CHAPTER 5
CRISPIN AND JUNEAU WERE arguing loudly, and Ursula hurried down the hallway to quiet them.
“Guys! What did I tell you? Your dad needs to sleep!” she remonstrated in a loud whisper.
“But Juneau-” Crispin started, his voice still loud and grating.
“Shush!” Ursula snapped.
He looked taken aback at her vehemence. Juneau looked at her mother, wondering what was happening.
“I’m sorry,” Juneau apologized in a whisper. "You did ask us to be quiet.”
Crispin followed her lead.
“Sorry,” he apologized, hanging his head.
“You need to listen to me! It’s very important. I’m not telling you for my own entertainment.”
“I know,” Juneau agreed. “Is Dad okay?”
“He’s had a rough day,” Ursula said. "He needs time to rest.”
“Is he-” Juneau started, and stopped as the bedroom door opened and Abe wandered out into the hallway.
“Hi Daddy,” she said brightly, with a forced smile. "Feeling any better?”
Abe rubbed his eyes sleepily.
“Are you guys starting World War Three out here or what?” he teased, a tired, irritable edge to his voice, though he was attempting to keep it light.
“I’m sorry,” Juneau apologized sincerely.
“We forgot you were sleeping,” Crispin piped up.
“Why don’t you two go back to opposite corners,” Abe advised, “and find something to do by yourselves?”
“Yes, Dad,” Crispin agreed, and headed back to his own bedroom, passing Abe in the hallway.
“Sorry,” Juneau said again.
Ursula sighed and shook her head.
“You’re sixteen, Juneau. Twice his age. Can you please try to act it? You’d think that you were both two years old or something.”
“He just makes me crazy sometimes. I didn’t mean to wake Daddy up,” she looked at her father. “Do you want to try going back to bed? I’ll do better this time, I promise. I won’t go anywhere near Crispin.”
Abe scratched his five o’clock shadow.
“Why don’t you and I go make supper, June?”
“Really?” Juneau questioned, looking at Ursula to see if she agreed it was a good idea.
Ursula hesitated.
“Are you sure, Abe? Shouldn’t you rest?”
“Cooking is resting for me,” Abe said. “Especially if you let Juneau play with me,” he wheedled with a smile that looked more natural, and a bit of a twinkle in his eyes.
“Well, alright. But don’t stay up late. Don’t get started on anything too involved.”
Abe nodded.
“Okay, Mom.”
“Thanks, Mom!” Juneau said, and Abe put his arm around her shoulders and escorted her downstairs to the kitchen.
“So, Juny, what do we want to make today?” he questioned.
“Umm… Mexican?”
“Uh-huh. Tostadas?” he suggested.
“How about taquitos?” Juneau countered.
“Sure,” Abe agreed. “Taquitos it is.”
Baxter Lovett skimmed over the various reports that he had stacked on his desk. He tried to sort them in piles, and to make quick judgments on what was important and needed to be followed up on at once. Jesse Cairns, his partner, sat nearby making notes and placing calls on his phone to try to keep everyone marshaled and the reports coming in. He was a good partner; efficient, independent, and managed to stay on the same wave-length as Lovett when they were working on a case. He was younger, black, a hard-looking man. But Lovett knew him to be quick to pick up and calm a frightened child in the midst of a crime scene or put an old lady at ease by making her a hot cup of tea. He had another side.
Rubbing his bare head, Baxter looked at the next report in the pile and frowned at Jesse.
“Abe VanRam,” Baxter said.
“Yeah?” Cairns said, cocking his head.
“He’s got quite the checkered history.”
“Arrests?” Jesse questioned with interest.
“No. Mental illness.”
“Something besides anxiety attacks?”
“I’ll say. He’s schizophrenic.”
Jesse blinked.
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. Institutionalized more than once.” Baxter flipped through several pages of notes. “Bipolar, OCD, paranoid schizophrenic.”
“Who gives someone with schizophrenia security clearance at an airport? To be out on the runway and in and out of planes unsupervised?”
“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out. What was his friend’s name?”
“Dennis Mitchell. I haven’t seen anything suspicious about him yet. But if he knowingly hired someone unstable to work there…”
Lovett tapped his pencil on the top of the desk, thinking.
“If VanRam’s schizophrenic, do you think that he could do something like this? Someone found their way around the computer system.”
“Schizophrenics can have exceptionally high IQ’s,” Cairns pointed out. "And he said himself; he’s obsessive about details. He’s a good planner.”
