For Want of a Memory Read online

  "You hungry?"

  "A little," he said, dropping the crayon. "Will you give this to him?"

  "The next time I see him," said his mother.

  * * *

  Special Agent Richard Jefferson stood beside the man in the bed and looked at him. If he'd seen a certain pencil and crayon drawing, recently completed by a little boy in another state, suspicion would have flared in his mind. One leg was suspended from a silver bar over the bed. The face wasn't bandaged, like the one in the boy's picture, but the resemblance to this scene would have been eerie.

  Moe Higginbotham was doped to his eyeballs with pain killers, but even so it didn't prevent him from muttering, "Fuck you," in an almost unbroken litany. Jefferson knew he was pushing things by being here without the man's attorney present. But no attorney had been appointed yet, and wouldn't be until there was an arraignment, so he took his chances. His briefing about the case had included a very serious suggestion that there was a fourth man, who was still at large, involved in the conspiracy. There was nothing in the local file about that ... nothing whatsoever ... but Harper had made sure he understood that the governor believed that, and so did the chief of police.

  "What do you think?" Jefferson had asked the older lawman.

  "I think you took jurisdiction and you have my file," Harper had answered. Then he'd turned around and walked away.

  Jefferson had tried to question Moe Higginbotham. He'd rushed through the rights advisement, and asked the man who had done "this" to him. He'd argued that while Moe was caught, and would certainly go to prison, whoever had put him up to it was going to get off scot free. He'd suggested that wasn't fair to Moe. All he'd gotten was eyes that glittered somehow, while being glazed over at the same time, and the words, "Fuck you, pig," over and over again.

  Since then Jefferson had been feeling less and less positive about the whole stinking mess. His first step after taking jurisdiction had been to visit the New York City crime lab. His first question had been about the pistol Moe had been found with and two bullets recovered from the scene.

  "Have you checked the ballistics against any other unsolved major crimes?"

  The tech had actually laughed at him!

  "Well, it's a .45 caliber bullet, so we don't have all that many of those we could compare them to," he said. "Just off hand I'd say there are somewhere in the neighborhood of a couple hundred. And ... oh, I don't know ... maybe twice that many shell casings. I'm sure the director would be happy to put four or five of us on it full time ... assuming, of course, that the bureau will pay for it." The man grinned. "This isn't CSI, like on TV, you know. We don't have some fancy imaginary automated computer system that will do that."

  Dick Jefferson had been an FBI agent for three years, but he already knew how expensive that would be ... and how long it would take.

  "I may have our lab do something with them," he said.

  "Knock yourself out," said the tech. "The detective that was working on this has us looking at a few things. If we find anything, we'll notify him and I'm sure he'll notify you. Just let the evidence custodian know which ones you want. If any of them are the ones we're working on, I'll be happy to turn them back in to the evidence locker so he can ship them to you."

  Chapter Seven

  "You're looking better," said Officer Connel. The hospital room didn't look any different.

  "I feel better ... mostly," said Kris. "I have lots of questions, but I feel better."

  "I've still got lots of questions, too," said Mitch.

  "Why didn't you tell me I got shot?"

  "I was hoping you'd tell me about that." Mitch watched for signs of stress, but didn't see any.

  "I'd love to tell you," said Kris. "I'd love for you to put whoever did this to me behind bars for the rest of his life."

  "His life?" Mitch waited.

  "Or her life," said Kris. "Don't you think I'd tell you who shot me if I knew?"

  "I can think of a dozen reasons why you might not want to do that," said Mitch.

  "Do I need a lawyer?"

  Mitch frowned. He hated it when suspects asked that question. There was precedence, in some of the more liberal courts, that had interpreted that question as a request for a lawyer. He hadn't advised Farmingham of his rights, because he really had no probable cause to arrest the man. It wasn't against the law to get shot. And, while there appeared to have been a motor vehicle accident of some kind, Mitch didn't have the car and there was no way he could convince even the stupidest of jurors that Kris had "left the scene."

  His gut instinct was that there was much more below the surface of Mr. Farmingham than was visible, but the fact was that all he had ... at present ... was that gut instinct. He decided not to play anymore games. Sometimes just being up front with a suspect got some cooperation.

  "I don't know," he said. "In the first place, that's your decision to make. I can't advise you on that, legally. What I can tell you is that you're not under arrest and you're not being charged with any crime ... at least not for now. You popped up here in very curious circumstances, though, and I'm not going to just forget about you."

  "So if I'm not under arrest ... I can leave?"

  "Where do you intend on going?" asked Mitch.

