“Oh, well! Detective Andrew. How are you doing today? Long time no see.” The hoarse voice diverted the glow of the tone, it was now a softer, velvet-like voice. The sheriff’s eyes shone like sparks.
On the other side of the line, there was what seemed like laughter, drowning in the interferences of BellaConnect’s innovative technologies; the phone company.
Landon was an athletic guy, with green eyes and blonde hair. Truth be told, Vogue sunglasses suit him perfectly. He always had his faced well shaved and smelled of expensive perfume. His forehead used to shine under the sun as spring began, this was due to a sticky cream that he used every morning after his shower. He was a tough guy and had no contemplations towards drunkards. He admired prostitutes and had a wife and two kids who lived in a white big house with huge windows and an almost hermetic door.
For some reason, he was pretending, just like Kevin had been.
“Well, you’re very cheerful this morning. Why is it that I don’t believe you?” It’s not that Andrew didn’t get along with everyone because of his bad mood or his peculiar way of saying things; he just kept his distance.
“Yes, my wife is pregnant again.” Landon lied moving his eyebrows. A crushed toothpick was still moving in his mouth, going over his just cleaned teeth.
“Oh, that’s nice, family’s getting bigger.” Andrew let a smile escape in the distance that seemed to become a slight whistle through the phone. He knew he was lying since he remembered that the previous year he mentioned he had had a vasectomy, he said that his wife didn’t want to take care of any more babies.
Landon couldn’t but smile devilishly.
“Well, yes. That’s ok, isn’t it?”
There was an ominous silence that lasted for about three seconds.
Landon was about to hang up when Andrew’s hoarse voice echoed.
“Well, I haven’t called you to check how well you fuck or anything like it. I have a lot of other things to think about. For instance, the case of the seven missing women, back in 2014. We have only found their clothes along with some lunatic’s fingerprints who I never thought was the murderer. Are you following me?”
What did he mean with these last words?
“Mr. Detective, that case is already closed. The murderer is rotting in fucking jail and even if we never find those poor women’s bodies,” he said poor and not wretch “we all know that he killed them and that’s why he’s in the aisle of death...”
“Not anymore.” Andrew dropped the call.
Landon Miller’s eyebrows went up almost touching his forehead as his eyes opened drastically.
“Has he been released?”
“No.”
“So?”
“He died during the morning. He had cancer.”
“Oh, I didn’t know that, sorry.”
“Why should you be sorry?” The conversation looked like an interrogation where two people were facing each other but separated by a long table, longer than 6 feet.
“Well, you caught me by surprise, so I said the first thing that came to my mind.” The tough guy façade that Landon wanted to show was not really how he was and sometimes, he even behaved worse than his assistant, much worse.
“That motherfucker left without opening his mouth other than to scream like a cowbell. He hasn’t said where he left those poor wretches.” Andrew did, in fact, refer to them as “poor wretches”.
“If you say so...”
“Do you have any more details on the case?” Andrew’s voice was now deeper and accented every word. Sprawling on his chair, while his ear was getting warmer with the phone, he kept looking at those pictures under the mean light of that light bulb which was older than the neighbor’s dog.
“You now know more than I do,” Landon replied moving his ass away from his chair. It was a swiveling chair, just like Andrew’s. He swung and the wheels span on the blackish floor. It was dirty. He now put his elbows on the table which was full of a pile of folders and scattered papers. In the middle, there was a picture of a woman and her children, a boy and a girl.
The three of them were still smiling at the camera.
“This morning, Colton, the Warren’s Penitentiary warden, called me to give me the bad news.”
“Bad?”
“Yes. I insist that those women’s bodies haven’t been found yet.” Andrew explained and all of a sudden, he remembered the Remote Vision: Ava Cox with her eyes closed by the shore of one of the over one hundred lakes in the county. She had her hair died in blue, spread like a carpet above the flowers instead of being floppy in the water like slimy seaweed, face down.
“What difference does it make now?” Landon said, making a huge mistake. The toothpick broke silently, and a piece fell on the table, curiously, in a place free from papers and pens.
“Don’t you have feelings?” Andrew scolded. Several golden-colored fingers caressed those pictures, except for Parker Atkinson’s, of course. His mind was so dark that even in a picture he exuded malice and bad vibes.
“And do you?”
“Mr. Sheriff, I will tell you one thing. And only one.” He emphasized this last statement. “You don’t know me yet.”
All of a sudden, silence broke into the conversation.
8
The sicko, that same twisted mind, was tired of so much pleasure, so much lust and so much obsession. His body glowed in the mirror’s dirty crystal. As he watched himself from head to feet, his eyes shone in a jade green color and now they were gazing cholericly, crazily and erratically as if his gaze were dragging the images through the air.
“Life in Mono” never stopped playing through the huge decrepit speakers. The buffer scratched the core of the internal magnet like long and shattered nails.
It had been more than four hours and he was already tired of dancing, of contemplating himself, of meditating. He was tired of caressing his body and his sex; of hiding it and being different.
