A Vision of Murder (8 page)

“It’s not that late,
mother.” Lorene laughed softly. “You’re just disoriented. No, when I got there,
they were out. But isn’t it odd? They said the farm supply store here in town
had one all along. They’re going to come fix it for me tomorrow.”

“That’s nice, dear. What a
shame that you drove all that way for nothing.”

“You’ve had quite a day, I
heard.”

“How did you hear?”

“Never
you
mind
. I can’t reveal my sources, can I?” Lorene paused in the doorway,
one hand hovering over the switch. “Just be careful on your adventures, mother.
A mess of collard greens isn’t worth it.”

The light flipped out as the
door closed softly.

“And
I began to run”

The heat from the day before
seemed to be a distant memory. Autumn was beginning to fill the air, arriving
sporadically before giving way to the determined summer weather that hung on.
Our carefully tended gardens were wilting after the first frost the night
before. I surveyed the damage critically.

Although I had lost a lot of
beautiful flowers to the early frost, I couldn’t help but appreciate the sharp
crispness of autumn.
It will be Halloween in just a few weeks
, I thought
with surprise. As a child, I had loved Halloween. It had easily been my favorite
holiday. I adored dressing up as someone else, assuming their lives for a short
span of time. I could hide behind my costumes observing both friends and
strangers alike from a safe perspective.

Now, I hated the holiday.
Years of being the brunt of many cruel jokes and pranks had affected me. I had
been called a witch more than once, sometimes angrily. Neighbors seemed to look
at me with different eyes, wary and cautious.
Maybe I’m imagining it
, I
thought, trying to convince myself that no one was accusing me of anything.

But I knew, all too well,
the pain of friends and neighbors turning on you.
It’s not going to be that
way here
, I thought as I leaned against the porch railing. Why, on
Halloween, I would dress up as exactly what they called me. I would be a witch.
I had always hidden from it before, but this time, I would confront it. I was
getting stronger, more sure of myself.
Confident.

“How are you today?” Lorene
called out from her side of the fence. She was busy trying to clean up her
damaged greenhouse.

“I’m actually doing well,
thanks,” I said.

“Come here,” Lorene said,
waving me over in a friendly fashion. “I want to show you something.”

 I walked over slowly,
crossing my arms across the top of the fence to stare into her garden. Mrs.
Dodd glanced at me from the porch.

“You’re garden looks nice,”
I commented. It was true. Her garden was perfection in itself.
Very orderly and clean.
The flowers themselves seemed to be
scared of her, restraining themselves to their beds, not daring to stretch across
the well-manicured lawn or paving stones.

“Too neat,” Mrs. Dodd
sniffed from the porch. I wondered briefly why she was acting so sour and
crotchety. I had seen her be quite friendly and kind to her old friends and the
Baxter boys.
Why doesn’t she act like that around her own daughter?
I
wondered.

Lorene ignored her mother,
only smiling slightly at me and then nodding her head and rolling her eyes in
the direction of Mrs. Dodd.

“I wanted to show you,” she
began, leading me down the fence line with a wave of her finger. “I’m saving
this one for you.”

Her small vegetable garden
was regulated to one spot near the greenhouse with the herbs on the other side.
But now she was pointing out a small piece of land near the old gate that
separated our gardens. I had never noticed it before, being hidden by the
fence, but she had
a few vines growing there.

“What is it?” I asked, while
I was still too far away to see clearly.

“Pumpkins,” she said,
triumphantly.

“Why are they planted over here?”
I wondered. It was unlike Lorene to have an unordered space. I supposed that
she would of course plant all the vegetables together.

“Why, dear, you can’t plant
pumpkins next to some other vegetables. They’ll take on the taste and the next
thing you know, you have pumpkin flavored cucumbers!” She smiled
condescendingly at me, but I didn’t mind. I liked Lorene. She reminded me of my
mother.

“And…” she continued, “this
one is for you.”

