A Vision of Murder (12 page)

“A
race that must be won”

“When will Simms get back?”
I asked, wrapping my arms around myself. The night air was setting in now that
the sun had completely vanished behind the nearby hills. The road’s uneven
surface stretched before us as we ambled down the road.

“He said the patrol car was
near here,” Dunn said, turning back to check the road again. “He’ll be here
soon.”

I tried to discern Dunn’s
features in the pale light. His voice seemed strange to me now, in the dark. I
felt an intense need to see his eyes, but they remained black pools of shadow
in the dimness.

Jerking my head away, I
searched for reassurance elsewhere. I repeated to myself that I was safe. It
could be worse.
I’m just thankful that we’re out of those woods
, I
thought. I didn’t like the idea of being in there again at night, even if I did
have Dunn with me.

Suddenly, the road lit up
before me. Two shadows stretched out over the ground in the yellow glow like
two outlines of bodies on the cold, hard road. I turned to face the patrol car
with Dunn, one hand going to my squinting eyes against the bright light.

The lights dimmed suddenly.
“Sorry, had the
brights
on,” Simms called through the
window. I followed Dunn around the car and climbed in the back seat.

“It’s farther ahead,” I
said, pointing with one finger before leaning back against the seat. The car
was warmer than outside in the absence of the clammy feeling of dew.

We bumped and rattled our
way down the road at a crawl. It reminded me of the night we were looking for
the girl’s body, the night that we went to the clearing. Only tonight, there
wasn’t a storm to worry about. I felt a thrill of excitement rush through me. I
had never felt like this on a case before. It made me uneasy somehow.

We soon intersected with a
larger road.

 “We’re pretty far from
where the body was,” Simms commented once. “You still feeling like we’re going
in the right direction?”

“I’m sure of it,” I replied.
However, a couple of miles later, I almost missed it.

“Turn here,” I exclaimed
suddenly. Simms braked quickly, sliding on the loose dirt. He turned around in
the seat to back up on the narrow road with Dunn climbing halfway out the
window to guide him back.

They glanced at each other
before starting down the lane.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“What?”

“
That look
.”

“We’ll talk about it later,”
Dunn said.

I nodded in compliance and
glanced out the window again. The lane was short, winding sharply back on
itself. The cabin stood alone in the clearing. A narrow, small building, it was
covered in animal pelts. Large stones made steps up to the wood porch. Two
windows stood on either side of an old red door. In the daylight, it would be
possible to be able to see the old road that butted the farmer’s land. But at
night it had been impossible to see through the trees. Not a light shone at any
window.

“Something’s strange here,”
Simms said, glancing around warily. “I think we would do better to come back
tomorrow.”

“I think we should check it
now. He’s not dangerous,” Dunn replied. His door creaked open slowly.

“Are you sure about that?”
Simms asked, smiling crookedly at Dunn who stared back at him in surprise.

Dunn paused with the door half
open, mouth agape.

“It looks… empty and
desolate,” I commented from the backseat.

Simms looked back and forth
between me and Dunn. “Alright, we’ll check it out, but you….” He pointed at me
through the grid. “Stay put.”

“Don’t worry, I will,” I
said.

I watched the two policemen
walk slowly towards the house, calling out to make anyone there aware of their
presence. The spotlights made by the front lights on the car shone brightly on
their backs as they walked towards the cabin.

I settled back in my seat to
wait. I felt no fear in this place, but I was frustrated. It looked as if the
small cabin stood alone and abandoned in these woods. I had been hoping that
the owner would be there.

The darkness filled the air
in the trees with a certain mystery. I tilted my head back, leaning against the
cool glass of the window. The stars shone overhead, glittering and twinkling in
masses far above the earth.

I watched Dunn approach the
car, squinting against the light. He opened the door for me.

“Is he here?” I asked as I
stumbled out. The night air was damp and cold against my skin.

Dunn shook his head. “Nope,
it looks like he cleared out. I would say that he hasn’t been here for some
time by the looks of things.”

I climbed the stairs to the porch
warily, unsure of the stability. Simms waited just inside.

“Have you found anything?”
Dunn asked. He scanned the small room with his flashlight.

“Why don’t you turn on the
lights?” I whispered, reaching for the light switch.

“Don’t bother,” Simms said.
“It doesn’t work.” My hand dropped to my side.

