The Mind’s Eye

by Perry Prete

  He stood, sipped his coffee again as he walked over to the photocopier and placed the first of the photocopies on the scanner. Carl emailed himself each of the pictures then walked back to his desk. The night janitor was replacing the paper recycling bin back beneath Carl's desk when he returned.

  "Hey, Sam. How's it going tonight?"

  The old man smiled politely; it was the same opening line each night and Sam would reply with the same comment, "Any day above ground is a good day."

  Carl let the original photocopies fall onto his desk as he left again to refill his coffee cup with whatever was still in the carafe. When Carl returned, Sam was sitting in his chair holding the papers he had just scanned.

  "Find something interesting?"

  Startled, Sam spun around in the chair causing it to give off another tone of creaks. "These pictures, disturbing, aren't they?"

  Carl stood beside his desk, sipped the burnt coffee, "They are. Why the interest?"

  "Just brings back memories." Sam carefully stacked the papers, "In my day, we had a full photo lab in the basement, and they would have to make copies of the originals. And they were in black and white, none of this color. Nowadays, you just copy them, and they show up on that screen," he pointed to the laptop.

  Stunned, Carl asked, "You worked here?"

  "Thirty-eight years retired as editor-in-chief in '98. After my wife died, retirement didn't hold anything for me, so I came back, and the paper gave me this job. Outta pity I'm sure. Minimum wage but it keeps me busy. I don't need the money, but without it, I'd be dead by now. Place is full of new people now. No one left here from the old days to remember me."

  Carl squinted his eyes and tried to do the math in his head.

  "Oh, for Pete's sake, ninety-eight take away thirty-eight, and that means I started here in 1960. I was twenty when I started right outta college. And yes, I'm seventy-seven now. Computers are supposed to make people smarter. No one can write in cursive anymore, and without a calculator, you can't-do the math."

  Carl laughed loudly, "Sorry Sam, different era. I'm sure your parents told you all about things when they were kids." He took another sip of coffee and made a face, "You want me to get you a cup?"

  "Nah, I'm good. My parents belly ached about kids the way we do now about you kids. But things have moved faster in the past twenty years than in the last hundred. Kinda hard for us old guys to keep up."

  "Seventy-seven isn't that old Sam. Besides, you don't look a day over seventy-five." Carl countered.

  "Funny guy. It's been a long seventy-seven years, a hard life, not a great one either." Sam stood and offered the chair to Carl. Carl politely declined and held the chair for Sam to take a seat.

  "I'm sorry to hear that. Feel like sharing?" Carl was sincere in his proposition to listen to Sam.

  "Rantings of an old man."

  "I wouldn't have asked if I didn't want to hear your stories." He took another sip of his coffee. "Tell me, what was it like in the sixties? Were you in this building?"

  "Nah, we were in the three-storey brownstone downtown on McKinnon. I think it's been converted to apartments now. Those were newspaper days let me tell ya."

  Carl laughed.

  "What's so funny?" Sam asked.

  "You don't talk like an editor-in-chief. I expected you to speak like a socialite or aristocrat."

  "The southern accent is coming back as I get older. That, and I don't give a fuck about shit anymore." The two of them chuckled. Sam continued, "I used to walk up the stairs to the third floor instead of taking the elevator and walk between the rows of desks and hear the greatest sound in the world. You ever listened to a room of typewriters clacking away and phones ringing? None of those mobile ringtones, I mean the sound of brass bells inside an old phone. That was the noise of a newsroom." Sam closed his eyes. Carl could see the image of the newsroom with dozens of desks and journalist typing away as the phones rang that Sam was re-creating in his mind.

