Act V, page 10
Glynnis saw his unease and reached to touch Brice’s shoulder. “Maybe you could just stay for a cup of coffee.”
“Maybe I could.”
*****
Glynnis woke with a start, a sinking feeling in her chest, fear crawling up her back bone. Something was wrong. Was someone here? No. Carl would have barked and he was sound asleep. She lay back down and tried to calm down enough to go back to sleep. It had been such a pleasant evening even with all the awful business about the press conference and Sandra Fitchwell. Brice had stayed until eleven and kept talking about leaving but it took him a long time to get out the door. Finally he’d taken her hand. “I know I’m acting like a fourteen-year-old with a crush here,” he’d said, “but it’s a little risky, me letting myself treat you like a friend, or even more than that when you could be called as a witness.”
“Is that likely?”
“Not really; you didn’t have first-hand knowledge of the murder or any real connection,” he’d told her. “But you did file a report on something that became a major crime. It’s an ethics thing. I have to be cautious.”
She’d squeezed his hand and lifted her eyebrows suggestively. “I’ve always wanted to meet a man with real ethics.”
He’d rolled his eyes and then looked at their clasped hands. She could see the internal battle right there on his face. Finally he’d said, “Glynnis, I…ah, Hell!” Then he’d given her a quick, but very tender, kiss and had run out to his car. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he shouted over his shoulder.
The kiss had sent shivers running through her. It left her with promises of things to come. She liked Brice, probably a lot more than she should, considering what had brought them together.
Snuggling back under the covers, she thought, If he only knew what I saw when I passed out at the restaurant today. But she wasn’t going to tell him. He’d find out for himself or he wouldn’t. Glynnis crawled out of the bed to get a glass of water and stopped. Suddenly her good mood was lost. She knew what had awakened her. It had been another dream; this one worse than the last. But she couldn’t recall any details, only that it had been horrible and bloody. Oh please she thought, just this once let me be wrong.
*****
Wearing a baseball cap, oversized shirt and pants that hung down far below his hips, he walked into the post office. He looked like one of those wanna-be thugs that couldn’t find their asses with both hands. But it was important that nobody recognize him, not that it was likely to happen this far away from home. This particular PO was an hour’s drive from Clearview. He wasn’t taking any chances.
There was the news bimbo to handle as well. He would have loved to take her and strangle her with her own long, lovely hair, but for now, she was useful. For two days she’d been harping about a psychic who had been rumored to be working with the police. The reports had made it clear that the police didn’t use psychics, but just in case, he was keeping an eye out. Couldn’t let some freak ruin all of his hard work.
He opened the box. There it was, the last piece of his plan, in a small cardboard box filled with packing peanuts and a tiny vile. All was ready. Now it was only a matter of proper timing. This would be so sweet. Really, he was providing an invaluable service, he thought; getting rid of undesirable vermin and saving the rest of the world the trouble.
*****
She had checked the surveillance tape so many times that Sue Beth’s eyes were going buggy. There was this guy, dressed in black with a hoody that covered everything. He was wearing latex gloves. He lifted a Civil War Uniform hat from the open display that showed the paraphernalia of a Confederate soldier. Then he wandered over to the kids’ exploration section that held dinosaur bones and other prehistoric items, and picked up the fern fossil. Finally, he made his way over to the weapons display. He tapped the glass with one of those steel encased flashlights, and it cracked open allowing him to take the ornate dagger inside. That was when the silent alarm had gone off. The security guard slept through the whole thing. Apparently the guy had knocked him in the head with the same flashlight; he never saw it coming. The thief slipped out the front door at 12:05 a.m. with two relatively worthless items unless you were a real history buff, and one steel dagger with engravings that held a monetary value in some circles but couldn’t be easily pawned.
What the heck was this about? A prank? A gang initiation? It was just too strange. To top it off, there was no evidence to collect because three hundred and fifty-two people counting the guards had been in that museum, leaving traces of themselves as well as prints all day. There would be no narrowing it down to one person. Sue Beth gulped another mouthful of her mocha latte cappuccino and then ran the surveillance tape back for one more look.
*****
Two days of fairly productive rehearsals passed and Glynnis had at least partly pushed her anxiety over the Danning case to the back burner. She’d had no more dreams since the one she couldn’t quite remember a couple of nights ago so she’d replaced her Danning worries with worries about the production. Macbeth would open soon and she had to make everything right. She refused to allow a single actor on stage opening night unless every detail had been accounted for. In live theatre there were already a thousand things that could go wrong without leaving anything to chance, not to mention the so-called Macbeth curse that caused most actors to refer to it as “The Scottish Play.” This was probably a serious psychological control issue that Freud would have loved. Screw Freud, she had a job to do. Being a control freak was one of the reasons her plays were always a huge success.
