Deja Blue (19 page)

Whatever the images might be called, Orvison was glued to them. He saw most of what she’d seen. But it was unlikely every image was captured as they came too fast even for the CRAWL to detect them all. The human mind remained the most reliable and fastest mechanism for catching and categorizing images on the planet, despite what Microscoft, Macintosh, Kodak or Nikon might say on the subject. The brain of man, like the human hand, remained the most remarkable mechanism in the world and the most versatile tool on Earth—when put to use.

“So…so what’s it all mean?” he asked when the images ended, and what was that dark shadow at the end there?”

“What dark shadow?”

“At the very end.”

She ran it back to have a look. Orvison was right. The crawler, after she’d taken off the electrodes, had somehow detected a shadowy thing rise from off the bed and out of camera lens, and it was unmistakably the dark form that had struggled to make Rae leave, the residual essence of Marci Cottrill’s earthly form. “Just the light and shadow in the room, a trick of the camera,” she muttered.

“Some damn trick, Agent. Some damn trick.”

“Yes, well, ahhh, I have no other explanation as the device isn’t supposed to be operating without being attached to…to my head, and apparently it picked up something without me being in the room…else it’s looped itself somehow, doing a repeat of something earlier. Something I missed.”

“And all the other images?”

“Require close examination and interpretation by my backup people in Quantico.”

“ Ah-ha…that think tank group I briefly met. And how’s that working for you?” He sounded like the TV shrink Dr. Phill now.

“It’s standard protocol that I get backup on anything and everything sifting through my head on a case, especially when I go into trance.”

“Crazy to do it alone,” he agreed, “but crazier still to go in there—” he pointed to the bedroom—“and do it alone without someone to watch your back, Doctor. You should’ve asked me to stay; should’ve insisted. Instead, you pushed me out.”

“One makes do with what one has. Besides, I felt this was a one-woman job, if you know what I mean.”

“Stubborn is what you are.”

She ignored this. “If both of us had been here, I don’t think we’d’ve gotten such solid results.”

He remained adamant and a bit angry. “Still think I ought’ve at least been in the next room. You might’ve trusted me to work on this problem with you.”

“Look, it’s done. Besides, neither of us can possibly know what may or mayn’t’ve happened if you had stayed. I mayn’t’ve gotten anything whatsoever.”

“You placed yourself in serious jeopardy is all I can see.”

“Carl, there’re times one must face things alone.” “All the same, seems to me like hiking or camping in the woods alone is never a good plan, and neither is going into a trance state—alone.”

She liked the metaphor. She also knew he was right. Still, adamant, she replied, “I am never completely alone. I have protectors surrounding me.”

“Protectors?”

“Spirits of good will who wish me only the best.”

“Like your parents, your ancestors?”

“Among others, yes.” “Like angels maybe?” He shook his head. “Can’t believe I’m sayin’ this.”

“I don’t call them angels. Protectors. That’s all I know.”

“I see…gotcha.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not crazy.”

“Oh, no! No such thought.” “And Kunati?”

“Ever since the advent of that Burr-rack Obama for President guy outta Illinois, I dunno, Amos has gone political on me.”

“You mean he’s got ambitions you didn’t foresee?”

Carl gave her a stern frown. “I think he’s bucking for advancement.”

“Meaning?” “Jockeying for position, so to speak.”

“Undermining you?” she asked.

He shrugged. It was no slight shrug either. “He seems’be goin’ in the direction of well… whichever the wind blows. Like I said—political.”

“Yet you seem to have a great deal of concern for him and his future.”

“I do…and I don’t like the direction he’s gone off towards.”

“I see.” She completed her wardrobe by strapping on her shoes.

“Right about now, I suspect he’s working on his report to the brass.” Orvison glanced about the shabby room, his eyes lighting on the chimney as if seeing movement there.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Nothing…thought I saw a mouse or something, but nothing.”

“What report is Kunati up to?”

“He’s reporting on you, your success, or lack thereof, and me.”

“Reporting to whom?” “The mayor’s office and the governor.”

“Isn’t that your job?”

“It is.”

“But this case has changed things?”

“Now you’re catching on to mountain politics.”

“So how will he paint us? Special prosecutor Kunati?” joked Rae.

“Painting us out to be a pair of loons. No doubt he has another report that praises us to high heaven.”

“Say again?”

“In case we should succeed, or you, rather.”

“Covering all the bases, huh?”

“As the case progresses, we’ll really know where we stand, and what sort of people we all are, and if we have any backing at higher levels.” He sounded bitter now.

“I’d sensed some tension between him and me,” she replied, a chuckle escaping her, “but I’d no idea there was a problem between the two of you.”

“It’s been building…some time now. Has roots in an open and shut case some time back. Meth lab we busted.”

“Things go bad?” she asked.

“Could say so. I had to kill a kid, a black kid. Kunati thought I used excessive force.”

“But you don’t think so?” “It was either the kid or me, and I chose to live that day.”

“Understood.”

“At any rate, Kunati’s wanted my job ever since. Thinks he can single-handedly turn the drug and gang crime around in Charleston.”

“Road to hell is paved with good intentions.” “Got that right.”

Rae ran the end of the CRAWL images once again, and she thought the shadow was trying to tell her something, but what?

