Dead Investigation

by Charlie Price

  MALIK FEATHERS

  SEPTEMBER 23, 1994—JANUARY 24, 2014

  GATHERED TO THE LORD

  Murray introduced himself and the guy piped right up like they knew each other.

  “Shoulda knowed better to ride with no white boys. I’m front seat, drifting on tar, new stuff from L.A. They just plain drunk. We highballing ’cross the river get on 5. I’m slayin’ on the water an’ the moon an’ shit and Bobby slides the damn Chevy off the road, down some hill, and we bangin’ into shit and my door flies open and I’m out an’ the damn car rolls over me. You believe that? Nineteen, got a damn job, and Feathers is gone. Not a scratch on nobody else.”

  Murray pushed back from Feathers’s gravestone. Couldn’t think of anything to say. Thanks for telling me seemed dumb … Oh. He scooted forward again and touched the headstone. “It’s not so bad here. Hang in there.” He leaned back again. Hang in there? That was totally lame.

  Getting to know someone brand-new was hard because nobody young wanted to be dead. Except maybe the new suicide. Murray hadn’t met him yet. Maybe he didn’t want a friend. Right?

  “Hey, Ghoulbrain, I think I figured it out.”

  Murray knew it was Pearl without turning around. Wished he’d heard her footsteps. Hated being surprised.

  “Who’s that?” She sat beside him, breathing hard like she’d been running.

  Murray didn’t say anything. Pearl could read the plaque if she was really interested. He, on the other hand, was trying to concentrate.

  “Will you hold the old guy’s cap?”

  “I told you no. Give it a rest.”

  “Want to hear my theory?”

  “No.”

  “Did you see 21 Grams?”

  Murray had no idea what she was talking about.

  “The movie? About how much the soul weighs?”

  God, the girl could be irritating.

  “I don’t watch movies.” Pearl knew that. And soul? He had no idea what to think about that word.

  “So people weigh twenty-one grams less when they die. Mass has energy and that’s the weight of the energy. A guy measured it. But what if that’s not all the energy? What if that’s just the energy that leaves? What if there’s still energy remaining and that’s what you’re reading when you talk with the dead? What if some of our soul’s energy sticks to things we touch and sometimes clairvoyants can access it?”

  “God loves a duck!” Murray whirled on her, borrowing one of her father’s favorite expressions. “That’s…” He couldn’t find the right word. Ridiculous? He settled on “just plain nuts.”

  “Wait—”

  “I’m not reading energy. I don’t even know what that means. I don’t know anything about a soul. Dead people talk and I hear them. It’s as simple as that.”

  “You’re fooling yourself. Nobody else hears them. Explain that.”

  “There’s nothing to explain.”

  “Dad even says you’re clairvoyant.”

  “He’s being nice. That’s a fancy word for crazy.”

  “Come on, Murray. You’re not dense. You wonder what’s going on.” Murray pushed himself to his feet and jogged away toward the cemetery gate. He wasn’t going to have this conversation. She wouldn’t believe him, had never believed him.

  LETHAL SOLUTION

  Deputy Gates caught Pittman, the community liaison, on her way to the parking lot. “Mission admin might be watching too much television.”

  “Got your attention.”

  “But why hunting? Why not random hate crimes, or rape, or even gang initiations?”

  “I talked to several agency staff,” the woman said, tapping the file. “The missing told no one they were leaving, took no belongings. Several had worked for months to achieve their jobs and benefits. A few made pocket money by begging around town. Fifteen dollars was a good day, so robberies gone wrong doesn’t make any sense.”

  Gates, thinking along with her, couldn’t see a useful pattern.

  Pittman pulled her coat collar closer together against the chill February wind. “What’s the predator’s motive? Not money. Probably not sex. Kidnapping a workforce? That’s an even crazier idea. If it’s different predators, why would each one hide the body after killing? Only someone who didn’t want law enforcement to notice the extent or the method of his crimes would go to the trouble. With no payoff or discernible purpose for the disappearances, serial killing or sport hunting were the only things the staff could think of. Otherwise, the vanishings make no sense at all.”

