Common Sense: Book #4 of the Common Denominator Series

By Richard David Bach

While they're busy chasing down the mad scientist who's kidnapping
amnesiacs to mess with their minds and trying to avoid being the next
victims in a plot that could devastate Major League Baseball and kill them
in the process, newly-wed private investigators Raam Commoner and Kayman
Karl just don't have a lot of time for foreplay. But somehow they manage to
take some detours through the bedroom on route from a farmhouse in Montana
to a major league baseball stadium to a Las Vegas brothel in a near fatal
race to wring some common sense out of a lying client and a well-funded
conspiracy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483539782

Richard David Bach

Author Richard David Bach was born in New York City, was raised with a younger brother by a widowed mother on the south shore of Long Island, and sleepwalked his way through an uneventful but stable and happy childhood wondering when life would begin. For Richard, life began at 17 when, in a post-war America obsessed with modern technology, he left home for Troy, New York, to pursue a Civil Engineering degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an ROTC commission as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force. It was the time of the Korean War, and while the mechanical engineers from RPI were building weapons, the civil engineering students were preparing to build targets. College was a hint of freedom from the stifling confines of a structured upbringing, and a two-year active duty tour in the Air Force overseeing design and construction of anti-missile radar sites in the Arctic followed by an uninspiring job as a highway design engineer made him yearn for more adventures. The Pursuit of Adventure: Oregon or Bust That pursuit of adventure began unexpectedly during an accidental migration to Portland, Oregon. An old friend asked Richard to drive him from New York to Portland where the friend–a recent medical school graduate–was to begin an internship. Richard took his two-week vacation and a week’s leave of absence from his job and drove across country camping out and sightseeing along the way, planning to turn around and head back to NY once he had dropped off his friend. That never happened. Richard fell in love with Portland, called to extend his leave of absence (which he may still be on) and kept putting off going home until his family stopped asking when he’d come back. Years of self-introspection and therapy led him to the realization that he had probably never intended to return. Once in Portland he continued to work as an engineer, first for the Portland Development Commission designing Portland’s first urban renewal project, and then for Pacific Power & Light Company as a right-of-way-agent, where one of the power company’s attorneys encouraged Richard to try studying law. He enrolled in the Northwestern School of Law of Lewis & Clark College’s night-school program, excelled in his studies, and (despite working full time for the power company and trying to help his wife raise their two small children) loved every minute of law school. After passing the Oregon Bar, Richard joined Stoel, Rives, LLP, Portland’s largest and most prestigious law firm, where he founded and chaired its Environmental Law Practice Group, practicing environmental law until he retired to take up writing and spend time with his family–a loving wife, four productive children, nine grandchildren who make him very proud, and one adorable great-granddaughter.

Book preview

9781483539782

CHAPTER 1

They told me that my name was John Sebastian. They told me that I was thirty-two years old, that Carla and I had been married for six years, that we had no children, and that we lived near Missoula, Montana.

Ring any bells? The doctor watched for my reactions as the policeman tried to coax my memory out of his notes. This was the third time the cop had asked the same question, and for the third time I answered, No.

Doesn’t any of this seem familiar? Detective Peterson was almost pathetically optimistic–he was convinced that my memory would come flooding back, and he was certain that his promptings would be the pliers to pull the plug.

Dr. Gordon knew better. He was the neurologist on call at the hospital when the police brought me in three days earlier–and its resident pessimist. He let me know that he had seen lots of amnesia cases, and he wanted me to understand that memory recovery could be a slow, tedious process. Sometimes, he assured me, memory never returns. That wasn’t reassuring.

For two days he probed me, and tested me, and ran me through big white machines that clicked and rattled and thumped, and tried to guess what was wrong. He couldn’t find any trauma, or chemical imbalance, or obvious brain disorder, so in the end he essentially gave up and diagnosed me as suffering from what he called psychogenic global retrograde amnesia. Under causation, he wrote idiopathic–which is doctor talk for I don’t have a clue–and had me wheeled down the hall to the psychiatric ward where the hospital’s shrink took over.

When the psychiatrist was convinced that he couldn’t get me to recall anything before the moment the cop found me sitting on a bench in the city park, he decided it must all be in my head and I was blocking my own memories. He concurred with the neurologist’s diagnosis and said so in eight pages of his own finely crafted conclusions. I suspect that both doctors had mixed emotions when they heard I had been claimed and they could drop me into someone else’s pocket. On one hand they were having fun playing in my head and, on the other hand, they were secretly relieved to be done with me.

I think that’s enough for now, Detective, said Dr. Gordon. Let’s give Mr. Sebastian here some time to digest all this new information. A lot of details can be overwhelming to someone in his condition. Before I could remind him that I was right here in the room with him, the doc turned to me and checked my pulse. Why don’t you lie down and get some rest, he said. They tell me your wife will be here in a couple of hours, and we need some time to update your records now that we have your real name and the other info she gave us when she called.

