The Killing Vision (14 page)

She nodded.  “Barry was the one who found her. 
She’d been attacked in the parking lot of their apartment house.  She managed
to crawl to the back door, but she died before anyone could help her.  They
never caught the maniac who did it.”

Joel was shaking his head in disbelief.  “Poor guy.”

“He began having more visions.  Some pretty bizarre
ones, I think.  You remember Flight 800?”

“The plane that blew up over New York?”

“Yeah.  He saw that a day before it happened.  Nine-eleven,
too.  He tried to contact the authorities about it, but they ignored him,
though he
was
investigated by the FBI after the fact.  Now I’m sure they
wish they’d listened.”

Joel shivered.  “Creepy.”

“I think it was right after that he did it.  Slashed
his wrists.  Luckily, he was late with his rent.  His landlord showed up, found
him bleeding to death in the bathtub.”

Joel pushed his sandwich away.  He suddenly wasn’t
very hungry anymore.  “Well,” he said.  “I don’t feel like such a freak.”

Dana laughed.  “I know what you mean.”

“I take it he still has visions.”

“I assume so.”

“Has he ever had a vision about anyone in the
group?”

Dana shrugged and popped a chip into her mouth. 
“Not sure.  If he had one about me, I don’t think I would want to know.”

“I hear you,” Joel said.  He watched Dana’s hands as
she picked up her sandwich, watched her lips as she bit into it.  He wondered
what he would discover if he touched her, what secrets in her heart would be
revealed.  He had begun to feel something stirring within him while sitting
here with her.  Something warm and exciting yet strangely terrifying.  He was
feeling a growing attraction to her, an attraction he hadn’t felt for anyone in
so many years.  He wondered what she thought of him, if she considered him fat
and gross.  He tried not to think about that.  He knew what he looked like, and
he didn’t need an inner voice—one that was starting to sound more and more like
Clifton or Wade—reminding him.  So, before he had a chance to stop himself, he
blurted out, “Are you seeing anyone?”  And when Dana looked up at him in
surprise, he felt sure he had done the wrong thing.

“I’m sorry,” he said.  “I shouldn’t have asked
that.”

            “No,” she said,
smiling, “it’s all right.

“I just say things before I think sometimes.  I
didn’t mean to—”

“No.”

He looked at her.  “Excuse me?”

She smiled.  “No. I’m not seeing anyone.”

Joel felt his face grow hot.  He tried to return her
smile, but he couldn’t meet her eyes.  Instead, he found himself talking to his
sandwich.  “You seem like a really nice girl,” he said.  “I just get nervous
when I talk to…”  He trailed off, unsure of whether to say “girls” or “women.” 
He cleared his throat.  “I mean, if you wanted to, if you’re not busy maybe we
could—”

“Joel,” Dana said, “are you asking me out on a
date?”

His face and even his ears were white-hot.  “Yes.”

“Sure,” she said.  “I’d love to.”

* * *

2:55 PM

Halloran and Chapman sat in the conference room
looking over all the faxes that had been sent to them in the past few hours. 
After Joel Roberts had left the office, Halloran had ordered a criminal records
check on him.  He had also ordered one on Larry Carver. 

But Halloran wasn’t finding anything too unusual in
either man’s record.  One speeding ticket in 1987 was the extent of Larry
Carver’s brush with the law.  Similarly, Joel Roberts had had one DUI six years
ago.  That was it.

Halloran threw the papers on the conference table. 
“Nothing,” he announced.

Chapman looked up from his files, shaking his head. 
“Same here.”

Halloran fingered his cigarettes through his shirt
pocket.  Somehow, knowing he wasn’t allowed to smoke in here made him need one
all the more.  “What do you make of the newspaper clippings?”

Chapman looked at him.  “Weird.”  He chewed the tip
of his pen.  “What would he be doing with those?”

“Don’t know.”  Halloran reached for his coffee.  It
was cold.  “I’d give anything to see them for myself.”

Chapman raised his eyebrows.  “You think this guy’s
telling the truth?”

Halloran shrugged and took a sip of the cold
coffee.  “I’d just like to see, is all.”

“You think the mayor would consent to that?”

“Don’t know.”

“If he didn’t, you’d need a search warrant.”

“Yep.”

“For the
mayor’s
house.”

“That’s right.”

Chapman leaned back in his chair.  “You’ve got some
damned big balls, Mike.”

* * *

11:15 PM

At ten-thirty he had come
suddenly awake, thinking of Carmelita.  He thought of her black hair and her
brown thighs waiting for him and instantly he was hard.

Carefully and quietly, so as not
to wake anyone, he went to her.  And he knew it was the last time.  He had kept
Sarah Jo too long, and he had left himself open to discovery.  He did not want
that to happen again.  Even though Carmelita was smooth and beautiful as
porcelain, he could not take chances.  So, as he touched her, he knew he was
saying goodbye.  Knew this was the last time he would stroke her face and brush
his lips across her breasts.  It was a beautiful moment, tender and poignant.

When he was finished, he quietly
got dressed and began cleaning Carmelita up just as he had Sarah Jo.  He was
very careful to brush her hair and to scrape beneath her fingernails with a
knife.  He combed out her pubic hair and her eyebrows, then wiped her skin down
with alcohol.  He folded the sheet up around her body.  The river would take
care of the rest of the evidence.

Sweat was pouring down his neck
and chest, soaking through his shirt.  He stopped to rest, looking at the
shrouded body in the semi-darkness.  He slid to the floor, never shifting his
gaze.

