The Haunting of Anna McAlister (12 page)

Duncan had given Jeffrey the key chain after he had visited Philadelphia on business. They had coined the phrase, “Give me liberty or give me a blow job” as their official motto.

Detective Knight took the keys and looked back at Anna.
 

“Gold Toyota,” Anna said without looking at the detective. “It’s right out front”.

“Thanks,” Detective Knight left the apartment while her partner was still rummaging through the bedroom.

Anna stayed seated at the table. She almost unconsciously opened the note pad that was in front of her. Jeffrey had note pads at strategic places all around the apartment in case he got “inspired” and wanted to write something down before he forgot it.
 

Anna picked up a pen and started to doodle on a blank page. She drew a car, some flowers and a police officer’s hat. Only she could tell what she drew. As Anna had often said, she couldn’t even draw a recognizable stick figure.

Without thinking, Anna closed her eyes. When she did, her hand continued to move on the paper. It moved quickly and effortlessly without Anna being aware that it was moving at all. When Anna opened her eyes, she looked down at the note pad and saw the intricately drawn portrait of a woman’s face and the words,
Aidez-Moi,
help me, written in perfect French.

Chapter 11

At exactly 4:00 the next morning Anna called 911. She had left Jeffrey’s apartment shortly after the detectives had asked their last question and several of Jeffrey’s and Duncan’s friends arrived. She had carefully torn the page from the notebook, folded it, and put it in her jeans’ pocket. Under other circumstances Anna would have immediately showed Jeffrey what she had drawn and written. After all, Jeffrey had long mocked her total lack of drawing skills, and the handwriting on the paper was clearly not her own.
 

Anna had driven directly to Tom’s main store where he had an office. “Look at this,” she had said, showing him the paper as soon as she arrived.

Tom had been on the phone when Anna walked into his office unannounced. He said a very quick goodbye before inspecting the paper that Anna had thrust before him.
 

“So?” he looked up at Anna.

“So?” Anna couldn’t believe his response. “That’s all you can say, so?”

Tom looked at the paper again. “Nice picture?”

“Tom, I drew that. And, I wrote that.”

“I’m sorry, but I just have to go back to, so?”

“So, I can’t draw, Tom. So, that’s not my handwriting, Tom. So, I can’t speak, much less write French, Tom. How’s that for a big bunch of ‘so’s.’”

“So, maybe you just got lucky with a doodle. So, maybe you just wrote different this time. So, maybe you saw those words somewhere and unconsciously remembered them or something. You have to stop spooking yourself.”

“Is that what you think I’m doing?”

“Well maybe you are. Will you at least accept that as a remote possibility?”

Anna thought for a moment before answering, “No.”

* * *

That night Anna slept on Tom’s couch and dreamed as she had never dreamed before. Faces appeared in the darkness. Sometimes she saw only eyes. Tom’s eyes, Tom’s face. He was smiling. He was laughing. She saw Detective Malmann’s face, Jeffrey’s, Stacey’s. She was in Paris. Tony was sitting in the middle of the Champs E’lysee eating a CB on an O.R. He’s shouting for his regular mustard. He doesn’t see the traffic. He doesn’t see the truck.

“Tony! Fuck the mustard!” Anna hears herself scream in the dream.
 

“Fuck the mustard?” Tony screams back, angry and very annoyed at Anna’s total lack of understanding. “Did you really say fuck the mustard? What-cha workin on? Huh? What-cha workin on?”

As the truck approaches, Tony changes into Duncan. Anna can see blood pouring freely from his wounds. The truck hits. Anna is standing in the middle of the road. She looks down at Duncan’s mangled broken body. She reaches for his shoulder and rolls him over. Now the face is Jeffrey’s, but the open, dead eyes are unmistakably her own.

“This is a dream! A dream!” Anna screams. She turns and runs down a street. It’s the street where she grew up, but now that street is in Paris. She passes the Eiffel Tower. She tries to turn the corner, but a French police officer blocks her way.

