Time Clock Hero (7 page)

In St. David’s University’s library, across the parking lot from the Lutrell Science building, Phoenix went to work on the computer, looking up news articles pertaining to the death of Mariel Diaz, Eric Sawyer, and Phillip Mercer.  Alaia headed to the help desk to find the yearbooks covering the graduating class of 2005 through 2009 and, when she found them, went to work in a cubicle close by.

Before Alaia had barely cracked open the first book, Phoenix walked over to where she sat and leaned over her.  “I want copies, in color, of every picture you see.”

“I hope you have a credit card,” Alaia said.  “It ain’t coming out of my paycheck – you got that?”               

“Let me worry about it.  Anything with Dr. Cain, Mariela Diaz … wait a minute, I have to get my list.”

“Eric Sawyer and Phillip Mercer?”

“Cobb could be right – you know, about you being the detail girl.”

Phoenix walked back to where he was working and settled down into his tight, gray-walled cubicle, not far from where Alaia worked.  He did a search on the computer. 
Eric Sawyer St. David’s University Mariela Diaz
.  The search engine spewed out a hundred or more results in under a second, listing article after article relative to the case, including multiple photos of both students.  Phoenix closed his eyes and breathed deeply, trying to clear his mind.  He readied himself mentally and looked at the computer screen.

Eric Sawyer was a good-looking kid: vivid blue eyes streaked with white rays; knowing eyes, or maybe they were cynical – but very obviously his was the face of an intellectual.  Short hair, dark blonde maybe, with very little blonde left, shaved close above the ears, blending into a loose comb-over up top.

“Says here Eric Sawyer was a Bible major,” Phoenix said, leaning out from his cubicle.  “Guy looks like you could take him home to meet your parents and they’d trust you in the sack with him.”

“Doesn’t mean he believed in God,” Alaia whispered with a stern look on her face.  “And don’t talk so loud.”

Phoenix stared at the photo – a minute, maybe two.  This guy was probably a virgin, but only his closest friends would ever know that; and that wouldn’t matter now, not today.  Eric probably felt the urge – and what guy didn’t in college? – had a formula for a date-rape drug he hoped would work, and he had a girl in mind. 

But he’d hate her afterwards, wouldn’t he?  He’d never want to see her again, not after that; and not so much because he’d drugged her, but because he’d felt shame for what he’d done to her after he’d put her under.  This guy was a Bible major – he’d feel the heat of conscience or the musings of the Holy Spirit, and he’d be forced by his own insensibilities – sensibilities? – to walk away, try to save himself and, in the process, throw the girl out to the curb.

Mariela?  Pure innocence, herself a Bible and Missions major.  Long, dark hair, even darker eyes, face longer than it was wide – petite.  The smile of a child just stepping out into the wonder of a world she could one day help shape.  A kid.  Innocent.  She’d never have pulled the trigger, let alone shop for a weapon.

At first, Phoenix just sat there, motionless, mesmerized by the photos.  He had an eye for people.  He knew what they were and weren’t capable of before they even knew it; and he’d been right far too often.  He’d always said he could see it in the eyes.  Paranoia, malice, anger – everything up to and including innocence.  His gut told him Eric Sawyer was no monster.  Neither was Mariela Diaz.  They were just a couple of kids who had made horrible and devastating choices, willful choices, choices whose consequences were terminal.  They had no idea that, together, because of what they did, they would change history.  Phoenix breathed and shook his head.

Phillip Mercer, a physics and computer programming major, had finished at St. David’s and, like Dr. Cain, had gone on to graduate school at Vanderbilt.  He died three years ago in an auto accident.

Phoenix printed off a couple of articles, took them from the printer, and stood up.  Alaia had finished going through the yearbooks a bit earlier.  She waved her stack at Phoenix and nodded him over to her table.

“Seems like our little clique never did anything apart from one another,” Alaia said.

“Except for that night in the back of Eric Sawyer’s BMW.”

Alaia thumbed through her stack of copies: individual photos of people of interest and a number of group photos.  “Take a look.  Here’s a picture of all them – Eric Sawyer, Mariela Diaz, Dr. Cain – and here’s the other one Dr. Cain mentioned: Phillip Mercer – the one at Green Lawn Cemetery.  And the last guy is Patrick Carson.”

“Let’s find out who this Patrick Carson guy is,” Phoenix said, putting his finger on the picture, right on Patrick Carson’s chest.

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“Why would I kid you?”

“Patrick Carson?  Dr. Patrick Carson?”

