Athena nodded in understanding. “It’s a nomadic life. You make friends and then have to leave them. Y’know, Detective, I’ve never done this before. Worked with cops, I mean. If I get it wrong, will you arrest me? Like, for obstruction of justice or something like that?”
He chuckled. “No, but the squad will never let us forget it. We’ve kept a low profile on your mother, passed her off as a forensic consultant. That gives her entry into the morgue, our station, and even crime scenes. But, believe me, some of them have guessed what we’re up to, and they’ve given us gobs of grief. When we get results, however, that shuts ’em up quick. And we’ve gotten lots of results, thanks to your mom.”
Genuinely shocked, Athena asked, “My mother goes to crime scenes?”
“Oh yeah. She’s got a strong stomach and has given us pretty solid tips on a lot of homicide cases. She’s the real deal. I was a skeptic at first, but she’s come through and proven herself time and time again. My question is, are you the real deal? So far, it looks like it.”
This revelation about her mother made Athena realize how committed her mother was to using her gifts to help the police solve crimes. Ochoa’s last question caught her off-guard. She honestly wasn’t sure how to explain how their clairvoyance worked.
“Am I the real deal? I don’t know. I guess so. I’ve never tested it before, well, except at the Claremont Institute of Psychic Research. They, the scientists there, seem to think I’m the real deal. I guess you and the other detectives have to decide for yourselves. I mean, today I might get nothing. I don’t know. My mother believes this gift of ours comes from God. What do you think, Detective Ochoa?”
He glanced over at her, then turned his attention to merging onto the freeway. “Hmm, could be. Maybe it’s like any other gift or special ability. Does it come from God, nature, or mankind? Is it built into our DNA? Our brains? Who knows? We don’t care, all of us on Palomino’s team. We just want results, so we can get the bad guys off the streets.”
She nodded. “I can’t play Bach on the piano or Strauss. Not even Chopsticks. I suck at just about everything except art. And clairvoyance. Ah, and here’s a factoid. Did you know that fifteen percent of women—human females of all ages—carry a fourth photoreceptor in their brains? All other humans have only three photoreceptors. Isn’t that amazing? A neuro-scientist discovered this. So is this clairvoyance ability just a gene mutation? Like an extra photoreceptor? Or is it a gift from God? Why would God want fifteen percent of human females to have the ability to see subtle shades of color that no one else can see? Are these abilities just random acts of nature? “
Athena stopped herself and took a deep breath. Normally, she didn’t talk about her clairvoyance except to her mother. It felt both strange and refreshingly normal to speak to a total stranger about it.
“Hmm, beats me,” Ochoa said mildly, taking a freeway exit ramp and following a street that took them directly to an underground garage. He flashed his badge and ID to the patrolman at the gate, after which the wide steel gate swung open. “So do you think this ability you and your mother have is the result of a gene mutation?”
“I don’t know, could be. I often wonder about it. The people at the Institute where we’ve taken workshops don’t know the answer to that, either. They just have theories that they try to support with scientific tests. Everything is, as they say, inconclusive.”
They chatted while he directed her onto an elevator, Ochoa talking more about his family in an attempt, she knew, to get her to relax. Inside, she felt like a bundle of Mexican jumping beans. Was she going to get the wrong man arrested? Athena grew quiet as the elevator rose.
She’d never been in a police station before. Suddenly she realized what she carried in her purse, the satchel she’d slung over her shoulder.
“Detective Ochoa, I forgot to tell you. I have a canister of pepper spray in my purse. Is that okay?”
“Better give it to me.” He grinned. “I’ll give it back to you when we leave. Sometimes someone from the SWAT team comes in with one of his or her bomb and chemical-sniffing dogs. Let’s play it safe and not make anyone nervous or go ape-shit.”
She smiled broadly at that and gave him the canister, which he pocketed in his sports jacket. Minutes later, Ochoa led her through a bullpen of desks, ringing phones, lit computers and people scurrying about, down a long hallway and into a small conference room. Sitting at the oblong metal table were three men, older than Juan-Pablo and looking stern. Instantly, Detective Gino Palomino stood, shook her hand and introduced himself, then the other two men on his team did the same.
