Night Vision

by Maggie Shayne

  “He’s the rapist. He’s the killer.”

  Sam’s hand froze in midair. He felt his face change with the shock of her words, and quickly shot her a look of sheer disbelief. “Don’t be ridiculous. Hell, Megan, did you hit your head or something back there?”

  “It’s him. He touched me and I saw it, felt it. It’s him, Sam.”

  He swung his head toward the chief’s car as the man drove away, and caught him looking back, his face troubled.

  “No. No way. You’re wrong. You’re dead wrong about this.”

  “I know I’m right. And there’s more, but I...I have to see Lily before I can be sure.”

  He shook his head. “He’s been my mother’s best friend since my father... I’m sorry, Meg, but I can’t let you go making all kinds of crazy accusations to my family. He’s practically a part of my family, for God’s sake.” Then he looked at her again. “It’s Lily who put this crazy notion into your head, isn’t it? She’s never liked him. And now you want to go making some wild accusations that will convince her she’s been right all along.”

  “Maybe Lily never liked him because she’s slightly psychic herself. She calls it intuition. Whatever it is, somehow she knows he’s rotten inside. Evil.” She pressed a hand to Sam’s face when he looked away from her. “Sam, look at me. You know I wouldn’t repeat any of this to your family. And no, it isn’t coming from Lily and I’m not going to make any accusations to her or to anyone else. Only you, Sam. I can’t not tell you this. Not this. Because...because all of the sudden, I understand what it means.”

  “You’re three steps ahead of me, then. What does it mean?”

  She held his face between her palms. “There’s no curse. There never was.”

  He was having trouble trying to follow her as her train of thought seemed to jump the tracks. And focusing on her words was damn near impossible when she was touching him, when her mouth was so close to his and her eyes were sparkling the way they were. “No curse?”

  She smiled softly. “No curse.” Then her smile died as she looked past him, and her eyes widened. “He’s coming back.”

  Sam turned to see the chief’s car rolling back into the parking lot. “Sam, we have to get out of here!”

  She was terrified, clearly, of his boss and mentor. And it made no sense at all, but something wouldn’t let him brush it off. He didn’t believe any of it, but decided to give her the benefit of the doubt, and act as if there were some remote chance she could be right. Because he believed in her. “We’re going,” he promised. “Buckle up.”

  He closed her door, went around to his side, got in, and got going. On their way out, they passed the chief in his car. He watched them closely, didn’t return Sam’s friendly wave or his forced smile. Something was off, something was wrong.

  “We have to keep him away from Linda Keller.”

  “He already knows Linda didn’t see anything. Even if he was the one, and I gotta tell you, Meg, there’s no way in hell he is. But even if he was, Linda would pose no threat to him.” He glanced back to watch the chief’s car, in spite of himself. “And even if she did, he wouldn’t do anything at the hospital. Not when she lives alone and is being released today.”

  And yet he watched. The chief’s car only circled the lot and left it again. “Look, he’s not even stopping.”

  Megan was watching, too. “He only came back to see what we were doing. He’s checking up on us. He may realize we’re on to him.”

  “We’re not on to him. There's gotta be some other explanation."

  “You’re not onto him," she countered. "But I am. And I think your father was, too.”

  “My...” He couldn’t talk for a second. It was as if her words stole his breath. He managed to catch it and tried again. “You think my father believed this? God, Megan, he was a cop. If he thought his own partner was a violent criminal he’d have turned him in, no matter how close they were.”

  “Yeah. Exactly. But your dad never got the chance. Skinner was the only one who walked away from that liquor store robbery."

  “No. No, no way was Ed involved in my father’s death. They were like brothers.”

  “Lily said your father had been acting oddly for a week prior to his death. Don’t you want to know why?”

  He stared at her, and something icy cold seemed to solidify over his chest as he finally considered how easy it would have been.

  He tried to shake off the chilling feeling. “There could have been a hundred reasons for him to have been acting off-kilter that week.”

