Time's Up

by Robb T.

Preface

Cleveland, Ohio cops investigate a missing man reporterd by his wife. Because of erratic behavior, he has been ordered by his company to see a therapist. The therapist, however, is the very last person he wants to see. A being who has traveled light years to escape his own planet is tracked to an insignificant planet in a backwater solar system and now his time is up.

To: Lt. J. Roby, Chief of Detectives

From: Det. Robin Hanna, Missing Persons

Subject: PRELIMINARY REPORT RE OFFICER SUICIDE

Sept 7, 2022

FOR YOUR EYES ONLY

Sir: You requested this report pending an investigation related to the officer suicide on July 29th 2022 following his investigation into a Missing Persons case from June 2022. My instructions were to review the case file and reports of Det. Elias (“Ely”) J. POTTER, lead investigator, of an unattended death related to his Missing Persons case of JAMES POLUGA. Det. POTTER claimed he had encountered in the course of his own investigation certain “unusual” facts and circumstances that led him to believe there was a connection between the poisoning death of a woman in the offices of a local psychologist whom his subject, JAMES POLUGA, had been seeking treatment just prior to his disappearance. Officer POTTER’s suicide and the death of Ms. EUNICE CONNELLY prompted this investigation with an instruction by you to seek out and identify evidence of “a common denominator” to warrant further investigation. My assignment was to gather any evidentiary material related to the causes of that officer’s suicide in the event that circumstances would require a fuller investigation. My specific instruction was to keep my investigation and all records, addenda, and conversations to be marked as PERSONAL and CONFIDENTIAL to Chief of Detectives JOHN ROBY. I hereby submit this preliminary report to you.

Signed, R. Hanna, Det., Missing Persons

SUMMARY

No further investigation is warranted despite certain “unusual” circumstances pertaining to the missing persons case of JAMES POLUGA and the suicide of Officer ELIAS POTTER, investigating officer assigned to the missing persons case. Those circumstances are detailed below in several addenda to this summary statement.

Background Information

Det. POTTER acknowledged dispatch’s call in his normal rotation and reported for duty on July 19th in the muster room. In the days prior to his suicide, his behavior was deemed normal by colleagues, his wife of 16 years, his neighbors, and supervising officer.

POTTER concluded his investigation into the missing persons case of JAMES POLUGA, resident at 16654 Verbena of Lyndhurst, Ohio, by noting, and I quote, “No circumstance involving the case of the missing person, JAMES POLUGA, lead me to believe this case should evolve into a homicide investigation at this time.” As for Officer POTTER’s unfortunate suicide, and as you well know, the extraordinarily high incidence of police-officer suicides nationwide is an acknowledged and regrettable tragedy, a fact of our profession.

It must be noted, however, that fellow officers in the muster room and detectives’ bullpen heard Det. POTTER on several occasions after the submission of his report on July 15 openly express contempt for the idea that “two missing persons [meaning: a patient and his psychologist], and a receptionist poisoned all at the same time was a coincidence that even Dickens wouldn’t buy.” (He did not clarify who DICKENS was. Archives of Cleveland P.D. reveal a “beat cop” named ARTHUR DICKENS from the 1930 to 1938, but this remains an unexplained reference.)

The following evidentiary items collected in the Missing Persons case are located in the basement of the police locker of the Cleveland Division of Police located in the Public Safety Building on 1300 Ontario Street, Cleveland, Ohio. (The 5 addenda items are ordered chronologically for your convenience.)

ADDENDUM 1

Missing Person Report Form Z-F-1/20-126. Subject: JAMES POLUGA. Logged into evidence by Det. ELIAS POTTER, Cleveland Police Department, 07/06/2021.

Det. POTTER entered offices of CHARLES BRADLEY, M.D., Psy.D., Terminal Tower, Suite 556, Cleveland, Ohio, at 4:45 p.m., 06/25/21, for a welfare check on the subject JAMES POLUGA. The check was initiated by dispatch from a call logged into CPD 06/03/21, stating, “JAMES POLUGA had been acting and talking erratically at work in the weeks prior, was overheard to make comments by colleagues they deemed “paranoid.” (He told his wife and several neighbors: “They’re tracking me . . .” and “I can feel them, they’re close.”) Subject POLUGA also made specific verbal references to having his “atoms scattered.”) Although Mister POLUGA did not identify what he meant by “they,” nor how “they” intended to harm him, it was deemed by his wife and colleagues POLUGA was experiencing a severe mental breakdown with psychosis. He told his wife he had to go “before they hunted him down,” and other, similar comments she deemed “bizarre.” As a potential danger to himself and others, she called Cleveland P.D. for assistance and a family lawyer who advised filing an affidavit for an involuntary hold on her husband.

Subsequent to a meeting had with his supervisor, ALAN SAWICKI, Senior VP, and Chief Information Officer, JAMES POLUGA was ordered to take a two-week leave of absence without pay and to consult with a mental health counselor before reinstatement. If he refused, he would be terminated. He was also informed that his wife would invoke Chapter 5122 of the Ohio Revised Code to have him confined under its emergency hospitalization statute. POLUGA agreed to seek mental help, which led to his scheduled appointment with Dr. BRADLEY in the Terminal Tower.

Corroboration of POLUGA’s declining mental state also confirmed by [name redacted per HIPAA Privacy Law].

Following a call to the residence of POLUGA by EUNICE CONNELLY of HR, and getting no response, a call to Cleveland P.D. for a welfare check was approved by President and CEO PAT THOMAS of Spring Leaf Insurance, 44061 East Ninth St., this city. When Det. POTTER entered the offices of Dr. BRADLEY on 06/14/21, 11:05 a.m., no one was present. Signs of recent occupancy existed and were photographed; however, no obvious disturbances were noted by the officer.

ADDENDUM 2

Fragment of recording located in receptionist EUNICE CONNELLY’s office :

POLUGA: . . . shrinks put patients on couches.

BRADLEY: That’s TV, Mister Poluga. But if you’d feel more comfortable—

POLUGA: No, no. This chair is fine and dandy. Real comfy.

BRADLEY: Why don’t we start with why you’re here, Mister Poluga?

POLUGA: Jim. I go by Jim. Well, my wife thought it’d be a good idea. She says I wake up screaming. Apparently I spooked some people at work when I was describing my . . . dreams. Rusty Boomhower—his desk is near mine—ratted on me [nervous laughter] to headquarters, so I’m guessing, and the result is—well, here I am and there you are.

BRADLEY: ‘Ich bin hier, da bist du.’

POLUGA: Huh?

BRADLEY: German, Mister Poluga. A simple World War Two ditty sung in Germany by mothers to their children. ‘Here I am, there you are.’

POLUGA: I see. I think.

BRADLEY: Your accent is unusual. Were you born here in Ohio?

POLUGA: Yes—no!

BRADLEY: Which is it, James?

POLUGA: Jim. Please call me Jim. I was born in Illinois. Cicero, I believe.

BRADLEY: You . . . believe?

POLUGA: Yes. I was born out of wedlock. A bastard as people used to say in the olden days.

BRADLEY: Bastard.

POLUGA: I don’t like that word. I mean, yes, technically speaking, I am a bastard. Lots of people are in real life, though [nervous laughter].

BRADLEY: Bastards. Indeed. Some by virtue of their natal appearance in the world. Some by character, as the term applies. Which are you, Jim? And spare me the Cicero, Illinois [word is unintelligible here].

POLUGA: I’m not sure where this is going, Doctor. I thought I was here to talk about my dreams, not my accent or where I was born.

