Dorothy Allison - A Psychic Story

by A Psychic Story (lit)

  "I would like to come down for the mass," Dorothy said. "I would also like to see where the girls were found."

  While the girls' bruised bodies were prepared for the funeral, friends and relatives gathered together in the Carlucci living room. Dorothy sat with the family, helping them cope with the tragedy. While she sat talking with people, she again saw in her mind the uniform of a nurse.

  Then she saw two men, one very tall, one of medium height. The taller man seemed considerably younger than the other man. Dorothy spoke with Francis in private.

  "Maybe you're seeing me," Francis said. "I'm a nurse, and you said Thursday that you saw a nurse. I figured it was me."

  "No," Dorothy insisted. "The nurse still bothers me. So do the shoes I keep seeing. There's something odd about those shoes."

  Francis jumped up and went to a drawer in the china closet, pulling out several sheets of paper. Out of the pile she handed Dorothy a single piece of paper on which a cartoon of three pairs of feet and shoes were drawn.

  "Are these the shoes?" Francis asked.

  Dorothy smiled. "These are the shoes I saw before when you came to my house. Now I see different shoes. Who made this?"

  "Doreen. The night she was killed. This was on the kitchen counter when the girls left for the Delardos."

  "I think I see the men who killed your daughter," Dorothy said to Francis. "I keep seeing two men. The shorter one is middle-aged, heavyset, with a face that could kill. The taller one is younger, wears glasses, has a buck-tooth smile like a beaver. Does that sound familiar?"

  No one recognized the men Dorothy saw. As they rode to Manalapan and the wooded area where the bodies had been found, Joe Carlucci pointed out Goldstein's office. Dorothy smiled, thinking how she must have unsettled the unsuspecting lawyer.

  "He probably thinks that I know what he does in that trailer of his," Dorothy laughed. "You should have told him I was a friend of his wife. That would have made him think for awhile."

  Dorothy got very strong feelings again about the nurse and the shoes.

  "I know I see that nurse and those shoes. There's something going on around here that involves a nurse. You'll see."

  As no one, including the police, could make sense of her descriptions, the matter was dropped. Dropped by everyone but Dorothy.

  ***

  The next day, on her birthday, Dorothy received a phone call from Elaine DeMars. The woman had read about Dorothy in the papers, and about her involvement with finding the body of murdered schoolteacher Phyllis Thompson the previous year. Dorothy had not read about John DeMars's disappearance in the Nutley Sun. Elaine DeMars wanted to pay a visit to Dorothy - that day, if possible.

  The desperate wife also told Deputy Chief Dimichino that she wanted Dorothy Allison brought in on the case. Dimichino was frustrated. A cop for twenty-nine years, he felt obsessed by the case, which after two weeks ranked as one of the most intensive searches in the history of the middle-class community of thirty-two thousand people.

  Dimichino had heard of the Nutley psychic, and knew of Vicaro's involvements with her over the years. He wasn't a believer, but as nothing else had proven fruitful, he would send a detective to the Allisons' on Monday to talk with the woman.

  Elaine DeMars and her mother-in-law went to Dorothy's on Sunday morning, ringing her doorbell at 8:00 A.M. The women were alarmed by the frightening reception they received from Jason, Dorothy's black German shepherd. Unsettled by the mastiffs greeting, they then found themselves at the mercy of a fast-moving psychic.

  Dorothy set out coffee cups and plates for pastries, while the two well-dressed women nervously looked around at the Formica kitchen. Dorothy showed them her Capricorn stockings commemorating the day, her birthday.

  "Don't tell me a thing about your husband or anything about what the police have done. Let me ask you questions first," Dorothy instructed them.

  Again Dorothy saw the same two men she had seen the previous day while at the Carlucci house.

  "Who's this funny-looking tall man with the long face and thick glasses and buck teeth? Ugly man, with another fatter, older man. The other one reminds me of a priest. Maybe he was once a priest or something in the church."

  Elaine DeMars began to cry. Her mother-in-law took her hand and told her to compose herself. Then the older woman turned to Dorothy.

  "Why are you describing these men?" she asked,

  "I don't know. Somehow I think they are connected to this case," Dorothy explained.

  "Well, your description sounds very like my missing son, John, and my son-in-law, Brian. He's a lay deacon for the diocese in Paterson, so maybe that's why you saw the priest's robes."

  Dorothy began to laugh. "Believe it or not," she said, "I described your son to the Woodbridge police yesterday as the murderers of Doreen Carlucci. Isn't that funny?"

  Only Dorothy laughed at the fact that she had not only seen John DeMars and his brother-in-law prior to meeting the two women, but that she had misinterpreted them as murderers.

  Dorothy was able to change the subject quickly. She saw how unhappy John DeMars's mother was with what she had said.

  "Have faith," Dorothy told the woman. "I've been looking for people for eight years now, and I've been very successful. I know I get my cases confused a lot of the time. I can't even read a map. It just happens that I pick up things that may have something to do with a case I'm working on elsewhere, or in the future. Imagine how confusing it is for me.

