A Vision of Murder
A
Vision of Murder
by
Price McNaughton and Giles Kent
Cover
by Josh Petty
Copyright © 2012 Leah Bailey. All Rights Reserved.
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner
whatsoever without the express written permission of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to
persons, living or
dead,
is purely coincidental.
Contents
“Haunting
footsteps echo behind”
I woke up early that mornin
g,
like I usually
did
when I expected a call from the police.
It’s about
time
, I thought. I had cashed my last check more than a month ago. The
tight, heavy weight that seemed to settle on my chest and shoulders as the
bills grew and the money diminished was temporarily relieved. I knew they would
call today.
I
was
a psychic consultant for the police. I had been for many years,
although not always with
the same policemen, same division, or even same department.
It was a
stressful line of work, but one that I was particularly suited for. I could
give them the clues they so desperately needed.
I gazed in the mirror wearily
as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. My blonde hair hung to my shoulders, almost
limply today. I picked up the end of it, checking for split ends, before
dragging a brush through it. I frowned at the slight
crow’s
feet that had started forming
around the corners of my eyes. I wasn’t
even thirty, too early for wrinkles, even slight ones.
At
least, in my opinion, it was.
I was
almost done brushing my teeth when the phone rang.
“Ms. Emily Walker
?”
“Yes
?”
“This is Detective Dunn from
the Temple Police Department.
We would like to consult
with you on a case. Any way you could make it into the station today
?”
I glanced at the clock
before replying
,
“What time?” I didn’t want to
seem too eager.
“Nine ok?”
That was less than forty-five
minutes away. I sighed before replying, “I suppose so. Who am I meeting with?”
I drug a pen and paper from across the table and carefully wrote down the
information as the person on the other end of the line rattled it of
f.
“Detectives
Simms and
myself.
I’m sure you know where the police station is. It’s right
off of Main Street….
”
I knew exactly where the
police station was located in the small town. My temples throbbed and I rubbed
them with the forefingers of both hands. I would wear my gray suit. It
consisted of a short gray skirt and jacket. That always surprised them. They
seemed to always expect loose flowing skirts and yards of beads. I shook my
head at the thought as I slipped on my serious little suit. A psychic always
had to prove
him or herself
, I had learned.
The morning air was
stifling. I felt my
updo
going limp as soon as I
walked out of the house. Mrs. Robinson next door waved at me from where she
knelt in front of her flower bed. She was always friendly, unlike her mother.
Mrs. Dodd couldn’t stand me.
I waved back and clicked
merrily down the walk, my heels ringing out on the hard pavement. I felt almost
lighthearted.
Everything was going to be okay
.
I hadn’t even lived in this
town a year, but I loved it so far. My little house was in an older, but
respectable part of town. The houses were fairly close together and usually
small, but large backyards stretched out behind the homes in stark contrast to
the deceptively small front yards. Most houses had both a front and back porch and
some of them even had a second story.
I walked briskly down the
sidewalk to where it intersected with Main Street. Large, old trees hung low
over narrow, stony drives, framing the houses as neatly as a picture. Flowers
seemed to appear suddenly out of stone walls and
fence sides, bursting
forth
as if escaping the dark, confining earth of their birth.
Main Street was what the
locals would call busy. A few cars whizzed by here and there. In the beauty
shop one of the beauticians held all enthralled as she related what must be new
gossip with shears in
hand. They waved
madly
above her dyed blonde hair as she gestured wildly.
People lingered around the
courthouse steps, old men whittling wood carvings, their
feet surrounded by shavings.
I passed the drowsy local drugstore as I
turned the corner to the police station.
“I’m Miss Walker,” I said on
entering the station. “I’m here to see-”
“You’re the psychic,” the
older lady interrupted me. Her frizzy, shockingly bright red hair stood out
from her head, exploding from the bun that struggled to contain it. Dyed hair
was certainly a popular fashion statement in this town. A sour expression
marred her face, although I couldn’t imagine it was ever very attractive.
“Follow me.”
Paperwork
overflowed from every available surface, covering desks and climbing out of
filing cabinets.
I
edged past another stack as I struggled to keep up with her. She was not one to
be impeded by high heels. She stepped stiffly aside and gestured towards a dim
room. “Wait
here.”
I walked inside slowly,
lingering in the doorway. Paneling covered the walls. One dim window allowed a
smidge of sun to light the
room, helping
the
bare bulb overhead. Every available surface seemed to be covered in fake wood
paneling, including the desks.
I sat gingerly down on one
of the folding chairs that surrounded a makeshift table. The ugly room was
starting to depress me. I pulled a mirror and my lipstick out of my
purse, checking
my appearance again. My blue-gray
eyes stared back at me doubtfully.
