Fatal Encounter, Chapter 11
by Irv Pliskin
R-Rated
“Holy Cow!” Hallen said to Barney. “Have you ever seen anything like this before? I’d never expect this.”
“Me either! Wow!”
They were standing in a small square room, about l0 foot either way.
The only way into the room was by means of the ladder they had just climbed down, so if you did not know about the opening, it was a secret room. Six four-foot fluorescents suspended from the ceiling lit the bright cubicle. A thick, grey wall-to-wall carpet covered the solid floor.
The room contained only spartan furnishings of a small desk, a desk chair and a wheeled safe stood on the floor. It was a good safe, a very good safe and it was firmly closed. It was larger than the opening in the ceiling, so Hallen guessed that the room had been excavated, the safe put in it, and then the floor above constructed. The safe could not be removed, unless the utility room was dismantled. In addition to the standing floor safe, there were three more wall safes. Each was set securely in the thick poured concrete walls.
“This is like a bank vault. I wonder if all the safes are locked?” Hallen asked, trying them; all were securely closed.
“We’re going to have to get into those boxes,” BB said. “Does your lock picking expertise extend that far?”
“Not me, buddy. This is going to have to be a job for Sammy. I just hope that in his paranoia this guy hasn’t had them booby trapped so they will do harm to anybody who opens them. They could be rigged that way with gas or explosives.”
”Let’s hope not,” BB said. “but wouldn’t that be gilding the lily? Christ, the room is hidden, It was just lucky that you found the place. I doubt that he would go that far.”
“I certainly hope you’re right,” Hallen said.
* * * * *
Severe, hard-hitting stomach pains awakened Carl from his nightmarish sleep. He grabbed a flashlight, and just made it to his chemical toilet, narrowly avoiding a disastrous accident. He thought, in the light of the flashlight, about his situation. He would have to get out of there. Even though it was hardly time, he would have to get out of there. Finished, he was surprised to realize that although he was famished, he was able to stand up without much pain. He stood up and tottered to the generator, pulled the handle and the thing went on, almost instantly. He felt encouraged, turned on the lights and sat down on his bed.
He had no idea how long he had been there in the hole. His watch indicated it was just about six o’clock. Morning? Evening? Who knew? Maybe he could get news on the radio, if the darn thing would work. It had worked before when he was building the place, but then the place was open, letting in light and radio waves. As he turned the radio on, an announcer was saying:
“We have a live feed from our reporter at large, Mary Alice Kajolier in the Poconos. Are you there, Mary Alice?”
“Yes, Tom, I am. I’m talking to State Police Detective Sergeant Hallen who has been in charge of this investigation up here near the private Log Cabin above Big Bass Lake. Detective Hallen, what can you tell us about what is going on.?”
“Not much, I’m afraid.”
“Are you close to a solution, Detective?”
“I don’t know. We’ve had a lot of sightings of the man we identified as Carl Rogers, but none of them have turned out to be correct. I’d like to say that we are about to close in on him, but I don’t know. All I can tell you is that we believe he is heavily armed and very dangerous. If you should see him, don’t approach him, call the police. Please, everyone, be very cautious.”
“Thank you detective. As you know folks, Rogers is a suspected serial killer. Women seem to be his target, so please be aware and although it has been more than a week since he was identified, there has been no sign of him, anywhere. It is a matter of grave concern for all the police in the area. Back to you, Tom and the six o’clock evening news.”
Well, Carl thought, I know it is evening now. At least that’s something. I guess I better not plan to go anywhere. Christ, I’m really hungry.
He found the hot plate, plugged it in, opened a can of Corned beef, and began to cook his supper.
As he did so, he reflected that it was pretty damn smart of him to have built the spider hole bunker.
The dumb bastards will never find me. Never! So long as I stay in here. But, he wondered can I really stay here? Will this get too much for me? Can I really be alone for a long time? I thought I could, but can I?
As he thought of it a wave of claustrophobia engulfed him. He began to sweat, and feel the walls close in on him.
"Holy Christ," he shouted. "Stop it, Rogers, stop it. If you let this get to you the bastards will get you sure."
His appetite gone, he sat on his bunk and began to weep. Heavy sobs racked him and the echoes of his sobs and shouts rang in his ears. He felt dizzy and he lay down, as the room began to spin around him.
* * * * * *
Sammy Schlissel climbed down the ladder and came into the subterranean room. He shook his head in wonder.
“These aren’t ordinary safes, Jerry,” he said. “These are the Rolls Royce's of safes, I think. It may be pretty easy to check them out. Only a few places sell this kind of equipment. Well, let’s see what I can do with my electronic safe cracking toys. It’s going to take a while, though. I think so you better leave me alone down here. I’ll call you if I need ya.”
“Sammy, is there a chance that these are booby trapped? You better be careful.”
“Yeah, right. But Mrs. Schlissel she had no stupid kids. I’ve already taken that into consideration. That’s why I brought the gas mask, and the Kevlar vest. I’ll take every precaution, you can bet on it. Now, let me get to work on that big son of a bitch on the floor.”
As he knelt to the job, he turned to Hallen who was going up the ladder.