  "Newspapers were alive back then. Before TV ruined it all. I mean destroyed. TV newscasters give less than thirty seconds per spot and move on. We would give a good story half the front page and more inside. Sometimes those stories went on for weeks. We gave the public details, made them feel the story, feel compassion, or anger or whatever needed to be felt. News was an art. Now, it's boiled down, constituted, evaporated into segments, and the public has the attention span of a gnat. If they can't read the story in a few short seconds, they move on. Sure, there's more news, but the story gets lost. Have you ever sat down with a newspaper and an iced tea in the summer to read the paper, I mean actually read? None of those tabloid papers, a newspaper that takes two hands to hold up, so you can see the whole page. Feel the paper between your fingers and the smell of the ink." Sam inhaled deeply as his index finger and thumb rubbed together. Memories of ink and paper filled his mind.

  "A story went out on the wire instead of the internet. No one heard of the web back then. That's how we got our stories out to the other papers. And we got their stories. Those machines were tall, about this high," Sam held his hand out about three feet off the ground, "and paper rolled out of the machines as the stories printed off."

  "Like a fax machine," Carl offered.

  Sam pointed a bony finger at him, "Exactly."

  Carl was fixated on Sam's story, his coffee mug only inches away from his lips but never moved. He waited for Sam next words.

  "I spent my whole life in that building. More years than I should've. I loved that place," Sam looked around, "it was my life. But, I shoulda spent more time at home. Had a great view of the rising sun over the mountains."

  "Kids?" Carl asked.

  Sam paused, shook his head, "Stayed married outta commitment, not love. Big mistake. Don't get me wrong, she was great, I'm just not sure I loved her, and the time I spent working wasn't fair to her. I let the girl of my dreams slip between my fingers because I was already married. Kept her photo hidden in my Rolodex my entire career. I imagine my wife suspected but said nothing. Commitment is a horrible thing. If I had a set of balls, I would've left my wife and gone to her. Something always gets in the way. Have you found a girl yet?" Sam paused then spoke again before Carl could reply, "Sorry, I forgot, I have to be sensitive. Let me rephrase that. Have you found someone special yet? You know, just in case."

  Carl let loose with a full laugh. "No Sam, I haven't found a special someone yet. And it will be a girl. I just hope I find her soon."

  "Phew. Good. In my day, political correctness hadn't been invented yet. It wasn't a problem to use the term fag or homo. In my dad's day, a fag was a cigarette. Being gay meant you were happy, not like today. Of course, every homosexual I've ever known was happier than I've ever been so maybe that's why they use the term gay." He air quoted "gay." "I was sure my boss back in the sixties dabbled a bit with a few guys on the side. He always took the new copy boys on trips with him. Today, you're weird if you aren't homosexual. Maybe I would've been happier as a gay." Sam slapped his thigh and laughed. "No fucking way, I love women too much."

  Sam spun around in Carl's chair, "Tell me about this." He tapped the photocopies with his thick index finger. "Not much in the papers about these two cases. I'm guessing the cops are being tight-lipped, right?"

  Carl nodded in agreement.

  "So, what are you gonna do about that?" Sam queried.

  "Not sure. Our current editor, Nora Tannen, chewed my ass off the other day. I'm supposed to do crime reporting, but I haven't been able to catch a break on any of these incidents. She yelled at me for ten minutes straight, and I don't think she stopped long enough to catch her breath. Each death was reported separately in the paper. No one suspected they were connected until I got the envelope in the mail. I mean why would we connect an arm in a snow bank to a dead girl in her house months apart? The city maybe has one or two homicides a year. Cops haven't commented. No one is talking. I was sent these in the mail. I haven't told Tannen about them yet. No return address on the envelope, email is
too easy to trace. Pretty sure these are police evidence pics. I mean, look at this one," Carl spread the photocopies across his desk and slammed his hand down on the picture of a dead girl beside her bed. "One thing I noticed, look at the hands." He then pulled the picture of the arm in the snow bank. "This one."

  "Similar, physically aren't they?" Sam noted.

  "They could be the same girl, except these were months apart. And the girl beside the bed wasn't missing an arm. So why are these connected? I mean really, an arm in a snow bank, a dead girl beside her bed."

  "Connect the dots."

  "Dots?" Carl cast Sam a strange look. "OK. Well, both female, both have similar physical characteristics in hand anatomy. Dissimilar, one is dismembered, the other not, one in winter, one not in winter."

