(Un) Sound Mind

by Richard Amico

  What is that noise? she thought. Twenty-three seconds must have passed by now, but the emergency power still had not come on. As her eyes became accustomed to the dark, Ruth noticed that some faint light was coming into her office through the open waiting room door. Yes, she remembered, the corridor outside the frosted-glass door of her waiting room had small battery-operated emergency lights. At least she’d be able to see well enough to pack up her things and leave for the night. And what is that awful tapping noise? With her eyes somewhat adjusted to the darkness, she focused on her desktop. Then she placed her right hand over her left to stop it from shaking and beating her pen against her clock. “Oh,” she said, and with a smile touched with embarrassment, she placed her pen in her purse.

  The battery-powered light from the hall was dim, but after opening the vertical blinds to let in light from the distant streetlamp, there was an adequate amount to help find her way around the office. No use staying any later, she told herself. She had no other scheduled patients tonight, and this would be a wonderful opportunity to spend some extra time with her daughter, Emma. Going home early was the silver lining behind a power failure.

  First, she picked up the three file folders and her digital tape recorder from her desk and haphazardly dumped them into her Tratavere briefcase, handmade in Tuscany. Next she slid her laptop into the case, bending and creasing at least one of the folders. Lastly she tossed in her bottle of spring water, then quickly retrieved it and checked the cap for tightness. Having dodged that messy bullet, she gave a sigh of relief, dropped the bottle back in the case, and closed the gold-plated clasp.

  Ruth waited impatiently for someone to answer the telephone as she called home to let her daughter know she would be home in half an hour. “Emma, pick up, pick up, pick up,” she said into the ringing phone. “You’re supposed to be there, and where is Sophia? She doesn’t leave for at least two more hours. What am I paying her for?” Frustrated, she hung up the phone just as her voice mail message began.

  Ruth stepped into the hall, closed her office door, and searched through her handbag for the key to her deadbolt lock. She heard the sound of soft footsteps coming from somewhere down the hall, but she couldn’t see anyone in the dim glow of the battery-powered emergency lights. Her hands were beginning to shake as she stood in the dark corridor, and after several unsuccessful tries, she used both hands to steady the key and guide it into the lock. As Ruth squinted at the glowing red exit signs at the middle and end of the long corridor leading to the front and side doors, she perceived a shadow slightly protruding from the wall about halfway down the corridor. “Is someone there?” she called out. No answer.

  She looked down the hall and called out again, but this time in a shakier voice, “Is someone in the hall?” Still no answer, but the shadow now appeared to be closer than it was just a minute ago. She reached into her bag to retrieve her keys so that she could get back into her office. “Where are they?” she mumbled. Desperately rummaging through the inside of her bag, she clutched at tubes of lipstick, a pen, a wallet, coins, something square that she didn’t recognize but knew was not her key chain, and then, the key chain. “Thank God,” she cried, but as she pulled the keys from her bag, the key chain opened and she heard the keys bounce and scatter on the corridor’s tile floor. Ruth knew that there would not be enough time to pick up her keys from the darkened corridor floor, find the right key, unlock her office, and get safely inside before whoever was generating that shadow reached her. Each time she looked up, it had moved closer.

  Her only chance was to escape. With no power in the building, the elevator was not an option, so she hurried to the exit door leading to the rear stairwell. Up or down, up or down. She paused and then decided. If she descended to the basement, she could run across the boiler room and then up the front stairs. She would emerge within twenty feet of the front door, probably well past her assailant. She decided to do it.