It was a small two-room
cabin with very little furniture. The half of the house from the door to the
left hand wall was a living room area. From the door over to the right hand
wall was a small kitchen. Behind it was a tiny bedroom. A fireplace stood in
the center of the living room wall.

The living room was crowded.
It contained a small couch with a trunk in front of it.
A
small table with two chairs were
pushed into the corner and a desk stood
by the fireplace. The bedroom consisted of only a cot and an ancient armoire.
Pegs lined the walls.

“Every bit of clothing’s
gone,” Dunn said as he saw me eye the armoire. “He’s left.”

“Whose
‘he’?”
I
asked, walking slowly around the living room. A back door stood opposite of the
front door, but it was of rougher quality. I opened it and peered out. It was a
long drop to the ground below, about two feet.

“Gary Wright. You probably
don’t know him,” Simms replied. He was kneeling on the floor, struggling to
open the trunk.

“I’ve seen him around town,”
I said. “I think Lorene has him work in her garden occasionally as well.” I
watched the trunk pop open and Simms sigh with relief.

“That’s him alright. This
trunk must be old. It’s so heavy.”

Hinges groaned as Simms
lifted the lid, trying to rest it against the couch. My nerves were making me
jumpy. I crossed the room to kneel beside Simms, helping him to balance the
lid.

Two hands gripped the edge
of the trunk, struggling to raise the heavy lid. It gave way and fell back against
the couch.

“The killer touched this
trunk,” I said, running my hands along the top.

“Is there anything in it?”
Dunn asked anxiously, peering inside. The trunk was empty. The cracked grains
of the wood interspersed with large nails.

“Nope,
it’s empty,” Simms said, his voice disappointed.

I ran my fingers along the
bottom.

The lid closed with a thud.
Heavy footsteps echoed on the wood floor before the back door swung open.
Another thud followed as the killer landed outside.

“Outside,” I stated, staring
at Dunn. All three of us hurried across the floor. Simms opened the door
cautiously, peering in a suspicious manner at the trees that surrounded us. The
stars hung thick over the tops of the trees. It looked so calm and serene, but
anyone could be waiting in that darkness.

I pushed past Dunn and
jumped out into the blackness.

Gary Wright watched the
three people search his house from the safety of the trees. It angered him that
they were going through his things. The back door opened suddenly. The two men
stood in the doorway, scanning the woods with their flashlights.

Gary smiled to himself. He
knew they couldn’t see him where he was. He wondered what these people thought
they would find. Leaves scratched his face as he knelt in the bushes, watching
them.

The psychic appeared in the
doorway, jumping out onto the ground below. He had always thought she was
pretty, but he didn’t like her being in house at all.
What right do they
have to come here?
He thought, grimacing with anger,
This
is my private property!

For the past several weeks
he had just been scared, but now he was starting to get angry. He melted back
into the shadows, letting the bushes fall back into place with a rustle as he
backed away. It looked like he was going to have to disappear for a while.

I grabbed the flashlight
from Simms as he knelt and then jumped down beside me. Instead of searching the
forest, as he had been doing, I turned it back towards the house. In most
places, the house stood high above the ground, held up by posts and stones, but
it was built into a hill so that one side of the house was very near to the
ground.

The killer walked by the
house, one hand trailing on the outside wall.

I walked alongside the edge,
one hand trailing on the wall. Dunn and Simms followed closely, asking me
questions, but I couldn’t focus on them. The feeling of evil that had overtaken
us lately was back. It grew around the small cabin, threading and winding
through the trees like poison vines. Simms seemed suddenly more aware of the
sense of evil, but again, Dunn didn’t seem affected.

Kneeling by the corner of
the wall, the killer bent down under the house and shone a light on the
underside of the floor above.

I knelt and half crawled under
the cabin. The ground was filthy and it was hard to resist wiping my soiled
hands on my clothes. I shone the light above me. A narrow, supporting ledge ran
the length of the house, with nails pounded in haphazardly to hold it in place.

The killer placed the small
bag on the ledge, looping the strings around a nail tightly.

I froze with dismay for a
moment, unable to find the bag, but then there it was. My flashlight shone on
it strongly. In my hurry to retrieve it, I caught my fingertips on rusty nails.
I hissed with pain. They were the same fingers that were already torn and
bruised from the thorns earlier.

“What is it?” Dunn asked. He
was peering at me anxiously from where he strove to shine the light on me. “Are
you alright?”