  "So, what are you gonna do about it?" Sam questioned Carl.

  Carl began to pace around behind Sam, "You sound like Tannen. What do you want me to do about it?"

  Frustrated, Sam stood and forced the chair under the younger man, "Sit."

  "Forget about the internet, forget about your cell phone, forget about trying to Google for leads, if you want to get leads on this case what should you do?"

  Carl stared at Sam with blank eyes, "I dunno."

  Sam rummaged through Carl's desk trying to find certain items, "Damn man, don't you have a notebook?"

  "No. Why would we? We use voice recorders now." Carl asked.

  Sam pulled a sheet of blank paper from Carl's desk. "Here, pencil and paper. Better yet, go buy a notebook then go out and start asking questions. You're a reporter, find the story and report it. You can't make sidebar notes using a voice recorder. Things that pop into your mind when you're interviewing someone. Use both."

  "Where do I start?"

  "Oh - my - Lord. How long have you been here? Go see the cops, find out who's in charge of the investigation. Who sent you the photocopies? What were you doing at the photocopier?"

  "Well, technically, it's a scanner, copier, fax machine."

  "Who the fuck cares?" Sam's look had changed, and he suddenly looked younger and had more energy. "What?"

  "I scanned the photos and made digital copies and emailed them to myself," Carl acknowledged.

  "To do what?"

  "Examine them."

  "Then let's open them and look at them."

  Carl rubbed the touchpad and brought the laptop back to life. He opened the email and downloaded the attachments. He opened the best photo of the frozen arm, zoomed in until the hand was full screen. He did the same with the girl's hand from the bedroom. He rotated the image several times until they were approximately the same angle. Carl tapped the screen.

  "The image is a little blurry but look at the hands. I mean if the girl in the bedroom hadn't been killed months after the arm was found, the two hands could be the same person. Look at the knuckles, the nails, no rings, no sign a ring was ever worn. I bet the girls are approximately the same age too." Carl used his index finger to run along the hand of one image then onto the next. "They look like they came from the same person."

  Carl sat on the edge of the chair, "Do you think this is some kind of fetish killing? I mean some guys like feet, hair color, body type, why not hands?"

  "So, what are you gonna do?" Sam placed his hand on Carl's shoulder. "Get up early and go talk to the cops."

  "Good. I expect to hear some results tomorrow night when I come in. I gotta go finish my cleaning, but tomorrow night, I want a full report."

  "Yes, sir." Carl stood and extended his hand, "Sam, it's been a pleasure. We should've done this a long time ago."

  Sam took Carl's hand, squeezed it tightly, "Yes, we should've. It's been fun. Brought me back. Tomorrow?"

  "Tomorrow."

  Sam started to walk away as he pushed his cleaning cart. Without turning back, "Take my advice, don't drink the coffee. Can't remember the last time I cleaned that machine."

  April 30

  "Detective?"

  Paul looked up to see the receptionist peaking over his desk divider.

  "Yeah."

  "There's a reporter here to see you. Says he has some questions about some case you're working on."

  "What? Here? They don't stop by anymore. They call and harass us." She leant across and played with the tiny dollar store Christmas tree on

  Paul's desk. "This stupid tree has been here since last Christmas. You ever gonna put it away?"

  "Nope keeps me in the festive mood."

  "You are so full of it Hammond. Anyway, I'm not sure why he's here.

  He just showed up, no appointment and asked to see the Lead Detective on that case you're working on and if you were available. When I asked him why he said he was a reporter and had some questions."

  "Why the fuck didn't he just call? Jesus Christ," Paul blurted out. "Sorry, I didn't mean that."

  "Don't worry. You ever hear the shit some of these fucken' a-holes shout out when they pass my desk for processing after they get arrested. That, Paul, was tame. I told him you were busy, stupidly busy but he wanted to wait. I put him in the small conference room." With that, she left.

