The Tennessee asphalt turned to Mississippi concrete and its seams introduced a regular rhythm to the hum of the road. It was a repeating pattern. I decided to drift from the noise by recalling my trip in its entirety. I hoped that when I laid it all out, it might seem clearer.
Morton Petes was my student three years ago. I believed that he’d killed himself when I had a chance to stop it and that had ruined my life, my job and my marriage. After years of self pity, I decided to leave my sad little house to try to do something positive in a world that I had let down by letting Morton die. I tried to help people who seemed doomed to go missing. I went to Ohio, too late, but helped a bit by finding a few kids. I didn’t stick around, though, I had developed a feel for the road and needed to keep moving.
Then, concerned with my own sanity, I discovered the historical madman Clifton Johns and tracked his ghost to Colorado where he seemed to have died taking six (recent update, only five) other people to die with him. I met Polly and she had a similar guilt complex over a suicide until we started to find clues that made us doubt that anyone had really died. I went to Vegas and somehow played a role in the lives of three (or was it one) women.
And then I stumbled on the fact that was central to the whole trip. Morton Petes hadn’t died. The man who had begun the slow decline of my life hadn’t even died at all. I had actually been right to guess him a fraud. Now this fraud was running around the country and probably ruining other people’s lives as he had Polly’s and mine. Although I had to admit that Polly handled it better than I did. She had. In Memphis I was confronted with the only two women that I’d ever cared about. One was Polly and the other was the ghost of my wife Chloe. I decided to leave both behind and even though it was my choice, the face of Morton Petes came back to me again and again. I had made decisions, but so much of them had been prefaced with the fact that I was to atone for something that I hadn’t even done and that all of my problems and pain pointed to one man and he was currently calling himself Phillip Morté.
I was pulled back into alertness by a change in pattern. The rhythm of the road had increased. I looked at the speedometer and realized that I had the old Mustang up to ninety-five and that my hands were again tight on the wheel. I needed to get to Athens, to find the man that I wanted to remind of the power of death, fake or real.
I arrived in Georgia, passed Atlanta’s chaotic traffic and then drove into the calming country that surrounded Athens. I approached the address that was registered to the name Phillip Morté and any sympathy that was left for Morton evaporated. The street, not far from the University of Georgia campus, was of the beautiful old Southern variety. The road was lined with imposing white and brick homes and wilting Sycamore trees. Arriving at the address, a red brick estate, I drove up the long driveway with my misfit car and self. I parked near a crème colored Lexus and got out of my car. I adjusted my pants and underwear as they had both ridden on me as I’d driven. As I was mid-tuning I saw a woman’s face in a window moving back behind a curtain. I stopped adjusting and began to walk. Polly would have laughed at me. If she were here. I walked up to the door and rang the bell. The entrance opened a few inches and the same woman’s face appeared in the gap. She looked to be around sixty years old and had graying hair and a face full of frown lines.
“Hi, I was wondering if Phillip Morté is here?”
“I don’t know anyone by that name. Good day,” the woman responded and closed the door.
I waited to hear Polly say something like “Well done, math-boy,” but that thought faded as anger poured in its place. Morton clearly had or came from money. And this entitled piece of work couldn’t hide from me any longer. I walked back to the car and grabbed some print-outs and then returned to the door. I rang the bell again. The same woman’s face appeared.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know the name …”
“Ma’am would you please look at a photo? It’s the man that I am trying to find, and it is important.”
“Fine,” she said with a tone that made me decide not to explain what I was about to show her.
I thrust the photo in front of her and she gasped. It was the close-up on the bed in Austin, a trail of blood splattered beyond the man’s face and head. The woman staggered and then composed herself.
“That’s Morton,” she whispered.
“My name is Theo Burnkey. Can I come in?”
She didn’t answer, but moved back from the door as I entered. She was a thin woman, and she wore a dress with a sweater over her shoulders despite the summer heat.
“Ma’am, I assure you that this man is not actually dead, despite the photographic evidence. In fact, this photo was taken two years ago.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Can I please sit with you for a moment?”
She slowly assessed my clothing and general appearance. “You don’t look like a police officer.”
“I am, an old friend, of Morton. From Boston.” The words hurt to say.
“Is Morton your son?”
After a pause, “He’s the son of our housekeeper. But he lived here.”
