by Jim Brown
Not easily scared at all.
Outside, the snow continued to level the terrain.
When Dean arrived at the hospital, Piper was waiting with John Evans outside of intensive care unit number one – Clyde Watkins’ room.
“Are you all right?” Dean asked her.
She looked up at him, eyes widened with helpless misery. Then she hugged him, burying her face in his chest and sobbing.
“ . . . could have stopped it, could have stopped it,” she mumbled.
“Could have stopped who?” he asked.
“Not who – what,” she muttered. “It.” The words clogged her throat. He held her closer.
Could have stopped what? It?
“Is there somewhere my friend and I can talk?” Dean asked the nurse.
“There’s a small office behind the station,” she answered tentatively, looking to the sheriff for approval.
John nodded.
“Give us a minute,” Dean said to John.
The room contained a brown metal desk, two filing cabinets, and a bookshelf bursting with binders, folders, and medical texts. They sat on the edge of the desk. He held her, stroking her hair. As she cried he comforted her, then slowly, gently, he asked the questions he had to ask. After ten minutes the nurse entered. She mindfully, tenderly, pried Piper’s arms from around Dean’s neck. “Come on, dear, let’s get you that cup of tea.”
Piper started to leave, then stopped, turned back to Dean. “I could have stopped it. Could have. But I wasn’t fast enough. I just wasn’t fast enough.”
The nurse shushed her, enveloping the smaller woman in a large, securing embrace.
John and Dean stood outside ICU room number one and waited until Piper was gone. “She knows things,” John said. “This place was a mess. Someone pulled the fire alarm, and despite their training, the staff didn’t know what the hell to do. Still, the nurses say, they had been away from the unit less than five minutes when Piper came running out of the stairwell screaming that Clyde Watkins was in danger.”
Dean squinted as John took a step closer to him.
“How did she know? How the hell did she know?” John asked. “First the hotel, now this?” His flat-brimmed hat hovered at Dean’s forehead. “I know she’s a friend of yours, but she’s either a suspect or . . . ” He paused. The hospital sounds seemed faint and faraway. “ Or she really is psychic.”
Dean rubbed his fingers across his lips. He inhaled slowly. The air smelled worse than usual – acidic, suffocating. “She’s neither. Piper Blackmoore is intuitive. Exceptionally so, but intuitive and that’s all. She subconsciously collects and processes information, everything from body language to circumstances, making subconscious deductions which then float to her consciousness. To her, it’s like getting the answer to a math problem without doing the work. She doesn’t know how she does it.”
“But you do.”
“Yes, I believe so. Piper was in the hospital when the alarm went off. In the morgue.”
John took a step back. A rare look of surprise flashed across his face. “The morgue?”
“She says she felt compelled to look at the severed hand. Says it brought back old memories, buried memories, detailed images of the night her mother died.”
John pushed his left hand into the palm of his right and methodically began cracking his knuckles. The lines on his face were now etched into a scowl. “How does a severed hand relate to her mother?”
“It doesn’t, at least not directly. The common denominator is trauma. It’s not unusual for one traumatic event to trigger memories of another.”
“But how did she know about Clyde?”
“The fire alarm. Remember, she saw someone trying to kill him in the hotel. When the alarm went off, some part of her realized the odds were pretty good that it was a distraction. But on a conscious level all she knew was that Clyde was in danger.”
“All right, I can see that.” John took a deep breath and held it for a moment, then led Dean into the room where their old friend’s body remained. He pointed to the bed. “But how do you explain this?”
Clyde Watkins’s eyes were closed, his lips slightly parted, his face bloodless. A thin trail of gore ran from his forehead to the right of his nose, down his cheek to his chin and then onto the bed.
Flash Five stay alive. Flash four group no more.
The pool of blood on the sheet was smaller than a fifty-cent piece, meaning Clyde had died quickly; the bleeding had stopped when his heart stopped beating.
But the wound?
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” John confessed.
