Night Visions (6 page)

SATURDAY

T
he windshield wipers pulse as she waits at a red light two blocks from the clinic. All day she has been wary of things that could accidentally hypnotize her—the dripping kitchen faucet, ticking clocks, the humming air filter in her fish tank. She knows this fear is ridiculous, but she feels profoundly exhausted, as if her body recognizes for the first time how deprived it has been. It wants to make up for lost time, not celebrate small victories.

Once again, she thinks of Frank. Every time the phone rang this afternoon, she grabbed it hastily, hoping it would be him. She wanted to hear his voice, to think about him and the investigation instead of herself. But he never called, and everyone else—telemarketers, a friend from work, a wrong number—had to listen to the disappointment in her voice.

In junior high, she remembers now, she spent many afternoons like this waiting by the phone for Larry Boyle. Larry wasn't athletic, popular, or particularly smart, and he was picked
on mercilessly for his Coke-bottle glasses and two enormously gapped front teeth.

She had a crush on Larry because of something he said to her by the tetherball courts at school.

“I hate my glasses.”

“You can always get a new pair.”

“No, I mean…Well, I just wish I could see you without them, that's all.”

He smiled with those enormous teeth, and at that moment, she thought he was the next Simon Le Bon. They decided to go out on a date.

Waiting for the date was maddening and exciting. She couldn't believe that someone who wasn't in the room had the power to make her nervous, excited, and frustrated at the same time. Two days later, his mom drove them to the mall, and they played video games while eating greasy cheese pizza off thin white paper plates. Their romance only lasted a few months, but to thirteen-year-old Samantha, it was magical.

She felt some of that nervousness today, waiting for Frank to call, but these feelings only made her angry. He'd left for a career. He'd left because it was safer to fly across the country and start a new life than to wait for her love. His voice had sounded dry when he told her it was over, five months ago. He was already living in Washington, and the telephone connection punctuated his voice with static. She listened to him talk and didn't make a sound, because she knew how much he hated silence. He rambled through apologies and excuses that were really neither.
I'm sorry. We just don't know how long we'll be apart. What else can we do? I mean, you want to stay there for your job, to be near your father….

The truth was that he didn't trust someone who was afraid to say “I love you.” Maybe he was right not to trust her, she thinks. Maybe she couldn't say those words because something was missing in her. She wasn't sure then and still isn't. All she told
him that afternoon was “At least I'll never lie to you.” She meant it, and believed herself to be honorable for it. But silence can be more hurtful than a lie.

Frank sent her a letter a few days later with only five lines.

He'd always liked T. S. Eliot. He didn't want to use his own words to hurt her, so he borrowed them from someone else. After that, he didn't speak to her for six months.

Until two days ago, in front of the church.

 

Sitting at the edge of her bed in the clinic, she looks up at Dr. Clay. “Did Phebe have any hallucinations?”

“You know I can't discuss my other patients with you.” Dr. Clay looks tired and worried.

For the first time she wonders if he has trouble sleeping. “I just didn't get to see her this morning. Is everything all right? Arty said she was upset.”

“Did he?” Dr. Clay asks, surprised and somewhat irritated. Then he admits, “She didn't sleep well last night, but I'm sure she's fine, Sam. We should get started—”

“Do you think she'll show up?”

“Not tonight.”

“Why?”

He pauses. “A lot of people are afraid to get clinical treatment.”

“Why?”

“Because they're worried that it's their last chance. That if they don't get better this time, they never will.”

He looks distracted as he flips through Samantha's chart. She lies down and waits quietly for him to place the electrodes on
her temples. He hands her the goggles, and she notices a tremor in his left hand.

“Do
you
think this is our last chance?”

He pauses before answering. “No, I don't.” He smiles weakly and adds, “Not by a long shot. Besides, it's working for you.”

“I guess so.” The hope she felt this morning fades with the thought of Phebe at home, sitting alone and staring into the darkness. For a moment, Samantha feels grateful—grateful that it is Phebe, not she, who has to face the helpless terror and frustration of knowing that she won't sleep through the night. But this relief makes her ashamed. Suffering does that to people, she thinks. It makes them selfish and shameful. It transforms them into something ugly.

She puts the goggles over her eyes and waits for the lights and sounds to begin.