  Gates considered how pistol sales had skyrocketed in the county after all those movie theater and school shootings in the national headlines. He knew local men had been taking both marksmanship classes and private training in outdoor armed engagement. What if one of these men was practicing with live targets, or perhaps taking it on himself to reduce the number of homeless in Riverton?

  “What can you tell me about this Payne?” Gates asked, wishing he’d put on his own coat before rushing outside.

  “I met him at the mission. Nice man, soft-spoken, self-effacing. His counselor told me Payne was the first exec fired from his company in last year’s building downturn. Apparently that started a chain reaction, the man’s marriage, home, money, all down the drain within a few months.”

  “Not bitter? No chip on his shoulder? Not likely to start a fight?”

  “More like deflated. If he’d ever had any confidence, it was missing in action. That’s part of why it’s hard to understand. The Payne I met wasn’t likely to provoke anybody. He was barely comfortable with eye contact. More, he was supposedly getting back on track, training the mission’s peer-client staff. He had no reason to take off.” Pittman shook her head, frustrated, gave a quick look toward her car like she was ready to leave.

  “What about family?” Gates asked, himself ready to get indoors. “Couldn’t they help? Send him someplace for a fresh start?”

  “From what I understand, wife had a substitute waiting in the wings. Local contractor. She and her daughter moved in with him almost immediately.”

  * * *

  Once back inside, Gates poured a coffee and carried the brimming cup across the squad room to his desk. Sat to find the interview sheets he’d requested on the Garden Tract robberies. Before he began reading, made a mental note to visit the mission himself. Get his information firsthand.

  LOOK IT UP

  Murray spat out a stream of swear words he’d learned from his mother as he strode north on Continental toward the river. Down a steep trail to the gravel bank, throwing rocks at the water, he was still furious.

  Pearl wants to know how he can talk with the dead? He was screwed. Murray had seen her in action. When the girl got her teeth in something, a tractor couldn’t pull her off, so this wasn’t going away. Explain? Murray wouldn’t know where to begin. You don’t force someone to tell you why they’re insane. They just are.

  Somebody who thought they could hear dead people talking, sooner or later their brain would blow up … It happened to a girl at school last year. She’d been accepted to Yale and she was in Latin class, taking her senior final, and she tore up her exam and walked to the whiteboard and wrote SATAN IS GOD and began yelling that everybody was going to hell and bacteria was eating them … It was horrible. Murray was in the hall when the police took her away.

  He couldn’t stand to think about what talking to the dead meant. He knew what it meant. Made it hard for him to breathe. Like somebody had strapped a bomb to your chest and you could hear it ticking.

  Dearly Beloved and Blessed Daughter and Edwin were his friends, and you talk to your friends. Enough said. But he had to get along with Pearl because she held the keys to his kingdom. Janochek’s one child. If she set her mind to it, she could make Murray’s life miserable.

  He did know this: the dead were kinder than most kids at school. Murray could be dead people’s friend. Nobody else could. He knew it was beyond weird, but he had kind of a duty.

  Let Pearl explain t
hat if she’s so smart.

  * * *

  Before he left the river Murray had an idea. Couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it before. The library. Look it up. See what the experts said about hearing dead voices.

  It took Murray thirty minutes to walk to the library because he took a detour south of the new City Services complex to pass by his mom’s house in an area known as “The Hood.” Less expensive homes, more drugs, more break-ins, but at least it was pretty with its old trees and proximity to the river. His mom lived on a fairly busy street called Freebridge, a two-bedroom house, white paint peeling and trim faded from forest green to a dull gray. As he neared, a large red sedan passed him and stopped in front.

  His mom opened the passenger door and stepped onto the sidewalk wearing a copper-colored track outfit and bright white runners. What the—? Murray had never seen her in anything like that before. The big car’s brake lights flashed, the engine shut off, and the driver’s door opened, allowing a lanky man in a cream-colored velour running suit to lever himself out. He rested his elbows on the roof and paused to smile at Murray’s mom, shaking his head like he couldn’t believe his luck.

  His mom returned the smile, curtsied, and saw Murray gaping at her from a few feet down the sidewalk. “Murray, sweetie pie, how nice to see you!” She strode toward him with open arms. “You’ve met Howard, haven’t you?” she asked, nodding back over her shoulder as she walked. “He is the nicest man and he’s a lawyer!”

