Trampling On the Blood of My Enemies

PART 5-Sandra

They had a lead. One of the women at the wedding reception was a psychiatrist, and the financial forensics team had found a record of an electronic payment to her practice from one of the attendees at the retirement party.

A man named Robert Clarke had recently begun making regular payments to her. It wasn't much of a lead, but it was the first link they'd found between people at the two events. Sandra had already filed for a warrant to get the records of the victim, Robert, from Dr. Schiavone's office. Sandra was on her way to meet with the man's widow, to convince her to agree with the request—that might make getting the warrant easier. Sandra wasn't going to wait.

The process of getting the medical record from Dr. Schiavone's office turned out to be easier than Sandra expected, and the team had been going through the notes and recordings made by the psychiatrist all day.

Mr. Clarke had been seeing hallucinations. People or creatures appeared in his home almost every night. He wasn't sure what triggered the hallucinations, but the first one he remembered seeing was a man on the street—someone with whom he believed he used to work, a man named Withers. That man appeared not to have aged, even though they'd worked together thirty years before.

Of course Clarke assumed that he was mistaken about the identity of the man, despite following him and having listened to him speak. Shortly after that incident, Mr. Clarke began having nightmares—terrible violent nightmares in which an 'evil creature', or creatures, visited his dreams. Soon after that he began seeing these creatures in his bedroom at night, whenever he woke up.

Dr. Schiavone prescribed a drug to help Mr. Clarke with the hallucinations, as well as a sleep aid, so he wouldn't wake up so much. The combination of drugs and hypnotic therapy had helped him sleep better, although he still had hallucinations now and then. Clarke was learning to cope with his fears, understanding that they were in fact just hallucinations.

Sandra and her team couldn't do anything about the hallucinations, but they could follow this one narrow connection to the past. They attempted to locate the man Clarke believed he'd seen. The name from years ago was Jeremy Withers. That was from a recording in the psychiatrist's office. Clarke believed he worked downtown somewhere, but didn't know the man's new name. They searched the Boston City and Massachusetts state records, but couldn't find a photograph of Withers. It looked like a dead end.

After a week of searching for other past co-workers, the team located a Ms. Connors. She'd worked with Clarke and the other person—Withers. Sandra went to see her personally, hoping to learn something about the mysterious Mr. Withers.

"I know it's been a long time, but is it possible that you might have a photograph of Mr. Clarke and Mr. Withers from when you all worked together?"

"I might, but I have no idea where it would be. That is, if I didn't throw everything out."

Sandra looked at the woman, but didn't say anything.

"Oh, I'll take a look this week. But it might take some time. Everything was put into boxes when I retired, and if it wasn't something that I needed I didn't unpack. The old photos—if they still exist—might be in the attic."

"I'd really appreciate it if you could look. It might be nothing, but it's a lead. Do you remember this Mr. Withers?"

"Jeremy? Yeah, he was quiet. Intense. A good worker, and smart. We were so surprised when he left all of a sudden."

"What do you mean all of a sudden?"

"I mean one day he just didn't show up for work, and we never saw him again. I don't remember that much about him, but the way he left stuck in my head. It was so sudden. As the secretary, I was asked to try to find out if anything had happened to him, but his house was empty and there was no forwarding address. It was like he never existed."

"How about his social security number, and his bank account? Didn't he get direct deposit?"

The woman laughed. "That's a lot to remember from so long ago. No. I don't remember."

"Do you recall anything else—anything at all—about him? I'm trying to locate him as a potential witness to a crime."

"Surely he must have had other jobs. Can't you find him from one of his other jobs? You mentioned social security."

"I don't know what his social security number is. The company records don't go back that far. All I know is that he worked with Robert Clarke, and he can't answer questions. Do you know anyone from back then who might have maintained contact with him?"

Ms. Connors took a deep breath and let it out, while shaking her head. "No. I'm sorry. Oh. One thing I do remember about him: he spoke more than one language. The boss sometimes used him when he had a telecon with foreign clients."

"Do you remember which languages?"

"I know one must have been French, because we had a big contract with a firm in Canada, and I'm pretty sure he spoke some kind of Asian language—probably Japanese, because we bought a lot of electronic components from there."

"What did the company make?"

"Portable phones. This was before those small cell phones were around. They were bulky, fitted into a kind of suitcase."

Sandra's team continued digging for Jeremy Withers, but it seemed every record that might have identified him was missing. A few of the older people, like Ms. Connors, vaguely remembered the 'man who disappeared' but not much more than that.

Copyright Michael Selden, 2018