“You’re growing a pumpkin
for me?”

“That’s right dear. It’s the
one right there, the small green one, right next to
mother’s
.”

I smiled. It was touching
somehow, that this older lady had taken me in, so to speak. I had missed having
a mother in my life.

“That’s really nice of you,
Lorene.”

She waved it away. “Don’t
mention it. It’s just a little pumpkin.” But I could tell that she was pleased.

“Mother!”
Lorene called. “Don’t you
want to come see your pumpkin?”

We both turned to the porch,
but it was empty.
Where is she?
I thought, momentarily concerned. But
then Lorene continued on about her garden and I reluctantly drug my attention
back to her.

After twenty minutes of
gardening talk, I was thoroughly bored. Gardening was a subject that Lorene
never tired of. I finally excused myself and headed for my own house.

Opening the windows, I let
the crisp fall air flood the house. I halfway hoped it would take the ghosts
with it. I had relaxed marginally over the past couple of days, but I was still
tense, still ready.

I wandered outside and ended
up relaxed on the porch swing, stretching out with a book I hadn’t read. The
swing rocked back and forth in the breeze, lulling me gently into a doze.
Gradually, I faded off to sleep.

Part of me must have been
awake as he approached, though I was still just enough asleep that I didn’t react.
Heavy footsteps climbed the stairs, pausing at the top. I didn’t feel scared as
the footsteps turned and approached me, coming slowly over to where I lay.

I jerked awake as the hands
gripped my shoulder, shaking me. “Emily?”

I opened my eyes with a start.
I hadn’t been dreaming. He knelt over me, concern in his eyes.

“Dunn! What are you doing
here?”

He straightened and let out
a groan. “Emily, you scared me there for a second. I thought you were the next
victim.”

“What do you mean?” I raised
myself in the seat, propping my body up with one elbow. The swing jerked
crazily and Dunn grabbed the chain to stop it.

“You said something about a
pattern. We think we found it.”

“You did?”

He nodded in reply. “Simms
is on his way over here. We wanted to talk to you about it.
If
you don’t mind.”

I shook my head, still
clearing the sleep from my eyes. “I don’t mind.”

“Good.”

“Why didn’t you just call me
into the office?” I sat up, swinging my legs over the edge of the swing.
Scooting over, I made room for Dunn. He sat down next to me.

“Well…” he stretched out his
response, “we don’t want it getting around too much because it’s just a theory,
but it’s worth investigating.
At least looking into.
Hello Mrs. Dodd! How are you?” He waved suddenly at the neighboring porch.

Mrs. Dodd nodded and waved
back before disappearing into her house.

“You know her?” I asked. I
couldn’t exactly imagine the two of them running in the same circles.

“Her daughter worked with my
mom for years. She babysat me occasionally when I was small.”

“Oh.” I didn’t like the idea
of someone who was so vehemently opposed to me knowing Dunn so well, but he
quickly appeased my fears.

“I haven’t seen her much
over the years,” he said. “She’s aged.”

“That’s what people usually
do,” I replied. I couldn’t help but smile as he laughed at my response. I
imagined for just a moment that things were different. That it was just a
regular fall day and I was just a regular girl, sharing a porch swing and a
laugh with a regular guy. It was intoxicating.

“You’ve never done that
before,” he said, leaning back in the swing and sending it into spasms of
rocking.

“Done what?”

“Made a joke,” he said,
raising his eyebrows and smirking.

I swatted at him. “Yes I
have! You just haven’t noticed.”

“No.” He ducked, grabbing my
hand in his own. “I haven’t. Why are you usually so serious, Emily?” his
teasing voice changed into a more thoughtful tone.

“Now look whose being
serious,” I replied, trying to steer the conversation into safer ground.

“Emily. Why?”

I was lost in his eyes and
found myself blurting it out, “You would be serious,
too
,
if you saw dead faces every time you shut your eyes.
If you
were haunted by ghosts that you couldn’t get rid of.”
I felt the tears
smart in my eyes.