He was breathing and panting in a thick and sticky cloud of heat. Behind the walls, some voices could be heard; squeaking. They were heartbreaking and depicted desperation, fear, and terror.
That sicko was buried behind four walls and under a blood-like light. He had never been to a shrink, had he?
He had no talent or extrasensory experiences, he just thought differently, and his body changed like the flames of a chimney. Like a flame that transforms during a constant dance until they perish.
As he was panting, he guided his hands to his eyes and closed them while the music kept echoing in his ears, in his mind.
And suddenly something happened.
9
“If all of a sudden, coincidence or not, something new were to happen, you would tell me, right?” Andrew’s voice seemed to be begging, something atypical in him. His eyes, on the other side of the line, were still fixed in that woman with blue hair. He had been like that for hours. His sweaty forehead was dried by a big handkerchief, a white one and trapped in his tiny fingers.
“I don’t understand. What do you mean?” Landon seemed confused and that was the closest he could get to paying attention in that noon’s conversation. His frowning eyebrows rose up again and this time he leaned forward holding his weight with his elbows.
“You know I’m talking about those seven girls...” Andrew’s voice whispered.
“So?” Landon interrupted him leaning forward. What do you mean? I already told you that the case was closed.
His eyes opened like two plates, as if all of a sudden he had seen a blackish frog on his table; something absolutely impossible, well, that’s how he started to feel.
“I’m just saying that if something weird happens...”
“Are you delusional?” Landon interrupted again. His left fist was about to punch one of those bundles of papers.
Does he know that I go to the shrink? Andrew wondered, diverting all the attention from that woman with cheerful eyes, for the first time in the morning.
“What do you mean that I’m delusional?�
��
“It just came up to me. I don’t know if it’s the right word but for a moment I thought that you meant that I might see Parker Atkinson again. You just told me he died this morning, right?”
On the other side of the phone, there was a whistling sound as if a balloon were slowly deflating.
“Are you out of your mind? Do you think I could possibly mean anything like that? That mother fucker is in the past.” Andrew’s voice reached his natural tone, deep and torn at the same time. He had his eyes open now and he was once again observing Ava’s picture. Without any trick or magic, he had discovered that Landon didn’t know anything about his appointments with the shrink yet. That definitely made him feel better.
The line sounded as if coughing.
“No, Andrew, I didn’t want to suggest something like that, I’m sorry.” He had just said the most forbidden word in his vocabulary. “Don’t get me wrong but even if the case can be considered as closed, if by any chance there’s a new lead, I will let you know.” Landon was smiling. White corpses don’t talk, he thought. To him, everything was over now that Parker was dead, even though it had been over when the judge had sent him to prison and sentenced him to a death penalty. For the latter, he would have been transferred to Oklahoma or Texas, since there was no sentence like that in Maine. However, there was no need for it now. The trial was somehow unusual and such sentence had been odd or even illegal in a state governed by other rules. Everything smelled like shit, but things were done that way, without anyone filing any formal complaint. After all, they were in the United States of America.
“Changing the subject, do you remember how many lakes are there in our county?” Now Andrew’s voice was just deep, and the coughing was gone.
“Right now, I wouldn’t know ... there might be eighty or maybe one hundred. And now that we’re talking about Maine, it could be thousands. In Portland, there’s a bunch of...”
“And Maine’s capital is Augusta.” Andrew interrupted. “Come on! Let’s be honest and cooperate. What do you think if we start from here? Castle Lake Hill.”
Landon frowned his sweaty forehead.
“About six lakes, maybe. All of them connected to the same river: Lake Wave. The one that belongs to the Tum Tum Indians.” This time, Landon was going through a mixture of confusion and an evil smile. “Don’t you remember all the lakes? What’s wrong with you?”
“I’m getting older and sometimes my brain’s connections get stuck.” Andrew’s voice replied. He was being as nice as nice as he could with that rude Landon Miller: the guy in the dark glasses that was showing his biceps from the police car window and with a damn toothpick between his white teeth.
“Well, you should leave someone from a new generation in your place.” Landon invited with a now wider smile.
Andrew almost heard him smile in that fucking smile.
“Not really, I still have one thing left to do.” Andrew what he meant. That’s why he had all those pictures on the wall. He was serious and calm in those moments that were difficult for him.
He was calm even with the Sheriff’s words. It was hard to talk to an idiot.
Retire, man, Landon thought as he held the earpiece. He felt the urge to hang up. His forearm was starting to hurt.
“I see.”
There was a moment of silence choked by the murmur from the precinct that looked like a weekly market. After that, Andrew’s voice broke the magic with a roar.
“Do you remember what lake has a cabin at the end of a bridge?”
“What lake doesn’t have a cabin?”
“All of them do.”
Landon was puzzled once again.
“You’ve answered your own question.”
“I remember the old cabin at the ‘Lake’ lake. Uncle Bob’s. He died of a heart attack in September 2008. I saw him myself, floating in the water face down, with his white long hair soft as silk threads. The poor man was adrift more than a week and he was swollen like a bag of air. The fish had bitten his face, but I recognized him, though. After that, I haven’t been there. Is the yellow cabin still there?”