BRADLEY: Why don’t we discuss your dreams then? Tell me why they frighten you?

POLUGA: Bad things happen in them.

BRADLEY: Things?

POLUGA: I mean, like the last one. This big hairy Sasquatch freak’s chasing me.

BRADLEY: That sounds like TV, some Twilight Zone re-run haunting your imagination.

POLUGA: Exactly what my wife says! No, no, Doc. I don’t watch crap like that. Not even as a kid. Space monsters, aliens invading us. What B.S, right?

BRADLEY: It says here you’re in the insurance business.

POLUGA: Yup. Seven wonderful years. Spring Leaf’s a rising company—well, I guess you wouldn’t care about that. I know what you’re thinking. Dealing with disasters—car accidents, floods, tornadoes—you think my imagination took over. But it’s not that! I’m talking about [makes a loud sound] annihilation.

BRADLEY: Annihilation? That’s an interesting choice of word, James—Jim. Does this freaky man chasing you catch you in your dreams? Is that what you mean by annihilation?

POLUGA: No. Not at all. That’s just the fear—

BRADLEY: The fear?

POLUGA: The fear of being . . . hunted.

BRADLEY: You grimaced just now, Jim. What’s wrong?

POLUGA: I heard something.

BRADLEY: You heard [long pause] something?

POLUGA: Something in your voice, Doc. See, you live here long enough, you know, you get sensitive to the way people talk—how they talk, I mean. Some sounds can only come from—home.

BRADLEY: Yes . . . home.

POLUGA: You haven’t been here long, have you? I mean, here, this town, the Midwest.

BRADLEY: [2 minutes’ speech unintelligible] . . . Then you know why we’re both here, don’t you? James Po-lu-ga. Silly monkey names. Insurance salesman. I believe the word drollery applies here. That is amusing, as the monkeys say here.

POLUGA: I don’t understand what you’re saying.

BRADLEY: Oh, I think you do. Time’s up.

[Garbled sounds, unintelligible speech patterns with “squeaks” and “hisses” accompanied by unusual tonal shifts, some beyond the range of human audibility. See NOTE below.]

NOTE: Forensic anthropology Assoc. Prof. WILIAM R. RUNYAN, Dept. of Linguistics and Semiotics, Cleveland State U.: “Definitely a non-English language. Closest relative would be the ‘phoneme ’ clicks of tongue against palate as practiced by Kalahari desert tribes of Botswana. Also, he noted, the reversion to Midwestern speech retained a specific subset of Northern American English. Runyan noted this is spoken only by natives in an arc or crescent-shaped area below Lake Erie extending fifty miles south to Youngstown and stretching upward to Toledo. In sum, no one native to Cicero, Illinois would possess a Northern accent nor would acquiring one be an easy or “unconscious” feat.]

BRADLEY: [Dr. Runyan noted: “The Boston accent is a façade, a near-perfect imitation of Bostonian fricatives and sibilants”]. . . . discovered here . . . know exactly what that means, don’t you? [Several indistinct words here, accompanied by shrill squeaks and hisses] ‘disarticulation’ or ‘dismemberment’ [approximate word inferences by Det. POTTER] . . . “penalty” . . . “fleeing justice.”

POLUGA: . . . fifty years [broken segment] last time! I’ll be antiparticulated [another inference by investigating detectives] . . . this time!

BRADLEY: Not my problem [unintelligible 'syntax suggests a name here,’ according to Prof. RUNYAN].

BRADLEY: No, not that—

[High-pitched frequency sound burst returns, duration: 5 seconds. Measured in excess of 150 dB, 1,000 Hz. Forensic note from an audio engineer: Above 140 dB “painful damage to the human ear.” Origin of sound unknown.]

[The following transcription too corrupted for departmental forensics but partially restored by the FBI lab. Marked NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION OUTSIDE FBI and filed for storage in the Bureau’s FOIA Library, as per Special Agent B. NIEDERMEYER’S memorandum, dated 12/27/21. Det. A.J. BREEDLOVE of Internal Affairs entered both the original tape from POTTER’s investigation and the examined portions you ordered sent to the FBI lab for analysis in November of 2021.]

POLUGA: [unintelligible speech for 2 minutes]

BRADLEY: . . . hiding out . . . monkey planet . . . hundred years from interstellar travel. Not very original.

[FBI Lab forensics notes: “Corruption of tape possibly related to unidentifiable sound bursts.”]

HANNA postscript to tape analysis: “POTTER heard none of these “cleaned-up” portions nor was he privy to RUNYAN’s professional linguistic analysis when he concluded his report.”

ADDENDUM 3

Special Agent B. NIEDERMEYER’S notation: “No fingerprints or DNA other than the cleaning staff and receptionist rendering CODIS and AFIS databases moot. No records of birth, schools attended or diplomas received by any doctorate-granting university in New England for “CHARLES BRADLEY.” No records prior to 04/03/2019. Furthermore, no authentication to date in birth records from the State of Illinois for JAMES POLUGA.

Summary: The subject of the welfare check, using the pseudonym JAMES POLUGA, entered the offices of a psychiatrist for therapy “at wife’s suggestion,” according to notation by receptionist.

[No record of JAMES or JIM POLUGA verified in public records of Illinois, Ohio, Indiana.]

ADDENDUM 4

Det. POTTER’s report: Dr. BRADLEY’s receptionist EUNICE CONNELLY was found conscious at home, a foamy substance issuing from her mouth. She remained uncommunicative as EMT paramedics attempted to revive her. She was removed by ambulance to University Hospitals, St. Clair Av. and pronounced DOA, same date. [See autopsy report. Dr. RITA LOCKE, attending pathologist. Her death is undetermined. Toxicology report states “inconclusive” cause of death, “by poisoning from undetermined element.” Her file remains open. Signed by Lt. GUS MAGNUSSON, Major Crimes, C.P.D.]

ADDENDUM 5

A handwritten notation paperclipped to the last page of Det. POTTER’s last file entry: “No further action pending on the JAMES POLUGA Missing Persons case.”

Below that is a torn xerox of an email with a missing heading, no date: “All file requests to be forwarded to J. LEWIS ORREY, 9th District AG Office for Northern Ohio, by order of Department of Justice, The Hon. MITCHELL B. CARRUTHERS, U.S. Attorney General, Washington, D.C.”

This concludes my investigation, sir.

[Date and signature of Det. R. Hanna follows.]

Final Note by J. LEWIS ORREY on the detective’s preliminary report: “The final report by Det. Potter, submitted a month later, is secured under a provision of the Patriot Act of the Homeland Security Act, US Code 19987.23, article C, subsection 11.” The handwritten notation on Hanna’s preliminary report is “probably” Chief Roby’s and stipulates Det. Hanna put in for early retirement on September 2, 2022. Hanna’s last known location was Coral Gables, Florida.

ADDENDUM TO POTTER REPORT [author unsigned]:

No further action.

ADDENDUM TO HANNA REPORT

Enquiries by official or unofficial persons into this report, its ancillary files, or FOIA filings of the Potter incident report are to be forwarded to the Office of the Ninth District Attorney General for Northern Ohio ASAP.

Unattached to any report or file was a newspaper clipping from the Fort-Myers The News-Press, dated 10/17/22: “A body was found floating off a pier near the barrier islands of Gasparilla and Sanibel two days ago was identified as Robin Hanna, formerly of Cleveland, Ohio. Hanna lived in a trailer park in Ft. Myers. A cause of death has not been determined at this time but police are unwilling to comment pending the full autopsy report. Police have not ruled out foul play but are unwilling to say whether the death was an accidental drowning. A spokesperson for the Ft. Myers P.D. stated: ‘Mister Hanna did not own a boat, told neighbors he never spent time near the beach because he was afraid of the water, and was rarely seen outside his trailer home.’ Police are still investigating.”