Athena recognized Palomino immediately from her mother’s thoughts. He had a very prominent widow’s peak framed by a shock of thick, salt-and-pepper hair. Penetrating, light brown eyes and a large, hooked nose. He was happily married, and one of his sons was already in college. A young football player on a scholarship, named Gianni, and Palomino was very proud of him. The other two men, Abe Rosen and Joe Bosco, were also in their fifties, both divorced, hard-bitten and cynical. Their handshakes told her a lot more, but she said nothing. This was not the time to show off.
Palomino sat down next to her, asked her if he could get her anything to drink and, when she said no, he clasped his hands on top of the table.
“Do you know anything about this case, Miss Butler?”
“Athena, please.” She looked down as he spread several closed files out in front of her. He didn’t open them yet. “Yes, a little. Children, girls, are being kidnapped, raped, and then strangled to death.” When she grew silent again, Palomino prompted her. “Anything else?”
“Just that my mother saw a black van with signs—fake signs for a fake business. A white guy in his twenties. He’s very disturbed.”
Ochoa, glancing down at the closed files, spoke up at this point. “Athena’s never done this before, so let’s take it slow and easy.”
“How old are you, Athena?” Detective Palomino asked gently. He kept his large, clasped hands on the file folders as if reluctant to let her see what was inside.
“Nineteen, almost twenty.”
“I called you down here because we have a time factor problem. Your mother won’t be back until the twenty-ninth, and we can’t hold these guys more than twenty-four hours. We had five in a line-up. A neighbor, admittedly an unreliable witness, said he could identify who took the latest victim. None of the five passed muster. This witness couldn’t identify any of the five in the lineup. So we’re back to square one, basically. Unless, of course, you can help.”
Athena placed a hand over Palomino’s clasped ones. At first, he stiffened but after a few seconds, he relaxed. His hands were cold, but after a moment, images came through, making her nod in understanding.
“I see, all those guys own black vans and live not too far from the neighborhood where the girls lived. And they all have police records. Right?”
Detective Palomino gave a small nod. “We’re holding them a few more hours, hoping we’ll get something from you. Then we’ll have to cut them loose. We’re at our wits’ end here.” He glanced up at the other men as he cleared his throat. Obviously, he felt uncomfortable about opening the files. When he did, Athena sucked in a deep breath. She knew what was in them.
There were forms and typed reports in the files, but the photographs drew her attention. Postmortem photos of four little girls, who were no older than ten or twelve, which Palomino assembled in front of her like a horrible scrapbook. All of the girls bore red marks on their small throats, where the killer had strangled them to death.
“I don’t know how much your mother has told you about this case, but we know we have a serial killer at large, a predator of the most evil, despicable kind. He preys on the most innocent, most gullible, and helpless in our poor neighborhoods. Little girls who aren’t supervised very well after school. We need to stop him…now. So, if you’re here on a whim or fancy, please don’t waste our time. Believe me, we take this seriously, and we don’t appreciate
anyone who doesn’t. Know what I mean? Everyone at this station and in those neighborhoods want us to catch this guy. We’ve put in thousands of man-hours into this case, and the only solid leads we’ve gotten have come from your mother.”
Athena nodded soberly. Gingerly, she touched the photos but got nothing. All she felt and heard was the quiet sobbing of the medical examiner who did the autopsies of these children. The spirits and minds of these little girls had already gone. There was nothing left but hollow shells, mass converting back into energy, and waiting for the next conversion into mass again. The particle physicist’s version of reincarnation.
The cycle of life and death.
Athena looked up at Detective Palomino and waited.
“We have the jackets of these men, who’re in holding cells right now,” he said. “You told me about psychometry and what you might be able to do.”
“Yes.” She looked around the room. “I do very well with objects that belong to people. If you give me something that each of these men own or wear, I might be able to help you. Better than if I just look at them. I can’t touch the men, can I?”
