6th Sense Page 11

  "So did I," I admitted. "You know what Maggie's schedule looks like for today?"

  "She's only got the nine o'clock on Fridays. I was hoping to talk her into some kayaking later this afternoon. Unless you two have plans?" She studied my reaction, clearly dying to know where Maggie and I stood.

  "Not yet," I said, returning her frank gaze. Was she just fishing, I wondered, or was she sizing up her competition? Or flirting? Maybe, all three, I decided.

  "You wanna see something awesome?" she asked, gracing me with an infectious smile. She held a videotape in her hand. "Come on, I'll show you." I followed her into the waiting room where the TV/VCR unit was mounted to the wall. She slid the videotape into the VCR, pushed fast-forward, then plopped down in one of the easy chairs across from the screen. "This is the training tape I use for swift-water swimming. I could watch it a hundred times. Come on, sit down."

  I settled into a chair and watched as the screen filled with rushing, tumbling water. Buddy turned up the volume and the roar filled the room. Then, seeming to remember that Maggie had a client next door, she readjusted the volume.

  "Just like being there, isn't it? The guys who taped this were geniuses. They not only had cameramen lining the river on both sides, but they had one in a river raft behind the kayak so you can almost feel the motion. I skipped over the boring introductory part. This is where the guy in the kayak takes what we call a wet exit."

  Now I knew why I didn't go for this stuff, I thought. Every now and then the river raft behind the kayak lurched, causing the cameraman to tumble forward, giving the scene enough realism to make me seasick. I watched as the kayak in front bobbed down and shot forward, sometimes disappearing altogether in the treacherous waves.

  "This is where you and Maggie are going?" I asked, appalled.

  "Oh, no. This is in the class five category. We won't be doing anything more than a class two or three. Okay, watch this!" Buddy was clearly excited. "See that submerged boulder downstream? That's called a strainer. When our kayaker hits it, he's going to go into what we call an Eskimo roll. Normally, he'd pop right back up. The spray-skirt around his waist keeps the kayak watertight, but see how he gets trapped upside down? When that happens, he has to make a wet exit. If he doesn't push himself out and kick free, he's likely to drown. There! Now this is where it gets good. See?"

  I watched as the man's head shot out of the water and he took huge gasps of air. The kayak he'd been in had righted itself and was surging ahead of him downstream. Suddenly we were seeing him from a new angle and I realized that a new cameraman had taken over.

  "He knows he's in trouble, but he's trying not to panic," Buddy said. "As soon as you panic, your body consumes more oxygen and diminishes your ability to help yourself. Okay, now he's getting oriented. See how he flipped over onto his back with his feet pointing downstream? That's exactly right. That keeps his feet from being trapped by rocks on the river bottom. And as long as he's feet first, he has less chance of banging his head around. Even with the helmet, you don't want to meet any boulders headfirst." Buddy was standing now, pointing as she spoke. The angle changed as yet another camera picked up the action. "Watch as he gets close to these rapids here. The waves and turbulence make it almost impossible to breathe, so he has to catch a breath in the troughs of the waves, where the water is the calmest. If he doesn't time it right, he'll take in a lungful of water."

  "You sound like you've made a few wet exits yourself," I said, amazed at how fast everything was moving. I found myself sitting on the edge of my seat.

  Her eyes lit up. "Oh yeah. It's something everyone should practice. Now! See that eddy up there? The calm spot behind that boulder? Our guy here sees that and is heading for it. See how he turns headfirst now? The only time you should ever go headfirst is when you're approaching a strainer like that. It allows you to use your arms to climb over the strainer. In his case, he's going to try to hold himself on that rock. Fat chance."

  The rock in question rose a good foot out of the water and was a couple of feet wide. The swimmer headed straight for the rock, using his arms to try and pull himself toward it. Before he could get a strong purchase, the waves behind him carried him right over the rim and flipped him into the eddy behind it.

  "Uh-oh," Buddy said. "Here comes the hole."

  "Hole?" I asked, wondering how things could get any worse.

