For Want of a Memory

by Lubrican

Chapters : 1-2 | 3-4 | 5-6 | 7-8 | 9-34 & Epilogue Available On

PLEASE NOTE: This is a preview of this novel. It is available for purchase in its entirety via

Chapter Three

It was three in the morning and Detective Sergeant Jim Harper had to piss again.  All that coffee he'd been drinking-along with being in his late forties-was taking its toll, but it had to be done to stay awake.  Reports would be expected to be ready for distribution in the morning.  The fucking mayor was sticking his nose into it, as if the entire law enforcement hierarchy wasn't bad enough.  Lonny Hildebrand, the Captain of Detectives, had already pissed himself earlier in the evening, when Harper had had the balls to call up the governor's mansion and ask Mrs.  Custer to come in for an interview.

"We don't call the fucking governor's wife in for an interview!" Hildebrand had choked.  "You get your ass over to Albany and talk to her!  And you'd better fucking salute the fucking flag pole in front of the fucking mansion when you get there!"

"Gosh," said Harper, trying to look mournful.  "I'd be happy to do that, Captain, except that she said she'd be happy to come see us.  She'll be here at ten, tomorrow morning."  

"You actually fucking talked to Mrs. Custer her fucking SELF?"  Hildebrand looked like he was going to have a stroke.  He deflated, slumping into a nearby chair.  "Ohhhhh," he moaned.  "Fuck me to tears...I'm getting too old for this shit."

Harper decided not to point out that the captain was ten years younger than he was, and had gotten the appointment to his position only because his father had friends on the force.  If the idiot quit, there would be a kegger thrown by the detectives who'd suffered under him.

"Take it easy," said Jim in a soothing voice.  "I've been doing this a while.  I know how not to ruffle her feathers.  It will be fine.  Why don't you go on home and relax?  I'll have the report on your desk when you get here in the morning, with copies for the chief and the mayor.  I'll give you two extra copies for whoever else decides this is their business too.  We've got the perps.  The rest of this is just a formality."

Captain Hildebrand looked hopeful.  

"OK," he said.  "But PLEASE don't screw this up, Jimmy.  You got anything on the good Samaritan yet?"

"Just some paint scrapings," sighed Harper.  "The lab should be able to give us a make and model tomorrow sometime.  Then we can start looking for it.  As best we can tell, that's who Moe was shooting at, and if there are bullet holes, it should be a piece of cake to find."

Mitch Connel stood on the edge of the road, peering down the incline, where his flashlight simply reflected light off of falling snowflakes, rather than illuminating the terrain.  Just enough light got past the falling snow that he could see bent and torn underbrush.  This had to be the place, but he couldn't see far enough to spot the car.

He'd have to come back in the morning.

If the roads were passable.

He got back in the department's 4WD and slipped and slid back to town.  The office was warm, and the snow in his hair started melting immediately.  He sat down at the desk and flipped open the manila folder that had only a single piece of paper in it.  All he had were two names and the possibility of a bullet wound.

On impulse he pulled open a desk drawer and pulled out a black hardback law enforcement directory for the state of New York.  He'd already found the address on the driver's license on Google maps.  Now he had to figure out which precinct might cover that part of Long Island.  Half an hour later, feeling helpless, he dialed a number.

"Nine one one, what is your emergency, please?" came a bored voice.

"I didn't dial 911, said Mitch, I called the Nassau County PD."

"What is your emergency, please?" asked the voice.

"I don't have an emergency.  I need to talk to missing persons."

"Reporting a missing person is not an emergency, sir," said the voice.  "Please clear the line and call the administrative number in the morning."

There was a click in Mitch's ear.

Mitch checked the book and then looked at the number on the display of the phone for "Last Dialed".  They were the same.  There weren't any nines or ones in the number at all.  He dialed it again.

"Nine one one, what is your emergency, please?" came a different voice.

"This is the Pembroke, Connecticut Police Department," said Mitch, as officially as he could.  "I dialed the number for the detective division that's in the L.E.O. directory and got you instead.  Transfer me to the detective division, please."

"This is nine one one," said the woman.

"Look," said Mitch patiently.  "I've got a Long Island resident in the hospital, whose been shot and might die. I need to talk to a detective down there, OK?  Is attempted murder enough of an emergency for you?"

"I can't dispatch anybody to Connecticut," said the woman, sounding upset.

"I don't want you to dispatch anybody to Connecticut," said Mitch, his voice rising.  "I just want to talk to a DETECTIVE, OK?!"

"You don't have to yell, sir," came the woman's voice.  "I don't have to take that.  I'm in the union.  You should call the administrative number.  This is nine one one."

"I DID CALL THE ADMINISTRATIVE NUMBER!" yelled Mitch.  "AND I GOT YOU IDIOTS TWICE!  I DIALED 516-555-7000!"

"Hold please," said the woman.

He stewed for five minutes, until a man came on the phone.

"Detective ...?" said the man.

"Officer Mitch Connel," said Mitch, his voice tight.  "Pembroke, Connecticut Police Department, badge number twenty-six."

"It seems as though someone threw the wrong switch," said the man.  "The admin number was routed to the emergency operations center.  The number you dialed is the right number, but there's nobody there in the middle of the night."

"Surely you guys have a detective on duty, or on call or SOMETHING!" said Mitch.

"I'll transfer you.  Please don't yell at my people again, Detective Connel.  They work hard, under harrowing conditions, and don't deserve verbal abuse, particularly from someone in law enforcement."

"I'll try to remember that," said Mitch.  "Could you connect me, please?"

"Sure," said the man, his voice bright.  "No problem."

It didn't get any better.

"Detective division," said a gruff voice.

"Yeah," sighed Mitch.  "This is Mitch Connel, up in Pembroke, Connecticut.  I've got a mystery up here who came from your neck of the woods.  A passerby found him in the middle of the road, unconscious.  He may have been shot and his driver's license says he lives at an address on Chester Street.  I need to know if you have any missing persons reports on the guy...wants and warrants...that kind of stuff."

"We don't do missing persons," said the voice on the phone.  "We have a separate division that does that."

