Trueman Bradley - Aspie Detective (19 page)

“That can’t be!” I said to myself. “If he wasn’t in New York City, how could he have killed Eddie?”

I was so disturbed by this thought that I decided to use my mind to confirm the Latino man was truly the murderer. I executed the equation in my mind. The result was shocking.

“The Latino man isn’t the murderer!” I shouted. “But if he isn’t the murderer, why did the wrist TV computer say he was?”

I started to wonder if maybe there was a mistake in the design of the wrist TVs. Maybe the wrist TVs just didn’t work. The wrist TV had given a different result than my mind, and I knew my mind worked correctly, so the wrist TV must be wrong.

As I was thinking this, a man passed in front of me, followed by a woman who grabbed my shoulder. I emerged from my concentrated thought and realized it was Nora. She smiled at me and pointed at the man who had walked in front of me.

“There he is,” she said. “See?”

I recognized him as the black-haired man Nora had been following. At that moment, a horrible thought entered my head. We had made a big mistake and I was watching the true murderer as he walked towards the exit. I couldn’t allow him to escape.

“Stop him!” I shouted.

I ran in front of the black-haired man and blocked him from exiting the building. I recognized the shock on his face.

“Nora!” I shouted. “He’s the one! Let’s grab him!”

Everyone in the building stopped what they were doing and stared at us. The black-haired man also stopped and stared, his face expressing the recognizable signs of shock and fear. Then, as fast as a rabbit, he turned around and ran up a stairwell.

Nora ran to me and grabbed my shoulders.

“Trueman!” she said. “Here’s lesson two of being a detective. If you suspect someone of being a murderer, you don’t run up to them and shout ‘He’s the one!’ You understand? He’s sure to run away! Now, you already told me Buckley found the murderer! Now you’re saying this guy’s the one? Make a decision, please! Which one of these guys is the murderer?”

“That guy who ran up the stairwell!” I said.

“Okay, then, follow me!” she said.

Nora ran towards the stairwell and I tried my best to follow her quickly. Nora was extremely athletic and I was not accustomed to moving this fast. We climbed stairs and ran through long hallways. As we ran, I was worried I may do something clumsy and fall to the ground. But I was able to concentrate on my actions and avoid falling.

We came into a big round room on the second floor. It had a domed skylight in the ceiling, with a miniature airplane hanging from it. There were murals painted on the upper walls and I was distracted by the beauty of the architecture.

“This is a wonderful example of ‘Art Deco’ style architecture,” I said. “I’ve memorized architecture books.”

“What?” asked Nora. “Trueman, please! Not now! We need to know where that guy went! I lost him! Help me, Trueman!”

The black-haired man was nowhere to be seen. Looking around, I noticed there were four doors. The murderer could have run through any of these doors. The first door had the word “Departures” above it. The second door had the word “Restaurant” above it. The third was marked “Keep Out—Staff Only.” And the fourth had no label, but seemed to lead outside, because sunlight was visible through it. I tried to think of a method to determine which door the murderer had gone through.

“Come on, Trueman!” said Nora. “Every second counts!”

I didn’t understand the expression she was using, but her reference to “counting seconds” reminded me of the time I was in the Hickson warehouse, counting the seconds on my TET and waiting for the ideal time to go across the bridge, over the acid vats. I was reminded of that, because this was a similarly stressful situation. It gave me a wonderful idea, and I wondered if that is what Nora had meant by her strange comment.

“Aha!” I said. “Good idea, Nora! The TET!”

“What?” she asked.

I took the TET out of my pocket and removed it from its holding container. I put it in my palm and began inputting all the necessary information about our mission.

“What’s that?” asked Nora. “What are you doing?”

“It’s my TET,” I said. “It finds evidence. Last time I used it, the evidence was either very near to the criminal, who was Malcolm Vrie, or else maybe the evidence had been in his clothing? I was just thinking, if the black-haired man is the murderer, maybe he’s also carrying the evidence in his clothes.”

“And if he is?” she asked.

“Then the TET will find him,” I said.

I finished inputting data and saw the compass and arrow appear on the TET’s computer screen. It pointed towards the door that had a sign on it reading “Keep Out—Staff Only.” I ran towards the door and tried the handle. It was unlocked.