  Ruth slipped as quietly as possible into the stairwell and gently closed the door behind her. The emergency lighting in the stairwell was brighter than the corridor, but not much. She took off her shoes and put them in her briefcase, then walked down the stairs and through the basement door. This was going to work out just fine, she thought. I’m probably just imagining the whole thing anyway. Then a sound reached her ears. The door—it sounded like the door at the top of the stairwell closing. He’s coming, she thought, and began to run barefoot through the basement to the boiler room. The emergency lighting in the basement was even more limited than up in the first-floor corridor. She saw a faint glow from only one small bulb at the far end of the boiler room. Suddenly the basement door opened. Ruth sank into a shadow behind a series of large pipes and held her breath. A beam of light shone from the basement door as it opened, and the shadow of a man was cast onto the floor. Ruth crouched down in the darkness behind the pipes. Her body was shaking so much that she was sure he would hear her knees knock or her teeth chatter. She began to recite a meditation mantra in her mind to calm herself: Om, I am; om, I am. She concentrated on her breathing. In, out; in, out. Ruth sensed a figure pass her hiding place. She wanted to scream and run but did not. She had to keep her composure. Her life may be at stake. Who would raise her daughter if she were to be killed or severely injured? How would she live? She cursed herself for not buying a larger life insurance policy or establishing an investment trust to provide for Emma’s education and future. The man’s footsteps were receding. She listened and waited until they sounded as though he was almost back at the basement door, and then she grabbed her bags and ran for the light at the end of the room. She didn’t hesitate; she didn’t look back. Ruth reached the front stairwell door, threw it open, and ran as fast as she could up to the first floor. As she exited the stairwell, she looked to the right. The front door and safety were less than twenty feet away. Ruth dared to relax and started to walk to the door when a hand grabbed at her shoulder. At the same moment, the front door opened, and two figures peeked inside. Ruth screamed and yanked her shoulder free.

  “Mom, what happened? Are you all right?” Emma cried.

  “Dr. Klein,” said Sophia, “what happened to you?”

  Ruth took two steps toward the door and turned back to look at her assailant. Dr. Hyrum Green stood in the corridor with a flashlight in his hand.

  “Dr. Klein,” he said. “I’m sorry if I frightened you. I just came out of my office into the hall with a flashlight to see if anyone was here, and I saw these keys on the floor. Are they yours?”

  Ruth took the keys from his hand. In a hoarse voice, she said, “I guess I’m a little jumpy.”

  “Your scream scared me half to death,” Hyrum said. “I was just thinking of going to the basement to see if a circuit breaker failed or a fuse burned out. It looks like this is the only building without power. But now I think I’ll call the building manager and let him do it. I don’t think I want to go down there in the dark.”

  “Th…thank you for the keys, Dr. Green.” Ruth didn’t look him in the eye. She turned to her daughter and her nanny standing in the doorway. “Come on, Emma, Sophia, let’s go outside. What are you both doing here anyway?” she asked as she stood on one foot while placing a shoe on the other.

  13

  “Hey, don’t walk near him; he don’t like people,” the small, elderly man groused as he tried to tie his dog to the bike rack outside McDonald’s. Franklin staggered backward to put distance between him and the ninety-pound German shepherd, growling and straining at his leash.

  “Yeah, I can tell.” Franklin barely avoided the dog’s reach and flattened himself against a parked car. “Can’t you calm him down? Buy him a Happy Meal or something.”

  “I told you he don’t like people,” the man repeated, more forcefully this time, as he grabbed the dog’s collar and pulled him away from Franklin.

  Franklin clapped the dust from the parked car off his trousers. He looked back at the little man, whose feet were now dug into the gravel, one sinewy hand strai
ning to hold on to his pet, the other locked on to the bike rack to keep him from being dragged into the parking lot.

  Suddenly Franklin’s mind flashed back to a scene from his dream of the murder. He saw the image of the old woman restraining her barking dog as he and the murderer sped out of the development. The frail, stooped-over woman was clinging to a signpost with one hand to keep from being dragged into the street. The words on the sign flashed before his mind’s eye, Golf Cart Crossing.

  “Hey, are you drunk or something?” the old man asked, observing the blank expression on Franklin’s face.

  “No, no, I’m fine,” Franklin said, and he rushed back to his car.