"Oh," said Mitch.  "Can you transfer me to them?"

"They don't work nights," said the man.  "You can call them back in the morning."

"Oh," said Mitch again.  "Well, OK, I guess, can you give me that number?"

There was silence on the line.  Then a dial tone confirmed that the man had hung up on him.

Jessica Dauphine looked at her patient.  He was in bad shape.  She lifted the gown, in preparation for giving him a sponge bath.  His care in the ER had involved cleaning him up only in those areas where they needed to put in stitches or treat a wound in some other way.  Now that he was in her care, she had determined to finish the job.

She wasn't shocked at what she saw when his body was bare.  She'd seen it all before.  There were contusions everywhere, making him look like some odd creature with a unique style of camouflage, though where the mixture of blue, black, purple and tanned skin would blend in was a mystery.

She was glad he was unconscious as she started swabbing his skin with the sponge.  He'd be wincing and complaining if he were awake.  His battered body would have been crying out at her touch.  This was better, because she could use broad firm strokes and clean him well, without worrying about causing him discomfort.

He was in very good shape for a man his age.  He looked much closer to someone in his late twenties, than the forty-seven that his driver's license said he was.  She knew Mitch was curious as to whether the driver's license went with the man, and she wondered too if he was really Kristoff Farmingham, or some other man who had Kristoff's identification for some reason.  She liked a mystery, and her mind wandered as she cleaned his skin.

Was he some underworld denizen, who had been left to die for some transgression against his organization?  Maybe he was an undercover cop, who had been found out and "killed" in a way that would make it look like an accident.  Her mind was filled with images from books she had read.  Indiana Jones came to mind, for some reason.  She smiled as she thought of this man with a fedora and a coiled whip at his waist.

Her reverie was broken when she got to his groin.  She'd been told, in nursing school, that she'd get used to seeing intimate parts of her patients…that it would become routine and boring.  That had never happened.  Each man she got to see like this was unique in some way or another.  Her own vivid imagination made each foray into exploring another human being's body something new and exciting.  Even the old men she looked at conjured up visions of what they might have been like when they were younger...stronger...more virile.

She looked at Kristoff's penis, lying limply on his testicles.  It was neither huge, nor tiny.  Based on her limited experience with men, he looked quite normal.  The skin on his penis was darker than the rest of him-a dusky brown, with purple undertones, and an overcast of gray that she knew was the result of his loss of blood.  As his body made new blood, that gray would fade and the purple would probably become more prominent.

She retracted his foreskin, telling herself that there might be smegma under it-a fertile breeding ground for bacteria that would cause itching and eventually pain if it were left to fester.   His glans was clean, though.  She looked over her shoulder, to make sure no one was watching her take a little too long to clean his genitals.  She was always curious about a man's equipment.  She didn't have all that much experience with penises.  That wasn't from lack of trying.  She was just the wrong woman in the wrong place right now.

Jessica had accepted the first offer she'd gotten from the placement office of the school's nursing program, worried that she might not be able to find a job.  She now knew that was silly.  Nurses were in short supply, and a good nurse could get a job almost anywhere she wanted to.  But the first year had flown by, and she'd made a few friends, and it was hard to think about leaving, even if it might get her someplace where she could find a man.

The problem was that the residents of Pembroke...Nassequa county, for that matter...were typically white, and had been for generations, while Jessica Dauphine was not.

She wasn't the blue-black of Nigerian ancestry.  Rather, her bloodline appeared to have come from a mixture of races.  Her fertile imagination had supplied that scenario as well.  She imagined a slave holder, who looked a little like Rhett Butler, on some plantation, looking over a new shipment of slaves one day.  His eye would have fallen on her great great grandmother, who was, no doubt, a tall, thin, well muscled woman from the Massai, used to walking or running long distances.  She would have had the high, conical breasts that Jessica had, with thick, black nipples that reflected light, making them look shiny.

Her maternal ancestor would have been much darker than Jessica's cocoa colored skin and, while Jessica had a mixture of Negroid and Caucasian facial features, her great great grandmother would have had a flatter nose and thicker lips.  Still, at over six feet in height, she would have stood out from the others.  Even after being captured and stuffed in the hold of a slave ship, she would have been proud...obstinate.

Her owner would have been smitten by her, unable to resist taking her to his bed.  She would have been a virgin, of course, more woman than any tribal man could have tamed.  Only her status as a slave would have let the despicable...but handsome...white man claim her body.  Their coupling would have been violent, as she resisted, initially, until his softer side would convince her that he had fallen in love with her.  She would have borne him several children, who would have been his favorites.

Jessica jerked.  She'd been daydreaming again.  She knew it was a stupid dream.  It hadn't been like that at all.  But somewhere along the line, some white man had taken a black woman and gotten her with child.  Jessica's features proved that.

She realized that she was holding something completely different in her hand than she had been a few moments ago.  She stared at the erection she had created, unconsciously on both of their parts, and let go of it, jerking her hand back and looking around guiltily.  When she saw no one was watching, she darted a glance at his face.  The one eye that wasn't covered by bandages was still closed, so she relaxed.

She finished her job, moving down the man's legs.  Her eyes went back several times to that now impressive manhood.  It was wilting, for lack of attention.  She sighed.

At six feet, one and three quarters inches, she was taller than most in town.  She was in excellent condition, because she ran and did calisthenics religiously.  Her firm, proud breasts rode high on her chest and were separated by a hand span of space that made it all but impossible for her to display cleavage, even when she tried to.  She had the same thick purple-black nipples as her imagined ancestor and the rich brown skin tones that proclaimed her to be "black."  Her Caucasoid ancestry had given her straight hair, though, both on her head and her mons, where the hair lay flat and smooth, short enough, naturally, that it did nothing to hide the thick lips that were her labia majora, which hid smaller lips inside that were the same color as her nipples.

Many people in town looked at her and thought of Tyra Banks, though their features were completely different to an educated observer.