His brow was furrowed in
sympathy, but he didn’t let me go. “You’ll be alright, Emily. I know you will.”

I only nodded in reply. “So
when is Simms going to be here?” I asked.

In the house next door, a
window was raised ever so slightly. Mrs. Dodd sat in her chair, listening to
the exchange. She was thankful her hearing was still perfect, though she
pretended on occasion that it wasn’t. She sat still and listened closely, her
gaze fixed thoughtfully on the ceiling.

We heard Simms pull up and
went around the house to meet him. He climbed out of the car wearily. I was
shocked by the change in him. It looked as if he had aged ten years since I
last saw him.

“Do you have anywhere that
we can talk privately?” he asked.

“We can go inside,” I
offered. “My house is small, but I think it will do.”

“Sounds great.”
He stretched, popping the
crick in his neck and then rubbing it with his hand.

“Have you been sleeping
well?” I couldn’t help but ask him. He looked terrible.

“No, not really,” he
admitted, smiling grimly, “but that’s not your fault.”

I didn’t reply. Opening the
door, I ushered the two detectives inside. I was momentarily embarrassed by how
poor my house looked, but the men didn’t seem to notice.
I don’t suppose men
usually notice things like that
, I thought,
even if they are detectives.

“Kitchen table alright?”
Simms asked. I nodded and led the way into the small space.

“Would you like anything to
drink?” I offered.

Both shook their heads no,
but accepted the tea when I placed the pitcher and three glasses on the table.

“Now,” I said, settling in my
chair, “what’s going on?”

Dunn started to speak, but
was interrupted by Simms. “First,” he said, with a sidelong glance at his
partner, “we’d like to go over what you have already said.”

I agreed quietly.

“You said,” he stated,
consulting his notebook, “that there was a pattern. Do you still sense that?”

“I do,” I replied. I folded
my hands on the table in front of me. Glancing from one to the other, I saw
what appeared to be fear etched deeply under the worry on their faces.

“How many times would you say?”
he asked.
“More than just the once?”

I paused and considered his
question carefully. “I’d say…” I hesitated, “I’d say there have been multiple
murders.
Many more.”
They glanced at each other,
unsurprised.

“We think we may have made a
mistake,” Dunn said, leaning back in his chair.

“What kind of mistake?”

“Well,” Simms said, tracing
the lines of the wood grain on my table with his fingernail, “you’re not from
around here so you’re probably not familiar with it, but a few years ago-”

“I’d say about eight or nine
years,” Dunn interjected.

“A few years ago,” Simms
continued, “there was a serial killer active in some towns east of here.”

“He’d kill young girls and
leave their bodies in state parks,” Dunn stated.

“It was before I was
transferred here. And Dunn hadn’t even started working yet.”

“I was a teenager when it
started,” Dunn said with a grin, but his eyes looked sad.

“What happened?” I asked.
“Was he caught?”

“He was…” Simms said. “Or so
we thought. Now, I know we’ve asked you time and time again at the station if
you could describe the killer and you’ve always said no, but….”

“We were wondering if you
could try again,” Dunn said.

“What are you boys
thinking?” I asked, my eyes shifting from Dunn’s to
Simm’s
.
“That the man you put in prison wasn’t the killer?”

“That’s what we’re scared
of, yes,” Simms said.

“I’ve told you, though,” I
said desperately, “I can’t tell you what the killer looks like. I can’t
describe anything except what I see.”

Dunn sighed heavily. “Well,
it was worth asking. We don’t blame you because you can’t tell us, don’t
worry.”

But I could sense what they
were thinking.

“Maybe…” I started. They
both looked up hopefully.
“Maybe if you told me a little more
about him.”

“His name is John Carson White.
He’s an older man, probably mid-fifties by now. When he was first arrested
there was a significant amount of evidence. He had some clothing and personal
items of the victims.”