“You cannot go down this street. The Pope is visiting. You must go that way.” The officer turns into Detective Malmann. “That way. Hurry. Hurry!”

Anna turns in the direction the Detective is pointing. The street sign says Rue de Tripoli. The road was now lined with beautiful buildings, each several hundred years old. Anna slowed down and started to walk. She turned in circles, awed by the splendor of the architecture and the beauty wherever she looked. She took a deep breath. The air itself felt alive and filled with passion.

Someone tapped her on the shoulder. Anna turned. The portrait she had drawn floated before her. It was trying to tell her something. The woman’s mouth moved, but Anna couldn’t understand what she was saying. The woman was calling her, pleading with her to help.
 

Another tap. Anna turned again. It’s Detective Malmann. “That way,” he points. “Go that way.”

Anna starts to run toward an ornate 5-story building. She sees the gargoyles on the roof. They start to dance. Now Anna is in a room. She’s on a bed. She’s being stabbed, ripped apart. No, it’s not her. It’s not Paris. She sees blood. She sees blood flowing across the white tile floor. Anna wakes up and hears Jeffrey scream.

* * *

Anna dialed and spoke as soon as the operator came on the line. “911, you have to send someone to 217 Boltis street, apartment 346.”

“What is the nature of the emergency?”

“It’s my friend. I think he might be dead.”

* * *

In his apartment, Jeffrey was not dead. But, he was dying. Anna arrived just as two police officers were knocking on the door. “Please,” she said. “Get out of my way.”

Anna used the spare key Jeffrey had given her “just in case,” to open the door. Once inside the apartment, Anna led the officers directly to Jeffrey’s bathroom. The door was locked, but Anna didn’t wait for the officers to do something about it. Instead she kicked the door as hard as she could near the knob. It flew open, hitting the wall behind it with a loud bang.
 

Anna saw Jeffrey lying on the floor in an ever-growing pool of blood. She saw that the inside of his left arm had been slit open from the elbow joint to the wrist. She also saw the razor blade lying next to his right hand and the cuts on his right thumb and forefinger.
 

“No!” Anna screamed. She tried to run to Jeffrey, but one of the officers stopped her.
 

“Step away, Miss. Let us handle this.”

As he pushed Anna back, she saw the other officer kneel down next to Jeffrey. She looked more closely at the gaping wound in Jeffrey’s arm. The skin looked like it had been peeled back from the slash. Anna could see meat and bone.
 

The officer next to Jeffrey tied something, a tourniquet, around his upper left arm. “He’s still alive,” the officer called out. “See if that damn ambulance is here yet.”

Within seconds, two paramedics walked quickly into the apartment.

“Bathroom,” the officer blocking Anna’s way said, and pointed. “Hurry.”

The paramedics were followed in by Detective Malmann. After checking with the police officer and paramedics in the bathroom he returned to Anna.

“I’ll take it from here,” he told the officer with her. “Go see if you can help.”

“How is he?” Anna asked.

“He’s alive, but not by much,” Detective Malmann said. “Lucky thing for him that you called when you did. You saved his life.”

Anna looked around the Detective. She saw the paramedics and police officers lifting Jeffrey onto a stretcher.

“By the way,” Detective Malmann said almost nonchalantly. “The 911 operator said you called from an address on Lincolnview Drive.”

“Yes, that’s my boyfriend Tom’s house.”

“If you were there, then how did you happen to know to call us?”

Anna told the truth. “I had a dream that something was wrong.”

“How’s that?”

“I dreamed the whole thing. I saw Jeffrey lying on the floor. I saw his arm.”

“You saw all this in a dream.”

“Yes.”

Detective Malmann cleared his throat.

“I’m not lying.”

The paramedics rolled Jeffrey by on a stretcher. He was semi- conscious and he reached out with his right arm to Anna.

“Can I go with him to the hospital?” she asked.

