Chapter 4

Phil was driving back from another visit to the people who had the burglaries that night. He checked in with them every few months. It had been over a year. Always nothing. There had been a lot of interviews the first few months. After expanding his search to surrounding highways that were accessible by hiking through the mountains, he had finally found a convenience store that had seen someone unusual. It was a rural store and they had seen this small man coming down from a mountain and across a field. No one ever came that way. They got the best composite artist using the best composite sketch software. Gordon was sparing no expense. They got what the convenience store clerk thought was a very good likeness. He was a white male, in his mid twenties, 5’ 5”, slight build, brown hair, brown eyes. Matching the sketch to pictures of George Kossack as a young man made him look like he could be a close relative. The kid had stopped in and bought some food, energy bars, granola bars, bottled water, then headed down the road. Close by, he caught a ride with a van. No one saw the plates. That was it. There the trail ended.

He had spent many hours looking at the sketch. It reminded him of someone. He couldn’t place it. No name. No destination. He did everything he could think of. He even covered news photos in case there was a match with the sketch. Gordon kept forking out the money. The guy really must be nuts.

George and Ruth continued with their “research”. He couldn’t follow a lot of it. At first, their “I am Sam” bull sessions were fun to sit in on. Imagine I am Sam. I am an alien running around in a body hatched by pond scum. I have a little money, no contacts, no identity. What do I do? The possibilities were endless.

They got additional details on the genetic analysis on the samples from the pond. They were still all hot and heavy about the nerve cells in the plant. Some freak of nature it sounded like. They had found a few similar reports of plants like George’s. They went to each site, but even the brown remains were blown away by the time they got there.

Phil really could not imagine Gordon keeping their little circus running much longer. But now he had at least a little thread of something.

He pulled into a parking space in front of the Gordon Associates office deep in their nondescript office park, slammed the door and hurried inside.

George and Ruth were sitting at the conference table, looking at some papers, looking bored.

They looked up a little surprised. They were not used to seeing Phil hurrying or looking excited.

“You found something?” Ruth asked.

He walked over and dropped a large envelope on the table.

“Hold on.” He went over to a cabinet and got some white cloth gloves. “Use gloves.”

George put on the gloves, opened the envelope, and dumped out the contents. Three letter sized envelopes. George picked them up and looked inside. They were empty. They had been addressed by a computer printer.

“Post marked Tampa, Florida,” Phil said.

Ruth put her gloves on and examined the envelopes.

“So?” she asked.

Phil smiled. He was enjoying holding out and making them guess.

“All three of the households that were burglarized received these envelopes in the mail a week ago. No note. Each had the amount of money that had been stolen, a little more, maybe for the other items, or interest. Who knows?”

“Did you get the money?” George asked.

Phil looked irritated. “No, it was spent or mixed in with other money, or deposited, but the envelopes. All three.”

George looked pensive. “Yes, that’s something.”

“We need to get them analyzed for DNA. If it matches …” she trailed off uncertainly.

“You do that,” Phil said, still irritated.

“Be calm, Phil. At least it’s something,” George said. “More than we’ve had for a while.”

“Can we find out where in Tampa they were mailed from?” Ruth asked.

“I’ll look into it.”

“I’ll get the DNA analysis done,” Ruth said.

“Why would he expose himself like this?” George asked, again with his pensive look.

“We’ll see,” said Phil, now switching out of his irritation, to business. He walked out. Ruth was on the phone with one of the Gordon Biotech labs.

Two days later, they were all three coming off a plane at the Tampa airport. It was bright and sunny outside.

The DNA on the glue had matched the samples close enough. It seemed slightly altered. Could this fellow alter his own DNA? But it was close enough. He could well be George’s close cousin.

Phil had thought that just he should go down and see if he could trace the envelopes, but Gordon had thought they should all be on hand.

“I’m going directly out to the Guffy Investigations office. See how they are doing canvassing with the sketch. I’ll see you later at the hotel.”

Phil split off from them toward the auto rental. They continued on to the taxis.

“I guess we’re still assuming he got here hitchhiking, not through here.” George mused.

Ruth looked over at him. Maybe George was starting to identify a little too closely with Cousin Sam.

George smiled. “I know. I know. It’s not like he is lurking around every corner.”

“Any more thoughts on why he mailed the money?” Ruth asked, just making conversation. Good thing she liked George, they had to feed off of each other so much.

“Still the same. You don’t want to assume the same thought processes that we would have, but the only thing that makes sense is that it is some kind of moral impulse.”

She just nodded.

They got their taxi and headed out of the airport. They were staying at a nice place on one of the beaches.

Three days later, the canvassing was still underway. George was holed up in his hotel room with his laptop.  Ruth was spending some time on the beach. It was late afternoon. She noticed a young man off to her left looking out to the Gulf.  He turned and looked at her, and she froze, paralyzed.