Phoenix’s phone started singing, loud enough to wake the sleeping student slumped over with his head on the table drooling on his homework.  He fumbled for the phone, dropping his papers; and he finally got it out of his pocket.  “Hello,” he said.  “Dr. Cain? … Well, yes … I can be there in a minute or two.”  He looked at Alaia and crossed his fingers, and then he said: “I’m on the way.”

“Okay,” Alaia said, “I’ll put together a bio of
Dr. Patrick Carson of Carson Research Labs
.”

“You know this guy?”

Alaia rolled her eyes.  “I’m starting to wonder if you’re even the big picture guy.  Like, he’s hanging out with Dr. Cain here at St. David’s and he’s not going to be famous?”

“And that’s why I like you, Detective Jenkins,” Phoenix said, “You’re a model detective.”

“You’re saying I’m a small imitation of the real thing?  Is that it?”

“Exactly, but you’ll grow out of it.”

Phoenix picked up the papers he’d dropped, handed Alaia his messy stack, and fled from the room, dodging chairs and students.  He hit the tall, smoky-glassed doors on the run.  He took a short cut over some evergreen shrubs, landed in some spring flowers, and ran across the street and up the steps of the Lutrell building.  Once inside, he stopped to catch his breath.  Half a minute later, he was back in Dr. Cain’s office.

“Let’s not talk here,” Dr. Cain said.  He stepped out of his office, closed the door, and locked it behind him.  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a blue iPhone.  Thin pieces of black electrical tape, neatly clipped to shape, covered the camera and mic ports.  He looked at Phoenix and caught his attention, then he looked down at his phone and turned it off.

Phoenix watched as Dr. Cain pulled from his pocket a small roll of electrical tape, along with a tiny pair of scissors.  He then watched him cut off two small pieces. 

“Just do it,” Dr. Cain said, “and then turn off your phone.”

Phoenix did as he was told.

“Now, give it to me.”

Dr. Cain took the phone, reached into his jacket, and removed a small, metal container, a gray one.  He opened it up, laid both phones inside, and closed the container, fastening it with a snap. “Let’s go.”

They walked down the stairs to the first floor and turned left at the restrooms.  They left the building by the rear door, descended a flight of narrow, carved, limestone steps, and found themselves in a small garden.  Across from them, maybe fifty yards away, stood Ella Hall.

Dr. Cain pointed to the dorm.  “That’s where Mariela stayed.  You know, she was a freshman when she … when she arrived that fall semester.  Bright-eyed, beautiful – she loved everybody, loved the Lord, knew she could make the world a better place.  And she thought St. David’s would help her do it because, at the time, the university had one of the best Bible Departments anywhere.  Of course, that was over forty years ago.”

“Dad told me,” Phoenix said.  “Things change.”

Dr. Cain paused for a moment, then he said, “I destroyed your evidence, you know – the syringe.”

Phoenix lifted a single eyebrow and said, “You what?”  And then he carved his fingers through his short hair and turned and took a few steps to the side, returning just as quickly.  Dr. Cain’s action could come back to bite him.

“Somebody did a box-car job on that Psyke,” Dr. Cain said.  “And that blood sample?  The same.”

“Box car?  What does that mean?”

“Not only was that Psyke the most powerful I’ve ever seen, but it’s been developed to be a carrier for other things.”

“What other things?”

“Anything,” Dr. Cain said.  “Other stuff, Viagra, pain killer – even bacterium and viruses.  The sample you gave me, it---”

“Had a virus?” Phoenix interrupted. 

“How would you know that?”

Phoenix shook his head.  “I just know.  And this virus – what is it?”

“Would you like to see the rat?”

“Which one?” Phoenix asked.

Dr. Cain nodded knowingly.  He pulled out the small, metal case holding the phones.  “Oops, wrong thing.”  He reached back into his jacket and pulled out a photograph, an old one, dog-eared and worn, and he handed it to Phoenix.

“There are only two of us alive today, Phoenix,” Dr. Cain said.  “Me and---”

“Patrick Carson,” Phoenix said. 

“But he is no rat,” Dr. Cain shot back, with a smile.  “Dr. Patrick Carson did some research into my formula just before we graduated.  He was ahead of his time in so many ways – absolutely brilliant.  But what happened to Mariela really troubled him.  Oh, sure he was angry at Eric – he would’ve killed him if Mariela hadn’t gotten him first – but we all knew that Mariela could never, ever have pulled that trigger.  That just wasn’t her.  Eric?  We accept he did what he did, but we’re not sure.  But Dr. Carson spent the next few years toying with the formula.  He never told me why.”

“You think the Psyke pulled the trigger?”