“This way, Nora!” I said.

Nora and I entered the forbidden room and climbed up a poorly lit stairwell. There was a battered, metal door at the top of the stairs, with light shining from underneath it.

We opened the door and ran out onto thick gravel, which made crunching noises under my feet. It did not take long for me to realize that we were on the roof. There were vents and skylights and many pipes that pointed to the sky. It smelled like tar and the coolants used in air conditioning systems.

“There he is!” whispered Nora.

She pointed towards my left and I saw the black-haired man. He was pulling on a rope, which he had tied to the casing of an air conditioning unit. He seemed not to have noticed us, because he didn’t look at us and made no attempt to run away.

“You’re a genius, Trueman!” said Nora. “We got him!”

“What do we do now?” I asked.

Nora pulled a gun from a holster she had hidden under her jacket. I had noticed the type of gun she had used before, when she was pointing it at Eddie in the hallway of 545 East 13th Street, but didn’t have a chance to ask her about it then.

“That is a Colt model 1903 pocket, hammerless, semi-automatic pistol,” I said.

“Uh, yeah,” she said. “That’s right. Let me guess, you memorized gun catalogs?”

“Yes, my granddad was a cop,” I said, “so he had a lot of gun catalogs. That’s an old one. They only manufactured them with grips like that before 1924. Your gun was made before 1924. It looks like it’s in bad condition. Does it work?”

“If it didn’t work, I wouldn’t have it in my hands right now,” she said. “As for its condition… as I told you once before, I don’t have much money. I’m on a budget, here. Now, stay close behind me, okay? I’m going to go and confront him.”

Nora gripped her gun with both hands and pointed it towards the murderer. She stepped cautiously in his direction and I followed her, trying not to make much noise.

“Freeze!” shouted Nora. “Don’t move or I’ll shoot!”

I could see the black-haired man’s reaction, but couldn’t interpret his thoughts or feelings. He flew over the edge of the building and the rope he had prepared was pulled tight.

“He’s climbing down the wall with the rope!” said Nora.

Nora ran towards the edge of the building and jumped over. I expected to hear her screaming and the sound of her body hitting the ground, but when I reached the edge of the building and looked down, I saw her climbing down the rope. She descended the rope so quickly that she reminded me of the monkeys I’d seen at the zoo. I knew Nora was athletic, but I had not realized the full power of her athleticism until then.

I could see the black-haired man. He had lowered himself onto the roof of the first floor and was now climbing down a tree. If he succeeded, he would reach the street below. Nora landed on the first floor roof-top and turned to look at me.

“Trueman!” she said. “Can you climb down?”

I looked down and felt sick. I wasn’t sure if I could climb down. I often tripped and hurt myself walking down the street. If I tried to climb down the outside of a two-storey building, I might kill myself. I felt fear and confusion, and it made me dizzy. I grasped the edge of the building.

“Trueman!” said Nora. “You can’t do it! You might trip and fall! You said you were clumsy, remember? So don’t even try it! Just stay up there! Just wait for me there, okay?”

I felt dizzy. I could not see Nora clearly, but her words reminded me of something I had entirely forgotten.

“Aha!” I said. “Wait for me, Nora! I’m coming!”

“No!” she said. “Trueman, don’t! You’ll kill yourself!”

“No, I won’t!” I said.

I took a small box out of my coat and opened it. Inside was an invention Dr. Rozzozzo had made for me. It was called the “Clumsiness Compensating Console” or “CCC.” I had designed it to cure my clumsiness. Just like the TET was able to predict the ideal moment for me to walk somewhere without being seen, the CCC was able to tell me the ideal moment for me to perform a particular athletic action without tripping, getting hurt or dying. All I needed to do was input the details of what athletic action I was trying to accomplish.

“Trueman!” said Nora. “He’s getting away! The murderer’s escaping! I have to go! Just, please, stay up there, okay?”

The CCC was square, with a leather belt attached to it, and I was able to strap it securely to my forearm. I inputted the necessary data into the CCC and looked at its small computer screen. Every ten seconds, it displayed the likelihood of avoiding injury or death, if I tried to climb down the rope.

“Fifty-eight percent chance of avoiding injury or death,” I read, aloud. “Not good enough!”

