The Alumnus, a novel by Phil Cline

Chapter Sixteen

“I want to talk to you, counselor.”  

Maurice’s tone of voice left no room for debate.  Brenda had been returned to her waiting area.  Wanda had lumbered down the hall to use the restroom.  I had just entered from the interview room from where I had been observing on the other side of the two-way mirror.

“What about, Detective?  Shouldn’t we wait until Wanda gets back.”

“It’s about her I want to talk about.”

I looked at the door to make sure she hadn’t returned.

“She won’t say it, but she’s worried.  She thinks someone is following her, well, a number of someone.  She says there are always more than one.  Sometimes two, sometimes more.”

I shrugged.  “If there is one thing we know,” I said, “it’s that Wanda can take care of herself.”

“Sure.  I know very few men who could beat her in a knock down drag out fight.  Hell, fact is, I don’t know any, not any I would be so sure could beat her I would lay down a wager.  But this is different.  You saw what happened to Dora.”

“Well, let’s call in the cavalry.  Surely, we can get a few more hands on deck. Upgrade our personal security.  If it’s only a matter of cost, I can talk to the mayor about it.”

“Might not be a bad idea.  But there’s more to it than just physical matchups.  A lot about what these people say gets to her.  About why they wanted to change.  She brushes it off.  Big tough girl, you know, but think how it must have been for her in high school.  She’s as big as a Godzilla.  The teasing had to be brutal.”

I laughed a little.  “Yeah, her size, I would be careful about the teasing.”

Maurice didn’t laugh.  “See, that’s what I’m talking about.  She likes you.  A lot.  Maybe like that Dora did and you never even knew it.   But she worries she doesn’t belong with you.”

“Well, I’m not worried about her.  She’s tough as nails.  High school slights aren’t going to stick with that one.  She’s not going to be bothered.  No way.”

“I wouldn’t discount it too much, Counselor.  She hurts like everybody else and like everybody else she can get physically hurt if enough thugs gang up on her.”

Just then Wanda’s shadow appeared in the doorway.  

I nodded at Maurice.  “Noted’” I said.  He nodded back.

Wanda came in a sat down by me.  Her big body radiated heat.  I could curl up in that warmth today.  

I started things off.  “Did anybody understand any of that crap?”

Wanda laughed.  Maurice uncharacteristically smiled.

“Look,” I said, “I don’t know where all this transcendental fantasy bullshit is coming from.  I mean, for crying out loud!  Come on!  Let’s not get bogged down here. All I care about is if these delusions present some pathway to a defense for Drew for those two murders.  I am not going to let anyone walk with an insanity verdict.”

“That’s an interesting point,” Wanda said.

“What?”

“The second murder.  We don’t really have anything to tie Drew to that Vic.  We have pretty much a confession from him for him taking out Brenda, and why, depending on what you believe about this shifting cloning stuff.  But we have very little on the second killing. Who was the person he killed?”

“I thought we had a bitter ex-boyfriend.”

“No,” Maurice said. “It turns out no one knows him.  No connection we could find to the dead Brenda.  The live one doesn’t know him either.  Nothing turned up on the local or state databases.  The morning after the murder, I sent the fingerprints in to the F.B.I. to run some checks on the federal side.”

“Heard anything back?”

“No.  But, you know, I should have by now. Let’s call and find out.”

Maurice pulled the phone down to the other end of the table.  I could hear him mumbling into the receiver.

“Well, Wanda, what do you think?  By the way, is anything bothering you?”  

I put my hand on top of her thigh and squeezed.  I wasn’t sure she could feel the pressure through the impressive musculature. 

“I guess he told you about me being followed, huh?”

‘How would you know that?”

“You’re totally obvious, pretty boy.  You and me done lots of stuff already and I’m in for more of the same if you want, but expressing inchoate concerns about my or any woman’s welfare has not been and is not now, shall we say, your forte.”

“Okay.  Fair enough.  But do you have any ideas about who these people might be?”

Before she could answer, Maurice was back and sitting down across from us.

“Well?” I asked.

“It’s a little weird.  No.  It’s a lot weird.”

Neither Wanda nor I said anything.  We waited for him to go on.

“I told you there were no hits around here or at the state level on the second Vic’s fingerprints.  And I fired them off to the F.B.I.  They got a hit.”

Wanda said, “Well, that’s good.  Isn’t it?  What, who is, was he?