  "Yeah. It's a place in the river where the level drops way off. The main portion of the current follows the river bottom, but the surface current curls back upstream. If the swimmer gets trapped in it, he'll go 'round and 'round until he's exhausted."

  I was exhausted just thinking about it. "There's no way out?" I asked.

  "Oh, yeah. There's always a way out. You just gotta know what it is. See how he's going around in circles? He's starting to panic again. Okay, there he goes. He's just figured out he's in a hole and remembers what to do. He's either got to swim to the side or the bottom of the hole and catch the downstream current. Down he goes. In a second, he'll shoot out like a bullet!"

  "Am I interrupting a good movie?"

  I whirled around and saw Martha standing in the doorway. Her arms were folded across her ample chest in her typical cop stance. She shot Buddy a cursory glance, then did a double take. Martha's lesbian radar must've lit up like a Christmas tree because she graced Buddy with a full-on smile. Buddy hit the pause on the remote and beamed back. It was all I could do to stop myself from rolling my eyes.

  "Buddy was just reminding me why I prefer calm-water kayaking," I said.

  Buddy laughed and started rewinding the tape.

  "Girlfriend, we need to talk," Martha said.

  I nodded and turned to Buddy. "When Maggie comes out, will you ask her to join us upstairs?"

  "Sure thing," she said. "Maybe later I can show you the part where he goes down the falls."

  "She's cute," Martha whispered as I led her up the stairs, taking some liberties I hoped Maggie wouldn't mind.

  "So I noticed. What's up?"

  "You here early or late?" she asked. We walked into Maggie's kitchen and I fixed us each a cup of coffee.

  "Late, but it's not what you think. Maggie didn't get home until almost dawn. There was no point in driving back home."

  "Uh-huh," she said, sitting at the kitchen table and stretching her long legs out in front of her.

  "Martha, tell me what's happening."

  "Well, first off, Grimes arrested Harold Bone this morning. The guy with two previous assaults? Seems Donna Lee saw Harold casing the marina yesterday afternoon. And evidently Harold also threatened the guy"

  "That's true," I said. "I was there." I told her about the tracking device under Harold's truck and his unusual jaunt up and down the highway.

  Martha let out a low whistle. "You saw him go past the marina?"

  "Yeah, but he went past a lot of places. He didn't seem particularly interested in the marina. Did you find a Z at the scene by any chance?"

  "No. But that doesn't mean it wasn't there. When Maggie called me, two other cops were already on the scene. A neighbor noticed Roy hanging there and called nine-one-one. The paramedics were all over the place. I'm afraid the scene wasn't secured very well. Their first job was to try to make sure the bastard lived. Speaking of whom, I guess he's going to be just fine, if you don't count the impotency problem he's liable to have."

  "What did he say about who attacked him?"

  "Never saw what hit him. He was in his boat, bending over to get a beer out of the cooler when someone sneaked up behind him and whacked him over the head. That's all he knows."

  "And Donna Lee? She doin' okay?"

  "She's fine, Cass. Making Harold Bone out to be a hero. I guess it finally got through to her that Roy was bad business. Who needs therapy, huh? All she needed was for someone to beat the hell out of Roy, and suddenly she's a liberated woman. Like she's turned some psychological corner."

  "Hmm. It's hard to believe she'd let him beat her like that again. After what happe
ned yesterday, I thought she was going to tell the creep to get lost. "

  "You saying you don't believe her?"

  "I'm just thinking out loud, Mart. You think someone could tie herself up like that? The knots on her wrists weren't very tight." I took a sip of my coffee.

  "I guess it's possible. But she sure as hell couldn't beat herself on the back and butt."

  "Okay. But let's say Roy did beat her? Let's say Donna Lee had finally had enough. Picture this. Roy's back on his boat and Donna sneaks up behind him, whacks him on the head with something, then when he's out, she beats the shit out of him. She gets the idea to hook him through the balls and hoists him up on the pulley like a dead fish, then runs like hell back to her boat, stuffs a gag in her mouth, ties her ankles, makes a little loop to slide her wrists through, and just lies there waiting for someone to find Roy."