  Murray didn’t run in time and got crushed in her embrace.

  “Come meet him, darling, and let me fix you some lunch.”

  Murray relaxed, waiting until she released him. Lunch. At four-thirty in the afternoon. Like she did it all the time. He could see the man continuing to lean on his car, probably not sure what to make of this spectacle. Murray would bet dollars to donuts that his mom had never mentioned she had a son.

  She relaxed her hug and grasped him by the shoulders. “I swear, every time I look at you you’ve grown an inch.”

  Murray took a quick step back and twisted easily away. “Got to run, Mom. I’m late for—”

  “Honey, he’s defending me, and he’s not charging a thing!”

  Murray hustled out of hearing distance before she could tell him more. At the end of the block he glanced back to see his mom and the slim man walking arm in arm toward her front door.

  He smiled in spite of himself. His mom was a chameleon, matching her colors and habits to fit the guy she was near. He was glad he didn’t have to live at her house anymore. His mom was a mess. Most of the time she was either bonging or flirting with some new guy she was trying to impress. Murray lost track of their names. It never lasted. Guys got tired of her pretty quick, and that was sad. It showed you that sex doesn’t solve anything. It showed no matter what you do for someone, you can’t make them love you.

  * * *

  At the library, the parking lot was full and people sat in the sun on benches near the front door. Murray pulled his wallet from his pocket, ready to get out his card until he saw that all the computers were busy. He wound up asking the woman at the info desk where he could find a large dictionary.

  Second floor. Reference. He sat at one of the bigger books, gave his area a quick scan to make sure no one could see what he was looking up. Page 414. Clairvoyance: “Having or claiming to have the power of seeing or knowing beyond the range of ordinary perception.” The roots of the word related to seeing clearly. That wasn’t so bad, but the book looked pretty old.

  A newer book had College in the title. That might be more useful. “The supposed power of seeing in the mind things that exist beyond the realm of normal senses.” Supposed power? Uh-oh. Was this clairvoyant thing real or was Murray just making it up?

  Across the room he saw a girl get up from a computer and go downstairs. He gave the second-floor librarian his card, sat at the vacated machine, and typed in his library password. When he reached a search engine, he typed “clairvoyance.” Wikipedia was the first reference. Clairvoyance was defined similarly to the dictionaries. But the next sentence … “Claims for the existence of paranormal and psychic abilities such as clairvoyance have not been supported by scientific evidence published in peer-reviewed journals … The existence of the paranormal is not accepted by the scientific community. Parapsychology, including the study of clairvoyance, is an example of pseudoscience.”

  Not accepted. Pseudo. Murray’s stomach rolled. Certified psycho. Murray hurried down the stairs and out the front entrance. Stopped by the yucca bushes at the edge of the parking lot, bent to his knees to get his breath. It was as bad as he’d feared. Worse, since everybody seemed to know clairvoyance was a crock except him and his friends. He heard footsteps behind him—someone going to her car, or coming to help him? He straightened and hustled toward the sculpture garden. No one should see him like this.

  There, a metal bench on the edge of the walkway faced east, away from the library. Murray sat to gather himself. He wasn’t sure he understood exactly what the words meant that had set him off, but he understood the gist. Pseudo. False. The voices weren’t real. Weren’t real. That thought robbed him of the will to move.

  Janochek was wrong, and somehow Murray had always known it. The truth? Murray was a lonely pathetic dope who tricked himself and imagined he could talk to dead people. He buried his head in his hands, went over the things that had happened a couple of months ago.

  Last year, November to be exact, Pearl found out Murray could talk to dead people. She spied on him and badgered him until he admitted it. It was a weak moment. As much as he liked her, he wished he hadn’t caved. Big mistake. He told her he was hearing a voice he couldn’t explain. Said it sounded like a girl crying.

  Murray tried to backtrack, tried to recant, but Pearl was relentless. She got her way. She usually did. Nosy pushy bratty beautiful—no, scratch the beautiful—Pearl made him pinpoint the voice’s location. Murray felt sorry for the weeping dead girl but he didn’t want to get involved. He knew it would give people more ammunition to use against him, more reasons to think he was deranged.

