Irrefutable Proof: Mars Origin "I" Series Book II (20 page)

Chapter
Forty

Cleveland
Heights
, Ohio

I
had planned on being in New Haven a week, but seeing as soon as I showed up at
Beinecke they turned me around and showed me the door, I only had stayed two
days.

So,
I went back to work the day after I got home. I spent the morning and early
afternoon trying to catch up on what I missed over the last week. I wanted to
clear everything up because I planned on reading the Book of Enoch, in Ge’ez,
and the Latin/Hebrew/Aramaic version, from cover to cover, again, and find out
exactly what Dr. Sabir saw as proof.

So,
it wasn’t until about two o’clock in the afternoon that I finally took a break
and decided t0mgo out to grab something to eat. I knew I wouldn’t be going home
before six or seven that evening. But before I could get out the door, I got a
letter marked urgent.

Who
marks a letter urgent?

When
I opened it, I found a note. A single page, handwritten note. In Sanskrit.
Perfect Sanskrit.

Of
course, I went back and sat down. I wanted to translate it. I didn’t recognize
the handwriting on the note, so I quickly looked at the envelope. No return
address. No postage. Was it hand delivered?

Each
line written like it was a poem. But whoever wrote it knew that I would never
be able to translate the words exactly the same as it was written. With
Sanskrit being such an old language, there were too many words that could have
the same meaning.

But
some things came through loud and clear. Because they also knew, whoever wrote
it, that I knew the world of the Bible and the Vedas.

It
started ‘
A renegade’s route’
, or it could be translated
path
. .
. Certainly, I was that renegade.

And
sleeping outside the
garden’s wall
being the
cause of a fall
. .
. That couldn’t mean anything but the Garden of Gethsemane.

But
who was my Judas?

They wrote,
Apauruşeya.
Not by humans.
Śruti t
at upari
sm
ṛ
ti
. . . Heard
above that remembered. That meant, as I understood it, that I should just
concern myself with what I learn from my excavations and not any of these
stories I’d heard.
S
iitha
. . . belonging above the world.

Mars?

And
then they had written ‘death.’

My
death.

There
were no two ways about what that said.

It
was a warning. Warning me to do what? Or was it “what not to do.”

I
sat dumfounded. I pulled out a curl of my hair, twirled it around my finger,
let go and found another strand to twist.

This
couldn’t be good.

Maybe
it was Professor Abelson. She was a professor of Semitic.

But
that didn’t include Sanskrit.

Maybe
it was a conspiracy plot. Those old thoughts came gushing up from somewhere I
thought no longer existed within the confines of my soul. Someone definitely
wanted me dead. This was not my imagination.

Jack
had almost taken a bullet I’m sure was meant for me. This time, my murder and
mayhem theories were coming true.

I
looked down at the letter again. It was definitely a warning. Not directly
quoted, but it was parts from the Book of Enoch, the Holy Bible when Jesus went
into the Garden of Gethsemane, and part of it was taken from the Fourth Vedas.
It was the Kandas, specifically verses 8-12. The Kandas was the part of the
Vedas that speculated on the nature of the universe and of humans.

Just
like I was trying to do.

I
read it again.

I
felt my heart skip a beat. Reading it, I knew what it said was, “Cease your
actions, Justin Dickerson. Or. You. Will. Die.”

The
phone rang. “Oh, my God.” I grabbed my chest.

It
was Claire and Addie. Addie was just talking loudly in the background. I
thought I heard Mase’s voice too, but Addie made it hard to even hear Claire,
who was actually on the line.

Was
Addie ever going back to Baltimore?

 “In
the days right before the fire, two people asked about your book.” Claire told
me.

She
and Addie had been doing some digging on Professor Abelson. It was triggered by
Mase checking on his email. He’d seen on Today on AOL, the news stories offered
by logging onto the site, that Meredith-Wilcox Publishing had burned down. An
explosion, due to flammables in the basement print shop, did more damage than
it would have otherwise. The fire had been determined to be arson.

Addie,
who had remembered the names of the people who were involved with my book, and
Claire, had decided to check in with them. They found out that most of the
staff had been killed, but Kate Gianopoulos had made it out alive, thanks to
her chasing the UPS man down the street.