I walked with the woman across an enormous open foyer with a marble floor and white balconies looking down on the entrance. Ten doors were visible, as I walked across the room. Four were upstairs and four below and they were divided down the center by the open hallway that we now entered. Two more branched from the hallway. As I passed the closest door, to my right, I noticed a small number in its upper corner and a picture that I made a mental note of. I wondered if I might be feet from my goal and if Morton was cowering inside. We moved to a sitting room with lightly upholstered furniture and dark cherry tables. We sat and I declined a glass of tea even though she nearly insisted that I try some.
“Morton grew up in this house. I guess you could say that he wandered through eighteen years here. If you know him from Boston, I assume that you met him at MIT. My husband and I are not from the academic world, we’ve made our small mark in this world through industry. That afforded us a few comforts. We were able to provide him with the Northern education he insisted on seeking. We tried to provide for everyone who entered this house. We tried to bring a sense of the Kingdom of God to everyone in our little world. Excuse me, but, how is it that Morton is not dead despite that photo, sir?” Her voice seemed to shake with the words.
I couldn’t believe that the monster had been born anywhere. I could believe, though, that he would put other people through the same torture that he had inflicted on Polly and myself. Maybe that was why this woman looked so unhappy. I tried to picture Morton running through these halls as a child, but it was hard to see a young Morton at all. He was, as I could still see in my mind, prematurely aged before I even met him. It was a challenge to reverse time and see him as someone small and innocent who might do something like throw a tennis ball from the balcony I’d just passed, just to see how high it might bounce.
“I believe that he is faking suicides across the country. It’s strange, I know.”
I paused as I waited for a reaction from her proud Southern face. None immediately arrived.
“Are you sure that you’d wouldn’t like any tea?”
“I’m sure ma’am. I believe that Morton has lost his way.”
Her face twitched. I wondered if it was something about the choice of words “lost his way.” I felt my senses trying to engage on something in the woman, but I ignored them.
I looked around the expensively decorated room. Morton lived here and as such he must have had all that he needed to grow into an actual human being. He didn’t have to become the monster who toyed with people as he pretended to end his own life.
“He grew up here, but over the years he spent more and more time at the university even as a High School student. My husband and I were happy to bring him there, and it may have been the first place he actually made friends. You may ask them for more details for your investigation. In the math or religion departments.”
“I’m sorry, religion department?”
“Morton was interested in both.”
The woman stood up and began moving toward the door. We passed through the hallway and the eight doors that I’d noticed earlier. This time I saw a different door with different markings. Again I noted them, simply as a reporter might survey a story. I assumed that it was some way to indicate to the staff where a certain person was staying. The place was practically like a hotel. As I reached the door, I turned to say goodbye to the lady of the house. I looked up at the balconies and doors that framed the woman from behind. She stood with her hand extended and for a second something about what I was seeing triggered recognition in my mind. I felt the hint of my senses warming up, but I ignored it. Maybe it was that I still wasn’t sure that she wasn’t hiding Morton behind one of those doors.
“Good luck in your quest for Morton. I pray that his soul still find a way to rise above this recent behavior.”
“Thank you. Here’s my cell phone number, please call if you hear from Morton. And please tell his mother that I will do my best to find him and,” I paused, uncertain how to describe what I’d do when I found Morton, “and to bring some justice to this situation.”
“Justice is all that any of us can ask for. Goodbye Mr. Burnkey,” and she closed the door.
I walked to the car. The woman was clearly a little off center and I had felt uneasy much of the time inside the house. Maybe it was something about Southern eccentricity or the news that I’d delivered. It seemed that she had taken a real interest in Morton. I believe the word used to describe her was benefactor. It was impossible for her, and even more-so his mother, not to be affected by his behavior. It made me feel guilty for having shoved the photo in her face, but that feeling again turned to anger at Morton for having created a universe where such things as faked suicide photos existed. As I drove out of the driveway, the woman’s face was once again looking out from the curtain, watching me leave.
As I drove toward the campus, I wondered how the census records showed a Phillip Morté as living here. I pulled the car off the road and opened the laptop and found his name again. The census is taken every ten years. As such, the data within it can grow inaccurate rather quickly. For this reason, the bureau keeps a “living” version of the database that can be updated by voting records, drivers registration, tax filings and credit reports. As I found the name Phillip Morté and the address in Athens, I noticed that it had been updated automatically by an address that he had used. I thought of two possible explanations. The first was that Morton may have made a mistake. He may have led me to the place where he was born and let me see into the person that he was because he forget and used his birth address. This could only help me find him faster. The second possibility was that he was still here and that he didn’t mind anyone knowing. Not that he even knew that I was looking for him. It was possible, I thought in a rare moment of gaining ground that my psychotic little friend may have made a mistake.
