Power Ch. 04

Roy untied Becca. "Are you okay?" he asked as he picked her up off the bed. "I'll carry you to the ambulance outside."

"I knew you'd come for me." Becca said, wrapping her arms around Roy's neck. As Molly attended to Cindy, Detective German and I exchanged a glance.

"Cupid, draw back your bow-ow..." I sang, "and let, your arr-ows go-oooo..." German laughed... he had not yet seen the arrow in the electrical box.

"She's still unconscious." Molly said as she untied Cindy and checked on her sister's condition. "German, get a gurney in here!" German went out to comply.

Meanwhile, I took care of business. I had George Aurus get out of his chair, turned him around and affixed handcuffs to him. The last catch was barely enough to secure them on his slender wrists.

"George Aurus," I said, "you are under arrest for multiple murders. You have the right to remain silent. If you give up that right, anything you say can and will be used against you in a Court of Law...

Part 18 - Solution - Power of the Mind

Cindy was taken to University Hospital, where she would stay overnight for observation. The sedative was very powerful, and she was given an I.V. and catheterized to help get the drugs out of her system.

Even though he was captured in Nextdoor County, George Aurus was taken to Town & County First Precinct Headquarters and County Jail, where I gave instructions that he be placed in isolation, on suicide watch, and guarded against potential assassination of him. I made that decision as the SBI Reserve Inspector, and the Nextdoor County Police Chief agreed with it. We'd bring Aurus back to Nextdoor County for trial, whenever that was to be.

Becca was taken to University Hospital as well, where she checked out to be physically okay. Mentally, she'd suffered through a grueling ordeal. Her mother Nora arrived, which helped considerably.

As Chief Moynahan, Molly Evans, and I sat in the waiting room, waiting to hear how Cindy was doing, we discussed the case.

"That sure got closer than I ever wanted it to." I said. "I was sure we'd catch Aurus and his cronies coming to the hotel, not leaving it."

"But you had Cindy and Becca swallow transmitters?" asked Molly, and it was almost an accusation in its tone.

"I thought at the time that it was just an overabundance of caution to have them do that." I said. "I also wanted to make sure I could find them if Becca decided to break away and go home without telling us, like a young girl might do without thinking."

"We've already got a couple of Youtube posts of Captain Ross trying to stop those criminals." said the Chief. "There's good and bad in there. Good, in that she did not give up her weapon; bad, in that she got ambushed from behind. I've already had a call from the Sheriff; there will be a Board of Inquiry."

"She was acting as a State Agent." I said. "Our County has no jurisdiction over that."

"Young man," said the Chief, and I knew that this was about to become a one-way conversation, "let me advise you to leave this in my hands. Start pulling jurisdiction issues, and you won't have a Captain of Detectives much longer. It's political, and it's one of those times where the ol' Chief should handle it------"

"... instead of a young whippersnapper with a crowbar." said a voice. I turned to see Chief Griswold walking in. "Chief Moynahan is right, kid. Let him handle it, and it will be all right. How is she?"

"We're waiting to find out." I said. "And I should call her father now." I suited the deed to my words and took out my personal cellphone.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Sunday, February 26th. I called to reserve the back room of the Country Breakfast Diner, and Jack Colby charged me for it since they were very busy and it was last-minute. That was fine by me, though; he refused to accept any pay entirely too often.

At 8:30, our group convened. Cindy had been discharged from the Hospital an hour before; she had awakened at 5:00am, and there was little chance of holding her back. I managed to get her to calm down and told her all was okay, and she stayed long enough for one more doctor check-up..

Becca and her mother were there, as was Roy McGhillie. He'd stayed all night with Becca and her mom. This relationship would be going places, I told my mom. She enthusiastically agreed.

Present at breakfast were: me, Cindy, my mother Phyllis, Molly, Chief Moynahan, Chief Griswold and his wife, Roy, Becca, Nora, Detective German of the NCPD, the NCPD Chief of Police, SBI Agent Norm Chow, who I'd called the night before, and Teresa and Todd, who I'd called to come join us, Myron and Mary Milton, David Krueger... and Jack Muscone and Tanya Perlman, who'd come at my 'invitation' (and not taking 'no' for an answer).