I had been brought into the police station three days earlier by a cop who had picked me up with what they told me was a glazed look on my face, complaining of a headache and mumbling that I didn’t know who I was. The desk sergeant had logged me in and turned me over to the missing persons division. They checked my clothes for identification or possible clues to my identity; they scanned my body for injuries, birthmarks, scars, tattoos and, while they were at it, needle marks. All they found was a small scar on my left knee that they wrote down as prior arthroscopic knee surgery. Then they weighed me in at two hundred twenty pounds, measured me at six foot four, and took my picture and fingerprints.

Detective Peterson explained the procedure. "There’s this website, see...www.amnesiafinder.org...where they post the photos and general descriptions of anyone in the USA who shows up with amnesia. We’ve checked all the missing persons reports on the internet, but so far no one meeting your description has been reported missing. We’ll keep checking, and don’t you worry, ninety-five percent of the time they get a matchup within two or three days after one of these postings. We’ll find out who you are even if you can’t remember."

They gave me a couple of aspirin for my headache–probably not a good idea if I had suffered a head injury or was having a stroke–and took me over to the hospital for evaluation. I got the distinct feeling that they could do without me. But that was OK. The police station was making me nervous, and I was ready to get out of there, too.

CHAPTER 2

Dr. Gordon’s timing was pretty good. About an hour and forty-five minutes after he left my bedside a tall good-looking babe in her thirties with long straight blond hair burst into my room, jumped on my bed, and planted big slobbery puppy-dog kisses all over my face.

Oh, Sebby, thank God you’re all right. She looked upwards and sent a prayer. Thank you, Jesus. Then back to me. I’ve been so worried about you.

She went back to kissing me, but she must have sensed my reserve; and when I didn’t respond to her hugs or her attempt to stick her tongue down my throat, she sat up and slid off the bed.

It’s me, Sebby...Carla...your wife. Don’t you know me? She was backing away, and she looked horrified.

I’m sorry, I had to tell her. I don’t know you. Didn’t they tell you? I can’t remember anything.

She was very attractive, greenish eyes, maybe five-nine or five-ten, nice even features and a pretty good body. For a moment I tried to picture myself in bed with her, but I couldn’t get the image to focus.

That’s OK, Honey. She sat back on the bed and patted my knee.We’ve got lots of time for you to remember. Kenny and I... She waved in the general direction of the hulk who stood lounging in the doorway. ...will take you back to the ranch. That nice doctor says that you’re a lot more likely to get your memory back if you’re in a familiar place.

Kenny, they told me, was her brother and my best friend–ever since grade school days back in Montana. They had raced here as soon as they had seen my picture on the website and confirmed that it was me.

How did I get here? How did you find me?

I don’t know about the first question, Sebby, but they’ve got this big website on the internet for missing persons and we filed a report on you about a week ago when you didn’t come home after your meeting with your counselor and then last night they called and said they might have a match and I knew it had to be you and I was so relieved when I saw it was you and knew you were alive and safe so we flew right here. She stopped and took a breath.

C‘mon, Honey, let’s get your stuff together and get you home.

Where’s that?

Carla was eager to talk. Near Missoula. In Montana. We rented a car and we’ll drive there. It’ll take a day and a half or so and that’ll give us some time to catch up. Whaddya think?

She rolled up the dirty and torn clothes the cops had brought me in with and stuffed them in a big Wal-Mart carry bag. Look, Sebby, Honey, we stopped at the Wal-Mart outside of town and got you a whole new outfit. We figured you’d been in those clothes for a week and would like something new and clean. See?...I got you a shirt in your favorite colors.

The clothes were what I would expect for a rancher–jeans, denim jacket, and a flannel shirt in green, red and yellow plaid. I guess they could have been my favorite colors.

Everything was the right size and she had even thought to buy socks and underwear. Only the footwear was strange. They had gotten me fleece-lined moccasins, size extra-large.

Sorry about the shoes, Honey. We ran out of the house so fast I forgot your boots and I couldn’t remember your foot size. So we got these mocs at the Wal-Mart and we’ll get you some real shoes later on.

I nodded and climbed out of bed, ready to go along, and as soon as I was dressed Carla whisked me out of the hospital with as little fuss as possible, signing all the papers stuck in front of her without reading them. I thanked Dr. Gordon and the nurses for taking good care of me, and Kenny wheeled me out to the curb–hospital rules.

The rental car waiting out in front was big. A cloud-gray Lincoln Towncar of relatively recent vintage, with a huge back seat, lots of leg room and South Dakota plates. Kenny drove, Carla sat in the front passenger seat–half-turned so she could face me–and I sprawled in back. I was still just a little bit foggy from the meds I hadn’t been able to palm and flush, and I needed to get some sleep once I had some idea of where we were headed. That big back seat would do nicely.

