Mark of the Beast (12 page)

“You're trying to squeeze me out of the picture because I have no children.”

“Don't be ridiculous!”

“I'm not,” Alex insisted.

Two days later, Alex asked Mona to drive his Ford Escort to the store for gas and to pick up some toilet paper.

Mona wanted to drive her own car, but Alex insisted that the Escort needed gasoline and that he had to finish fixing a leak in the kitchen.

The smell of gasoline warned Mona that something was wrong with his wretched old car. She cranked the engine up anyway, put the car in drive, and then started toward the bend leading to the gate. She approached the sharp bend, halfway between the house and the gate. At the bend, an unprotected deep ravine made winter driving a little treacherous. Alex and Mona were used to the bend, but to a stranger it could be a little dangerous.

“What happened to the brakes?” asked Mona as the car was cruising toward the bend at a higher speed than normal. She tried again to brake, but to no avail. At the bend, she panicked and lost control, and the car rolled into the ditch. The quickness of the entire incident took Mona by surprise.

After a temporary loss of consciousness, she woke up to an excruciating pain in her head and blood running down her nose. It appeared she was pinned to the steering wheel, because all attempts to move were very painful and fruitless.

She heard some noise on the road. Realizing they were Alex's footsteps, she attempted to scream while coughing.

“Alex, please help me!”

There was no response. She felt some drizzling, and the strong smell convinced Mona that gasoline must be leaking. Suddenly the entire car was engulfed in flame.

Mona could have sworn that she saw Alex throw a lighted match at the car. Breathing became difficult for Mona. She could feel and smell her skin burning. That was less painful than the hunger for air.

Alex ran to the house and called for help. The Hobart Fire Department arrived in approximately seven minutes, extinguished the flames, and pulled Mona's charred body out from the wreckage. The incident, after a brief investigation, was ruled an accident.

 

3

M
ONTHS WENT BY, AND
Alex met Chrissie at The Red Grape Bar and Grill in the Miller section of Gary, Indiana. Chrissie was a tough gal, Alex surmised.

She liked Alex's muscular body a lot. Chrissie worked out at the Curves in Merrillville, Indiana, and had long admired muscular men.

“Do you work out?” Chrissie asked him.

“You might say that.” Alex smiled. “I do a lot of physical labor, and in my spare time I lift weights at the Hudson-Campbell Center.”

“I can't stand weak-kneed, out-of-shape men,” Chrissie said. “Not for a country girl like me.”

After six months of dating, Chrissie agreed to marry Alex.

“I read about what happened with your ex. She drove the car into that ravine and it caught fire, and she died in the blaze?” Chrissie began asking while both were sitting at the dining table one evening.

“That's what happened.” Alex did not want to discuss the incident any further.

“You know I'm always here for you,” said Chrissie matter-of-factly. For months, Alex and Chrissie had argued about the barn. Chrissie soon convinced Alex that she was no stranger to arguments.

“I'd like to go in the barn and build something, too,” demanded Chrissie. “My parents are from Minnesota, and when I was a child, my dad would let me use the barn all the time.”

“Not this barn.”

“Tell me, why not?”

“Because it's a special place and it has a lot of family history. It was a family treasure, if you will, passed down to me by my dad.”

“I don't buy that for a second,” answered Chrissie. “Barns are not family treasures. Houses, cars, paintings, boats are family treasures. A barn is just a construction farmers use to store hay and do odds-and-ends jobs.”

“This barn is different.”

“What makes it so different?”

“My dad said so.” Alex was getting upset.

“Do you believe everything your dad told you?” Chrissie asked.

“Yes, I do.”

“Well, I don't.”

Six days later, Chrissie's curiosity reached critical mass and she had to violate Alex's sacred place. As she entered the barn, Alex sat on a pile of hay, shovel in one hand and hammer in the other.

“What are you doing here?” Alex wanted to know. “I thought I told you not to come in here.”

“I couldn't resist.”

“Curiosity killed the cat!”

“I'm not a cat.”

