The First Time I Fell

by Joanne Macgregor

  Back in the kitchen, I stowed the broom and gloves, poured myself a strong cup of coffee and, craving noise and a sense of company, turned on the radio — an old-fashioned model with manual dials and an extendable aerial.

  “The National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center estimates northwestern Vermont has accumulated 7-10 feet of snow in total this season, and —”

  The announcer’s voice cut out, and loud static sounded through the kitchen. Lizzie whined.

  “I know, right?” I said to her. “One of the most annoying sounds in the universe.”

  I grabbed the radio and, leaning against a counter, turned the dial slowly, searching for a station with some upbeat music or a nice frenzied political debate. Anything to distract me from my unsettled state of mind. But the entire FM range gave only static, sometimes soft and sometimes loud enough to make Lizzie protest. I switched to AM. More hissing, until — finally, a song. It was one I recognized: Somebody’s Watching Me by Rockwell.

  I danced across the kitchen to nuke my lukewarm coffee in the microwave, singing along loudly, “People say I’m crazy, just a little touched.” I could totally relate to those lines. Maybe a little too much? “I always feel like somebody’s watching me,” I sang, then stopped. The song pretty much captured exactly how I was feeling. Paranoid and unbalanced and a freaking mess. Had I somehow affected the radio or intuitively found this song? Was that even possible?

  Accepting these abilities was hard for me. Ego-dystonic, that was the correct psychological term for it. It didn’t sit comfortably with my sense of self, with who I knew myself to be. Correction — with whom I’d once believed myself to be. I’d been trained as a scientist, schooled to test hypotheses, experiment under controlled conditions, to focus on what was observable, measurable and provable, and deduce objective conclusions from the data. The psychic phenomena I’d experienced, on the other hand, were varied, unpredictable and subjective, a complete inversion of scientific method and understanding.

  I wasn’t eager to believe in any of it, so it was unsettling and embarrassing to discover how I’d shifted to being more or less willing to do so.

  The microwave beeped, the song ended, and an advertisement for Burger King began playing. Lizzie settled in her basket, head on paws, back to normal.

  Another aspect that bothered me was exactly how this whole psychic thing worked. How come I sometimes got flashes or visions spontaneously, like I had at the top of the quarry, while at other times I had to concentrate, like with the keys and the necklace? Why did I sometimes have to touch an object and other times not? I needed to know the rules.

  I fired up my laptop, opened a blank Excel spreadsheet, and made a vertical list of all the visions and flashes I’d had. I named columns for each of the factors that I thought might be variables, such as whether the vision had occurred spontaneously or after concentrating, if I’d touched an object or person, or known the individual in the vision, whether there were strong emotions in the vision, and if the event portrayed had happened recently. Then I worked down the list, checking the boxes of the conditions that applied to each vision.

  The panicky feelings I’d experienced at the top of the quarry, and which I was now sure had been Laini’s rather than my own, had come to me spontaneously, I hadn’t had to touch anything, and it was a memory of a high-emotion event that had happened very recently.

  With Laini’s body in the bag, though, I’d had a fuller vision — was that because I’d touched her? Realizing I’d touched both her body and the body bag, I checked both relevant columns, then paused, running fingertips over the ends of my nails, automatically searching for rough edges while I pondered. Laini had been dead when I touched her, so did that make her an object, or should she still be classified as a person? I compromised by dividing the touched person column into alive and dead and checking the latter, along with strong emotion and recent.

  I’d had to concentrate to get readings on Laini’s necklace and the globe — perhaps that was because they weren’t in themselves connected to something with high emotions. The bone was not recent but surely was very high in emotion, or — the thought popped into my head before I could stop it — attached to a restless spirit. My scientist brain, the one analyzing my experiences for a common and predictable pattern, refused to create a column for that particular variable.

  Back in December, all of Colby’s visions had come spontaneously, and I’d been inside them, inside him looking out, rather than on the outside watching the scene play out like a video. Was that because we’d been so close, or because he’d been “sending” them to me?

  I created two more columns — inside and outside — and checked the relevant boxes for each vision. I’d been inside Laini, too, when I experienced what she had at the top of the quarry and when she fell. But I hadn’t really seen anything, I’d just felt her emotions and body sensations. I added columns for these.

  I stared down at my spreadsheet, searching the data for patterns. I saw none. I’d keep updating the file with my experiences, though, in the hope that eventually I’d figure out the rules of engagement in this strangest of games. As I hit save, the doorbell chimed. Ryan had arrived for our official meeting.

  Pushing the barking dogs aside and futilely ordering them to be quiet, I opened the front door.

  “Oh!” I said, surprised.

  Because Ryan wasn’t alone.

  – 20 –

  FBI agent Ronil Singh, of the Rutland field office, was the poster boy for tall, dark and handsome, and so pointedly polite that I immediately suspected he was visiting me under sufferance.

  I offered my visitors coffee, and when I went to the kitchen, Ryan, Darcy and Lizzie followed.

  “You told the FBI about me?” I said.

  “Is that a problem?” Ryan asked.

  I set a tray with cups, cream, sugar and some of the animal crackers I’d bought in town. Ryan grinned when he saw these, grabbed a gorilla and bit its head off.