  “You’re right. There could have been.” She covered his hand with hers. “Lily told me your mother hasn’t changed a thing in your father’s den since he died. That it’s like a shrine to him in there.”

  Sam nodded as he drove. “It was always off-limits to the rest of the family, that den. Mom still doesn’t let anyone in there. Guards it like a lioness. She’s the only one who can go inside. Says she feels closer to Dad when she spends time in the den.”

  “Has she ever let Skinner inside?”

  He shook his head. “Never.”

  “Has he ever asked?”

  Sam blinked, recalling how determined Ed had been to get into his father’s private den right around the time of the funeral. Hell, it had been a source of added worry to his mother and had infuriated Lily. He slanted a look at Megan. “Actually, he did. Right after Dad’s death. Something about some missing files that pertained to a case they’d been working on.”

  “And did your mother let him go in?”

  “No. As I remember it, she told him she had gone through the room from top to bottom and had boxed up everything that had to do with work. She gave that box of files to Ed.” He tried to swallow but the memories seemed to be drying out his throat. “It was odd. He asked her if she’d read through them. He seemed almost scared. When she said she had been a policeman’s wife long enough to know better than to snoop through private files, he seemed satisfied, took the box, and as far as I know, he never asked again.”

  Megan nodded slowly. “I wonder if Skinner found the evidence your father must've had on him in those files.”

  “This is all speculation on your part.”

  She held his eyes, and he thought she could see that he was trying to convince himself as much as her. She didn’t even waver. “We need to convince your mother to let us go through that room, Sam. I don’t know how I know it, but I do. If there’s anything to find, your father left it in there for us.”

  “She’ll never agree to that,” he said.

  Megan lowered her eyes.

  Sam drew a breath. Everything in him was telling him to trust her. To believe her. And he was damned if he had it in him to do otherwise. “All right, Meg. If you feel this strongly, we’ll do it.”

  She looked up at him, an emotion he couldn’t name shining from her eyes. “You believe me?”

  “I trust you like I’ve never trusted anyone. If you say we need to check it out, we need to check it out.” He saw the tears gathering, and then it hit him why she was reacting so strongly to him believing the unbelievable at nothing more than her word. “I’m not your father, Megan.”

  She smiled. It was shaky, unsteady, and wet. “No, you’re not even close.”

  There was so much more to say, so much to explain. But she didn’t give him the chance. “How are we going to get in if your mother won’t agree to let us?”

  He glanced at the clock on the radio dial. “She’ll be out all morning. Volunteers at the Ladies’ Auxiliary till noon. If we’re lucky, Lily is with her. She often goes along.”

  He drove her to his mother’s house, the house where he had grown up. And while he was at it, he phoned the hospital and spoke to the guard on Linda Keller’s room, told him not to let anyone, including police officers, even the chief himself, be alone with her and to delay her release from the hospital until further notice.

  Then he pulled his car into the familiar driveway. The house was a big old Victorian, and his p
arents had lived in it for as long as he could remember. It had changed very little over the years.

  Meg seemed to have recovered physically during the course of the drive. Still, he held her arm as he led her up the walk to the front door. She might be feeling better, but he wasn’t sure he was after seeing her take a phantom beating and pass out like that, much less hearing the things she had to say afterward.

  “Lily’s not home, either,” he said, deducing as much from the fact that the door was locked. “She refuses to live behind locked doors. If she were here, it would have been open.”

  Megan nodded, and he led the way into the house. He looked around first, making utterly sure they were alone, before leading the way down a hall to a closed door. Then he paused, hesitated.

  “It’s not easy, is it?”

  He turned to face Megan, saw her looking into his eyes. “Mom would consider it a betrayal, my bringing you here. Invading Dad’s space.”

  “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t feel it was vital, Sam.”

