Chapter three
Wilburn's Dilemma
"Wilburn I need to see your phone," Silvia said holding out her hand., letting her eyes welcome him to the team, as he gave her his phone. She hit a few keys let his phone touch her phone for a super secure touch only transfer of files. She handed Wilburn his new phone, "a bit of an up-grade on your old one."
While Sylvia explained options, Wilburn watched over her shoulder as Bates seemed to come to a sudden stop. She stood motionless for several moments as Wilburn studied her. It was as if she was listening intently to something or lost in thought. Sylvia's voice flowed around him as he pretended to listen, but what was happening with Karen Bates demanded all his attention. As suddenly as it started, it ended. The old woman did a one eighty, and with renewed strength strode back to where he and Sylvia were talking.
"Sylvia, pull up the latest files from the forensics team in Florida. Put it on the wall." Karen seemed very agitated, when she said, "Find out where Nolan is now, and get him back here ASAP."
Wilburn began to browse through the new files, watching from the corner of his eye as Karen Bates tried to pace about the room. After two laps the pain in her legs was so bad that it forced her to sit, where she silently suffered until the wall filled with images and a video report on Rita Carlton's DNA.
In the video a man in a lab coat held a severed thumb in his gloved hand pointing out the nature of the cuts on the bone; he lay down the thumb and pointed toward the monitor on his wall where there was an image of a hand with the path of the cut painted in a transparent red. "The cut ran from the wrist in a straight line to where the thumb would have joined the hand." The man's voice trailed off to nothing as considered who he was reporting to. This was not part of his job, describing in detail the mutilation of a child to their grandmother. Who also happened to own the company that owned the corporation that ran the lab where he worked. With an effort he pulled himself together and resumed his report, "if it had still been attached to the hand."
"Which brings us to the nature of the instrument that made the cut," the white coated gentleman picked up a hacksaw blade. "Based on the scarring left on the bone of the thumb, we think it was severed from the hand with a hacksaw or possibly just a hacksaw blade. While I agree that it would have been very horrific for the young lady to have to amputate her thumb this way, it seems to be the only way it could've happened."
The scene shifts to a two inch pipe mounted on a concrete block wall with Pipe hanger clamps bolted fast. There are two dozen pairs of handcuffs welded to the waist high pipe. The man in the lab coat was saying, "in my opinion the way the thumb was cut indicates that it was a self inflicted wound. A person locked in a set of the pictured handcuffs would have a hard time swinging an ax or a cleaver, but if she had a hacksaw blade and sawed her thumb off so her hand could pass through the cuffs, then we would find wounds like this." Thinking of who he was talking to, the man tried to dampen any false hope me might be building. "The other question is how did she free her other wrist from the cuffs? There was no other DNA matching hers among the remains, only the one thumb. What I'm saying is that we can't be sure that the escape was successful, maybe she wasn't able to get the other hand free and they buried the body. We've sent a team back to check each set of cuffs for blood or DNA. They'll have dogs and will see if they can find a trail leaving the area but they're not optimistic, its been a long time."
Karen fell back against the wall with an audible thud, Sylvia rushed to her side offering support. Wilburn rushed to help but the feather light weight of the older woman made Wilburn's help unnecessary. Only her strength of will gave Karen Bates the strength to stand on her own two feet while she said. "Sylvia, build a fire under somebody but get Nolan here, now. Wilburn, your days of playing it safe are over. I need a commitment from you tonight, you are going to have to help Sylvia interrogate Nolan, its going to take a while and you're not going to like it but it s got to be done. And it has to be done my way. Are you willing to do that?"
Wilburn nodded his head as he answered her with a solid, "Yes, Ms Bates." And he meant it too. He sat down and started to read his new files in his new phone, preparing for his role as an interrogator.
Sylvia cupped her phone and asked Karen, "Should they leave him in the box?"
Karen nodded, "Just tell them to hurry."
