Painless (28 page)

Chapter 60

TGIF—Thank God it’s Friday.

That’s what Billy remembered his co-workers at Klein’s Beer mindlessly humming around the cubicled office on Fridays. They didn’t thank their chosen holy savior for the gift of life or eternal salvation. They thanked God for two measly days off before they returned back on Monday.

But as Billy reviewed his week, he believed its symbolic end was worthy of praising a deity. It all began last Sunday when an intruder was spotted at the Whitcomb house, and concluded on Thursday night with Carolyn getting shot. And what happened in-between was still hard to grasp. So yes, Billy agreed. Thank God it was Friday.

Morning came, but the sun never rose. The skies were fall-bleak and looked like it could snow at any moment, even though it was only October. They ate leftover “Chinee” for breakfast, and then Billy and Dana went through the ritual of checking Carolyn’s wounds. To the best of their medical knowledge, which wasn’t much, they looked okay

 Dana wanted to hightail it to North Carolina to speak with Jordan, but conceded that they needed to buy time to figure out a way to get there without being exposed. They were right next to the airport, but Billy knew that was fool’s gold. Going through airport security would be a like putting out a welcome mat for Operation Anesthesia. So to buy time, they would travel to the past.

Their only choice was to call a cab, and surprisingly, Martin showed up again. They were immediately suspicious, but then he informed them that he was the only driver for Tech Valley Cabs, because he was the owner and was yet to make enough profit to hire any drivers. Using the Calvin Rose philosophy, Billy knew that if Martin worked for Operation Anesthesia, they would already be killed or captured.

Their first stop on the trip to the bad beginning was Siena College, located in Loudonville, about twenty minutes northeast of Albany. It was also a common denominator of all involved. Mrs. B was a professor there. Beth’s mother, Carol Ann, was Mrs. B’s student, and later her teacher assistant, cementing a relationship that would provide her daughter safe harbor for the last twenty-plus years. Beth, herself, attended as a student. The irony was that she chose to attend school at Siena because of Mrs. B’s influence, but had no idea her own mother had also attended.

Martin remained in the car as they entered the campus of the small Franciscan college. By this point, it was understood he would wait for them. Dana had brought enough money with her to keep him on retainer for a few more days. They walked across the campus, which was overflowing with immense trees and colored leaves. It appeared to be a typical New England university with classic brick buildings, ivy, and quads that surrounded a large, gold-domed building called Siena Hall. The smell of autumn filled the early morning air. Early-bird students were chatting freely as they scurried to class, holding piles of textbooks under their arms.

It’s what Billy believed college should be about. Not a community living vicariously through football players who were pretending to be students. It still hit him hard when he thought of the death threats he received when he quit to work on his academics. Death threats because a college student wanted to study more!

But that didn’t mean he didn’t love college. He did. It was a time of feeling alive. He recently heard a song that celebrated the idea of
living like you are dying
, in other words, live each day to the fullest because it might be your last. He didn’t find that philosophy very enticing, and it actually sounded pretty depressing. But college was different. It was a time when he lived life like he was
never going to die
. Living in the moment, convinced he was indestructible. That’s what Billy thought of when he thought of college, and still believed it was the best way to live life.

Problem was, right now it felt like death was around every corner.

Another problem was that very few current people at Siena had any remembrance of Mrs. B or Carol Ann Pennington, so their return to college came up empty. The only real accomplishment during their campus visit was adding to Carolyn’s growing college sweatshirt collection, purchasing one with Siena’s colors of green and gold. She badly needed a change of clothing. A forest-fire-smelling, personalized hockey jersey wasn’t the best choice of apparel if they wanted to remain under the radar. Carolyn spent most of the visit negotiating to run around the campus, apparently unaffected by her gunshot wound, but they weren’t letting her out of their sight for even a second.

With the trip to the past turning out to be another crack in the rear-view mirror, they began looking toward their cloudy future. Dana was able to use her flirting skills to get them into the computer library, where they were able to log onto the Internet without fear of being traced. They researched potential transportation to North Carolina, without much success. Billy also Googled the name of the doctor Carol Ann mentioned in her letters—Dash Naqui. The findings showed Naqui to be quite accomplished, a leading expert in neurological disorders. Billy remembered what Bronson had said when Billy asked him who the trainers work for.

The doctors.

Billy knew they were getting low on time, so Dr. Naqui would have to take a number. The first doctor they needed to meet with was Dr. Jordan. Then just before he clicked off the net, something hit him.

It was something Martin mentioned on the way over, while discussing the nuisances of the different cities in the Albany area. He said it was a hard place to fit in as a newcomer like himself, because it’s one of those places that people live from birth to death. “And even when they leave, they always return,” he added.