Lovett nodded slowly, scratching his chin. He took a sip of his forgotten coffee, but finding it cold, looked around for something else. There was still a donut left in the box on the table after the rest of the team had departed for their various duties. Lovett carefully lifted the sticky confection out of the box.
“But forgetting his security badge when he came in, that was a huge mistake. If he was part of the heist, if he planned it out, he wouldn’t have forgotten that little detail, would he?”
“Who’s to say?” Cairns shrugged. "We’ve both seen very smart criminals do very stupid stuff.”
“Have we got a tail on him? I don’t want to lose this guy once we’re ready to arrest him.”
“Light surveillance. So far he’s being a good boy and sticking close to home and work.”
Abe passed his ID through the slot and waited while the guard checked it, and entered him on the visitor’s list.
“Here to see Banducci or the warden?” the guard questioned.
“Both, actually. Warden first, I guess. We have a ten o’clock.”
“Okay. Step through the metal detector, please.”
Abe walked through the sensor. It beeped, and Abe checked his pockets to see what he’d forgotten.
He found a coin in his pocket that he’d missed earlier. Abe put it in the tray and walked through again. No beep. The guard handed him his wallet. Another guard behind the check-in point was ready to take him to the warden. Abe waited for a few minutes in an office before the warden showed up.
“Hullo, Abe,” Warden Collar greeted. "How’s it going?”
Abe shrugged.
“Alright,” he fibbed. “You?”
“You look tired. Out partying too late?”
“No,” Abe shook his head. "Did you hear about that diamond heist at the airport?”
“Of course, who didn’t? You were there?”
“Yeah. Things were pretty stressful. I’m going to need a few days to recover from it.”
“I guess so. Do they have any leads?”
Abe shook his head.
“I don’t know. They were questioning everyone.”
“From what I heard on the news, there had to be an inside man,” the warden suggested.
Abe nodded wearily. He’d watched a few news reports on it as well, trying to understand what had happened, and how he’d somehow gotten into the middle of it. The robbers clearly had plenty of experience. They had figured out all of the security checkpoint, cameras, weaknesses in the system. Someone had hacked the system and shut off the security alarm for a fence breach. They cut a hole in the fence and drove a van through it. The first indication that something was wrong was a van pulling up to the airplane, masked men firing automatic weapons and grabbing shipping boxes full of gems. In five minutes, they were gone again, smashing through another fence instead of going out the way t
hat they had come. Somebody had given them intelligence. It certainly wasn’t Abe. But someone at the airport had to have been in on it, as far as all of the TV reporters and armchair quarterbacks were concerned.
“Well, we can’t do anything about that until they come here,” Collar said cheerfully. “That’s up to the feds. Once they are arrested, we’ll show them a taste of our hospitality, right?”
“I guess,” Abe equivocated.
“And speaking of our hospitality… Banducci.”
Abe nodded.
“How’s he been this week?”
“Not complaining as much. Maybe he’s finally adjusting to the diet.”
“Good, that’s a good sign.”
“The doctor is still worried. His stats and his blood work aren’t great.”
“Well he’s not going to go from being six hundred pounds to being two hundred pounds in a couple of weeks. It will take a long time for him to lose weight. And if he’s still eating massive quantities… well, we can try our best, that's all. You don’t want a human rights violation case.”
“But I thought that these foods that you’re giving him are supposed to be more satisfying, more filling on less calories.”
“They are,” Abe agreed. "That’s how the diet is designed. But I suspect that he’s not only eating until he’s satisfied or full. Do you?”
Collar considered this, nodding.
“He’s just eating as much as possible. Whatever he can stuff into that fat face. He doesn’t want to lose weight.”
“Of course not,” Abe raised his eyebrows and shrugged. "He’s too big to execute right now. Why would he want to slim down?”
“Instead he’s going to eat himself to death.”
“But what a way to go,” Abe quipped.
Collar chuckled.
“I supposed if I had a choice. Well, I guess we just keep doing what we’re doing. We can’t force him to eat any less.”
“It’s a pretty weird situation,” Abe admitted. "Different than any of my other clients.”
“I’ll bet. Well, he wants you, so I guess I won’t keep you any longer here.”
Abe stood up and Collar escorted him to the door, where he flagged down a guard in the hallway.
“Take Abe down to A block to see Banducci.”
The guard nodded, and without a word he led Abe on to have a visit with Bob Banducci.