“This is a custom Wilson Safe, Jerry. You can probably find out a hell of lot from the company. Let’s see how I do with it.”
Forty-five minutes later, Sammy called up to Hallen.
“Hey Jerry, I’ve got this big son of a bitch ready to open. I’m gonna take a chance and see if it opens without a booby trap. Cross your fingers for me. Okay guys,” he called,”It’s open. No problem that I can see.”
They all breathed a sigh of relief.
“Okay, Sammy, Hallen said, as he slid down the ladder to the floor below, “you got one open, how about the others?”
“My guess, boss, is that they all have the same combination. Memorizing numbers for four different safes would be pretty tough, even for a guy who seems as well put together as this one. Let me see if I can get the top one open using the same combination.”
He spun the dials. Left, right, left, left. They heard the click as the lock opened.
“It’s unlocked. I’ll try the others.” They all opened, too.
“I think I’ll go upstairs to open the doors, this guy might have been cute enough to booby trap one of them, and not the others.”
“Before you do that,” Jerry said, “Let’s take a look at the contents of he big one. Let’s see if there is anything interesting in there.”
“Sure thing, Jerry. You do it, it’s your show.”
Hallen looked into the safe, and the first thing he saw was a large cash box on the top shelf. He pulled it out. Opened it. It was empty.
“Stands to reason,” he said. “I sort of figure he took off pretty quickly, if he did, he would have taken money with him. So he took all the cash. Let’s see what else is here.”
The second shelf held a very heavy tray of coins: rare coins all in their special holders. It was hard to evaluate them, but the collection could have been worth thousands. Hallen had no way of knowing. He would have to get the coins to an expert for appraisal. Next to the coin collection there was a leather draw-string pouch. He took it out and opened it. It contained about one hundred and fifty cut diamonds. Hallen couldn’t know if they were diamonds or Cubic Zirconium until they were weighed and tested.
But if they were diamonds, they too, would be worth a bloody fortune. The balance of the safe was full of ledger books and other things of that nature. Hallen checked them quickly and left them there for future evaluation. He was hopeful that they would give him a clue about this man, and where he might be.
Using the same caution, against possible booby traps, they opened the first of the three wall safes from the floor above, using the device Sammy had developed to do that. It was a sort of long extension pole with a gripping handle on one end that he used to grip the door handle and turn it. The wall safe contained a collection of VCR tapes. They were without sleeves, just tapes. Each tape had a simple white label, a woman’s name, plus a date. Some of the tapes had the same woman’s name on them, and were rubber-banded together. They were obviously sets. There were 14 sets of tapes, and as Hallen looked a them, he saw two names he recognized: Eliana and Clarissa.
There were three tapes in the Eliana set, only one for Clarissa.
The tapes collection went back at least four years, and the time recorded between each set was about four months. Hallen stopped what he was doing, deciding to look at least one of the tapes to get some idea of what they were before they opened the other two safes.
He sent Sammy out for a cup of coffee, then he called for BB to join him, and together they found a TV with a VCR where they could be alone. Privacy was necessary.
Hallen had no idea what the tapes showed, he suspected hey may have been of love making sessions, but he certainly did not want to share the information with the rest of his crew.
The tapes seemed to have been made on a surveillance camera.
They covered an area of a room, and they did not move to follow the action. The first tape they turned on was Labeled Amilia. It showed a rather pert young woman in the sybaritic shower. She was nicely shaped and washing herself with soap. The sound track had her humming.
A male voice said, “Do your back?”
“Of course,” she said. in a British accent.
“Turn this way,” he said. The woman turned. They could see a man’s hands rub the woman's back with soap, but he was positioned in such a way that he, himself, could not be seen. They saw his hands caress her breasts, and they saw her back up against him and wiggle and sigh as she apparently felt his member against her buttocks. After abut five minutes of this sort of foreplay, the tape ended. Hallen put in the second tape. This one had shifted to the bedroom, and it showed a man with the woman. That provided them with the first view they had had of the man’s face. It was the man on the plane, the same man that Hallen had had sketched without the beard. This was a longer tape, because the tape covered several love making episodes, in several different ways.
In one section of the tape, they could see the nude woman sleeping or resting. Then the man brought a large tray of drinks into the bedroom.
They could see him completely. He was naked and pretty well developed. He awakened her by kissing her gently on her naked breast. “Would you like some hot chocolate?”
“Oh, lovely.”
They watched her drink it, and then, in a few minutes, she said she was surprisingly, still sleepy. The woman asked, would he like to make love again before she fell asleep.
He agreed.
The woman fell asleep. The man walked out of the room and returned with a hypodermic needle. Hr injected the sleeping woman, in the buttocks. Hallen suspected she must have been drugged by something in the Hot chocolate. She started to convulse...and the unrelenting camera followed her through a series of convulsions and then into what appeared to be a violent death.
The camera showed the man during this episode: as soon as he injected her, he became aroused, and appeared to get more and more so as the woman went from life to death.
They watched in horror as the man spread eagled the dead woman, and then mounted her. He was in plain view as he did this, shouting and cursing. If they should ever find the man, get him to court, this tape was incontrovertible evidence of the fact that he had committed murder. That is, providing the tapes were admissible.
