9: Running in Circles
Robert spent the rest of the day finishing up cleaning his apartment, then packing for the trip. The irony had not escaped him that after hearing from Mrs. Gatchet, he would be travelling to the city her husband was being treated. He wasn’t sure if the Gatchet’s all lived there, but if they did he might have to drop in and give his gratitude. He did muster up the humility and courage to call his brother that night and thank him. They talked for about two hours on the subject, as well as others. Before hanging up Robert asked Ryan not to mention anything to their parents, he didn’t want to worry them, and didn’t feel like a lecture on how he should have been living, besides, he wasn’t sure where he stood on the many Christian stances his dad was sure to bring up, he might have prayed, but he hadn’t changed many of his views. Ryan said he disagreed with him, but would respect his request and keep it to the two of them. They hung up.
The next day Robert went in to work to a much better atmosphere than the last time. Everyone was telling him they were happy to see him and glad everything was working out. He spent most of the day coming up to speed on his new task as well as getting in touch with the local police; mainly talking to the chief, whose name was Jeremy Butler. From the sound of his voice he seemed to be a competent and well trained officer, though he sounded young, about Robert’s age. They set up a meeting for the next afternoon after he landed, got his rental car, and checked into his hotel.
He didn’t really sleep all that well that night, still having trouble coping with the weight of all that had happened, but he passed it well enough. Before he knew it he was on his flight heading to Colorado Springs. When he landed four hours later he got his rental, checked into his hotel, and then set off for the police headquarters. On the way he noticed a mental hospital that he recognized quickly as the one Gatchet was checked into, more irony. He put it from his mind; he didn’t need to think about that right now. He got to the headquarters and met up with Jeremy, who in fact was his age. He was introduced to the team he was going to work with and was shown the resources available to him. His operation was important, but could not take priority over many of the daily duties, so he was asked to try and incorporate things such as searches and special routes into the current workload of each police officer. If something required immediate attention then Jeremy would be available to determine if it required higher priority and would assign resources as needed.
The next couple days were spent getting up to speed on what they knew of the robberies, where they occurred, and what leads they had, which weren’t much. So far the police could find few connections between each robbery. They were so scattered abroad that Robert was forced over the week to ride along with police routes and do some driving on his own, just to become familiar with the area. The places stolen from varied from stores in a high traffic area to quiet houses on the edge of the suburbs. By the end of the week Robert had already added to the spider’s web on the map of the area. In that week alone twenty robberies occurred. There were few areas not hit and no way of knowing where the next would be. Robert even had programmers trying to find some sort of algorithm to explain things, but no connection could be made. In the mean time he had Jeremy and his staff working overtime with him trying to expand police patrol routes, varying the timing and method of each route, even swapping drivers every few days. They had a complicated web of routes to deal with everyday, but despite this headache no one complained. It seemed Jeremy kept a pretty well controlled environment, though a little more laid back than some Robert had seen. Jeremy himself was a down to earth guy, taking things in stride, but taking them seriously. Not much seemed to bring him down and that seemed to spread to his staff.
Unfortunately the same couldn’t be said of Robert. He had been there two weeks now with still nothing to show. On top of that he still wasn’t getting sleep, between working overtime and still struggling with past and present issues. It was almost as if things were compounding on themselves. By the end of the second week he found himself yelling as his co-workers and not taking responses all too well. Jeremy finally had to step in to calm him down.
“Robert, can I have a word with you in my office?”
“Sure, I will be there in a few minutes.”
He walked into Jeremy’s office a few minutes later shutting the door by Jeremy’s request.
“Look Robert, I know you’ve been under some stress lately, but I’ve noticed you are taking out some anger on my employees. I’m afraid that is not acceptable. I have great pride and confidence in these people and if you have any problems with them, then I suggest taking it up with me and not them. As it is they are working double to help out.”
Robert took a deep breath, he didn’t like hearing it, but he knew it was true. “Your right, I’m sorry, I am not angry at anyone nor do I have any complaints. I’ve been taking out my frustration on this case on them and that is not fair.”
“I’m not going to say that is okay, because it isn’t and it needs to stop, but I do understand. We’ve been working on this longer than you and have had our fair share of frustrations. We do appreciate the help and expertise, but I do think you need to lighten up a little. In fact, I recommend you take this weekend off; catch up on some sleep and maybe go out and see a few sights. We will keep up on our current routes and keep logging information while you are gone, if something comes up we will give you a call.”
“I think that is good advice, and I’m sorry again. Any recommendations on what I should go see?”
“Sure, I will give you a list by days end.”