 

A red light glows on the other side of a closed door. Shelves filled with books and loose papers are barely visible in the weak glow of candlelight. Wax has been spilled, drying in long streaks on the wooden floor. Curtains flap by the open window. The ledge is moist from rainwater.

A moan hangs in the air like a note from an oboe. It sputters and coughs, fading to silence. The door opens, and everything is bathed in red light. The moaning starts again. It comes from a shadowy figure pressed against the window. It jerks and twitches with such violence that it seems moments away from crashing into the room. Then a piercing scream as the door slams shut. Glass shatters. The rainwater becomes blood. The body writhes in terrible pain, climbing, towering into the sky—

 

Dr. Clay is holding her shoulders, and Samantha realizes that she is sitting upright. A male nurse stands on the other side of the bed with one hand resting gently on her back.

“Samantha? Hi, Samantha. You've woken up with quite a start, but everything is all right. You've been asleep for seven hours and forty-two minutes.”

Samantha is breathing too heavily to speak, too shaken to congratulate herself for sleeping.

“It was awful.”

“What was awful? Did you have another hallucination?”

“Yes.” Her voice sounds hollow.

“Look at me, Samantha. What you saw was not real. It's—”

“No. Something terrible has happened.” She looks into his eyes. “I know it.”

SUNDAY

S
amantha steps out of the shower in her apartment to a ringing phone. Still preoccupied with the images that woke her less than an hour ago, she answers distractedly. Large drops of water fall from her body onto the bedroom carpet. She imagines the puddle at her feet turning hard, like wax.

“Hi, Sam.”

She can barely hear Frank because of the sharp, urgent voices behind him. “What happened?”

“I got a call ten minutes ago. The police found another body—a woman hanging from a fire escape outside her apartment.”

Silence. She twirls the phone cord between the second and third fingers of her right hand, certain that she already knows what he is going to say.

“Hello?” Frank asks. “Sam?”

She swallows hard before asking, “What's her name?”

“Phebe McCracken.”

Samantha closes her eyes and sees the smiling frog from
Phebe's T-shirt. “Where are you?” The words leave her mouth reluctantly.

“At her apartment in Chinatown. What's wrong?”

She pauses again, looking at the water spreading out from her body.

“I know her.”

 

Samantha hurries up four flights of stairs. The narrow hallway seems to turn sharply every few feet, obscuring the layout of the floor, and she follows it tentatively. Looking for the apartment number, Samantha wonders if Phebe found solace in the confusion of this labyrinth, if she saw it as a reflection of her own exhausting and elusive path to sleep. The air feels warm and still, as if it is trapped between the low ceilings and worn carpet. She tugs at her sweatshirt, pulling it away from the moisture on her stomach.

She doesn't want to think about Phebe as a victim to sleeplessness or a violent man. She doesn't want to see herself that way either. A sudden flash of anger makes her face burn. She wants answers. For Phebe. For herself.

The hall cuts around another corner and stops abruptly. There is one closed door to her right, and there everything glows inexplicably red. The walls, the carpet, even Officer Kincaid's face appears sunburn-pink. He hasn't noticed her yet. His head is slightly bowed toward the door as if waiting for someone to answer. He stands before a welcome mat that shows a cheerful frog saying “Hop on in!” Two wrapped newspapers are stacked in the corner.

“Hi.”

He turns, startled. His smile seems strained, almost embarrassed, and Samantha realizes that he has been eavesdropping. He starts to explain that Detective Snair won't let him inside, but she interrupts.

“Why is that bulb red?” She looks toward the light fixture across from the door. A naked bulb juts out like the tongue of a bell.

“I don't know.”

“Can you ask the landlord?”

“Well, I'm really not supposed to leave. I'm kind of on guard.”

“I see.” She stares until she obviously makes him uncomfortable.

“Well, I guess I could run downstairs real quick.”

“Thanks.”

He relaxes at the sight of her smile and goes.

She knocks, and the door opens quickly. Frank nods as she enters. The light in the room is filtered through a white plastic tent that has been set up around the window to protect forensic evidence, or so Samantha assumes. Neatly arranged music scores fill most of the bookshelves, but one is lined with porcelain frogs of all sizes and colors. Everything else in the apartment seems to lack order and organization. A single frog has been knocked to the floor, leaving several broken pieces and a smattering of white powder. Dozens of novels, magazines, and notebooks are stacked in haphazard piles on the floor. A framed poster leans against the left-hand wall, waiting to be hung, and well-used cat toys litter the floor. On a rolltop desk adjacent to the window, stacks of CDs and several candles surround a small stereo. One fat red candle has hollowed itself out around the wick and bled over much of the desktop. Another has fallen to the wood floor, spilling long lines of wax away from the desk like rays of sunlight. In the opposite corner, a cello case lies next to a chair and music stand.