“Could it be that simple,” Billy mumbled as he typed the names of Steve and Carol Ann Pennington into a search. Could they have returned to the area?

He found the names of three Steve Penningtons in the Albany/Schenectady area. Against Dana’s wishes, Billy thought they needed to check them out before heading out of town, no matter how much of a long-shot it was. The first Steve Pennington lived right near Siena, but was a middle-aged black man—a dead end. The second Steve Pennington lived in an apartment near the capital in Albany, but was a college-age student at University of Albany-SUNY, ruling him out.

Martin then drove them to the final possibility. It was a broken down two-story house on Rockland Drive in Schenectady. The paint was peeling and shutters were missing. As Martin waited, Billy led Dana and Carolyn up the chipped cement stoop and knocked. A middle-aged woman with an out-of-style perm answered.

Billy’s mind became one of those crime-solving computers that projects aging. “Carol Ann?” he asked.

The woman made a strange face. “I’m sorry, nobody by that name lives here.”

Just as the woman began to shut the door, Dana exclaimed, “We are looking for Steve Pennington. Does he live here?”

The door came open, and they were reluctantly invited in. But they soon found out that this Steve Pennington was a ninety-two year old man suffering from numerous ailments, and the woman was his caretaker. Another dead end.

When they exited, things went from bad to worse. Their ride was gone! Martin had left a note on the curb. It rambled vaguely about an emergency that forced him to leave immediately. Billy was suspicious—something had spooked Martin. Dana must’ve had the same thought because she was reaching for the gun. Billy prepared for an ambush similar to the one at the cabin, but none came.

Stuck without a vehicle, Billy pulled out the envelope with the last-known address of Carol Ann and Steven Pennington on East Lyndon Street in Schenectady. According to their map, it was only a couple blocks away from Rockland Drive. Billy’s instincts tugged at him to go there. He wasn’t sure why. The Penningtons hadn’t lived there in over twenty years. But it wasn’t like they had a better plan at the moment.

A fifteen-minute walk landed them into the driveway of 1154 East Lyndon Street. The neighborhood was a suburban sprawl that gave off the hopeful vibe of the American dream. It contrasted with the bleakness of the neighborhood they just left, even though only blocks separated them.

Billy wasn’t sure what he hoped to find. Maybe he was hoping to run into some ghosts who could fill in his blanks. Or perhaps he had watched too many crime dramas where they always returned to the “scene of the crime.”

Nobody appeared to be home at the modest, split-level colonial. He wondered how many others had occupied it since the Penningtons abandoned it all those years ago. He peered into the two-car garage and spotted a motorcycle. Billy had a brief daydream of smashing the garage window and taking the bike to North Carolina. Not a very likely scenario with three people, including a child. The heavily advertised security system was another obstacle.

He lifted Carolyn onto his shoulders so she could look through the garage window. An excited look swallowed up her face. “I like motorcycles!”

“We know,” Dana said with a motherly sarcasm.

At another dead end, without any transportation, and running out of time, they took a seat on the curb in front of the house. They looked like a homeless family.
Okay, now what?

Options were dwindling.

That’s when a middle-aged, power-walking couple appeared in matching sweat suits and sneakers so white they must have been right out of the box. The woman had long brown hair that was secured in a ponytail, while the man’s blond combover was struggling in its battle against the wind.

The couple hesitantly approached them. The man spoke in suspicious neighborhood-watch tone. “I saw you looking into the Garcia’s house. Are they expecting you?”

Billy and Dana were too tired to even look up. So Carolyn did the honors. She excitedly exclaimed, “They got a motorcycle!”

The woman stared at Carolyn like she’d seen a ghost. The color drained from her face. When she regained some sense of composure, she uttered in a shaken voice, “Beth?”

Chapter 61

Beth awoke Friday morning to the smell of freshly cut flowers. It was her second day in captivity, although this version of captivity sure had a different twist—she never remembered reading about satin sheets in Vietnam prison camps.

She remained in her room all day during her first full day on the plantation, with nobody coming to see her. They were treating her like a grounded child, patiently waiting her out until she complied. She thought of the last time she and Chuck had to go that route with Carolyn. But Carolyn’s stubbornness eventually wore them down. She planned on doing the same with Operation Anesthesia.
It must be a family trait
, she thought.

A knock rattled the door. Beth walked to the remnants of the artist formally known as the china dish, which was still lying on the floor. She had thrown last night’s dinner against the wall, refusing to eat. It was part rebellion, but she also believed they might use the food to drug her again. She picked up the most-jagged piece she could find.

