by John Norman
But I rejected this hypothesis for obvious reasons.
The dark creatures of one’s mind are one’s own, not another’s. I rejected this hypothesis of a subconscious generation because of the utter foreignness of the imagery. There was nothing here which even remotely suggested a latent content of my own mind, no plausible transpositions, or disguises. Too, if these were things of my own, repressed, now emergent, I should have found them disturbing in ways I did not. I did not welcome these experiences, but I did not reject them as though I myself, somehow, was being threatened, or spoken to in accents to which I dared not attend.
More importantly, these memories, however unwelcome they might be, were not fanciful or bizarre, like the cloaked transmogrifications of subconscious fears and hatreds. And most importantly, these memories would prove, for the most part, to be veridical, and confirmable for their correspondences to reality.
One thought did obsess me in the beginning.
I feared that these might be somehow my own memories, only alienated from me, memories which were mine but which I dared not face, and had thus deprived myself somehow of the sense of proprietariness which usually accompanies one’s own memories. Thus, I feared I might have been the assailant, that I had somehow committed this crime, and had now distanced myself, in so far as I could, from it. Perhaps, unbeknownst to myself, I was the victim of some psychological self-division, as in a multiple-personality syndrome, a case of divided personalities, in which one self, or more selves, so to speak, might be unaware of the actions of another self, or selves, in effect, being two or more persons inhabiting a single body.
This seemed implausible to me, but that, if it were true, was only to be expected. To be sure, I had no evidence of this sort of thing, no lapses in my time sense, in which hours or days might be unaccounted for by a given self, and no evidence in the form of inquiries or observations of friends, or fellow workers, no apparent signs of this sort of deviancy, and so on. Too, if I were the assailant I had no evidence to that effect, in the way of, say, the knife, clothing, money or coins stolen, and so on.
Still I feared desperately that this was the only explanation possible. If so, I should bring myself to the attention of the authorities, as would be my duty, petitioning for incarceration, lest the other I, the I I did not know, might strike again, might kill again, might bring death to another innocent victim, a stranger, one presumably utterly unknown to the I I knew as myself.
I was sick with this fear.
My hope at this time, which detained me from immediately submitting myself to authority, was that these episodes, these seeming memories, might, after all, be a minacious fantasy of sorts, that they bore no relation to reality. This was surely possible. I hoped it was altogether likely.
I thus began an inquiry into a crime which I feared I myself might have committed.
I was tracking a murderer, who might be myself.
If there was no such crime, of course, that would prove my fears on that score to be groundless. I would be innocent. I would be left, doubtless, with these mental visitations which so troubled me, surely at least for a time, but, at least, too, I could no longer take them as testifying to my implication in so terrible a deed. It would be objectively irrational for me to feel guilt. I might feel guilt, of course, but it would not be justified. I could know this, at least consciously. That would be important. Any guilt I might feel then would be unwarranted, the consequence only of some unusual psychological deviancy, the product perhaps of some pathological neurosis. I need not interpret my own miseries then, thankfully, as being the self-generated torments of a murderer.
And so I began to research, as I could, crime reports.
There must be no such crime.
But perhaps such crimes were too common, in too many large and lawless cities.
I had not been at this occupation long when, in a local library, examining on microfilm back issues of a tabloid, I came on the report of a murder and robbery which was briefly noted. The description of the victim and the nature of the crime, as far as I could tell, tallied exactly with what I feared, the recurrent content of my aforementioned imagery.
Such a crime then, or one very similar, had actually occurred.
I do not know how many times I read that brief account. I suppose each time I hoped it would say something different, or that I would find some exonerating clue there, in those few marks, which would prove to me my innocence.
I photocopied the item, put it in my pocket, and walked about, for a very long time.
My mind was in tumult.
I fear I was not thinking clearly.
Another seeming memory intruded itself, a figure thrusting a bundle of rolled clothing into a dumpster, and hurrying away.
I returned home.
The next morning I planned to report myself in to the police. It might be a different crime, of course, or it might have been solved, unbeknownst to me. Still, it was important to consult with the authorities. If I was a murderer, I did not want to risk being at large. I might kill again.
I did not sleep much that night, but fell asleep in the early morning.