Dr. Cain shrugged.  “I don’t know – but it seems to me that you have to have a reason to kill somebody in order for Psyke to make you kill.  Maybe it’s like whiskey.  When you have too much, and if you think somebody’s been cheating you at the poker game – well, you know how it goes.”

Then Psyke wouldn’t necessarily make you jump into the sack unless you wanted it?

“What about the rat, the animal?”

“He’s a keeper, alright,” Dr. Cain said.  “I want to watch him for a bit.  Seems like he thinks he’s been cheated at a game of poker.  I’ll let you know what I find.  I got a girl doing some tests as we speak.  But I will tell you this.  The Psyke I see in that rat isn’t anything like what Eric could’ve mixed up.”  Dr. Cain paused and rubbed his hand over his face, then he looked around.  “I’ve come to peace with the Lord – and I know I’ve been forgiven.  But I can’t help thinking how things could’ve turned out had I not discovered Satan’s Piss.  Who knows?  Maybe Mariela would’ve changed the world.  But I guess it’s a moot point.”

Phoenix reached out and shook Dr. Cain’s hand.  “You’ll call me?”

“When I know more, I will.  Give me a day or two.  Don’t forget your phone.”  He pulled the gray metal case out and opened it, handing Phoenix back his phone with a smile and a nod.  “Good to see you again, Phoenix.”

Phoenix walked away.  Before he slid the picture into his shirt pocket, he looked at it.  Five happy college students, all of them smiling, all of them with their arms locked together, each one ready to take on the world.  Mariela on the left, then Patrick, Eric, Dr. Cain, and Phillip Mercer on the right.  He carefully put the picture in his pocket and jogged back over to the library.

He found Alaia sitting at the same table she’d used earlier, pouring over the pictures and news articles, scribbling notes in the margins where she could.  He came up behind her and laid the picture down in front or her.  “File this with the rest of that, will you?”

Alaia turned and looked up.  “What, like I’m your personal assistant now?  Don’t you think that for a minute, do you hear me?”  She picked up the picture and looked at it.  “I got bios on everyone – pretty impressive.” She picked up a light-assisted magnifying glass and flipped it on.  Then she looked at the picture Phoenix had just laid down.  “Good looking kids, for white people, that is.”

“You ready to go?”  Phoenix asked impatiently, as he started gathering up the documents into appropriate piles.

Alaia looked at him and rolled her eyes.  “Now, If I’m going to be your personal assistant---”

“You just said you weren’t.”

“If I’m going to be your PA, you aren’t going to be filing my stuff, now are you?”  She looked down at the picture again.  “I don’t suppose you’re hungry for a bag full of Krystal’s are you?”

Phoenix froze.  “Krystal’s?  Why … why would you ask that?  Did you say ‘Krystal’s’?”

“Yeah, because I’m hungry.  I saw the coupon in Phillip Mercer’s top pocket and thought, yeah, I got one just like it in my car.”

Phoenix didn’t bother reaching for his thirty-eight.  He just looked into the Sam Cotton’s eyes and remained seated at the dinner table, with his paperwork spread out like somebody laying tile.  He stared at the man, thought he looked like he was in his sixties, and he raised a single eyebrow.  This guy would never pull the trigger.  “Do what you’re here to do or get out and stop bothering me.”

Sam Cotton held the pistol nervously, the gun shaking in his hand, and his face, red and tired, looked like the face of someone who’d spent all day deciding whether or not to shoot Phoenix Malone.  His gray hair, slick and combed back, fell apart when she shook his head.  A few strands fell across his face and into his tired brown eyes.  “Where is she, Mr. Malone?  You’ve exactly one minute to tell me, or I shoot.  Or maybe I won’t.  But you don’t know, do you?”  He slowly pulled a chair away from the small dinner table, keeping his gun aimed at Phoenix’s chest.

Sam Cotton, another Nashville used-to-be jet setter.  He had more money than he knew what to do with.  His wife, Roxy, fifteen-years too young for him, but just the kind of girl a wealthy relic needed to enhance his image, and bring him two within a few seconds of a heart attack, had spent a night or two in Phoenix’s apartment.  Though his marriage to Roxy was one of convenience, he’d never go behind her back; and he assumed, because she had promised, she wouldn’t either.

“I guess it’ll do me no good to tell you we never slept together,” Phoenix said calmly and coldly.  “You reported her missing a couple days ago.  Said she never returned after her appointment with her doctor.  Why didn’t you shoot me then?”

Sam Cotton kept his eyes focused on Phoenix’s face.  He reached into his sports coat, his hands shaking, and removed a trifold packet.  He threw it on the table in front of Phoenix.  “Read it – I want you to know why I’m going to kill you.”

