Chapter 5

Author’s note:[ and ] delineate mind-to-mind dialog.

That afternoon, the grave was checked for additional evidence. The sand was even sifted to make sure that nothing was missed. The purse was found with a minimum of searching, and Jones’ fingerprints were found on the slick plastic of the purse and on the steel sash weight that was inside. It was assumed that the sash weight had provided the mass that did the killing. Hoover’s fingerprints were also on the sash weight and the outside of the purse.

Those two were arrested and thrown into jail immediately. This judge did not allow bail because of the flight risk of the two accused persons. There was no doubt about the purse being the murder weapon because Silverstone’s DNA was found in the blood spots on the outside of the purse.

As it happened, I had to testify at the trial as being the one who had found the body and had taken the photographs of the concrete patch before it was broken up by me. My boss was not implicated in the murder, and I was glad to hear that. I continued to work for him until the Community College began its fall session. I signed up for the course to get an Associate Degree in electronics. I still was not sure what I was going to do about a full BS (Bachelor of Science) in electronics from the state university that was in a town about 45 miles away.

With Ring’s ability to teleport me, I could live at home and go to the college if I decided to do that, but I wanted to go to the Community College for my first two years. The Associate Degree would make it easy for me to set up my own radio and TV repair shop if that was what I decided to do. Frankly, the more I thought about it, the more I tended to go in that direction. There was no hurry, I had nearly two years to make that decision.

With the training I was given by Ring, I had no trouble with the theoretical and technical class work, and I aced that for A+ scores for my whole two years. On the other hand, I had to learn like everybody else about how to do the mechanical things like soldering and using the test instruments. I worked hard to perfect my skills, and I made A scores in the labs. All in all, I had a great time in all the classes at the Community College.

It was during that time that I had a chance to do a lot of work as Multiman and to help out the local police. Ring worked out a way so that I could live two lives at the same time. He was able to play games with me and time travel so that I could be teleported from a class or lab to do something that required the services of Multiman, but be returned to the class as Sam Horwood from the moment I was extracted from the class. No body at college noticed my jumps from class to be Multiman, so I never had to worry about explaining what I had done.

I did all kinds of things as Multiman during those two years. I did not need to patrol the town to show up for an emergency. Ring was able to post sensors at every street corner. These sensors constantly monitored the streets, alleys, and sidewalks on a 24-hour basis every day. It was a rare thing for me to take longer than three seconds to respond to any call when Ring detected that I was needed.

On several occasions, I was able to stop a skidding car before it was actually involved in an accident. Admittedly, that did not happen very often, but I was always pleased when it did. On the occasions when I was not able to prevent the accident, I was able to extract the people from the cars and have them ready for the ambulances when they arrived.

Actually, when the injuries were simple, Multiman was able to transport the injured person to the ER before the ambulance could get to the accident. I rarely did that because it tended to peeve the EMTs that I was preempting their jobs.

Occasionally, I did help the police apprehend a criminal during those times when guns were involved. These were usually armed robberies in which there was a civilian victim being directly threatened by a gun, and the cops could not use their own guns for fear of injuring the civilian. Multiman could move so fast when he needed to that a robber could be disarmed by Multiman before the trigger could be pulled.

My other way of assisting the police mostly was when Capt. Jake Donovan called on me to assist with solving a cold case. Ring could use his time traveling video trick to make a video of any crime that had happened any time in the past. The only requirements were that I had to know the time and place where the crime had taken place. With that information available, Ring could completely document virtually any event. That way, the police could determine the exact identity of the victim and the perpetrator, and exactly how the crime was committed.

However, the crime work I was most interested in were kidnappings, especially when children were involved. At one point, a person only identified as a male was reported enticing children into his car and driving away with them. These were not always girls. The children were found the next day totally confused because of a dose of some drug, but at least they were alive. Nevertheless, the children were in for a long and very disturbing cycle of treatment and rehabilitation. Some of them, especially the boys, never completely recovered.

The child was usually in the age range of 7-10 years old, and on his or her way from school, though there were a few other times of the day for the kidnappings. On several occasions, it was reported that there was also a woman in the car. When I first heard about the kidnappings from newspaper reports, I asked Ring to see if he could make videos of the event. Unfortunately, the newspaper reports were so vague as to time and place that he was not able to find the scene of the crime. I even called Chief Donovan to offer my services, but he declined. He was sure that conventional police work would quickly turn up the perpetrators (perps).

I let it ride at the chief’s request, but there were three more such kidnappings, and the police still had not found a suspect. I called Chief Donovan again, and he was more receptive this time. He gave me the exact locations and times as best the police had them of the five kidnappings. Ring set out to get the video evidence that we needed. In three of the five cases, there was also a woman in the car, and twice, the victim was a boy.

Ring could not get a good picture of either of the adults involved, but he did get a good picture of the license plate. That was traced, and it turned out to have been stolen from a car repair garage. Okay, more detail work had to be done. Ring went back in time and place to the kidnappings and followed the car to an abandoned warehouse. In all five cases, it was the same warehouse.

Inside the warehouse were several cots and tables, along with shelves of things like enema and douche bottles, surgical speculums, and whips and paddles. Of all things, there was a large transparent chamber pot probably used in conjunction with the enema and douche bottles. Off to one side were syringes, needles, and pharmaceutical bottles.

I was not excited by the prospect of seeing children tortured, but I felt that we needed the proof of what had been done to the kidnapped victims. Ring did follow all of the kidnappings to the building and made videos of what was done to each child. Strangely enough, at least in my opinion, nothing directly sexual was done to the children, but they were tortured. Each one was injected in the buttock with some drug before they were taken to another part of town and released. We could never get a clear picture of the actual drug used.

To our surprise, though, there was one report of a high school girl being kidnapped. We suspected that a drug was involved in the enticement into the car. The girl was 17, and I couldn’t think of another inducement that would attract a teenager into a car with strangers. She got into the backseat with the woman, and the man drove the car. By the way, the car was always the same, but the license plate was always different.

Ring, as usual, followed the car to the same warehouse, and this time the victim was unconscious by the time they reached the warehouse. I wondered what had been used to drug the victim, but I figured that it had to be some sort of injection.

The victim’s clothes were removed, and her naked body was fastened to an X-shaped cross with steel handcuffs on her wrists and ankles. She was blindfolded with what looked like a professional mask. She was then given another injection to wake her up. All of the injections were administered by the woman, was she a trained nurse?