FEVER DREAMS: A Bracken and Bledsoe Paranormal Mystery

by April Campbell Jones

  I just stared at her.

  “Okay, okay!” and she was up quickly, to the nightstand and pouring me a drink.

  She took my hand, placed the glass in it. “Drink it. Good. All of it. No, Elliot, all of it!”

  I knocked it back.

  “There. Now…” she scrambled behind her, brought round her handbag, produced a fat, dog-eared spiral notebook. Flipped open the cover, clicked the button on a pen. “…now. Let’s take this one thing at a time, from the beginning.” She looked up. “Do you want another drink?”

  “No.”

  “Fine. Okay. Movie opens, title credits up. Little jerky but they went nicely with the overall cinema verities ambience of the film. How’d you ever find a swamp in Cincinnati, anyway? Never mind. Okay--opening shot: the girlfriend and the brother are at the cemetery—“

  “I didn’t do it.”

  She looked up from her pen. “Shall I slap you again?”

  I ignored her, stared at the snowy screen. “Play it back.”

  “What? Which part?”

  “Just the end. Just the very end where the hand pushes the little girl under.”

  “Okay, hold it!” Katie grabbed the remote, found the scene in the film.

  “There! Can you freeze that?”

  She froze it. The white credits were beginning to rise against the black background.

  She looked at me. “So--?”

  “I may not remember the rest of the movie much but I certainly remember those damn credits. I had to make--them by hand--cut them out of paper with an X-acto knife, one little letter at a time, then carefully paste them on a black roll of paper. Then I had to build this roller thing to hand-crank that would make the titles scroll. I didn’t have a PC back then. It was tedious work. I remember it took take after take to get it right because I kept jerking the scroll. Then I tried to super them in as the end fade out begins, but that came off real amateurish. I finally just ran the credits as white letters on a black background.”

  Katie studied the screen. “So? It looks pretty good to me.”

  “Except it isn’t all there. Before the scrolling begins, a nice cursive old-Hollywood style ‘The End’ title card appears on the screen as we fade to black water. Did you see it?”

  Katie replayed the end sequence.

  “Not there,” she murmured.

  “Exactly. The film just end. Abruptly. Cuts to black.”

  She played the sequence again to be sure. Finally lowered the remote, turned to me. “So you don’t remember cutting the The End title?”

  “I didn’t cut it. I’m positive.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t understand. So what are you saying, someone else trimmed it? Like who? An assistant?”

  “Ha! With my ego?”

  “Well, who? Your mother? Amy? That what you’re saying, Amy cut your film?”

  I grimaced. “I was waiting for you to make exactly that kind of ridiculous remark. All I’m say is, I know I didn’t trim it. Look, hardly recall the damn film at all. Except for that ‘The End’ at the fade.”

  Katie sat a moment quietly, chewed at her lip. “Maybe the film broke off in your mother’s closet after all these years…” She shook her head. “…no, someone would have had to splice the rest of the credits back on. Damn! I wish I’d been more careful when we ran the original print.”

  She jotted in her notebook. “Let’s move on.”

  The cat jumped from the bed suddenly, ran to the door and sat there expectantly staring at the wood.

  Katie glanced up. “Maybe he’s expecting her to come back…”

  “Who?”

  “The little girl you were talking to earlier.”

  I turned from the cat to Katie.

  “The one from Cabin 7.”

  “Is that what I was doing earlier?”

  She shrugged. “You were gone a long time.”

  I gave her a wry look. “’Little girl’? I’d have thought you’d say Amy. That’s what you think, right? Did you really see us or are you just playing psychic?”

  Katie went back to her notebook, smiled slyly. “Wouldn’t you like to know?...”

  She flipped a page. “Okay…scene one, girlfriend and the brother and his friend in the cemetery, planning the kidnapping. Of a little girl. Who happens to be about Amy’s age and happens to live near a swamp that happens to be in a small southern town. Gee, nothing coincidental about that.”