“Well, do you know what happens to curious cats?”

“Yeah, they get killed,” replied Chrissie.

Alex did not count how many times he hit her.

When Alex finally stopped swinging the hammer, he noticed to his surprise that Chrissie was still breathing.

He picked up the shovel, and with one heavy swing, finished her off. When the fire department finally put out the fire on the barn, nothing was left.

Alex denied all knowledge of the fire's origin. He told Fire Detective Ben Torres that Chrissie must have gone into the barn with a lamp, as there was no electricity in the barn. She must have tripped and fell and set the barn on fire.

Combing through the barn, Detective Torres noticed a body that had been burned beyond recognition. Forensic analysis confirmed that it was Chrissie, and she might have started the fire, but the fractured skull was a mystery.

Alex was taken to the Hobart Police Department for questioning, and he, of course, denied ever hitting his wife.

In the end, Officer Torres decided to take a second look at the barn, a couple of days later. Walking on the grounds, he tripped over a slightly indented, rectangular patch of earth on what was once the barn floor.

The local newspapers called it “a gruesome discovery.”

Four bodies were discovered when authorities examined Alex's barn site: his father; his mother; Sophia Busby, a twenty-four-year-old hitchhiker believed missing ten years ago—a case that had remained unsolved; and Cathy.

The jury found Alex guilty of murder in all five counts. Alex avoided the death penalty on an insanity plea. He was instead given multiple life sentences at the State Psychiatric Hospital in New Lisbon, Indiana.

 

PART

VI

 

1

A
BRAMHOFF ENTERED HIS OFFICE
early Monday morning and, for the first time in weeks, exhibited a happy smile. Whatever happened in Orlando must have been good for him, thought Sabrina.

Abramhoff hardly ever smiled on Mondays.

Being in a position of authority, and perceiving himself as a person of authority, Abramhoff always maintained a serious look and would only respond when spoken to. He did not generally initiate a conversation.

“How are you this morning, Sabrina?” Abramhoff inquired with a surprisingly wide smile.

“Fine, sir,” a flabbergasted Sabrina responded. “Your trip must have yielded a dividend.”

“Dividend is not the word,” said Abramhoff. “It was a fantastic weekend. I think this is the clarification of my predestination theory, and the proof of that theory is now at my fingertips.”

“What theory is that, sir?” asked Sabrina.

“That of predestination.”

“I'm sorry, sir?”

“Not to worry, Dr. Dickerson from San Diego came up with the right mixture of chromatography in order to isolate that HLA gene. We have been after this locus for a while, and we had great difficulty isolating it.”

Sometimes, Abramhoff talked to Sabrina like he was talking to one of his colleagues. Abramhoff expected most people around him to understand and follow his logic at all times. Dr. Abramhoff believed that, with just a two-year college education, Sabrina tended to have a better understanding of his subject matter than most second-year medical students.

“So that will make it easy for the project at Kankakee,” Sabrina said.

“Exactly,” Abramhoff said. “She, Dr. Dickerson that is, not only identified the correct chemical solution but was also able to localize the type of individuals most likely to be positive.”

“It looks like she's done her homework,” Sabrina said.

“She just might have paved the way for simplification of the Kankakee Project.”

There was a knock on the door.

“I forgot, sir, Dr. Achampi has an appointment for eight thirty a.m.,” Sabrina announced.

“I know. Bring him in to the conference room.”

“Come in, Dr. Achampi,” Sabrina said, opening the door.

“Hi, Sabrina, Dr. Abramhoff is expecting me.”

“Yes, he is. He asked that you wait for him in the conference room,” Sabrina said, leading Dr. Achampi to the mahogany table and the leather seats in the conference room.

Dr. Achampi sat at the middle of the large table, admiring the plaques on the wall. Dr. Abramhoff has amassed a lot of plaques and numerous recognition awards in his lifetime, thought Achampi. He particularly admired the recently acquired plaque from the governor congratulating Dr. Abramhoff on his achievement in the field of medical advancements. He remembered the meeting with the governor at the Hilton Hotel.

