Deadliest Love

By Hal McFarland

Recently, Hal read on YouTube and other places about a group of perhaps a hundred people, worldwide, who have perfect recall: they remember everything and often have very emotional reactions to vivid parts of their life which they are able to evoke.

And this bit of interesting trivia pointed him in the direction of “Deadliest Love.” His first-person character, Jesse Jacobs, tells of his struggles with hyperthymesia and its influence on his life as he tries to expand his computer chip business, as he falls in love, and as he attempts to avoid what the FBI has explained is a multiple Russian assassination attempt.

He is able to intertwine Jesse’s personal struggle with the ongoing and very real invasion of Ukraine by Russia through the introduction of the beautiful and talented Katerine (Kate) Kaputka, whom he has hired, as his business begins to expand.

Chelsea, his wife, disappears shortly after their honeymoon, and he tries to use his exceptional memory to determine what may have happened to her. A year later her body is found in a shallow grave. The FBI becomes involved, and he joins forces with them. Jesse survives a long-range sniper attack and is told by the FBI of a suspected Russian plan for eliminating intellectually gifted Americans before they achieve greatness. He believes that fact could also explain Chelsea’s murder because she was a high achieving virologist on the cusp of a breakthrough with the zoonosis virus.

A final attempt is made on the lives of Jesse and Kate in an invasion at Jesse’s home.

The outcome of this encounter causes Jesse to sell all of his possessions and leave for Ukraine to locate Kate’s parents.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 26, 2022
• ISBN: 9781665570114

Hal McFarland

Hal McFarland is a Burlington, Kentucky native, a graduate of Georgetown and Xavier Universities. He has also attended Butler University and, in Germany, the Goethe Institute. Connections is his seventh attempt at what he calls electronic immortality: some of his other works include A Dream Within a Dream, Fear the Moonlight, Farewell to Rosegate, Braving the Shadows, and The Life and Times of Dexter. Hal, with his wife, Barbara, (who is also an author and playwright) lives on a Western Boone County, Kentucky, farm, in a nineteenth-century barn which, over the course of a decade, has converted into their home.

Book preview

Deadliest

Love

HAL MCFARLAND

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AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

©

2022 Hal McFarland. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Published by AuthorHouse 09/21/2022

ISBN: 978-1-6655-7012-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-7011-4 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINTEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE

TWENTY-SIX

TWENTY-SEVEN

TWENTY-EIGHT

TWENTY-NINE

THIRTY

THIRTY-ONE

THIRTY-TWO

THIRTY-THREE

THIRTY-FOUR

THIRTY-FIVE

THIRTY-SIX

THIRTY-SEVEN

THIRTY-EIGHT

THIRTY-NINE

Cast of Characters

From the Author

*"A COUNTRY AUCTION IS LIKE A GRAND PARTY, WITH PEOPLE FROM ALL

PARTS OF THE AREA COMING TOGETHER TO GOSSIP, ENJOY THE HOT DOGS AND

HAMBURGERS, AND BID ON THE BITS AND PIECES OF SOMEONE’S LIFE."

*From the autobiography, Connections, By Hal McFarland

OLD FRIENDS ARE SOMETIMES THE BEST FRIENDS

My appreciation goes to high school friends, Sam Halpern, now a retired physician, and to Deb Dryden, the retired manager of TriHealth Outreach Laboratory Services, for their oversight and suggestions. (Deb has guided me through my last four novels.)

And I must include my thanks and gratitude to my wife, Barbara, who, in spite of her involvement in the completion her own novel, The Secret Keepers, was essential to my arriving at the end point of my story.

ONE

I  started every morning with the thought of my wife lying beside me in my bed, and every evening the same image appeared. I am desperate to make that magic a reality again. I have been trying in so many ways to reunite with her, but my father-in-law... Oh, my father-in-law...

So what, if Chelsea and I had been married out of state and on the sly, and so what, if we told no one; and, yes, sometimes it was awkward, those clandestine and rushed meetings — the coming together of two desperate people yearning for love.

But then, about a month ago, he caught us in the very act — Chelsea’s father, Elmer Strafer, walked into his barn in the middle of our passion. (I’d often fantasized doing it in a barn. The movies made it so romantic.)

And the next week was the last time I ever saw her.

Maybe it was cowardly on my part, I don’t know. But when Elmer found out that we were married, he cornered me that Sunday after church.

You’re a dead man, he whispered. If you don’t end this marriage, Jesse, you’re a dead man.

It had been rumored about town for years that he had killed someone over a gambling debt when he was younger. What was I to do?