  I wasn’t moved. “Nothing concrete about it, either. Probably already been filmed in some Forties movie or something.”

  Katie sighed “I doubt it. And Elliot, the whole thing about the paranormal is that it’s not concrete. You do understand that, right?”

  I grunted.

  Katie shook her head patiently. “Moving on. I’ve marked this as Scene Ten. Little girl has a fever, is put to bed by her mother. As she’s tucking her in, mother removes the necklace around little girl’s neck. A gold locket. That happens to look a lot like the one Angel Robichou now has. Any clues yet, Spielberg?”

  “I think it was silver, actually.”

  She brightened. “Are you beginning to remember?”

  “Let’s move on.”

  Katie scribbled.

  “What are you scribbling?”

  “A reminder to ask Angel Robichou if her daughter had a cold or fever before she disappeared.”

  “Why?’

  “Never mind. Okay, Scene Twelve. Little girl has dreams—nicely choreographed, by the way, very film noir evocative—and her dream is that someone enters the room. It’s her brother. He takes her from the bedroom…kidnaps her, one might say.”

  “Ah! But he uses the bedroom door, not the window.”

  Katie shrugged. “Unimportant detail. He’s her brother and he kidnaps her.” She looked up at me, pen poised. “Which might explain why Amy’s brother Roger used drugs-- guilt over the crime. And those nightmares he had about Amy right before he died…”

  “If it was Roger.”

  “Thanks for cheerleading, Elliot.”

  “You’re welcome. What’s next?”

  Katie made a check, blew out weary breath. “Let’s see…Scene Fourteen. Roger—I mean the boy in your movie—carries the little girl outside in the dark where his friend is waiting. They put her in the backseat of the friend’s car. They drive to the cemetery. Hide the little girl in the—guess where?”

  “It doesn’t even look like the same cemetery!”

  “Hide her in an old mausoleum. Gosh, nothing familiar about that!”

  I turned my head. “Okay! I admit there are certain similarities between the film and the real-life disapper—“

  “Similarities?” Katie scoffed. “That’s certainly an interesting choice of words! S’matter, Elliot, scared to death you might be just the slightest bit psychic?”

  “I’m not psychic.”

  “Well, if you aren’t now, you were close to something like it in your college days.”

  “Okay, Bridey Murphy, if the young boy in my film is Roger, who’s his older friend with the muscles? His Manchac double?”

  “You know, Elliot, I may be way off base here, but I think I’m supposed to be asking you that question!”

  “Well, I don’t know!”

  “You do know.” She reached over and tapped my forehead with the end of her pen. “It’s all somewhere up here.”

  “Are we almost through--?”

  “Scene...” She frowned, chuckled self-effacingly. “…can’t read my own writing. Pretty funny.”

  “I’m in stitches.”

  “Let’s call it Scene Sixteen.”

  “Let’s do that.”

  “The two kidnappers send a ransom note to the girl’s father. ‘Ransom note’…hmm, where have I heard that before…?”

  “Just keep reading!”

  “The father freaks out, argues with wife about what to do. She suggests telling the police, he says that might endanger their child. In the end he goes to see the fat town sheriff. The sh
eriff tells him not to worry, he’ll overtake the kidnappers at the drop-off point.”

  “Which is where? In an abandoned field! That part I remember! Guess I couldn’t find any bridges over any swamps!”

  She ignored me.

  Garbanzo meowed at the front door.

  I turned to watch him. “Maybe someone is out there…”

  “Go on, Garbanzo,” Katie called, “Elliot says it’s okay to let them in.”

  I made a face, started to push off the floor. “I need another drink.”

  “No you don’t. I need your mind clear. Okay, Scene Eighteen. Oh, this is a good one! A family friend advises the Mr. Robichou—“

  “Who?”

  “--I mean the father in your movie—advises him to substitute Monopoly money for real money for the ransom drop.” She turned to me with expectant brows. “Still think it’s coincidence?”

  I grunted. “Go on.”