She was a beautiful woman, by anyone's standards.  But her skin was a little too dark.  It wasn't overt discrimination, really.  There weren't any diehard racists in town.  She had been welcomed and still felt welcome.  But she was just different enough that men shied away from her, drifting toward the more familiar.

At least in terms of serious relationships, anyway.  Men flirted with her, and their eyes consumed her like ice cream on a summer day, trying to lick it all up before it melted.  She flirted back, sometimes, but it didn't lead to anything serious.

She knew why no man in town pursued her seriously, but there was nothing she could do about it.  At twenty-four, though, she was in no particular hurry.  Her biological clock wasn't screaming at her.  Still, in a fit of pique, one day, she had purchased a sex toy to help her try to manage the normal urges she faced.  Her pique had driven her to choose a thick, coal black dildo, obviously supposed to be an exaggerated representation of a black man's penis.  If the white men in town wouldn't pursue the prize, then they would lose out, both literally and figuratively.

She'd only shown it to one other person.  Lulu, her best friend, had goggled at the huge thing, when she'd shown it to her, and then laughed out loud.

"You'll kill yourself with that thing!" Lulu had laughed.

"I like it just fine!" said a slightly miffed Jessica.  She'd had a fantasy that Lulu would fall in love with the long, amazingly realistic looking thing, and ask to borrow it.

"Well, don't use it too much," said Lulu, seriously.  "Because if you do, and you ever DO meet a man, he won't be able to compete in any way...shape...or form!"  She'd ended laughing hysterically, waving the twelve inch long rubber penis around like it was a floppy sword of some kind.

Jessica's patient groaned suddenly and she jumped again.  She'd been daydreaming AGAIN!  She moved to the man's head, watching his closed eye carefully.  If he was awakening, she'd need to call the doctor in as soon as possible.

Hurriedly she took time to pull the hospital gown over the man's nakedness and the blanket up over him.

Jessica stood back while the resident on duty looked the man over.  His eye was open, but looked glazed, and he wasn't trying to speak.  The resident fussed with tubes and looked at the readouts of the monitors.  Obviously he didn't have anything in mind to actually do, and was just going through motions.  Jessica was constantly amazed at how much art was involved in medicine, which most people thought of as a science.  Doctors had only touched the surface, as far as really understanding what went on in a human body.  More than half the time, they had no idea what was actually wrong with someone, especially in circumstances like this.

"Keep an eye on him," said the young man.  He left without another word, probably going back to the room with the cot in it, where the residents who had the night shift spent as much time as possible, trying to sleep.

"Sure thing," said Jessica, trying to suppress the impatience in her voice.  What did he think she was going to do...take a nap-like him?

She stepped closer to the bed.

"Hi," she said, leaning over him so his eye could see her without him having to move his head.  "How are you feeling?"

It was a silly question.  She knew that.  But it was a way to get the patient talking.  He mumbled something and licked his lips.

She checked the chart.  Nothing about restricting liquids.  She told him she'd be right back and went to get a cup.  She put mostly ice in it, and just a little water, and got a straw that would bend at the top.  Taking it back, she tilted the cup carefully and put the straw between his lips.  His tongue pushed it out and, as if it were a tool of exploration, moved the end of the straw to one side and then back again.  His head lifted fractionally and she put the straw back between his lips.  

He gave a tiny suck, and dropped his head back to the pillow.  She could see him swishing the water around in his mouth before swallowing.  His lips opened again and she gave him the straw once more.  Three tiny sips later, he spoke.

"What happened?"

"We were hoping you could tell us that," she said softly.  "You were in some kind of accident.  You're in the hospital now."

His eye moved around her upper body, and she imagined him thinking, "Well duh...you're a nurse!"  She felt her face get hot.

"You lost a lot of blood," she said, for lack of anything else to say.  "You're kind of banged up."  She didn't mention the suspected gunshot wound on his temple.  She couldn't have said why she didn't mention it, but she left that part out intentionally.

"What's your name?" she asked.

He thought about that for a while.  

When he'd first awakened, he knew he was waking up, and he knew he was someplace "different than usual."  He could tell that something had happened to him, because he could feel pain in various parts of his body.  He'd centered on that, initially.  Now he went beyond his body.

What WAS his name?

He realized that his mind was curiously empty.  It was a little like knowing you'd gone shopping recently, but opening the pantry door and finding empty shelves.  Where was all the stuff that was supposed to be on them?

He felt mildly frustrated.  She had asked such an easy question, and he couldn't answer it.  He looked at her.  She looked odd...flat somehow, two dimensional instead of three dimensional.  He realized only one of his eyes was working.  He brought his hand up and felt a lump with a cloth feel to it covering the eye he couldn't see out of.  Bandages.  He was in a hospital and he was bandaged up.

"Can you hear me?" asked the nurse.

"I don't know," he said.

"You don't know if you can hear me?"

"I don't know my name."

"You wait right there," she said.  "I'll go get the doctor."

He smiled.  Where did she think he was going to go?  She sounded cute and he wished he could see her better.  He did an inventory of his body, sliding his hands around and moving his legs and toes.  Everything seemed to work OK.  There was a generalized ache all over his body, and a few sharper pains where his fingers probed.  His face hurt, under the bandages, but the covered eye felt all right.  He wondered why they'd covered it, if it was OK.  He wondered what had happened to him.  His curiously empty mind was fascinating, and he began to look around the bare shelves, to see what memories were still there.

Visions of a computer screen, with words appearing on it-letter by letter-were clear in his mind.  He couldn't see the fingers on the keyboard, but he knew they were his.  He couldn't see the words clearly enough to see what they said, but he knew they were words.  His mind continued to watch the blurred words appear.  Then there was a carriage return and larger letters formed: Chapter Two.

"I'm a writer," he said softly.  

There was the rustle of clothing, as a man came into the room, followed by the nurse.

"How are you feeling?" asked the man.  He was dressed in a white coat over baggy shirt and pants that were blue.  Scrubs.  This was the doctor.

He smiled again.  He thought it was funny for a doctor to ask someone in his condition that question.   

"I think I'm all fucked up."

A very bright light suddenly flashed into his one eye and he blinked.