 “One
person came in and one called on the day of the fire,” Claire said into the
phone. I could hear Addie in the background, muffled, but loud none the less,
saying that that was her when she had called about
The Dead Sea Fish
.
Then Claire, not directly into the phone, said “Will you let me tell the story?

 “Kate
said that on the day when the one person stopped in, UPS was there picking up
the box of your books that they were shipping. The advanced copies.”

“The
ones they were sending to me,” Addie must have got closer to the phone because
she didn’t sound as muffled.

“Yeah,
they were the ones Addie got because she remembered sending them to someone in Maryland,” Claire said. “Plus, those were the only advanced copies they had sent out,
except for the two sent to Cleveland. I’m assuming that one was your proof
copy, and I have an idea of who the other one was sent to.

“Anyway,”
Claire took a deep breath. “Kate said that about an hour or so before the UPS
guy came in, a woman was there asking about your book. So, I asked her did she
remember anything about the woman.”

“Was
it an old woman?” Addie jumped in again. I heard her in the background saying,
“That’s what I asked her because Claire had said that Professor Abelson was
old.”

“Shh,”
Claire said.

I
really didn’t even have to participate in this conversation. They were going full
steam ahead without even an “uh-huh” or “really?” from me.

“So
listen to what Kate said.” Claire took in another deep breath. “Kate said, ‘Oh,
I remember everything about that day. It was horrific and I’ll never forget.
And yes, it was an older lady. She had a slight accent. And . . . ’” Claire
paused. “And this is a big ‘and’ Justin. You listening?”

“Yes,
I’m listening. What did she say?”

“She
said the woman smelled like roses.”

Chapter
Forty-One

I
didn’t know what Simon and Hannah Abelson were up to, but I was going to find
out. Come hell or high water.

I
had gone home after finding that Sanskrit note and getting the call from Addie
and Claire, and had gone straight to my study. I sat there for a long time
thinking about everything.

Me
getting shot at. The written warning. Ghazi being poisoned.

I
was having a hard time believing that Simon could have anything to do with us
getting shot at in Jerusalem. But he sure did just show up. I needed to call
him and find out exactly what was going on.

And
that Hannah Abelson - that little – old woman was a psychopath.

I
got up and closed the door to my study. I had gotten back from Connecticut with new motivation. Save the world and avenge Ghazi’s death.

Yeah,
I know. It sounded so Hollywood, big screen production like. And I was
definitely not the superhero type. But I felt I could do this. I felt it down
deep in my soul. Everyday people can make a difference. Well, that’s what CNN
thinks. In their quest in “
searching the globe for unheralded heroes”
-- CNN believed that everyday people could change the world. Except for my
bouts of depression, tendencies to be overly emotional and mean, and crying all
the time, I was an “everyday kind of people.”
Wasn’t I?

Whatever I was any other day, today I was
the type of person that got to the bottom of stuff.

I picked up the phone and called Simon.

“Did you try and kill me in Israel?” was the first thing I said to him when he picked up the phone.

“What did you say?”

“You heard me, Simon. You show up at my
hotel room, after I told you not to come to Israel. Then you leave right after
my brother did. Did you follow him? Is that how you knew where I’d be. Where
did you get a gun from?”

“Whoa! Justin. Calm down. I did not try to
kill you. Did someone shoot at you? It wasn’t me.”

“Really?”

“Why would I try to kill you, Justin? I’m
trying to get you to leave your husband and be with me.” I could hear the
teasing in his voice.

“Don’t play with me, Mister. Don’t try to
brush this off by trying to act like everything is okay. Like everything is
back to normal between us. That we’re back to our old jokes, because we’re not.
And everything isn’t okay.”

“It’s not?”

“No. Not after you tried to kill me.”

“Justin. I don’t know where your brother
went when he left. I stopped by your hotel room to talk to you. Because I was
in Jerusalem. I swear, I had nothing to do with you getting shot at. Are you
okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“C’mon, Justin. Don’t be like that. Haven’t
I always been a good friend? We’ve worked on so many things together. You’ve
always been able to count on me. How could you doubt me now? It was just a
coincidence that I was there and someone shot at you. Justin, I would never do
anything to harm you. You mean a lot to me. All kidding aside. And, I’d still
do anything to help you. All you’d have to do is call.”