I suddenly awoke in a sweat, shivering, sitting up in bed. I hurried to my coat and jerked forth the copy of the tabloid item from my pocket. I rushed then to the calendar, and my date book, on which I register appointments, and such. I again scrutinized the tabloid item. The date was in late August, and the crime had occurred the previous day, being mentioned in the next day’s paper. I examined the calendar, the date book, a copy of the program’s conference which I had attended, and in which I had participated. I had lectured, I had been on two panels, I had attended the banquet, I had sat with colleagues and acquaintances. I had been photographed. I had even signed some copies of the program. I had been at the university, in New Jersey, that weekend. The crime had occurred in New York City while I had been at the conference.
I fell beside the bed, clutching the sheets, and then rolled over and pounded on the floor with my fists, and cried out wildly, and then, fearfully, gasping, laughing, half choking with emotion, rose up and checked the dates again, and again. I was not there. I could not have been guilty of that crime.
But perhaps there had been another?
Momentarily I again felt sick.
But then I stood up, and readied myself for the day.
I had a good breakfast. I went down to the local subway station, and took the first uptown train. I came out of the subway and made my way to the nearest police station. I had taken with me as much documentation as to my whereabouts on the day of the crime as was convenient, and more could be provided, and it could all be checked.
It was that morning that I met the inspector.
Briefly he confirmed that the crime had occurred as recorded in the tabloid, and found the police file, with its numerous details, forensic and otherwise, which he kept closed on his desk.
He eyed me askance, and I did not blame him in the least.
In his response to my inquiry he informed me that the crime was still open on their books, that it had not been solved, and that there were no clues available which had been helpful. No authentic leads had been discovered. This, it seems, is not unoften the case with crimes of this nature. There had been perhaps an obvious motive, that of robbery, but there seemed no way to connect the crime with any particular individual. The victim was a small-time money lender with no obvious enemies, more than such a fellow would normally accrue in the course of his business, had no known connections to organized crime, had lived alone, had no criminal record, and was regarded as eccentric, and irascible. His neighbors knew little about him. They had not noted strangers in the building at the time of the murder. His records, if he had kept them, were missing, along with other materials, some furniture, lamps, and such, apparently removed from the flat between the discovery of the body, by a cleaning woman, and the arrival of the police. Thi
s, too, I gather, is not that unusual.
“I suppose you have some interest in this case, or evidence?” suggested the inspector.
I gathered he had things he would rather be doing.
“Perhaps,” I said. “I do not know.”
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“It is hard to explain,” I said.
“You felt compelled to come here?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“I see,” he said, wearily.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
He opened the file, without showing it to me.
“You have come to confess,” he said.
“What?” I said.
“Let’s get this over with,” he said.
“Get what over with?” I asked.
“You don’t look to me like a fellow who would even know the victim, and certainly not like one who would kill him.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“But we have to get this over with,” he said. “Regulations. Twice a day we have people like you come in and confess to crimes. They may think they did it. Who knows? They may want to suffer. They may want to feel important. They may want publicity. They may want to be in the newspapers, on the evening news, impress people who think they are only unimportant, worthless, scrounging clowns, things like that.”
“I don’t think you understand,” I said.
He glanced at the file, and drew a picture from it.
“Do you recognize this man?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“He is the victim,” said the officer.
“No, he isn’t,” I said. “That is not the victim, at least not the one I am thinking of. That is not him.”
“You’re sure?”
“Certainly,” I said.
“That’s a retired police officer,” said the inspector. “That means we have to go a little further.”
“Further?”
“How did you last see the body?” asked the inspector.
I described it, how it lay, the blood, and such.
“He was stabbed in the throat,” said the officer.
The fact that the man had knifed had been in the paper. The nature of the wound had not been reported.
“Not at all,” I said. “He was stabbed frontally, between the ribs, on the left side, toward the heart.”
The inspector looked up, surprised.
“Who told you that?” he asked.
“I remembered it,” I said.
The inspector now looked distinctly interested.
“In a sense,” I said.
“A sense?”
“Yes.”
I was now convinced that the crime in question was identical with that which I seemed to remember.
He then asked me to describe the room, the nature of the theft, a number of details.
I doubtless did so, to his satisfaction. It was interesting to see how alert he became, and how his attitude changed considerably, from one of boredom, even mild annoyance, to one of close attention.
“I didn’t do it,” I mentioned, thinking it appropriate to put that in. He seemed, for good reasons, doubtless, to be moving swiftly to plausible conclusions, however invalidly derived.
“Only the murderer could know these things,” he said.
“I know them,” I said, “and I am not the murderer.”
“Then who is the murderer,” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“You can account for your whereabouts on the day of the murder?” he asked.
“Certainly,” I said, “and in incontrovertible detail.”
I then did so.