"Ow."

"Did that hurt?" asked the doctor, leaning back.  He had something silver in his hand.  A flashlight.

"No.  It just surprised me, that's all."

"No apparent concussion," said the doctor, apparently to the nurse.  He leaned back over.

"What do you remember?" he asked.

"I'm an author."

"An author," the doctor repeated.  "What else?"

"That's about it."

"When I say the word 'home'..."  The doctor paused for a few seconds before going on.  "What do you remember?"

He thought.  He knew he HAD a home, somehow.  He had a vision of a brown couch sitting on a hard wood floor.  Everything around it was fuzzy and indistinct.  He suddenly saw a commode.  The walls in the bathroom were white.  He wondered if he spent most of his time on that couch and commode, because that was all he could remember.

"Not much," he said.

The doctor did things with his hands.  They were out of sight.

"His vitals are normal.  Other than the memory loss, he's doing much better.  Change him to guarded and get him something to eat."  The doctor bent over him.  "They're going to get you something to eat," he said, as if he suspected the man in the bed were deaf.  "After that, try to get some sleep."

"I'm not sleepy," the patient said.

"Try to get some sleep," said the doctor again.  "Your memory loss is probably only temporary.  I don't think you have a concussion.  There might be a little residual swelling in the brain, but I feel pretty good about your condition."

As if he'd lost interest, he turned and left the room, leaving the patient alone with the nurse.

"Why am I being guarded?" he asked.

"What?"  The nurse sounded confused.  He wished he could see her better.

"He said for you to make me guarded.  Why?  Am I dangerous?"

She giggled.  "No.  He just meant you're condition isn't serious anymore, just guarded."

"Oh," he said.  "What does that mean?  I mean I understand serious.  But what is guarded?"

She knew that "guarded" meant that his physical condition had improved to the point that he no longer needed constant monitoring.  She'd been around long enough to know it also meant that, physically, this man would probably recover completely.  But the doctor had no idea how his mental condition would progress.  "Guarded" was simply a way of him stating that something bad could still happen, but maybe not.  Some doctors used the term to cover their asses, in case the patient tanked.  She didn't want to tell the patient that, though.

"Oh, it just means that we don't have to spend quite as much time keeping an eye on you, that's all."  She tried to sound cheerful.

"Oh."  There was a long pause.  "You really don't know my name?"  

She tried to think about what Mitch would want her to say...or not say.  She knew there was some mystery about this man.  Since he'd awakened, he'd seemed like any other guy...not dangerous or scary.  It occurred to her that Mitch would want to know he was awake.

"Um..."  She stalled.  "I think there was a billfold in your pants when they brought you in.  They just probably haven't had time to update your records."

"How long have I been here?" he asked.

"About eight hours," she said.

"And they couldn't update my records in eight hours?"  He sounded skeptical.

"It's seven in the morning," she said.  "You came in around midnight.  The police were here, but didn't say much to me about you.  They might want to talk to you, now that you're awake.  The Patient Affairs Office will open up soon and I'm sure everything will get updated."

"Oh," he said.  "OK."

"I'll get you something to eat."

"OK."

He watched her as she left, and when she swung the door open, he had a sudden vision of a car door, right in front of him.  He was driving and the door opened.  He made a startled sound as the memory flooded back into his mind.  There had been a man too.  He had hit the car door...and he had hit the man!

Then the memory just stopped.  That was all he could remember.  He'd been in an accident and had hit a man.  But he couldn't remember anything after that.

While she was gone, he lay there, exploring his mind.  Misty things wavered in and out of existence.  She had said the police wanted to talk to him.  That was no wonder.  But why hadn't they TOLD him he'd been in an automobile accident?

He thought back.  She had asked HIM what had happened.  What had she said?  He closed his eye.  She'd said "some kind of accident," as if she didn't know what kind of accident.  Surely if he'd been in a car accident...if he'd HIT a man...they would know that.  He began to doubt his own memory...what seemed to be left of it.

Nothing else came to him.  The vision of that opening door, and the man he'd hit-IF he'd actually hit him-was clear as could be, but there was nothing else at all, except the words, appearing on a computer monitor, that told him he wrote.

What did he write?  He couldn't read the words in his mind.  They were just amorphous black blobs on a white background.  But he KNEW they were some kind of story.  He didn't know how he knew that, but the feeling was strong.

He was distracted by a thick wrinkle of cloth under him, that was pressing into his body uncomfortably.  He tried to sit up, but was discouraged from doing that, both by how weak he felt and by pain that blossomed in his body as he tensed his muscles.

The nurse returned, a brown tray in her hands.  He recognized a carton of milk on it, but everything else was covered by pale blue plastic lids.  He wondered if he liked milk.  Then he wondered why he'd been able to identify it AS milk.  He looked around.  He knew what most things in the room were.  There was a chair.  He was in a bed.  There were lights and ceiling tiles.  He knew all the names for things.  Why couldn't he remember anything about himself?

"I'm going to raise the bed," said the young woman.  "Tell me if anything hurts while I do that."

She pushed a button, and the bed sat him up.  He looked down and saw a paddle, on the end of a cord, which he could have used himself to do the same thing, if he'd thought about it.  She pushed a wheeled table over so it crossed his bed.  His meal was on it.  He lifted a hand, tentatively.  It worked fine and he used it to pick up the milk.

"Let me open that for you," said the nurse.

While she did so, he examined her.  She was tall and had skin the color of milk chocolate.  Her hair was straight, though, and brown instead of black.  She was good looking.  He stared at her breasts, and examined the feelings and emotions inside him.  He hadn't forgotten how to be male.  That much was obvious.  She handed him the carton and he took it, sipping tentatively.

He liked milk, as it turned out.

Chapter Four

The lab tech breezed in, let a piece of paper float to the surface of Harper's desk, where it landed on top of a coffee cup, twenty-five other pieces of paper, and a staple remover, and stood back and folded his arms.