-END-

To: Lt. J. Roby, Chief of Detectives

From: Det. Robin Hanna, Missing Persons

Subject: PRELIMINARY REPORT RE OFFICER SUICIDE

Sept 7, 2022

FOR YOUR EYES ONLY

Sir: You requested this report pending an investigation related to the officer suicide on July 29th 2022 following his investigation into a Missing Persons case from June 2022. My instructions were to review the case file and reports of Det. Elias (“Ely”) J. POTTER, lead investigator, of an unattended death related to his Missing Persons case of JAMES POLUGA. Det. POTTER claimed he had encountered in the course of his own investigation certain “unusual” facts and circumstances that led him to believe there was a connection between the poisoning death of a woman in the offices of a local psychologist whom his subject, JAMES POLUGA, had been seeking treatment just prior to his disappearance. Officer POTTER’s suicide and the death of Ms. EUNICE CONNELLY prompted this investigation with an instruction by you to seek out and identify evidence of “a common denominator” to warrant further investigation. My assignment was to gather any evidentiary material related to the causes of that officer’s suicide in the event that circumstances would require a fuller investigation. My specific instruction was to keep my investigation and all records, addenda, and conversations to be marked as PERSONAL and CONFIDENTIAL to Chief of Detectives JOHN ROBY. I hereby submit this preliminary report to you.

Signed, R. Hanna, Det., Missing Persons

SUMMARY

No further investigation is warranted despite certain “unusual” circumstances pertaining to the missing persons case of JAMES POLUGA and the suicide of Officer ELIAS POTTER, investigating officer assigned to the missing persons case. Those circumstances are detailed below in several addenda to this summary statement.

Background Information

Det. POTTER acknowledged dispatch’s call in his normal rotation and reported for duty on July 19th in the muster room. In the days prior to his suicide, his behavior was deemed normal by colleagues, his wife of 16 years, his neighbors, and supervising officer.

POTTER concluded his investigation into the missing persons case of JAMES POLUGA, resident at 16654 Verbena of Lyndhurst, Ohio, by noting, and I quote, “No circumstance involving the case of the missing person, JAMES POLUGA, lead me to believe this case should evolve into a homicide investigation at this time.” As for Officer POTTER’s unfortunate suicide, and as you well know, the extraordinarily high incidence of police-officer suicides nationwide is an acknowledged and regrettable tragedy, a fact of our profession.

It must be noted, however, that fellow officers in the muster room and detectives’ bullpen heard Det. POTTER on several occasions after the submission of his report on July 15 openly express contempt for the idea that “two missing persons [meaning: a patient and his psychologist], and a receptionist poisoned all at the same time was a coincidence that even Dickens wouldn’t buy.” (He did not clarify who DICKENS was. Archives of Cleveland P.D. reveal a “beat cop” named ARTHUR DICKENS from the 1930 to 1938, but this remains an unexplained reference.)

The following evidentiary items collected in the Missing Persons case are located in the basement of the police locker of the Cleveland Division of Police located in the Public Safety Building on 1300 Ontario Street, Cleveland, Ohio. (The 5 addenda items are ordered chronologically for your convenience.)

ADDENDUM 1

Missing Person Report Form Z-F-1/20-126. Subject: JAMES POLUGA. Logged into evidence by Det. ELIAS POTTER, Cleveland Police Department, 07/06/2021.

Det. POTTER entered offices of CHARLES BRADLEY, M.D., Psy.D., Terminal Tower, Suite 556, Cleveland, Ohio, at 4:45 p.m., 06/25/21, for a welfare check on the subject JAMES POLUGA. The check was initiated by dispatch from a call logged into CPD 06/03/21, stating, “JAMES POLUGA had been acting and talking erratically at work in the weeks prior, was overheard to make comments by colleagues they deemed “paranoid.” (He told his wife and several neighbors: “They’re tracking me . . .” and “I can feel them, they’re close.”) Subject POLUGA also made specific verbal references to having his “atoms scattered.”) Although Mister POLUGA did not identify what he meant by “they,” nor how “they” intended to harm him, it was deemed by his wife and colleagues POLUGA was experiencing a severe mental breakdown with psychosis. He told his wife he had to go “before they hunted him down,” and other, similar comments she deemed “bizarre.” As a potential danger to himself and others, she called Cleveland P.D. for assistance and a family lawyer who advised filing an affidavit for an involuntary hold on her husband.

Subsequent to a meeting had with his supervisor, ALAN SAWICKI, Senior VP, and Chief Information Officer, JAMES POLUGA was ordered to take a two-week leave of absence without pay and to consult with a mental health counselor before reinstatement. If he refused, he would be terminated. He was also informed that his wife would invoke Chapter 5122 of the Ohio Revised Code to have him confined under its emergency hospitalization statute. POLUGA agreed to seek mental help, which led to his scheduled appointment with Dr. BRADLEY in the Terminal Tower.

Corroboration of POLUGA’s declining mental state also confirmed by [name redacted per HIPAA Privacy Law].

Following a call to the residence of POLUGA by EUNICE CONNELLY of HR, and getting no response, a call to Cleveland P.D. for a welfare check was approved by President and CEO PAT THOMAS of Spring Leaf Insurance, 44061 East Ninth St., this city. When Det. POTTER entered the offices of Dr. BRADLEY on 06/14/21, 11:05 a.m., no one was present. Signs of recent occupancy existed and were photographed; however, no obvious disturbances were noted by the officer.

ADDENDUM 2

Fragment of recording located in receptionist EUNICE CONNELLY’s office :

POLUGA: . . . shrinks put patients on couches.

BRADLEY: That’s TV, Mister Poluga. But if you’d feel more comfortable—

POLUGA: No, no. This chair is fine and dandy. Real comfy.

BRADLEY: Why don’t we start with why you’re here, Mister Poluga?

POLUGA: Jim. I go by Jim. Well, my wife thought it’d be a good idea. She says I wake up screaming. Apparently I spooked some people at work when I was describing my . . . dreams. Rusty Boomhower—his desk is near mine—ratted on me [nervous laughter] to headquarters, so I’m guessing, and the result is—well, here I am and there you are.

BRADLEY: ‘Ich bin hier, da bist du.’

POLUGA: Huh?

BRADLEY: German, Mister Poluga. A simple World War Two ditty sung in Germany by mothers to their children. ‘Here I am, there you are.’

POLUGA: I see. I think.

BRADLEY: Your accent is unusual. Were you born here in Ohio?

POLUGA: Yes—no!

BRADLEY: Which is it, James?

POLUGA: Jim. Please call me Jim. I was born in Illinois. Cicero, I believe.

BRADLEY: You . . . believe?

POLUGA: Yes. I was born out of wedlock. A bastard as people used to say in the olden days.

BRADLEY: Bastard.

POLUGA: I don’t like that word. I mean, yes, technically speaking, I am a bastard. Lots of people are in real life, though [nervous laughter].

BRADLEY: Bastards. Indeed. Some by virtue of their natal appearance in the world. Some by character, as the term applies. Which are you, Jim? And spare me the Cicero, Illinois [word is unintelligible here].

POLUGA: I’m not sure where this is going, Doctor. I thought I was here to talk about my dreams, not my accent or where I was born.

BRADLEY: Why don’t we discuss your dreams then? Tell me why they frighten you?

POLUGA: Bad things happen in them.