Phoenix, with his eyes still glued on Sam’s face, picked up the document and slowly unfolded it.  He looked down.  “So, she’s leaving everything to me.  Wait a minute.  Seventeen million dollars and her condo in South Miami? She must’ve thought I was gay.”  He looked back up when he heard a click.  Sam Cotton had pulled back the hammer of his chrome forty-four.

“Before you kill me, Mr. Cotton, I want to tell you that the missing persons’ cases, and that’s persons plural, by the way, has just been ratcheted up a notch.”

Sam got up and walked closer to Phoenix.  He stopped just to the right of Phoenix, about a foot away, and put the barrel of the pistol up against his right temple.  “That’s easy to say when you’ve just been willed a fortune and somebody’s pointing a gun at your head.”

“Okay, Sam,” Phoenix said.  “She tried, but she could never bring herself to do it – and it wasn’t any of my doing, either.  She was the one, Sam.  Now, does that make you happy?”

“You killed her, Detective Malone – if there’s a will, there’s a---”

“Then there’s a body that’s about to show up.  I got that.  But I will tell you that, after I talked with her doctor, things started getting funny.”  Phoenix quietly lifted his left foot and pushed over one of the chairs.  Sam Cotton turned just enough to take his eyes off Phoenix.  Phoenix ducked, backhanded the pistol from Sam’s hand with his right, feeling the pain of a cut on his knuckles, and he punched Sam in the crotch with his left. 

Sam doubled over, reached down, and started falling backwards until Phoenix stood up and grabbed him by the lapels.  He steadied him and waited while Sam composed himself, and then he walked him gently back to the chair and set him down.  He picked up the pistol, heavy and chrome with ivory handles, and he admired it for a second or two before sitting back down.

Sam, still in agony, put his head down in his hands and took several deep breaths.  He started to recover a minute later.  He sat up, straightened out his dark green jacket, and he reached up and checked his yellow tie.

“Now, if you’d let me finish,” Phoenix said.  “Lucky for Roxy and me, we never did anything – can’t say I wasn’t hoping for it.”

Sam just sat there looking at Phoenix.

“I’d questioned her about the disappearance of a friend of hers, and that’s when everything started happening.  Her friend---”

“That would be Lisa Dobbs,” Sam said.

“Yes, Lisa Dobbs.  She and your wife have the same doctor.”

“That’s right.”

“Lisa had been to see him the day of her disappearance.  Roxy told me she and Lisa were supposed to have lunch, but that Lisa never showed up, which is not something Lisa does.  I called the good doctor, Doctor Marshall, and made an appointment.  I showed up and I interviewed him.  He seemed clean to me.  But Roxy goes in the next day and she disappears.  I go back and the office is empty.”

Sam shook his head; tears began to form in his eyes.

“And if it’s any consolation to you, Sam, I had to shoot my wife today,” Phoenix said.  “Right now, I’m numb and I’m angry – and I want to find out who messed her up.  After I do, you can shoot me.”  Phoenix looked at the pistol and spun it around on the table. When it stopped, the end of the barrel was pointing in his direction.  He gave the gun back to Sam, handing it to him, grips first.

Sam Cotton seemed to come around slowly, the glare in his eyes giving way to a slack, dull expression.  After fidgeting with the gun, he flipped it over and looked at it.  Then he set it down carefully on some of the papers scattered on the desk.  “I could never have done it – not in a thousand years.”

“You say you couldn’t,” Phoenix said.  “But, who knows?”

Sam rubbed his fingers through his hair, pushing it back over the top of his head.  “I’m sorry.  I just---”

“If it makes any difference to you, we can burn this – this will,” Phoenix said.  “I don’t want any part of it.  But let me ask you: did she leave anything to anyone else?  Anything like what she left to me?”

“She … Roxy’s been giving it away for the last couple of years,” Sam said.  “Nashville Children’s Hospital, the Child Rescue Agency, college scholarship funds, things like that.”

“But you think I have something to do with her disappearance,” Phoenix asked.  “And now I know why.  Let me guess, everybody else knows Roxy put me in her will as the sole beneficiary, too.”

Sam nodded.

Phoenix wrote down the charities Sam had mentioned.  “Any other people she’d been giving money to?”

“I can check.”

“Do it by tomorrow morning,” Phoenix said.  “You know, I haven’t shot anybody before– I mean, a real, live person.” Phoenix said.  “But it doesn’t mean my gun hasn’t or won’t.”

Sam narrowed his eyes and his head flinched back slightly.