  "I've been thinking about that," said Kris. "I don't know where to go. It would help if you answered some of my questions."

  "Isn't this interesting," said Mitch. "I have all kinds of questions for you and you have all kinds of questions for me. Seems like kind of a yin yang situation, don't you think?" He smiled. "You have information that could be valuable to me, and I may have information that could help you. How about trading?"

  "What do you mean?" asked Kris.

  "I'll ask you a question and then you get to ask me one," said Mitch.

  "How do I know if I can trust you?" asked Kris.

  "I could ask the same question," the policeman countered.

  "Okay, fair enough," said Kris. "How will I know if I'm getting myself into trouble by answering your questions?"

  "You'll know when I advise you of your legal rights," said Mitch.

  "Don't I already have them?" asked Kris.

  "Of course you do," said Mitch. "I'm just not required to tell you what they are yet."

  "That sounds pretty chicken shit," said the man in the bed.

  "You'll get no argument from me on that," said the policeman. "But that's the law. You're not under arrest and I don't have any current plans to charge you with anything, so all we're doing right now is chatting. I'll make you this promise, though. If that changes ... I'll tell you."

  "Remind me not to play poker with you," said Kris.

  "Actually, I kind of hope that someday we do play poker," said Mitch.

  "Why?"

  "Because that would mean you were my friend, instead of a disturbing mystery."

  * * *

  There had been a few more moments of uneasy silence, until Kris finally said, "Okay, what do you want to know?"

  "You were in an accident," said Mitch. "A car crash, probably. What do you remember about that?"

  He had hit on the one thing that Kris had some relatively distinct memories of, but those memories didn't make any sense. If he'd hit a car door, and the man getting out of that car door, the policeman in his room wouldn't have said "probably." He would already know about that part. And, he was still scared that he would be arrested, if he described what he remembered. Still, he had to give the man something.

  "I remember hearing glass breaking," said Kris. "I also remember being afraid I was going to die, but that part seems kind of obvious."

  Mitch frowned. He'd already told the suspect about the glass, so this wasn't new information. He tried a different approach.

  "What do you remember about your vehicle?"

  Kris was quiet. The only memory he could access was the one he was afraid to talk about, but this question didn't seem so dangerous. He closed his eyes and replayed the memory. This time, when he saw the door open i
n front of him, he paid attention to the front of his car hitting the door ... and the man.

  "It's kind of light blue," he said.

  "What kind of car is it?" asked Mitch, his voice quiet.

  "I don't know." Kris opened his eyes. "I know you ran a check on my license. Does that match?"

  Mitch didn't think giving that up was much. "You have a '98 Buick Regal registered in New York. They don't list the color of the car in their records."

  "Buick Regal," Kris repeated. It didn't mean anything to him. He couldn't even think of what a Buick Regal looked like.

  "What about your personal life?" asked Mitch.

  "I'm pretty sure I write books," said Kris. "I have this kind of hazy memory of a computer screen, and I'm writing something. It has chapters, so it has to be a book."

  "Maybe you came up here to do research on a book," suggested Mitch.

  "Where is here, exactly?" asked Kris.

  "Here is Pembroke, Connecticut," said Mitch. "We don't have any industry to speak of. Some people vacation here in the summer. There's some sport fishing and a little hunting. Are you a nature writer?"

  "Maybe," said Kris. "I like nature."

  At that moment a scene flashed into his mind. He closed his eyes, because he was eager for anything that might drift up in his memory, and he recognized what was happening as a memory being uncovered. It was of a kangaroo, standing and looking at him. He stared at the animal in his mind. The landscape behind the kangaroo was stark and almost bare, with reds and yellows in the dirt, and scrubby little bushes, but no real trees. A joey stuck it's surprisingly large head out of the kangaroo's pouch and looked around before ducking back in.

  "What is it?" asked Mitch, seeing the man's face change.

  "I think I've been to Australia," he said. "I remember a kangaroo."

  Mitch blinked. That matched the accent, but it didn't fit with his image of this man ... or, more correctly, of a man who might be involved in some criminal enterprise. Australia wasn't a place where criminals went to further criminal ends. Not in the sense of drug trafficking, anyway, which was what a lot of criminal enterprises were mixed up in, one way or another.

  "A kangaroo," said Mitch.

  "And a dingo," said Kris, smiling now. "I had a pet dingo named Gyp. She used to try to get me to stop writing and pay attention to her."

  The kangaroo had flowed into another memory, of a mottled looking dog, that made Kris feel an ache in his heart. He knew he had loved this dog and that the dog had died. He couldn't remember much more, except that the dog had a habit of coming up to him while he was typing and lifting his arm with its nose. He opened his eyes.