  "And then she hands Harold to us on a platter?" Martha asked. "I can see her getting mad enough to kill Roy, but would she set Harold up like that to take the fall?"

  "Maybe she figures there's not enough evidence to convict him. Maybe she just wanted to divert attention away from herself."

  "For all we know, someone else may have tied her up," Martha said. "Maybe even Harold. Maybe they're in this together."

  The sound of Maggie's footsteps on the stairs preceded her entry. For someone who hadn't had much sleep, she looked pretty good, I thought. She wore a sea-green silk outfit that almost matched her eyes. "Sergeant Grimes still on the warpath?" she asked, coming into the kitchen.

  Martha got up to hug her. "He's just arrested Harold Bone," she said. Maggie's eyes widened and she sat next to me while Martha filled her in on the details, ending with our discussion about Donna Lee.

  "I just don't see Harold as being that calculating," Maggie said.

  "What about Donna Lee?" I asked.

  "I don't know, Cass."

  "Well, we better figure it out pretty soon," Martha said. "According to the word in the office this morning, Grimes still thinks you're withholding evidence. He thinks Bone did the deed, then called you up and confessed. In fact, when he finds out about these other murders, he's going to accuse all three of us of withholding evidence. Which, in a way, we are."

  "My dreams are my own property, Martha. There's no law that says I have to share them with anyone."

  I stood up. "Say that again."

  "There's no law—"

  "No. Before that. You said your dreams are your property. That's where we've been wrong, Maggie. Remember what Psychic Junkie said? I don't think you're dreaming at all. I think the killer is sending you messages. You think you've just suddenly become clairvoyant? That's not what's happening. You've always been a little telepathic. So have I. The killer is using your ability to receive and is sending you images, but only those he or she wants you to see. Just like the little Zs they're leaving behind. I think the killer is showing off. Whoever it is wants someone to know what they've done." I took a breath. "I haven't told either of you this, but I've started having dreams too." They both listened patiently as I described the dreams. "I think what I'm seeing is the killer as a child."

  The room was silent as they let this sink in. Martha stood up and started pacing. Her brow was furrowed. "So now you're clairvoyant too?"

  "You're not listening, Mart. Not clairvoyant. Telepathic. It's not so much what I can do, as what the killer can do. I'm just receiving the messages. Like Maggie."

  Maggie was nodding but Martha still looked skeptical. "Okay, let's get back to something I can make sense of," she said. "Maggie, you said you couldn't see Bone as the calculating type. I agree that our killer is planning these things out. Let's concentrate on that angle. Who in the group is the calculating type?"

  Maggie shrugged. "The only one who comes to mind is Mrs. Bombay. She once told me that she'd spent an entire year plotting her mother's murder and that the only thing that stopped her from carrying out the plan was her mother's being institutionalized."

  "Okay, so maybe she can't kill her mother, but she figures she can help the world out by killing these other creeps," I offered.

  "Except these aren't just cold and calculated, Cass," Martha said. "They're also crimes of passion. Whoever's doing it may plan it out, but then they get into it, big-time. You saw the photos of Hector Pena. That was a crime of passion."

  "That could be any of them," Maggie said. "Sometimes the ones who seem the most meek are the ones who lose it the most. Someone who's been abused is going to carry around a lot of anger."

  "Let's just say it really was a crime of passion," I said. "Maybe Stella, or even her sister Toby, finally snapped and let Hector have it. Maybe the rush of power they felt was so overwhelming, they just had to feel it again. So they thought, why not? It would be easy to push the old Ferguson guy over the cliffs. And then, when Roy made such an ass out of himself yesterday, the old urge kicked in again."

  Martha scratched her head. "First you've got someone taking it out on others because they can't take it out on their real abuser and now you've got someone who did take it out on their abuser and liked it so much, they can't stop."

  "I hate to muddy the waters," Maggie said. "But it could be a third scenario as well. It could be someone practicing, getting up the nerve to kill the one they really want to."

  "Like Joel," I said. They both looked at me and I shared with them what I'd heard between Joel and his mother. "He sounded to me like someone on the verge of something."