The blood originated from a hole, a small, three-quarter-inch gash, pierced just above the center of his eyes. “It looks like a knife wound.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought too,” John pulled the flashlight from his belt and aimed the beam into the gash. “But look how deep it is.”
Dean took the flashlight and leaned down for a closer look. The stench of death was heavy, cloying. John was right, the wound was deep, too deep. One blow.
“That’s bone, Dean. That’s straight through the skull. No knife can do that. A bullet, yeah; but a knife, no way. No way.”
Ava Perkins stood by the door watching as a thin film of ice grew inward from the edges of the beveled glass. The snow crystals were jagged and irregular. Beautiful and unpredictable. She wondered if such a thing could be duplicated with oil and brush. Perhaps her next painting? Ode to a Frosted Glass.
She giggled at the idea, then hurried into the den, where a gas fire appeared to burn artificial logs in the brick-lined fireplace. It was much colder now, a fact accentuated by her skimpy attire. But she kind of liked it – liked the way the frigid breeze licked her nipples, making them hard and excited.
She touched herself between her legs. A shudder of exhilaration rippled through her. Her fingertips rubbed the thin fabric between her legs. She shuddered. Even after vigorous lovemaking she sometimes liked to masturbate. A fine meal deserves a fine dessert.
Thump.
She stopped.
The fire hissed.
A cold wind stroked the windows.
Thump, thump.
Ava Perkins cocked her head. A loose shutter?
Thump, thump.
No, the sound seemed to be coming from inside the house.
With no thought of danger, no sense of uneasiness, clad only in a will-o’-the-wisp nightgown, Ava marched confidently into the hall, tracking the noise. The long, picture-laden hallway ran the full length of the house. Rooms off to either side offered a variety of choices, from the kitchen to the guest bath to the – master bedroom?
Thump, thump, thump . . .
It was coming from the bedroom.
Away from the fire Ava felt the cold reassert itself. The icy air wrapped around her legs and thighs; a faint, chilled breeze sighed, dimpling her flesh. She stood still.
“Ava.”
A whisper. Nothing more. The sound of the wind sighing through the eaves?
“Avvvaaaa.. . . ”
No, not the wind. A sharp, distinct bolt of fear arched across her thoughts.
“Who’s there?” she demanded, her voice as thin as her nightgown.
“Nathan?” she begged as much as asked. Had her husband returned to surprise her? She almost giggled, warmed by the thought.
“Avvvvaaaa. . . . come play with me.”
The fear returned. That wasn’t Nathan’s voice. That wasn’t - anyone’s voice.
Ava Perkins felt naked, more naked than she had ever been in her entire life.She turned, no hesitation this time, and took one step toward the den.
And in a flash it happened: a powerful arm hooked her neck, an icy hand covered her mouth.
Cold, so cold.
How had he gotten here so quickly? From the bed
room to the end of the hall in a blink.
“Avvvaaaa . . . ”
The voice. She could feel contrasting hot and cold breath on her neck, close enough to lift her hair as he spoke. She willed herself to break free, but the grip, the godforsaken icy grip, held like frozen steel clamps.
“Don’t fight, Ava. It’s time to play.”
14
The Black Valley Sheriff’s Department was located next to the four-story, L-shaped hospital. The latter was tall and elegant, with trim lines and a stylish portico. The former was short and weathered, with red brick, faded brush, fronted by long plate-glass windows. Mason Evans pulled into a slot marked VISITORS, shut off the engine, and studied the building.
The blinds were up. The lights were on. The facility was electric with activity. It was obvious something was going on.
Tina?
The thought struck like a shark – unseen, unexpected, unstoppable. Had something happened to his child? Was he too late? Was that the reason for all this activity?
Mason got out of the car, not bothering with an umbrella. Snow, sleet, and rain pecked his head like starving crows devouring a dead man’s eyes.
Inside, the action was even more intense – with people hurrying from place to place, communicating in shouts.
