“The amount of questions I have are endless. I couldn’t even begin to list them all.” Leonard paid for the food while Kevin collected three tins of sandwiches and fries. They walked back across the street to room 12, where Reese, sitting on a cot he’d set up, had just hung up the phone. The look on his face was dour.
“Bad news?” Leonard asked.
“No news, really. No spottings of anyone suspicious or any additional witness accounts. George has the samples he collected from Samantha Sparke’s house on their way to the city. He’s checking out Pamela Bergin’s place at the moment. And listen to this interesting item: remember Gregory from Culver who dug out the 911 files? I had him check out the hospital to find out exactly why Samantha Sparke was there today.”
“And?”
“She was in group therapy. I got a doctor on the phone who says her file reads paranoid schizophrenia, among a few other mental illnesses I can’t pronounce. From his experience with her, he said that she was convinced that someone was after her. She even went so far as to change her appearance, wearing a wig, getting breast implants, tanning three times a week, changing her makeup and clothing. She even had plastic surgery on her lips and face last year. No vanity case, nuh-uh. She was hiding behind a false appearance.”
“What made her think she was being stalked? I don’t remember any reports coming in to the station. I definitely would have remembered.”
“You’re right. I checked into it. Nothing. Not so much as a cautionary phone call. You know why? Because she told the shrink, the group, that her stalker was a ghost. That he came to her only in her dreams.”
“Holy shit.”
“Sound familiar?”
“Delaney suspected poltergeist activity with Sparke. Is it really possible?”
Reese waved a hand in the air, his mouth creased thin with disbelief, maybe a touch of frustration. “Please, Len...listen to yourself. Try not to let the bizarre nature of the case sway you towards any form of irrational assumption. There’s a logical explanation, and motive, for everything. These events included. My guess? Samantha Sparke went through a lot of personal torment, within a very short span of time. First she lost a child, then she was attacked in her bedroom in the middle of the night. There’d have to be adverse effects on someone with such poor fortune.”
A tiring silence filled the room. Reese disappeared into the bathroom. Kevin sat on one bed, Leonard on the other. He looked at the phone for a moment, thought of calling Janice to let her know where he was, what he was doing, when he would be home, but didn’t so much as move. He wasn’t positive he had any answers to those questions, so he decided against making a mockery of himself in front of his associates; he simply wouldn’t know what to say to her, or how to say it. Leonard was committed. But unfortunately for Janice, it was to his job and not his family. Besides, he wasn’t certain that they were committed to him. Not at all.
I have my cell phone with me. She hasn’t called me. So why should I call her?
He leaned back on the bed, cracked his neck, then looked over at Kevin. The young cop was already asleep, his gun on the nightstand next to the bed, a half-eaten sandwich in the tin beside him. Reese was still in the bathroom, the shower water running. Leonard could hear his feet squeaking against the porcelain tub.
Leonard closed his eyes, rubbed them, his dinner uneaten. He felt the mattress pressing against his back as sleep quickly took over, his mind and body finally settling in for the night, closing out the chapter to one of the longest days of his life.
Love
Later. It could have been minutes, might have been hours. Richard awoke again. This time, calm. His eyes found the gap in the curtain, the moon’s beam replaced with a slightly brighter hue, its course parallel: a ray of light branching into the room, finding the bed, the sheets that kissed Pam’s tossed hair upon the gray pillow. He remained silent, twisting away from her in attempt to find the edge of the bed, to escape her unfettered influence on him once again.
She caught him by the arm, purposefully below the bandage as to not cause him any undue pain. Her touch was tender, warm. Caring. It was this gentle kindness that earlier, upon bringing him back into the bed, dispelled the cold pain, the fear that rode his ultra-sensitive nerves. A rather disparate tendency of the Pam who showed up at his condo this morning.
It was as if they were two very different people...
She pressed against him, nestling herself into a spoon position. He could feel her heartbeat, a rhythmic pounding he perceived as an intimate gesture, an offering of comfort, an apology perhaps for the violent behavior she displayed at the condo--a way to show him that the old Pam was back again. He accepted her approach and pressed back against her. In his lethargic state he felt her unclothed body against his. Suddenly, for the first time in his life, everything felt right.
He made an impulsive turn to face her. She turned as well, pressing her warm buttocks against his groin. He felt himself slip free from his boxers, an influence of her roaming hand. She followed with a fitted thrust, and suddenly they were one. He, within her. She, filled with him.
To Richard, it was like the first time all over again, all memories long lost of that momentous event, yet renewed with a fresh and exhilarating sense of awareness. All his physical pain vanished, and he relished in the pleasure, a pleasure previously unfelt in his thirty-five years, every beat and rhythm coming naturally with no awkward attempt to work them out.
With Richard’s senses heightened, he could hear the gentle rumbling of a generator in the walls, could feel the cool autumn breeze seeping through the edges of the curtained window, could see the sliver of light seeping through the curtain. He felt as if he were in chamber of pleasure floating amid the harsh reality of the outside world, their moments of ecstasy a shroud of protection from the time that ate away at their lives.
The room was no longer buried in darkness, as more light crept inside from along the edges of the curtain. Daylight, making its entrance and falling upon their writhing forms as if intending to spotlight the momentous event.
