A Vision of Murder (3 page)

“You sure of that?” he
asked, munching on his donut and taking a sip of coffee. I noticed he refused
to look at the pictures as well. Maybe they bothered him,
too.
Or
maybe
, I thought morbidly,
it
was something he chose to peruse over heavier meals.

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“Any idea
as to why?”

I paused, staring down at
her face again.
So young… so
unlucky.

“I feel… she was surprised.
She seemed to trust the killer. She didn’t expect it.”

“That’s what we’re
thinking.” Detective Dunn nodded.

“She didn’t struggle. I
don’t think she had time… or maybe she was just so
shocked.” I could still see the look in her eyes.

“Can you tell us anything
about the killer?”

“I only saw the victim.” I
shrugged. “That’s how it works.”

“Well, then, Miss Psychic,”
he said mockingly, “tell me
this. What good are
you to us then?”  I was sorry these detectives were on the case. I had
worked with much better; people who actually believed in what I did. “If you
hadn’t noticed, we didn’t have much trouble finding out who the victim was. We
need the killer!” He pounded his fist on the tabletop,
narrowly
missing his breakfast.

“If you don’t want me to
help, then that’s fine. I have other things I can do. Do this on your own.” I
stood up swiftly. “Do you think I like looking at these pictures?  I
don’t.”

Detective Dunn stood to face
me, patting the air with both hands in a soothing motion. “We do want your
help. We can’t find any motive. She was just a young girl….” He paused,
considering that he had gone too far.

I shook my head, impatient.
“I’ll need more than this. Items, visiting the scene,
and even then, sometimes I can’t tell you everything you want to know.” I
raised my hands in defeat. “I don’t know what to tell you.”

“You’re doing fine. Just
have a seat.” He gestured to the chair, but I remained standing.

“I’m
sorry,
I can’t do any more of this today.” I refused to look at the half-closed eyes
again, the face that stared up from the picture, frozen in death.
“I’m just not feeling well.” I clutched my stomach
with one hand and put my other hand to my head. The room seemed to be spinning.
All I wanted was my quiet room at home and my bed.
Just make it home,
I
told myself.

Detective Dunn shot a dirty
look at Simms, who had the grace to stare sheepishly at his coffee for a moment
before regaining his arrogant air. The room spun and blackened as I clutched at
the door frame. Suddenly, Dunn grabbed my arm, holding me up. I felt like the
victim trying to clutch at the killer as he helped me outside, encouraging me
along the way.

“Will you come back
tomorrow? We’ll just keep taking it day by day if we have to,” he assured me.

I nodded in response,
refusing to meet his eyes.

“We need all the help we can
get. Every day, every hour that passes, it’s more likely that we won’t find the
killer.”

“I’ll have some answers for
you tomorrow,” I promised rashly. His dark blue eyes seemed to dazzle me. He
sat with me on the stairs as the dizziness passed. “I did….” I began. He looked
up expectantly at me. “I did hear her say, ‘Why’?”

“That’s all? Just why?” he
asked, his
voice faintly disappointed. I nodded in
response and stood. He handed me his card and urged me to call him as soon as I
saw anything else. I told him I would and that I was feeling better and left
for home.

But
the
truth was that I saw her face as I walked by the library. Her eyes stared up at
me as I passed the
diner,
and as I finished my errands
and started home. I saw those rivers of blood streaming away from the dark
puddle that pooled around her. It reminded me strangely of the stain on
Detective Dunn’s
shoe, leaving
a sick feeling
in my stomach.

“Death
has become a friend”

Time seemed to
pass in a blur. I was so busy getting ready for the next day that I couldn’t concentrate
on anything else. It was hard to believe that it had only been two days since I
had received that first call from the police
.

I continued going over
everything in my head until my tired brain couldn’t think anymore. It was
important to get some
sleep, so
I forced
myself to nap that afternoon. I got up just as the sun was going down and
cooked myself some supper.

The seat I chose faced the
house next door. The little old lady was on her
porch,
surveying
the backyards of her neighbors from her perch, appearing to be
an old queen dominating over her subjects.
Subjects that had
long ago rejected her
.
Her white puff of hair seemed to glow above her head
in the light of the bare bulb above her.

I sensed many times that she
was staring at me, but every time I checked, her head was held defiantly and
stiffly forward. I dreaded the thought of her sitting there all evening, spying
on me. More stress, more problems, right when it was necessary that I focus the
most. It was the last thing I needed.

I jumped as a knock rang out
on the front door. I thought I saw Mrs. Dodd jump lightly as well.  I
stood quickly and went to answer the door, flipping on the lights as I did so.
I hadn’t even noticed the dark creep up on me this time.

Mrs. Robinson stood at my
door, twisting
her hands nervously. The screen door
seemed to shield her from me as she started to
speak.
“I just….
I know you’re working on a case again and I just want to
apologize for my mother.”