"This was a fairly textbook Police investigation, that of George Aurus." I said. "It was somewhat clouded by all the Federal side stuff going on, and the Walnut Prep situation cropping up. But it was solved the old-fashioned way: processing crime scenes, interviewing witnesses, gathering data, and busting the perp."

"Come on, Don." Cindy said. "There was a lot more to this. Aurus's motives were non-standard for a serial killer, and you had to work with a decided lack of data as well as outright interference and obfuscation."

"That's true." said Molly. "The rest of us would've eventually solved it, but you did so very quickly, and that was while solving several other crimes in just a month." There was general acclaim at that.

"So, Uncle Don," said Todd, "tell us everything from the beginning. Some of us are still trying to understand what happened."

"Okay." I said. "So we first got the call from the Nextdoor County Police, and we came to look at the crime scene. It was processed pretty well, and we got some information out of it that sex was involved, probably rape was involved, and the black velvet blanket was what kept it from being totally routine."

I continued: "It also was not routine that the victims were a teacher and a student at a prep school, and the Media made sure to make it sound as salacious as possible. And we had what I consider to be an interesting paradox: were the murders of Lenora and Rob due to the potential sex scandal at Walnut Prep? or not?"

"Well, of course they were." said Molly. Detective German agreed.

"But Aurus's other killings weren't." replied Mary Mahoney Milton. "And these killings were just a part of Aurus's overall crime spree?"

"Actually..." Cindy Ross said, "... it's both. I see the paradox. Aurus was trying to blackmail Headmaster John Meadows, who responded unfavorably. So Aurus killed Lenora and Rob in retaliation, to expose the School sex scandal."

"Exactly." I said. "It was, and it wasn't. Either way you may be right or you may be wrong. My point here is that if this was a stand-alone crime, then we might not find the culprit, even with George Aurus's DNA found in Lenora's vagina. And that's why the black velvet blanket was so crucial to this case."

"That was a very strange piece of cloth, there." I said. "I was pretty certain, especially after an examination of the belongings of Lenora and Rob, that the velvet was not provided by either one of them. So it was the focal point to expand the investigation."

"So, my excellent Mouseketeers found me some good data, and Lindy Linares of the FBI was also very helpful, and I'll ask you, Jack, to relay my thanks to her." Jack Muscone nodded, and I continued: "We began finding bits and pieces of crimes related to this, like random pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and they began fitting together. And due to the nature of the crimes, we ran into some other things along the way. And we had some good luck: the new development being started yielded some dumped bodies, which allowed me to get some motive, means, and opportunities by interviewing the families of the victims."

"I'm still not seeing a lot of that." said Jack Muscone. "I mean, I get it that Aurus was trying to force people to admit to crimes or to investigate them, but it was a strange way to go about it."

"And that's where the psychology of this man comes in." I said. "For George Aurus, a midget who was ridiculed and even abused throughout his life, his actions were his efforts to control others... to exercise power over others. He somehow warped what Dr. Yarborough had been teaching, which was empowerment, into exercising power over others through force and fraud. And his efforts largely failed."

"What exactly was he trying to do?" asked Becca Larrington. "And what did it have to do with me?"

"Let me answer that by continuing the chronology of these cases." I said. "Time-wise, George committed a number of kidnappings, tortures and murders behind the sanitarium to which he'd been committed as a child, and in the area west of the City. Only during his stint with the Circus did he ever consider himself to be part of a family and accepted for what he was. Even with the Gypsies, he never felt he fit in. Gypsy life is very tough." Cindy nodded vigorously in agreement.

"Yarborough did keep him on as an assistant, and that was for Yarborough's research purposes." I said. "Then Yarborough died, and George was left with little means to make legitimate money, and no way to pursue his goals."

"Which were?" asked Tanya Perlman.

"Getting to that." I said in reply. "I'm going to have to talk to him further to get specifics, but I get the gist that George thought he and others were abused at Millwakee and also at the sanitarium, and he was trying to get that exposed. In some cases, he tried to get those who may have been part of the criminal actions to expose themselves; in other cases, such as the reporter whose son was one of the victims, to investigate the crimes."

"But in all that, a screw popped loose in George's head." I said. "He'd been denied sex at Millwakee, while the fit studs and the hot girls were having a lot of sex. He was sexually molested himself. He avenged that by kidnapping men to rape women while he watched, then he killed the men and raped the women himself before killing them. He got off on that, and he felt like it was an exercise in power for him."