  “Go on? Elliot, family lawyer Breedlove advised Dean to use scraps of newspaper to fill the suitcase in lieu of real money! We know that! We were there when he admitted it at the nursing home!”

  I frowned, ran a hand through my hair. “I know.”

  “Good! Beginning to see any similarities between film and real life yet!”

  “I already admitted there are similarities. Quit interrupting yourself, what’s next?”

  Katie flipped a page. “Scene Twenty-five. Time for the ransom drop. The boys get the little girl, put her in the trunk of the car and drive to the drop off point--”

  “—and the suitcase with fake money is dropped off, yeah-yeah. Then what?”

  “The boys open the suitcase, find they’ve been swindled. Get mightily pissed and take off. Nice camera work, by the way, with the fake Monopoly money fluttering down as they run off in the background, underscoring the irony. Did you film that yourself?”

  “I filmed it all myself. So--they flee back to the car, open the trunk. The little girl fakes being asleep, jumps out before they can grab her and runs into the woods. It’s getting dark. She keeps running, looking anxiously behind her. Finally she comes to…” and I looked up at Katie with a wry smile. “…a lake. Not a swamp!”

  She threw her hands up. “So? It’s a lake! It’s still a body of water! Where were you supposed to find an actual swamp in the middle of Cincinnati? It’s practically the same thing! It’s practically the same thing, Elliot, and the little girl is alone in the dark and she sees lights on the other side of the lake and she hears music. She’s too scared to run back so she wades into the water. Only she’s sick, dripping with fever, already terrified and exhausted. She tries to swim across to the lights. She flounders halfway across. She almost goes under. But a boat appears out of the mist. It pulls alongside her, a figure reaches out to her and—“

  “Pushes her under. The little girl is drowned, Katie! By a dark figure we never see clearly. Drowned! It was never conclusively proven that little Amy Robichou was drowned! At which point the film is supposed to fade into the credits but—“

  “—your The End insert gets cut out.”

  “By Amy’s ghost! Which is her way of telling us it’s not the end, that it isn’t over yet, that it won’t be over until someone solves her murder. Right?”

  Katie turned to me hopefully. “Do you really believe that?”

  “No, you really believe that! The only thing I believe—the only thing I know—is that in the film we get to see things from the little girl’s POV! Now, if we could get into a time machine, go back twenty years to when the real event happened and witness it from Amy’s POV maybe we’d have something. But we can’t do that! So we’re left with nothing, Katie. But a big pile of coincidences and suppositions. Which no court in North America will uphold!”

  She looked as if I’d just slapped her. “You can’t possibly believe that, Elliot.”

  I sighed heavily. “I’m afraid I can.”

  She looked away. “Well…thanks for at least allowing me the pile of coincidences.”

  I reached over and touched her arm. She shrank away. “Katie, even if I did believe it, the police won’t. You’re not going to get anybody to reopen the case on the strength of a twenty-year old college movie.”

  “The timeline of which happens to be identical to the real-life events.”

  “Katie—“

  But she shook her head. Dropped the open notebook on the rug, closed her eyes and put her head in her hands. And just sat there silently.

  “Katie—“

  She pulled away again, stood quickly, scooped up the notebook and dropped it in her bag, shrugging the strap over her shoulder. “Think I’ll go back to my room now.”

  “Katie. Don’t be like that. Besides, I don’t like the idea of you being alone at night.”

  “Why not? I’m clearly just as alone here at your place.”

  “Look,” I pushed off the floor, “let’s at least have a drink first, okay?

  She hesitated.

  “I’m not trying shut you out, Katie, I’m just trying to be truthful with myself, with you. You wouldn’t want me not to be otherwise—what’s the matter?”

  She was staring into thin air with a funny look, hand still clutching the shoulder strap.

  “Katie--?”

  She looked through me. “I hadn’t thought about it until just this moment…but I remember now something your mother told me during our visit.”

  “What?”

  She turned and looked at the blank face of the TV as if reading a teleprompter. “Elliot…why did Amy—I mean, the little girl in your film—have a fever? Why did you decide to put that in the script?”