"Nineteen ninety-eight Buick Regal," he said, with a triumphant note in his voice.  "Originally Olympic white, but now a metallic blue color called Champagne Pearl, which, by the way, is a Plymouth color, not a General Motors color.  It was repainted after roughly February of 2000."  He leaned forward.  "And, I might add, it has Goodyear Regatta tires."

Jim looked at the report, which he knew would be meaningless to anybody but the tech, and then back up at the man who had brought it.

"Tell me how you know," he said.

"It's all right there," said the man smugly, pointing a finger at the report.

"I forgot my reading glasses today," said Jim dryly.  "Humor me."

The tech snorted.

"The paint transfer told us the colors.  Pieces of the headlight told us it was a Regal, and the year.  The Chrysler paint was available to body shops in September of ninety-nine, but whoever painted this car probably used stolen paint.  There was a shipment of that paint stolen in January of 2000.  It could have been repainted any time after that.  When the perp slid to a stop, he left a perfect footprint of the Goodyear tires."

"And how the hell do you know it was painted with stolen paint?" asked Jim, actually interested now.

"Because there were thick chips of bondo at the scene," said the tech.  "The paint on those matched the transfer on the van that was hit.  A body shop that used that much bondo was fly-by-night, or back alley, and wouldn't have paid full price for that kind of paint.  They'd use some cheap acrylic that they could get anywhere.  For them to use actual Chrysler paint, it almost HAD to be stolen.  I checked the records and found that there was a truckload of the stuff hijacked in early January of 2000.  Ergo, the Buick was painted after that."

The tech folded his arms again, looking like the cat that ate the canary.

"He wasn't a perp, by the way," said Jim.

The tech blinked.  "Huh?"

"The guy driving the Regal wasn't a perp.  You called him a perp.  He foiled the kidnapping attempt."

"Yeah, but he left the scene," said the tech, sounding injured.  He'd expected to get a pat on the back, but the fucking flatfoot was just arguing semantics.

"If somebody saved your wife from being kidnapped and maybe raped or killed, and then left the scene, would you want me to bust him for that?" asked Harper.

"I'm really busy," said the tech, looking disgruntled.  "You're looking for a banged up Regal that looks gunmetal gray, OK?"

"Got it," said Harper.  "Thanks."

The tech didn't quite storm out, but, for perhaps the three hundredth time since he'd started working in the police lab, he thought about trying to find other work.

Harper picked up the report and glanced at it.  It really WAS pretty good work.  Especially the tires.  Most people couldn't get good tire impressions from a scene, even if they had something to work with.

And while a car that had been in this kind of accident could be fixed up and repainted, so that nobody could tell it had been in an accident...people never thought to change the tires.

He picked up the phone to put out an APB.

Mitch didn't ask to see the patient.  He just went to the room.  He looked at the guy, who was sitting up now.  Some of the bandages had been removed from his head, too, and now both eyes were visible.  The guy was just sitting there, staring straight ahead.  The TV was on, but he didn't seem to be watching it.

Jess had given him a call, to let him know the guy was awake.  She said he couldn't remember much.  That was very convenient for somebody who'd been in a gun battle.  He pushed the door open.

"Howdy," he said, putting a goofy smile on his face.  He liked the Columbo approach, because it actually worked.  Criminals always thought they were smarter than the law.  That's why they went into crime.  They were almost always wrong about that, but he didn't want this man to think he was on the ball.  Not yet.  The fact that the department let them wear jeans with their uniform shirts added to the image of small-town dumb cop sometimes as well.

"Got yourself sort of banged up, didn't you?" he said amiably.  "How you feeling?"

"I'm OK," said the man.

"I just need to finish my report," said Mitch.  "Just need to ask a few questions."

"OK," said the man.

"What's your name, for one thing?"

"I don't remember."

Mitch was trying to watch the artery that ran up the throat on both sides of the neck.  While liars could train their eyes not to give them away, they couldn't control their pulse.  He was distracted by an accent he couldn't quite place, but which sounded familiar.

"No idea at all?" asked Mitch.

"They said you found my billfold," said the man.

"Sure did," said Mitch smiling.  Now he recognized it.  It was either British or Australian.  He wasn't sure which.

"Wasn't my name in that?"

"Sure was," said Mitch, still smiling.

"Then I don't understand," said the man.  "If you know my name, why are you asking me what it is?  And why won't anybody around here TELL me my name?  Am I famous or something?"

"No," said Mitch immediately.  "Well, I say no, because I never heard of you before.  But we're kind of remote up here in the far reaches."

"Far reaches of where?" asked the man.  "Where am I, anyway?  Why won't anybody tell me anything?"

Mitch stepped closer.  He was going to watch the pupils this time.  The pulse wasn't telling him anything.

"Tell me about the accident," he said.

He got a reaction there.  The pupils dilated briefly and the patient was silent for about a second and a half too long.

"I don't remember an accident," said the man.

Mitch stepped back.  He turned around, got the chair, and moved it closer to the bed.  It would put him below the suspect-he was now a suspect-but maybe that would make the man relax and slip up.  He sat down.

"The doc pulled glass out of your face," he said softly.  

"Look," said the man.  "I woke up here.  My car is wherever they found me, as far as I know.  I don't even know if I HAVE a car, to be honest.  But you're the police.  Surely you went to the scene of the accident."

"Oh, I've been to the scene," admitted Mitch.  "But I need to hear your side of it."

"What did the other guy say?" asked the man.

Mitch settled back in the chair.  This guy was giving all kinds of conflicting signals.  First he lied...or appeared to lie...and then he told Mitch where to find his car...sort of.  His comment about not knowing if he had a car looked completely genuine, from the body language and voice.  Then he tried to get information as to what evidence there was against him.  Half of what he did suggested guilty knowledge, but the other half made it look like he really DID have amnesia.

"What am I being charged with?" asked the man suddenly.

"Nothing," said Mitch.  "Not right now, anyway."

That brought what was obviously confusion to the man's face.  Mitch could see that clearly, even with the remaining bandages.  He reached into his pocket and took out the driver's license.  He looked at the picture on it.  Now that the bandages were mostly off, the man was plainly recognizable.  On impulse he handed the license to the suspect.

