Chapter twenty three
Rick called the Ann Arbor police department and was put through to Detective Williams. The detective asked him to come in.
Rick and Sarah were escorted down a hallway to a door with HOMICIDE printed on the glass. The room contained a half dozen large two-man desks. The one they were taken to had a large overweight man in his forty’s seated on one side and a black man seated on the other. The black man appeared to be in his thirties and looked like he could play linebacker for the Oakland Raiders. The older man got to his feet and offered a hand.
“Hi. I’m Detective Williams and this is my partner, Detective Brown. You can call me Mark.
“Hi. I’m Otis.
“I’m Rick and this is my wife Sarah.”
Detective brown offered Sarah his seat and pulled a folding chair over next to it for Rick. He walked around the desk, turned a second folding chair around and sat facing them. Detective Williams spoke.
“You guys don’t look much older than your charge.”
“We get that a lot. Sarah was nineteen when her sister was killed and John was fourteen so there’s only five years difference.”
“My mother had me late in life. There was twenty one years between my sister and me. She married when I was three.”
“We talked to the dean and your nephew’s friends. As far as we can tell, he was not into drugs, excessive partying or gambling. The problem we have is it appears to have been someone that he knew and that just don’t match with his profile.”
“What makes you think he knew his attacker?”
“Snow. There was snow on the ground. John was walking from the campus library when someone walked up too him. They apparently talked for a sort time and then walked together to a parking lot. When they got to the lot, John took off running and was shot. The other person then walked to the body, kicked him in the head, walked back to the lot and drove away. Two of those things make me think John knew his assailant. The walk to the parking lot didn’t seem to be forced although it may have been. There was some evidence of a scuffle before they got to the lot but that could have been something else. At the location of the scuffle, your nephew was sick, he threw up, but that could mean just about anything.
“Do you think he was drinking?”
“No. There was no alcohol or drugs in the vomit or in his blood. The main thing that makes me think he knew his attacker is the kick to the head. No reason to kick someone you think is dead unless you’re really mad at him.”
“Maybe he didn’t think John was dead.”
“Oh he thought he was dead alright. This guy is a stone cold killer. The only thing that saved your nephew’s life was that this guy thought he was dead.
Sarah had tears in her eyes. Detective brown leaned toward her, handed her a tissue, and said, “I’m sorry you have to hear this Ma’am. I know this situation isn’t easy for you. From all we found that’s a very nice boy you have. For you just being a girl yourself you must have done a very good job of raising him.”
After the interview, Rick apologized for being of so little help and he and Sarah went to diner. While they were at the restaurant Sarah’s phone rang. She got up and went to the lobby to answer it.
“Hi Dolly.”
“Oh Sarah, I’m sorry to bother you. I know you got troubles of your own, but I just had to talk to someone.”
“What’s wrong Dolly?”
“It’s Oliver, he’s had a stroke.”
“Oh God. I’m so sorry, how is he?”
“It’s awful Sarah. He can’t talk and he doesn’t seem to have any control over his limbs. He just keeps flailing around. Now they have him restrained.”
“What do the doctors say?”
“That’s the worst part. They’re not telling me anything much, but I get the idea that they don’t think he is going to make it. Sarah I’m just beside myself. I don’t know how I could make it without him……… I’m sorry Sarah, I didn’t even ask about John.”
“It looks like he’s going to be fine it’s you we have to worry about right now. Dolly I’m going to hang up now, but I will call you right back. Hang in there.”
She hung up, went back to the table and explained to Rick about what Dolly had told her. They discussed the problem while they finished dinner. Sara’s food was cold, but she didn’t feel much like eating anyway. She just picked at her food while they talked about Ollie’s situation. They both felt that they had to help and if he were in that bad of shape, it would have to be soon. Sarah was adamant that she could handle the situation there and that Rick should go back to Crystal River. They discussed how the doctor was going to react tomorrow morning. Sarah said she intended to tell him she prayed all night and in the morning, he was talking.
Rick called Ricardo and found that he intended to leave the day after tomorrow and told him they would be going along. He also told him there would be an additional passenger on the way back. When he got off the phone, he told Sarah to call Dolly and tell her they would be there by the day after tomorrow.
“I don’t think you should try to explain anything at this point. Just try to comfort her as best you can.” A short time after they got back to John’s room a nurse came in and said that she could get them cots if they wanted to spend the night. Rick thanked her and asked her to get one cot and blankets for Sarah. He said that he would be fine in the chair.
The next morning, Sarah was awakened with “Mom”. She leaped from the cot, rushed to his bed and kissed him. Rick got out of the chair, went to her side and put his arm around her.