BRADLEY: Things?

POLUGA: I mean, like the last one. This big hairy Sasquatch freak’s chasing me.

BRADLEY: That sounds like TV, some Twilight Zone re-run haunting your imagination.

POLUGA: Exactly what my wife says! No, no, Doc. I don’t watch crap like that. Not even as a kid. Space monsters, aliens invading us. What B.S, right?

BRADLEY: It says here you’re in the insurance business.

POLUGA: Yup. Seven wonderful years. Spring Leaf’s a rising company—well, I guess you wouldn’t care about that. I know what you’re thinking. Dealing with disasters—car accidents, floods, tornadoes—you think my imagination took over. But it’s not that! I’m talking about [makes a loud sound] annihilation.

BRADLEY: Annihilation? That’s an interesting choice of word, James—Jim. Does this freaky man chasing you catch you in your dreams? Is that what you mean by annihilation?

POLUGA: No. Not at all. That’s just the fear—

BRADLEY: The fear?

POLUGA: The fear of being . . . hunted.

BRADLEY: You grimaced just now, Jim. What’s wrong?

POLUGA: I heard something.

BRADLEY: You heard [long pause] something?

POLUGA: Something in your voice, Doc. See, you live here long enough, you know, you get sensitive to the way people talk—how they talk, I mean. Some sounds can only come from—home.

BRADLEY: Yes . . . home.

POLUGA: You haven’t been here long, have you? I mean, here, this town, the Midwest.

BRADLEY: [2 minutes’ speech unintelligible] . . . Then you know why we’re both here, don’t you? James Po-lu-ga. Silly monkey names. Insurance salesman. I believe the word drollery applies here. That is amusing, as the monkeys say here.

POLUGA: I don’t understand what you’re saying.

BRADLEY: Oh, I think you do. Time’s up.

[Garbled sounds, unintelligible speech patterns with “squeaks” and “hisses” accompanied by unusual tonal shifts, some beyond the range of human audibility. See NOTE below.]

NOTE: Forensic anthropology Assoc. Prof. WILIAM R. RUNYAN, Dept. of Linguistics and Semiotics, Cleveland State U.: “Definitely a non-English language. Closest relative would be the ‘phoneme ’ clicks of tongue against palate as practiced by Kalahari desert tribes of Botswana. Also, he noted, the reversion to Midwestern speech retained a specific subset of Northern American English. Runyan noted this is spoken only by natives in an arc or crescent-shaped area below Lake Erie extending fifty miles south to Youngstown and stretching upward to Toledo. In sum, no one native to Cicero, Illinois would possess a Northern accent nor would acquiring one be an easy or “unconscious” feat.]

BRADLEY: [Dr. Runyan noted: “The Boston accent is a façade, a near-perfect imitation of Bostonian fricatives and sibilants”]. . . . discovered here . . . know exactly what that means, don’t you? [Several indistinct words here, accompanied by shrill squeaks and hisses] ‘disarticulation’ or ‘dismemberment’ [approximate word inferences by Det. POTTER] . . . “penalty” . . . “fleeing justice.”

POLUGA: . . . fifty years [broken segment] last time! I’ll be antiparticulated [another inference by investigating detectives] . . . this time!

BRADLEY: Not my problem [unintelligible 'syntax suggests a name here,’ according to Prof. RUNYAN].

BRADLEY: No, not that—

[High-pitched frequency sound burst returns, duration: 5 seconds. Measured in excess of 150 dB, 1,000 Hz. Forensic note from an audio engineer: Above 140 dB “painful damage to the human ear.” Origin of sound unknown.]

[The following transcription too corrupted for departmental forensics but partially restored by the FBI lab. Marked NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION OUTSIDE FBI and filed for storage in the Bureau’s FOIA Library, as per Special Agent B. NIEDERMEYER’S memorandum, dated 12/27/21. Det. A.J. BREEDLOVE of Internal Affairs entered both the original tape from POTTER’s investigation and the examined portions you ordered sent to the FBI lab for analysis in November of 2021.]

POLUGA: [unintelligible speech for 2 minutes]

BRADLEY: . . . hiding out . . . monkey planet . . . hundred years from interstellar travel. Not very original.

[FBI Lab forensics notes: “Corruption of tape possibly related to unidentifiable sound bursts.”]

HANNA postscript to tape analysis: “POTTER heard none of these “cleaned-up” portions nor was he privy to RUNYAN’s professional linguistic analysis when he concluded his report.”

ADDENDUM 3

Special Agent B. NIEDERMEYER’S notation: “No fingerprints or DNA other than the cleaning staff and receptionist rendering CODIS and AFIS databases moot. No records of birth, schools attended or diplomas received by any doctorate-granting university in New England for “CHARLES BRADLEY.” No records prior to 04/03/2019. Furthermore, no authentication to date in birth records from the State of Illinois for JAMES POLUGA.

Summary: The subject of the welfare check, using the pseudonym JAMES POLUGA, entered the offices of a psychiatrist for therapy “at wife’s suggestion,” according to notation by receptionist.

[No record of JAMES or JIM POLUGA verified in public records of Illinois, Ohio, Indiana.]

ADDENDUM 4

Det. POTTER’s report: Dr. BRADLEY’s receptionist EUNICE CONNELLY was found conscious at home, a foamy substance issuing from her mouth. She remained uncommunicative as EMT paramedics attempted to revive her. She was removed by ambulance to University Hospitals, St. Clair Av. and pronounced DOA, same date. [See autopsy report. Dr. RITA LOCKE, attending pathologist. Her death is undetermined. Toxicology report states “inconclusive” cause of death, “by poisoning from undetermined element.” Her file remains open. Signed by Lt. GUS MAGNUSSON, Major Crimes, C.P.D.]

ADDENDUM 5

A handwritten notation paperclipped to the last page of Det. POTTER’s last file entry: “No further action pending on the JAMES POLUGA Missing Persons case.”

Below that is a torn xerox of an email with a missing heading, no date: “All file requests to be forwarded to J. LEWIS ORREY, 9th District AG Office for Northern Ohio, by order of Department of Justice, The Hon. MITCHELL B. CARRUTHERS, U.S. Attorney General, Washington, D.C.”

This concludes my investigation, sir.

[Date and signature of Det. R. Hanna follows.]

Final Note by J. LEWIS ORREY on the detective’s preliminary report: “The final report by Det. Potter, submitted a month later, is secured under a provision of the Patriot Act of the Homeland Security Act, US Code 19987.23, article C, subsection 11.” The handwritten notation on Hanna’s preliminary report is “probably” Chief Roby’s and stipulates Det. Hanna put in for early retirement on September 2, 2022. Hanna’s last known location was Coral Gables, Florida.

ADDENDUM TO POTTER REPORT [author unsigned]:

No further action.

ADDENDUM TO HANNA REPORT

Enquiries by official or unofficial persons into this report, its ancillary files, or FOIA filings of the Potter incident report are to be forwarded to the Office of the Ninth District Attorney General for Northern Ohio ASAP.

Unattached to any report or file was a newspaper clipping from the Fort-Myers The News-Press, dated 10/17/22: “A body was found floating off a pier near the barrier islands of Gasparilla and Sanibel two days ago was identified as Robin Hanna, formerly of Cleveland, Ohio. Hanna lived in a trailer park in Ft. Myers. A cause of death has not been determined at this time but police are unwilling to comment pending the full autopsy report. Police have not ruled out foul play but are unwilling to say whether the death was an accidental drowning. A spokesperson for the Ft. Myers P.D. stated: ‘Mister Hanna did not own a boat, told neighbors he never spent time near the beach because he was afraid of the water, and was rarely seen outside his trailer home.’ Police are still investigating.”