The man took it and stared at it.

"Is this me?" he asked.  There was a hollowness in his voice that Mitch was sure would be impossible to fake.

"Seems to be," he said.

"Kristoff..."  The man stared.  "Kristoff," he said again.  He looked at Mitch.  "What kind of name is Kristoff?"

Mitch faced Doctor Massouf, who was looking at a chart.

"I need to know if he really has amnesia, or if he's just faking it."

The doctor looked up.  "And vye vould he be faking eet?"

"You said he got shot," said Mitch.  "Maybe he's hiding something."

"Eef I vas shooted, I tink I vould be screaming my head oof abut eet, yes?"  The doctor frowned.  "Not all peeples who are shooted are being bad peeples."

"I think he's hiding something," insisted Mitch.

"Haff you asked heem who shooted heem?"

"Well no...not yet," admitted Mitch.

"Eef I ver you I vould be asking heem this, I tink," said the doctor.  "I am not being a psychiatrist, you know, but he is acting very much like a peeples who has much frustration about having no memories."

It was the longest comment Mitch had ever heard the doctor make, and the closest thing he'd ever heard from the doctor in understandable English, as well.

"How long you going to keep him?" asked Mitch.

"I can be deescharging heem in anozer two or tree days I am teenking," said Doctor Massouf.

"Don't let him go until I say so," said Mitch.

"I can't be keeping heem here for no reason," objected the doctor.  

"Just do some more tests or something," said Mitch.

He left.  He had more to do before reporting to the chief.

Lou Anne's feet hurt, but that was nothing new.  She was wiping down the counter when Jessica came in, stomping snow off her feet and brushing it from her coat.

"There is no God, because God would not have made nights like this," she muttered.

"It's not night anymore, technically," pointed out Lou Anne.

"Well, whatever it is, I don't think it was invented by any divine being," said Jessica.  "Your boyfriend made it through the night."

"He's not my boyfriend!" squealed Lou Anne.

"He regained consciousness, too," said Jessica, settling down onto a stool at the counter.  "I need coffee."

"He did?"  Lou Anne already had the coffee poured and set it in front of her friend.  "What did he say?"

"If he's not your boyfriend, why are you so interested?"  Jessica sipped the coffee and made motions indicating it was too hot.

"I found him in the middle of nowhere, almost dead!" yipped Lou Anne.  "I ruined my coat saving him.  I'm allowed to be interested!"

Jessica leaned forward and lowered her voice.

"He's got a nice dick," she whispered.

Lou Anne's eyes widened and she looked shocked.  Then she thought about the image of Jess peeking under a sheet and burst into a fit of giggles.

"You're AWFUL!" she giggled.  "There is something seriously wrong with a woman who checks out a guy's privates when he's almost dead."

"I wasn't checking him out," said Jessica, her voice injured.  "I was giving him a sponge bath.  It's part of my job."

"Probably the part that's responsible for you deciding to be a nurse at all," snorted Lou Anne, grinning.  "What did he say when he woke up?"

"He has amnesia," said Jessica.

"Really?"

"Doctor Massouf thinks he was shot."

"GET OUT!" squealed Lou Anne.

"Yep," said the nurse.  "Head wound.  Personally, I think that's why he has amnesia.  He can't remember his name.  Naturally, Mitch is all interested in him, like he's some kind of criminal or something."

"Well…"  Lou Anne shuddered.  "If he got shot, doesn't that suggest he travels in the wrong crowd?"

Jess waved a hand in the air negligently.  "People get shot all the time these days," she said.  "It could have been a drive by shooting, for all we know."

"In the middle of bumfuck Connecticut?"  Lou Anne sounded dubious.

"He was all cut up by broken glass," said Jessica, lowering her voice.  "Doc Massouf thinks he was in a car when he got shot."

"Well then, there goes your drive by shooting theory," said Lou Anne.  "If somebody shot him in a car, they dumped him in the middle of the road, because there was no car anywhere near where I found him."

"I still can't believe you picked him up and got him in your car," said Jess, looking admiringly at her friend.  "He's a big one...in more ways than one."  She giggled.

"You are SO bad!" laughed Lou Anne.  "I bet you played with it too...didn't you...huh?  Didn't you?!"  She poked her friend as she insisted the nurse had molested her unconscious patient.

"I had to get it clean," said Jess loftily.  "I had to get ALL of him clean."  She leaned back.  "Besides.  You would have liked it.  I know you would.  It's been YEARS since you've seen one."

Lou Anne stood up.  "And it will be fine if it's more years until I see another one," she said.  "The last one I saw got me pregnant and then took off with its owner.  I don't need any more of that!"

"Girl, you're crazy," said Jessica.  "Here you are in the prime of your life, a knockout beauty, and you're avoiding one of the most fun things you can get your hands on."

"Like YOU know," snorted Lou Anne.  "You're the only virgin I ever met, INCLUDING in high school."  She grinned.

"Shhhhh!" said Jess, leaning forward.  "Not so loud!  That's a secret!  People will think I'm odd if they find out."

"You ARE odd," laughed Lou Anne.  "You're the most gorgeous woman I know.  If I ever went gay, it would be your fault.  When are you going to quit being so picky and find you a man?"

"There ARE no men!" snorted Jess.  "Not in bumfuck Connecticut."  She stopped.  "Well, come to think of it, there IS an interesting man here NOW.  Maybe I'll get to know your road kill a little better.  He seems like a nice enough guy."

"He's probably a mobster or something!" squealed Lou Anne.

"Nah," sighed Jess.  "He says he's an author."

"An author...you didn't tell me that before.  I thought you said he had amnesia."

"He does, but he remembered that he's an author."  Jess sipped her coffee.

"What kind of author?"

"Beats me," said the nurse.  "I'll remember to ask him."  She looked up at Lou Anne slyly.  "Unless you want to ask him yourself.  He'd probably be very appreciative of the woman who saved his life."

"Dreamer," laughed Lou Anne.  "Sometimes your imagination cracks me up."