“Good morning, Dr. Abramhoff,” Dr. Achampi said, as Dr. Abramhoff walked into the conference room.

“Good morning to you. How is your dad? He had what … a mild coronary last week?”

“He's taking his aspirin and beta blocker, and they seem to be helping.”

After both fixed their coffees, they picked up their china cups and saucers and headed to the conference table. Dr. Abramhoff sat at the head.

“We are now in a position to blow this whole project wide open,” Abramhoff said.

“We are?” Achampi asked.

“Yes we are,” Abramhoff said. “Do you know Dr. Dickerson from San Diego?”

“I've heard of her. Isn't she the one also working on the HLA antigen loci?”

“That's her. What do you know of her work?”

“I read an article she authored in the journal a couple of years ago about the veracity of the HLA B loci and the possibility of its association to deviancy.”

“That's just the beginning of her experiment.”

“It is?”

“She went further than we did. She presented a paper at the conference, and in that report she specifically linked HLA B66 to criminality.”

“How did she do that? We've been working on that for almost two years now, and we have not been able to isolate a specific position on the B loci.”

“Well,” Abramhoff explained, “after her presentations, I was able to have dinner with her. She went into a little bit more detail about her experiment. What made the difference is in the gel mixture she used to isolate the HLA loci.”

“How so?” asked Dr. Achampi.

“Well, she added a five percent dextrose solution of ethylene benzoic.”

“Isn't that the new untested purification solution for DNA extractions?”

“Yes,” Abramhoff said.

“Why didn't we think of that?”

“Using the new purified solution, she not only did not drop any established HLA B loci, but was able to isolate HLA B66 as the position that identifies criminality.”

Abramhoff's jealousy was obvious to Achampi.

“No kidding,” responded an impressed Achampi.

“What's more, she's already experimented on it.”

“How did she do that?”

“She didn't go into detail, but she was able to use the help of the San Diego Police Department, and she's shown that the most heinous criminals, like that guy in Hobart—what's his name? Alex Andalusia—are almost all HLA B66 positive.”

“Really,” Achampi said, still amazed. “That kind of makes our job a little easier, don't you think?”

“That's exactly my thinking,” Abramhoff said.

“So where do we go from here?” Dr. Achampi asked.

“I have it all planned out,” Abramhoff explained. “We will pursue an executive order or permission signed by the governor. We will then isolate the worst of the worst in the maximum security section at Kankakee. We will probably need a minimum of two hundred subjects to make a scientific statement. We may also need heinous cases from our neighboring states, like that same Alexander Andalusia guy from Indiana, who, I can bet my life, will be positive for the HLA B66.”

“That nut, oh yah, I bet he is,” Achampi added.

“I need you, then, to get a list of all inmates at Kankakee. Select those with heinous crimes, and then randomly pick about two hundred to five hundred of them. In reciprocity, we will pay two hundred to five hundred medical students, and, if possible, residents, for age- and sex-matched cohorts.”

“Dr. Dickerson did not randomize her sample, I presume?” Achampi asked.

“No, she did not,” Abramhoff said. “That's why her findings are anecdotal. Ours will grace the cover of
The Journal of the American Medical Association
.”

“I would probably need some extra—” Achampi said.

“Whatever extra money you need,” Abramhoff interrupted, seeming to read his mind, “Sabrina will handle the expenses. Also use as many staff members from the research fellowship as you need.”

The buzzing of the phone briefly distracted them from the conversation.

A few moments later, Sabrina knocked at the door. “Come in,” yelled Abramhoff.

“Dr. Dickerson from San Diego,” Sabrina whispered.

“Anything else?” Abramhoff asked, looking at Achampi.

“Not that I can think of,” Achampi said.

“Can you then report back to me, say … Thursday or Friday?”

“That would be fine, sir.”

Dr. Achampi left through the side conference room door, and Abramhoff went straight to his office and closed the door behind him.

 

2

“H
ELLO,
R
EGINA,”
A
BRAMHOFF GREETED.