  He nodded. “I know that. And I wouldn’t bring any other woman in here. Dad ... Dad would be rolling over in his grave if I did. But somehow, I just don’t think he’d mind so much with you.”

  “There’s something in there he wants us to find. Maybe even needs us to find.”

  Sighing, Sam nodded and turned to face the door again. His hands felt clammy and his heart heavy as he inserted the key into the lock.

  Chapter 11

  Sam opened the door to his father’s den and was immediately transported backward in time. He was seven years old again, tapping on the door of his father’s inner sanctum, waiting without drawing a breath until that deep, powerful voice, laced with just a hint of laughter, called, “Hmm, if it’s important enough to interrupt my quiet time, it must be pretty important. Come on in, then.” He looked at Megan, saw her watching him, feeling what he felt. “Dad usually stole a half hour a day in his den,” he told her. “It was off-limits to us kids, to everyone except Mom. He didn’t even bring his friends in here.”

  She nodded as if she understood. “It’s okay, Sam. Take your time.”

  Stepping farther into the room surrounded Sam in the very essence of his father. He could smell old cigar smoke, and expensive leather, and aging books. So much his dad, those smells. “God, no wonder Mom likes to come in here sometimes, just to sit alone.

  “It’s bringing back a lot of memories for you, isn’t it?” Megan put a hand on his arm as she asked the question.

  “It’s like he never left. Like he could just walk in here like he used to, pick up where he left off.”

  “You loved him a lot.”

  He nodded. “Still do.”

  “He’d be proud of you, Sam. He is. I feel it.”

  He met Megan’s eyes. Could she know what her saying that meant to him? Yeah, he thought. She knew. He’d never been with a woman who knew him the way Megan did.

  “If he had kept anything related to work, private files or cases he was working on–”

  “Mom found everything he had here, gave it to Ed.”

  She tipped her head. “Probably. But there’s a chance she could have missed something. She must have, because I feel very strongly there’s something here. So where would he have kept them?”

  Sam shrugged and looked around the room. The big oak desk took up most of one wall, face out, a chair behind it, so his father could sit there and work and still see the TV set. It held an oversized IBM Selectric typewriter with the soft cover securely in place, a leather blotter, an earthenware mug full of pens and pencils, a stack of blank sheets of paper, a paperweight–clear acrylic with a forever-frozen spider inside, a Father’s Day gift from Sam–and a couple of framed photos of the family, as they had been many years ago.

  “I don’t know. The desk I suppose.” He moved behind his father’s desk and opened its drawers. None were locked, but then there was no reason why they should be. He didn’t find anything like what they were looking for in any of them, but the small center drawer’s contents brought him up short.

  It held his father’s badge.

  “I know this is hard for you, Sam. I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry to put you through this.”

  “I know you are.” He took the badge out and held it in his hands as he moved from the desk to the file cabinet, which was nearly empty. The badge was in a folder the size of a wallet, with his father’s photo ID card on one side and his badge on the other. He couldn’t stop looking at it as he searched the room. Within a few minutes, he realized Meg wasn’t joining him in the search. Instead she was standing patiently aside, while he checked all the obvious places. She seemed engrossed in the family photos on the desk.

  She felt his eyes on her and looked up, meeting them; she offered him a sad smile. “Your father was a handsome man. You look like him.”

  “Think so?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “You can help me look, Meg.”

  “It feels like a sacrilege,” she said softly. But she joined him in the search, even crouched down to look under the sofa and chair, while Sam checked beneath the cushions. He felt the backing and upholstery for unusual lumps or bulges. Nothing.

  It was while he was performing that last little function that he dropped his father’s badge on the floor. Meg was on her hands and knees peering under the chair, and it fell right beside her hand. Naturally, she stopped what she was doing and picked it up, looking at it, her eyes somber as she rose to her feet.

  And then her head snapped backward so hard Sam thought she might have wrenched her neck. Her eyes widened and rolled back, and she staggered backward until her body slammed into the bookcase.