I crossed my arms and leaned
against the door frame.
“It’s okay. She’s old.”
I shrugged. “Sometimes old people get set in their ways. I can see how she
might look on psychic abilities as… something otherworldly.”

“That’s what confuses me.
She was such a fan of yours when you
first moved in.”
Her bottom lip wobbled slightly. “If you
could have heard her go on and
on about your
cases….” I wouldn’t
say that she
was lying, but it was hard to believe that the old woman had changed her mind
about me so quickly.

Mrs.
Robinson
was still
speaking. “She
thought
how you returned those missing children to their parents… she
thought
that was just wonderful.”  I
couldn’t help but smile slightly.

 
“Why
are you telling me all this?”
I interrupted Mrs. Robinson.

“I… I tried to make her come
apologize, but she refused. I wanted to tell you she’s not a bad person. I know
it may seem like that to you, but she… she’s had a hard life. Yes, she’s
judgmental.” Mrs. Robinson laughed lightly. “She always has been. I just… I
like you, dear. I don’t want her to hurt your feelings. Or run you off.” Her
eyes were anxious.

I smiled. “She’s not going
to run me off. Perhaps I’ll end up winning her over.
In the
end.”

Mrs. Robinson nodded happily
and turned to
go, waving
goodbye. She bid me
good night and I said the same, but I knew it would not be a peaceful night for
me. I knew if I concentrated hard it
would all
come together. It always did. I had a lot of work to do.

I woke with a gasp from a
troubled sleep, a new face appearing in my mind, the mouth open in a scream. I
stumbled through the
kitchen, the card
clutched
in my sweaty palm. My hand was shaking as I reached for the phone. I had to
hang up and start over a couple of times as my fingers missed the numbers.
Finally, finally, the phone rang. A sleepy voice picked up the line,
“Hello?”

“Detective
Dunn?”
 
My
voice was shaking, fear overwhelming me.

“Miss Walker?” His
sounded alert now.

“I saw another face!”

“You saw the killer?” he
asked, wide awake now.

“No….”

“Then what….”

“I saw another
victim.”

“Okay.” His voice changed
and I could sense the sudden urgency coming across the line as if he was
standing in front of me. “We need to go over this first thing. Be ready as soon
as possible and I’ll pick you up. If that’s alright?” he hurried to add.

I agreed. Hanging up,
I dressed as quickly as I
could, throwing my hair
up
in a loose bun
and sliding on one of my nicer dresses. I choked down some breakfast as I
waited by the door for Detective Dunn to pick me up.

In the pale light of the
breaking dawn, the
earth seemed strangely quiet.
Not a soul was in sight. All the houses were dim and dark. As I waited, a few
lights appeared in windows. I imagined neighbors groggily rising to face the
day.
Dressing, eating, talking.
Activities
that the victim would never do again.
Tears filled my eyes suddenly.
Confused, I brushed them away.

A movement in the corner of
my eye caught my attention. A gnome-like face, twisted in some sort of grimace,
stared back at me from the corner of a window. I met her eyes boldly, venturing
to smile slightly, but she scowled back at me. Mrs. Dodd.

Suspicion and paranoia
filled my mind. I wondered why she was up at this early and why she had been
watching me.
Did she
always
spy on me so?
I was about to start
over to her house to confront her when Detective Dunn’s car pulled quickly in
front of my house.

The inside of the car was
clean as a whistle. A cheery, peppermint smell seemed to permeate the air. He
nodded a welcome to me. I noticed his eyes still looked sleepy and felt a
momentary regret for waking him so early. I started to speak, but he stopped
me.

“Simms is meeting us at the
station. I told him I would wait until he was there to go over this. It’ll just
be a few minutes.”

“I was going to say… I’m
sorry.”

He raised his eyebrows in
surprise.
“For what?”

“If it wasn’t for me, you
wouldn’t have been woken up so early.”

“If it wasn’t for you, we
wouldn’t know there might be another victim.”

Might be
, I thought. The words stuck
out to me. I had thought that I had an ally with Dunn, but it was obvious now
that he was going to need proof. I knew that I could provide them with that
proof, but it wasn’t going to be pleasant. I thought, not for the first time,
how had I ever ended up doing this for a living. Why I ever started….
I huddled down in my thin coat. Dejectedly, I stared
out the window at the passing houses as we neared the station.

The morning air was cold. I
stretched my coat around myself tightly and hurried up the stairs after Dunn. I
had expected the weather to be warmer, like the day before, but a storm
appeared to be moving in, dropping the temperature.

The station was only
slightly warmer than outside. Thunder growled ominously in the distance. We
found Simms at his desk leaning wearily over paperwork with his hands covering
his eyes. I stood apart from them, unsure of what to do.

