Psychosis_When a Dream Turns Deadly

by Roger Bray

  “What sort of car?”

  “He has no idea of the model and couldn’t get the license plate even if he had had a reason to want to take it, but he says that it was ‘a good-looking ride, a classy looking Mercedes sedan.’”

  A look of suspicion crossed Alice’s face as she asked, “What color was it?”

  Steve checked the statement.

  “Gunmetal gray.”

  “Nicholas Rowe!” she almost whispered.

  “That is his ride?”

  “Now, I have no idea, but back then he had a deep gray Mercedes.”

  “So maybe he was there when Hazel was inside talking to Alex? He must have known, or maybe suspected, why she was there. Maybe he guessed that she was planning to leave him and go back to Alex. You knew him a bit, didn’t you? What sort of guy was he; would he get angry about that?”

  “To be honest, I wouldn’t think so, he always seemed to be in control; calm and measured. I can’t see him flipping out over this, but who knows what a person is actually capable of, I didn’t know him that well and why else was he there?”

  “Why indeed?” Steve asked writing on the white board as he spoke.

  Chapter Ten

  She slowly came around. Hazel’s first thought was that she was sitting awkwardly. In small measures, her mind began to clear until the realization of her situation brought her fully awake. It was dark, or at least that’s what she first thought until she realized that the darkness was probably artificial and brought about by the black bag over her head. As she became more conscious and aware, she began to see light, not much, small pin pricks. It was not enough to be able to see anything, but it was enough to know that the light was not daylight. It was an artificial light, not too bright but enough that she knew that she was indoors.

  Her arms were tied behind her, at the wrist and elbow. This pulled her shoulders back and pushed her breasts out. Her legs also pulled back and her bare feet were tied around the ankles, not to the legs of the chair and not to each other. They were pulled further back under the chair, tied to something behind her. She tested the bonds and found them tight, not uncomfortable, unless she pulled against them, in time they would hurt but for the moment there was no pain.

  Her mouth was gagged. Something hard and round was forced between her teeth and held by a strap around her head, she could breathe around the edges of the ball and through her nose. She could breathe, but she couldn’t talk or scream out. She assessed the situation: she was bound, gagged, and was being held somewhere; she was dressed—apart from her boots and socks; she had a horrible chemical taste in her mouth, there was some sort of black bag over her head leaving her in almost darkness and the chemical smell more intense.

  Where was she, and who was doing this to her? She had no idea and only one name came to mind but in spite of herself, she couldn’t actually believe it.

  Even though she was blinded by the black bag and her sense of smell was deadened by the chemical residue, her sense of hearing was excellent and through the material she listened in the silence for anything that might be able to reach her and make sense of her situation. She hoped that she might hear something, anything; she might hear birds, or machinery, children playing or aircraft if she was, as she suspected, as near the flight path for Eugene airport as Nicholas’s house was.

  But nothing, it wasn’t that she couldn’t hear anything it was that there was nothing to hear, an absence of noise. No indeterminate noises in the distance, muffled by a wall, no outside noises at all.

  But when there’s nothing the smallest thing can be amplified.

  No noise, but then something, what was that? It took her a moment to identify the deep breathing behind her, not breathing on her but behind, probably a couple of feet away, maybe more. Or was she imagining it? Was someone there, was that their breathing or the sound of her own blood rushing through her ears?

  That’s when the panic rose in her and she found herself breathing faster and faster until snot began to dribble from her nose making breathing more difficult. She realized that whoever was behind her didn’t care if she smothered to death because of the ball gag and her snot filled nose. She knew that if he had wanted to kill her, she would be dead already, but the only person in the room that cared if she lived or died was her.

  Her nose was starting to block and the surrounding cloth was starting to get wet and she knew enough to understand that she was on a downwards spiral, the more she panicked the harder it was to breathe, the harder it was to breathe the more she panicked. She forced herself to slow her breathing and take deep gulps around the edges of the ball gag. With each slower breath, her heart rate slowed, and her breathing became easier, until she could breathe, almost normally, through her nose.

  There was a low chuckle behind her, the first real noise she had heard since she had woken up. In the sound of the laugh, she almost thought that she could hear an approval. As though she had been set some a test and had somehow, without realizing, passed it.

  The chuckling stopped and the breathing, deeper now and so clear she knew it was definitely there, directly behind her and had it not been for the black bag, she would have felt the hot breath on her neck.

  Two hands circled her stomach and rested there for a moment before moving up, pushing her jumper and bra up and uncovering her breasts. She felt the panic rising again before she forced herself to breathe normally but still, her eyes bulged in fear under the bag as the rough hands cupped her large breasts before softly, rolling her nipples between thumb and forefinger.

  Her nipples became erect, and the hands moved, pushing her bra and jumper up further leaving her fully exposed to whoever was there. Soon, she thought she was alone again but then she heard a more rhythmic, urgent sound before the lights were turned off and she was left, half-dressed, in silence and darkness.