Hallen couldn't sleep. The image on the tape was burned into his brain, and he felt he was being tortured.
He tossed, turned, and stared at the ceiling. It had been this way for hours and he was getting more and more distressed. He kept seeing the images on the video he and BB had watched. And they really were getting to him.
Hallen was an experienced cop, and he had seen lots of mayhem, many terrible things in his professional and military life.
As a soldier, he had been in combat and that was horrible enough. But being on the force subjected a man to incredible things: more horrible than any civilian could imagine.
He had seen car crashes that would make an ordinary man think he had awakened in hell. He had investigated domestic disputes where someone had used an ax to do deadly damage. He had been at shootings, and witnessed infanticide, mutilations and many other instances of man's inhumanity to man.
But the vision on the video tape of the woman in the throes of a terrible death, and the subsequent action of Carl was almost too much. It certainly screwed up his sleep.
Frustrated, Hallen decided to go to the office and work there. He dressed quietly, left a note for his wife and at 3 :16 in the morning was sitting at his desk reviewing notes and files and planning how to proceed.
He would have to find and catch this monster. Hopefully, he would find him and he would resist, and although Hallen objected in principal to killing, he felt it would be a blessing if Carl resisted arrest, with dire consequences.
After several hours of work, and several cups of coffee, Hallen realized that he was hungry. He hadn't had much dinner: who could eat with the images he had running through his head?
It was getting near dawn, that soft time when night begins to turn into day.
He could hear the birds beginning their morning chirps, and he decided that he would go down the road to the greasy spoon all-night diner and get some breakfast.
He slipped his paper work into his drawer, stood up, put on his jacket and walked to the big glass doors in front of the station. He stood on the entrance porch, breathing in the fresh, cool air of the morning, savoring the mountain air and the intoxicating smell of the outdoors.
Then, he strode to his cruiser, and started to put the key in the lock.
His fingers slipped and the keys fell. He stooped to get them, and as he did so, the car window smashed. A bullet went through it. Experience, training, instinct came to the fore, and Hallen went down to the ground, and rolled under the car as quickly as he could.
"Who the hell can be shooting at me? Why? What the hell is this? Is it random? Holy Christ, what is going on?" he muttered.
He pulled his .38 police special from his holster, clicked off the safety, and lay motionless waiting to see what would happen next. Maybe it was a random shot, but Christ it didn't feel like it, Hallen thought. Much too close for comfort.
Nothing happened for a moment, and then he heard footsteps and muttering as well.
“That'll teach you, you son of a bitch," A faintly familiar voice was saying. "Nobody screws with me I'm the law here, and nobody fools with me. I”ll prove you took a shot at me first, and they ain't gonna do anything to me. After all, a guy gotta protect himself.”
Jefferson, gone over the edge, Hallen thought. What do I do now? Do I plug the bastard, what do I do?
The front door of the office opened and three staties who had been alerted by the rifle shot in the quiet morning stood there weapons in hand.
Jefferson saw them and shouted.: "I just shot a perp. He was shootin' at me. Go back inside, I'm the law here, I'll handle this.”
"Put down the rifle, Sheriff," one of the cops said. "Put it down so nobody else gets hurt."
“I tole you guys to go back inside," Jefferson shouted. "This is my business, it ain't none of yours.”
Three of the on duty cops had come to the front door, another had gone out the side door into the parking lot, and he could see Jefferson, his rifle raised and pointing at his buddies. He quickly moved down the grass verge to the cars, and quietly came up behind the sheriff. He put his gun into the sheriff's neck, pushed hard and said, "Put down the rifle. Now. Make any other move and I'll splatter your brains all over the driveway. Do it now. NOW.”
Jefferson hesitated, lowered the rifle.
One of the cops rushed over, kicked the rifle out of the sheriff's hand, and then spread-eagled the man on the hood of a car. He pulled his massive arms back and snapped on cuffs.
Hallen rolled out from under the cruiser.
"Thanks guys. I think you saved my ass. I appreciate it. What the hell is going on? What's with this dumb son of a bitch anyway?”
He stood up, brushed himself off and looked at the shattered car window.
“I dropped my keys. If I hadn't he would have gotten me square in the head, it looks like. Jesus, that was close.”
He turned to the big sheriff. "What the hell is going on, Jefferson? What the hell is this all about? You trying to kill me?"
"You got no cause to treat me like you do," Jefferson shouted, spraying Hallen with spittle. "I'm the law here, and I say who does what and when. You are interfering with my investigation and when you pulled your gun on me I hadda shoot you."
Hallen shook his head and rubbed his handkerchief over his face. "Lock him up," he said. "We'll get a shrink over here in the morning to check this idiot out."
"Let me go," Jefferson sputtered. "I'm the sheriff here. You got no cause to do this to me. You are interfering with a citizen. A perfectly honest citizen, and I won't tolerate that. Let me go, I say/. I'm the sheriff here. I'm the law. I tell ya, I'm the law. Got that? You don't let me go and take these damn cuffs offa me, you will be damn sorry. I promise ya."
Continued next month.