“Ms. Walker?” a deep voice
startled me. I turned in surprise. A dark-haired man grasped a folder in his
hand,
looking first at it and then at me. My breath
caught in my throat.
He smiled kindly at
me. “
I’m Detective Dunn. Simms will be with us in a
moment.”
I nodde
d,
running my tongue over my lips.
“I suppose you know that we
need your help.”
I nodded again.
“Sensing anything yet?” I
shook my head in response.
He paused before continuing,
“Well, I’m not sure how this works… if it works.” His dark blues eyes glanced sharply
at me to gauge my reaction. I was careful to keep a poker face.
He laughed and the wrinkles
between his brows momentarily relaxed. I couldn’t help but smile in response.
That was how Detective Simms
found us. Dunn broke off in mid-laugh, turning it into a cough. His eyes still
grinned from behind his clenched fist. Detective Simms was a small man with a
fringe of red hair
surrounding his balding
head. It looked as if his hair was retreating from the high ground,
surrendering after fighting a tough battle. He sniffed through his large nose
in irritation.
“Started without me?”
“No, we haven’t started
yet.”
He joined us at the
desk, settling
in across from me, next to Dunn. I
didn’t like having my back to the door, but since I was a psychic I didn’t think
it was wise to complain about being continually surprised by newcomers.
“Well, Ms. Walker
?” He
paused as if waiting for me to ask him to call
me by my first name. I deferred. He cleared his throat and started again.
“Well, Ms. Walker, we have an
item we would like for you to read.”
I nodded and held out my
hand silently. He dropped a necklace into it. A small heart with a diamond in
the middle rested lightly in my palm.
“Was she wearing this when
she died?”
“We would prefer it if you
could give us some idea.”
I nodded.
They wanted to
do it the hard way,
I thought
.
Make me prove myself again.
I concentrated on it,
staring at it as it lay
in my hand. The diamond
twinkled in the small beam of sunlight fighting its way through the window to
the dark room. I stifled a gasp.
A pale, still face appeared
before me. Blonde hair trailed lightly around
it,
framing
it softly. The light was dim. A dark river of blood covered the
floor.
I swallowed and raised my
wide eyes stiffly to the policemen’s face. “Murder,” I choked out. My mouth was
dry.
Dunn nodded encouragingly,
but Simms rolled his eyes as he leaned his chin against his fist.
“I’m sensing
….”
I stared down at the necklace as if waiting for
it to provide the
answers.
“A
young girl.”
Dunn let out his breath
slowly, reclining
in his seat. Outside of the window
a bird chirped softly. I longed to be out of this dank room. I wished I was the
bird out there, winging quickly away, high and fast.
“I see… a lot of blood. It’s
the girl that was found in the cabin, isn’t it?
The one
from yesterday?”
It had been on the news the night before that a young
girl had been found, dead, in a cabin near the park. That was all that had been
stated. The amount of blood involved and the fact that she was murdered had
been left out.
This peaked Simms interest
slightly. I saw his eyebrows raise, wrinkling his forehead. I resisted smiling.
It was hard to resist the feeling of triumph that came over me when I sensed a
nonbeliever was converting.
But that feeling was
short-lived.
“Can you tell us what the
weapon was?”
“I’ll get you a change of
clothes,” the killer said. The girl turned
away. She
fiddled with
the hair on the back of her neck as she waited. She gasped
once.
The necklace glimmered
lightly in the flash of the receding storm’s lightning strikes as it fell to
the
floor. It dropped softly through the air as if
racing the girl, who fell alongside it.
I bit my lip,
hesitating
.
“I’m sorry, not yet.”
The two policemen exchanged
a glance. I’m not sure what the look meant, but it made me mad. “I think I
could read more if I had something… tangible.”
“That’s her necklace that
you’re holding.”
“But she wasn’t wearing this
when she died,” I objected. I saw
it,
the
still throat was bare as she lay on the floor.
“The killer didn’t know that she was undoing the necklace. It must have fallen
under something.”
They glanced at each other
again. Simms nodded curtly at me.
Pale hands paused above the
girl,
then
frantically
began to search around the still body.
“The killer searched for the
necklace, but it was nowhere to be found.” A desperate and panicked feeling
filled my body.
“Detectives?”
The
frizzy-haired lady was at the door again. “We need you if you’re through here.”
“We are for now. Any chance
you can come back by later today?
Or tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow would be better
for me. It takes a lot of energy to read items.” Simms barely responded as he
left, but Dunn nodded at me in sympathy.
The frizzy-haired lady met
me at the door to escort me out. Her nametag read Reynolds. I stopped in the
doorway of the police
station, taking
a deep
breath of fresh air. The sun shone down on
me, making
me happy to be alive.