Murder on the Rocks (3 page)

“Yes.” I waited for a roll of the eyes, the look of dismissal. But it didn’t come,
at least not from him. B. Blunt was another matter. The cynical snort and shake of
her head said it all. In her mind, I was a nut job.

“Let me see if I have this straight,” Albright said. “You can hear smells?”

“Yes, though sometimes I feel them.”

“And you see sounds?”

“Sometimes. Other times I taste them. I also see things that I feel, you know, things
that I touch or that touch me, like the heat.”

“Okay . . .” He scribbled something down before he continued. “So what did the smell
in the alley sound like?”

I hesitated, unsure if he was genuinely interested or subtly mocking me. But since
he didn’t have a give-me-a-frigging-break expression, I decided to play it straight
for now. “There wasn’t just one odor, there were many. All those smells became a big,
messy mix of noise because each smell has its own distinct sound, kind of like what
you hear when an orchestra is warming up. Some noises stand out, others don’t. It’s
always that way. My visual interpretations typically manifest themselves in colors
and shapes that float across my field of vision and some stand out more than others.
It gets confusing because I also tend to see things that I feel. Not just tactile
sense, but things I feel emotionally. And stress magnifies the whole process. Finding
the body was very disturbing to me so my response was a strong one. In this case the
visual manifestations were so intense, they blocked out much of my normal vision.
That doesn’t happen often.”

I paused and braced myself with a deep breath, holding it for a few seconds. My secret
was out. Now it was just a matter of waiting to see what Detective Albright’s reaction
would be. He set down his pen and leaned back a little, as if to put some distance
between us. It was a reaction I’d seen before, usually about the time someone decides
I should be heavily medicated and placed in lockdown.

“So you are feeling stressed this morning?” Albright said.

I answered him with a little snort of disbelief. “Well, wouldn’t you be? I mean, it’s
not every day I discover a dead body in the alley behind my bar.” Then I clamped my
mouth shut, remembering that this was the second time in less than a year that I had
done so, though my father was still alive when I found him.

Albright folded his arms over his chest and scrutinized me.

“Look,” I said, “I’m not crazy or anything, just different. I’ve had this condition
all my life. I was six or seven years old before I realized that my way of experiencing
the world was different from everyone else’s. I kept it to myself until I hit puberty.
But then hormonal surges worsened it to the point that I finally confided in my father.
He took me to a bunch of doctors and after a few misdiagnoses of schizophrenia and
some other mental illnesses, we finally found out what it was. Because of the brain
damage I suffered, my type of synesthesia is unique. My senses are not only cross-wired,
they are very finely tuned.”

“You’re saying your senses are keener than most people’s?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know if it’s that, or if I’m just more aware of things because
of my reactions. One neurologist thought I could sense tiny particles of stuff that
other people can’t. So the reason I can hear or feel smells is because I can sense
minute particles of the scent left behind as they react with my skin or eardrums.
And I see sounds because of the way the sound waves disturb the air and light. My
mind senses that disturbance and interprets it visually. Because of this, I can sometimes
see sounds that have already occurred, sounds I never actually heard.”

“Wow, that could be a nightmare,” Duncan said. After a moment he added, “Or perhaps
a handy talent.”

“A little of both, actually, because the same thing happens when I see things that
have been changed, or are changing. My dad noticed it when I was young because I was
always adjusting things, like putting the salt and pepper shakers just so because
I could sense they weren’t in the same exact spot they’d been in the last time I saw
them. Or if Dad did laundry and made my bed, if he didn’t put the sheets and pillowcases
back exactly the way they were before, I could tell and I had to fix them. It wasn’t
that I could see any obvious difference, it was a feeling I would get, a tactile sense
of irregularity that wouldn’t go away until I fixed whatever the problem was.”

“Forgive me, but that sounds a bit like an obsessive-compulsive disorder,” Duncan
said.

“Yes, and I suppose it is in a way. In fact, I’ve often wondered if some people who
are diagnosed with OCD are also synesthetes. I’ve learned over the years to ignore
or shut out a lot of my synesthetic feedback so I no longer have to have the salt
and pepper shakers just so, but I still know when they’re out of place.”

“You would make a fun date. That could be a handy parlor trick at a dinner party.”

I hesitated a second, unsure if he was serious or poking fun at me, and finally decided
to simply ignore the comment altogether. “My father used to play a game with me by
having me go into a room and look around, and then leave while he moved something.
When I’d come back into the room I could tell where the change had occurred and most
of the time what it was that had changed. I could feel it as an irregularity on my
skin, like touching something smooth that suddenly turns rough, or sensing a sudden
change in the air temperature. You know that kid game where you hide something and
then tell the searcher if they’re hot or cold?” Albright nodded. “Well, for me there
are times when it literally works that way.”