A marble-faced man in a wrinkled linen jacket is taking pictures. A bright flash fills the room, then fades. Two uniformed officers look through desk drawers and a file cabinet.

Samantha turns toward the tent and feels Frank's hand on her right forearm. He looks drawn and somewhat sad.

“I don't know if you want to see this.”

She looks at him briefly without speaking, then moves to the tent flap and steps inside. It's the windowsill from her vision. Dried blood spilling like a waterfall over the ledge and down the wall, forming a coagulated puddle on the floor. Most of the broken glass is scattered on the landing of the fire escape, where Phebe's body is suspended upside down, taut, from rope. Her feet have been tied to the landing above, and her arms are fastened to the railing on either side of her. Her blouse has slid down to her neck, exposing her white skin, black bra, and the circle carved into her chest and upper stomach.

Samantha covers her stomach with one hand and looks down at the grate beneath her feet. The circle takes her back to that night in the library over two years ago. Right before it happened, there was his smell—so out of place among the books and recycled air—and the muscles of his hairless arm wrapping around her neck. He pressed her against the cold floor and carved a half-circle into her body with a knife. She inhales rapidly, as if she can't get enough air, and wonders:
Did the same man—? Was this meant for me? How?
She tries to control her breathing and lets her hand fall to her side.

Samantha looks at Phebe again. Her face, stained with dried blood from the wound and the gash across her neck, looks agonized, tortured. The other cuts and scrapes on her body suggest a struggle. Her black slacks are ripped at the knee, and her right foot has torn through its stocking. She may have been pushed through the window—or at least thrown on top of the broken glass and splintered wood—before being hung.

Samantha turns around, not wanting to remember Phebe this way.

Someone else is on the landing now. Detective Snair. His body rigid. He has been watching her.

“Who found her?” she asks assertively, as if the right words will convince him, convince herself, that she belongs here.

“A woman who lives four floors below. At around six-thirty this morning, she stepped outside to feed her cats and noticed that the water bowl and food dish were bloody. Then she felt something drip down her cheek and looked up. It wasn't a raindrop.”

“No one else saw anything? On an open-air fire escape in San Francisco?”

“I've already gone over this with Mr. Bennett.”

“I was just about to fill her in, Detective.” Frank, who has been standing behind her, steps forward.

She looks directly at Snair, her hands resting on her hips. “Humor me.”

“All right.” He moves closer to Samantha and speaks with strained reserve. His breath smells of stale coffee and a freshly smoked cigarette. “We're facing an alley behind several stores—none of which are usually open between one and four in the morning. This apartment is being earthquake-proofed, so the first three floors on this side are covered with scaffolding, tarp—all sorts of crap that makes it pretty hard to see. It rained all night, which means we don't have much in the way of forensic evidence. And—this is my favorite part—the neighbors directly below are away for the weekend. So our killer is either really smart or really fuckin' lucky.”

“Sam, can I talk to you?” Frank interrupts before she can respond. He leads her back into the apartment. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to find out what happened.” She looks over his shoulder and sees Snair's shadow against the tent.

“You said on the phone that you knew her.”

“We met two days ago at a sleep clinic.”

“A sleep clinic?”

“Frank, I saw this place in my dreams.”

“What?”

One of the officers dusting for prints looks over, and she lowers her voice. “The windowsill, the wax on the floor, a red light, her body hanging outside…all of it.”

“I don't understand. Are you telling me that you
knew
this was going to happen?”

“Not exactly. I—” Thinking about how to explain it to Frank, to herself, she glances across the room and notices a red light glowing on the stereo.

“Was that on when the police arrived this morning?”

“What?”

Samantha walks over to the rolltop desk, ignoring the frustration on Frank's face.

“Does anyone know if this was playing this morning?” Neither officer in the room answers. “Who was the first person on the scene?”

Silence.