“Yes, of course, but now it’s painted in white... Wait, no, I think it’s varnished now.” Landon moved his left hand’s fingers on the pile of messy papers. They were rough. He had doubted a little bit but finally, he remembered. “Uncle Tom lives there now, a repeated name in this fucking country. He lives alone, and I think he’s a Vietnam veteran. He’s a curmudgeon. He has a fisherman’s hat or a cap, I don’t remember quite well and his fond of throwing the fishing rod and waiting for the buoy to move.”
We have no record of any relative. He came once to file a claim about some teenagers that bothered him, and he said he had come from New York. I was shocked by his scruffy and dirty clothes. They didn’t seem to have a connection with such a stylish man. His accent wasn’t different to ours either. I think he lied but nothing else.
Landon had released a rhetoric that even impressed himself.
“He was comfortable,” Andrew said after a brief pause. In his shelter, his eyes were still fixed in Ava Cox. While he listened, he remembered how he had seen her, as something that would soon happen. Plus, he had already received that information about her. When they disappeared, that didn’t happen to him. It was as if all of a sudden Andrew had lost all track of his gifts. We could say that he didn’t see them again through that dark and narrow window for the last four years. Even though he had been resolving cases but the old way.
Then, something happened.
That pinching headache came back with such intensity that he had to take the phone from his ear. He frowned and closed his eyes. Landon was not speaking on the other side of the line, yet. There was some sort of restlessness in the communication and he began to receive information.
It was as if some dark eyes were exuding bad energy like a shock wave or, even worse, like lightning.
Something seemed to be moving slowly and transmitting heat and confusion. He heard something, some voices drowning inside a bucket of water. He perceived a sick mind. He knew that because the information he was receiving was full of bad vibes, dark ideas and macabre, or even disturbing, wishes.
A cold mind.
He heard music for an instant and that was it.
“Andrew, Are you there? You seem pretty quiet.” Landon’s voice sounded quite jocular.
Andrew felt that vibration in his hand; the one holding the phone. As unbelievable as it may seem, he felt the energy of that voice vibrating in his skin. He took the phone back to his ear.
“Of course, I’m here, why wouldn’t I be? Do you think I’ve had a heart attack?” Andrew wanted to laugh out loud, making his laugh bounce but he didn’t achieve it. His lips just stretched, and he smiled to the empty eyes of those girls.
“No, no. Of course not, you’re still young.” Landon joked, something quite unusual in him. Sometimes he was a real flatterer.
“You were explaining the story of that cabin.” Andrew continued, detecting in Landon’s voice the cynicism and forced tone in his voice.
“Yes, and that guy’s, Tom. A weird man but nothing worrying.”
“Can you answer one last question for me?” Andrew was massaging his forehead. The headache had decreased until it disappeared like a tongue on fire touching the water.
“Of course.” Landon was looking for the piece of toothpick that had fallen before. His hand was like a diving fin. He felt the need to bite something to ease the tension.
“Are there any frogs in that lake?”
On the other side of the line, there was a huge guffaw.
Andrew hung up.
10
It was related to his sly plans. Sometimes he improvised, and he would remain indifferent. It was a sicko that looked for shelter under the storm. He said he was sorry if he didn’t know what to reply. But that sicko was like a shadow that no one had ever seen. It kept hiding behind a transparent mask. His decisions were abominable, and he always waited and took risks in t
he ignorance that rationality gave him. He didn’t take precautions, but even then, he had an escape towards that dazed mind that acted in a calculating way after an improvised start. However, now it was time to change plans. To improvise, yes, improvising endlessly. If he had written a diary he would have written that word four times in the same sentence.
No one knew who he was.
Everybody was indifferent to his presence.
No one considered him.
That was one of the main factors that contributed to the development of his mental disorder.
And he figured it would be a clever idea to start playing.
Yes, he would start playing.
The speaker stopped playing and all of a sudden “Life in Mono” muted.
His face turned to an indifferent shape.
11
The clock on the wall, one of those with the minute hand that moves sorely and seems to get stuck on the lowest end because all of a sudden it becomes too heavy, was showing quarter to one and Andrew knew kept observing all those pictures and, specially, Ava Cox’s, when suddenly he began receiving information.
It was a huge vehicle.
He couldn’t, for the time being, decipher the brand. It’s not that he saw a picture in his mind after closing his eyes. He rather perceived it was an SUV or something similar. It was far, quite far away from where he was standing. This information indicated that it was a place between quietness and hustle, he was confused; it was as if he heard waves. However, he wasn’t sure. His head started aching again. This time, everything was different.
According to scientists and CIA agents, Andrew could be experiencing bilocation; which means he’s in two separate places at the same time. Half of him was in his office and the other half was by the vehicle, in the distance.
As the headache became more unbearable and his eyes were staring at nothing at all, he remembered an extract of a study on bilocation. It said: we call bilocation the more appropriate mental state for a session to offer us satisfactory results. Bilocation in Remote Vision induces the visualizer to an increment of the conscience’s sensitivity to which we refer as ‘high-tension state’.
Eyes that do not Open Page 3