I parked my car near the university and stopped into a coffee shop called the Hot Corner for a drink. I wanted to wake up and to clear my head of the Morton Petes estate. I got a coffee and sat next to a shelve of books, some of which contained historical accounts of the city. It seemed that the university came first, and the city second. The town was designed to hold the university and that is why it is called Athens, to honor the ancient seat of learning. I also read about a tree that owned itself.
It seems that a local tree is the owner of the property on which it stands. The reason that this is true is claimed by multiple legends. Some say that the last human owner of the property bequeathed it to the tree because none of his human heirs were worthy. Other legends just claim that the man loved the tree. Either way, it can still be found in Athens and the road near it takes a wide curve as the tree never granted permission to have itself cut down. The South. It reminded me that eccentricities like the ones in Morton’s house were cultivated here. Perhaps hearing that someone has faked his suicide is not as surprising in a town where trees own themselves.
I got up and moved to the campus Mathematics department. I crossed lush vegetation on the beautifully landscaped campus. The buildings were pillared and match the redbrick and white wood look of the neighborhood I’d seen. I walked past a lovely fountain which could have once been outside of a majestic plantation. It was a world away from MIT, a place that prided itself in its modern design and futuristic glass structures. Eventually I found the Mathematics department, but as it was summer, I found few people within. Sitting at a small study table, though, was an older looking woman. I approached her and asked her if she knew any of the professors in the college.
“Do you know the word ‘synchronicity’?” the lively woman asked me.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“The word synchronicity describes the way that events coincide in time and space. I am a big believer in the way that things happen and that much of it isn’t random.”
“I see. Well, hello. My name is Theo Burnkey. I am looking for anyone around here who might know a man named Morton Petes or anyone who associated with him.”
“My name is Virginia. Do you see what I mean? Synchronicity. How is it that I happen to be sitting here as you walked in? I had to decide not to go to my swimming lesson today first, otherwise I’d still be at home. Then I had to decide to sit at this table, even though I was considering sitting in the Geology department. Also, I am grateful that you approached me alone, because I rarely feel comfortable talking to more than one person at a time.”
I thought of Polly.
“Finally, you asked me about the two people that I know in this department, even though I worked at this University for thirty years in the education department. I am seventy-seven you know.”
“You look fantastic,” I said honestly.
“Thank you. Morton Petes was practically the side-kick of my friend Professor Donald Wren. Now tell me, did you plan on visiting this building all day? Or did something lead you here at this moment?”
“I, well, I was directed here.”
“I see. There are often mechanisms that help us to find the things that let us progress in life. In the end, though, it is important that you surrender to the forces that are around you. Let the synchronicity occur. In fact, trying to steer it is the only way to kill it.”
I looked at the old woman. She was smiling across the table from me. Her eyes were alive and bright behind her glasses. Her hair was dark grey and curled tightly above her tanned face and her face showed laugh lines, rather than frown. She was wearing a paisley print shirt and sat with her hands crossed in front of her.
“You are a very interesting lady, Virginia,” I finally said. “I have a personal interest in what is random and what falls into patterns. I am a mathematician myself.”
“I sense that you are more than just that, though,” she said to my surprised.
“I hope so, Virginia. I wonder, though, if you could tell me about Morton Petes and this Professor Wren. I know Morton from Boston, and my quest to find him has led me here.”
Virginia looked back at me. There was something about her look. As if she actually knew all about my quest, but that she would be polite and let me tell her about it. I felt the way a person must feel when consulting an Oracle. I thought about the ‘synchronicity’ that an Oracle, whose most famous home was in Delphi, Greece, might find herself in a town called Athens.
“Morton Petes was quite troubled when he first started visiting with Donald. He started by attending his office hours.”