He remembered the other day when
he had seen her walking down the road toward the park, how instantly alive he
had felt.  The mere sight of her swaying hair, her light step, seemed to send a
rush of desire, a hungering lust, through his veins.  That urge, that
need
, more powerful than the
instinct to breathe, had consumed him like fire.  As soon as she smiled at him,
he had known what he would do.  What he would
have
to do.

Watching his hands inside the
gloves was like watching the hands of a stranger.  They seemed to be beyond his
control, like small savage animals writhing in desperation.  The feeling of her
throat under his thumbs, however, even through the gloves, was enough to ground
him in reality.  The throb of her pulse—strong and quick at first like the
heart of a bird, then slowing and erratic—pounded through him as if she were
linked to him.  Her fists flailed against him vainly, striking against his
chest and giving his head a glancing blow.  And as her gasping stopped and the
light faded from her eyes, the sense of power, of lust, was stronger than ever
in him, and he had to kiss her, even as the life ebbed from her.

And now, as he crouched in the
darkness, looking at the shrouded form beside him, he realized he was weeping. 
Why had he done this?  What was inside him that made him do it?  And why was he
so powerless to control it?

He wiped his eyes on the sleeve
of his shirt.  He had to get himself together.  He had to stop crying and
control himself.

He had work to do.

Wednesday, July 11

8:05 AM

Wednesday morning, Edgar Castle and his wife, Wanda,
had gone out on the river in their johnboat to get in some early fishing.  It
had cooled off considerably since the rain last week, and the fish were biting
again.  They had left a little before six, and Wanda had packed them a
breakfast of sausage and biscuits, which they ate as they drifted downstream. 
The air was thick with swirling fog, and the golden sun was just peeking
through the tree branches.

As they neared a slight bend close to Riverside
Park, a cold breeze stirred over the water.  It rushed past them up the valley,
leaving them wondering if they’d really felt it at all.  Later, Wanda Castle
would remark to her friends that she felt “a goose walk over her grave.”

Edgar had just cast out his line when he noticed
something white floating in the water close to the landing.  He squinted to see
it through the fog.  This was where Sarah Jo McElvoy’s body had been found a
week ago; the area was still roped off with yellow police tape.  At first Edgar
thought some kids had sneaked down to the river’s edge to play a cruel prank by
discarding an old mannequin at the crime scene.  Then, as the boat drifted
closer and the fog lifted a bit, he could see that the pale arm reaching up out
of the brambles was fleshy and real.

Wanda saw it, too.  She screamed before she could
stop herself.

Beside her, Edgar was already dialing 911 on his
cell phone.

* * *

9:30 AM

Within thirty minutes of the first officers responding
to the scene, Halloran and Chapman pulled up to the edge of the bluff
overlooking the river and parked between two cruisers with flashing lights.  A
female officer was sitting at a picnic table with an older couple that looked
shaken and sick.  They must have been the ones that called in.

As they made their way down the dusty slope toward
the landing, Halloran saw the response team barricading the area with new
tape.  Johnson, the most experienced, had just finished photographing the
scene.  The girl’s body bobbed close to the same spot where Sarah Jo had been
found.  Halloran shuddered uncontrollably.

Brooks, the first responding officer, met him on the
landing.  He was fresh-faced and eager and young; Halloran trusted him
implicitly.  There were very few of the younger guys that Halloran could
stomach these days with all their strutting and loud mouths.  Greg Brooks was
different—soft-spoken yet confident.  Halloran hoped one day to see him in the
investigations unit.  “What’ve you got for us?” Halloran said.

Brooks motioned up on the bluff.  “The old couple
found the body about an hour ago.  They were fishing.  Husband says he thought
it was a prank at first, what with it being in the same place and all.”

“Any ID on the body?”

“No, sir.”

“Is it the Santos girl?”

Brooks nodded.  “I believe so, Lieutenant.”

Stepping across the landing, Halloran made his way
toward the edge of the water.  He could see the hand now, blue and hideous. 
Carefully, he reached over and pulled the dead branches off the face.  Carmelita
Santos’ waxy eyes glared at the sky.  Her throat bore the black bruises of
strangulation.  She was completely nude.

He pulled on a pair of surgical gloves and carefully
moved her head to get a better look at her throat.  The cold skin beneath his fingers
slid greasily over the bone and cartilage below.  He pressed softly on the
fleshy part of Carmelita’s thigh, and then he knew.  This body had also been
frozen, and it had not been here long; at least not long enough to thaw
completely.

He stood and stripped off the gloves, carefully
examining the shoreline around the body.  He was just about to turn away when
something caught his eye—a tiny glint in Carmelita’s black hair.  He knelt and
eyed it closely.  “Brooks.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I need an evidence bag.”

“Be right back.”

Halloran never moved.  His gaze was still locked on
the single blonde hair that was caught in Carmelita’s tresses.

* * *

11:10 AM

Every time Joel thought about his date Friday night,
his gut clenched in fear.

He had almost put it out of his head, had just about
convinced himself he had dreamed the whole episode with Dana, when Wade said,
“You oughta come out for a few beers with me Friday night.”

They were driving down Chestnut Street, going toward
the college, passing the bars and clubs that catered to the college kids, and
Joel nearly ran the truck up on the sidewalk.  It was the first time Wade had
ever suggested the two of them do something alone.  Joel glanced over, and Wade
was staring intently at the old Capitol Theatre as they passed it.

Joel shifted in his seat, looking back at the street
in front of him.  “I can’t.”

“Why not?  Gotta stay home to flog your log?”

Joel felt his face blush.  “I’ve got a date.”

He could feel Wade’s eyes boring into him.  “You
gotta be shittin’ me.”

Joel smiled in spite of himself.  “No.  I swear.”

“Anybody I know?”

“Nope.”  Joel pulled the truck over, parking in
front of the next house on their work orders.