I was standing on the edge of the building, ready to jump. It was windy and I could see the blue water of nearby Bowery Bay. I saw the black-haired man. He had reached the street and was running away, but Nora was still below me, staring at me.

“Trueman!” said Nora. “I said stay there!”

“Twelve percent chance,” I read. “That’s not even close to good!”

“Trueman!” said Nora. “You’re making him escape! We’re gonna lose him! Why won’t you listen to me and stay put?!”

“Ninety-seven percent chance,” I read.

I realized the technology was assuming I jumped the instant I read the number and so I didn’t stop to think if 97 percent was an acceptable level of safety. I grabbed the rope and jumped over the edge of the building. As I descended, I hugged the rope tightly. I felt as if I was floating for a few seconds, and then my weight caused the rope to pull against my arms with painful force. My view of the world was changing so quickly that I couldn’t interpret anything I saw. I felt a sudden, paralyzing confusion and heard Nora’s voice screaming loudly.

I was so paralyzed that I could do nothing but grip the rope tightly and close my eyes. I could feel myself swinging on the rope. I wondered how I would ever get down safely if I continued to swing like this. I was in a paralyzed, shocked state, so how would I be able to free myself? It seemed to me that I would swing like this forever.

I started to spin. It made me violently ill. I became so ill that I lost the ability to grip the rope. I released the rope and felt myself flying through the air. For a brief, horrible second, I wondered if the CCC was imperfect. The wrist TV had failed to correctly identify the murderer of Eddie, so maybe the CCC had incorrectly estimated my chances of survival and I was falling to my death.

I felt a sudden impact against my back.

“Trueman!” shouted Nora.

I opened my eyes in response to Nora’s yell. I could see the sky. I sat up and discovered that I was sitting on top of a moving bus. I must have fallen off the roof and somehow landed on the top of a bus. I could see Nora above me, leaning over the edge of the first floor roof and screaming at me.

Before I could interpret the meaning of all this, the bus made a sudden stop, which caused me to slide over the roof until I fell off the front of the bus. I saw a flower garden, with fresh, unpacked earth. I felt the earth impact my body.

I was laying in the flower garden, surrounded by a black, wrought-iron fence. I looked up at the sky and waited. I was not certain if I was safe yet, or if something else, unexpected and horrifying, would happen to me. I waited for what seemed like a long time, but nothing happened.

“Trueman!” shouted Nora.

I sat up and looked at the geraniums and tulips that surrounded me. My body had crushed some white tulips. Outside the fence, I could see a bus driver staring at me. Nora appeared, jumped over the fence and held my hands tightly.

“Are you okay?” she asked. “Are you hurt?”

I tried to identify any pain, but I couldn’t.

“I’m not hurt,” I said. “I guess the CCC works.”

Nora picked me up and led me out of the garden.

“We’ll call Sal!” she said. “We can’t go on with the mission! You must be in shock after a fall like that!”

“But we need to apprehend the criminal!” I said. “Where has the black-haired man gone? We can’t let him escape!”

“He already escaped!” she said. “I think we’d just be wasting our time, trying to find him. You must be in shock! You just fell off a two-storey building! You sure you’re okay?”

“Yes,” I said.

I felt a sensation in my fingers and toes. It was a tingling, burning sensation that travelled up my arms and legs until it covered my whole body. I was suddenly consumed with a horrible anxiety that came so quickly and suddenly that it felt like someone had beaten my head with a stick. My mind was filled with fearful, nervous thoughts and I began to realize that I was not okay. I had been deeply disturbed by my fall.

The CCC had correctly predicted that I would not be physically injured or killed, but it couldn’t predict how upsetting this dizzying fall would be to my mind. After so many unexpected shocks, I was in a state of psychological collapse. I could not endure it any longer. I fell down on the street.

“Trueman!” shouted Nora.

I could only see black, but I heard Nora’s voice. Soon I could not hear anything. My mind shut down and I felt nothing.

Our office on Reade Street was dark and humid. It was evening and the dark gray skies of New York City were visible outside my window. It was raining, but my window was open, because I needed fresh air. Water soaked the floor beneath the window and Mrs. Levi would mop it up every couple of minutes.