At the inspector’s invitation I remained in the station, and willingly, until well into the afternoon.
“Am I under arrest, due to suspicion, or reasonable cause, or such?” I inquired.
“If necessary,” he said.
“That won’t be necessary,” I said.
About two P.M. I left the station, he having by that time, I gathered, confirmed, however reluctantly, by a number of phone calls, and such, my asseverations pertaining to my whereabouts on the day of the murder. He was a nice fellow, but I gather that this outcome was not entirely welcome to him. I assured him I would remain in town, and, if not, would keep him apprised of my whereabouts, and expected to be available, if he wanted to speak with me further about these matters. I also gathered that if the circumstances surrounding this matter had been a bit different, and less conclusive, I would have been placed in custody, and held on a charge of murder. I think that is what I would have done in his place. It seemed the rational thing to do.
He did request a set of fingerprints before I took my leave, I suppose as a routine matter. In any event I was pleased to oblige him.
That night, before retiring, I recalled where the knife had been placed. This may have been because of the business of the fingerprints. A slit had been made in a garbage bag in a trash container at the subway station closest to my apartment, indeed, a station from which I normally took the train to work. The knife had been inserted through this slit, so that it would lie in the bottom of the container. As the bags are commonly pulled out, and quickly, efficiently, casually, replaced, the knife might indefinitely lie there undetected. I felt that I myself would have concealed such a weapon differently. I found this conviction reassuring, as it suggested to me, strongly, that the memory could not be mine, though I found myself forced to entertain it. In this memory I felt a certain haste to discard the weapon, and a sense of revulsion pertaining to it. It seemed in the memory that the weapon must be discarded, but that it had been disposed of with some, but inadequate, circumspection. I had the sense that mental disturbance was clearly involved in this. It must be discarded! I was not clear on the date of this memory, and these things were, at best, fragmentary. It did seem possible to me, however, that this memory, if it were veridical, might supply the police with the clue, or lead, which they were missing. I knew it was the murder weapon, and it seemed not implausible that it might bear fingerprints.
I called the inspector in the morning, and told him about this, and he met me at the station within the hour, and we located and examined the container.
It contained the knife, of course.
It would be sent to the police laboratory to be tested for fingerprints.
I trusted they would not prove to be mine.
Unfortunately for the investigation the knife bore few, if any prints. It had apparently been hastily rubbed, perhaps on a sleeve or the side of a coat. A print or two was blurred, or smudged, but there was nothing there which could be clearly read. Some particles of dried blood on the knife, however, under laboratory analysis, yielded a DNA print, so to speak, and this agreed with that of the victim. The murder weapon had been found.
“You know too much about this case,” said the inspector.
“A great deal more than I care to know, I assure you,” I said.
“If you are not the murderer, or a witness to the murder, how do you know these things?” asked the inspector.
“I do not know how I know,” I said, “or even if I know. Perhaps I don’t know. But I seem to. I sense that I know. But perhaps some weird sort of coincidence is involved here.”
“Someone told you these things, perhaps in a bar, in great detail?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“Tell me about him,” he said.
“There was no one,” I said. “No one told me these things.”
“He may have been the murderer,” he said.
“No one told me,” I said. “It is the memories, the memories.”
“You must be the murderer,” he said.
“I was afraid of that,” I said. “But I don’t see how it could be.”
> “Nor do I,” he said. “The two assistant district attorneys I have spoken to don’t either. It is odd. We have an abundance of apparent evidence, almost overwhelmingly so, against you, but no case.”
“I would like to be of help,” I said.
“Do you have other memories of this sort?” he asked.
“Alien memories, memories not mine?”
“Yes.”
I told him about the successive, almost obsessive, seemingly guilt-ridden recollections which I had experienced, the matter of the clothing rolled and discarded in the dumpster, but in what dumpster I had no idea, and it was now doubtless long gone, and reminded him of the incident of the knife.
“Try to remember other things,” he said. “Something might help us.”
I had not been read rights, and was not under arrest. I supposed he was fishing, so to speak, and was wondering if I might not, somehow, perhaps in overconfidence or arrogance, inadvertently implicate myself.
But I did want to cooperate.
This was as important to me, I was sure, or more so, than it was to him.
I closed my eyes, but had no sense as to how one might go about trying to remember something which, presumably, had never happened to one. Suppose, for example, one asks you to recollect what you did on a given day in some city you have never visited. There is just nothing there. One supposes the mind might play some sort of tricks on one, but, presumably, there is simply, in actuality, nothing there to remember.