I opened the bag with shaking
hands, spilling the contents into my palm. I tossed the light towards Simms and
then scooted awkwardly out from under the house.

One hand was still clenched
in a tight
fist. I opened it for them to see.

A silver heart on a chain rested
in my palm with one stone sparkling brilliantly in the light.

All the way back to the car
I received quite a lecture from Simms about handling evidence, but it didn’t
upset me. For once, I wasn’t scared of the grizzled old cop. He felt more like
a father to me than anything now. He slipped his arm around my shoulders, half
hugging me.

 I smiled at him and
wiped my filthy hands with Dunn’s handkerchief as we walked back to the car.

“How did you know where it
was?” Dunn asked me, a quizzical look on his handsome face.

“I saw the killer walking
that way,” I replied, climbing into the back of the squad car.

Dunn only nodded in response
before sighing, “Problem is, he must know that we’re on his trail. He’s cleaned
that place out. He may be gone for good.”

“No.” Simms shook his head.
“He’s not gone. He’s got a lot of relatives out here and if there’s one thing
I’ve learned about small towns, it’s that the more backwards a family is, the
more they stick together.” He grinned in the rear view mirror at me and I
couldn’t help but smile back.

“I wish he had been here,” I
said fervently. I wanted this to be over.

“I do, too,” Simms said. I
met his eyes again in the rear view mirror. “You’ve been a big help, Miss
Walker. I have to admit, when I first started working with you, I wasn’t very
optimistic. Even looking at all the cases you had helped with, I thought you
would just hold us back.
But now…
I’m not too proud to
admit I was wrong.”

“Are you saying you couldn’t
have done this without me?” I teased.

“Well, I think we would have
figured it out eventually, but it probably would have taken us a little
longer,” he teased back.

“Simms, you wouldn’t be here
right now if it wasn’t for me,” I said, a wide smile on my face.

“We’ve gained a bit of
confidence haven’t we?” Simms replied, laughing. Dunn joined in and then I
followed. It was such a relief to all of us to finally have a solid suspect.

“It focuses
in on me”

As we pulled out of the house,
we turned right instead of left, leading us to another gravel drive. This one
was an actual road on which we passed several run down cabins. Two of them had
several broken down cars outside and a couple of sheds. Weeds grew tall and
rank around the buildings.

 At one cabin, the one
nearest the main highway, a pack of dogs materialized from under the trucks and
porch, chasing us down the road while baying loudly. A lone figure emerged from
the hovel and stood on the porch, watching us.

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“Dee Robins,” Dunn replied,
waving to the figure,
who
didn’t wave back.

“Seems unfriendly,” I
commented.

“Lots of folks are around
here are,” Simms sighed. “He’s an uncle by marriage to Gary. I’m afraid these
people are going to be a hindrance to us. They’re all related and very
clannish. They’ll keep him fed, probably sheltered at times, for as long as he
wants to hide.”

“Or until he skips town,”
Dunn added grimly.

“What are you going to do?”
I asked anxiously. I didn’t like the thought of Gary Wright being free to
wander about. The faster he was caught and imprisoned, the better.
At least, in my opinion.

Simms shrugged. “We’ll have
to go over this evidence and have a talk with them tomorrow. Mr. Robins there
is one of the leaders of the family and believe it or not,” he chuckled
lightly, “one of the most reasonable. He’ll usually admit it if one of his kin
has done something illegal, like hunting on land without permission or robbing
orchards, but that’s generally the extent of it. And-”

“What?”

“Just because he admits they
may have done it, doesn’t mean he always gives them up for punishment.”

We drove the rest of the way
in silence. Simms pulled the car up carefully in front of my house. “If you
could be there bright and early in the morning, ready to go over this new
evidence, we’d sure appreciate it.”

“Make sure you rest
tonight,” Dunn added. I had told them I was too drained to try to get a reading
on the bracelet. Simms had started to push the issue, but Dunn had stepped in
and come to my rescue.

“I just can’t do it right
now,” I apologized again, one hand on the door.

“It’s alright,” Dunn said.
“I’ll tell you
what,
I’ll just pick you up at seven
o’clock if that’s alright.”