Carla and Kenny had other ideas. They wanted to know just how much of my past I remembered, and they had to be concerned that my memory might come back.

Sebby, Honey, don’t you remember me at all?

Sorry, I don’t. We were both lying, but at that time only I knew that.

Hey, Buddy, what do you remember? That was Kenny, smiling at me in the rear-view mirror.

I told him the same thing I had told the cops and the doctors. I remember waking up...it was more like surfacing...on a park bench, and I remember everything since then. But before that, nothing.

Whaddya mean, nothing?

Just that. Nothing. There’s nothing there. It’s not black, it’s not a wall, it’s not a hole...I went all through this with the doctors...it’s just...nothing.

The doctors had told me that that was the way most amnesia victims describe the sensation surrounding extreme memory loss, and I wanted to be convincing.

That seemed to satisfy Carla, and I wondered if she had heard similar responses before. That’s OK, Honey, you just take it easy and we’ll work on it when we get back home. Be sure to let us know if you start getting any of your memory back, y’hear? Carla sounded down-home and just a little ditsy, but there was a hard edge just underneath her voice, and there was no warmth in her greenish eyes. Kenny was a cipher–a zero with the rim torn off. Huge but flabby and definitely not too bright. Somehow I couldn’t picture him as the kind of guy I would hang out with, let alone be my best friend, but he seemed to be a competent driver so I stretched out as best I could on that big back seat, rolled up my jacket under my head, closed my eyes, and pretended to sleep while I sorted things out.

The first day alternated between my naps and Carla’s presentation of the fairly elaborate biography she had prepared for me. According to Carla, I had come back to the ranch after a rough tour of duty in Iraq in a deeply depressed state, subject to periodic blackouts, afraid of my own shadow, and unable to hold a job.

You’re getting really good treatment from the VA, Honey, she told me. and you seemed to be getting a lot better. But this was the first time that one of your blackouts lasted more than just a few hours, and I was really scared for you.

It was a carefully constructed and clever backstory, and it could have served two purposes. First, if I were to suddenly regain my memory, my likely first reaction would be to challenge them and they’d know it. Secondly, it would give me a plausible reason for my condition and keep me calm. I kept asking for more details, suggesting that it might stimulate my memory but really in the hope that they might give me some hint of our destination and their purpose. Carla had a ready answer for all of my questions.

You were born in Missoula, Sebby, and you grew up there. And You went to high school in Missoula and that’s where we met. And Don’t you remember helping run your Daddy’s hardware store until he died and your mean old stepmother inherited it? And Yeah, the Marines. You joined up after your stepmom ran you off. She even had me marrying her after we had lived together for about three years. I was impressed–but still unenlightened.

The truck stop in Gillette, Wyoming, could have been on any freeway anywhere in the West. The mountains in the background glowed pink as the sun slid westward–just as they had for eons. Here down at ground level, though, the truck fumes numbed all taste and smell; and the traffic roar only gradually subsided as my ears began to filter it out. There were gas pumps at which a mix of tourists and ranchers filled their SUVs and pickups; there were diesel pumps where the big-rigs idled, burning the fuel even as they sucked it in; there were fast-food feeding stations–Colonel Grease and MacFats–conveniently located next to the lube racks; and there was a diner.

Pleading hunger and thirst, I persuaded Carla to let us all go inside. Up to then, they had fed me in the car with junk food they bought when they stopped for gas, had me relieve myself at roadside rest stops, and otherwise kept me from any outside contact–subtly, but effectively. At the diner Carla held onto my arm in an apparent show of affection and Kenny stayed close on my other side as we marched across the parking lot.

We had been on I-90 headed west towards Missoula all day and should have been fairly easy to follow, but I hadn’t spotted Kayman when we left the hospital or anywhere behind us–and even though I hadn’t been looking all that hard because I didn’t want to be obvious, I was getting nervous. I knew she’d be there, but until I was sure she had my back I figured I was entitled to be just a little worried. I suspected that Carla was a dangerous woman, and I still didn’t have a clue as to who these people were or what they would want with an amnesiac, but at that point I had no choice but to go along. A grumpy old gal who could have been the role model for every roadside diner waitress in every Hollywood movie led us to an empty booth, dropped menus on the table, and walked away before she’d have to take our orders. I held out my jacket and Kenny hung it on a hook at the end of the divider before motioning me onto the bench. He sat on one side of me and Carla had me hemmed in on the other.

It seemed like forever but finally, mercifully, Kayman showed up. She walked down the aisle between the counter stools and the booths, and every eye in the place locked on her like drone radar on a high-value target. All six feet of gorgeousness. She looked spectacular–and not just because