Deadly Visions (2 page)

His command barely made a ripple in the crowded coffeehouse. Jesus. Still holding up the badge, Joe shoved through the crowd.”Muren, you're under arrest!” Police Procedures 101. Can't bust a
guy for resisting arrest unless he knows for sure that he's being arrested.

Muren pulled over a tall table, knocking it into Joe's path. Hot lattes spilled onto the laps of nearby customers as he barreled out the door. Joe jumped over the table and came within inches of grabbing him by his nylon jacket.

Outside, Muren ran smack into a woman with short red hair. She gripped him by the back of his neck and shoved him facedown on the sidewalk.

Muren groaned and tried to wriggle free, but the woman was too strong.

Joe pocketed his badge as he pushed past a group of bystanders. Jesus, all he needed was for some well-meaning vigilante to beat the hell out of his suspect.“That's not necessary, ma'am. Step away, please.”

The woman turned and glanced up, flashing him a crooked smile.“Hiya, Joe. Is that any way to talk to a Good Samaritan?”

Joe smiled as he recognized Detective Carla Fisk, his helper, who was one of the most popular officers on the force. She was one of the most homely—and most beautiful—women he knew. Despite her plain physical appearance, her warmth and sense of humor captivated almost everyone who crossed her path. He'd heard that she had rejected half a dozen marriage proposals in the past few years.

Carla stood up and planted her foot on the back of Muren's neck.“Something tells me this guy wasn't just skipping out on his check. Of course, the coffee
is
waaaaay overpriced here.”

Joe cuffed the man's hands behind his back.“What
brings you here, Carla? This doesn't seem like your kind of place.”

“And what do you think
is
my kind of place?” she drawled.“Shirtless guys beating the hell out of each other while NASCAR races play on the TV and Travis Tritt songs play in the background?”

Joe shook his head.”Nah. Guys drinking shots out of your navel while the B-52's play in the back-ground.”

“You got me pegged, Spirit Basher.”

The man on the ground moaned.“Spirit Basher? Aw, shit. Of all the people in this city.”

Carla's face lit up.”Hey, you're famous, Bailey. This guy knows you.”

Joe shrugged. The Spirit Basher nickname had been given to him by a local newspaper a few years before, after he'd busted several phony spiritualists in midtown. The paranormal fraud cases were only part of his duties in the Atlanta PD bunco squad, but they always attracted the most attention. Everyone was looking for a little magic in their lives.

Carla glanced around.”Where's your backup?”

“There's a patrol car behind this place. They thought he might go for the back door.” Joe pulled a small radio from his pocket.”Miller, I got the perp on the front sidewalk, you copy?”

Officer Miller's nasal voice blasted from the radio,“Copy that, Bailey. I'm coming around.”

Joe read the man his rights and put him in the back of the patrol car. He and Carla watched it disappear around the corner.“Good collar,” Carla said.”Unleash the psychic power within, huh?”

Joe gave her a curious look.“How did you know?”
“Kurtz told me down at the station. I didn't just happen to be here. I was waiting for you.”

“Why?”

“I'm on the Spotlight Killings. Have you been keeping tabs on that?”

“Yeah, who hasn't?” Six well-known citizens had been murdered in the past two months—an athlete, an attorney, a college president, a newspaper columnist, a PR firm owner, a former deputy mayor, and the only apparent link between the victims was their local prominence, hence the name Spotlight Killings. The department was taking major heat for its inabil-ity to find even a single suspect.”Having fun?”

“Oh, yeah. It's been a hoot. Between the media, the chief, and everyone else in town, I'm about to go out of my mind.”

“I can imagine.”

“A city councilman, EdwardTalman, has been leaning on the chief to accept some outside help in the investigation.”

“The FBI?”

“I wish. No, he thinks we should allow a psychic to join the investigation.”

“You're kidding.”

Carla shook her head.“Nope. Of course, these psychic detectives have been coming out of the woodwork, like they do on all the high-profile cases.”

“I'm sure.”

“Except this time one of them happens to be Monica Gaines.”