"So none of that worked." I said. "And at this point, there's a bit of a gap in the timeline. I'm having a lot of trouble figuring out where George went to and what he did. We have a few velvet cases along the Midtown-Westphalia highway, so he may have been there. But at some point in time he found out about Headmaster John Williams, also a Yarborough disciple and a rival of George, and George came in pursuit of him. Exposing John Williams would also potentially expose the Millwakee experiments and then the sanitarium experiments."

"And now to Becca's question." I said. "I realized that George had a tendency to operate in an area, in a base somewhere. He'd kidnap his victims, bring them to his base of operations, then dispose of their bodies not very far away. This is why bodies were found near the sanitarium, behind which he had that underground facility, and then the last two victims were found in Nextdoor County... because that is where he was operating. I realized he had to be in the Nextdoor County area, unless he'd moved towards our County here."

"Then Becca called and said George had spoken to her, and I felt certain he was still in the area. From then on, it was a matter of finding him and his base. I realized the Baseball Fields, a.k.a. Gary A. Condor Park, was a good source of high voltage electricity, and I found his hideout rather easily. Molly and I disabled the electrical boxes, so no one was going to be electrocuted. Now you may ask why we didn't just wait for him there, and the answer is simple: he'd have seen us before we saw him, and we didn't know if he didn't have another place, or that he just wouldn't come back to that place anyway."

"I had people watching Becca, just in case he tried to contact her again." I said. "I fully expected George to see the Police presence and not go after her. But he did. Captain Ross here did try to stop that cold, but unfortunately got knocked out with some powerful sleeping agents."

"That was my fault." said Becca forlornly. "If I'd done what you said, and never left Captain Ross's sight, maybe nothing would've happened."

"Don't beat yourself up." I said. "If there is fault, it is mine in my very poor management of that entire situation. But we'd taken some extra precautions, and we were right behind George and his van. My fear was that they'd kill you both if they spotted us following or if a Police car saw the van and tried to pull it over. So I didn't make any move until they had you out of the van."

I was not admitting that my administration of this case was worse than poor. I'd all but invited a hostage situation to take place. It was pure luck that Aurus had his men run instead of taking a last stand.

Lucky. Lucky Iron Crowbar.

"But still," said Becca, "why me?"

"I'm not sure." I said. That was a lie, but I wasn't going to tell anyone the truth right now.

"I got the impression," Cindy said, "that George knew you were on his tail, Don, and so he basically set up a final confrontation between you and him, and he expected to be killed."

"That was my impression, also." said Chief Moynahan.

"It's as good an idea as anything." I said. "And after a few more cups of coffee, maybe at Navy strength, I'll go interview Mr. Aurus about that."

"I have a question." said Molly. "You're right that we sabotaged the electrical boxes at the Baseball Fields, and we also had the Electric Company disable the electricity to the schools and some unused manufacturing and agricultural facilities. But someone didn't know that, and shot up the junction box. Who was that person?"

"I'm not sure." I said. "I will only say this: there is a lot more going on than just George Aurus, here, and I'm not going to go into details on that, so sorry. I think it's some stuff at the Federal level, something for the FBI to look into. I believe this unknown person will be found one day to be involved in all of that, and had reasons we don't yet understand for stopping Aurus's scheme. For now, let's just leave that..."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

County Jail. I had Officer bring in a chair that could be set higher up for George Aurus to sit in, while my own chair was a bit lower. He was sitting in that higher chair when I came into the Interrogation Room. I need not say that the anteroom was chock full of LEOs at every level, and others were watching on closed circuit TV.

FBI Special Agent In Charge Les Craig had come in and tried to take custody of George Aurus. He had the two FBI automatons that once belonged to Clark Webster with him. But my Officers and the Deputies refused to release Aurus, and an armed standoff was ended only when an Federal Appeals Court overturned a lower Federal Court warrant to transfer custody. Seemed that Craig had absolutely no Federal reason to take custody of Aurus, and the Appeals Court agreed. But Craig was still at County Jail, watching the interrogation.

I read George Aurus his rights, and he amicably said he understood them.

"Okay, George," I said, "what was it you were trying to expose?"