“Fascinating,” Duncan said in a flat tone and with a vague expression that made me
wonder if he was being facetious. But I’d gone this far, so I figured I might as well
keep plunging headlong into things.

“Sometimes it’s a smell that cues me in. I’ll detect a smell that will suddenly change
when I get to the spot that’s been altered. The feel of something when I touch it
usually triggers an image, and if that item later changes in any way, so will my image
if I touch it again. I may not know exactly what has changed, but I can tell something
is different about the item.”

I paused and waited for Albright to say something, or twirl a finger around alongside
his head, the universal sign language for crazy. I couldn’t believe I’d told him as
much as I had. I almost never tell anyone about my synesthesia and if I do, I usually
play it down a lot. Something about Albright or the situation had turned me into Mt.
Vesuvius, spewing my secret out like molten lava and hot ash.

I smiled at Albright and said, “Look, I know it sounds weird but what I have is not
life threatening or anything. It’s just me.”

Albright unfolded his arms and leaned forward, lacing his hands together and resting
them on the bar. “So tell me,” he said. “If I show you a picture of the victim, do
you think you’ll be able to look at it without having one of these . . . synthesizer
reactions?”

“Synesthetic,” I corrected. “And to be honest, I don’t know. Without the smells, it’s
possible.”

“Wait right here then.”

He hopped off the bar stool and headed for the alley doorway, leaving me and B. Blunt
in a visual standoff that grew more and more uncomfortable with each passing minute.
Finally Albright returned. In his hand was a digital camera and I braced myself for
what I knew was coming.

“Take a look at this,” he said, sticking the camera’s screen in front of me. “It’s
a close-up of the victim’s face. Tell me what you see.”

I closed my eyes for a second or two and swallowed hard. Then I looked.

“Oh, God,” I muttered, turning away from the camera’s image and burying my face in
my hands. “That’s Ginny Rifkin, my father’s girlfriend.”

“I
should have known when I felt that vibration,” I told Albright.

“Vibration?”

I nodded. “Some of my sensations correlate to certain things or people. When Ginny
was around, I would often feel this vibration in my head. I never felt it with anyone
or anything else, except once when my dad came home after a night out with her. There
was a different smell on him—Ginny’s smell, I guess—and I felt that same vibration.
That’s how I knew he’d been with her.”

I paused and closed my eyes again, trying to isolate details from my alley experience.
Yep, the vibration in my head had been one of them.

“I remember now. I felt that vibration when I was outside, when I lifted the cardboard,”
I said, my eyes still closed. “It was mixed in with a whole lot of other sensations,
but it was there.”

I continued mentally sorting through the experiences from earlier. “I think I knew
whoever was out there was dead because I saw a black wavy curtain above all the other
images. I saw the same thing when I found the dead rat, and when I viewed my father’s
body. I tend to interpret sounds visually, so I guess the black wavy curtain is my
mind’s interpretation of a lack of sound, as in no heartbeat and no breathing.”

“The dead rat?” Albright said, zeroing in on that part of my explanation.

I opened my eyes and gave him a dismissive wave of my hand to let him know that I
didn’t want to explain. “It’s a long story,” I said, and I was saved from having to
elaborate any further when the portable bar phone rang. I gave Detective Albright
a questioning,
may I?
look.

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

I glanced at the caller ID and saw the name Riley Quinn, the divorced, fifty-something
owner of the bookstore next to my bar. Our buildings, though listed as separate pieces
of property, share a common brick wall. My bar is on a corner, giving me two walls
of windows, and the bookstore shares my other side wall.

Unlike me, Riley lives in a real house out in the suburbs somewhere and uses both
floors of his building for his store. Ten years ago, when he bought the place, he
developed a habit of stopping by the bar most nights after closing to grab a nightcap
and a bite to eat. As a result, he and my father became good friends who loved to
talk shop: marketing strategies, cost-cutting measures, supply woes, advertising ideas,
pricing tactics . . . you name it, they discussed it. Since my father’s death, Riley
has continued to come by most nights, but his relationship with me is more of a paternal
one. While he has helped me with the occasional business aspect of running the bar,
mostly he is just there with a friendly ear when I need one, doing his best to fill
the void created by my father’s death.

“It’s the owner of the bookstore next door,” I told Albright. “He watches out for
me. If I don’t answer, he’ll just come over here.”

“Fine,” Albright said in a put-upon tone. “But put it on speaker, please. And don’t
divulge any details.”

“Hello, Riley,” I said, answering on speaker.