I nodded agreement and
climbed out of the car. I was exhausted and had to almost drag myself up the
stairs into my home. I undressed quickly, collapsing in bed and pulling the
covers over myself. I thought about how it was almost over. Soon, Gary Wright
would be in prison and the case would be filed away as solved. I thought about
the scandal that would emerge when he was prosecuted for crimes another man had
already died in prison for. The media would descend on this small town like
locusts.

I tried to imagine my life
returning to how it had been in the past, always surrounded by people who were
in awe of my abilities, trying to get a newspaper article or a book out of me.
I drifted off to sleep with the feeling that my life was about to become a
sideshow act in a circus again. People staring and pointing as I walked past, treating
me like some kind of freak….

And then, the sheer physical
exhaustion that had overwhelmed me earlier returned, swallowing me up. I slept
like a baby.

The early morning light
flickered and shifted, casting shadows over the clear white table in front of
me. The sun was dancing through the leaves in the trees as the branches waved
merrily above, spreading and dappling their patterns on the ground and porch
below.

It was considerably cooler than
it had been the day before. I was sitting outside as the dawn broke, enjoying a
nice cup of coffee. I felt relaxed for the first time in a while. I didn’t want
anything to disturb me.

“Mind if I join you?” The
voice seemed to come from nowhere. I sat upright abruptly, craning my head to
view the entire backyard. Not a soul.

My hand was at my throat.
Was it…?

“I’ll take that as a yes,”
the voice continued. Mrs. Dodd was making her way down her back porch stairs
slowly, clinging to the rail for balance. I had never noticed her doing that
before.

“Actually,” I started, but
she interrupted me.

“I’ve decided it’s time we
become friends. Work together so to speak. I don’t believe in psychics, but…
desperate times call for desperate measures….” Her white pouf of hair was now
bobbing along the fence row. I watched it go by as she went towards the old
gate that separated our yards from each other. It looked like a cloud sailing
by over the rough wood boards of the fence.

The gate was near the end of
the property and in bad repair, but even though it took her some minutes to
make her way over to me, I could not think of an excuse to get rid of her. She
struggled up the stairs and I did not rise to help her. I had a feeling that
she was putting on more than need be.

“Oh, these old bones,” she
sighed as she settled onto the old swing at the end of my porch. I stayed
seated at my little table. We faced each other across the broad expanse of
peeling white floorboards.

“I’m not sure what you want
from me,” I started.

“Oh,
nothing.
Sometimes a person just wants to put the past behind them. Move forward.
Unencumbered,” she said. She pushed one small foot against the wood, slightly
swinging in the cool morning air.

I paused, considering what
her motive was.

“You must understand how
shocked I am to have a visit from you,” I started, sipping my coffee and
staring into it, “beings that you seemed to have such a dislike for me.”

She laughed lightly, her
small elfish face crinkling at the corners. I noticed the laugh did not reach
her eyes.

“How did it go yesterday?”
she asked. Her small hands gripped the edges of the seat tightly as she rocked
back and forth. I averted my eyes from her piercing blue gaze.

“I cannot discuss police
business with you,” I said.

“I was just wondering what
you may have found out?” she began again. I could tell I was not going to get
rid of her without giving her some information.

“Not much,” I replied,
considering my words carefully. “We went over my vision several times, but it
didn’t help that much.”

What I said was true. I
always tried to tell the truth when people asked me about my visions, no matter
who it was. Misleading people led to trouble.

“So you have two bodies, as
yet to be identified, no suspects and no motive?” she asked. I felt the accusation
in her words.

“Listen, Mrs. Dodd,” I said
angrily, rising from my chair and walking towards my door, “this is not a
game.” My voice was shaking with anger. “Do you know how important this is? You
can’t even fathom it. This is life and death.”

“I’m aware of that. Why
don’t you want me to help?”

“You’re interfering will
lead to no good,” I hissed. “Do you want more people to die?”

She stopped the swinging
motion of the swing with one firmly planted foot. “That’s not what I want at
all. But there’s not much I can do about that. I’m going to help you, though
you may not see it as my helping.”

“I don’t,” I said bluntly. I
was angry.
How dare she suggest that she could help me?
She had done
nothing for the past few months but
stand
in my way
and try to turn the neighbors against me. “Now that people have died, you
suddenly care?”

“Yes, I do.” She stood and
we faced each other. Although I am not that tall, I seemed to tower over the
frail old woman.

“I can help you,” she
continued, her voice soft. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

“I think you better go,” I
said. She looked so pitiful standing there before me. I knew, somehow, that she
did want to help me, but I didn’t feel I needed her help.