As usual, Banducci was reclining on his bunk. Sort of spread out all over it, like he was melting at a slow speed. He didn’t get up for much, and no one was in any position to move him against his will. So he was allowed to take visitors in his cell, avoid labor or rec time, and just sit or lie in his bunk all day as he pleased. He grunted when he saw Abe, and shifted his weight to sit up a little taller.
“Abe VanRam, my friend,” he greeted in his gravelly baritone.
“Mr. Banducci,” Abe greeted.
“I’ve told you before, Bob.”
Abe nodded, but that didn’t mean he was going to call him Bob. And he doubted that Banducci would have liked it if he did. He liked to be respected, and in spite of him telling Abe that he could call him by his first name, Abe suspected that he would be very displeased if Abe was to take the liberty.
“I got your message that you wanted to talk to me,” Abe said.
“Yes, that’s right,” Banducci folded his hands primly. “You and I need to talk about my meal plan.”
“Yes sir,” Abe agreed, and waited.
“I have a feeling you’re trying to feed me healthy stuff,” Banducci accused, more in the tone one would use to accuse a poisoner than a health care professional.
“That’s my job,” Abe agreed.
“Too many vegetables.”
“Yes sir.”
“I need more meat. I’m a big man, Abe. I need something substantial.”
“Yes sir. I’ll try to work more meat into your meal plans,” Abe agreed, pondering on ways to tweak it again.
“Don’t think I don’t know that you’re hiding vegetables in my burgers.”
Abe’s jaw dropped, and he tried to recover.
“What makes you think that?” he questioned innocently.
“It’s been tried before by better than you. I don’t need more vegetables, Mr. VanRam.”
Abe raised his brows and didn’t answer.
“Vegetables give me indigestion.”
“Rich foods give you indigestion,” Abe countered. "You need more vegetables to get healthier.”
“They want to kill me. Why should I want to get healthier?”
“You’re the one who brought up indigestion,” Abe said with a shrug. "I assume you meant you want less of it.”
Banducci guffawed.
“I want to enjoy my food, that’s what I care about. The prison wants me to slim down so they can kill me. You say I should get healthier, so I can feel better, but then they’re still going to kill me. Why don't you just make sure I can enjoy it?”
“I’ll do my best, Mr. Banducci. But you have to remember, I’m employed by the prison, not by you.”
“That could be remedied. I may be behind bars, but I still have enough money to turn your loyalties.”
Abe shook his head.
Banducci motioned to his bedside table.
“You can take those antacids away,” he ordered. "Tell them to get me the fruity ones.”
Abe walked over and picked up the bottle of pills.
“What’s wrong with these ones?” he questioned.
“Mint gives me heartburn. Why the hell would anyone put something that causes heartburn into antacids?”
Abe turned the bottle around in his hand.
“I guess most people don’t get heartburn from mint,” he observed.
There was silence for a few minutes.
“You don't seem your usual ebullient self today,” Banducci commented. "What's wrong?”
Abe sighed and looked up from the bottle of pills.
“It's this jewel heist. Do you know anything about it?”
Banducci stared at him, eyes wide, forehead creased.
“Why would I know anything about it?” he questioned gravely.
“I thought you might have seen it on TV. There was a diamond robbery at the airport, where I have another contract. It’s all over the news.”
“I don't know anything about it,” Banducci said flatly.
“Okay. Well, I’m just stressed over it, I guess. The police think that I had something to do with it. They think that I’m the inside man.”
“The inside man,” Banducci repeated.
“Yes, they know there must have been someone on the inside to-” Abe stopped and shrugged embarrassed. “I guess I don’t need to tell you what an inside man is.”
“No,” Banducci agreed dryly. “And somehow I suspect that you are not he.”
Abe gave a wry smile.
“You’re smarter than the police.”
“Of course I am. If you want my advice, Abe, I’d suggest you stay away from the police, and stay away from anyone who might be connected to these thieves.”
Abe shrugged.
“I suppose. But… it would sure be nice to have someone else to point the finger at, get the police off my back.”
“Just stay out of it if you don’t want to get hurt,” Banducci told him.
Abe got clearance to go out to “his” plane, which had been sitting on the tarmac as part of the crime scene since the police and FBI had sealed it. Now Abe was back to clean up and continue with his project.