Elmer was the County Jailer, so the next week, while he was at work, Chelsea and I met and tried to come up with a way to deal with this dilemma. And to belay my fears, she explained that he often made these threats, but she also asserted that if he had followed through on them, half the people in our county would be in their graves.

Give him time — just give him time. You admitted you were starting a new project at your lab in Strington, so why don’t you get busy and stay away from me, from our town, and from church for about a month. He’ll cool off, and I’ll have a chance to talk with him.

Elmer was a good fifty pounds heavier than I was, and even though he was in his sixties, he was tough as nails. He had bested physically the roughest criminals to come through his jail, and earlier this year, I had personally watched him take out a young thug with one punch.

The more I thought about Chelsea’s plan, the better it sounded.

I began working on my new ideas on a single aspect of chip technology and stayed away from her — not even a phone call, for a couple weeks. Finally, I could take it no longer and texted her.

No reply.

I had experienced her occasional and unannounced absences before. That was not new. She, upon her return, would explain that it was her way of releasing the tensions of her work.

But this time, her absence was prolonged, and I began to fanaticize various explanations for her disappearance — from another man, to her death.

I waited an additional week, and by then I was desperate for her company, her love, her beautiful smile, the feel of her lithe body close to me. I called Elmer at work from a pay phone, and as soon as I heard his voice, I hung up and headed immediately to his house where Chelsea had continued to live — a large two-story structure from another century.

I tried the doorbell — but no response. I banged frantically on the solid oak door to no avail, so I took a few steps back and moved my eyes toward her bedroom window, hoping to see Chelsea or at least a light on.

I was not leaving that house without an answer, so I circled the structure, trying to find a way in. One of the windows was held open by a screen. I removed it, crawled through, and headed for her bedroom.

Cigar smoke lingered in the hallway along with a distinct smell of an aging structure in steep decline. I mounted the stairs quickly, yelling Chelsea’s name, and as I opened the door to her bedroom, the emptiness overwhelmed me.

No sign of my wife. No indication she had ever used this bedroom. No pictures on the wall or on the nightstand. I opened her closet: a few quilts and a man’s hunting outfit, along with a 10-gauge shotgun.

Confused, I wandered from room to room hoping for an answer: where is Chelsea?

Every trace of her presence had been eliminated.

Totally defeated, I stumbled down Elmer’s front walk and, as if in a fog, drove slowly back to my lab.

I needed a plan: Hell, I didn’t know what I needed: surely, Chelsea would have called me no matter what ... She would have called me.

That evening over a glass of wine, I decided to try to think the way Elmer would. What would he do under the circumstances, these circumstances being that he was blindsided by walking in on us in his barn, and secondly that we had married without telling anyone, especially him, the Father of the Bride?

For a man who was known for acting out before thinking a problem through, I could see that he probably did consider killing me. That, however, had not happened.

If he wanted to come up with the best way to hurt me, he would have realized that removing Chelsea from my life would be the most satisfying revenge he could have — more devastating than my own death.

Was he that aware: effectively killing me without killing me? I was spiritually dead without her. He wasn’t that smart, I agreed with myself, he wasn’t that savvy or that calculating.

Alice Beamer was Chelsea’s best friend — our best friend. I called her, asking if we could come over to her place after she got off work, explaining that Chelsea and I had a problem we wanted to talk to her about.

Sure, I haven’t seen you two for a while. Pick up pizza... 6:30 would be good.

I didn’t want to ask when she had last seen or talked with Chelsea, so I left her with the impression that we would both be there.

Alice lived in a third-floor walk-up in Strington — not many of those in that small town. And by the time I got to the third-floor landing, I was out of breath. As I knocked on the door, I laughed at the thought of physically confronting Elmer. Hell, if three flights of stairs whipped me, what would he do?

The door opened, and a blast of Alice’s favorite music attacked my eardrums, short-circuiting my reason for being here. She was wearing shorts and a blouse, no shoes. We hugged, and she asked: Where is Chelsea?

That’s why I needed to see you, I explained, closing the door.

As I handed her the large pizza box, I shook my head. The problem I have is that I don’t know where she is.

Over the next hour and a couple of glasses of tasteless wine, I explained what I knew about our recent lives: our sudden marriage, Elmer’s reaction to it, and Chelsea’s solution to his threat against me, and last, of course, my search throughout Elmer’s house for an answer as to her whereabouts.

Whoever originated the line that beauty and brains are a rare combination was totally wrong, because Alice and Chelsea had both in abundance, and as we talked, I stopped observing Alice as a beautiful woman (I must confess that far too often that was the main way I saw her), and as she began quizzing me, I had to reaffirm the degree of her logic and her intellect:

Why did Mr. Strafer threaten you?