“Who was the first—”

“I was.” A young woman in uniform walks out of the bedroom.

“Was any music playing?”

“Uh, yeah.” At first she sounds surprised, then guilty. “I assumed the victim was listening to it last night. All I did was press the stop button.”

Samantha takes a tissue out of her pocket and presses
EJECT
. The disc slides out.

“Someone needs to dust this for fingerprints.”

“Sam, what's going on?” Frank steps over to the desk and looks down at the CD—the
Goldberg Variations
.

“It's the same piece of music you found in the tape deck of Catherine's car.”

“
Pssst.
Ms. Ranvali?” Everyone turns to see Officer Kincaid
sticking his head through the front door. He steps inside warily, scanning the room for Detective Snair.

“I talked to the landlord about the light fixture. The bulb burned out last week, and he only had a red one to replace it. It's temporary until he can get to the hardware store. He's had a lot of trouble getting around because of a bad back. Most likely, it's just the mattress on his bed, but mattresses are expensive, so he keeps putting off—”

“Why did he have a red bulb in the first place?”

“I asked that too. It's from his darkroom.”

“Thanks.” Samantha nods.

“Kincaid, what the hell are you doing in here!” Snair roars as he comes through the tent.

Officer Kincaid's face blanches.

“We might have a print here.” Samantha steps into Snair's path.

He looks into her eyes, and she can't tell if he is surprised, furious, or amused. Maybe all three. He turns to the desk. “On a CD?”

“Yes. It's the same recording Frank found at the first crime scene.”

“Detective Snair”—an officer steps through the tent—“I think you should see something.”

“Jacobs, dust this for prints,” Snair barks. Without looking at Samantha, he turns and follows the other officer through the tent and back onto the fire escape.

Frank steps toward the window, and Samantha touches his arm. “I'm going to leave, okay.”

He pauses, then nods quietly. “Sure.”

She can tell that he is looking for some sign of weakness in her. She realizes that she is covering her stomach with her hands again and drops them to her side, pressing her lips tightly
together to keep them from shaking. “Go on,” she says. “Let me know what you find out.” She starts quickly for the front door.

“One more thing.”

“Yeah?”

“What do you know about Phebe?”

“She was getting treatment for insomnia at the San Francisco Sleep Clinic. That's where I met her. She and I are—were—part of a new study with Dr. Clay. He calls it Endymion's Circle.” She shifts her weight from one foot to the other.

“Endymion?”

“He was a figure from Greek mythology.”

“Like the guy who slept with his mother and poked out his eyes?”

“No, that's Oedipus. You obviously weren't a classics major.” She smiles faintly.

“Who in their right mind would be a classics major?” Frank's voice shifts in tone, becoming softer, more sincere. “Sam, when did you start having trouble sleeping?”

“A little over six months ago.” Her head falls to the right.

“After I moved?”

“Before,” she says quickly and looks up. “Anyway, the first treatment didn't work for Phebe, so she left.”

“What kind of treatment was it?”

“Electrohypnosis.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“I didn't think it was a big deal.”

“You didn't think it was a big deal?” he responds incredulously, placing his hand on her right shoulder.

“Frank, it doesn't concern you. Just call me later and let me know what you find out, all right?”

“Okay.” He lets go and walks to the tent.

 

Samantha rushes out of the building and drives away. At first, she doesn't know where she is going, but soon she is sitting in the back pew of the church. She doesn't want to see Phebe again, not as a piece of evidence. Phebe. Phebe. Phebe McCracken. Samantha says her name again and looks at the porcelain frog in her palm. She feels guilty about taking it from the apartment, but she needed something to think about other than that bloodred circle. Phebe loved frogs and the cello. Like Samantha, she wanted desperately to sleep again.

There are fewer people than usual at the nine o'clock service, and Samantha finds this comforting. As the choir starts singing William Byrd's
Ave Verum Corpus,
she notices an elderly Hispanic woman sitting at the end of her row, holding a rosary in her lace-gloved hands and rocking slightly back and forth.

One Sunday morning with her mother, Samantha remembers, a gray-haired woman walked on her knees from the back of the church to the altar. As she got closer to the front, the organist stopped playing, men and women looked up from their prayers, and the church became still. The priest watched in disbelief, subtly motioning her to stand, but she didn't. Not until she reached his feet did she stand up and take a seat in the front row.