Beth moved to the door, ready to strike with the broken dish. She pulled the door open, surprised at what she saw. A plump, middle-aged black woman with metallic silver hair. Everybody’s grandmother with a disarming smile. Not the armed trainer she expected. She lowered her weapon.

The woman smiled at Beth—a disarming smile. “I’m Miss Rose. I heard you had moved in and I just wanted to be neighborly.”

Beth was confused. Before her was the woman who prepared their meal when they were last at Jordan Plantation. She remembered how she made Carolyn smile.

“Did you sleep well?” Miss Rose asked.

Beth said nothing, remaining stone-faced.

“You look tired, dear, I know how stressful the first couple of days in a new place can be.”

Beth wasn’t sure what to make of the woman. Was she one of them, or a victim like her?

Miss Rose seemed to read her mind, “I remember my first day when they brought me here, gosh, it must’ve been twenty years ago. I live right down the hall.”

“I don’t get it,” Beth finally spoke, “I saw you in the dining room.”

“I’m retired, but my job working as Dr. Jordan’s personal cook keeps me busy. Most of my children have grown.”

“How many children did they force you to have?” Beth asked with hostility.

“I have fifteen on the grounds,” Miss Rose remained cheerfully on message.

“What do they do with the ones who don’t have CIPA—feed them to the dogs?”

“I think you have it all wrong, dear. This is a place of benevolence. For those children who don’t meet the criteria, they find good homes in the outside. Dr. Jordan has set up an organization through his children’s hospital.”

The lucky ones
, Beth thought. “You call taking your children away from you, benevolence? I call it kidnapping!”

“From what they told me, you were adopted yourself. And look how well you turned out.”

Beth realized her aggressive tactic, while natural, wasn’t going to get her to Carolyn any quicker. She remembered Mrs. B’s pet phrase about attracting more flies with honey than vinegar. Her hunger/talking/sex strike, combined with breaking all the good china, was a strategy drenched in vinegar.

Miss Rose smiled radiantly. “Why don’t we go for a walk, dear?”

No time like the present for Beth’s new strategy of compliance. She tossed on the light sweater and jeans that her captors had left out for her—just her size—and followed Miss Rose, who waddled ahead in a floral print dress.

They moved down the underground tunnels, passing numerous other “residents.” Miss Rose cheerily introduced Beth to a few of them. Beth expected the vacant looks of slaves, or hypnotic, proud-cult-member smiles, but they seemed like typical people trudging through the daily commute of life. Beth continued her new strategy, pleasantly responding with warm hellos. It was like the first day at a new school.

They arrived at an elevator, which they rode upward. It was a different one from the first night, but Beth figured they still weren’t going to a chocolate factory. Instead of the English basement of the manor house, their destination was an octagonal gazebo somewhere on the extensive plantation grounds. It was surrounded by exquisite gardens and featured a panoramic view of the lake. Miss Rose grabbed Beth’s hand and helped her down the steps of the gazebo into a beautiful sunken garden. According to Miss Rose, it was the creation of someone called Lady Amrich who married the son of Quincy Jordan at the turn of the 19th century.

After leaving the garden area, they entered a path that trailed through a thick, wooded area, eventually arriving in a meadow-like clearing. It looked to Beth like a typical park in New Canaan, where the pampered wives of the wealthy congregated in their designer workout suits. Beth witnessed parents playing with children under a perfect October sky. Young mothers pushing children in baby carriages. Some fathers were flying kites with toddler-aged children, and others kicked around a soccer ball in the open field. Older women sat on a bench and chatted, while lovers held hands.

Welcome to Creepyville,
she thought.

Miss Rose kept going on and on about the perfect lifestyle at the plantation. It sure didn’t sound like the type of slavery Beth learned about in history class. The kind that took place on these very grounds. The kind where if one listened closely, they could probably still hear the screams of slaves being mercilessly beaten with a leather strap.

Beth didn’t notice any armed guards or disciplinary beatings. They had a much bigger weapon to keep the “residents” in line—the children. No parent was going to have any motivation to leave their children, and the more they had, the more roots they grew at the plantation. Beth had once read that most slaves didn’t find the violent beatings or public humiliation to be the most feared punishments on a plantation. Being sold away from their families was the cruelest.

“This is our recreational area,” Miss Rose beamed. “We like to call it our little slice of utopia.”

It was pretty obvious that Miss Rose had swallowed the whole batch of the Jordan Kool-Aid. Beth tried to bite her tongue, but unlike her daughter, she wasn’t immune from pain and could only hold it for so long, “There is no such thing! Communism was supposed to be the breeding ground for utopian society. But all that ever developed was a society that couldn’t think for itself, run by murderous dictators!”