"Isn't it obvious? Especially to a man of your abilities, Commander?" he replied.

"Humor me." I said. "Spell it out. But first, let me spell it out: in spite of all you've done, I still want to see Justice done on behalf of you and those who might've been abused. I'm your last hope to see the crimes and the perps exposed. So help me out."

"Are others listening to this conversation?" Aurus asked, looking up at the camera.

"Yes." I said. "This is being recorded. For your protection as well as for us to review later."

"That's too bad." said Aurus. "I'd be willing to tell you, and you don't even have to offer me a deal in return. But only to you, Commander."

I considered things. I then looked up at Sergeant Rudistan, who was the uniformed presence. "Sergeant, would you ask Captain Croyle to step in here for a moment?"

"Yes sir." said Rudistan. He went to the door, and a moment later Teresa came in.

"Captain, I said to her, "in a moment the cameras and all audio will be totally disabled. Someone watching may try to come in here. You are to stop anyone who attempts to come in, and you are authorized to use deadly force to make that happen. Lives are at stake on this."

"Yes sir." Teresa said.

When she left, Rudistan also stayed outside. It was just me and George. My belt buckle still had the homing device in it, but it also had something else: an anti-bugging device very similar to the one in disc form.

Yes, Daddy upgraded. Myron's Daddy, that is. I switched on the device.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"What the hell?" snarled Les Craig. All the video and all the audio was gone. All cellphones in the area were knocked out, as well.

Craig tore down the hallway to the anteroom. "What the hell is going on?" he yelled. "Why did the audio go out?"

He tried to enter the Interrogation Room. He was confronted by a brown haired woman with a look that had earned her an ugly nickname. Next to her was a platinum blonde with a strong desire to do Craig some bodily harm in the Queen's name. And behind them were some Patrol Officers that knew the meaning of 'Blood Orange'...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Okay, George, we have little time." I said. "The video and audio are knocked out. But they'll come in here soon, so tell me what you can while you can."

"Very well." said George. "First, you've been concentrating on the sanitarium. Yes, I used that as a base. But you would be going in the wrong direction by focusing on that. You should instead focus on Millwakee, and Dr. Yarborough's real work."

"What work is that?"

"Oh, they were running experiments on the people there." said George. "I'm not sure what exactly, and I really didn't understand why they needed a midget like me as part of it. I also commend your attention to the Federal Installation just across the State Line. Oh, the answer has to be there, somewhere."

"What answer is that?"

"I genuinely don't know, Commander."

I had an insight. "Do you know someone named Leonard Lotz?" I asked. George's eyes lit up.

"Oh yes." he said. "Last I heard, he was at The Asylum.

"Why would he want to escape from there?" I asked. "And where would he go if he did?"

"Ah, he must have, then." George said, not fooled by my mixing of tenses. "He probably escaped because he knew you would capture me soon, and that I will kill him when I see him there. You see, Commander, that boy tortured me like no other at Millwakee. He didn't rape me, but he held me down while two other boys did. He would beat me, throw closed-fist haymakers into my face. He beat me so severely a couple of times that I almost died."

"I get that." I said. "So no idea where he'd go?"

"He would go to... the Other World, Commander." said George. "The Other World."

Just then, the door opened. ADA Paulina Patterson walked in. "Commander Troy, we must pause this conversation for the moment. I'll explain why, outside."

"No need." I said. "If you will have a seat here, ADA Patterson, I think you'll find Mr. Aurus here ready to confess to his many crimes..." I turned to George and said "Wish me luck, Aurus. And farewell."

"Good luck, Commander Troy." George replied. "And au revoir.

Once outside, Les Craig was furious. "What the hell happened to the audio, Troy? What did he say to you in there?"

"Last I checked, Mr. Craig," I said, looking the man dead in the eye, "the FBI was no longer involved in this case, and you also have no jurisdiction. Furthermore, Mr. Craig, I do try to not bring the spotlight on myself when solving cases. But on this one, I will be damn sure to take the credit... all of it. Just to make damn sure you don't try to, and try to use this as a stepping stone to more power in Washington. If there is one thing I've learned from Mr. Aurus, Agent Craig... it is that power in the wrong hands is a bad, bad thing. Officers, escort this FBI Agent out of my Precinct Headquarters... and out of my County."