Virginia went on to tell me about Morton, as she had known him. Over time he became the sidekick of Professor Donald Wren, a brooding mathematician who seemed to match Morton’s disposition. Still, though, the two were good for each other, Virginia explained. Donald gave Morton a place to go to get away from the house where he’d grown up, as stuffy and cold as it was. And Morton gave Donald a disciple and apparently Wren had much to teach. Morton had managed to convince Wren that he was a student. Possibly the first of a lifetime of cons.
“In the end, I’m not sure if Donald helped Morton much. He was depressed when he arrived on the campus and he seemed to replace some of that depression with anger. I know that Donald was a good man, but sometimes, when two elements come together at the right moment, it isn’t always a moment for that which is right and good. In fact, I often feared the connection between the two of them.”
“Do you know anything about Morton’s classes in the religions departments?”
“I don’t. He seemed a bit obsessed with religion. Don’t you think, Theo, that by studying mathematics, he was doing something religious?”
“I suppose so.”
Just then my cell phone rang and I excused myself to answer it.
“Hello?”
“Oh hello Theo, you son of a bitch. Who the hell do you think you are leaving me in a hotel room in Memphis with nothing but a damn plane ticket? After all that I did to help you on an idiot mission that was more yours than mine. After all the times I sat back and let you ‘call the shots.’ You leave with no explanation with some story about fear and danger when in fact, the thing that you fear most is people like me! People that care about you! If you were here right now, I’d kick you in the things you apparently lack, and that’s a set of …”
I hung up.
I look over at Virginia and smiled an embarrassed smile and noticed she was getting up from the table. She was shorter than I’d guessed.
“It’s all part of the way things work here on earth, Theo. Only so much of it is in our hands. Humans are just part of the universe that lies between Heaven and Hell, and yet they seem to be able to recreate both when they see fit. I sense that you are trying to do the right thing, though young man, even with the women in your life.”
Her feet hesitated and she leaned on my arm for a moment nearly falling.
“Oh, and don’t forget to balance.”
I’d received this advice before.
“Walk with me to my car?”
“Of course,” I said, surprised that she would need a car, rather than just hover home with the energy she seemed to possess.
“I remember the one time that Morton and I were alone. He had begun to look older each time that I saw him, you know? That started in the few years before he left. He’d asked me, as he spun a pencil in his hand, what I thought about the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Can you imagine that?”
“It’s not as surprising as you might think. Go on.” We approached the parking lot.
“I told him that if were ever really interested in talking about the universe, that he could stop by any time, but not to try to fake an old lady into believing that he really cared about her opinion.”
I laughed.
“Well, Theo, this is my car. Now, you’re going to want to head north to Chapel Hill. That’s where Donald moved a few years back, to the University of North Carolina Math Department up there.”
“Thank you,” I told her.
“You’re welcome,” she said, now looking at me through the open window of her car. She put the car into reverse and it inched backward as she added, “Now one last piece of advice …” the car began to roll, “watch out for that all-seeing …” I didn’t hear the last word as her car pulled away, but I’d heard enough.
Still, I stood in the lot for a minute or so, just wondering what to think. Morton had more friends than I realized, but it seemed that he also tried to manipulate each of them as well. He had grown up in a wealthy home, odd situation aside. He had his college education paid for and he’d found mentors that he wasn’t above toying with. In the end, he was a con man, and I had no room in my heart for sympathy for him.
Morton was visibly agitated. He paced around the small room. He hadn’t left in weeks and had been living on prepackaged meals. Although he had expected the hack into the police database to take time, it was taking longer than expected.
He sat at his desk and looked down at a small statuette. Just before starting his process in earnest, he’d been on a trip. In fact he’d traveled all the way from Seattle, where he’d left his old identity as Jacob Phillips to rest. Rather than reside in Seattle, though, he’d received a disturbing phone call that sent him looking for a rental car. He needed to get back to the South to take care of an old friend. Professor Wren needed him. It was good, though, because he felt that his cycle was about to repeat and to do that, the tail of the snake needed to reach back for the head. He turned the statuette of an angel in his fingers. He had visited the South as long as he needed to, until things were finished and then he moved here, to his new home.
He looked up from his desk to see the two photos that he’d always kept hanging above his desk. One was of his old teacher’s assistant Theo Burnkey and the old was of a much older man.
The subway rolled by his window and he didn’t hear the sound of his cell phone ringing. He’d received a call from an Athens, Georgia exchange and he was being left a message. Morton was too distracted by the computer that was flashing to let him know that he’d just successfully logged into the police database.
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