In an adept move, Richard grasped Pam’s thigh and brought her leg over his waist, twisting himself on top of her. Here in this position he could see her face clearly, her eyes shut, her mouth drawing in gasps of air, tiny ones that progressed into deeper inhalations as their tempo increased. Her facial features triggered an indescribable eroticism in him, her lips pouting to taste the finest red wine, her eyes like onyx, her nose quivering with pure want and desire. She was irreproachably sensuous, limitlessly unparalleled in her beauty. Here he saw her for the very first time, the real Pamela Bergin who in the past gave herself to him physically, was now offering herself on a higher emotional level. This was what he’d always wanted from her--what she always wanted from him. This spontaneous joining was not an act of sex, but an incalculable most satisfying display of love.
Pam loved him. That was why she came back for him.
Perhaps sensing his burning desire for her, she finally opened her eyes and gazed deeply into his. Richard felt energized at this new level of intimacy. He looked away from her perfect face, lifted himself up so his eyes could explore her damp body, from her svelte shoulders to her smooth breasts and taut waist. The light in the room grew generously, as did their love-making, until both of them were breathing heavily across each other’s cheeks to the point where they could no longer endure the crescendo of bliss overrunning their bodies, and they both cried out in unison, everything in their world seeming to jump and quake Richard thrust one last great time and released himself into her.
And then everything that made up their world flowed away into quiet heaven, setting the room into a breathy silence. They remained in an unmoving position for a period of time until he finally withdrew from her and turned on his side to face her, his head touching hers, their breaths commingling. Neither of them spoke, and in time they began to drift off towards sleep again. His body shuddered with involuntary pleasure and he smiled at her, whispering, “Pame
la Bergin, who are you?”
He closed his eyes and rolled onto his back, his body once again begging for rest as his mind weaned its way back into the dream-world, realizing now that he finally, finally, was able to spend the night with Pam.
It wasn’t until after he fell asleep that she responded to his question, and Richard could hear her soft voice calling to him in the middle of a peacefully loving dream :
“My real name is Heather.”
Morning
After awaking at six AM, Leonard showered, shrugged back into his stale uniform--it didn’t feel all that snug on his refreshed body--then spent a half hour sitting by Reese as he talked with detectives on the case in Fairview. Nothing new had turned up in the search for clues. Police from Fairview and Culver were still scouring the area, having gone door-to-door for most of the night until it was learned that Sparke was dead and Pamela and her mystery accomplice were most likely long out of town. All-county notices were dispatched to precincts and stations within a two hundred mile radius. Pictures of Bergin and Sparke began popping up on local news broadcasts, with talk of a reward being offered, although Reese, who would have been the one to set any sort of bounty, knew nothing of it.
“The dogs came up with a scent in the woods near Hemmingway Park,” Reese said. “They trailed it all the way to Samantha Sparke’s house, but that’s where it ended. Her car was found early this morning at the bottom of the trough in Bledson Park.”
“Sparke must’ve taken it,” Kevin said.
“Or our other suspect.”
Leonard cleared his throat. “Or both of them. Remember, most clues point to a plot-triangle gone wrong, so we can assume that Sparke and the third person must’ve fled Samantha’s together...remember George pointed out two sets of footprints there? And he was no doubt thinking that he was in trusting company, when actually our third person and Bergin were in cahoots with one another all along...against Sparke.”
Kevin was checking his face in the mirror above the dry sink outside the bathroom. He spoke while manipulating a new zit. “So Sparke and the third person killed Delaney, then went to Samantha Sparke’s house where they killed her, although that might not have been part of the plan given the messy scene they left behind. After that they drove up here for reasons still unknown where our third person lured Sparke into the woods, killed him, and was picked up soon thereafter by a waiting Pamela Bergin.”
“That seems to be where we’re at right now,” Leonard said, frustration riding his voice like a choppy wave. “It would explain Samantha’s fear of being stalked, of course putting aside her paranormal rationalizations, and would more than likely provide us with clues as to what happened two years ago when she was beaten in her bed.”
Reese said, “We’ll have to pull all those files out once we get back to Fairview.”
“Which is when?”
“Pretty soon, I’d gather. At this time Sheriff Porter has nothing new for us. The Forensics team is still up on the hill. Sparke’s body was taken to the Veteran’s Hospital in Drayton where they’re performing a full run of tests. I don’t think they’ll find anything we don’t know already, unless something truly unusual shows up with either Delaney or Samantha. But that’s doubtful.”
Reese’s cell phone rang. All three of them jumped a bit. Reese answered it, mouthed that it was George Washburn. His face was set in stone as he listened. He nodded a few times, then thanked George for everything before hanging up. “What timing...that son-of-a-gun just made me eat my words. He found something.”
Leonard angled himself forward on the bed. Kevin came over and leaned back against the television, which creaked in protest.
Reese’s head went back and forth, looking at both of them as he spoke. “Last night George found traces of a blue-colored residue on both Delaney’s and Samantha’s clothing. He took samples, ran them through the computer and found them to be identical in nature. An odd and unique mixture of chemicals. He mentioned a few materials, uranium, xenon, some others.”
