries. It has helped countless individuals whose eyesight was excellent but whose vision was not. Among them, Luci Baines Johnson, the daughter of President Johnson, and a roll call of professional and amateur sports teams that includes the New York Yankees, Chicago Black Hawks, San Francisco 49ers and U.S. Olympic medalists.

Eye Sleuth has real behavioral optometrists as well as fictional practitioners. The real ones include Drs. Elliott Forrest, Gus Forkiotis (a nationally recognized expert witness who lectured on vision at the Connecticut State Police Academy for decades), Bob Bertolli (also a lecturer at the Connecticut State Police Academy for decades), Beth Ballinger, Beth Bazin, Sam Berne, Steve Gallop, Paul Harris, Bob Sanet, Simon Grbevski (Australia) and Owen Leigh (England). The Executive Director of the OEP Foundation (
www.oepf.org
), Bob Williams, is very real and ever tireless in behalf of behavioral optometry. The College of Optometry at SUNY is one of the twenty colleges in the U.S. that offers training in this specialty.

Happily, the magnificent stained glass dome at the National Arts Club is unscathed. The former Friends Meeting House on Gramercy Park South, empty for many years, was indeed part of the Underground Railroad. The building is now the Brotherhood Synagogue.

The number of victims of traumatic brain injury (TBI) caused by auto, sports and industrial accidents grows with tragic speed, two million annually in the U.S. alone. Some survivors are able, with the right support, to return to active lives. Their families, health care professionals and caregivers help in many different ways. The Brain Injury Association of America’s website provides good information: (
http://www.biausa.org/
).

NORA,
the Neuro-Optometric Rehabilitation Association, is
an international multidisciplinary organization established in 1989 to provide and advocate for vision rehabilitation and the habilitation of neurologically challenged individuals (
www.nora.cc/
).

Recipes

Lanny’s Swedish Meatballs

1 lb ground beef

1/2 cup diced onion

3/4 cup bread crumbs (spelt or whole wheat work as well as white bread)

1/2 cup milk (soy or rice or almond liquid can be used)

1 egg

1 TBS parsley, if dried; if fresh, chop fine & use lavishly

1 TBS soy sauce or spicy sauce of choice

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1 lb of mushrooms, chopped & sautéed lightly in butter

1/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup flour (whole wheat or spelt works)