  "I wrote a book in Australia."

  "What was it called?" asked Mitch.

  "I don't know," said Kris.

  "I'll run a check on your name as an author," said Mitch.

  "Okay," said the man in the bed.

  "Any idea why you have two names?" asked the lawman.

  "I have two names?" Kris was obviously surprised.

  "You had a rental agreement in your coat pocket," said Mitch. "It didn't have the same name as the one on your license." He still didn't see anything that suggested Kris knew what he was talking about. "You also had a key to the house on you. It suggests you were driving there when you had the accident."

  "A rental agreement?" Kris's voice sounded wondering. "But I live somewhere ... don't I?"

  "Yes, in New York City."

  "I live in New York?"

  "You sound surprised at that." Mitch let the silence hang.

  "I'm just surprised I live in a big city," said Kris.

  "Why?"

  "Beats me. It just surprises me." He blinked. "What's the name on the rental agreement?"

  "Larry Phillips," said Mitch.

  Kris closed his eyes and said the name in his mind, silently. It meant nothing to him at all. He replayed the accident he could remember in his mind again. He looked past the door ... and the man. There were buildings and cars and a lot of people on foot, but that's all he could remember.

  "There were a lot of people," he murmured.

  "What?"

  Kris realized he'd spoken about the accident. That was dangerous, so he shied away from that.

  "I just remembered a crowd of people, but that's all," he said.

  Mitch saw the pulse in the man's throat, suddenly. He was upset by the memory. The man was talking, though, so he didn't push it.

  "Any idea what they were doing?" he asked softly.

  Kris thought about the accident ... and all those people. They had to have seen it. They would have been witnesses. And yet this policeman didn't seem to know about it. It wasn't much of a leap to decide that the accident had happened somewhere else, at some other time. But that meant it wasn't responsible for the circumstances he was in now. And yet, the memory of the accident seemed fresh somehow ... not like the memory of Australia and his dog. He knew those were old memories, somehow. It didn't make any sense.

  "No," he said. "It doesn't make any sense to me." He looked at the policeman. "What did you do with my car?"

  "I haven't found your car yet," said Mitch.

  "How can that be?" asked Kris. "If I had a wreck, and somebody brought me here, they had to have seen the car. What about the other people in the accident?"

  "It appears that your car went off the road and into a river. I found the place, but your car isn't there. It may be under the ice."

  "Ice?"

  "You're in Connecticut, in the middle of winter. It's below zero outside."

  "Shit!" said Kris.

  "You're telling me," said Mitch.

  "You're telling me nobody saw this accident?" Kris sounded amazed.

  "A local woman found you on the road, almost dead. She got you to the hospital."

  "I met her," said Kris.

  "You did?" The policeman sounded surprised.

  "She came to see me," said Kris. "She's got a weird haircut."

  "That's Lulu," said Mitch. He smiled for some reason. "She may be a little out there, but she saved your life."

  Nothing made sense to Kris. He was, if anything, more frustrated now than he'd been before getting his questions answered.

  "Have you got that rental agreement?" he asked.

  "It's in your personal effects," said Mitch. "Not that there's much left. Your clothing was cut off in the ER. As far as I know, all they have is the rental agreement, the key, some loose change, and your billfold. I'm not even sure they kept your shoes."

  "Can I look at what they have?" asked Kris.

  "It's your stuff," said Mitch, shrugging his shoulders. "Be right back."

  He was gone for only five minutes, during which Kris tried to make sense of what he now knew. What he'd learned suggested he'd had two accidents; one in a city, where he hit a man and another here in Connecticut, where his car had gone into a river. That didn't seem likely, but it's what the evidence suggested. Mitch came back into the room, a plastic bag in his hand.

  The bag was upended on the table they put his food trays on, and Mitch pushed it across the bed. Everything except the loose change looked like it had been wet. The paper had been folded into three equal sections, but was wrinkled and stained with red. He realized it was his blood and was fascinated by it as he unfolded the document. It was still legible, but just barely. It said the rent had been paid in full up to the end of May.

  "What day is it?" he asked.

  "Today is the thirteenth," said Mitch.

  "I mean what month?"

  "November."

  "So I obviously just drove up here to come to this house," said Kris.

  "Looks that way."

  "I don't remember any of this," sighed Kris. He was obviously frustrated.

  "Maybe you came here to meet somebody, or write a book that you couldn't write in the city," suggested Mitch.

  "Why couldn't I write a book in the city?" asked Kris.

  "Too many distractions?"