  Paul checked his emails, went to the washroom, didn't wash his hands-on purpose then went to the conference room where Carl Kadner was waiting. Paul opened the door, propped it open and extended his hand, "Detective Hammond." They shook. Paul took a seat across the table from Carl, then hidden from sight, he wiped his hands on his pant legs.

  "Carl Kadner. I'm with the Times." He slid his business card across the desk towards Paul.

  Paul casually glanced at the card, "Never heard of you."

  Carl smiled, "To be honest, I've never heard of you either. I guess that makes us even right. Besides, I used to do business before I started doing crime."

  "Big difference between business and crime."

  "Crime can be a business and business can be a crime," Carl countered.

  Paul cocked his head to the side, "True. So, what brings you here today?" "Do you mind if I record the conversation?" Carl asked. Before Paul could object, he placed a small digital voice recorder in the centre of the table and pressed a button. The red light indicated it was now recording. He then pulled out a newly purchased notepad and flipped it open. "Hammond? With two "M's" or one?"

  Paul held up two fingers instead of answering.

  Carl wrote Detective Hammond's name in his notebook and continued, "You're investigating two cases, the arm found last year in the snow and more recently, the girl murdered in her home. These two cases are connected. Would you mind telling me how they are related and what leads you have so far?"

  Shocked, Paul simply leaned back in his chair and waited for Carl to continue. There was a moment of silence as Carl waited for Paul to respond. Nothing. Carl took the detectives sudden movement as positive confirmation. He made a quick note of what the detective did.

  "You aren't going to answer the question Detective?"

  "Ask me a question I can give you answers to without jeopardizing any aspect of any case which may or may not be related."

  Carl thought for a moment, "Are there two separate investigations into the two murders? I assume a frozen arm found in the snow would at least lead you to believe the victim is dead. Right? I mean, you haven't had someone call reporting a missing arm in the Lost and Found department?"

  Paul had to think about his response without giving anything away, "We're a small department without a dedicated homicide division so any case or cases will most likely always be investigated by the same team, which may or may not be linked."

  Carl smiled. It was now a game of verbal chess. "Detective, two young women were killed, OK, let me rephrase that, one killed, and one assumed killed or presumed dead. Let me start with an easy one, have you located the owner of the arm?"

  "No."

  Carl scribbled a few notes. "Were you able to determine if the arm was removed pre-or post-mortem? Was the arm removed by accident or by someone who knew what they were doing?"

  "The
arm was found frozen, and the probable damage caused by the snow plough made it difficult to determine when and how the limb was removed, even perhaps severed. So, there is no way to know for sure." Paul leaned forward and placed his elbows on the table. "Are we done?"

  Carl wrote for a moment, held up a single finger to indicate he wanted a minute. "I think we are done."

  Paul pushed his chair, stood and made his way to the door when Carl interrupted his departure. "One more thing Detective. Can you confirm that the two girls were killed by the same person because they were physically similar?"

  Paul spun around surprised by the comments. "What the fuck are you talking about?" He felt his heart begin to race. "Where did you get that idea? Who told you that?"

  Carl kept looking at the notebook before him, pretending to write, not wanting to infuriate the detective any further. He eventually looked up making eye contact with Paul. They locked stares; silence filled the room. Paul stood at the door, inviting his guest to leave. No further words were said. Carl gathered up his belongings, clicked off the voice recorder and walked through the door without saying another word. As Carl passed Paul, he forcibly stuffed the business card back into Carl's suit jacket pocket.

  Carl smiled, pulled the card from his jacket and dropped it on the floor, "You may want that," and walked out.

  *****

  Nicole's extension rang several times before she could pick it up. She left the receiver rest on her shoulder as she continued to type, "This is Nicole."

  The voice on the other end of the phone was familiar, but the tone was not, "Did you tell me everything you saw when you looked at those pictures I showed you?"

  "Detective?" Nicole turned away from the keyboard and took hold of the handset.

  "Yeah. Well did you?"

  "Did I what?" Nicole was concerned that she had somehow missed something when she helped the police.