  “I always figured cops were supposed to be skeptical unbelievers,” I said.

  “I always figured cops were supposed to believe the evidence.”

  “What evidence?”

  “I checked on the necklace.”

  “And?”

  “Carl Mendez did give it to Laini, and he did have it specially made. And she was a cyclist.”

  So, the vision had been accurate. That pleased me. Scared me a little, too.

  Ryan helped himself to an elephant and a cougar. “Go on, you can say it …”

  “What?” I said, all innocence.

  “You told me so.”

  “I did, indeedy. And I’ve got more, but it’ll have to wait.”

  I put the coffee pot on the tray and handed the lot to Ryan to carry into the living room, where Agent Singh was standing, staring at the figurines on the shelf. If you think those are creepy, you should see the doll in the attic, bud.

  Singh sat down only after I did and accepted a cup of coffee, but he left it untouched for the rest of the interview. Darcy snuffled at his feet, and Lizzie put her front paws on the couch beside him, begging for affection.

  “Sit,” Singh said, and to my surprise, they did.

  “Agent Singh is one of the investigators on the Jacob Wertheimer case,” Ryan said.

  “You’re not here about Laini Carter?” I asked.

  “That’s not under our jurisdiction, ma’am,” Singh replied.

  “Right.” I sipped my coffee. “So, how can I help you?”

  “Officer Jackson here contacted us because he believes you may have some” — Singh hesitated, clearly searching for the right words — “extraordinary knowledge of the crime?”

  “Knowledge? No, I don’t know anything. I just sometimes get … impressions when I touch objects or visit places where something traumatic has happened.”

  “I see. And have you had this ability all your life?”

  “No, just since December.” Singh gave me a questioning look, and I found myself
babbling, “I banged my head a few times, then drowned and apparently died. When I came back, I started experiencing things.”

  “Was there no medical explanation for your symptoms?”

  His face remained blank and his manner polite, but I could tell he thought I was brain damaged.

  “None that the doctors could find.”

  Giving up on getting any attention from Singh, both dogs wandered over to Ryan, who slipped them each an animal cracker.

  “And what impressions did you get when you handled the rib bone that your dog found?” Singh asked me.

  Now it was my turn to search for words. I tried to explain the suffocating darkness and fear and the sense of evil without sounding like a complete loon. Singh’s eyebrows twitched once or twice, and he pressed his lips together as if to prevent himself from commenting.

  When I petered out with, “And that’s all,” he grimaced and said, “I see,” in a way that made me think he clearly didn’t see at all.

  Opening his briefcase, he removed four brown paper sacks with folded tops and placed them on the coffee table in front of me. Lizzie and Darcy immediately abandoned Ryan and came over to investigate, but Singh stretched out an arm and pointed a finger at the doorway.

  “Kitchen,” he said firmly, and they both sulked out.

  “How do you do that?” I asked, amazed.

  “These bags” — Singh indicated the collection with a sweep of his hand — “each contain a single object. I would like you please to touch or handle the objects one by one and let me know what you … get.” I didn’t think I was imagining the note of cynicism in his voice.

  “Okay, sure.”

  Feeling like a contestant in a game show, I unfolded the top of the nearest bag, stuck my hand inside and pulled out a man’s wristwatch. I held it in one hand, then in both, but felt none of the sensations I associated with getting a reading. I closed my eyes and concentrated, sending my full attention to the timepiece in my hand.

  I shrugged and dropped the watch back in the bag. “Sorry, nothing.”

  Singh nodded, as if this was exactly what he’d expected.

  The next bag contained a small silver crucifix. Again, I held the object, closed my eyes, and concentrated. Again, I got nothing.

  “Look, I don’t always get a reading. In fact, most of the time I don’t. I can’t make it happen.” Even to my own ears, it sounded like I was making excuses.

  “Of course, I understand perfectly,” Singh said, his lip just hooking in the beginnings of a sneer.

  Scowling at Ryan for putting me in the position of feeling like a performing monkey, I tipped the contents of the second to last bag into my hand. It was a matchbook, pure black except for a silver exclamation mark embossed on the front and a New York address on the back. I held it tightly, shut my eyes and channeled my anger into my hands. My fingers prickled, my scalp tightened, and my breath caught at the image that flashed into my mind.

  A young woman, early twenties, heavy makeup.

  Topless.

  Surprised, I looked up — just in time to catch the look Singh exchanged with Ryan. His expression was one of clear derision, and it pissed me off royally. I closed my eyes again and doubled down over the matchbook. It took me a couple of seconds, but I got it again, like re-entering a dream when you’ve just woken up but are still half-asleep.

  A woman, topless, wearing a sequined G-string. She’s in a box. No, a booth — a small booth with gold walls and a heavy red curtain across the doorway.

  Music plays. She writhes and wriggles, rubbing her hand over her breasts and between her legs.

  A man looks on, his expression caught between would-be cool and growing lust.

  She dances across to him, straddles his thighs.

  I opened my eyes and told Singh, “I got something on that one.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah. A topless woman wearing a silver wig was giving a lap dance to a man.” I smiled, savoring the moment. “To you.”