“Mack, I just got in. What the hell is going on over there? There are cop cars all
over the place. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. But I found a dead body out back in the alley this morning.”

“What? Oh, my God! How awful for you. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“As good as can be expected.”

“Do you need me to come over? I can delay opening up the store for a bit if need be.”

“No, there’s no need to do that. I’m tied up talking to the police now anyway. I’ll
give you a call later.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“You know I’m here for you if you need me.”

“I know, and I appreciate it, Riley.”

“Uh-oh, it looks like I’ve got cops knocking on my door now. I better go but I’ll
talk to you later.”

“Okay.” I disconnected the call, turned off the ringer, and set the phone on the table.

“He sounds rather . . . protective toward you,” Albright said.

“Yes, I suppose he is. He and my father were good friends and Riley took over looking
out for me after . . .” I let my voice trail off. Both of us knew what I meant.

“Looks out for you like a family friend, or something more?”

I laughed at the innuendo. “Riley? God, no! We’re just friends. He’s like a stepfather
to me.”

Albright cocked his head to one side and stared at me. I got the feeling he was weighing
my answer, determining the veracity of my statement like some human lie detector.
“Okay,” he said finally, looking back down at his notes. “Let’s get back to this little
talent of yours.”

I thought I detected a faintly skeptical tone in his voice and said, “You think I’m
a nutcase, don’t you?”

He smiled. “No, not at all. In fact, I find it rather intriguing. But I’m having a
little difficulty understanding how it works.”

“You and everyone else in the world it seems, including me.”

“You say that certain things you experience are sometimes associated with the same
reaction?”

“As far as I can tell, yes.”

“Can you give me some examples?”

I thought, looking off into space. “Well, whenever I hear bells ringing, I taste cherries,
and the higher the pitch of the bell, the tarter the taste of the cherry. If I eat
broccoli, which I don’t care for by the way, I hear this annoying buzzing sound. When
I listen to rap music, I see sharp, peaked lines that vibrate, usually in very bright
colors. If I listen to classical music, I see one vibrating string of a line in a
more subdued tone. Whenever I looked at my father during a particularly emotional
moment, I would see a warm, yellow light, like the sun on a spring day. And his voice
made me taste butterscotch.”

“Butterscotch,” Albright said, sounding puzzled.

“Yeah, I don’t always understand my reactions.”
Like why your voice tastes like sweet chocolate.

“Do you experience normal sensations along with your . . . unique ones?”

“I do, at least as far as I know. Like I said, when I hear a bell ring I taste cherries.
I’ve eaten cherries, so I know what they taste like to me, but whether or not they
taste the same to anyone else . . .” I shrugged.

Albright’s mouth turned up at one corner, a little half-smile. “Do you experience
anything when you look at me?” he asked.

The question caught me by surprise and made me taste chocolate again. Another uncomfortable
silence followed and I saw Blunt shake her head in dismay. I looked back at Albright
and as we stared at one another, I felt a warm vibration in my gut, just below my
navel. “No,” I lied. “Nothing at all.”

The way he was eyeing me I knew he suspected I was lying, but he said nothing more
on the subject. Instead he scribbled something in his notebook. I tried to see what
he was writing but he had his other hand placed just so, blocking my view. I figured
his notes probably read something along the lines of
nut job, whackadoodle
, or
a few cans shy of a six-pack
. By now, he was probably having a synesthetic reaction of his own, hearing the music
to
The Twilight Zone
every time he looked at me.

“So let me see if I understand this,” he said. “These sensations you get are cues
or clues to what you’re experiencing?”

“I suppose so, yes.”

“And you can interpret them?”

“Sometimes,” I said. “Though I don’t always get the cause and effect relationship
right away.”

“Ohhh-kay,” Albright said slowly, scribbling again. “Let’s switch gears a bit. Why
don’t you tell me what you know about Ginny Rifkin and, if you’re up to it, your father’s
murder.”

I sighed, unhappy with the idea of reopening painful wounds. “I really don’t have
time for this,” I told him. “I need to get back to my business. Things have been tight
lately and I’ve got bills to pay. Having the bar closed isn’t helping. And it’s Friday.
The weekend is when I do my best business.”

“I’m sorry about that, but until I can sort a few things out, the bar will have to
stay closed.”

As blackmails go, this was a good one. Realizing I didn’t have much choice, I let
out a resigned sigh and said, “Fine,” in a tone that made it clear I felt otherwise.
“Are you a coffee drinker?”

“Hardcore.”

“Good. Me, too.” I turned away and headed for my two coffee makers. “I think I’ll
put on both pots,” I said over my shoulder. “I have a feeling we’re going to need
them.”