-END-

To: Lt. J. Roby, Chief of Detectives

From: Det. Robin Hanna, Missing Persons

Subject: PRELIMINARY REPORT RE OFFICER SUICIDE

Sept 7, 2022

FOR YOUR EYES ONLY

Sir: You requested this report pending an investigation related to the officer suicide on July 29th 2022 following his investigation into a Missing Persons case from June 2022. My instructions were to review the case file and reports of Det. Elias (“Ely”) J. POTTER, lead investigator, of an unattended death related to his Missing Persons case of JAMES POLUGA. Det. POTTER claimed he had encountered in the course of his own investigation certain “unusual” facts and circumstances that led him to believe there was a connection between the poisoning death of a woman in the offices of a local psychologist whom his subject, JAMES POLUGA, had been seeking treatment just prior to his disappearance. Officer POTTER’s suicide and the death of Ms. EUNICE CONNELLY prompted this investigation with an instruction by you to seek out and identify evidence of “a common denominator” to warrant further investigation. My assignment was to gather any evidentiary material related to the causes of that officer’s suicide in the event that circumstances would require a fuller investigation. My specific instruction was to keep my investigation and all records, addenda, and conversations to be marked as PERSONAL and CONFIDENTIAL to Chief of Detectives JOHN ROBY. I hereby submit this preliminary report to you.

Signed, R. Hanna, Det., Missing Persons

SUMMARY

No further investigation is warranted despite certain “unusual” circumstances pertaining to the missing persons case of JAMES POLUGA and the suicide of Officer ELIAS POTTER, investigating officer assigned to the missing persons case. Those circumstances are detailed below in several addenda to this summary statement.

Background Information

Det. POTTER acknowledged dispatch’s call in his normal rotation and reported for duty on July 19th in the muster room. In the days prior to his suicide, his behavior was deemed normal by colleagues, his wife of 16 years, his neighbors, and supervising officer.

POTTER concluded his investigation into the missing persons case of JAMES POLUGA, resident at 16654 Verbena of Lyndhurst, Ohio, by noting, and I quote, “No circumstance involving the case of the missing person, JAMES POLUGA, lead me to believe this case should evolve into a homicide investigation at this time.” As for Officer POTTER’s unfortunate suicide, and as you well know, the extraordinarily high incidence of police-officer suicides nationwide is an acknowledged and regrettable tragedy, a fact of our profession.

It must be noted, however, that fellow officers in the muster room and detectives’ bullpen heard Det. POTTER on several occasions after the submission of his report on July 15 openly express contempt for the idea that “two missing persons [meaning: a patient and his psychologist], and a receptionist poisoned all at the same time was a coincidence that even Dickens wouldn’t buy.” (He did not clarify who DICKENS was. Archives of Cleveland P.D. reveal a “beat cop” named ARTHUR DICKENS from the 1930 to 1938, but this remains an unexplained reference.)

The following evidentiary items collected in the Missing Persons case are located in the basement of the police locker of the Cleveland Division of Police located in the Public Safety Building on 1300 Ontario Street, Cleveland, Ohio. (The 5 addenda items are ordered chronologically for your convenience.)

ADDENDUM 1

Missing Person Report Form Z-F-1/20-126. Subject: JAMES POLUGA. Logged into evidence by Det. ELIAS POTTER, Cleveland Police Department, 07/06/2021.

Det. POTTER entered offices of CHARLES BRADLEY, M.D., Psy.D., Terminal Tower, Suite 556, Cleveland, Ohio, at 4:45 p.m., 06/25/21, for a welfare check on the subject JAMES POLUGA. The check was initiated by dispatch from a call logged into CPD 06/03/21, stating, “JAMES POLUGA had been acting and talking erratically at work in the weeks prior, was overheard to make comments by colleagues they deemed “paranoid.” (He told his wife and several neighbors: “They’re tracking me . . .” and “I can feel them, they’re close.”) Subject POLUGA also made specific verbal references to having his “atoms scattered.”) Although Mister POLUGA did not identify what he meant by “they,” nor how “they” intended to harm him, it was deemed by his wife and colleagues POLUGA was experiencing a severe mental breakdown with psychosis. He told his wife he had to go “before they hunted him down,” and other, similar comments she deemed “bizarre.” As a potential danger to himself and others, she called Cleveland P.D. for assistance and a family lawyer who advised filing an affidavit for an involuntary hold on her husband.

Subsequent to a meeting had with his supervisor, ALAN SAWICKI, Senior VP, and Chief Information Officer, JAMES POLUGA was ordered to take a two-week leave of absence without pay and to consult with a mental health counselor before reinstatement. If he refused, he would be terminated. He was also informed that his wife would invoke Chapter 5122 of the Ohio Revised Code to have him confined under its emergency hospitalization statute. POLUGA agreed to seek mental help, which led to his scheduled appointment with Dr. BRADLEY in the Terminal Tower.

Corroboration of POLUGA’s declining mental state also confirmed by [name redacted per HIPAA Privacy Law].

Following a call to the residence of POLUGA by EUNICE CONNELLY of HR, and getting no response, a call to Cleveland P.D. for a welfare check was approved by President and CEO PAT THOMAS of Spring Leaf Insurance, 44061 East Ninth St., this city. When Det. POTTER entered the offices of Dr. BRADLEY on 06/14/21, 11:05 a.m., no one was present. Signs of recent occupancy existed and were photographed; however, no obvious disturbances were noted by the officer.

ADDENDUM 2

Fragment of recording located in receptionist EUNICE CONNELLY’s office :

POLUGA: . . . shrinks put patients on couches.

BRADLEY: That’s TV, Mister Poluga. But if you’d feel more comfortable—

POLUGA: No, no. This chair is fine and dandy. Real comfy.

BRADLEY: Why don’t we start with why you’re here, Mister Poluga?

POLUGA: Jim. I go by Jim. Well, my wife thought it’d be a good idea. She says I wake up screaming. Apparently I spooked some people at work when I was describing my . . . dreams. Rusty Boomhower—his desk is near mine—ratted on me [nervous laughter] to headquarters, so I’m guessing, and the result is—well, here I am and there you are.

BRADLEY: ‘Ich bin hier, da bist du.’

POLUGA: Huh?

BRADLEY: German, Mister Poluga. A simple World War Two ditty sung in Germany by mothers to their children. ‘Here I am, there you are.’

POLUGA: I see. I think.

BRADLEY: Your accent is unusual. Were you born here in Ohio?

POLUGA: Yes—no!

BRADLEY: Which is it, James?

POLUGA: Jim. Please call me Jim. I was born in Illinois. Cicero, I believe.

BRADLEY: You . . . believe?

POLUGA: Yes. I was born out of wedlock. A bastard as people used to say in the olden days.

BRADLEY: Bastard.

POLUGA: I don’t like that word. I mean, yes, technically speaking, I am a bastard. Lots of people are in real life, though [nervous laughter].

BRADLEY: Bastards. Indeed. Some by virtue of their natal appearance in the world. Some by character, as the term applies. Which are you, Jim? And spare me the Cicero, Illinois [word is unintelligible here].

POLUGA: I’m not sure where this is going, Doctor. I thought I was here to talk about my dreams, not my accent or where I was born.

BRADLEY: Why don’t we discuss your dreams then? Tell me why they frighten you?

POLUGA: Bad things happen in them.

BRADLEY: Things?