Now he was quoting lines from songs.

I really did find it hard to believe that
it was Simon. I’d met him after I wrote that book. I never told him about it,
but I had shared all my other work with him. And he had always been a good
friend and trusted confidant. Always. Maybe I was just letting my emotions get
the best of me. I needed to be more like everyday people. Calmer.

“Okay, Simon.”

“Okay? So you believe me?” he asked, his
voice still edged with a little pleading.

“You promise it wasn’t you?”

“I promise.”

Taking in a deep breath, I hung up from
Simon. I believed him. But then, if it wasn’t Simon who could it have been?

I’d worry about that later. Now I was going
to deal with Hannah Abelson. Greg told me I didn’t have enough evidence for her
to be charged with anything. Not even if she was the woman
Kate Gianopoulos saw at the publishing
house before the explosion.

This
thing with getting “proof” for everything was beginning to really grate on my
nerves.

But
what if I could get her to confess? I dug through my desk drawers.

“I
know it’s here somewhere,” I said. Then I snapped my fingers. “I know where it
is.” I got up and went into the kitchen, and pulled open the draw where I kept
miscellaneous stuff. Somewhere in that drawer I had a digital tape recorder. I
pushed stuff around.
Maybe
, I thought,
I could get Professor Abelson
to confess
.

“Here
it is.” I grabbed it.

“What
are you doing?” It was Mase.

“Oh!”
I jumped, and pushed the drawer shut. “You startled me.”

“Then
you must be doing something wrong if I startled you?” He must have walked into
the kitchen when I was concentrating on finding the recorder.

“You
startled me because I was deep in thought,” I said, and started back down the
hallway to my study.

“You
plan on cooking anything?” he called out.

“No.
But whatever you fix to eat, make me some, too. I’m starving,” I said, rounding
the corner into my study. I closed the door behind me, turned on the recorder,
dialed Professor Abelson and put her on speakerphone.

“Hello,
Justin.”

She
must have Caller ID. “Hello, Professor Abelson.”

“I
see you’re back from Jerusalem. Did you have a nice trip?”

“As
a matter-of-fact, I didn’t. I found out that one of my old friends had died.”

“Death
is part of life, Justin. Everything and everyone must die.”

“My
friend was murdered.”

“I’m
sorry to hear that.”

“I
think you may know him.”

“I
don’t have many acquaintances in Israel anymore.”

“He
was poisoned. With Belladonna, while he was sitting at a café on Hillel Street. Do you know that café?

“I
heard that the place had been bombed. It isn’t there anymore.”

“So
you know of it.”

“Only
what I’d heard on TV about the bombing.”

“Professor
Abelson. I know what you’ve been up to. I just want to know why.”

“Why
what, dear?”

“Why
you killed Ghazi. Why you blew up the company that was publishing my book.”

“Don’t
you have quite the imagination?”

“I
know that you did those things.”

“Knowing
something and proving it are two different things. Haven’t you learned that?
Isn’t that what you’re trying to do, prove something you found in some
manuscripts in Israel?”

I
had her now.

“How
do you know that?” I asked.

“You
told me.”

Oh
yeah, I did tell her that
.
I needed a different tactic. Greg said not to tell her what happened. For a
confession, I needed her to tell me.

“You
should probably change your perfume, Professor Abelson. It’s going to get you
thrown in jail.”

“Justin,
I am an old woman. I couldn’t kill anyone. It’s just not in my nature. And if
you think you can prove I did because of the kind of perfume I wear, you are not
a very good detective.”

Then
she hung up. She hung up on me!

What
the heck!

“I’m
going over her house,” I said, looking at the telephone. “You want to kill my
friends and blow up things, Hannah Abelson, well, you’ll have to answer to me.”
I was yelling down at the phone, pointing my finger at it. “I’ll make sure you
go down for what you did. You’d better watch out,” I said, turning the recorder
off. “I’m coming to get you! No one’s afraid of you, especially me.”

“I’m
going over there and make her give me answers,” I mumbled as I punched numbers
into the dialer of the phone, and waited while it rang. “She does not scare me.”
I was saying when Greg picked up the line.

“Greg,
I need you to go with me over Professor Abelson’s house . . .” I said into the
phone, my voice faltering ever so slightly.