Algorithm - Book 1 - The Medallion

Chapter 4

I have to call the police. Someone came for a visit and took the body away. Maybe it was a killer trying to cover his tracks, and I stepped into the middle of it.

But when he got to the kitchen, it occurred to him that getting the police involved could engender more questions than answers, especially since now that the body was gone.

How would I prove I saw it in the first place? 

The police might consider him Looney Toons, or even worse, a suspect in the mysterious disappearance of a beloved old doctor. He wandered back into the bedroom, trying to calm himself down and gather his thoughts. That's when things went from pretty bad to clearly worse.

The walls were bare. Minutes before, hundreds of clippings covered all four. Now, there was nothing but faded wallpaper. A feeling of nausea once again flared up. After craning his head outside the bedroom door to make sure he was in the right room, Adam reached out to touch the wall, looking for some verification of what his eyes were telling him and what his mind refused to believe. His fingers felt nothing but the vague undulations of the wall and the velvet-like texture of its covering. Someone must have removed everything from the walls, and done that apparently in the time it took for him to go out to the garage and back. It seemed nearly impossible for someone to sneak in and abscond with everything so quickly.

Was it the same person who removed Wujciak's body?  Was there an accomplice? And why remove the clippings? 

Adam thought about looking for the office phone and calling the police, when all at once a Technicolor image of the 'See Old Flora' scrawl loomed in his mind.

The doctor had written it there for a purpose.

Wuijcak was referring to his pet name for the fluoroscope—a  little secret shared years ago with a young friend and his curious lump of coal. Looking up through the bedroom doorway, Adam saw the quivering fluorescence at the far end of the hallway. He ran down the corridor, and, much to his relief, found that the office was as he had left it. Old Flora stood in the corner, unassuming and quiescent. A glance around the rest of the office confirmed that nothing obvious had changed. He also spotted a phone, an old black Bakelite model, sitting at the corner of the desk. First, he would examine the fluoroscope,and then he would call the police.

A thick layer of dust covered everything in the office, including Old Flora. He brushed off some of it, especially around the name plate. According to the faded metal tag on its side, this was a Westinghouse Mobile Fluoroscope Unit manufactured in 1951. The doctor's office unit essentially evolved from the early models which originally designed for shoe stores—a popular  technological wonder designed to aid in fitting shoes before the dangers of x-ray exposure were truly recognized. This mobile unit consisted of two components, a high-voltage cathode tube to emit the x-rays and a phosphor-coated glass screen designed to light up when hit by them. The patient stood between the two as the doctor moved the screen, or washboard, to get a view. The early models had a chronic problem with image intensity, a problem which was eventually overcome with more sensitive fluors and the introduction of photoimaging technology. This instrument was a transitional one, and still required the use of red-lensed goggles to help see the image. It was a museum relic.