“Those are nuclear elements.”
“Yep, he mentioned that. Also said that there’re two other constituents, both with metallic properties, that came up as unknowns.”
“You ought to mention this to Porter. Whoever’s doing the autopsy on Sparke will have to allow a forensics person in to see if the same residue exists on him too.”
“Porter mentioned earlier that one had stayed along with the body, just in case...maybe they’ve found something already.” Reese sat on the bed and took out the slip of paper with the sheriff’s number on it.
Leonard and Kevin exchanged stares. Kevin said, “You were right, Len. They’re in on something really big and secretive, more than we ever imagined.”
Leonard shook his head slightly, and he was sure the look of disbelief showed plainly on his face. “I just find it hard to believe that Sparke could be in on some illegal chemical scheme. C’mon, what could it be? Drugs? Bombs? My gut tells me not to buy it.”
“Why not?” Reese asked. “Last night you were all set to cash in on the whole ghost-dance. Anyway, listen to this...George said he went to Sparke’s place early this morning. Said his bedroom is buried in the stuff.”
“Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch,” Leonard said. “Why didn’t you say that before?”
“You didn’t give me a chance.”
“So whatever they’re doing,” Kevin added, “Sparke’s not only in on it, but he’s probably the mastermind behind the whole shebang.”
“He find anything else there? I mean, other than the residue?”
Reese shook his head, lips pursed. “Let me call Sheriff Porter, let him know what we’ve found.”
Kevin slipped into the bathroom and closed the door. Leonard, whose stomach had been publishing his hunger the whole time, offered to fetch breakfast across the road at the diner. He took quick orders from Reese and Kevin, then strapped on his gun--keeping a close hand on it just in case something unusual happened.
Isn’t the unusual the norm these days? he thought, then made his way outside into the early morning sunlight.
Waking
They awoke within minutes of one another, laying in each other’s arms for an indeterminable amount of time. Richard felt at peace for the first time in his life, and if he died right now he wouldn’t regret not having done something in his blinded past--a past with which he only recently gained fleeting and rather inconsistent memories of.
Finally he chanced embarrassment and looked at her. He expected, wanted really, to encounter a smug grin on her face, one of self-satisfaction--find that canary’s feather dangling from her lip. Instead he got a rather offset expression of disquiet: her lips cast into a tremoring frown, eyes open and brow furrowed with tense concern.
At first Richard couldn’t be certain what bothered her. She looked as if someone had just stepped on her grave, as odd as that sounded--but that was the impression he got.
“Pam?”
She blew out a gush of air, then leaped out of bed, rifled through the clothes folded atop her knapsack and impetuously started dressing.
“Pam...what is it?” For the first time since coming here, Richard finally had an opportunity to take in his surroundings. Although the curtain was shuttered, daylight filtered in through the edges, providing adequate lighting, enough for him to realize that they were in a motel room. He also noticed that Pam was wearing a bandage on her arm in the place where she was grazed.
How is it that her shattered nose heals in twelve hours, but her arm doesn’t?
“We need to get moving...we don’t have much time.”
“Time for what, Pam? What the hell is going on?”
She put on the knit shirt, and tucked it into her jeans. She said, “Richard, I know this is all very confusing to you. But I promise that I’ll tell you everything there is to know. Now’s just not the right time.”
“Why not? C’mon Pam, at least tell me where we are!”
She leaned over to her knapsack again
...
...Pam’s knapsack, the one with the zipper, and the blue light...
...put it on the luggage rack and checked all the pockets, pulling out a small billfold which she slid into her front pocket.
Richard, suddenly recalling a minute detail from his middle-of-the-night escapade, she confessing her true identity...
...my real name is Heather...
...he jumped from the bed and snatched the billfold away. He opened it up. Inside, a state-issued driver’s license with Pam’s picture. To the right was the name, Heather Barron.
“I knew it! You told me this last night, didn’t you?”
Pam, arms wavering with frustration, said, “Richard, please don’t make me regret saying anything to you.”
He waved the billfold at her. “My whole life I’ve been trying to find out what’s wrong with me. And now I’m certain you have all the answers. Pam, I ain’t going anywhere until you tell me something.”
Exasperated, Pam leaned against the worn chest-of-drawers. “Richard, we really need to get moving, and I do want to tell you everything there is for you to know, but please believe me when I tell you that there’s no time for that right now. We have to get out of here, otherwise...”
“Otherwise what?”
She hesitated, then said, “Richard, let’s just say it’s a matter of life and death, as cliché as that sounds. But it’s the truth.”
“My whole damn life, what I know of it, has been a goddamned life and death cliché. I’m done, Pam, or whoever the hell you are. I’ve had enough. Before I die I want to know what the hell has been happening to me all this time!” Finding himself amidst such aggressive assertion made Richard’s head spin, and he distracted himself by getting dressed, all the while continuing to tell Pam off. “You come into my life out of nowhere, love me to no end, put up with all my bullshit along the way, then just turn around and unload on me, only to return all sweet and loving again, twice saving my ass. There’s more to you than meets the eye, am I right about that? Huh?”
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