  "When I was out in Pennsylvania last summer," the psychic continued, "I told the police to watch for an airplane that was yellow and silver and had something to do with Yankee Doodle Dandy. I said it was a small' plane and that something was going to happen to it in the nearby area. I wasn't sure it had anything to do with the case I was working on, but I knew the plane was in trouble. The next day a plane crashed in the next town. It was July Fourth and the plane was the Yankee Tripper. Who knew?

  "I see a woman with white hair," Dorothy said, getting down to business and focusing on John DeMars. "I think she's in an office. She would have had something to do with your husband, probably at the bank. Her name is Margaret."

  Elaine DeMars said nothing, but she knew that the white-haired woman Dorothy described did work at the Chemical Bank and her name was Margaret. She listened closely to everything Dorothy said.

  Dorothy poured coffee all around, giving orange juice to Paul and Justine, who sat listening to the fate of the Nutley man whose disappearance was also being discussed at school. The police, everyone knew, had come up with very little.

  While her children talked with the two women, Dorothy saw an arrow flying across the sky, zooming against a sky-blue backdrop. As if propelled of its own accord, the arrow glided and began to descend. Water. Dorothy saw water and she knew that John DeMars had drowned.

  She looked at the two women. The young wife was anxiously listening to her every word, watching her closely as if scrutinizing her facial movements for possible clues as to what was going on inside the psychic's head.

  "Mrs. DeMars, did your husband ever suffer from amnesia?" Dorothy asked.

  "No, not that I know of," she replied, and her mother-in-law nodded her head in agreement.

  "I do see your husband, I can't say where or when right now, but I do see him. I think he had something like amnesia. I really can't tell. He's moving, and yet he's not. I see him sleeping or unconscious, but still in a suit and still alive. Your husband wore a suit to work everyday, didn't he?"

  "Yes," the woman said.

  "I'm getting a glimpse of him before he ran into trouble. Why don't you give me today to think and tomorrow we'll talk about it Today is a national holiday in this house, so I'm gonna unplug this thing," she said, pointing to her head, "and be with my family."

  "I appreciate your helping." Elaine DeMars extended her hand. "I have asked the police to involve you in the investigation. Please work with them. I just know you can find my husband."

  Dorothy gave the woman a warm hu
g and told her to rest, that her husband would be found. She didn't say, however, whether he would be dead or alive.

  As the two women walked out the door, Dorothy stopped them. "Does your husband take the same train home everyday? I mean, he's usually regular, right?"

  "Clockwork. His life is like clockwork," Elaine DeMars replied. "Everyday he rides the same train from Hoboken. Almost without fail, unless the trains are broken down, or there's something on the line."

  "On the line," Dorothy repeated. "I've got a feeling there is something on the line. Have the police investigated the train?"

  The anxious young wife assured Dorothy that the police had interviewed hundreds of people, including commuters and all the train personnel. Mrs. DeMars told her nothing had come of the investigations. People had recognized her husband, but no one could swear he had gotten on the train that night.

  "Someone is swearing wrong, I think. I'll talk to the police. Good-bye," and Dorothy closed the door.

  On Monday morning Deputy Chief Dimichino called Detective Lubertazzi into his office.

  "You've got an appointment this morning," Dimichino told Lupo. "Call this lady and tell her what time you're going over to talk with her."

  Lupo took the paper and read the name "Allison" and a phone number. "What's this about?" Lupo asked.

  "The DeMars case. This woman says she sees him," Dimichino said, trying not to give away too much.

  "Sees or saw?" Lupo asked again.

  "Sees," The deputy chief smiled behind his cigarette.

  "You're not serious about this, are you? I'm not going to work with some nut who says she sees John DeMars. Why not get one of the religious nuts to meet her? This is a joke, right?"

  "This is no joke, and you're going to talk to her this morning whether or not you like it. Elaine DeMars was at her house yesterday and she called me at home to say that this Allison woman sees her husband. So what am I supposed to say?" Dimichino paused. "This is the woman Vicaro worked with on the Kurscics case. We've got nothing more to lose than an hour of your goddamn time, right?"

  Dimichino demanded, standing before the quiet cop and staring him down. "I suggest you move your ass and call her before Mrs. DeMars and her Knight of Columbus brother-in-law come down here and knock it out of you."

  Lupo shrugged bis shoulders and turned away, muttering to himself in Italian.

  Lupo had never met a psychic. He had heard about the Nutley woman from the other cops, but Vicaro, having been the focus of some derision, kept his dealings with Dorothy fairly quiet. Lupo was nervous. He even felt nauseated as he phoned the woman and told her he would be at her house in forty-five minutes.

  "Come right in if I don't get to the door. I may have my hands in dough, so answering the door may be hard," Dorothy cheerfully told the cop.

  Lupo first tried to find Vicaro, but the other policeman was in Newark transporting a criminal. Lupo thought of what he knew about psychics. Pictures of turbaned swamis in white robes made him even more nervous. He decided, while he drove to Dorothy's, that if she wore huge black earrings and played organ music, he would leave and lie to Dimichino. Lupo felt like a child going into a haunted house for the first time.

