Murder! Too Close To Home (26 page)

On the other side of the hole, there was what appears to be a mall. People were milling about everywhere, but nobody seemed to notice I was there.

They’d notice me in a moment I bet as I prepared to fly/float down amongst the horde. Setting my feet against the frame of the opening, I pushed off in what I could only imagine would look like a graceful bird taking flight.

A Dodo was more likely what they thought however, at least if they saw me flailing out of the hole.

Apparently, the part where you bring your feet down in front of you for a landing is one of those much practice things I hadn’t practiced on yet. My flailing did indeed draw attention as I tried in vain to manipulate the landing, failing miserably.

While not traveling fast, I nonetheless covered my head when the inevitable became clear. I was going to crash and burn.

Just as the floor made its way toward my nose…I woke up in my room.

The bright spring sunlight was flooding in the open windows of the bedroom, curtains flowing in on the breeze. Betty must have let me sleep in this morning, what a sweetheart!

Thinking again on my dream, I fondly relived in my head the flying/floating sensation.

It was so real!

The feeling I got while in the air, it was…it was still there. I could still feel it in me…I was
sure
of it.

Looking up and around to make sure I was alone, I stood up on the edge of the mattress. Squatting quickly, I extend the tensed muscles and…I was flying again!

“I’m flying!” I exclaimed in excitement… before I dropped summarily to the floor in a clash of furniture and noise.

Opening my eyes, it was completely dark save for eerie glowing red letters in front of my face spelling OE: S.

Suddenly blinded by light…and unabashed laughter, I found myself again on the floor of my bedroom. My upturned LED alarm clock was reading 5:30 as usual. Leaning up on my elbow and looking behind me, I was treated to the sight of my wife sitting up in bed, her hand over her mouth trying to stem the flow of laughter demanding to escape from her lips.

Pulling myself together, I got up and put the furniture back in its place. I then got back in bed and covered up, suddenly chilled.

“Are you ok?” my beautiful wife said with concern, before a snicker sneaked out of her throat.

I answered gloomily that I was ok.

“Good” she said with relief. Then a certain light creeped into her eyes before she asked, “fly much?”

The dam burst then, with unabashed laughter flowing from my wife’s body in volumes, tears running down her face in buckets of salty joy. I held out as long as I could, about three seconds, before I succumbed and joined my wife in the celebration of the funniness of the human condition…mine at least.

We were unable to control ourselves for what seemed like ten minutes before we regained some power over ourselves. Laying on our backs and holding hands, we contentedly lounged in the bed, just enjoying each other’s presence and the happiness permeating the room.

There was calmness now within us, the stress of the last month having melted away in a good belly laugh.

The initial shock of my fall and the resulting embarrassment had me initially labeling my last dream as just a useless series of fantasy based events. It was definitely not the glimpses of past or future events that have ultimately proved so useful during our investigation.

But eventually, I had to change my mind on that assessment.

Whether it was by design, or just dumb luck, my resultant actions had turned into a blessing for us. A break in the action of the investigation that had been ruling our lives for so long…a much needed break.

We were both late for work this day as laughter turned to contentment, contentment turned to making sweet love, which garnered more contentment, and a long breakfast. We didn’t want to leave, but knew we must, holding each other long before finally separating for the commute to work.

On the drive to work, I resolved to pay attention to any and all dreams that I might have from here on out. Maybe everyone’s dreams contain insights into their lives that we are either too busy or too out of touch with ourselves to notice. From now on, for me, every dream had a message. After all, they have served me well so far.

Chapter 69

March 26, 1997

Frank and I had apparently been declared small town heroes for a time that morning, clasps of the hand and slaps on the back leaving me slightly sore by lunch. Allen was out of the office, but had left word with Ellen that he would like to meet Frank and I after lunch.

We took the opportunity to start lunch a little early and head over to Lenny’s for a Stromboli. The walk there was relaxing, the warm spring sun feeling good on our bodies.

Although there were still hints of winter in the air periodically, spring was definitely coming, with jackets instead of coats now being the norm.

A sandwich had never tasted as good to me as it appeared that one did to me that day, like my taste buds had seemingly been reborn.

For his part, Frank also seemed to be enjoying his with great gusto. Having finished our order, we decided to get another and split it, the second sandwich tasting as good as the first, if not better.

We finished our drinks and purchased some coffee as we continued to sit at the table and enjoy each other’s company. I really thought we might hash through the night’s events again during lunch, but we both seemed content to leave that at the office. We talked instead of current events, the coming baseball season, almost everything else…except murder.

Refilling our cups, we decided to take the long way back, walking several blocks to the park and walking the length of that before heading back. It felt great.

Entering the office just in time for our meeting, we headed straight to Allen’s office for our ‘debriefing’. Allen was there and immediately stood, moving around his desk to grasp Frank’s and then my hand in congratulations. The stress that had been displayed like a billboard on Allen’s face the last few weeks had disappeared, replaced nonetheless by a few more facial lines and gray hairs.

“Sit, sit!” Allen exclaimed as he held out a hand to indicate the padded leather chairs off to the side of the office. These chairs were normally reserved for visiting dignitaries, my pants having never touched them before.

“Great job last night!” he exclaimed with enthusiasm. “Finding the murderer’s hideout was genius! The wrecks were unfortunate, but at least you two escaped unscathed.”