I think it was because we didn’t involve him in our plans to marry or share the fact that we did marry.

She turned her head in a quizzical fashion, crossed her legs, and leaned toward me: I have two questions, she began, sipping her wine: "and under the circumstances, I don’t care if they are personal.

Why did you choose to marry so quickly and so secretly? And why would you not at least let Mr. Strafer know what you were doing?

I got up from the table, dumped my half-finished glass of wine in the sink and poured myself a little water, giving me time to consider her questions.

There were many reasons for our subterfuge: for one, Chelsie admitted that she had missed her last two periods. Although we had been careful, we both understood that marriage was our ultimate goal, so an unexpected pregnancy was no big deal — it meant that we would immediately marry.

The problem was that Elmer did not have faith in me, had not, since I started dating Chelsea. It was always the same refrain: I will never trust a man who doesn’t have to work for a living.

My success in his eyes was my biggest liability. As illogical as it was to me, he would have been very content with a son-in-law who worked with him cleaning out the jail cells or as a sheriff’s deputy, pulling over speedsters or drunks. My success, which he did not try to understand, made me an unsuitable candidate for his daughter’s hand in marriage.

To his mind, I had many negatives in addition to not having a weekly paycheck: such as not driving a fat-ass pickup truck, not carrying a concealed weapon, not enjoying sitting around with him at the end of a work day consuming four or five beers, and too often expressing my lack of interest in the Jalopy Race, a once-a-week Speedway event.

I was a failure without a discernible avenue toward success, as Elmer Strafer defined it.

Alice was still waiting, rather impatiently, I might add, for answers to her questions, so I returned to the kitchen table and begin:

There were reasons for the hasty marriage, and I know that Chelsea has discussed a few of these things with you already. The irony is that she found out the day after we married that she was not pregnant. No sex for me for a while, I joked.

"But what bothered her more than anything: she was a Daddy pleaser, and she knew that the thing that would hurt him the most was marrying me. Chelsea had explained a number of times and in different ways why she kept dodging my totally logical reason for committing to each other and consummating our love with marriage vows.

She would often say, If my dad is similar to his dad, he’ll live another 30 years, and unfortunately for all of us, he will hate you every day of his life. I can’t make his old age and our marriage that miserable.

The pizza, which Alice had taken out of the oven after reheating it, sat untouched. And the music, lowered to a background level, was the single sound in the room as she considered what I had reviewed.

Is Chelsea still on vacation?

No, she should have reported for work last Monday. I called them and she hasn’t.

Alice continued, Then, talk to the sheriff about filing a missing-person report.

I shook my head, Elmer and Jake are best friends, and Jake Wilson will always side with Elmer.

Then go to the Kentucky State Police Headquarters in Strington and file your report, Alice countered, with no little exasperation.

TWO

B y the time I left, it was after 11 p.m. The brisk October breeze was kicking up the fallen maple leaves outside Alice’s apartment, and my light sweater was ineffective against the evening chill. But I had a plan.

And what better time than right now to visit the Kentucky State Police’s station. It was on my way home, and at this time of night, it should not be busy. No good reason to wait any longer.

Their headquarters was one of the few brightly lighted building on the block, and as I pulled into a parking space next to an idling cruiser, I began rehearsing what I was going to say, but as I exited my truck, the window on the driver side of the squad car rolled down:

You’re the man I’ve been trying to find, a familiar voice announced. And as this shadowy figure left his car, I immediately extended my hand to him:

Jack. How the hell are you, I began.

He bypassed my attempt at a handshake and roughly embraced me.

It’s so typical in today’s world that location, location, location controls most of our friendships. Jack and I were best friends in high school, but I graduated a year before he did and a couple months later left for college. The next summer, we did play for the county baseball team, but he soon signed up for a police-training program, eventually becoming a state trooper. His dad was Jake Wilson, the longtime Boone County sheriff. Law enforcement must flow in their blood.

Still a trooper, I began.

Hell yeah. My dad was right. Greatest career in the world, he exclaimed with much enthusiasm as he pointed to the bars on his jacket. Don’t know if you still read the county paper, but I recently got promoted to Lieutenant.

Damn, congratulations. We have a lot of catching up to do, old friend. Are you off duty now? Let’s go get a drink and talk.

Ah, under the circumstances, that would be kind of awkward, Jack replied, with a degree of hesitancy.

What do you mean?

Right now, I’ve got a couple men searching for you.

I remembered Jack as a real jokester.

Sure, right. I laughed. Who did I murder?

Seriously, Jesse, we need to talk. Let’s go inside. I’ll have the sergeant on duty call off the search.