“Don’t you want it all to
stop?” she asked, standing her ground.

I choked back a sob and then
was angry at myself for letting her affect me. I had a job to do and I needed
to concentrate on the task at hand. Yes, I wanted it to stop.
Badly.
She read it on my face.

“I know you do,” she said,
reaching out with one soft hand. “I’ll end it for you.”

I laughed out loud at this.
“You can’t stop it for me. I’ve been doing this all my life. It’s never going
to stop.”

“These murders will stop,”
she said. “No one is going to be murdered again in my town.”  I felt
deflated somehow. I had thought she was going to help me, for one wild second,
to stop it. I wanted so badly for the visions that haunted me to go away.

“You are going to get hurt,”
I said, angry again.

“Is that a psychic vision?”
she scoffed. “I bet those policemen were disappointed with what you told them
about that clearing. I bet you weren’t able to give them near enough
information to help them find the killer.” I
wanted,
right then, to push her off my porch. But young women do not push old ladies
off of porches in front of the whole neighborhood, no matter what they said or
did.

I just stood there, though,
growing angrier and angrier. I barely noticed as she left.

Finally, I calmed myself
down. Resuming my seat, I stared at the swing as if she still sat there,
swinging. The killer would not be able to afford a meddling old woman, I knew
that. I had to find some way to stop her.

I thought about it and
thought about it, but I could not come up with a solution. I imagined what she
had said again, focusing in on the words.
She knew about the clearing
,
the thought hit me like a ton of bricks.

“She was there,” I whispered
out loud. Didn’t she realize how dangerous that was? Did she care? She
certainly didn’t act as if she did. As if her life could be in danger.

I saw her again, repeating
the same thing, walking nimbly down the stairs.
I knew she was faking before
,
I thought. She was so sure of herself, so certain that she was safe.
But she
isn’t
, I thought grimly. She was an old, frail lady. I knew I had to keep
her away from this. Nothing good would come of it. Visions of the victims
appeared suddenly in my head.

As angry as I had been
before, I suddenly felt sorry for her. She was ancient and timeworn.
A relic from the past.
That feeble, old woman wouldn’t stand
a chance.

“Where are we going?” Sissy
asked,
a worried expression on her face.
As usual
,
Mrs. Dodd thought. She pulled a sweater over her short sleeved dress
impatiently.

“If I’ve told you once, I’ve
told you a thousand times,” Mrs. Dodd replied shortly. “You know exactly where
we are going, Sissy. You just don’t want to go there.”

“It’s just that Lorene just
left and she asked me-” Sissy started.

“To keep
me out of trouble.”
Mrs. Dodd raised one eyebrow, staring grimly at Sissy as she
hesitated in the doorway.

“Well, yes,” Sissy’s voice
was small and she wrung her hands nervously.

Mrs. Dodd approached her
slowly, like she used to do with frightened horses. She patted her friend on
the shoulder. “This isn’t trouble, Sissy. I want to visit someone is
all.
”

“But he’s….”

“In jail?”

“Well, yes…”
Sissy said again.

“I’m sure he wouldn’t be if
he had a choice.” Mrs. Dodd closed and locked the front door firmly behind her.
Sissy glanced around the porch in wonder.
Just a moment
before she had been planted firmly in the doorway, ready to block Mrs. Dodd.
How had she ended up out here?

“It is a little chilly this
morning. Don’t you think we could discuss this in the car?” Mrs. Dodd asked.

“Well… yes… but we could also
go in the house,” Sissy said, hopefully.

“Sissy, can’t you see that
I’ve already locked the door?” Mrs. Dodd replied. She was already halfway to
the car.

Sissy half turned back
towards the house, as if willing the door to open on its own. A horn honked
loudly behind her.

She almost fell as she
whirled back around, one hand on her chest. Mrs. Dodd was leaning over the
passenger seat, her hand still on the horn. She beckoned shortly to Sissy.

“Well, Velma, I just don’t
think,” Sissy started, her voice confused as she hurried down the sidewalk.

“I know,” Mrs. Dodd
muttered. “Hurry, Sissy!” she said, louder. She waved her friend towards the
car urgently.

“Why are we in such a
hurry?” Sissy asked, breathless as she sank gratefully behind the wheel. She
felt more in control in her car.