“Without them seeing you, no,” said Palomino. He looked up at Ochoa and hooked a thumb at the door. “Bring in their jackets in any order. Just pile them on the table here. Let’s see what she can do.”
Five minutes later, while Detectives Rosen and Bosco were off attending to their supposed eyewitness, Ochoa was sorting the five different jackets on the metal table. The first was a dirty suede sport coat, then a black nylon parka style, third, a fleece-lined, plaid lumber jacket-style coat, the fourth was another parka with a hood, this time dark-green, and the last one was a brown corduroy like the boxy barn jackets the farmers in England wore. Before Athena stepped up to the end of the table where they were spread out, Ochoa gave her transparent vinyl gloves to put on. “Hope these don’t interfere with your psychometry, but it’s protocol.”
She nodded, pulled on the gloves and began to touch each jacket, taking her time. She felt the lining, the collars, and the sleeves. Then she put her hands into the pockets, all cleaned out and emptied when the men first came in.
Palomino handed her a box of tissues, which she took absently and set aside, continuing her silent probe into the stark, sad lives of these five men.
All of the men lived hard lives, bereft of love and security. She wondered how people endured without both, but these men had, somehow. Their life-stories were varied, one coming from a middle-class family with educated parents, who had beaten him so severely and had broken his arms so many times that Athena could feel his pain every time he put his arms through the sleeves.
She grabbed a tissue and frowned. Wiping her eyes, suddenly realizing her vision was blurred with tears, she went back to the first jacket, the dirty suede sport coat. Instantly, she stifled a sob.
She saw it. The killer had once worn this jacket. She saw him gazing at himself in the mirror while wearing it. Trying out his disguise. Dyed, shorter hair. A baseball cap. Weight gain. Each time he killed, he changed a part of himself. As if showing everybody he was either too smart to get caught, maybe…or as a way of showing himself and the world that he was in control. Maybe he was admitting to himself that with each horrible act, he was changing into a beast beyond help, beyond redemption.
It was like the movie, The Portrait of Dorian Gray. With each heinous crime, the handsome young man, Dorian Gray, grew more and more vile and vicious, but his looks remained the same; handsome, young, virile. His painted portrait, however, morphed into a hideous and grotesque monster, reflecting the man’s true nature. Athena sensed that the killer was looking to see if fate would punish him in some way by altering his appearance. When fate didn’t punish him, he altered something about himself. He seemed to be obsessed with this notion.
She wiped her eyes and nose, swallowed down the lump in her throat, took a fresh clump of tissues and dried her face. Then she pointed at the jacket, the dirty suede sport coat.
“The man who owns this jacket is either the killer or knows the killer. They sometimes swap clothes. I think they’re good friends or related.”
Palomino and Ochoa exchanged pointed looks.
Her knees turned to rubber, so she sat down.
What she’d learned was an epiphany. Human monsters looked like normal people. No wonder they were so dangerous.
Chapter Seven
“Are you sure?” asked Ochoa. He exchanged glances with Palomino.
Athena shrugged. “Yes, as much as I usually am when I use psychometry to do my thing.”
Palomino told Ochoa to go and run the man’s sheet. Whatever that meant, Athena thought. Silently, she dropped the suede sport coat and backed up against the wall. Invisible waves of evil seemed to ripple from that jacket, as if the killer’s nature had imbued the object with his twisted mind.
Suddenly, her thoughts churned into a tumultuous mess of doubts. What if she were wrong? Misinterpreted what she saw? Or caused the wrong man to be arrested?
After Ochoa left, the leader of the homicide team gave her a studied look and held out a chair for her. She acknowledged his gesture with a faint smile, sat and sank her head onto her folded arms on the table. Drained physically and exhausted mentally, she bent over. Sitting quietly usually restored her sense of well-being, but this time her mood remained dark and gloomy. Her stomach felt nauseated, as though she’d just had a small bout of food poisoning. Her head ached.
“Are you okay, Athena?” Detective Palomino inquired gently.
“No,” she said honestly, “but I will be. I just need to shake it off. It doesn’t always affect me this way, but what I saw made me sick.” A moment later, she pulled out her small sketchbook and a plastic box of pencils from her large hobo bag. “I need to make a drawing of the man I saw in the mirror.”