Abe climbed the steps into the cabin of the plane and looked down the length of the cabin. The temperature was cool, and the lights dim. The aircraft felt empty and abandoned. Previously, the cabin was the scene of an experiment, of his big project. Abe was excited and enthralled with having the space to work on his own and perfect the system. The plane buzzed with energy and activity. It was alive, an entity of its own. Now it was empty, sterile. No one had been inside since Abe left it.
&
nbsp; “Well, let’s get to work,” he told himself briskly, and he walked to the back of the cabin. His plates, trays, and food packages laid in even rows. The various dishes that Abe had prepared, placed in various trays throughout the cabin as he experimented with different foods in different areas of the plane. It looked like there’d been a little banquet but no one had eaten the food.
Abe grabbed a garbage bag, and started emptying each of the prepared dishes into the garbage. They didn’t smell too badly yet, they hadn’t started to decompose, but the smells of the spices and oils still hung in the air. Some of the meals stuck to the plates and he scraped them one by one into the garbage. Abe picked up the next plate, and froze. He put the plate back down on the tray, and went through the rest of the cabin, disposing of each prepared meal. Then we went back to the plate that he had put aside and studied the meal.
Someone had eaten part of this meal. It was at least half gone, though whoever ate it had tried to spread it out to make it look as if the meal had not been touched. Abe knew how his meals looked and felt, and this was not a full plate. After Abe had left, someone had gotten into his plane. Someone had calmly eaten half a plate of green chicken curry while Abe was being interrogated for his supposed involvement in the jewel heist. Who could have been out there watching the rest of the excitement on the runway before the FBI secured the plane?
Abe looked out the window. You couldn’t see much. He sat in the seat where the chicken curry was and looked again. In Abe’s new position, the plane that was the scene of the heist was in clear view. By the time Abe left the plane, the heist had already taken place, and no one was allowed back out onto the tarmac. But someone who was outside during the heist had boarded Abe’s plane and watched the aftermath of the heist until the opportunity presented itself to return to the airport or to leave the property before the plane was investigated and sealed.
Abe unfolded his legs and stood up. He scraped the last plate into the garbage and put the empty plate into the pile with the others.
Ursula glanced around the busy diner. Eleena had said that she would be on the patio if she could get a space there, and after a moment of searching, Ursula saw her waving. Ursula made her way across the bustling floor and patio, and finally sat down across from Eleena.
“Hey, darling,” Eleena greeted dramatically, grabbing Ursula’s hand and giving it a squeeze. “How are you doing?”
Ursula shook her head at the petite, dark haired Hispanic woman who was her best friend. She hugged Eleena briefly, and sat to take a drink of her tea.
“I’m at the end of my rope,” she confessed. “Honestly. I don’t think things have been this bad since Abe was diagnosed six years ago. I kind of forgot how it was. Over time, you know, you settle into a routine that works. Things have been pretty quiet aside from the occasional incident. I forgot what it was like, right before he was diagnosed.”
“What has he been doing lately?”
“He’s so stressed out over the jewel heist. I figured that after a few days, he would calm down and everything would settle down again. But he’s not sleeping, and I don’t know how he’s managing to hold it together at work. We’re all walking on eggshells, afraid of upsetting him.”
“Maybe it’s time for him to take some time off, stay at the hospital for a little while.”
Ursula sighed.
“Well, no. He’s not that bad. Not yet.”
Eleena took a sip of her tea.
“You’re not going to wait until things are really out of control, are you?” she asked in concern. “It could be damaging the kids, seeing him like that.”
“The kids are okay. They understand that he’s sick, that he can’t help it. They try to help him out.”
“Well, don’t leave it too long. They could be traumatized.”
Ursula frowned.
“That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think? He’s not hurting them - or me. He’s just… emotional and unstable.”
“Is he having hallucinations? Doing bizarre things?”
“No. I don’t think so. He’s up at night cooking, or forgets things that he should know, but I don’t see any signs he is having hallucinations again. It’s more… the bipolar than the schizophrenia, I guess.”
“I don’t know how you do it, my dear,” Eleena shook her head. "I wouldn’t stay with him. He's a nice guy and everything, but living with someone with severe mental illness… I couldn’t do it. You’re a saint.”
“I’m just trying to hold things together. If I wasn’t there for Abe, where would he be? Out on the street? In some institution? He needs me.”
“And so do the kids.”
“And the kids need him too. All of us, as a family. I need to hold us together.”
“You can’t be the glue forever. All glue wears out sooner or later.”
Ursula sighed, looking across at her friend.
“That’s what I love about you, Eleena, you’re always so encouraging.”