  Chapter Eleven

  “I think that we need to go and speak with him. That’s going to be the easiest way and there’s no point putting this off any longer. We have more than enough evidence to speak to him and I want to see his face when he discovers what we have, and we can take it all back to Alex’s attorney or the DA.”

  “Go out there and talk to him and try to cover everything we can?”

  “Pretty much, if it does stack up, then I think that you can think about another appeal at least. This is all new evidence and they will have to re-investigate. They’ll follow the same path we have, but with more authority and resources open to them.”

  “But you want to see what Nicholas has to say first?”

  Steve nodded, “I don’t care about the fairness of giving him a chance and all that, what I want is to see his reaction when he knows his lies have been found out. I’m hopeful he might give us some more information, or maybe let something slip that we don’t already know.”

  “Which may not be too hard,” Alice said, “we’re finding out more and more that we didn’t know before.”

  They rehearsed the phone call, having decided that Alice should make it as she had a small connection with Nicholas. They had met a couple of times, once on the first time he had met Hazel and a couple of times after Hazel left Alex. Alice wouldn’t say that there was any love lost between them but as far as Hazel leaving Alex, she thought Nicholas was probably as much of a victim as any of them. She had seen him at the trial when he had been called to give evidence for the prosecution. He had done so in a matter-of-fact manner and against which, even if they had wanted to counter his evidence, to Alex’s legal team it had all seemed so straightforward, he had been allowed to give his testimony unopposed. But that was when there was no counter argument to what he was saying. Alice and Steve knew differently now.

  Now they had evidence that he had probably lied under oath and contrary to putting him in the clear, the new information pushed him back into possible contention of having had something to do with Hazel’s disappearance. But the same statement, from Ron Balfour, could also be seen to swing the pendulum away from Nicholas and back
toward Alex. They were under no obligation to tell him that, nor explain where the information was from and what it included. They weren’t going to tell him yet. Steve wanted him to drop it on him and let him sweat for a while.

  Nicholas sounded surprised when Alice had rung him but didn’t sound surprised at her request to come to see him. To Alice, he had sounded bemused but in truth, he was a little weary of the whole thing and had almost refused her request. Which, he considered, might put him in a bad light.

  At the trial he had come out of it fairly unscathed, his reputation intact, or actually enhanced, becoming more widely known as a rich playboy, single, available, and playing the field. As far as Hazel’s disappearance and probable murder were concerned, no hint of suspicion had fallen on him. He had greatly underplayed his feelings for her so no one could suggest he had suffered a jealous rage or that he was so desperate to hold on to her he would react badly when she told him that she was leaving him. There was no suggestion or evidence that he had hurt her in any way, or threatened her or caused her any harm, there was no suggestion of violence that could lead back to him. Nothing that they could pin on him or be able to drag the whole sorry mess back to his doorstep somehow or that might cause the cops to come sniffing around.

  Approached outside the courthouse by news reporters after he had given his evidence he had presented a face of quiet concern for Hazel’s well-being and the hope that whatever had happened, the truth would come out. He’d walked away from the courthouse without a real stain on his character and the last thing Nicholas Rowe wanted was some stupid investigation dragging everything up. What was done was done, and it was over. It was sad, but it was in the past and nothing could change that.

  If he was surprised when Alice rang he was more so when she turned up with someone else in the car. She had not mentioned bringing anyone else over. He seemed to remember that she was divorced and anyway, this guy did not look like her husband who was, he struggled to remember … a real estate agent over in north Eugene. The guy getting out of the car looked too military and too muscular to be a real estate agent. Nicholas thought that he looked like how a detective should look in the public mind molded by television cop shows and movies, not the wobbling fat version that was often the reality, so when Steve offered his Oregon Private Investigator badge and identification, he was not surprised but more concerned, What the fuck, is she doing here with a PI?

  His hand shook slightly as he handed the credentials back to Steve. Steve noticed the small shake—he’d been looking out for it and, with a small smile, he put his badge back into his pocket, glad that Nicholas was rattled. A good start, that’s where he wanted him, on the back foot and ignorant of what was coming.

  Nicholas led the way up the front stairs and through the front door. Steve and Alice followed him through the house to the back patio where he asked them to sit before offering drinks, which they both refused.

  He nodded and sat down opposite them at the large round table.

  “I’m guessing why you’re here, Alice. Is Alex up for another appeal? Although I can’t for the life of me understand how I could help after all this time.”

  “Thank you for seeing us, Nicholas, but no, Alex isn’t up for appeal, I’m afraid that he has no appeals left unless we can come up with some major new evidence. Steve is looking into the whole thing again for us and has a couple of questions he’d like to ask you.”

  “This must be costing you a pretty penny, Alice, getting your own PI to go over the whole case again. If you need some help with the expense, you only have to ask. Maybe we could get together one evening and discuss it?”

  Alice shuddered at the thought, but smiled.

  “Thank you, Nicholas, but there’s no need for that.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked, looking at Steve.

  “Pro bono,” Steve said looking straight faced at him.

  And I wonder why that is? Nicholas thought before saying, “In that case, whatever you need.”