“Mirror?”
“I saw a man, wearing that jacket and looking at himself in the mirror. He was wearing a baseball cap, sunglasses. Trying out a disguise, I think, like trying on a different look. I couldn’t see much of his face but his chin…it was rounded and had a deep dimple. A cleft, y’know.”
Her right hand flew over the page, slowed down to shade in the area around his covered forehead and eyes, his jawline and neck. That’s when she recalled what she’d seen in the mirror—a scar on the man’s neck, the left side. Or was it the right side? Her hand paused and went to her own neck. Her thinking was a little muddled.
“The scar was on this side, my left side—his right side in the mirror—but that’s a mirror image. So it’s really on his left side. A long, curved line, as if a knife had tried to slice it.”
Two minutes later, she handed the sketch to Detective Palomino. “I think he’s your killer.”
Palomino narrowed his eyes and scowled until Ochoa returned, holding a computer printout with a photograph of a man. Ochoa’s voice bubbled over with excitement. “The guy with the suede jacket’s got a younger brother with a mile-long sheet and a bunch of aliases. Look at this.” He held up his printouts.
Palomino gazed at the printouts, then at Athena’s sketch before blinking a few times. “Look at this,” the lead detective echoed, matching up the two pictures. “Definitely the same chin, a cleft chin. This person of interest is doing his best to cover his appearance. Says here his last known address is Minneapolis. Get rid of the witness, have Bosco and Rosen trace credit card activity, banking, ATM, and cell phone use. Bet he’s been in town the past six months, about the time the first murder began. Take Miss Butler back, then lean on…” he glanced over at Athena. “…the owner of that suede jacket.
“Right, boss. Be right back.” Ochoa smiled at Athena before exiting the conference room again. The man’s excitement was palpable. The vibes in the room ricocheted off the walls, it seemed. She looked at the suede jacket, its evil emanations diminishing by the second.
“Good work, Miss Butler, but I can understand,” the detective commiserated, “how difficult this must’ve been for you. You have af
ternoon classes?”
She lifted her head and nodded. Today, a male model would be posing nude for their portrait painting class. Her spirits rose. She and Mikayla had looked forward to this new development. The sickness in her stomach receded.
Ochoa returned with a note, which Palomino read solemnly. His eyes flared for a moment as he nodded silently to himself. He and Ochoa exchanged another meaningful glance before the team leader wrapped up their meeting.
“Thanks for coming, Miss Butler. We’ll call you again,” said Palomino, “when you return from your week in California. We’d like to use both you and your mother in the upcoming months. Your skill with that sketchbook will come in handy. If you agree, that is.”
She said nothing but held out her hand in parting. After he shook it, she said, “You should see a doctor, Detective. Right away. You have an ulcer that hasn’t been treated. It’s about to start bleeding.” She shrugged. “Just saying.”
He frowned and looked thoughtful as he ushered her out.
“You did good, Athena,” Ochoa told her as he escorted her to the elevators. “Didn’t know about Gino’s ulcer. He’s been eating Tums like candy. Guess that’s not doing him any good. He hates doctors. Says they always bring bad news. Anyway, we might collar the perp, thanks to you.”
“You mean, I gave you a solid lead in the case?” she asked, picking up on their cop lingo.
“Oh yeah,” chuckled the detective, “more than solid. I’m not saying you’ve cracked the case, but you might’ve just given us the key to unlocking it. We’ve had a problem because the jacket owner has a bona fide alibi for each kidnapping and each murder. Now we need to track down his younger brother. I can’t say anymore than that. We’ve got a lot more work to do. The guy’s in the wind.”
He wouldn’t elaborate or explain what he meant, so Athena just smiled. Her stomach and head felt better as her thoughts turned to her afternoon painting class. She’d be a half-hour late, but that was becoming a habit, she groused to herself. Which wasn’t impressing ol’ Professor White. Then she brightened, recalling what Mikayla had said on Wednesday.
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