A Vision of Murder (20 page)

“Where did you leave your
car, Jackson?” Sissy asked, as she climbed into the backseat.

“At
Cheri’s.
She’s worried sick about you by the way,” he said to Sissy. “I told her you
were fine and she could meet us at the station.”

“I feel badly that she’s
been so worried, but when I saw that the psychic was going towards the dead
end, there was only one place that I could think of that she would go. I pulled
into Cheri’s and banged on her door. When she answered, I told her to call the
police and tell them to come to the cabin. She did like I asked without even
asking me why.”

Jackson paused, a thoughtful
expression on his face, before continuing, “I didn’t stop to watch, mind you. I
ran across the field and cut across that short stretch of woods to the cabin.
The psychic had just pulled in.”

He laughed lightly as he
started the car and steered it in behind the police car. They were following
Dunn and Simms back to the station to give their statements. “Just about then I
realized that I didn’t have a weapon. I just looked down and grabbed the first
thing I saw. You don’t know how relieved I was when that door finally broke
open and Miss Sissy was standing there with a gun.”

Sissy patted her beaded pink
purse happily. “I always come prepared.”

“I always thought you just
meant with makeup and hair products,” Mrs. Dodd said.

“Well, that’s in there,
too,” Sissy admitted.

The three of them laughed,
more from nervous tension than any enjoyment. Jackson gripped the steering
wheel tightly as he turned to look at Mrs. Dodd. “I do have one question,” he
said. “How did you know it was her?”

“Well, I’ll admit. I was
fooled by her at first. You know, my grandmother and one of my aunts were
supposed to be psychic and I was interested in it. I always thought I had a
touch of it myself.”

“Any respectable southern
family has at least one psychic in the family,” Sissy said, staunchly agreeing
with her friend. Crossing her arms indigently, she continued, “Everyone knows
that.”

“But then I saw my cousin’s
cross. I was sure it was the family cross. It was our own design with the
initial of our last name worked into the filigree. I tried talking to Lorene
about it, but she thought I was crazy.”

“So what did you do then?”

“What any crazy person would
do.” Mrs. Dodd smiled. “I started watching her. It wasn’t that hard since she
didn’t own a car. And then, with this last murder, I remembered something. She
had gone out of town during the storm that week in Mr. Nelson’s car. I
remembered only two other times that she had borrowed his car and one of them
was during that terrible storm, the one where the tornado hit near here. I
remembered distinctly because I had been worried about her. It was just after
she moved here and before I saw her wearing that cross.”

“I made up my mind then and
there that I needed to find out what was going on. So Sissy and I researched
it. One of the victims wasn’t found on park land. I don’t think a true copycat
would have made such a mistake.”

“And then, I spoke with a
man that she had helped put in prison. Richard’s wife died during a storm as
well. It struck me that he said it was raining when his car broke down. It
seemed too coincidental to not be somehow connected with her. I suppose she
felt safe somehow in the dark and in the storms. There aren’t many people out
during that time.”

“But you never told me you
thought it was her!” Sissy protested.

“Well,” Mrs. Dodd sniffed,
“you were on Lorene’s side last time. Besides, I needed you to drive me.”

“So when you heard there was
going to be a bad storm tonight….”

“I planned on finding out
once and for all if she was the killer. I asked you to follow her while Sissy
and I broke into her house.”

“We might want to leave that
out of our statements.”

“I agree,” she said.
“They’ll find plenty of evidence in that house.”

“What do you mean?”

“I found a lot of jewelry in
that bedroom and I believe some of it belonged to her victims. Including….”
Mrs. Dodd fished around in her pocket for the cross. “This.”

Both Jackson and Sissy
stared at the cross as Mrs. Dodd continued, “I
thought
it was my family
cross, but I was sure once I found it in her house. See.” She slid her thumb
against the smooth silver center of the cross. It moved sideways as if on a
hinge, revealing a picture of a young man in the center.

“That’s my cousin.” She
handed it to Sissy.

“I’d forgotten how handsome
he was,” Sissy said, after a moment of silence. His dark eyes stared back at
her solemnly, though a smile was starting at the corner of his lips. “I was
quite young when he left.”