“This program they have.  It’s connected since the attacks of 9/11 to national security databases.  It will flag if there is a match, but the identity is confidential if there is a hit on one of those lists.”

“And this one got flagged?”

He nodded.

“And the name is confidential?”

He nodded.

“And you can’t get the name?”

He shook his head, but then nodded.

“Huh?  Which is it?  Can you get it or not?”

“I can’t get the name, but I got it anyway.  It was an old classmate I got through to on the phone.  We went to the academy together a decade ago.  Still close.  He said it was weird enough, his boss let him disclose it to me.”

“Enough,” I said, “Who the hell was it?”

“Well, the computer checks all Watch Lists, and it cross-referenced, got a hit no one expected.”

“So?”

“A captain with the old German SS.” He paused.  We must have looked extremely skeptical.  Such an assessment would have been accurate.

“Yes, the Nazis.”

“Nazis?  Like from World War II?” Wanda sounded as incredulous as I felt. 

“Yeah, those Nazis.  He snuck into this country years after World War II ended.   By way of Russia then Argentina.  Word got out somehow and the F.B.I. tracked him down a few years ago.  The Feds were going to arrest him and bring him to trial and then deport him to Germany.  But he disappeared before they could grab him.  He must have got word on the warrant somehow. From the inside.  They didn’t want to admit it, but in the end that’s what they figured.  Anyway, by the time they get there, he’s in the wind.  He’s gone.   Just vanishes.  He and his family.”

“And he shows up here in our little town?”

“That’s right.  The Feds have been looking for him a long time.  They are very interested that he was found here.”

“Dead.”

“Yeah.  And, Counselor, you’ve read the description of this Vic in the reports, haven’t you?”

I held my hands palms up indicating I’m sure I had but was pulling a blank on what I had read.

He filled in the blanks.

“Six foot one or two.  Big guy build.  Solid.  Looked like he could handle himself?  The pictures from the night he was killed are in the file.  Looks maybe Thirty-Five.”

“So?”   

“Shit, Nick.  You do realize this guy the fingerprints were matched up with is over 70 years old?” 

Chapter Seventeen

It was all getting to be too much.  I needed some sleep.  Surprisingly for me, it was fatigue rather than a hang-over that was the cause of my mid-day drowsiness.  

Wanda and Maurice had left for a meeting they had set up with the Special Agent in charge of the local F.B.I office.  The fingerprints had caused consternation in more venues than our little legal team.  Washington, or at least some dusty forgotten special unit in Washington D.C. was interested.

I decided to go straight to the condo.  I wanted to strip down, get under the covers and grab some snooze time.   I proposed to justify my idleness as an experiment to see if my sub conscious could work all out all the mysteries of my young case while my over conscious visited some favorite dreamland sites.

It was not to be.

As I rounded the corner in the parking garage, I found my parking space was filled by Tammy J’s little Honda. 

It was not an unpleasant discovery.  It had been a while since she and I had fandangoed. She would, no doubt, be ensconced on my couch, watching Jeopardy and slurping the milk from my last bowl of Captain Crunch cereal.  Probably sitting on the end table would be a vodka martini.  It would be dirty. As a sop to a healthier lifestyle, Tammy J would have filled out the glass, up to the brim, with the olive juice.  It turned the clear liquid of the Martin’ a dark brown.  She liked them that way.  I didn’t favor a dirty martini.   I considered them precious and fatuous.  

I realized I had missed Tammy J.  And I had missed her slurping.  Her slurping especially.   It had been a few days.  I wondered what she would be wearing.  She had surprised me a few times by what she was not wearing.  Especially on warm days.  

It was not to be.

When I opened the door, the condo was dark.  No T.V., no slurping noises. 

“Tammy J?” I called out. 

“Here”

I flipped on the light.  She was curled up on one end of the couch, her legs tucked under her.  She didn’t appear to be under any distress.  I couldn’t see any evidence of physical injury.  She was fully clothed.

I walked over to stand in front of her.  

“You okay?  What are you doing here?”

She looked up at me.  “I wanted to see you.  To talk to you.  We have things we need to discuss.”

“That sounds awful serious.  Do you want a drink?”  

I had walked over to my wet bar and poured myself a tumbler of straight vodka.  I figured it would help me sleep whenever I got around to my planned nap, if I got around to it.