“That means if Roxy shows up with a bullet that matches my gun, it doesn’t mean I did it.  My lab guy just showed up with one of my bullets in his chest and I assure you I didn’t kill him until I was sure he was really dead.”

“Am I supposed to make sense of that?”

“You get the point.”

“You don’t think that---?”

“Roxy? Dead?  Possible.  Me?  I’m being set up because I’m getting close on a case.  Roxy’s doctor is one of my suspects – only thing I can’t figure out is why someone hasn’t killed me yet.  That would have been a lot easier.”

Sam shook his head.  “I just want my wife back.  I’ve got more money than I know what to do---”

The doorbell rang, not once, not twice, but three times, like somebody in a hurry would do.

“Now what?” Phoenix asked.  “Maybe this time I’ll get capped.”  He left his chair, walked through the kitchen and towards the front door.  When he opened it, he froze.  A dark, blue gun barrel touched his forehead, and the pressure of it forced him backwards into the living room.  He followed the slender, black fingers with his eyes all the way up the thin but strong arm, all the way to the face of Alaia Jenkins.

“I am going to kill you now,” Alaia said.  “And I ain’t playing.  You think I am?”

“If you’re going to kill me, then you’d better get in line, sweetie,” Phoenix said.

Sam Cotton entered the living room.  Alaia lowered her gun quickly, dropping it into her large, orange, ostrich-skin purse.

“Sam’s on his way out,” Phoenix said.  “Isn’t that right, Sam?”

“I’ll call you in the morning, Detective Malone,” Sam said, with a straight, but tired, face.  He excused himself and left.  Phoenix closed the door behind him and locked it.

“The autopsy on Dr. Albin Demachi,” Alaia said.  “You were in on that, weren’t you?  You switched the bullets around.”

“I’ve got enough heat on me already,” Phoenix said.  “Maybe what I did or didn’t do was or wasn’t such a bad thing.”

“I don’t think you get it, Phoenix!” Alaia yelled.  “Cobb’s got the report on his desk saying I shot Dr. Demachi!”

“Albin was dead from something else, believe me.  We’ll have some specifics from Dr. Cain very, very soon.”

“You’re hiding something, Phoenix.”

Phoenix held his finger up in the air and then he slowly touched the tip of his nose.  “You’re right – why don’t you come in and take a seat?”

“Just make it fast,” she said, and she followed Phoenix to the table.  She looked at the mess and shook her head, and then she picked up the photo Dr. Cain had given him, the photo of the five friends. 

“That’s what we need to talk about,” Phoenix said.  “Take a seat.”

Alaia sat down next to Phoenix.

Phoenix reached out for the picture Alaia was holding and he wiggled his fingers.  Alaia handed it to him.  “You’re good with details, Alaia.  I wouldn’t have noticed it.  But the coupon in Phillip Mercer’s pocket
is
a Krystal’s coupon. ‘Your Choice: Free Krystal of Free Chik.’  I’d take the Chik any day.”

Alaia looked at Phoenix, rolled her eyes, and shook her head.  “Well, don’t look at me!”

“Off the record, here, okay?” Phoenix said.

“Off the record.”

“I took a bribe four years ago – you remember the Robin Hood incident?”

Alaia’s mouth fell open, and she raised her hands as if warding off a blow.  “I don’t want to know about it.  Just – just keep that to---”

“The cash was delivered in a Krystal bag.”

Alaia instantly made the connection.  “Phillip Mercer’s dead, or are you stupid and deaf or both?”

Phoenix raised his eyebrows.  “Back in the lab, when Dr. Demachi was lying there?  I got a call.  Do you remember, or don’t you?”

“I saw it.”

“I got a tip from someone who said, ‘You remember the Krystal’s bag?’”

“You’re saying you think our guy is Phillip Mercer? The
dead
Phillip Mercer?  Come on, Phoenix.  That guys stiffer than a Men’s Nashville Clinic patient.”

“Why’s that so crazy?”  Phoenix asked.  “Dr. Demachi was dead, and I had to kill him again.  But I suspect he was long gone before I plugged him in the head, just like I found my wife, or what was left of her, and plugged her.”

“Phillip Mercer?” Alaia asked.  “We can talk about him later.  But tomorrow, we’re going to see Dr. Patrick Carson.  I got it all worked out.  So far, all of our missing persons have one thing in common.”

“And that would be---?”

“Every single one of them has donated lots of money to him – but none if it directly to Carson Research Labs,” Alaia said.  “It seems that Dr. Carson privately runs more charities than anybody in the country.  The man is a social dream come true.”