“I checked on Wesley’s status a few minutes ago, the doctor was cautious in his assessment, but believes there is still hope that our suspect will survive. Either way, we also found the final nail in his coffin,” he finished with a smile, handing an evidence bag over to me to see.

The bag contained a man’s ring, which I immediately recognized as the ring belonging to Harold Longstreet. “They found it in his pocket when they cut off his clothes, has Harold’s name engraved on the inside,” Allen beamed. “The crime scene guys didn’t find too much of note in the car or the abandoned house, but we’ve got an airtight case with what we have now. This guy’s in line for a death sentence, one way or the other.”

Handing the ring to Frank, I nodded at Allen’s assessment. Frank took a few moments to look over the ring before handing it back to Allen. A few more moments of silence followed, and I had more than an inkling of what was coming next.

“I understand you two were looking into the Franklin County connection on your own, after hours. May I ask what prompted you to do it off the books, so to speak?”

I had decided on my way to work this morning to go ahead and admit to the dreams as the basis of our investigation when asked, figuring that with my new found acceptance of the dreams that more people needed to be aware of the phenomenon, and to not be ashamed of using them.

“I…” I started in explanation, only to be interrupted quickly by Frank.

“We didn’t have enough to go on for a full-fledged investigation, mostly just hunches. The one bit of evidence that we had was the soil sample from the first murder, Gabriel discovered that a certain area in Franklin County was the only place anywhere close to us that had that type of soil. We limited our search grid to that area, reasoning he may be using an abandoned building to hide out in since he had no family or friends that we could find in his background. We got lucky is all.”

The explanation seemed to satisfy Allen, who was interrupted by a knock on his door. Excusing himself, he went to answer the knock. I started to say something to Frank about excluding my dreams from the description, but he stopped me with a crossing guard’s hand indicating ‘Stop’.

“That’s good enough for now,” was all he said in a low whisper, finality expressing itself in his voice.

The conversation was quickly forgotten however as we caught sight of the look on Allen’s face as he returned to our area, plopping heavily into a chair, the weight of the world appearing to weigh on his shoulders once more.

We silently waited for Allen to fill us in as he sat there staring at a note in his hand.

Finally he looked up at us with a stress ridden face, a time warp apparently having taken us back in time. Four words escaped his mouth, four words that again would change our lives forever; the last four words I would have expected to hear this day.

“There’s been another murder.”

Chapter 70

March 26, 1997

3:00 AM, and Jasmine was not happy, not happy at all. The carefully scripted murder she had been planning for weeks had been foiled…screwed up by that idiot. Still not sure how they had found him, she was nonetheless sure that Wesley had given himself away with some inattention to a detail along the way.

She realized that her hands were clamped to the steering wheel of her dark truck like the talons of a hawk on its prey. Taking her hands off of the wheel, she then shook them up and down rapidly in front of her to try to release the tension.

“Calm down,” she told herself, “you knew this could happen.”

Taking some slow deep breaths, she felt the calm start to return to her body.

“Time for Plan B is all,”
she mumbled to herself with determination. Getting out of the truck, she went to the back and dropped the tailgate, pulling a shotgun out from under a tarp and loading a shell into the breech.

The gun was another piece of stolen evidence from the incompetent sheriff’s department, taken months ago with the rest of the lot. She smiled at the additional repercussions the sheriff would have to face after tonight.

Moving up the timetable for her ‘Plan B’ had taken but a few moments thought once she had gotten over the rage of her minion’s capture. After all, with the capture of Wesley, all of the extra patrols would surely be cancelled now, maybe even the normal ones considering the excitement of the night. This might actually be the
most
perfect night to do what she now had to do.

She saw headlights approaching in the distance; her heart rate inching up with every yard closer the vehicle got. Setting down the gun momentarily, she pulled up the hood of her skintight black costume, finding the black eye mask on the tailgate where she had laid it and installing this final touch onto her face.

Earlier in the evening she had admired herself in the mirror after donning the whole of her outfit, one of the many such in her closet. The sexy comic-book-heroine looking back at her had brought a smile to her face and a stirring between her legs. The smoothly chiseled features of her jaw line and her long beautiful neck were accentuated by the black outfit with stunning effect.

Shaking off the image, she quickly picked up the shotgun and closed the tailgate, jogging the fifty feet around the curve needed to assure that her victim would not see her truck, just in case.

Attention to detail…that was her credo.

Finding her spot in the road, she immediately took a superhero-like stance she had practiced in the mirror. Feet spread wide with the left foot slightly forward, she leaned her shoulders back slightly, allowing her hips to project forward a bit.

Hanging the shotgun down in her right hand, it is easily hidden from the approaching car by her finely shaped leg. She held up her left hand in front of her, palm forward in a stop signal. She had no real worries about immediately stopping any man coming around the corner, or woman for that matter.

The approaching auto was in sight now, traveling about thirty-five around the curve. She could see the car fishtail slightly when the driver had noticed her and crammed on his brakes. Standing there with the headlights fully on her, the woman smiled, and the true joy projecting from her face would be unmistakable to anyone, even through the mask and hood.

***

Tony Finney was half asleep, barely able to keep his eyes open as he followed the old windy road that led to his house. Having just started his new job the day before, his body was nowhere near used to the 6:00 PM to 2:30 AM shift he had just finished.

Yesterday, he had been unable to sleep when he had arrived home, giving up around 8:00 AM and watching TV instead.