“I’m just happy to have it
back. She left it to me in her will you know.
Even though we
hadn’t spoken in so many years.
The lawyer said they searched that house
from top to bottom, but they couldn’t find it. I have to admit, when I saw her
wearing it, I thought it was just because it was on my mind. I even fooled
myself for several months after Lorene had that long talk with me about it.
But, I just felt differently about her since that day. I can’t describe it.”

“But why would she do this?”

“I believe that she may have
been psychic or that it was something she aspired to be. She wanted to be
famous for it, but she didn’t have the gift in the way she wanted. Or maybe it
left her. I’m not sure. So she found a way to create it.”

The three of them traveled
in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. It took longer than normal for the
lights of the town to appear in the distance. The storm clouds were too thick
and heavy for the light to shine through.

“Have you seen Cheri
lately?” Sissy asked from the backseat. Mrs. Dodd turned to face her and saw a
very innocent look upon her friend’s face. “I mean, besides banging on her door
tonight for her to call the police.”

“I… I have,” Jackson
replied. He turned smoothly with the car ahead, going towards downtown. “She
was always a good friend.”

“Just a
friend?”

“Well….” A deep flush was
flooding Jackson’s cheeks. “Not in the past. But I’m an old man now with a
child to
raise
. She’s still so young and beautiful.
She could have anybody.”

“If I remember correctly,
she’s only about a year or two younger than you.”

“She seems much younger,”
Jackson corrected
himself
.

“And she’s always wanted a
child.”

“She hates me,” Jackson said
softly. “She’s never forgiven me for what happened.”

“I think she has.”

Jackson was silent for
several minutes and neither old lady said anything further. Finally, he broke
the silence.

“I’m thinking of moving
home. It would be easier, with a child, to have my mother’s help.”

“Why, I thought you came
home to help her sell the place and move back with you.”

“I did,” Jackson admitted,
“but now that I’m here… I don’t want to leave. It doesn’t seem quite as boring
as it used to. Now it seems… like home.”

“It was always your home.
You just didn’t know it yet,” Sissy said softly.
“Like you
were always our family, though you left for some time.”

“I would have stayed gone,
too, if my wife hadn’t of died,” Jackson admitted. His voice was soft. “How
could she forgive me if she knew that?”

“I think she understands. In
fact, I know she does.”

Jackson did not reply, but
as they pulled into the police station, a grin on his face revealed all that
the old ladies suspected.

“I’ll tell you one thing,”
Sissy said, as she and Mrs. Dodd climbed the stairs to the station. “I’m ready
for bed.”

“I am too, Sissy,” Mrs. Dodd
said, “and I bet Ginger and Pumpkin
are
just terrified
in that house alone. Ginger can’t stand storms. I do hope this doesn’t take
long.”

“I’m sure it won’t,” Sissy
said.
“Uh-Oh!”

“What?”

“How are we going to explain
this to Lorene?”

“You leave that to me,”
Jackson said from behind them. “I’m sure she’ll understand.”

Sissy started to turn to
warn him, but paused at her friends warning hand on her arm. “That would be so
kind of you Jackson,” Mrs. Dodd said sweetly.

She pulled the dark scarf
from her head and the cloud of white hair puffed out like a cloud of dandelion
fuzz. Her blue eyes stared up at Jackson, very sweet and innocent, as she stood
on the police stairs in her solid black thieves outfit.

She was tucking her scarf
into her purse carefully when she gasped aloud.

“What is it?” Sissy asked
with obvious alarm in her voice.

“Oh
nothing, dear.”
Mrs. Dodd giggled as she pulled a pair of white gloves from her purse. “I
thought I had lost these. I looked and looked for them in the cabin. I don’t
know how I missed them. Church just wouldn’t be the same without my best white
gloves.”

Sissy scowled as Jackson
smiled down benevolently on the older lady. The door swung open and a lady with
frizzy, red hair, Evelyn Reynolds, leaned out. She helped Mrs. Dodd down the
hall, with Sissy following.

Mrs. Dodd still clasped her
white gloves in one hand and her purse rested on her bent elbow. She smiled at
the red-haired lady and patted her arm as she went in to give her statement,
“How is your mother, Evelyn?”

“Just a sweet, innocent
little old lady, isn’t she?” Sissy watched a smile
so
similar to Jackson’s spread across the lady’s face as she replied to Mrs. Dodd.