  Once in the car, he sat with his face cupped in both hands. “This can’t be happening,” he mumbled. “Could it be true? Could I actually have been there? Was it not just a dream?” Franklin put his key in the ignition and started his car. “Well, it’s time to find out.” Franklin knew of three local golf courses, two of which had housing developments surrounding them. He drove out of the lot toward the nearest of the two.

  The houses at Silicon Springs varied in size and value from rows of attached townhouses with single-car garages and cement walks to large, rambling estates sporting circular cobblestone driveways, stone facades, and acres of glass windows. Franklin drove down several darkened streets looking for anything he could remember from his dream. He turned corners at random, hoping to see something he recognized. The area seemed familiar, but he could chalk that up to coincidence; all these developments looked the same. It looked similar to the one in his dream, but nothing stood out to confirm this was the same place.

  ***

  “Car three, this is base. You awake out there, Jim, over?”

  “This is car three. Don’t be such a putz, Frank; go ahead,” said Jim Chrystal.

  “Jim, a resident just called and reported a silver car circling their street three times. They said he just turned onto Hemlock from Pine, over.”

  “I’m sitting on Hemlock, Frank…Wait a minute. I see him. I’ll follow and check him out, over.”

  Franklin glanced in his rearview mirror and saw the headlights of the security car turn on and the car pull away from the curb. Franklin turned left at the next corner and then right a block later in an attempt to distance himself from the security guard, but the car followed each of his turns and was now closing the gap between them.

  “Looks like he’s trying to shake me. I’m going to pick him up, over.”

  “Oh shit!” Franklin cried. He increased his speed and turned the next corner. As he did, he bolted past a golf cart crossing sign. The image of the woman stretched between the sign and her straining dog again flashed in his memory. The sign could be the one he saw in his dream. His heart started pounding, and his breath came in gulps. If the murder was real instead of a dream and he was caught driving through this neighborhood, he would have a lot of explaining to do. And right now, he didn’t have any answers. Franklin glanced in his rearview mirror and saw that the security car was just a block away. Tires squealing, Franklin turned the next corner, spotted an exit from the development, and made for it. He turned onto County Road 6, and this time he pushed his foot to the floor.

  “He’s heading out of the development onto the county road. I’m going to have to break off, over.”

  Franklin kept monitoring his rearview mirror. The guard had stopped at the end of the development and was no longer pursuing him. Franklin eased back on the gas and drove along, feeling relieved and a little proud of his escape.

  “Car three, did you get his plate, over?”

  “No, I missed it, but call in a suspicious silver late-model Toyota to the county police. It might be that burglar from the other night back for another try, over.”

  “You got it, Jim; base over and out.”

  ***

  Franklin continued to drive down the county road after his narrow escape. There were no streetlights, and he turned his headlights to bright. The road ahead was bordered by small mountain laurel shrubs and sparsely foliated oak trees. The wind gusts whipped dried leaves and scattered paper debris alongside his car, twirling them into miniature twisters that formed and died within seconds.

  He pondered the consequences of being caught. What would he have said to the police? Did his recollection of the golf cart crossing sign mean that he had really been there on that night, and that it wasn’t just a dream? That somehow, while sleepwalking, he actually witnessed a murder, or worse, participated in one? It made no sense. Golf cart crossing signs were common to most golf courses. He could have seen a similar sign in the past and now his imagination was using it as a prop, a manufactured proof to lend false legitimacy to his dream. He smiled and shook his head. Speculation wasn’t getting him anywhere.

  A moment later, Franklin noticed something on the road ahead and came to a sudden stop. His hands started sweating and his knuckles turned white as he squeezed the steering wheel. That bridge, he thought as he looked ahead on the road. That’s the bridge, the one the murderer stopped at to dispose of the body. Franklin pulled to the side of the road, got out of his car, and walked to the center of the stone bridge. He looked at the fast-moving creek passing under it. It looked the same, but all these bridges looked alike. I must have driven over hundreds of them in the past; I may have even driven on this very road before.