  I thought about it, turned up my palms. “I don’t know…I don’t remember.”

  “I do! Because you had one! Your mother told me! Partway into making the film, she said, you came down with something…the flu or something! She was worried because you wouldn’t rest, take care of yourself! Wouldn’t stop filming even though you were running a high fever! Like you had to get that film made, nothing else mattered!”

  “I do vaguely seem to recall that.”

  Katie nodded slowly, eyes finally focusing on me. “I get it now…”

  “Get what?”

  She turned quickly to me. “C’mon, Elliot, you must have noticed it too! The story swerves off at one point, becomes more and more like the real Louisiana kidnapping case. And right at the point you caught your so-called flu, starting running a fever. Just like the little girl in the movie. Just like the real life Amy Robichou!”

  “Katie, you don’t know for sure that Amy had a fever—“

  “I’d bet my life on it, Elliot! And that when I ask, Angel will back me up! Oh, can’t you see? You both ran high fevers—you and little Amy—at the same time. It’s what…connected you! In body and spirit! Don’t you understand, Elliot? You didn’t direct that film alone! Amy was helping you…guiding you! It all fits so perfectly!”

  Meow, Garbanzo said before the door.

  And a second later someone knocked loudly.

  Something about the sound of it said whoever it was, was going to keep knocking.

  So I went to the door, unlocked it, took off the chain, and pulled back the door, half-expecting our next door neighbor or the motel proprietor, complaining about the yelling, the noisy TV.

  “Evening, folks,” Deputy Olson said.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  “Deputy Olson.”

  “Elliot. Hope I’m not intruding at this late hour…”

  “No, no. Not at all. Uh. Won’t you come in?”

  “Thanks! Hi, kitty!” he scratched Garbanzo’s head, looked up Katie. “Miss Bracken.”

  “Deputy.”

  He glanced back and forth between us. “Sure I’m not interrupting anything?”

  “No,” from Katie. “We’re just…watching TV.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  He removed his service cap, the room’s overhead light putting a caramel patina on the checked grip of the big .45 at his hip. There
were sweat marks under his uniform armpits; he must have been out of the station house air-conditioning for a time.

  Everybody smiled politely, looked at everybody else for a moment.

  “Would you like a drink?” from Katie. “We have coffee and…a little Old Granddad left, I think.”

  “Thanks, officially I’m still on duty. And what’s with the ‘deputy’ thing? What happened to just plain ‘Jimmy’?”

  Katie smiled weakly. “Jimmy.” Waved her hand around the room, the single chair, the only place to sit apart from the bed. “Would you like to sit down? Jimmy?”

  Olson stared at her a moment. “I am intruding…”

  “No!” I jumped in. “Don’t be silly. Take some weight off.”

  “You all seem kinda, I don’t know…formal tonight. Everything all right?”

  “Fine!” Katie exclaimed. Too loudly.

  The deputy nodded, stood there holding his cap, appraising the little motel room. “Just stopped by to let you know I heard from Miss Blaine.” He looked at me. “That she got back to Texas just fine.”

  You could have phoned that in, I thought, and said, “Thanks! Appreciate that, Deputy!”

  “Jimmy.”

  “Jimmy.”

  He craned around the room again, eyes finally coming to rest on the static-filled TV. “Good show?”

  Katie pushed up a forced grin. “Not much reception up here. The motel owner should get cable!”

  Olson snorted. “What cable? We’re lucky to pick up Orleans affiliates here in the sticks.”

  “He should get satellite,” I offered.

  Olson smiled. “He’s too cheap for that. Be thankful for the air-conditioning. Is that a DVD player?”

  I shot Katie a look, afraid she’d say the wrong thing, blurted myself: “Yes. It is.”

  “Brought it with you from Austin?”

  “Brought it with us.” Which wasn’t really lying.

  The deputy nodded. “Home movies?”

  I hesitated.

  “In a way,” Katie said.