She watched me as I downed the warmup.  I declared my hit a mulligan and poured a second shot.  

“No thanks, I have to go soon.”  

That was a first.  Tammy J. never turned down a drink and almost never announced her intentions.  She just stayed until she was ready to leave and then she was gone.  Sometimes I was in the other room when she left.  I kind of liked that she did that.  Kept her independent.  And me.

“So?  What’s this about?”  I took a sip.  Grey Goose did make excellent vodka.  Radiating out from my tummy was a nice warm sense of well-being. A welcome return of the old “all’s right with world” feeling of the habitual drunk.

“Uh.  I just thought, well, I wanted you to know . . . you know, I heard Donnie tell the Sheriff, they were on the phone, I mean he was on the phone, and I heard him tell, I heard what he said. And it was about you.”

Donnie?  “You mean you were with Big Donnie Babcock?”

I felt a pang of jealously.  She blushed a little.  I wondered if had she been with him the whole time. I shouldn’t feel the way I felt. There was no exclusivity to our relationship.  But still.  Big Donnie?   I knew the bastard couldn’t be trusted.  I took another sip of my Grey Goose in an attempt to re-establish my equilibrium.

“Well, I was at his house.”

“And where was Mrs. Babcock?”

“Nick that’s not important.  Stop it.  I came here to tell you what I heard.  I’m doing it for you, not to be cross-examined, you know?”

Another sip.  The Grey Goose helped.  It always did.

“Okay.  You’re right.  Go on.  What did you want to tell me?”

“They are going to fire you, I think.  Donnie told the Chief of Police, well, see he thought I was asleep.”  She blushed prettily again.  I smiled at her in a way I knew came across as nasty and lewd.  She grimaced.  “Anyway, he told the Chief of Police to talk to the mayor, but it was, and I wanted to remember the words, ‘imperative that you be dismissed.’  He was very emphatic, I think that’s the way you would put it.”

“Why?  I mean did you hear them give any reason.”

“I couldn’t hear what was said on the other end.  But he did say once.  ‘Yeah, you are right, they are too close.’  I didn’t know what that meant.  What does it mean, Nick?  Why would they fire you, everybody was so happy you were on the case?  It really made you kind of’ famous and special around here.  A hero.  Like back at High School, you know?”

I knew what she meant.  I didn’t want to go there.

“Are you sure you don’t want a drink?’

She shook her head and got up to leave. I was standing there wondering if I would get a good-bye kiss at least when the phone rang.  I picked it up as she headed for the door. The kiss was not to be.

It was Maurice.  

“Nick, she’s gone.”

Tammy J had paused at the door.  Maybe she was waiting for a buzz from me.  I walked toward her.

“What, who?” I said into the receiver.  Then when I heard the answer, I stopped and stood still.

“Wanda.”  He waited a second before continuing. “She’s gone. I went to pick her up for the meeting with the S.A.C (F.B.I. speak for Special Agent in Charge) and she was gone.  And there had been a commotion at her apartment.  A lot of damage.  Broken furniture.  Some blood.  But she’s gone and we can’t find her.”

Tammy J. was watching me.  I thought I saw something like discernment in her eyes but then she turned and walked out the door.

Chapter Eighteen

I was feeling the full effects from my fatigue.  Tired, very tired, I needed some sleep.  Wanda was gone, I was a little drunk.  And now that Tammy J was gone, the Grey Goose only contributed to a generalized feeling of helpless, hopeless, tiredness.  I felt paralyzed.  Detective Maurice Wiley, Wanda’s partner, surely knew what to do.  He had police protocols and procedures to follow.  He could be expected to summon considerable resources to bear now that a police officer was missing.  A detective had gone missing.

He was Wanda’s partner.  But what was I to her?  

Not a partner.  Kind of a team leader I would guess.  But I had no direct authority over her.  And no organizational loyalty applied in either direction.  I supposed I was her lover.  But I didn’t feel the relationship was significant or elevated in any way.  We had certainly hit it off in that department.  Experimenting.  Both of us.  She wasn’t what I was used to.  I certainly had never dated or bedded a woman physically stronger than me.  Significantly stronger and willing to use that strength to put me in positions and at angles she found advantageous even if a bit painful and awkward for me.  I found I didn’t mind it all that much.  And I rather liked having to be sneaky and stealthy to gain an advantageous position from time to time.  And she didn’t seem to mind being outmaneuvered occasionally and being required to submit to a couple of my more creative demands almost as if she had lost a double dog dare bet.  She couldn’t back out when that happened.