POLUGA: I mean, like the last one. This big hairy Sasquatch freak’s chasing me.

BRADLEY: That sounds like TV, some Twilight Zone re-run haunting your imagination.

POLUGA: Exactly what my wife says! No, no, Doc. I don’t watch crap like that. Not even as a kid. Space monsters, aliens invading us. What B.S, right?

BRADLEY: It says here you’re in the insurance business.

POLUGA: Yup. Seven wonderful years. Spring Leaf’s a rising company—well, I guess you wouldn’t care about that. I know what you’re thinking. Dealing with disasters—car accidents, floods, tornadoes—you think my imagination took over. But it’s not that! I’m talking about [makes a loud sound] annihilation.

BRADLEY: Annihilation? That’s an interesting choice of word, James—Jim. Does this freaky man chasing you catch you in your dreams? Is that what you mean by annihilation?

POLUGA: No. Not at all. That’s just the fear—

BRADLEY: The fear?

POLUGA: The fear of being . . . hunted.

BRADLEY: You grimaced just now, Jim. What’s wrong?

POLUGA: I heard something.

BRADLEY: You heard [long pause] something?

POLUGA: Something in your voice, Doc. See, you live here long enough, you know, you get sensitive to the way people talk—how they talk, I mean. Some sounds can only come from—home.

BRADLEY: Yes . . . home.

POLUGA: You haven’t been here long, have you? I mean, here, this town, the Midwest.

BRADLEY: [2 minutes’ speech unintelligible] . . . Then you know why we’re both here, don’t you? James Po-lu-ga. Silly monkey names. Insurance salesman. I believe the word drollery applies here. That is amusing, as the monkeys say here.

POLUGA: I don’t understand what you’re saying.

BRADLEY: Oh, I think you do. Time’s up.

[Garbled sounds, unintelligible speech patterns with “squeaks” and “hisses” accompanied by unusual tonal shifts, some beyond the range of human audibility. See NOTE below.]

NOTE: Forensic anthropology Assoc. Prof. WILIAM R. RUNYAN, Dept. of Linguistics and Semiotics, Cleveland State U.: “Definitely a non-English language. Closest relative would be the ‘phoneme ’ clicks of tongue against palate as practiced by Kalahari desert tribes of Botswana. Also, he noted, the reversion to Midwestern speech retained a specific subset of Northern American English. Runyan noted this is spoken only by natives in an arc or crescent-shaped area below Lake Erie extending fifty miles south to Youngstown and stretching upward to Toledo. In sum, no one native to Cicero, Illinois would possess a Northern accent nor would acquiring one be an easy or “unconscious” feat.]

BRADLEY: [Dr. Runyan noted: “The Boston accent is a façade, a near-perfect imitation of Bostonian fricatives and sibilants”]. . . . discovered here . . . know exactly what that means, don’t you? [Several indistinct words here, accompanied by shrill squeaks and hisses] ‘disarticulation’ or ‘dismemberment’ [approximate word inferences by Det. POTTER] . . . “penalty” . . . “fleeing justice.”

POLUGA: . . . fifty years [broken segment] last time! I’ll be antiparticulated [another inference by investigating detectives] . . . this time!

BRADLEY: Not my problem [unintelligible 'syntax suggests a name here,’ according to Prof. RUNYAN].

BRADLEY: No, not that—

[High-pitched frequency sound burst returns, duration: 5 seconds. Measured in excess of 150 dB, 1,000 Hz. Forensic note from an audio engineer: Above 140 dB “painful damage to the human ear.” Origin of sound unknown.]

[The following transcription too corrupted for departmental forensics but partially restored by the FBI lab. Marked NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION OUTSIDE FBI and filed for storage in the Bureau’s FOIA Library, as per Special Agent B. NIEDERMEYER’S memorandum, dated 12/27/21. Det. A.J. BREEDLOVE of Internal Affairs entered both the original tape from POTTER’s investigation and the examined portions you ordered sent to the FBI lab for analysis in November of 2021.]

POLUGA: [unintelligible speech for 2 minutes]

BRADLEY: . . . hiding out . . . monkey planet . . . hundred years from interstellar travel. Not very original.

[FBI Lab forensics notes: “Corruption of tape possibly related to unidentifiable sound bursts.”]

HANNA postscript to tape analysis: “POTTER heard none of these “cleaned-up” portions nor was he privy to RUNYAN’s professional linguistic analysis when he concluded his report.”

ADDENDUM 3

Special Agent B. NIEDERMEYER’S notation: “No fingerprints or DNA other than the cleaning staff and receptionist rendering CODIS and AFIS databases moot. No records of birth, schools attended or diplomas received by any doctorate-granting university in New England for “CHARLES BRADLEY.” No records prior to 04/03/2019. Furthermore, no authentication to date in birth records from the State of Illinois for JAMES POLUGA.

Summary: The subject of the welfare check, using the pseudonym JAMES POLUGA, entered the offices of a psychiatrist for therapy “at wife’s suggestion,” according to notation by receptionist.

[No record of JAMES or JIM POLUGA verified in public records of Illinois, Ohio, Indiana.]

ADDENDUM 4

Det. POTTER’s report: Dr. BRADLEY’s receptionist EUNICE CONNELLY was found conscious at home, a foamy substance issuing from her mouth. She remained uncommunicative as EMT paramedics attempted to revive her. She was removed by ambulance to University Hospitals, St. Clair Av. and pronounced DOA, same date. [See autopsy report. Dr. RITA LOCKE, attending pathologist. Her death is undetermined. Toxicology report states “inconclusive” cause of death, “by poisoning from undetermined element.” Her file remains open. Signed by Lt. GUS MAGNUSSON, Major Crimes, C.P.D.]

ADDENDUM 5

A handwritten notation paperclipped to the last page of Det. POTTER’s last file entry: “No further action pending on the JAMES POLUGA Missing Persons case.”

Below that is a torn xerox of an email with a missing heading, no date: “All file requests to be forwarded to J. LEWIS ORREY, 9th District AG Office for Northern Ohio, by order of Department of Justice, The Hon. MITCHELL B. CARRUTHERS, U.S. Attorney General, Washington, D.C.”

This concludes my investigation, sir.

[Date and signature of Det. R. Hanna follows.]

Final Note by J. LEWIS ORREY on the detective’s preliminary report: “The final report by Det. Potter, submitted a month later, is secured under a provision of the Patriot Act of the Homeland Security Act, US Code 19987.23, article C, subsection 11.” The handwritten notation on Hanna’s preliminary report is “probably” Chief Roby’s and stipulates Det. Hanna put in for early retirement on September 2, 2022. Hanna’s last known location was Coral Gables, Florida.

ADDENDUM TO POTTER REPORT [author unsigned]:

No further action.

ADDENDUM TO HANNA REPORT

Enquiries by official or unofficial persons into this report, its ancillary files, or FOIA filings of the Potter incident report are to be forwarded to the Office of the Ninth District Attorney General for Northern Ohio ASAP.

Unattached to any report or file was a newspaper clipping from the Fort-Myers The News-Press, dated 10/17/22: “A body was found floating off a pier near the barrier islands of Gasparilla and Sanibel two days ago was identified as Robin Hanna, formerly of Cleveland, Ohio. Hanna lived in a trailer park in Ft. Myers. A cause of death has not been determined at this time but police are unwilling to comment pending the full autopsy report. Police have not ruled out foul play but are unwilling to say whether the death was an accidental drowning. A spokesperson for the Ft. Myers P.D. stated: ‘Mister Hanna did not own a boat, told neighbors he never spent time near the beach because he was afraid of the water, and was rarely seen outside his trailer home.’ Police are still investigating.”