"Gotta run," said Jess, standing up.  "I need my beauty sleep, so I can go in and sweep John Doe off his feet tomorrow, and endear myself to him, so that when he remembers he's a millionaire, he'll be my sugar daddy."

Lou Anne stopped laughing.

"Don't go doing something stupid, Jess.  Sometimes your imagination scares me half to death, too."

"He's a good guy," said Jess.  "A little old for me, but a good guy.  I'm sure of it."

"Tell him I said hi," said the waitress, waving goodbye to her friend.

"Tell him yourself," said the nurse.  "I'll warn him you're coming."

She was gone before Lou Anne could object.

Mitch yawned.  It had been a long night and the snow was still falling.  The Jeep Cherokee sat by the side of the road, the overheads flashing, to warn any oncoming motorists.  He stood looking down the hill, and pulled his uniform jacket closer around him.  It wasn't made for cold like this.

This had to be the place.  In the dim daylight, he could see where the vegetation had been crushed as the car rolled down the drop off.  The only problem was...there was no car.  The river was there, but it was frozen over and had a good foot of new-fallen snow on the ice.  There was no way anybody had gotten a tow truck up there in the middle of the night and pulled the car back up the drop off.  That could only mean one thing.

The car was under the ice.

There was no blood or other evidence.  The snow had covered all that up.  Even the mangled vegetation that showed the path of the car was covered over.  Only because he knew what it SHOULD look like, could he tell that something big had bulldozed a path through it.

He got on the radio.

"Hey Dabney," he called.

There was a ten second pause, then a static crackle.

"Damn it, Mitch, how many times do I have to tell you not to use my first name on the radio?  I'm the goddamn CHIEF, you little piss-ant!"

"I'm sure the FCC will fine me a dime for using your name," said Mitch into his mike.  "While they're fining you ten thousand dollars for cussing up a storm on the public airways.  You want to know what I found or not?"

"Pembroke two, report," came the voice on the radio.

Mitch grinned.  "I found it," he said.

"Good work, Pembroke two.  Give me the twenty and I'll send a wrecker out there."

"Might be a problem with that," said Mitch.  "Actually I only THINK I found it.  I think it's under the ice, and I mean all the WAY under the ice.  It's going to take major work to get it out of there."

"Goddamn it, Mitch," crackled the chief's voice over the radio.  "Why dint you say so in the first place?  We ain't got the budget to recover a goddamn car from under the ice.  Haul your ass back here, and you better bring me some damn good pictures too, you got that?"

"Sure thing, Dabney.  Over and out."

Mitch shut his door and then wondered why he hadn't done that already.  It was cold as a witch's tit in the car.  He checked the thermometer he carried.  It read twelve below zero.  He should have left the car running, but he liked to be able to hear his surroundings when he was out in the woods.  He fired it up now and tried to turn the heat up.  It was already maxed out.  Dabney was foaming at the mouth on the radio, but he didn't pay any attention to that.  Instead he got out his digital camera and, once he had warmed his fingers up a bit, got back out.

He took what he knew would just look like scenic shots of the river and all the snow.  He took one of the path the car had made through the brush, too, just for fun.  He knew the pictures would look like somebody's vacation photos of a winter wonderland, and he knew Chief Whittaker would be pissed.  That was OK, though.  Getting Whittaker riled up was about the only excitement the men ever had in Pembroke.

As he carefully negotiated the slippery road back to town, he wondered if maybe the insurance company would foot the bill for retrieving the car.  That would be nice.  He'd really like to see that car.

Captain Hildebrand was sweating, but it was almost freezing outside.  At least it wasn't sub zero, like it was farther north.  Those poor bastards up north were getting hammered.  He hugged the file to his chest as he tried to walk in a stately manner to the conference room.  He already knew that Chief Richard Hooks would be there, and that Mayor Billsbury would be there.  He'd gotten a "courtesy call" from a patrolman who was due for disciplinary action, trying to curry favor, saying that the fucking governor was there too.  Apparently he'd accompanied his wife to the city to make sure her interview went OK.   

Hildebrand stopped before going into the conference room to wipe his florid face with a handkerchief.  He brushed back his hair with one hand, took a deep breath, pasted his signature smile on his face, and tried to waltz into the room.

"Good morning, everyone," he said brightly.

Three men stared at him.  Two of them had coffee cups in one hand, and cigars in the other, even though the entire building was a smoke free zone.  He wasn't about to tell that to the two most powerful men in the state, however, even though the mayor, Aloisius Billsbury, had put that law into effect himself.

"Bring us up to speed," barked Chief Hooks.  "The governor's a busy man, so just give us the facts."

Hildebrand wanted to sit down, but none of the other men were sitting, so he opened the file in his hands.  Papers slid and floated to the ground around him.  Hildebrand flushed crimson and stooped to scoop up the loose papers.  He'd have Harper's balls for this.  Hadn't the man ever heard of a stapler?

He sorted through the pages, handing them to the other men piecemeal, until each man had a copy of the report, albeit not in any particular order.

"We don't need this crap!" snapped Chief Hooks.  "Just tell us the status of the case!"

"Oh.  Yes."  Hildebrand swallowed.  "We have the three kidnappers in custody.  They're Moe, Larry and Curly Higginbotham."  He couldn't stifle a half hysterical giggle.  He did that every time he thought about their names.  He struggled on as Hooks frowned at him.  "It's an open and shut case.  Dozens of witnesses.  Plenty of physical evidence.  They'll kill for a deal."  He blinked as he realized just how poorly he'd chosen his last words.  "I mean they'll deal for sure," he almost whispered.

"NO DEALS!" thundered Governor Custer.  "These bastards touched my Chantal, and I want them to fry!"

"Um ... we don't have the chair any more, Governor," said Hildebrand.  He wished instantly that he'd remained silent.

"Well then we'll just have to bring it back, now won't we?" said the governor, as if it might be the same thing as changing back to the previous picture on New York license plates.  

The mayor hadn't said anything yet, and that was bothering him.  It was important to the mayor that his voice be heard in every serious situation, so he spoke.  "This had better be an airtight case.  No deals.  We throw the book at them, is that clear?"