“The phones are in and out,” a woman yelled. “Any word from the phone company?”
“They say they’ll fix it but can’t find the problem,” a deputy answered.
Mason recognized a short fireplug of a woman as Maggie Dane, John’s assistant. “It’s not just the phones. The radio is acting screwy, too.”
“Mrs. Dane?”
She looked up. A pair of glasses hung from her neck like a bird feeder. “You from the phone company?”
“No. I’m John’s cousin Mason . . . ”
“Mason. Mason Evans, right. I’m sorry, Mr. Evans, things are sort of crazy right now.” She checked her watch, then rapped it several times with two fingers. “Damn thing is stopped again.”
She checked the wall clock. “You made great time. Must have been in the area, huh? Well, make yourself comfortable. It will be a while before they finish processing the body.”
The body. The two words skewered his soul like a double-bladed sword. He felt the blood leave his face, felt his equilibrium fade, his vision constrict.
“. . . all right. Mr. Evans, are you all right?”
“My daughter,” he croaked, like a creature of stone uttering its first words. “Tina.”
Maggie Dane frowned. “Tina? I don’t know a Tina. Is she coming? If so, she’s not here yet. Do you want coffee or something?”
“Not here? The body.”
Maggie paused. Mason detected a faint shudder of her lower lip. “Yes, poor Mr. Watkins. He was a good man.”
“Watkins? Clyde Watkins?” Mason suddenly felt better and worse at the same time.
She reached out and took his hands. She was a sweet woman who smelled of Jean Nate’ and hair spray. “Don’t you worry. John will get him. John will find the bastard who murdered your friend.”
“Murdered?”
Concern molded Maggie Dane’s face. “Wait a minute. You didn’t know that Clyde Watkins was murdered tonight?”
“Tonight? No. I’m here for my daughter. I’m looking for my daughter.”
“Ah, dear Lord, look at what I’ve done. You didn’t know. Mr. Evans, I am so sorry. I never would have blurted it out like that if I knew. It’s just, your timing and all. It made sense.”
“Clyde was murdered, how?”
Maggie Dane took a tentative swallow. “I really can’t say any more.”
“John – ”
“Yes, I’ll tell him you’re here,” she said, turning to go.
He grabbed her by the arm, his grip tight enough to dimple the fabric of her dress. “Tell him I know who did it.”
The stranger drifted down the frozen-food aisle, navigating around the pyramid of creamed corn, stopped briefly at the canned peaches, and in general acted very much like a typical customer. But Jenkins Jones knew better. You didn’t last twenty-two years in the grocery business, and almost as long on the city council, without learning a thing or two – no sirree, Bob. As the stranger moved about, Jenkins watched him travel from monitor to monitor, tracking him, thanks to a series of security cameras mounted throughout the store.
Jenkins prided himself on being alert, aware. Always on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary: shoplifters, food-sneakers, drugged-up hippie freaks looking to steal his hard-earned money, then throw him in the back room, locking him in with all the female cashiers and forcing him (at gun point) to make madman, monkey-love to Virginia Haulsy, his newest checker, an 38-year-old with auburn hair, full lips and breasts that could be used as beach umbrella’s.
“It could happen,” he muttered in the small, empty, paper strewn room that was his office. “It could happen, uh-huh.”
At his advanced age, with the good years not so good and the remaining years not so plentiful, Jenkins thought about it a lot. Obsessed about it, some would say. He had never been robbed, but kept a .45-caliber revolver in the bottom drawer of his desk just in case; failing that, there was also an extra-lube, natural-feeling condom ribbed for her pleasure.
Just in case.
The stranger wore a long, dingy, dark green rain coat, faded jeans, work boots, and a floppy-brimmed, dark brown cowboy hat. The hat hung low over his face. Jenkins got the impression of a beard and could see shafts of long, russet-brown hair hanging over the man’s collar as he disappeared from one monitor, then reappeared in another.