-END-

To: Lt. J. Roby, Chief of Detectives

From: Det. Robin Hanna, Missing Persons

Subject: PRELIMINARY REPORT RE OFFICER SUICIDE

Sept 7, 2022

FOR YOUR EYES ONLY

Sir: You requested this report pending an investigation related to the officer suicide on July 29th 2022 following his investigation into a Missing Persons case from June 2022. My instructions were to review the case file and reports of Det. Elias (“Ely”) J. POTTER, lead investigator, of an unattended death related to his Missing Persons case of JAMES POLUGA. Det. POTTER claimed he had encountered in the course of his own investigation certain “unusual” facts and circumstances that led him to believe there was a connection between the poisoning death of a woman in the offices of a local psychologist whom his subject, JAMES POLUGA, had been seeking treatment just prior to his disappearance. Officer POTTER’s suicide and the death of Ms. EUNICE CONNELLY prompted this investigation with an instruction by you to seek out and identify evidence of “a common denominator” to warrant further investigation. My assignment was to gather any evidentiary material related to the causes of that officer’s suicide in the event that circumstances would require a fuller investigation. My specific instruction was to keep my investigation and all records, addenda, and conversations to be marked as PERSONAL and CONFIDENTIAL to Chief of Detectives JOHN ROBY. I hereby submit this preliminary report to you.

Signed, R. Hanna, Det., Missing Persons

SUMMARY

No further investigation is warranted despite certain “unusual” circumstances pertaining to the missing persons case of JAMES POLUGA and the suicide of Officer ELIAS POTTER, investigating officer assigned to the missing persons case. Those circumstances are detailed below in several addenda to this summary statement.

Background Information

Det. POTTER acknowledged dispatch’s call in his normal rotation and reported for duty on July 19th in the muster room. In the days prior to his suicide, his behavior was deemed normal by colleagues, his wife of 16 years, his neighbors, and supervising officer.

POTTER concluded his investigation into the missing persons case of JAMES POLUGA, resident at 16654 Verbena of Lyndhurst, Ohio, by noting, and I quote, “No circumstance involving the case of the missing person, JAMES POLUGA, lead me to believe this case should evolve into a homicide investigation at this time.” As for Officer POTTER’s unfortunate suicide, and as you well know, the extraordinarily high incidence of police-officer suicides nationwide is an acknowledged and regrettable tragedy, a fact of our profession.

It must be noted, however, that fellow officers in the muster room and detectives’ bullpen heard Det. POTTER on several occasions after the submission of his report on July 15 openly express contempt for the idea that “two missing persons [meaning: a patient and his psychologist], and a receptionist poisoned all at the same time was a coincidence that even Dickens wouldn’t buy.” (He did not clarify who DICKENS was. Archives of Cleveland P.D. reveal a “beat cop” named ARTHUR DICKENS from the 1930 to 1938, but this remains an unexplained reference.)

The following evidentiary items collected in the Missing Persons case are located in the basement of the police locker of the Cleveland Division of Police located in the Public Safety Building on 1300 Ontario Street, Cleveland, Ohio. (The 5 addenda items are ordered chronologically for your convenience.)

ADDENDUM 1

Missing Person Report Form Z-F-1/20-126. Subject: JAMES POLUGA. Logged into evidence by Det. ELIAS POTTER, Cleveland Police Department, 07/06/2021.

Det. POTTER entered offices of CHARLES BRADLEY, M.D., Psy.D., Terminal Tower, Suite 556, Cleveland, Ohio, at 4:45 p.m., 06/25/21, for a welfare check on the subject JAMES POLUGA. The check was initiated by dispatch from a call logged into CPD 06/03/21, stating, “JAMES POLUGA had been acting and talking erratically at work in the weeks prior, was overheard to make comments by colleagues they deemed “paranoid.” (He told his wife and several neighbors: “They’re tracking me . . .” and “I can feel them, they’re close.”) Subject POLUGA also made specific verbal references to having his “atoms scattered.”) Although Mister POLUGA did not identify what he meant by “they,” nor how “they” intended to harm him, it was deemed by his wife and colleagues POLUGA was experiencing a severe mental breakdown with psychosis. He told his wife he had to go “before they hunted him down,” and other, similar comments she deemed “bizarre.” As a potential danger to himself and others, she called Cleveland P.D. for assistance and a family lawyer who advised filing an affidavit for an involuntary hold on her husband.

Subsequent to a meeting had with his supervisor, ALAN SAWICKI, Senior VP, and Chief Information Officer, JAMES POLUGA was ordered to take a two-week leave of absence without pay and to consult with a mental health counselor before reinstatement. If he refused, he would be terminated. He was also informed that his wife would invoke Chapter 5122 of the Ohio Revised Code to have him confined under its emergency hospitalization statute. POLUGA agreed to seek mental help, which led to his scheduled appointment with Dr. BRADLEY in the Terminal Tower.

Corroboration of POLUGA’s declining mental state also confirmed by [name redacted per HIPAA Privacy Law].

Following a call to the residence of POLUGA by EUNICE CONNELLY of HR, and getting no response, a call to Cleveland P.D. for a welfare check was approved by President and CEO PAT THOMAS of Spring Leaf Insurance, 44061 East Ninth St., this city. When Det. POTTER entered the offices of Dr. BRADLEY on 06/14/21, 11:05 a.m., no one was present. Signs of recent occupancy existed and were photographed; however, no obvious disturbances were noted by the officer.

ADDENDUM 2

Fragment of recording located in receptionist EUNICE CONNELLY’s office :

POLUGA: . . . shrinks put patients on couches.

BRADLEY: That’s TV, Mister Poluga. But if you’d feel more comfortable—

POLUGA: No, no. This chair is fine and dandy. Real comfy.

BRADLEY: Why don’t we start with why you’re here, Mister Poluga?

POLUGA: Jim. I go by Jim. Well, my wife thought it’d be a good idea. She says I wake up screaming. Apparently I spooked some people at work when I was describing my . . . dreams. Rusty Boomhower—his desk is near mine—ratted on me [nervous laughter] to headquarters, so I’m guessing, and the result is—well, here I am and there you are.

BRADLEY: ‘Ich bin hier, da bist du.’

POLUGA: Huh?

BRADLEY: German, Mister Poluga. A simple World War Two ditty sung in Germany by mothers to their children. ‘Here I am, there you are.’

POLUGA: I see. I think.

BRADLEY: Your accent is unusual. Were you born here in Ohio?

POLUGA: Yes—no!

BRADLEY: Which is it, James?

POLUGA: Jim. Please call me Jim. I was born in Illinois. Cicero, I believe.

BRADLEY: You . . . believe?

POLUGA: Yes. I was born out of wedlock. A bastard as people used to say in the olden days.

BRADLEY: Bastard.

POLUGA: I don’t like that word. I mean, yes, technically speaking, I am a bastard. Lots of people are in real life, though [nervous laughter].

BRADLEY: Bastards. Indeed. Some by virtue of their natal appearance in the world. Some by character, as the term applies. Which are you, Jim? And spare me the Cicero, Illinois [word is unintelligible here].

POLUGA: I’m not sure where this is going, Doctor. I thought I was here to talk about my dreams, not my accent or where I was born.

BRADLEY: Why don’t we discuss your dreams then? Tell me why they frighten you?

POLUGA: Bad things happen in them.

BRADLEY: Things?

POLUGA: I mean, like the last one. This big hairy Sasquatch freak’s chasing me.