  "You bugged their house?" Maggie's normally calm voice had risen. "Isn't that illegal?"

  "Wiretaps on phone lines are illegal. This is just a little recording device under the coffee table. You said he was the one most likely to be psychic and he is the only one with a Z in his name. Don't make me feel more guilty than I already do, Maggie. I didn't have a lot of options."

  Martha nodded. "I just wish we could eliminate one of them!" she said, sitting back down.

  "Maybe we can," I said. "If I'm right and my dreams are of the killer as a child, then it follows that the killer was physically abused as a child. That would rule out the members of the group like Stella and Donna Lee who are being abused by their boyfriends, right? It would also rule out Maylene. Unless her grandfather beat her in addition to sexually molesting her?" I looked a question at Maggie. When she hesitated, I got mad. "Come on, Maggie. We're way beyond worrying about their damned confidentiality."

  She sighed. "Okay, okay. If you're right, then Maylene is about the only one we can rule out. As far as I know, the abuse was limited to sexual molestation. But you're making an erroneous assumption about the other two. It's not that uncommon for people who were abused as kids to seek out abusive relationships as adults. Both Stella and her sister Toby were beaten as children. I'm afraid the same is true for Donna Lee."

  "Well, we're down to five. That's some progress," Martha said. "But we're running out of time. If Grimes finds out about the other two murders, he's going to be all over Maggie in about two seconds."

  "Then we'll just have to beat him to it," I said, more for Maggie's sake than from any real sense of optimism. "There are three of us. If we each take one to concentrate on, maybe we can figure this out. Since Grimes is already working on Harold, we've only got four to worry about."

  Martha smiled. "I like that idea, Cass. In fact, I'd be real interested in talking to Donna Lee again. The way she handed Harold to us, and what you said about her maybe faking being tied up like that, it's at least worth looking into."

  "I could call Joel and ask him to change his Monday appointment to this afternoon," Maggie said.

  "From what Cass overheard and what I saw happen yesterday, it sounds like he really is on the brink of some kind of a breakthrough."

  "You meet with him separately, outside of the group?" I asked.

  "Yes. That's not uncommon at all."

  "Good," I said. "See if you can find out where he went last night, too. Meanwhile, I need to check my transmitter. Maybe I can figure out what time he r
eturned last night and rule him out that way."

  "That leaves Stella and Mrs. Bombay," Martha said.

  "I'll start with Bombay," I said. "I'm not sure how, but I'll figure out some excuse to run into her in Rocky Point. Stella can wait until tomorrow."

  We made plans to reconvene the next day and set out on our separate missions.

  Chapter Thirteen

  When I went back home to shower and change, Panic and Gammon were beside themselves with neglect. I gave them kitty treats and told them they were the best cats in the world, then I listened to the transmitter I'd planted in the Harris household. Since the recorder was sound-activated, once his mother turned off the radio, the only way I had of knowing how much time passed was the grandfather clock. It was well past midnight when she began ranting and raving and it took me a while to realize she was talking to herself. Or voices in her head, I thought.

  I heard what may have been the front door opening and closing sometime past two. Obviously it was after Mrs. Harris had gone to bed because there was no confrontation until morning, when Joel walked right into her trap.

  "Where in the hell were you for half the night?" she asked.

  "Th-th-thinking," he said.

  "D-d-d-drinking is more like it," she mocked him. "Just like your worthless, good-for-nothing father. I ought to wipe that smile right off of your face, you little shit-ass."

  "You-you b-b-better not t-t-try it," he said.

  "Or w-w-w-what? You going to st-st-stutter me to death?" Her laugh was not just cruel. It was eerie.

  "N-n-no."

  "N-n-no," she mimicked. "Lord, what a pitiful piece of dung you turned out to be. You know that, Joel? You better apologize right now!"

  The tape was silent, making it impossible to know how much time passed. Suddenly, the silence was broken by a high-pitched wail. "Noooo!"

  "I said apologize, and I meant it!"

  "S-s-s-sorry," he mumbled. The sound of a leather belt cracking against fabric startled me, even from a distance.