Karen made it to one of the couches and lay down during the twenty minutes they waited for Nolan. During those twenty minutes Wilburn found that Bates had several 'top priority' investigations going at once. He discovered reports of twenty five hundred of the SCM's were missing from inventory at the R and D facility. The facility was located just to the north of Atlanta Ga. Everybody who had ever had access to the SCM's were being audited, while their neighbors and friends were being discreetly interviewed.
Bates had six people in Atlanta, and the locals were providing all the personnel needed. The amount of man hours seemed not to matter at all. Bates had people on the ground from Miami to Baltimore and as far west as Houston.
Bates had printed a letter and had it hand carried and posted with thumbtacks on the bulletin boards of grocery stores, schools, churches, anywhere where groups of people might see it. The letter was short and to the point, it asked three questions. One, did they know, or were they aware of, a young person suddenly leaving home with someone they had just met. Two, were they aware of, or had they seen any young women or men doing acts that seemed out of character for them. Acts, possibly of a sexual nature that 'normal people' would not be doing. Three, If you know someone or are aware of someone that fits either of the cases above, Call this number, give names and times, give two other names that would know about this person. Then you will receive one hundred credits, credited instantly to your account. Dial 156 782 4453 or 1 LOST CHILD. The whole thing seemed to be more church related, like they wanted to help the poor child. It was designed to make you feel like you weren't snitching out your friends to the cops.
Wilburn pulled up the map with the locations of where they had paid the money. Over three hundred hits ranging from Charleston to the north down to Miami. What stood out was the fact that from the coastal village of Tallahassee southeast throug the maze of small islands and swampy channels, the map looked like it had a bad case of heat rash, it was so covered with the red dots.
Wilburn pulled up the list of the names of the disappeared, he let his eyes scan down the page, reading each name, page after page until on page six, mid page he found the name Rita Carlton. Before he could read the whole report the door buzzer went off, Sylvia went to open the airlock and get Nolan. Wilburn relaxed his phone and put it away, he turned to Ms. Bates thinking she might have something to tell him before Nolan was brought in. But she seemed to have gone rigidly stiff, her fist clenched at her side, her facial expressions severe, her eyes hard with hate, watching the spot where Nolan would soon appear. A small voice deep inside his head told him that Bates was over the edge, a very powerful, very dangerous, very crazy woman. What would that make Sylvia, and now after his promise to Bates, himself. Were they both working in the service of a lunatic? Bates watched the airlock, Wilburn watched her, as they waited in silence for Nolan.
They heard the rush of air as the old air was pushed out and the new air pumped in, The airlock door slide open and Sylvia walked in, a Power-Lift dolly following behind her, bringing a large blue box into the room. Effortlessly and expertly Sylvia maneuvered the remote control dolly to take the box perilous close to the steps leading down to the conversation pit, crossing the room and coming to a stop centered in front of the panoramic viewscreen. Turning down the static charge relaxed the 'box' into a cloth which draped down over the rounded shape beneath it.
Sylvia whipped away the cloth and there Nolan was, bent at the waist his back parallel with the floor. He was naked sitting astraddle a heavy duty sawhorse, his legs folded forward letting his ass hang over the edge, his arms pulled down and back to be shackled with chain running behind his knees. Someone had taped a small remote control to his back and the small red light indicated that it was on. Silvia stepped forward to turn it off, and Nolan visibly relaxed as the dildo inside him stopped deep fucking him.
"Oh my god," Wilburn heard himself speak and regretted it immediately, and he pretended to not notice the hard glare Bates threw his way.
Nolan had heard it though and now asked, "Is that you Wilburn, is that you?"
The hope in Nolan's voice was pitiful to Wilburn but before he could answer his old boss, the naked man seemed to have knotted up his body in the most severe way possible, the tendons in his neck like ropes stretched to the breaking points, shaking his head and squirming on the bondage horse he was strapped down on. It went on for several long seconds before the man slumped onto the horse limp as a wet rag.
"We will ask the questions, not you. You will answer when we ask you a question, otherwise I don't want to hear a word from you." Karen Bates had that fire in her eye, that set to her face, that told everyone 'do not fuck with me, because I 'm willing and able to hurt you'.
