CHAPTER 12
1300 Words
CHAPTER 12Detective Daniel Bohannon had enough trouble navigating his broad frame through the cluttered maze of desks that made up the detective division of the Portland Police Bureau without a cast and crutches. Instead of taking the longer, clearer path along the walls of the room, he had tried to cut through the center and ended up knocking over a stack of files. He was having trouble picking them up while holding his crutches and maintaining balance.
“Bo! What are you doing out there?” Lieutenant Mike Simmons yelled from his glass-enclosed office twenty feet away. “Get in here.”
“Coming,” Bohannon said, dropping a pile of papers on the desk, half of which slipped back to the floor when he turned to hobble over to the lieutenant’s office.
“Shut the door,” Simmons said, pointing to a chair. “Thanks for coming in on your time off.”
“No problem, sir. I’m kind of antsy to get back to work.”
“I didn’t ask you to come in to work, at least not officially. We’re only having a little conversation, a couple coworkers catching up. You understand?”
“I think so. What do you want to converse about, sir?”
“First, when you get back, we are assigning you to the burglary detail—on the surface, that is.”
Bohannon’s shoulders slumped, and he looked crestfallen.
“What did you expect? Homicide outta the gate? Grow up, man. Anyway what I really need you to do is help out with some of these cases related to the passengers of Flight 559. Publicly we are not connecting these cases together, because we don’t have any real evidence that they are related. As far as we can tell, it’s just a coincidence that all these strange things are happening to this relatively small group of people.”
“Have more of them disappeared? You know, like the Kathy Harrington case Suter and I looked into?” Bohannon asked.
“We’ve had a couple more that seem similar. There are also other reports of strange behavior, but I’ll get to that in a minute.” The lieutenant swiveled his computer monitor so it faced Bohannon. “You ever watch YouTube, Bo?”
“Occasionally I guess. Why?”
“I want you to look at this video that’s getting a lot of attention online this week.” He clicked the mouse a couple times, and a stilled video filled the screen. It appeared to be a picture of an orchestra, at least the woodwind section of one, with the frame centered on a tall, thin African American man holding an oboe in front of him. The lieutenant clicked again, and the video played. The man at the center lifted the oboe to his lips and exploded into a flash of light. Smoke and dust blotted out the screen, but the audio continued with screams and the crash of equipment. An occasional arm or face could be made out in the billowy haze, and the sounds of panic continued for several minutes until the smoke cleared, revealing a clear blast pattern on the carpet of the auditorium surrounded by overturned chairs, a charred clarinet and a shoe. A woman continued to whimper offscreen.
The video suddenly ended, replaced by the frozen first frame of the man holding the oboe.
“Lord, have mercy,” Bohannon said. “Did that happen in Portland?”
“No, at a community orchestra practice in Little Rock a few days ago. The man with the oboe was Marcus Gentry. He completely vanished. There is no sign that he was ever there. No body parts, no blood, no DNA. He disappeared in that flash of light.”
“Was anybody else hurt?”
“Not seriously. It knocked over a bunch of people, broke a few instruments and burned a hole in the carpet.”
“There was a blast mark like that at the Harringtons’ house too. You think there’s a connection?”
“Gentry was a passenger on Flight 559. I talked to the police in Little Rock. They were willing to share facts, but they refused to conjecture about what happened. They’ve been deluged with calls from tabloid papers and television shows from all over the world.”
“You tell them about Gentry being on the flight?”
“Hell no. They’re probably already getting calls from psychics and UFO buffs. They don’t want to hear what we have to say. They’d dismiss it as more crackpot nonsense, like we would if we were in their place. I bet they are hoping someone will start spreading word that the video was a hoax.”
“So what do we do about it?” Bohannon asked.
“There’s not a whole lot we can do about it, so let’s keep the focus on Portland for now. Agreed?” He rubbed his face and turned the computer monitor back around.
Bohannon nodded and asked, “What can I do to help?”
“Well, you being off the books, as it were, for the next week or so, I thought you could look into a few things, unofficially, to see if there are any dots that can be connected. Talk to a few people. See what’s going on. I can’t order you to do this, but it might be the best way to see what’s up without having to worry about politics or looking crazy. No paperwork, no reports. Take a look-see. Can you get around with that thing on your leg?” He pointed to the cast on the detective’s left leg.
“Yeah, since they lowered the cast to below the knee, I can fit behind the wheel of my truck. Couldn’t do it in a car though.”
“Okay, drive your truck. Turn in your mileage to me, and I’ll figure out how to get the reimbursement through without drawing any attention. Remember, you are officially still on sick leave, so no shooting, no arresting. Talk to folks, and let me know what you hear. Hopefully it won’t amount to a hill of beans.”
“Who do you want me to talk to?”
“Start with this guy, Denton Proctor. He and his wife, Melanie, were passengers on the flight that went into the river. Before that, they were schoolteachers out in Beaverton.” Lt. Simmons reached across the desk and handed a blue sheet of paper to Bohannon.
It was a flyer. Across the top, big bold type screamed Come be healed! Below that sat a blurry photocopy of a blurry photograph of a man and woman. And below that a caption:
Denton and Melanie Proctor have been blessed with the power to restore both your body and soul. Come to Pioneer Courthouse Square, Thursday, at 3:00 p.m., and experience the miracle of their remarkable abilities. As seen on Channel 2 News.
A footnote at the bottom, in smaller type, but in all capital letters read DONATE WHAT YOU CAN, IF YOU CAN, SO WE CAN CONTINUE THE WORK.
Bohannon looked up, wide-eyed. “You’re not saying they are healing people, are you?”
“Actually it’s Proctor, the husband, who has the healing hands. The Channel 2 report didn’t come right out and say he was a healer, but they interviewed several people who swore Proctor had cured them. One guy had gout, and a woman said he cured her deafness. They had video of him curing the woman. That could have been faked, but, if it was, that woman was quite an actress. I mean, she spoke like a woman who was deaf, and her emotional reaction to the healing was award-winning.”
“Reminds me of tent revivals back in Georgia. My dad was a preacher, but he didn’t do healings like that.”
“The wife claims to be able to read souls, whatever that means. She grabs a person by the side of the head, her eyes flutter, and then she counsels them about what will make them happy. She told the Channel 2 reporter to leave her husband and take up pottery.”
“You think it’s a scam?”
“Of course I think it’s a scam. See the fine print at the bottom of the flyer?”
“So I should contact them? See what is going on?”
“Go to the gig down on the square and see what’s up. Talk to them if you can get close enough. Eavesdrop a little. See if they mention the airplane accident or any of the other passengers. Real subtlelike. Consider it a little intelligence gathering. You might get lucky and learn something that could help.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Don’t go looking like a cop. Try to blend in.”
“Don’t look like a cop?”
“Look like you belong there.”
“Well, I do have a broken leg.”
“I’m not following you.”
“Maybe I’ll get Proctor to fix my leg while I’m there.”
- Writer