She jumped up and ran over to him, uncertainly. He looked up at her with a bemused expression.

“Are you …” she started to ask in a shaky voice, but what was she going to ask?

He smelled nice, like spices, like cinnamon maybe. Was she really close enough to smell him?

Why was he here? Had he followed Phil, watched them?

“Are you afraid?” he asked.

“No, no, I just thought …”

“You looked afraid.”

He got up and was brushing the sand from his shorts. He had on a tee shirt that said, “Darwin was a piker”. What the hell did that mean?

He was starting to walk off.

“Hey, you live around here?” She was several years older than him, but older women can hit on young men, right? She didn’t want to loose him.

“What’s your name?” she asked, getting frantic as he made motions to leave.

He smiled at her placidly, and started to walk off.

What could she do? She started to follow him, but then that just looked weird. She tried to look like an abashed cradle robber and walked the other way digging for her cell phone.

“Phil, Phil. He’s here! Where? Here at the beach by the hotel. Yes, it’s got to be him. It’s too close. What the hell do I do?” She listened.

“OK. OK. Get here!” She closed her phone and ran toward the beach exit that he had used.

She decided to just brazen it out. She had acted weird enough to be capable of anything. He was at the end of the beach access close to the road. She ran to catch up. When she got to the road, he was getting on a bus. She ran over and got on too.

She called Phil again and whispered, “On a bus, Gulf Boulevard. Just turned on Causeway.”

She listened on the phone and looked back. He was looking back at her with a slight smile, like any young guy with an older woman stalker. Like it happened all the time. She blushed profusely and closed the cell phone.

She heard the bell ring, and looked back. He was standing at the back door. When the bus stopped, he got off, next to a small park.

The bus doors were closing. She jumped up and moved quickly to the front.

“Oh, sorry. This is my stop.”

The bus driver gave her a dirty look but opened the door. She got off and looked into the park. She didn’t see him. She ran into the park. It was small. She walked rapidly around the different paths. He was gone. She exited onto a street. No sight of him.

She slumped down on a bench, got out her phone again.

“Phil, he got off. I got off too, but he’s gone.” She listened. Apparently Phil was not happy. “Ulmer Park, on West Bay.”

Another two weeks went by. Ruth was sitting at the small table in George’s room. There was a knock. George let Phil in.

“Well, we got a name. Joshua Green. He was running a cleaning service in Tampa. Had just been there a little over a year. A lot of turn over, but he stayed and was running the place within 9 months. Was going to a local community college, majoring in biology.” He smirked.

“Where is he now?” George asked.

“Cleared out. Didn’t even pick up his check.”

“But we have a name now,” Ruth ventured.

“Yeah, if he doesn’t ditch it. But it’s a good identity for him. We found a social worker who had helped him. He’s a real chameleon. I left her with her illusions about him. Told her it was a missing person case.”

“Why did he contact Ruth like that?”

“It doesn’t really figure for me either,” Phil said.

“Maybe, he needed to get close. Physically.” George ventured.

“He smelled like cinnamon,” Ruth said.

“What’s wrong with you?” George asked, looking at Phil.

Phil looked like he was having a seizure.

“Now I remember where I saw that little …”

Ruth and George both stared at him.

“I have been having this feeling that I met the little guy somewhere before, ever since we got the sketch. Now I remember. It’s what you said about his smell.

“Before Gordon contacted me about this job, just before, I was walking home back in Jersey. I was in a bad mood, maybe a little drunk, maybe feeling like a little violence. You know?” He looked at them like there was a chance in the world that they knew.

“I saw this little man sitting on a bench. I thought he was some homeless bum. And well, don’t take me wrong, I was a little drunk. I flew off the handle and I was going to teach the little dork about getting a job.

“But when it came to it, I couldn’t lift a hand against him. And there was this spicy smell, like you said, like cinnamon or nutmeg or something. Strange …”

George and Ruth looked at each other.

“We speculated about pheromones,” Ruth said.

Phil gave them a blank look.

“A way of influencing another organism’s behavior by chemicals transmitted as odors.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of that. You think he’s got it?”

“We all have to a certain extent. It is tied in with sexual attraction, for example, but it could have other uses, affecting someone else’s mood perhaps.”

“So, that’s how he made you act like a dope?” Phil said offensively.

“Hey, look, I’m not a damn private eye, like you. Besides we have no authority to stop him, or question him.”

“Yeah, I wish Gordon would loosen up the reigns a little and let us bring the cops in, or someone in the government.”

“You think they would believe any of this?” George asked.

“You’d be surprised what they’d believe, if you told the right people. But for now, we have to keep this private.”