"No problem!" said Hildebrand cheerily.  "Like I said, we have all the perps."  He used the vernacular for "perpetrators" intentionally.  He thought it made him sound hip.

"Do we?"  Chief Hooks' voice sounded suddenly grave.

"Well..."  Hildebrand might not be a real law enforcement officer, but he knew politics, and he knew a pregnant question when he heard it.  The problem was that he wasn't ready for that question.  They DID have all of them...didn't they?  Suddenly he wondered.  If the chief thought otherwise-and it sounded like he did-then Hildebrand didn't want to sound like an idiot by insisting every question was answered.  "What are your thoughts, Chief?" he asked.  When in doubt, shift the focus to someone else.  That was his modus operandi.

"I've checked into the three Higginbothams," said Hooks, sounding somehow mysterious.  "They're idiots...losers of the highest magnitude.  I'm having a hard time believing that they could come up with all this on their own."

"You mean there's a kingpin out there somewhere?" asked the governor anxiously.  "The ringleader is still on the loose?"

"Ringleader?"  Hildebrand's voice had just a trace of doubt in it.  He might not like Harper, but the man did good work, and Harper hadn't said anything about any ringleader.

"He must be found!" barked the honorable mayor of New York City.  "Leave no stone unturned!  This despicable mastermind must be brought to justice!"

"Of course!" said Hildebrand, no trace of doubt in his voice.  "We're already working on it."  He fumbled through the loose pages in the folder, looking for any trace of information on a fourth conspirator.

"Why didn't you say so?" asked Chief Hooks, his voice dangerous.  "I thought I told you to give us the lowdown."

"I just hadn't gotten that far," whined Hildebrand.

"Well, what do you have?" asked the chief.

"We're...um...we're sweating Moe, Larry and Curly," said Hildebrand.  That was safe.  The men WERE being questioned, even though all three had lawyered up.  "We might have to offer them a deal to get the big man."

"No deals!" snapped Mayor Billsbury, getting it in while the governor was still taking a breath to say the same thing.

"Right!" said Hildebrand.  "I'll just go make sure the fire is still lit under the detective working on this."

"Who is that?" asked Hooks.

"That would be Detective Sergeant Harper," said Hildebrand.

"That's the man who's interviewing my Chantal," said Governor Custer.  "I hope he's not giving her the third degree."

The governor, as it turned out, knew about as much about law enforcement investigations as he knew about running the great state of New York.  In short...only what he'd seen on TV or in the movies.

"I'll make sure of that," said Chief Hooks, who knew there was no chance whatsoever of anybody leaning on the governor's wife, but wanted to look capable and in control.

The woman everybody seemed to be so worried about was lounging comfortably in a chair in an interview room.  It was the same room that was referred to as the interrogation room.  It all depended on who was being talked to at the time.  And, in truth, Jean Custer was being treated more or less like any other interviewee that Harper had had.

There were a few minor exceptions.  The chair she was sitting in, for one thing.  It had been appropriated from Chief Hooks' office, because it was leather covered and had arms on it.  It was a comfortable chair, something the run-of-the-mill interviewee would never have seen, much less sat in.  The other thing was that instead of a styrofoam cup with tap water in it, Mrs. Custer had a dew-flecked bottle of Perrier at her fingertips.  That also came from Chief Hooks' office, out of the little refrigerator that the taxpayers of New York had paid for.  They'd paid for the Perrier as well, for that matter, even though it was listed in the official expenditures as "office supplies."

Jean Custer examined the man sitting in the hard-backed gray government surplus chair across the table from her.  She would have described him as "grizzled" to her friends.  She wasn't quite sure what that word actually meant, but it sounded impressive.  She would also have said he was handsome, though she'd never admit she found any man other than her husband handsome...not out loud.   He was wearing a gun, which made her damp between her legs.

She'd always had a fantasy about men with guns.  That was one of the reasons she'd left the scene of her attempted kidnapping so quickly.  She had been so mortified, after she'd finished beating Larry within an inch of his putrid life, and after Moe had stopped firing that pistol, to discover that she needed to change her panties.  She hadn't been that excited in years, and as soon as she'd gotten home, she'd called her husband.  He was already aware of the incident, of course, and had been frantically trying to call her on her cell phone.  He hadn't been able to reach her because she'd been calling all her friends, shouting things like, "They tried to KIDNAP me!" as she passed cars right and left on the freeway, almost running two of them off the road.

She'd moaned that she needed him, and, of course, he'd left his office to return to the mansion-accompanied by his executive aide and press secretary-where she'd presented him with a little blue pill, right in front of his entourage.

"What's this?" asked Governor Custer, who knew exactly what the vaguely diamond shaped pill was, but didn't want to admit it in front of his employees.

"They tried to kill me."  She burst into tears.  "I need to be loved and comforted."

The governor just thought that the mess between her legs was anticipation of what he was about to do...as soon as the pill took effect.

Meanwhile, in the governor's "home office," the press secretary and executive aide were killing time.

"We might have an opportunity here," said the press secretary.

"That's kind of obvious," said the aide.  "How often does someone try to kill a governor's wife?"

"No, I mean about the Viagra," said the press secretary impatiently.  "Bob Dole shilled Viagra.  I bet he got a ton of money for doing that.  And if we set something up between them and the governor, we might get a cut of the deal."

"Don't joke about stuff like that," said the aide, mildly horrified that the press secretary wanted to announce to the world that the governor of the state of New York had erectile dysfunction.

"I'm not joking!" said the press secretary.  "Think about it.  Custer is always saying he's a man of the people.  If he goes out in favor of Viagra, sales will go up fifteen or twenty percent!  And, if we do it the right way, our bank balances go up fifteen or twenty percent, too."

The aide did some hasty figures in his mind.  His wife spent money like it came from a water tap.  Suddenly, the idea didn't seem so crazy any more.  Something occurred to him.

"You've got the wrong angle," he said softly.  "What we need is for Chantal to come out in favor of Viagra.  That would leave their current profits in the dust."

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