Long hair? Like a hippie. But a cowboy hat? “Never heard of no cowboy-hippies – no sirree, Bob,” he muttered, then cringed, knowing his wife would chastise him. Only crazy people talk to themselves, his wife always said.
“I ain’t crazy,” he told the empty room.
The stranger stopped and put two cans of pork and beans in his cart. Do drugged-up cowboy hippie freaks looking to rob a place and force the owner to do the nasty with throbbing young women, eat pork and bean?
Jenkins licked his suddenly dry lips. The stranger’s cart filled slowly. Canned goods, TV dinners, junk food. Other than his attire, there was nothing exceptionally peculiar about the man. Yet he made Jenkins as nervous as a toad on the interstate.
“Yes sirree, Bob,” he muttered, then grimaced for having spoken aloud.
The stranger moved to aisle seven, chips and bread. He stopped and studied a bag of rippled barbecue potato chips, dropped them in his cart then –
For no apparent reason the stranger looked up. His big, brown, floppy cowboy hat rose slowly like a radar dish. Jenkins could see a beard, definitely a beard, thin mouth, a mustache, small nose and eyes. His eyes? The iridescent glow of the humming fluorescent lights reflected vigorously off the stranger’s black-peril eyes.
The eyes shifted. The stranger was now looking at the camera, into the camera directly into the lens, directly at –
Jenkins backed away from the monitor. “Son of a bitch is looking at me,” he sputtered.
Old fool, he heard his wife saying. Only an idiot would talk to himself and then think a stranger could see him through a video camera.
Jenkins straightened his shirt and leaned back over the monitors. The stranger was still there, still looking at the camera. Bottomless black eyes seeming to see right through the screen and right into Jenkins’s soul.
“Old fool,” Jenkins muttered.
Then the stranger raised his right hand and . . . he waved.
Jenkins Jones staggered back, knocking a stack of papers off his desk. He bent over, picking the papers off the floor, shuffling them in no particular order. Flustered, scared. He took a moment to catch his breath. Anger welled up inside him.
“To hell with this,” he muttered, dropping the pap
ers. They fell back to the floor in a flap of chaos.
“And to hell with worrying about muttering,” he muttered. “It’s my damn store, I’ll mutter if I want to. And I’ll be damned if I’ll let some cowboy hippie freak make me nervous in my own damn store. No sir. No sirree, Bob.”
Jenkins stepped back to the monitors; he glared at one screen, then another, then another, then another. And saw – nothing.
The stranger was gone.
“What the hell!” He scanned all the monitors: fresh foods, chips, soft drinks, frozen foods, beer and wine, soups, medicines, hygiene products, greeting cards, bakery goods, checkout, front entrance, back entrance.
The stranger had been at the rear of the store. The back entrance was locked. Even at a full run he couldn’t have made it completely out of the building without Jenkins seeing him. No way.
“No way. No freakin’ way!”
Gone?
Dean Truman insisted on driving Piper Blackmoore home. He took her truck while Deputy Jerry Niles followed behind in the sheriff department’s Jeep Cherokee. At her door, beneath the shelter of a small porch, Dean had an overwhelming urge to kiss her. Arrested by guilt, he gave her a firm hug instead. She kissed him on the cheek. Her breath was fresh, with the slight hint of herbal tea. Nice.
The urge to kiss her was almost unbearable.
The police radio crackled like burning wood, static consuming every third word. “. . . erry, is Dean . . . skkrrkk . . . you . . . ” Dean recognized the deep baritone of Sheriff John Evans.
“Radio’s been acting up all morning. Getting worse by the minute. Phones aren’t much better.” Jerry Niles leaned forward, looking at the sky between swipes of the windshield wipers. “Must be this storm.”
“That shouldn’t affect the phones,” Dean said. “The cables are underground.”
Out the passenger’s window the falling snow obscured the world in a white frenzy much like static on a television, an illusion that meshed well with the snarling radio. “. . . skkrrkk . . . is Dean with you?” John asked.