  Then, as he looked into the stream, he noticed something stuck on a branch rising up out of the water. It looked like a piece of fabric of some sort. Her nightgown, he thought. He stumbled, then regained his footing as he ran back to his car, grabbed his flashlight from the glove compartment, and shone the light on the object clinging to the branch. “A plastic bag,” he said out loud. Relieved, he began to turn to leave. Paranoia, thou art my master. As the light beam moved from the plastic bag, he caught sight of another foreign object in the stream; this one looked like a hand. Franklin stared at what he believed to be the latest product of his disturbed mind. It’s probably an old glove, he thought. Was his imagination beginning to run away with him? He needed to know.

  Franklin walked to the edge of the bridge and eased himself over the embankment. The roar of rushing water filled his ears and drowned out all other sounds. The bank was slippery, covered with leaves wet from the spray. Franklin worked his way down to the stream, holding on to low tree limbs for support; it was slow going. At the water’s edge, he focused his light on the object. Tears began to form in his eyes. He looked away and blew his nose into his handkerchief, hoping that when he looked back at the stream the object would be gone, or changed into an old tire, or a pile of garbage bags entangled in the rocks. He knew it wouldn’t.

  The flashlight beam trembled as it exposed the naked body of a woman just below the surface of the water. Sobbing, Franklin trudged back up the bank and climbed into his car. He drove away, knowing that he had no choice but to call the police and tell them everything that had happened, no matter the consequences.

  ***

  “This is 911. What is the emergency?” said a nasally sounding female operator.

  “I…uh…want to report a dead body,” the muffled voice said.

  “Who am I speaking to?” asked the operator.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said the voice. “She’s in a creek under a stone bridge on County Road 6, about five miles south of Silicon Springs.”

  “Would you repeat that for me, sir, I’m not sure I got it all. Sir, are you reporting an accident? Can you give me more details? Is there—”

  Franklin slowly pressed down the switch hook of the pay phone, removed his handkerchief from the mouthpiece of the receiver, wiped down the telephone, and started walking back to his car. His view of the road in front of the deserted gas station was limited by darkness. Franklin looked left and right. A dim light, barely a soft glow, began to illuminate the farthest point of the road in the direction from which he had come, and the sound of a car engine slowly began to build. Franklin ducked behind one of the rusted-over gasoline pump
s and held his breath. If the oncoming car was that of the security guard from Silicon Springs, he was as good as caught. Franklin’s silver Toyota was sitting just off the road in front of the abandoned minimart. The gas station was in almost total darkness, and Franklin hoped that his car, parked not far from a blue stripped-down derelict vehicle, would pass for just another hulk in this testament to business failure. Franklin exhaled and watched a red pickup truck speed by, its radio blasting a country tune. He watched until it was out of sight, then got into his car. No more headlights could be seen in either direction. He loudly blew his nose one more time, stuffed his handkerchief into his back pocket, and drove toward home.

  Although he had intended to call the police and tell them all the details of his dream and how it had led him to the discovery of the body, he realized how preposterous it sounded. And the farther he drove from the scene, the less willing he was to face the inevitable repercussions of the call. He could barely believe it had really happened. Why would anyone believe him? Why wouldn’t the police think he killed her? At this point even he wasn’t sure what he had done or not done. Then he had another thought. Maybe this was a dream, just another lucid dream. What was it Dr. Klein had said to do? Oh yes. He took his hands off the wheel to press his right thumb into the palm of his left hand. The car drifted toward the side of the road. His first impulse was to grab the wheel, but if he was dreaming…If this wasn’t real, and he was at home in bed…He pushed his thumb into his palm—his palm was solid. His thumb didn’t pass through.

  “Oh shit,” he cried, grabbing the wheel and jerking the car off the shoulder and back onto the road. He knew now that this entire evening was real. That the woman was actually dead, and there was nothing he could do to change it.