Robert left the office and made sure to keep his frustration and anger down the rest of the day. The idea of getting out sounded really good and did help his spirits quite a bit. He figured he would start tonight, get out, and go see a show, then maybe head into the mountains tomorrow. He stayed true to these thoughts. He took himself out to dinner, went to watch a movie, and then headed back to the hotel. He managed to get a small amount of sleep that night, more than he had gotten previously. He just couldn’t get his mind off the case completely, even though he wasn’t really dwelling on it, and every time he fell into a deep sleep he would start dreaming a mixture of all the things he was going through.
The next day he drove out to the mountains. He took a hike on one of the trails at the top, feeling out of breath within an hour because of the high elevation. He came to a bench on a scenic overlook and sat down. The scene was beautiful, yet he couldn’t get himself to enjoy it. For some reason he couldn’t shake off the disappointment with himself. Not only had he gone through a mental break down in a way, he now couldn’t even solve the case assigned to him. How stupid could he be; having been given a second chance, and could produce nothing out of it. He got up to walk again, sick of this train of thought. He started thinking about the case again. Why couldn’t he figure this out? It was as if it wasn’t meant to be solved. Each new robbery was in the complete opposite of where he expected, even when he tried to expect the opposite. So many of the robberies happened without witnesses, so time frames were guesses within hours, and they had their routes down to minutes of precision. He had even found out Jeremy had conducted a search of the police to see if there was an inside man, explaining his confidence in his workers. Robert had conducted his own as well, with Jeremy’s permission, just to dot the “i.” There was nothing there. They were also trying to track re-sale of items, but they couldn’t find any clues there either. The pawn shops weren’t full, and there was little sign of street selling. The few times they caught someone they couldn’t match the equipment to anything on their lists, which were longer than he cared to know.
In frustration he nearly ran headlong into someone. He apologized, and then seemed to recognize the person. He looked very familiar. He started walking on then suddenly realized that this man had a resemblance to Bart Gatchet.
“Excuse me, are you by chance related to Bartholomew Gatchet???
?
“Uh, yes I am, and not by chance, I’m his son, may I ask who you are?”
“Oh sorry, my name is Robert Drake, my brother Ryan has met with your mom in the last month and she wrote me letter of great encouragement, you see I’m in the same business as your dad was.”
“I see, I heard about your brother’s visit, thought the details were left out.”
“Do you live in the area, uh…?”
“Name is Ezra, and no I don’t, I live a few hours away in the same town as my mom. She needs some taking care of these days. We are in town visiting dad.”
“Is your mom with you, I would love to thank her for her letter?”
“No, I’m afraid she doesn’t get around so well anymore, and hasn’t been able to make the trip for almost a year now.”
“Oh, well I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Yeah, well, comes with age I suppose. Look, it’s been nice to meet you, but I have to get going, just couldn’t resist coming up here since I was in town.”
“Right, nice to meet you as well, bye.”
Ezra turned and walked off. The confrontation however ironic didn’t seem to help Robert. His mind was only filled with more things to consider. He decided he had had enough of walking and started on his way back to the car. He got home that night and still could not manage much sleep. In the morning he decided to go into work, not the first Sunday he had worked, and walked into a police headquarters that was buzzing with talk. He kept catching words here and there: “Gatchet escaped,” “found dead,” “you think it all adds up?” and on and on it went. He made his way over to Jeremy’s office and asked what was going on. Jeremy didn’t really want to say, but since Robert had already heard bits, he decided to let him know.
“Looks like Bartholomew Gatchet escaped from the mental hospital last night. As of right now we are not sure how, but we are looking into it. To complicate the matter a person has been found dead near the area. Gatchet was found this morning and returned, but is a prime suspect for the murder, given his past breakdown and what caused it.”
“So that is what ‘adds up’ means?”
“Yes and no. I’m sure you heard rumors around that people are coming up missing. Well, we been getting some anonymous calls of that nature, but we haven’t been able to track them down, you see, they are illegal immigrants, so we don’t know they are here to begin with and we don’t know where to look for them. All we know is a few calls have been made over the last couple years. We haven’t even determined if they are true or not, but you know how rumors go, and now Bart is part of that rumor.”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know, I think we would have known before if Bart got out, I think the missing people could well be a practical joke, besides, this last murder wasn’t an illegal immigrant. Anyway, you need not worry about this, you have another task. How was your weekend, however cut short?”
“Not the greatest, but the fresh air did some good, I at least feel less agitated, but all the more confused.”
“Sorry to hear that, well I’ve got to get back to work, let me know if you need anything Robert.”
“All right, thanks.”
Robert headed over to his make shift setup and started getting back into work. He found it didn’t take long to get worked up again. He just couldn’t figure anything out about these robberies. By the end of the day he was so frustrated, so confused, that he couldn’t even figure out what he was supposed to be thinking about. He kept finding himself thinking about Bartholomew and the recent murder. By the time he got home his thinking was so clouded that he convinced himself that this was something he should look into, and there was only one place to go. Two and a half hours later he found himself at the front step of the Gatchet’s house about to knock.