Sarah had tears running down her cheeks, “I love you baby”
“I love you too Mom.”
“Sarah smiled and said Aunt.”
“Yeah I know Mom.”
John filled them in on what happened and they told him about their interview with the detectives. They were all surprised at how well the detective had pieced it together. Sarah told him that Molly had been to see him and he told them about seeing her on campus.
“This is partly my own fault, I saw Molly on campus but I wasn’t sure it was her. She is so much prettier now, I don’t mean to sound like a bigot, I just never expected to see her here.”
“It’s not your fault Honey. You had no way of knowing she would tell her brother and certainly no way of knowing he would do this even if she did.”
They had been talking for a half hour and John was having trouble keeping his eyes open. He finally gave up and went to sleep. Rick and Sarah were just talking about going to breakfast when the doctor walked in with five med students. They hadn’t thought about this being a teaching hospital. Sarah said to Doctor Blanchard, “John was awake this morning.”
Doctor Blanchard raised an eyebrow, looked toward the bed and said, “Are you sure?”
“Yes I’m sure, he talked to us.”
“Really, did he seem alert and cognitive?”
“Yes, very.”
The doctor leaned over the bed and pushed back John’s eyelid and to his amazement, he opened both eyes and looked at him.
“How do you feel?”
“Fine, just a little tired and my back hurts a little.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised!”
The students had apparently seen John shortly after the operation, and a few had watched the operation from the gallery. They were all now standing around the bed chattering as if they had just witnessed a UFO landing. Doctor Blanchard who was busy examining the patient told them to keep quiet unless they had something intelligent to say.
He straightened up and said. “I have never seen anything like this. I don’t know about his internal organs but his exterior wounds have almost healed. I don’t….. I can’t….. I damn well don’t believe it. Did you give him some sort of drugs?,, no, no of course not. I don’t know what I’m saying. I just don’t know what to think.”
Sarah said, “I know what it is, I prayed all night and this morning God answered my prayers.”
John said, “What is everyone carrying on about?”
The rest of the day there was a steady stream of doctors, students and nurses through the room. Even the head of the hospital was there. Rick impressed on him that if this were to get to the press and John were to be made into a sideshow attraction that he would sue the hospital, the staff, the university and him personally. He assured Rick that there was nothing to worry about. He further assured him that if it should leak, that the hospital would adamantly deny the story.
“I don’t, however see anyway to stop Dr Blanchard from doing a medical paper on this. It is after all a medical phenomenon and very well may be the highlight of his career.”
“I understand. I just don’t want this to turn into a media circus.”
Shortly after that conversation, the parade of people through the room was drastically reduced.
They had removed John’s exterior stitches and told them that the interior ones took care of their selves. They had done x-rays, CAT scans and ultrasounds and had no more idea of what happened that they did that morning.
Rick had asked to check John out the next morning and the doctors had agreed. Doctor Blanchard said that he would like to keep him there but couldn’t prevent his leaving if they wanted to go. Rick allowed as how it was time to get him home. He did agree, however, to have John contact him when he returned to campus.
Sarah went too John’s dorm room and picked up clothes for the trip home. The detectives stopped by and talked with them, but had no more authority to stop their leaving than the doctors did. The next morning they met Ricardo and went home. When they got to Crystal River, Ricardo drove them home. When they came up on their house Rick’s Lincoln was in the drive, the garage door and gate were both open and they could see John’s mustang in the garage. Rick had Ricardo back up and drop them at the Hearsts’. Rick thanked him, they took their bags and went to the front door. When no one answered the bell, Sarah said she had a key but it was at home. John reached out and tried the latch. To all of their surprise it wasn’t locked.
From inside the Hearst’s house they talked about what to do. Sarah thought the first thing to do was go help Ollie. John thought they should go next door and beat the crap out of Sean. Rick thought they should call the police. After a bologna sandwich, and a beer apiece they settled on calling the police. Rick found the number and dialed. A half hour later after explaining the situation, giving them the detectives number in Ann Arbor and promising to stop into the police station in two hours he hung up. While Rick was talking to the police Sarah had called Dolly and told her they were in her house and why. Dolly in her distraught state had trouble following what Sarah was telling her, but she understood that they were in trouble and couldn’t go home. She told Sarah where to find Ollie’s car keys and asked her to hurry.
“He’s getting worse by the minute Sarah, I don’t know how much longer he’s going to last.”