“Yeah, sure,” Detective Malmann nodded. “In fact, I’ll come along too, if you don’t mind.”

Anna reached for Jeffrey and held his right hand all the way to the ambulance. After the paramedics secured him in place, she and Detective Malmann climbed in next to him.
 

As the ambulance sped off, siren blaring in the early morning calm, Jeffrey turned and whispered, “Anna,”
 

“Don’t talk, Jeffrey,” Anna said, moving close. “Save your strength.”

Jeffrey shook his head. He struggled for each word. “No. You have to listen.”

Anna moved in even closer. Detective Malmann did the same.
 

“I didn’t try to kill myself,” Jeffrey said weakly.
 

“I know you didn’t,” Anna said.
 

“You’re saying someone else tried to kill you?” Detective Malmann said. “Who?”

Jeffrey stayed focused on Anna. “I was dreaming, Anna. I was in Paris, on a street. Then I was back in my room. Duncan was there. He was standing next to the bed. He took my hand, Anna. I felt him take my hand.” Jeffrey’s words became more urgent as his voice weakened.

“It’s okay, Jeffrey,” Anna ran her fingers through his blood caked hair. “It’s okay.”

“Duncan pulled on my hand. He wanted me to go with him. I remember dreaming that I got out of bed and followed him into the bathroom. I know I was dreaming because I saw myself doing it. Then in the bathroom I looked in the mirror and saw both of our reflections. He was standing right behind me. He reached around me and held me, tight. That’s when I woke up, Anna. It hurt so bad that it woke me up.”

Jeffrey never took his eyes off Anna’s. “I had the razor in my hand and I was cutting my arm. I watched the edge of the razor go into me.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Anna cried.

“But it wasn’t me cutting. I couldn’t stop it. I looked in the mirror and Duncan’s reflection was still there. But I knew it wasn’t really Duncan. He was reaching around me, holding the razor in my fingers and pushing my hand so that it cut deeper.
 

He wouldn’t let me let go. He just kept making me cut. I watched it, Anna. I watched the razor blade move down my arm. I watched the skin opening and the blood. I screamed. I looked again into the mirror. I couldn’t see anyone else, but I knew he was still there. I didn’t do it, Anna. I didn’t do it.” Jeffrey was quickly losing consciousness. “He did it.”
 

“Who did it?” Detective Malmann snapped out his question, but Jeffrey had closed his eyes, and didn’t respond. The detective turned to Anna. “Do you have any idea who he was talking about?”

Anna thought for a moment of telling Detective Malmann the whole story, but she knew he wouldn’t believe her, and might lock her up in some institution. Besides, Anna had no real proof that what was happening to her had any real connection to what had happened to Duncan or Jeffrey. She hoped, no prayed, that it didn’t. She knew very well that it did.

“Do you?” The detective repeated his question.

“No.”

“What a surprise answer,” the detective smirked. “No one ever seems to know anything about anything. We sure are a dumb species.”

“I don’t know who hurt Jeffrey.”
 

Detective Malmann semi0smiled “And you also don’t know who killed Duncan?”

“No, I don’t.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“Tell you what,” Detective Malmann sounded overly friendly. “Tomorrow’s Sunday, so why don’t you just think about it for a day. Then I want to see you and your boyfriend, what’s his name?”

“Tom.”

“Yeah, Tom. Tom what?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Is there some reason you don’t want me to know?”

“Tom Howard.”

“Oh, that’s right. The 911 operator got his name from the address that came up on the line. He’s the owner of those jewelry stores I see on TV, right?”

“I think you already know the answer.”

“That’s right I do.”

* * *

Jeffrey gasped, but didn’t regain consciousness. His eyes fluttered under their closed lids. Anna squeezed Jeffrey’s hand and thought he might have squeezed back.
 

“Like I was saying,” Detective Malmann said after it was clear that Jeffrey wasn’t going to open his eyes. “I want to see both you and Mr. Howard at the precinct first thing Monday morning, okay? Say 8 o’clock?”