Miss Rose remained unflappable. “I didn’t mean to imply we’re any different than any other society. We raise our families, watch our children grow, make friends, go to church…”

“Except one big difference—you’re enslaved.”

Miss Rose scoffed, “My great-great grandfather arrived to America on a slave ship and remained in slavery until he was freed by Lincoln. And then he was enslaved by a society that considered people of color to be no different than your average mule. I can assure you this is nothing like slavery.”

Beth lassoed her anger and climbed back on the honey wagon. “But don’t you miss your freedom?” she asked as pleasantly as she could muster.

“My husband and I were a mixed-race couple. We had our lives disturbed, and often threatened, by simple-minded people who didn’t accept our relationship. On top of it, Jacque was a struggling jazz musician, so we rarely had money. We had trouble making sure our son, André, got proper food and nourishment. Freedom? I’ll take this life any day of the week and twice Sunday.”

As she took in Miss Rose’s words, Beth observed some of the “residents” of Creepyville. They appeared to roam freely. But Beth was confident that armed security was hidden, ready to pounce. Most groups like this believed in the concept of certainty. Which was why they likely chose this spot—it was the perfect hideout. Five hundred acres packed away in the deep forest on the southern tip of Virginia. She remembered the Olympic bomber hiding out in the thick forests of nearby North Carolina for years before he was finally apprehended.

Miss Rose escorted Beth into a diminutive, wooden structure near the park that she referred to as the Plantation Store. It reminded Beth of a typical New England country store. Miss Rose purchased spices for that night’s masterpiece from a happy cashier. Beth was offered a freshly baked cinnamon role and an ice tea, but she politely declined, even more concerned about being drugged after what she just witnessed.

The next stop was the stone-built kitchen that Beth remembered from her original tour with Carolyn. Jordan had mentioned that it had burned down over ten times since the plantation’s inception. After Miss Rose dropped off her spices, and made a couple preparations for that night’s dinner, they returned underground to their “apartments.”

Miss Rose’s apartment was three doors down and across the hall from Beth’s room. It looked similar, but had a homier feel, different from the hotel sterility of Beth’s room. It was full of framed photographs of her many children.

Miss Rose appeared tired—she was no spring chicken, nor in top physical shape—and plopped onto her bed, wiping perspiration from her brow. Beth found Miss Rose to be an odd duck, but didn’t doubt her love for her children. She was a victim, just like she was. Just because she accepted the abuse didn’t lessen this fact.

Beth’s eyes scanned the room, before landing on a similar chart as the one over her own bed. Except it was filled in. Beth now realized it was some sort of trophy to the number of CIPA children she sired. They were in alphabetical order starting with A—as if to keep the theme of order.

André

Bronson

Calvin

Deirdre

Eddy

And so on, until it reached eighteen. The obvious one’s caught Beth’s eye. She saw an opening and took a shot, “Calvin is no longer here on the plantation, is he?”

Miss Rose was caught off guard and her voice shook, “Why do you say that?”

“Because I met Calvin. He gave me this,” she displayed the necklace with the medallion of the red rose. Now she understood that Rose was his name. “He tried to help Carolyn stay away from this utopia, as you call it. He must’ve forgotten how great this place is, or maybe he forgot to wash his brain that day.”

Miss Rose’s face changed, night-and-day different. She put her finger to her mouth to indicate quiet, and mouthed silently, “They’re listening.”

She then reached under the back of her flowered dress. Beth wasn’t sure what she was doing, she seemed like she was struggling to scratch an itch in a hard-to-reach spot. Beth was about to offer help, when Miss Rose’s arm reappeared, revealing a small chip. For some reason Beth knew right away that it was a listening device.

They made intense eye contact, mother to mother. Beth suddenly realized they had similar thoughts on freedom. Miss Rose was also doing the honey over vinegar thing, maybe for twenty years.

Beth nodded her head to indicate she understood.

“Is he okay?” Miss Rose mouthed.

“I don’t know.” Beth lied, not having the heart to tell her, her eyes shifting away. She forced a smile, but could tell Miss Rose saw right through it. She certainly didn’t have the same acting skills as Miss Rose.

“How did they escape?” Beth whispered.

Miss Rose returned the chip back into her back and smiled. The smile said everything.
She
helped them escape.

Intermission was over and the play resumed. Beth thanked her for a lovely day and made plans to attend church with her on Saturday night. Then Miss Rose left to cook a meal for Dr. Jordan.

Perhaps she would cook up some flies and honey.