  Steve could have started slowly and built up to something, but he decided that there was no point and hit Nicholas with the main point from the first question.

  “Why did you lie to investigators about the night Hazel disappeared?”

  “I most certainly did not!”

  Steve smiled, “Yeah, Nick, you did. The evidence you gave in your testimony in court said that Hazel left here in the early evening and went to Alex’s house, her house. Then you didn’t see her again.”

  “That is what I said, and it’s correct.”

  “No, it’s not correct, Nick, it’s bullshit. We have an eye witness who saw your car, a gunmetal gray, E-class Mercedes parked behind Hazel’s Volvo in the street outside her house. The two cars were parked there together and left there at about the same time.”

  Although Ron had said nothing about seeing the E-class and Hazel’s car leaving together, Steve didn’t feel the need to give Nicolas the whole truth. They could well have left at the same time for all any of them knew. The only person that did know was sitting opposite them starting to look a little nervous and he would either deny it or admit it. Steve was bound by certain ethics, but not like a cop, he could bend the truth and he did; all he wanted was the truth.

  He and Alice watched as the color drained from Nicholas’s face and Steve knew that he was either going to tell them to get the hell out of his house or he was going to tell them the truth. The question he had thrown had scored right at the heart of the matter, and they all knew it.

  Nothing happened for a moment as Nicholas swallowed a few times and looked from one to the other before speaking.

  “How do I know you have a witness?” he asked.

  “Because I’ve told you we have. I don’t need to make this stuff up, Nick. We have a witness and their evidence has already been deposed.”

  “And the DA knows about this witness?”

  Steve nodded.

  “Why aren’t the police here then, if you have a witness?”

  “What do we have a witness to, Nick? We know what he saw, but what does it mean? Do the police have to come out here with heavy machinery and dig up your nice garden to get to the truth? Or will they need to rip through your nice house until they find a piece of newer concrete? What is it that they might find, Nick?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then why did you lie?”

  “Do I need a lawyer?”

  “I have no idea, Nick, do you need a lawyer? What did you do, you know what you did on that night, so you know if you need a lawyer or not? Why did you lie?” Steve asked again.

  “I didn’t”, Nicholas started before changing his mind, “It was easier,” he said simply.

  “Easier for you?”

  “No, yes, look it was easier because there was no reason for me to get involved because I wasn’t involved. I loved her, or at least I thought I did,” he was almost whispering now, “I still do.”

  Steve looked at Alice who was trying to keep it together herself.

  “And what does that mean, Nick? That if you couldn’t have her then no one could?”

  Nicholas looked at him in horror.

  “No, God no, nothing like that at all. I was angry I suppose, I was angry a bit. But not that. I wouldn’t hurt her, I would never hurt her. I would have looked after her. I certainly wouldn’t kill her or wish any harm to her.”

  “Nick,” Steve said softly, “Maybe you should start at the beginning and tell us what happened.”

  For the next thirty minutes Nicholas walked them through the night of Hazel’s disappearance from his perspective.

  He finished telling his version of the story when Hazel drove off down the gravel driveway and turned toward Eugene. Sitting in the kitchen slowly sipping on his whiskey he had heard the crunch of her car’s wheels on the gravel and had known that she had left. Finishing the whiskey in his glass he had had no more that night and about half an hour after she left he had turned off the lights, closed the front door and had gone to bed. He hadn’t
slept well but had stayed in his house until the next morning.

  “And you didn’t try to contact her?”

  “That night or the next day?”

  “Either or both. At any time on or after she left your house as you have described, did you try to contact Hazel?”

  “I thought about it, constantly. I was going to ring and beg her to come back, but I knew that it was no good for me to even try. She had made her choice. Hazel had been through a bad time but she was coming out of it and she wanted her old, normal life back. I know that now and I would like to think that I helped her through it.”

  “But you resented her, didn’t you? You felt used and disposed of once she got herself together again?”

  “No,” Nicholas said a little too quickly.

  “No? Here is this gorgeous woman who you took from her husband. You took her into your life, into your house, and into your bed and now here she is, going back to her drab little life. She was rejecting what you were offering her, Nick, and you say you didn’t resent her? You had everything to offer, but she didn’t want it, did she? She didn’t want you. I know that I would have been pissed with that, Nick. And you’re telling us you weren’t?”

  Nicholas looked straight at them both, one after the other.

  “I’ve told you, I was sad and upset but I didn’t resent her or her choice. I wanted her, of course I did, but I wouldn’t hurt her. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

  He was getting louder as he spoke, but he realized and took a deep breath as he calmed himself.

  “If I had have spoken to her afterward and asked her to come back, once she had said no, which I’m sure that she would have, then that would have been the end of it for me. I agree that I would not have been happy about it but there was nothing that I could do, and I knew it.”

  Steve moved the conversation back to his original question.

  “So why lie about it? Why didn’t you tell the truth at the time, straight away when asked? Why didn’t you tell the investigators the truth that she came back here that evening?”