Joe lifted his eyebrows in surprise. Monica Gaines was among the world's best-known psychics, due to her frequent talk show appearances, 1-900 psychic
chat line commercials, and best-selling books. In the space of four years, she had built an amateur website into a multimillion-dollar media corporation. Gaines's syndicated talk show,
Monica Gaines
'
s Psychic World,
was a ratings phenomenon, and her distinctive rectangular glasses and clipped speech patterns made her a frequent target for
Saturday Night Live
send-ups.

Carla sighed.“This councilman has been jumping up and down, yelling that we should take help anywhere we can get it, especially from the great Monica Gaines. I don't need to tell you that these people are usually a humongous waste of time. I worked on the Virginia-Highland killings a few years ago, and psychics came from all over. I had to chase down dozens of leads that went absolutely nowhere.”

“That's the usual outcome,”Joe said.

“Well, that didn't stop the chief from knuckling under. Gaines flew into town today, and me and my partner have been assigned to take her around and hold her hand.”

Joe didn't need psychic powers to see where this was heading.“Just the two of you?”

Carla grinned.”The captain wants you to tag along. You know, to keep an eye on her and make sure she doesn't pull any funny business. After all, you're the Spirit Basher. You know all the tricks.”

“FYI, Carla, I'm not too crazy about that nick-name.”

“Yeah, but when this kind of thing comes up, you're the guy. You used to be a magician, right? There's nobody more qualified than you to spot the phonies.”
“But these psychic detectives don't deal in sleight-of-hand tricks. They conjure up feelings and impressions. There's not much I can expose there.”

“We're taking her out to the most recent crime scene in Conyers tonight. You can catch a ride with me.”

“Tonight?”

“Two-thirty in the morning, actually.”

“
What?
”

“She feels it's best to be there at the approximate time of death. In the case of Ernest Franklin, that's two-thirty If you'll check your voice mail, you'll find a message from the captain. I'm afraid that it's more than a request.”

Joe looked away. This was getting worse by the minute.“Listen, I have to go down to the station and write up the arrest I just made.”

“Perfect. After you finish that, I can go over the case files with you before we drive out to Conyers.”

“You're too good to me.”

Joe stared out the passenger-side window of Carla's Chevy Nova as they drove into the town of Conyers, twenty-five miles southeast of Atlanta. God, he didn't want to be there. He had an eleven-year-old kid at home, for Christ's sake. It was tough enough for her to have a cop as a father, but the unpredictable hours made it even harder.

He'd called Nikki and explained that he wouldn't be home before she went to sleep. Fine, she said. No problem. She was having fun with her baby-sitter for the evening, Sam Tyson. Sam was the eighty-one-year-old
owner of his own downtown magic shop, and he enjoyed trying out his new illusions on Nikki during his frequent visits. Sam had been a mentor to Joe and half the professional magicians in the city.

It didn't seem so long ago that Joe had aspired to be one of that tiny handful of magic superstars, but he soon came to realize that the style of magic he admired—the smart, edgy illusions of Houdini, Keller, and Thurston—had given way to slick, packaged Vegas-style productions with cheesy music and gar-ish lighting effects. His father had been on the force for forty years, and many of Joe's childhood friends were second- and third-generation cops, so the transition had seemed to be a logical one. Who would have guessed that he'd become known as a paranor-mal investigator, hoping against hope that he'd someday encounter phenomena that he
couldn
'
t
explain? It hadn't happened yet.

Well, maybe once.

“We're almost there,” Carla said, peering though the windshield at a dense patch of fog.“Any last questions?”

“I don't think so. You covered it well.” Carla had gone over the files for each of the spotlight murders, showing Joe the crime scene photos and discussing the statements they'd taken. Unlike most serial killings, there was no strong pattern to the murder methods, and there was little similarity among the victims besides their social stature and high visibility. Milton Vinnis, the criminal attorney, had been strangled with the chain from his mountain bike; Thomas Coyle, whose PR firm represented many of the largest corporations in the Southeast, was tied to the
rear bumper of his Rolls-Royce and dragged two miles down a gravel road; Derek Hall, the president of Anderson College, had been electrocuted when he touched the booby-trapped door of his garage; jour-nalist Connie Stevenson, author of the widely read“Hotlanta” newspaper column, was drowned in her kitchen sink; former deputy mayor John Danforth had fallen—or been pushed—from the top floor of his four-story office building; and the most recent victim, Atlanta Hawks basketball star Ernest Franklin, had his throat torn out half a mile from his home in Conyers.