Sissy
scowled again and glanced through the window into the room where
Mrs. Dodd waited. Her friend sat patiently in her black outfit with her purse
balanced carefully on her lap.

Mrs. Dodd smiled and waved
at the three of them. And then, much to Sissy’s astonishment, she winked.
Neither Jackson nor the police lady seemed to notice. Sissy looked at her
friend, sitting there alone, and a wave of pride swept over her.

She winked back.

When I came to in the car,
Dunn’s concerned face was staring through the grill at me. Even Simms looked
worried as he knelt beside me. But I just couldn’t pay attention to them.

Amanda was sitting on one
side and Sara on the other. Their flowing white dresses shone brightly in the
dark night as they streamed over the seats and brushed against my legs.

 They were talking to
me and their icy hands seemed to linger on my
bare
arms, leaving a chilly reminder of what they were. I found I was no longer
handcuffed. I rubbed my arms as briskly as I could, trying to keep warm. But it
was in vain. Even as my hands passed over my skin, a ghostly touch would
descend.

I kept muttering to them to
go away. I just wanted them to leave me alone! But they wouldn’t. They kept
talking and talking. I couldn’t stop it.

“Has she gone crazy?” I
heard Dunn ask Simms.

“I think so,” Simms replied.
The door slammed shut and he went back to the front seat. “Let’s get back to
the station.”

I couldn’t stop to answer
them and tell them that I was perfectly sane. I had known all along, I think,
somewhere deep inside, that the ghosts would find me.

“You must tell them what you
did,” Amanda said. Her large dark eyes were like voids in her pale face as she
settled next to me. I shrank away from her as the chill spread over me.

“I can’t,” I said again.
They had been urging me to confess my sins since I woke up.

“You must,” Sara chimed in.
“They’ll find our things at your house. You’re lost.”

“I’m not lost!” I shrieked.
“I’m not.”

Dunn jumped in front of me
and his face turned pale.

“Who are you talking to?” he
asked. Simms clutched the steering wheel tightly and sped up.

“They’re here!” I tried to
tell him, but the girls drowned my words out.

“The others are coming.”
Their voices were so light, like wind through the trees. I could barely discern
the words and found myself straining to hear them. It was an odd feeling, to be
unable to keep yourself from listening intently to something you didn’t want to
hear.

“No, no, keep them away! Go
away!” I sobbed.

“We won’t go away. We’ll be
with you always.”

“Always,” the other girl
echoed.

“Always,” a third voice
chimed in as another victim entered the car.

“If you don’t tell them,
you’ll see what you did.”

I closed my eyes to them while
I pleaded for them to stop, but they wouldn’t. I could see them clearly in my
mind, dripping blood from wounds I had inflicted.

“Please, please….” I
couldn’t think clearly enough to form a thought more than that single word.

“If you tell them, if you
tell, you’ll stop seeing these things,” the voice in my head said clearly.

“I’ll tell them everything!”
I replied. “Will you go away then?” But I knew the answer. They would be with
me, always, but
they would not be such terrible
visions as they were now.

“Can’t you go any faster?”
Dunn’s voice broke in, sounding desperate and full of anguish. “I can’t take
much more of this. She’s crazy!”

I wanted to reassure him
that I was fine, but I was too busy.

“We’re almost there.”

I confessed everything. I
knew the girl’s names and told them everything I could to help them with their
investigation. I tried to explain to Dunn. I tried to let him know that I only
wanted to be important again.
Special.
I wanted people
to stare at me and hold me in wonder and awe like they did before.

I would have been famous
for stopping a serial killer. My life would have been
perfect….

But now they say I’ve gone
mad. I’ve heard them. Mrs. Dodd came to see me in the sanatorium. It was odd, but
I felt I should thank her. Something else, some bad part of me, had started to
completely take over. I might have been gone away completely, another victim of
the killer, if it had carried on much longer. But I couldn’t thank her.

I was too busy talking to my
ghosts. Every time I tried to meet her eyes or talk to her, another victim
would draw my gaze. Another casualty in my quest for fame would come to sit
beside me and whisper in my ear. They did this always, when I tried to eat or
sleep or talk to the living. They want me in their world.

Oh, I laugh at the thought
of it, till tears stream down my face. Cold hands reach to wipe them away.

They keep me busy, my
ghosts.

Busy, busy, busy.