  He parked the squad car on the steep incline in front of Dorothy's house and looked at the two-story white and brown house ensconced in bushes and trees. He took in a deep breath and walked up the steps to the front door. A large black dog barked angrily in the window to the right of the door, giving Lupo a stare that made him want to turn around. A second later an attractive woman in black slacks and a white silk blouse with sleeves rolled up to the elbow answered the door.

  She looked at the shy green eyes and brush moustache of the detective in his tan suit.

  "What's the matter? You cops afraid of a sweet dog? I thought you guys could handle them." Dorothy led Lupo into the den, tossing his overcoat on the sofa. "Come into the kitchen while I finish this bread. Then we can have some for lunch."

  Lupo sat down at the Formica table and looked in wonder at the woman claiming to see John DeMars. His eye wandered over the stacks of newspapers and police data in the dining room.

  "Looks like headquarters. How come you've got so much police stuff around? You in business?" Lupo asked.

  "Business? Are you kidding? That's what my husband wants to know. Am I in business. I'm not like all those other money-hungry psychics. I got something most people don't have, and I don't think it's right to charge. Saint Anthony doesn't charge for finding kids," Dorothy said.

  "Listen, Mrs. Allison," Lupo tried to get her attention, "I can't stay all day. I've got other people to talk to this afternoon."

  "No one is going to tell you where the body is, but me," Dorothy challenged him. "No one you're going to talk to this afternoon will be able to help. So sit there and be quiet for a minute, or I'll stuff you," and she laughed.

  Lupo had never met anyone like Dorothy. He was intimidated, at the mercy of this unusual woman.

  While Dorothy cleaned and rinsed dishes that were scattered around her kitchen, images began to appear in her mind. An arrow soared across the sky, slowly descending to earth. The arrow landed in underbrush, which seemed to be along the shore of a river. Dorothy sensed water all around.

  "I'm gonna tell you from the start," Dorothy said to the cop, "your man is dead. That banker was great with loans and money, but he wasn't so careful with himself. He's dead, and you're going to find him in water."

  Lupo sipped steaming hot coffee and jotted notes as Dorothy spoke. He wasn't sure what he could ask her, or what he could expect from her. Dorothy, growing more accustomed to police work and jargon, knew how to be direct with investigators. Lupo merely took down what she said.

  "The most important thing right now is that someone you've already interrogated hasn't told you the full story. When you find out the rest, it will change the whole case for you. You'll probably find out about it today or tomorrow."

  "Who was this person?" Lupo asked.

  "I'm not sure. It's not anyone in the family. I see someone in a uniform, like yours. But he's not a cop. He's some other type of official. Go down your list of people you've talked to and see who wears that land of uniform. It might be a train conductor," Dorothy concluded.

  The arrow, as Dorothy could see it from above, was not far from a row of old tires, scattered in a line on the ground. She could make out the numbers "166" in the far distance, and then, in a different way, the numbers "222" appeared.

  "Look for the numbers 'one, six, six' and 'two, two, two' around the body. They don't have anything to do with each other, and they might not be places," she warned him, and then added, "I see a playground, too."

  Dorothy made him a turkey and ham sandwich and stayed with her psychic periscoping at the same time.

  "I see that arrow and archer again," she said.

  "What do you suppose archery has to do with John De-Mars?" Lupo asked.

  "I can't tell. There might be an archery range nearby, or maybe he was killed accidentally by a flying Indian with a bow and arrow." Dorothy looked over at the cop to see if he had taken down her little joke. He was looking at her, wondering what she meant by a "flying Indian."

  "You'd be a horse's ass if you'd taken that down," Dorothy laughed. "Relax, I'm not going to fly across the room."

  Dorothy began to catalog her details. "I see the playground, tires, two guys, and a place that looks like a plant or factory that has burned down. You know, like charred slabs of concrete. Does any of that mean anything to you?"

  "What the hell are two guys in a playground supposed to tell me?" the cop demanded.

  "I didn't say there were two guys in a playground. I don't know what it means, either. It might not be two people," Dorothy explained. "I don't always know what I'm seeing. I never know where I am or in what direction I'm going. You've got to know that. I may say head for Mexico meaning walk thirty yards in that direction. When you find DeMars's body, you'll see that all these things are around him."
r />   Lupo's green eyes bulged like an inquisitive mantis's. He didn't know what to think of the list before him. He knew he wasn't going to show it to anyone at the police station, nor would he consider discussing it with anyone. The skeptic in him stood his ground.

  "This last weekend I looked for two kids down below Colonia," Dorothy told him. "Two little murdered teenagers. How I hate those murderers." Tears came to her eyes, and her voice got louder. "If I could get my hands on these bastards who did it, I'd strangle them and call it self-defense. As long as I'm alive, I'll try to get a picture of the bastard that murdered those girls."

  Lupo was moved by the feelings Dorothy exhibited. The thought of the short woman attacking thugs and getting away with it amused him, however. He felt certain she could do it.

  "I'll bet you could get them, too," Lupo said.