I followed him up the stairs, through the outer office, past the sergeant on duty, and down the hall to his new office. And while on this long walk, I kept trying to access the logic to all of this. It still could be one of his silly high school type jokes, but I wondered.

After we had settled in, and he pulled up a few papers from a file on his desk, he began:

You’ve made quite a name for yourself over the last few years. Who would have thought you had such an inventive streak in you, he marveled.

Yeah, Jack, part hard work, part luck — but you, a lieutenant in the State Highway Police Department. I’d say we both have made our old high school proud. I paused here for a second, But let’s cut to the chase: why is anyone in law enforcement trying to find me?

Jack took a slow drink from his coffee and pulled out an obvious recording device from his desk drawer.

I need to make this visit official now. I hope you understand. I’m going to be recording our conversation.

I stood abruptly, thinking I needed to get the hell out of his office and find a good attorney. I had no idea why I needed to find a good attorney, but I felt it was appropriate under the circumstances.

Jack pushed a button on his desk, and I heard the door lock behind me click.

I returned to my chair and at the same time protested, What the hell is going on? Do I need a lawyer? This accidental meeting with you is getting a little bizarre What the hell are you doing, wanting to record our conversation?

It reminded me in a strange way of when I was a freshman in high school. Jack’s dad, Jake, was at that time a deputy sheriff. I was riding my bike from Willman to Strington late one evening, headed for the local theater with the idea of watching an old classic movie, The Wizard of Oz. Suddenly Jake’s squad-car lights started blinking behind me. I pulled my bike off the road and stopped, and so did he. I was scared. Was I breaking the law? Was I not supposed to ride a bike on this highway — I was sure I was guilty — but of what?

I’ve been trying to find you, he began, sounding similar to Jack’s opening line to me tonight.

Hi, Mister Wilson. Am I doing anything wrong?

He laughed. No, no. I wanted to ask you a favor.

Sure, I replied with considerable relief.

You and Jack are friends, right?

Best friends. I answered.

He tells me you made straight A’s in that eighth grade history class you were both in last year, and he failed it. As you know, he is having to repeat grade 8. Could you tutor him a couple nights a week? Explain to him what he has to do to pass Mrs. Kelly’s class. Would you come over to our house tomorrow for dinner and then help Jack? He has to get a passing grade if he’s going to play in any sport.

I remembered being very relieved. Sure, Mr. Wilson, sure. What time?

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Jack’s history book was the same one that we had used the year before. So, that evening, after a great meal with the Wilson family, we settled down in his room. I asked him what chapter he was supposed to read for the next day.

World War Two Begins.

Have you read that one yet?

No, I hate history.

Okay, take your time now and read it. I’ll be doing my own homework in the meantime. But as soon as you’ve finished, we’ll go over it.

After about 15 minutes of fingering his way line by line through the text, Jack indicated that he was ready.

Okay, good. Now, what do you think was the most important thing you learned in that section?

World War II started, he shrugged.

This situation with my best friend was very awkward. It was obvious that he saw me wearing a teacher’s hat while he felt that he was wearing a dunce’s cap.

What was the exact date for the start of World War II? I’m sure Mrs. Kelly will ask that question. At least she did last year.

I’m not good with dates," Jack alibied.

Look at page 17, I suggested.

He started to reach for his history book.

I took the book from his hand: No, I explained, Close your eyes and read page 17.

Huh? He blurted out. Are you making fun of me?

No, I assured him, handing him back his history book. Open it to Page 17.

He did.

I shut my eyes and began reading paragraph three on that page. I finished and observed Jack. He was staring at me as though I were crazy.

Did you memorize that paragraph to make me feel dumb?

In the ensuing weeks, I talked to other friends about how they studied. I had never done that before, and I recognized that my being able to recall everything I had ever read was unique.

No one else had this strange ability.

To save myself from being considered weird, I eventually confessed to Jack that I had memorized that paragraph.

As I realized that none in my circle of friends or even acquaintances had the ability to remember in the detail that I did, I began researching, trying to find people with similar characteristics as mine. The word I most often came across which, in a few ways, reflected my condition is hyperthymesia. Today, there are 100 people in the world diagnosed with it. Most of them, according to their psychologist or psychiatrist, admit it was more of a burden than a blessing. The problems they described dealt with remembering emotions as much as remembering facts. And in both cases, there was no governor to regulate or control them.

I began studying this phenomenon and developed a dread of having a future saddled with such an excess of what I thought of as swamp information, none of which could be monitored or regulated. YouTube’s video called People Who Remember Every Second of Their Life, I found very informative.

Over the years and through a great effort, I have been able to keep the emotional part of my past locked away, accessed