“So, I guess we have another
victim?” He cleared his throat and straightened up, shuffling the papers on his
desk.

“Yes.”

“Just what
we need.”
To my surprise, he smiled wearily at Dunn. “It doesn’t rain, but it pours.”

I found it unusual that Dunn
seemed to be more skeptical than Simms until Simms spoke again. “I’ve wondered
if this might be the case.”

“You didn’t mention it,”
Dunn said, an angry expression stealing over his face for a moment.

“I guess… I didn’t want it
to be so. I didn’t want there to be more victims. But… it just seems so odd. In
the back of my mind, I guess I’ve been waiting on another victim to pop up. I
just hope-”

“What?”

“I hope this is it. Or that
we can stop it somehow.”

I nodded in agreement, but a
foreboding feeling was filling my chest, as dark and gloomy as the storm on the
horizon.

The room was more depressing
than usual with
the sunlight blocked. It felt as
if the three of us were the only people left in the world, although I knew that
other people were just outside the door. Simms settled into his chair, pen in
hand.

“What did you see?”

“A girl… but it was… she was
skeletal sometimes and herself at others. It was dim.
Fading.
I can’t describe her very well.”

“Try.”

“Dark
hair, late teens, early twenties.
She seemed to be happy, trusting.” 
Her
laughing expression filled my mind, a wide smile stretching across her face.
She turned back, parting branches and lifting one leg to climb over a log. And
then….

“
She was walking through
woods… and then she fell forward.”

“Someone hit her from
behind.”

I only nodded in reply,
biting my lip to fight back the emotions that threatened to overwhelm me.

“Then… several more times
while she was on the ground.”
Her green and black plaid shirt was partially
covered by her dark hair, one arm thrown up ahead of her, a bracelet sparkling
on her wrist.

“She was wearing a green and
black plaid shirt. I think I saw a bracelet.”

“Anything
else?”

The vision faded away, leaving
her lying on the ground.

I shook my head. “I don’t
see anything else.”

“A body in woods, that
shouldn’t be too hard to find.” Simms said dryly. I
bit my lip again. The area surrounding the small town was covered in woods and
underbrush. A state park surrounded at least a third of the area.

“Are you sure she’s even
around here?  Just because the first victim is here doesn’t mean the
second one is.”

“Let me try again.”  I
paused and pictured her in the woods again, going in reverse.
The ground was
wet. She struggled in the mud, slipping to the side and grabbed the bark of a
nearby tree to keep from falling. The sky behind her was dark and gloomy,
threatening to spill rain again.
I stopped and took a deep breath before
closing my eyes and falling back into the image again.

Two lights shown in the
distance, dim in the failing light. A car was approaching on a lonely dirt
road. The flashlight clicked off in response, shrouding the two of them in
darkness. A nearby street sign shook back and forth crazily in the wind.
“Bea….” The thunder rumbled overhead, growling angrily. The girl laughed
nervously, ducking into the woods, out of sight.

My whole body was shaking. I
raised my eyes to meet those of the detectives. One stared back sympathetically
and the other searchingly. I swallowed hard. “I saw part of… a street sign.”
Thunder crashed overhead
now,
the lights flickering
in response. Both detectives jumped involuntarily.
Fear clutched at me. The lights seemed to have a mind of their own, lighting
the room starkly, then thrusting it into dimness.

I involuntarily crouched
lower in my
seat, afraid
that I had brought
this down on us. Perhaps there was something else at work here, something
unhappy, something dark. Something I had invited in. I felt my eyes widen and
the words froze in my throat.

“What was the street name?”
Detective Simms pressed me. I stared back
at him,
almost
ducking again as the lights flickered and thunder shook the room
again.

Just like that
night….
I could almost hear the girl whisper the words to me. I forced
myself to continue, there was no going back now. “It was like this, storming
like this. Just like that night-”

“The street sign… what did
it say?” Simms pen was poised over his
paper, his
face
anxiously peering at mine.

I could barely drag my eyes
from the shadows in the corner. They seemed to twist malevolently and take form
before my eyes. Simms tapped the desk
impatiently,
drawing
my attention back. When I looked at the corner again the shadows
were normal.

“It began B-E-A. A car was
coming in the distance. And there was a flashlight.” The words spilled out of
me, rushing
out before I realized it.

They nodded at each other.
Dunn was star
ing at me, a look of concern on his
face.

“Anything
else?”

I shook my
head,
I
couldn’t give them
anything else now.

“Wait.” Dunn
said suddenly. “You
said
it was a storm like this one?”

“Yes,” I said wearily, my
eyes still wavering over towards the corner despite the clear light flooding
the room. Lightning flashed outside.

“Do you ever see the future?
Could it be this storm?” Simms
asked, leaning
forward.