Algorithm - Book 1 - The Medallion

Chapter 4

Adam pulled at the garage door handle and it rolled up with a screech. In moments, he was at the car door, and what he saw through the rolled down window broke his heart. Dr. Wujciak sat at the wheel, looking straight ahead, dressed in T-shirt and shorts, as if ready to start out on a routine trip to the local supermarket. His face and arms were a subtle shade of gray. The head lay back against the headrest, as if he was taking a moment to relax.

The one person I could trust is dead. I've got to call the police.

As Adam gradually recovered from the shock, he once again began thinking about the curious collection of events of the past twenty-four hours and decided to take a look around before making any calls. From where he stood, he saw a key in the ignition. He reached in, careful not to disturb anything. A slight but unsettling odor of decay wafted through his nostrils. Nausea and a headache began to queue up. Fighting to keep his stomach under control, he turned the key but found that it was already in the ON position, meaning that Dr. Wujciak had started the car before dying. And turning it produced a frail click. Adam noticed the gas tank needle was on empty and the silent starter confirmed the battery was dead. These observations were not alarming in themselves, however, looking up at the garage door assembly, Adam noted there was no automatic door opener. He frowned as he realized that the doctor had to be running the car with the garage doors closed. The facts could be consistent with a sudden death, as from a cardiac event. But it would mean that Wujciak rolled the door down, started the car and died before he could pull the door back up.

That made no sense at all.

He looked at Wujciak's face again. There was something doll-like about the pose, just sitting there, eyes closed, head back. Adam moved in for a closer look. The lips were red. The face was gray. Adam's limited knowledge of poisons was sufficient enough to suspect carbon monoxide which might leave its victims with blood red lips. Wujciak's red finger tips confirmed the diagnosis. The image of this old man sitting alone in his car leapt up at Adam as he played back the events.

The garage door was closed. The engine was running. Wujciak breathed in the monoxide fumes until he was gently swept away from this reality. He breathed in the fumes. This was not a sudden, unexpected death.

Adam pulled out his cell phone. It was dead. It was almost always dead, especially since he had the irritating habit of forgetting to recharge the phone. He walked out of the garage, leaving its door up, and walked briskly to the back of the house. Surprisingly, the back door opened with a gentle push.

"Anyone home?"

 After waiting a moment to be sure that he was alone, he entered the breakfast nook adjacent to the kitchen. The dim afternoon light, coupled with the realization that he was in the house of a dead man, made the interior feel extra gloomy. Judging by the piles of unwashed dishes in the small stainless steel sink, Wujciak apparently lived alone. Adam jumped as the refrigerator wheezed and coughed through another pointless cooling cycle. After finding the light switch, he scanned the counters and walls but could not find phone. Wandering over to an adjoining bedroom, Adam stood at the doorway soaking in the scene laid out before him. He stepped inside and turned on a bedside lamp to get a better look at what appeared to be a curious wallpaper pattern. It was not wallpaper which caught his attention, but what was on the wall, all four walls—a collection of newspaper clippings, charts, computer printouts and photos, pasted and tacked to almost every available square inch. There were black and white, and color photos, scattered about in what seemed a random order, depicting various odd looking artifacts, as if taken from archeological digs. Pictures of gold and silver jewelry, coins, metal and stone ware, and assorted carvings of uncertain subject matter were mounted side-by-side and atop each other. An assortment of newspaper clippings and notes surrounded each with information about its point of origin, when discovered and by whom. As Adam scanned the unfolding panorama, he noticed that many photos also had associated post-it notes with hand-written scrawlings of numbers, some with question marks. In the center of one wall hung a photocopied clipping describing Mrs. Culp and her mystifying find in a lump of coal.