“You done here?” he asked, looking around at the dilapidated old trailer, his eyes ending on her rolling up the sleeping bag.

“I am.”

“He grabbed the half-rolled sleeping bag up and said, “Let me show you how that’s done.” She backed off and allowed the outdoorsy man his due, and in a flash, Carl had the bag tied in a neat bundle, easy to carry. Rae had bagged everything else she’d come with, and together they started out the front door.

Orvison’s voice cut the still night. “I’ll drive you back to the Embassy downtown.”

“Thanks. Think I’ve had enough ghost hunting for one night.”

“I should think so.” He popped the trunk and loaded the sleeping bag inside atop his West Virginia Rules of Police Conduct, Protocol and Arrest Procedures, a thing the size of a Yellow Pages book. By this time, Rae had already climbed into the passenger seat, and she was nodding off, but with the sound of the ignition and the grinding of stones below the wheels against the

hardscrabble road, she remained awake. Something in Rae made her look back at the haunted place one last time, and when she did, she saw the black, near invisible outline of the shapeless residue sitting atop the chimney, or was it an illusion caused by silver and green leaves waving in the wind? Whatever it might be, Aurelia Murphy Hiyakawa silently prophesized, Century 21 is going to have a devil of a time unloading this property.

“Where’s mom and pop when you need ‘em?” she muttered to herself as Orvison began a three-point turn here on Finch Lane. Not a single neighbor’s light had gone on, no matter the noise they’d made.

“What’s that? Mom and pop what?” he asked.

“Nothing…never mind. Let’s get outta here, shall we?”

“Got my vote.” He’d backed up and into a small driveway belonging to the closest neighbor where he cleanly made the maneuvers to, as he put it, “Get shed of this place.”

Now they bumped along the weedy, stone path for the relief of pavement at the main road leading up to this terraced community. Soon they were on the interstate pointed toward Charleston.

SEVENTEEN

Charleston was alight with a warm orange glow at night due to the sodium vapor lights of downtown, a downtown characterized by turn of the century buildings interspersed with occasional high-rise hotels. The lights of downtown reflected off low hanging, roiling purple skies. The Capitol dome in the distance could be seen in the mist and fog rising up off the river running through the city. The entire effect was one of an aged, gaslight city, something out of 1890—the glow at once welcoming yet sinister. For while the lights of downtown created a cocoon of imaginary safety, an illusion of daylight, they also created the sharpest black corners and edges Rae’d ever seen outside a noir film.

All the same, Rae felt a surge of happiness welling up alongside a bittersweet sadness. The happiness in being alive, and the happiness at knowing Marci Cottrill wasn’t trapped in that god awful horror museum of a trailer. This happiness could not be eclipsed, not even by the fact that Marci’s life was gone, cut short by the madman, for Marci had achieved a strange but powerful triumph even in a brutal death—a death brought on by forces she’d had no part in creating or inviting into her life—so far as the evidence showed. Aurelia believed whole-heartedly in this one positive conclusion that’d come out of her nervewracking stay at Marci’s former home.

Rae knew she must find the right moment to share this with Roland Hatfield. That his sister was at absolute peace.

As they passed the bus terminal, not a stone’s throw from the well-lit signs surrounding the Charleston Town Mall, she called for Orvison to stop the car.

“What for?”

“Just do it!” He did so, reacting to her shout like a soldier hearing an order. “Now pop the trunk, please,” she added.

Again Orvison obeyed without question; something in her tone demanded it.

She leapt from the car, dug out the sleeping bag, and raced it over to a homeless man sleeping between buildings in a cardboard box. She then rushed back to the car and climbed in.

“Hey, we don’t encourage or molly-coddle our derelicts here, Doctor.”

“A little milk of human kindness, and you find fault with it, Chief?”

“Does it make you feel better?” he asked.

“Does, yes.”

“Guy’ll sell that bag for weed come sunup.”

She ignored his cynicism. “Oh and hey there’s something I oughta tell you.”

“What’s that?”

“I think Marci Cottrill would like me to share the news.”

“Whataya mean, news from the netherworld?”

By the time they’d reached the Embassy Suites welcome circle, she’d told Chief Orvison her final feelings on Marci’s being at peace, and as a result, she’d managed to pull a smile out of the exhausted, frustrated Chief.

He realized that it was information that did not help them solve the case, information she needn’t have shared, information that, while good news as Rae had put it, got them no closer to a killer, or to an understanding his twisted purpose or mind. At the same time, he realized it represented a balm, information that soothed the soul of those who’d invested so much in finding Marci Cottrill’s killer, including Carl Orvison.

“I…I don’t know what to say,” he replied when she’d finished. “But nice to know. I’ll hold onto that.”

She shrugged. “Just thought you should share in this feeling.”

“Thank you, Agent…Dr. Hiyakawa.” “I believe you can call me Aurelia now, or simply Rae.”

He smiled a second time at this. “And you call me Carl,” he replied even though she’d done just that on occasion. “Except in front of the men, OK?”

“Deal and one thing.” She’d climbed from the car and now leaned in at the window.

“Yes?” “I’d like to tell Dr. Hatfield myself, at the right moment.”