  Anyway, about two months ago on New Year’s Eve, Pearl dug the girl up where Murray’d located her grave and solved the kidnapping. Found Nikki Parker, the local cheerleader who’d been killed and hidden in a plot not a hundred feet from the cemetery lawnmower shed.

  Pearl and Murray told her father, Janochek, the cemetery caretaker, and he’d called the police. As a result, the police later said Mr. Janochek discovered the body. That was okay. The caretaker should get the credit. Police kept Murray and Pearl pretty much out of it because they were juveniles. What a word. Sounded like some kind of alligator.

  ANNIVERSARY

  Sheriff’s deputy Roman Gates rolled the squad car out of the parking area and headed north to Garden Avenue, where he swung a right on Florence. This was the upscale neighborhood known as the Garden Tract, where there’d been all the home property thefts during the past week. Gates was betting a son with a drug habit, broke and temporarily living back home. Parents working or oblivious.

  The first robbery was probably simple opportunity. Probably close to the young man’s home. The next ones would be farther away, both to mislead and to reduce the level of neighbor awareness. Gates combed roads and alleys in an eight-block radius of the initial crime site, looking for a slow-moving beater car or a scruffy young pedestrian with a roving eye.

  As he drove he thought about his own son. Next month was his only child’s birthday. Twenty. Would probably be playing spring ball at a college. Probably studying communications. Probably dating a cute athletic girl who loved to hike. Probably. If he were alive.

  Dwelling on his son’s imagined future was hard to avoid. There were so many reminders. Work: overdoses or arrests for cocaine and heroin. Newspaper: local sports articles, photos of teens at school activities. Gates’s rage ignited. Against every oath he’d ever taken, he would kill the person who’d sold his boy the drugs … but the coroner had rule
d suicide.

  Had his son really intended to kill himself? Was that the boy’s goodbye to a life he believed hopeless? Ashamed of his father who’d become a gambling addict, destroyed his marriage, ruined his family, lost everything, and wound up publicly humiliated as a prisoner in his own jail? His mother, fled with no forwarding. Gates knew his son had been scalded by those events. Hurt, furious, did the boy make a quick decision he couldn’t undo? A wave of shame took Gates’s breath. Some thoughts could stop a heart.

  * * *

  Gates knew he was lucky to finally get his old job back. Demotion from lieutenant to investigator was fair. He parked the cruiser in a paved area off East Street facing the highway 44 on-ramp. Yahoos often raced along that stretch like the Daytona 500. Barely three weeks ago a boy had died close by when his friend’s speeding car flew out of control on the 44 to 5 connector.

  Gates opened the car door, hauled himself outside, and half sat on the front fender. Saw wispy contrails across a faded sky. Not a bird, not a squirrel, not a moth. Nothing but the distant hum of traffic. Where Gates had parked, he was a stone’s throw from Forest Grove cemetery. Janochek and his daughter and that strange kid, Kiefer. Gates would never have found the murdered cheerleader without Kiefer’s help. Did he believe the boy had located Nikki Parker’s body because he’d “heard” the dead girl crying? Janochek was nobody’s fool and he believed. But how could it be possible to hear from the dead?

  In the moment of wondering, a thought surfaced. Made Gates flinch. What if Kiefer could talk to his dead son—ask him whether the overdose was an accident? The rush of feelings made Gates dizzy. Was it even ethical? Ask a police informant for a personal favor? He rubbed his eyes, rubbed the back of his neck. Took a deep breath, knowing he might never be able to bury that thought deeply enough to forget it.

  SQUARE ROOT OF NOTHING

  Murray sat on the bench till the sun slipped behind the western mountains and the air became seriously chilly. He had considered the new information from every direction. Finally decided there wasn’t so much to get upset about. Experts didn’t understand talking with the dead any better than he did. Just because they couldn’t explain it or figure out how to study it didn’t mean that Murray’s conversations weren’t real. They were. Unless … he was imagining everything. Murray Kiefer, slightly nuts, so lonely he might be making it up. Wanting someone to talk to, he invents that the dead are talking back to him. Invents conversations. Forgets he’s making it all up and actually believes it. Pitiful, but possible.