  “Megan!" Sam went to her, reached out to her, but she spun away from him, her arms flailing and knocking books to the floor.

  “Easy, Megan, easy.”

  “No, no, no!”

  She wasn’t seeing him, wasn’t hearing him, he realized. She was seeing something else. Some vision brought on by the touch of his father’s badge.

  God, he was almost afraid to speculate....

  Meg backed into a corner and sank to the floor, curling her legs up to her chest, hugging them and rocking. Sam knelt beside her, touching her. “Megan,” he said. “It’s okay, baby, it’s okay. I’m right here.” He stroked her hair away from her face. But she didn’t seem to feel him, didn’t see him, was beyond his reach, and clutching his father’s badge in a death grip.

  He could do nothing but leave her alone until it passed. She seemed to need space to recover. So he backed off, returning the books to the shelf to minimize his mother’s outrage at his invasion of what was, to her, sacred space. But when he lifted the first several volumes to the shelf, he stopped and just stood there, blinking.

  In the space left by the fallen books, there appeared to be a false bottom on the bookshelf. He could see the fissures on either side of a short expanse of the wood. And when he gripped it and tugged, it came away, revealing a shoebox-sized compartment underneath. Inside that compartment was a manila envelope, folded in half, lengthwise, and tucked out of sight.

  He pulled the envelope free, swallowing hard as he turned it over. But before he could examine the contents, Megan’s blood-chilling scream split the silence.

  Megan shook off the debilitating impact of the vision and shot to her feet when she saw Chief Skinner walk through the door into the room. She tried to form words to warn Sam, but couldn’t seem to make her lips form anything coherent, and finally poured every ounce of energy she had into warning him in any way she could, clenching her fists, opening her mouth, forcing sound to come. The result was a scream.

  Sam spun around, wide-eyed, an envelope in his hands, but it was too late. Skinner had already drawn his weapon and was pointing it. “I’ll take that file, Sam.”

  “Ed, what the hell is going on here?” Sam asked.

  The chief looked momentarily confused, then angry. “Trying to pretend you haven’t already figured it out isn’t going to help.
”

  "It didn’t help his father, after all. Did it, Chief?” Megan asked from behind him.

  She’d found her voice. It was weak, shaky, far softer than normal, but at least she could put words together now.

  The chief turned his head slightly. “Get over there next to him.” He directed her with his gun.

  She stayed where she was, lowering her gaze to the badge she held in her hand. “I know what you did that night at the liquor store. I saw it, all of it.”

  “You don’t know a damn thing, Ms. Rose.”

  She looked past him, met Sam’s eyes. “They got the call. Armed robbery in progress, and they went over there. To Joe’s Wine and Spirits. There were tubes of red neon in the shape of a giant wine bottle in the front window. I don’t think it’s there anymore.”

  “No. They closed it after–”

  “Your father went around the back. Skinner went in through the front. The place was empty except for those two kids and the clerk, who was lying on the floor, unconscious, bleeding, maybe already dead. It was the perfect opportunity, wasn’t it, Chief?”

  “What did you do?” Sam asked.

  “Pulled his gun and shot both of the suspects,” Megan said softly. “Never shouted a warning. They didn’t even know he’d come inside. Your father heard the shots, came in to help. He saw that his friend had it under control, and he lowered his weapon.” She narrowed her eyes on Skinner. “That’s when you took the gun from one of the boys you’d killed, pointed it right at your best friend, saw the shock and horror in his eyes, and shot him down. Pumped three bullets into his head.”

  “Stop it!” Skinner cried.

  “My God, Ed,” Sam whispered. “Why? Why?”

  Skinner faced him again. “Because of that file you have in your hands. All this time, it never surfaced. I figured it never would. Your mother gave me everything that was in this room. When I didn’t find the evidence there, I thought I’d been wrong. Maybe he really didn’t have anything on me after all. Maybe I killed him for nothing.”