  Agent Singh kept his face impassive and said nothing, but he ran a finger under his collar as if it was suddenly too tight.

  I shook out my tingling fingers and took a deep breath before tipping the last bag over the table. A button rolled out — round, made of light wood, with a raised rim and four central holes. I picked it up and at once felt like I’d been kicked in the gut. Heavy darkness closed in, and a suffocating sense of wrongness robbed me of breath. I teetered on the edge of an abyss of deep shadows. And fell.

  The button, fused to my hand, was pulling me down, down, deeper down. No!

  Wrenching my eyes open, I opened the tightly closed fingers of my right hand and dropped the button back onto the table. I rubbed the palm of my hand, which burned as though I’d been holding a red-hot coal.

  “This is it? This is the thing the killer left with the bodies of his victims?” I said, my voice sounding breathy.

  The agent shot Ryan a filthy look. “What the hell, Jackson — you told her? So much for this being an objective test!”

  “I only told her the killer had left something with each of his victims, not what that something was,” Ryan snapped back. “It could just as easily have been the cross or the matches.”

  Singh frowned at me and demanded, “What did you just see?”

  “I didn’t really see anything except darkness.” A stygian gloom blacker than the darkest night. A darkness that was less the absence of light than the presence of something ancient and evil. “And I got a bad feeling, same as when I touched the bone the other day. But this time, I didn’t feel fear. I mean, I was scared, but for me. It didn’t feel like there was fear connected to the button.”

  “Darkness and a bad feeling. Fear but no fear,” Singh repeated. “That’s it?”

  I nodded.

  “I see. Well, I think we’re done here.”

  Clearly, I hadn’t won him over.

  He dropped the button back into the bag and returned all the bags into his briefcase. “Thank you for your time, ma’am.”

  “You’re most welcome,” I said coldly.

  “We’ll take it from here and contact you if we have any further questions.”

  Translation: don’t call us, we’ll call you.

  “What if I have more visions about this?” I asked.

  Seeming reluctant, he handed me his business card. “You can call if you get something new.”

  I made no effort to see him out. As usual, after having a vision, I felt limp and drained. Sighing, I closed my eyes and relaxed back into the couch cushions.

  That was when it happened.

  A hand caresses a stubbled jaw and a bloodied lip, then trails down a throat, over a wire garrote. Pushes aside an open shirt to stroke a naked chest, circling bruises with a forefinger, on its way down lower. Opens the fly, slowly, one button at a time, kneading the flesh beneath with fingertips and knuckles. Rubs. Harder and harder.

  Shuddering and swallowing down nausea, I opened my eyes and said, “He’s white.”

  Agent Singh, who was almost out of the room, stopped and turned. “What’s that?”

  “Your perpetrator. He’s white. Left-handed, I think. He wears a ring.” I tapped the third finger of my left hand. “So he’s probably married.”

  Both men’s attention was riveted on me now.

  “The perp is definitely male?” Singh asked.

  “Yes. That is, I didn’t specifically see … But yes, he’s male.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just do.” I raised a hand to my throat. “And he killed this victim by strangling him with a wire.”

  Singh and Ryan exchanged a glance.

  “The victim wore a red-and-blue plaid shirt, and blue jeans with buttons, not a zipper. Levis, maybe,” I said.

  “Did you get anything else?” Singh asked.

  I stared at my hands for a few moments, trying to recapture the feel of the vision.

  “He likes them. Sexually, I mean,” I said. “He wants to have th
em. And to know them. No, to be them.” I nodded. That was it. “He wants to be them in some way.”

  Ryan’s mouth was open, and Singh’s eyebrows were raised so high they almost merged with his hairline.

  “Give me that button again,” I said.

  Wordlessly, Singh walked back over to me and tipped the button out of the bag and into my palm. As if readying myself for a dive into deep water, I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. Then I brought both palms together, holding the button between them. My eyelids fluttered as my vision went dark.

  Two hands, wearing latex gloves now, thread the button with black twine. Secure it with a double knot. Thread the other end of twine through the eye of a large, curved needle. One hand pinches the bloodied lips together between finger and thumb, and the other begins stitching …

  With an involuntary cry, I opened my hands and dropped the button. Singh bent to retrieve it from the carpet while Ryan said, “You’re as white as a sheet, Garnet! What did you see?”

  I pushed the back of a hand against my mouth and swallowed down my nausea.

  “You found that button on his mouth, on the victim’s mouth.”

  Singh returned the button to the paper bag. “No, we didn’t.”

  “The remains were skeletonized, and the bones were scattered, Ron,” Ryan said. “You can’t say for sure where the button was originally left.”

  “Neither can she.”

  “He sewed the boy’s mouth closed, with the button and black twine,” I said. “Excuse me.”

  As I rushed out of the room, I heard Ryan ask Singh, “The other victims — were the buttons on their mouths, too?”

  I couldn’t hear Singh’s reply over the sound of me retching into the guest toilet. When I’d emptied my stomach, I washed my hands with hot water for several minutes, trying to scrub off the lingering sensation of darkness, wishing I could scour the images I’d seen off my corneas.