Did that make us lovers?  I didn’t really know.  I had been perfectly willing to hop in the bed with Tammy J. not less than an hour ago.   How did that fit in?  I didn’t know. 

Wanda was gone.  And here I was thinking about sex.  No wonder she said that about me.  Like I didn’t respect women at all.   Well, maybe how I treated them left such an impression. But it was just the way I acted.  The way I was used to acting.  I didn’t feel that way down deep. 

I did respect Wanda’s intellect.   Sure, I did.  She was smart and savvy in her work.  Better than just about any cop I had encountered in my profession.  And I ran into a lot of them in my line of work.  And we, she and I, seemed to share an understanding of what some of our witnesses had gone through.  And we respected each other’s theories about the case, even if we didn’t completely agree on the meaning of the events that had punctuated the current case’s development.

I felt rummy.  This damn fatigue was rendering me completely ineffective.  I was being a fool.  I was engaging in way too much reflection.  I needed to do something.  

I might not know exactly what Wanda was to me, but clearly, she was at least a friend.  And it appeared my friend needed my help.  And it appeared I knew nothing about how to render the aid she required.

I left my condo, climbed in the Porsche and headed downtown.  Maybe I would feel more effective at the office.

When I walked in, Marta was sitting out front at the receptionist desk manning (womaning?) the phones.  She didn’t appear happy.  But then I didn’t expect her to be.

“Listen,” she said as she handed me a pink message form, “That detective Maurice fellow just called again. He’s called every couple of minutes for last half hour.  He really wants to talk to you.  What happened to Wanda?   She’s nice.  I like her. They know anything?”

I shook my head.  “No.  Maybe they have something now.  Let me call Maurice.”  

And I headed for my office.  I didn’t bother turning on the lights.  The shades had been drawn open.  I could set at my desk and look down from my second story office on the small sidewalk café across the street.  I picked up the receiver and idly watched the people sitting at the outside tables.  I scanned the entire premises as I waited to be put through to Maurice.  Just as he came on the line, I was startled by what I saw.  

Two women were sitting together looking out onto the boulevard.  Their faces were familiar, very familiar.

“Counselor, you there?”

“Yeah, Maurice.   What have you got?”

“The blood analysis.  They ran some preliminary tests.  Human blood all right.  But not one sample could be related back to Wanda.  It appears she caused them, whoever “them” is, to bleed and avoided it herself.”

“Tough lady.  Listen, Maurice.  I’m not sure what to do here.  I’m out of my element.  Is there something I can do to help you?”

“Not right now.  I’m assuming they, whoever, got her.  We got a lot of officers on it.  One thing you could do; talk to these Washington guys.  They seem real interested in this thing with our second Vic.  Well, I’m not so sure it’s related, but if you would talk to them, keep them busy, you know, it would help take the pressure off so I can do my job and find Wanda.”

“Understood.  I will do my best”

I hung up the receiver and looked back across the street.  The two women were staring straight up at my office window.  I still couldn’t make them out clearly.  They hadn’t moved.  They were in the same space as before.  It was just that they were now looking up toward where I was sitting in the dark.  I knew better, but it felt like they could see me.  Impulsively, or maybe it was instinct, I wasn’t sure, but I decided to go down for a closer look.

I ignored Marta waving a handful of messages at me and headed for the elevator.  On the bottom floor, I stopped and looked across the street through the glass in the door. I could just make them out between the backward letters delineating my name and profession. 

I opened the door, stepped to the curb, and walked quickly across the street toward the women. I don’t know if I expected them to flee or why I would suspect such a thing, but I kept expecting them to grab their things and leave before I could get across the street.  Clearly, I was wrong. They made no attempt to get away.  They simply watched me as I approached. 

I was about a half dozen steps from them when I recognized the face I had seen before only in a picture.  It was Mrs. Vuitch, the math and physics teacher, the mentor and lioness of the gang of young dweebs that were now occupying most of my time.  Only she looked the same as she had when she taught high school.  No older.  I then turned to the young woman sitting beside her.  I had wanted a closer look.  Now I had one.  I stared in wonder.  It was Wanda. 

But not my Wanda.