When they walked in the room what little control Dolly had maintained collapsed. They looked at Ollie and although they were both expecting him to be in bad shape they were shocked at his appearance. He looked like he had lost twenty pounds. His skin was almost translucent and his eyes were neither open nor closed. His body seemed to be in a constant state of movement even though he was restrained and his eyes seemed to be flickering behind his half closed lids. He was on oxygen, IV’s and had monitoring wires stuck to his body in numerous places.
Sarah went straight to Dolly, sat her down in a chair and knelt on the floor in front of her. She took Dolly’s hands in hers and said, “Listen to me Dolly, what I’m about to say makes no sense but its true. Rick is going to heal Ollie.” Dolly’s eyes shot to Rick who was standing over Oliver. He had a glove on one hand, and was taking something out of a little bag. Rick pressed his gloved hand against Ollie’s arm and he immediately quit moving. In a few seconds, his eyes closed and he started breathing easily as if in an untroubled sleep.
Dolly leapt to her feet and went to his bedside. As she went to touch Ollie, Rick withdrew his hand.
“Is He dead?”, Dolly Asked accusingly.”
“No, he will be just fine now. By morning he will be sitting up talking to you.”
“I don’t understand. What just happened?”
Dolly was standing with her hand on Oliver’s chest feeling his steady breathing with tears welling in her eyes. Rick said, “Dolly we have to leave now.”
Dolly looked at Rick as if he’d lost his mind.
“I can’t leave! I have to stay with Oliver.”
“We have to go. I need to explain what just happened and I can’t do it here. Sarah will bring you back soon, but right now, we have to go. Ollie will be fine. He’ll sleep for quite a while now.”
Just then, a nurse hurried in to the room and went to the bed. She looked at the monitors and said, “I don’t understand what’s going on. All of a sudden, his monitors all went back to normal we didn’t know what to think.”
Although the nurse was astonished, she kept it to herself. She was thinking that she had to get the doctor immediately, but she said, “He seems to be doing much better. I’ll have the doctor come in and check on him soon” and turned to go.
“Look nurse we have to go, but we‘ll be back in an hour or so.”
Rick took Dolly’s arm and hurried her from the room before she could say anything to the nurse who was looking at them like they had just exited a spaceship.
At Dolly’s house they all sat around the kitchen table drinking iced tea taking turns trying to convince Dolly that they weren’t nuts. Even John got in on it. Rick was trying to explain to her how their lives were going to change and what had to be done. Dolly couldn’t deny what Rick had done in the hospital was amazing but it was still a long way from restoring youth. Rick finally decided that there was nothing they could say that would convince her until she saw it for herself, so they changed tacts.
They explained that they had to get Ollie out of the hospital early tomorrow before the changes in him became apparent to the hospital staff.
“But they have already seen the change.”
Rick said, “No Dolly, I’m talking about him becoming younger. Believe me by tomorrow it is going to start to show. By the next day it will be apparent to anyone associated with him that he is younger. Look Dolly I know this is hard to swallow, but if Ollie’s his old self in the morning will you agree to get him out of there?”
She looked at him with a somewhat befuddled look and said, “I guess so.”
Rick looked at the ceiling and muttered, “This isn’t going to be easy.”
Sarah took Dolly back to the hospital using Dolly’s car while Rick took Ollie’s and went to the police station. When Dolly got back to Ollie’s room he opened his eyes and smiled at her then went back to sleep. Ollie already showed improvement. His color was back to normal and his skin as a whole looked much healthier. Dolly told Sarah that it was getting harder not to believe them.
At the police station, Rick was escorted to the chief’s office.
“Hi, I’m Chief Banks, Leo or Chief to my friends.”
They basically rehashed what they had discussed on the phone. The Chief did tell him that he had his house staked out and that he had talked to Detective Williams in Ann Arbor. He told Rick that Detective Williams wanted to be in on the arrest and that he wanted to take Proudfoot back to Ann Arbor. He would be arriving some time today at the Ocala Airport and should be in Crystal River by this evening. He said that he was bringing extradition papers with him.
He told Matt that the plumbers van next door to his house was the stake out. He also filled Rick in on the campus police officer that was found shot to death, a short distance from where John was shot. He explained that he was killed with the same gun that was used to shoot his nephew. The Chief questioned him at length about the case, but he feigned complete ignorance.
Chief asked, “What made you think that the person who shot your nephew was the same one that was in your house?”
“My car was in the driveway and John’s car was in the garage. The guy that shot John took his car and his wallet. That gave him John.s keys, his gate and garage door opener and our address.
When Rick returned to Ollie’s, his Lincoln was nowhere in site and the gate and the garage door was closed.