BRADLEY: That sounds like TV, some Twilight Zone re-run haunting your imagination.

POLUGA: Exactly what my wife says! No, no, Doc. I don’t watch crap like that. Not even as a kid. Space monsters, aliens invading us. What B.S, right?

BRADLEY: It says here you’re in the insurance business.

POLUGA: Yup. Seven wonderful years. Spring Leaf’s a rising company—well, I guess you wouldn’t care about that. I know what you’re thinking. Dealing with disasters—car accidents, floods, tornadoes—you think my imagination took over. But it’s not that! I’m talking about [makes a loud sound] annihilation.

BRADLEY: Annihilation? That’s an interesting choice of word, James—Jim. Does this freaky man chasing you catch you in your dreams? Is that what you mean by annihilation?

POLUGA: No. Not at all. That’s just the fear—

BRADLEY: The fear?

POLUGA: The fear of being . . . hunted.

BRADLEY: You grimaced just now, Jim. What’s wrong?

POLUGA: I heard something.

BRADLEY: You heard [long pause] something?

POLUGA: Something in your voice, Doc. See, you live here long enough, you know, you get sensitive to the way people talk—how they talk, I mean. Some sounds can only come from—home.

BRADLEY: Yes . . . home.

POLUGA: You haven’t been here long, have you? I mean, here, this town, the Midwest.

BRADLEY: [2 minutes’ speech unintelligible] . . . Then you know why we’re both here, don’t you? James Po-lu-ga. Silly monkey names. Insurance salesman. I believe the word drollery applies here. That is amusing, as the monkeys say here.

POLUGA: I don’t understand what you’re saying.

BRADLEY: Oh, I think you do. Time’s up.

[Garbled sounds, unintelligible speech patterns with “squeaks” and “hisses” accompanied by unusual tonal shifts, some beyond the range of human audibility. See NOTE below.]

NOTE: Forensic anthropology Assoc. Prof. WILIAM R. RUNYAN, Dept. of Linguistics and Semiotics, Cleveland State U.: “Definitely a non-English language. Closest relative would be the ‘phoneme ’ clicks of tongue against palate as practiced by Kalahari desert tribes of Botswana. Also, he noted, the reversion to Midwestern speech retained a specific subset of Northern American English. Runyan noted this is spoken only by natives in an arc or crescent-shaped area below Lake Erie extending fifty miles south to Youngstown and stretching upward to Toledo. In sum, no one native to Cicero, Illinois would possess a Northern accent nor would acquiring one be an easy or “unconscious” feat.]

BRADLEY: [Dr. Runyan noted: “The Boston accent is a façade, a near-perfect imitation of Bostonian fricatives and sibilants”]. . . . discovered here . . . know exactly what that means, don’t you? [Several indistinct words here, accompanied by shrill squeaks and hisses] ‘disarticulation’ or ‘dismemberment’ [approximate word inferences by Det. POTTER] . . . “penalty” . . . “fleeing justice.”

POLUGA: . . . fifty years [broken segment] last time! I’ll be antiparticulated [another inference by investigating detectives] . . . this time!

BRADLEY: Not my problem [unintelligible 'syntax suggests a name here,’ according to Prof. RUNYAN].

BRADLEY: No, not that—

[High-pitched frequency sound burst returns, duration: 5 seconds. Measured in excess of 150 dB, 1,000 Hz. Forensic note from an audio engineer: Above 140 dB “painful damage to the human ear.” Origin of sound unknown.]

[The following transcription too corrupted for departmental forensics but partially restored by the FBI lab. Marked NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION OUTSIDE FBI and filed for storage in the Bureau’s FOIA Library, as per Special Agent B. NIEDERMEYER’S memorandum, dated 12/27/21. Det. A.J. BREEDLOVE of Internal Affairs entered both the original tape from POTTER’s investigation and the examined portions you ordered sent to the FBI lab for analysis in November of 2021.]

POLUGA: [unintelligible speech for 2 minutes]

BRADLEY: . . . hiding out . . . monkey planet . . . hundred years from interstellar travel. Not very original.

[FBI Lab forensics notes: “Corruption of tape possibly related to unidentifiable sound bursts.”]

HANNA postscript to tape analysis: “POTTER heard none of these “cleaned-up” portions nor was he privy to RUNYAN’s professional linguistic analysis when he concluded his report.”

ADDENDUM 3

Special Agent B. NIEDERMEYER’S notation: “No fingerprints or DNA other than the cleaning staff and receptionist rendering CODIS and AFIS databases moot. No records of birth, schools attended or diplomas received by any doctorate-granting university in New England for “CHARLES BRADLEY.” No records prior to 04/03/2019. Furthermore, no authentication to date in birth records from the State of Illinois for JAMES POLUGA.

Summary: The subject of the welfare check, using the pseudonym JAMES POLUGA, entered the offices of a psychiatrist for therapy “at wife’s suggestion,” according to notation by receptionist.

[No record of JAMES or JIM POLUGA verified in public records of Illinois, Ohio, Indiana.]

ADDENDUM 4

Det. POTTER’s report: Dr. BRADLEY’s receptionist EUNICE CONNELLY was found conscious at home, a foamy substance issuing from her mouth. She remained uncommunicative as EMT paramedics attempted to revive her. She was removed by ambulance to University Hospitals, St. Clair Av. and pronounced DOA, same date. [See autopsy report. Dr. RITA LOCKE, attending pathologist. Her death is undetermined. Toxicology report states “inconclusive” cause of death, “by poisoning from undetermined element.” Her file remains open. Signed by Lt. GUS MAGNUSSON, Major Crimes, C.P.D.]

ADDENDUM 5

A handwritten notation paperclipped to the last page of Det. POTTER’s last file entry: “No further action pending on the JAMES POLUGA Missing Persons case.”

Below that is a torn xerox of an email with a missing heading, no date: “All file requests to be forwarded to J. LEWIS ORREY, 9th District AG Office for Northern Ohio, by order of Department of Justice, The Hon. MITCHELL B. CARRUTHERS, U.S. Attorney General, Washington, D.C.”

This concludes my investigation, sir.

[Date and signature of Det. R. Hanna follows.]

Final Note by J. LEWIS ORREY on the detective’s preliminary report: “The final report by Det. Potter, submitted a month later, is secured under a provision of the Patriot Act of the Homeland Security Act, US Code 19987.23, article C, subsection 11.” The handwritten notation on Hanna’s preliminary report is “probably” Chief Roby’s and stipulates Det. Hanna put in for early retirement on September 2, 2022. Hanna’s last known location was Coral Gables, Florida.

ADDENDUM TO POTTER REPORT [author unsigned]:

No further action.

ADDENDUM TO HANNA REPORT

Enquiries by official or unofficial persons into this report, its ancillary files, or FOIA filings of the Potter incident report are to be forwarded to the Office of the Ninth District Attorney General for Northern Ohio ASAP.

Unattached to any report or file was a newspaper clipping from the Fort-Myers The News-Press, dated 10/17/22: “A body was found floating off a pier near the barrier islands of Gasparilla and Sanibel two days ago was identified as Robin Hanna, formerly of Cleveland, Ohio. Hanna lived in a trailer park in Ft. Myers. A cause of death has not been determined at this time but police are unwilling to comment pending the full autopsy report. Police have not ruled out foul play but are unwilling to say whether the death was an accidental drowning. A spokesperson for the Ft. Myers P.D. stated: ‘Mister Hanna did not own a boat, told neighbors he never spent time near the beach because he was afraid of the water, and was rarely seen outside his trailer home.’ Police are still investigating.”

-END-

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