The investigators may not have made a connection between the killings had it not been for two bizarre common elements—the voices and the skin markings. Strange voices, described as“threatening,”“unreal,” and“ghostly” to friends and family members were heard by each of the victims in the last days of their lives. None of the individuals had previously ex-hibited psychotic or delusional behavior, but they'd been at a loss to explain the voices that no one else heard. Equally perplexing to the investigators was a symbol they found on the chest of each victim—a hazy, ill-defined circle with two intersecting bars. The symbol appeared with varying degrees of intensity, but it spanned roughly two inches in each in-stance. While the voices were common knowledge in the news media, the symbols were, for the moment, a secret.

Carla turned onto a dark, narrow road and pulled to a stop behind a parked car. She smiled.“When you woke up this morning, did you ever imagine your day would end up here?”

Joe climbed out of the car.“I'm still having trouble imagining it.”

The October night was damp and sticky, and a nearby swamp belched foul-smelling gases. A man and a woman climbed out of the other car and walked toward them. Joe recognized them immedi-ately, Monica Gaines and Detective Mark Howe. Gaines was more attractive in person, Joe thought. Her pronounced cheekbones and curly brown hair were striking, and she walked with confidence and determination.

Howe grinned at Joe.“You look tired, Bailey.”

“Thanks to you. Together again, huh?”

“You know it.”

Eight months earlier he and Howe had partnered on a bizarre homicide case in which a local parapsychology professor appeared to have been killed by the telekinetic dreams of an eight-year-old test subject. It was the only time that Joe's psychic debunk-ing specialty had been applied to a murder case, and he and Howe had formed an uneasy though success-ful alliance.

Howe nodded.”Welcome to my nightmare, Bailey.”

“So I'm a nightmare,” Monica asked dryly.

Howe turned toward her.”I didn't mean—”

“Sure you did.” She extended her hand to Joe.“I'm Monica Gaines.”

“Detective Joe Bailey.”

Monica studied Joe.“I sense disbelief. Skepticism. Doubt. Very strong.”

“Did your psychic abilities tell you that?”

“They didn't have to. It's all over your face and body language. You're pissed, Joe. You think I'm here
for a chapter in my next book. You think I'll come here, throw out some lame generalities, and take all the credit when you guys eventually catch the sick son of a bitch who did this.”

“You got all that from my body language?”

Howe chuckled.“Either that or she's picking up
my
thought waves loud and clear.”

“The faces change, but the attitudes never will, guys.” She clicked her tongue.“Let's get on with this so you can get home to your wives and girlfriends and tell them how you wasted your night tagging along with a fruitcake.”

Joe motioned toward the large sketch pad she held under her right arm.“Are you going to play some psychic Pictionary tonight?”

“You never know.”

Monica's haunting, expressionist sketches were one of her trademarks. Often, as she quizzed guests about lost loved ones or incidents from their past, she scribbled furiously on a large pad and easel. Al-most invariably, the guests found something in her drawings that connected with their situations.

“So tell me, why is it so important that we be here at the time of death?” Joe asked.

“If I'm to sense the victim's thoughts and impressions, it's best that I attempt it as close to the actual place and time of his death as possible.” She glanced around the eerie surroundings.“I'm already feeling some strong, powerful emotions. There was great fear here.”

“Can you see the killer's face?” Carla asked.

“Perhaps. Take me to the exact place where the victim died.”

Carla motioned toward a cluster of mimosa trees.“This way.”

They silently walked toward the crime scene. Joe tried to reconcile the dark, shadowy setting with the lush, beautifully sunlit area in the police photos he had examined. Ernest Franklin's body had been found here, less than half a mile from his sprawling estate, with his throat split open. It almost appeared as if an animal had attacked him, but there were no footprints, no hair, and no physical evidence to support any such conclusion.

“Horrible …just horrible“Monica whispered.

“What?” Howe asked.

“He knew he was going to die. He knew it, and he was helpless to do anything to stop it.”

“Stop who?” Carla asked.