Besides the play, there was Dorsey. He’d called her three times since he’d shone up on her doorstep on Saturday night. Every time he’d been tipsy and at least once he was on a full-blown tear. Glynnis had told him to get his act together and she’d talk to him, but not while he was drinking. She was a little worried about that. His mother had been an alcoholic prior to her death. Most doctors said it was hereditary.
Tonight, Glynnis just wanted to relax, read for a while and get some sleep. They were taking the performance onto the outdoor stage tomorrow and it would require all her energy. Doing outdoor performances had always been a challenge, but now that she had the MS to deal with. She became overheated and fatigued a lot faster than she normally would have in the summer sun. She was prepared, with coolers full of water and battery operated fans but it wouldn’t be easy. She was already experiencing banding, tightening of her chest muscles. It felt like a vice-clamp designed as a torture device. It was brought on by stress and various other elements that couldn’t always be avoided. Glynnis tried to stay cool and rested to keep it at a minimum.
She took Carl for a very quick walk, just long enough to do what he had to do, and then showered and settled down with a book. The phone rang. She almost didn’t answer it, but was glad she did when she heard Brice on the other end.
“Hey, how’s my favorite director?”
“Exhausted, but feeling like I’m gonna have a hit play soon. How about you? How’s life in police detective land?”
“Same ole, same ole.” That just meant there weren’t any developments he could tell her about. “Did you remember to lock your doors?” He’d called every night since the newscast that had mentioned her possible involvement and asked her the same things.
“You know I did.”
“Is Carl with you?”
“Where else would he be?”
“I could come over and do an outside check if you want.”
“Brice, really!” He’d checked on her every night but was keeping a physical distance. Glynnis understood why. It was best this way, but she couldn’t say she liked it.
“Okay, I’ll call you in the morning.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Talk to you then.”
“Goodnight, Brice.”
“Night, Glynnis.”
*****
“Don’t cry, honey, soon you’ll have no worries at all.” He pulled the dagger out of his bag, and wiped it clean with his shirt. The girl was terrified. She wore a pink, frilly gown that hardly covered her. Her wrists were duct-taped together behind her back. There was a gag in her mouth. She was staring at the dark figure and then at something else that caused her to go into hysterics all over again. Someone was on the bed, someone that didn’t appear to be conscious and was definitely naked, his lips swollen and corroded. “Oh, don’t worry about your boy there, Sweetie, his troubles are already over.” She began to whimper. “Come along now, let’s get you up there on the bed by your lover.” She tried to fight but he held the point of the dagger to her neck. She lay down. “There, there, it’s time to stop fussing so. Give him a kiss goodbye now.” He forced her to lean over and pressed her so that her lips touched those of the dead man. When he laid her back into a prone position her face was wet with tears and she had begun making whimpering noises. Her eyes widened as he played the dagger under her chin, beneath her breasts, one at a time and then lower, always with the possibility that he might start cutting at any time. “You have beautiful breasts you know. If I let you go will you show them to me? Will you let me touch you like you were letting him touch you before you knew I was watching? Hmm? Is that a yes?” He reached as if to lift her up and cut her bonds but with a sudden change in movement, rammed the blade past her rib cage and into her heart. She convulsed, stiffened, and then lay still. “Too bad,” he said, “might have been fun.”
“Oh dear Lord!” Glynnis stumbled for the door, gasping to let in air. “No, not again.” She gulped air into her lungs and stood there only long enough to know that she wouldn’t choke or throw up. Then she ran inside and found her cell phone. She searched through her address book and hit call.
“Gearhart.” Brice’s groggy voice responded after four rings.
“It’s happening again Brice. I just had…oh, Brice, can you come over?”
*****
Brice was at her door in fifteen minutes. When she opened it he could only take her into his arms as she cried. Carl was subdued and sat quietly on the couch letting out an occasional whine. Perhaps he sensed his owner’s distress.
Brice urged her into the den and sat with her on the couch; Carl snuggled up on her other side. “Tell me about it.”
He held her head against his chest as she recalled every gruesome detail.
Chapter 10
It was almost time. Just this one more, and then he could accomplish what he had set out to do. Who said he wasn’t goal oriented? He placed the taser, the dagger and the vial into his backpack. Then he gathered up his clothes for later.
He looked at his reflection in the mirror. In his business suit, he appeared to be the thirty-something image of success. He looked confident, not to be messed with. He had purchased the suit, knowing that his image to others would be extremely important one day. He wanted to dress the part. But it wouldn’t do to wrinkle or mar this piece of contemporary art in fabric and his job required a bit of dirty work. He removed the suit and placed it carefully on the hanger and back into the closet. He then dressed in his khakis and golf shirt. First, he’d attend to his paying job, then later, he’d return to the hidey hole, change into his real work clothes and go to the job he was looking forward to. This was turning out to be more fun than he’d ever imagined and tonight would be unbelievably exciting.
*****
“Hey Addy,” the desk officer called to him when he walked in the door. “You got more stuff from police services on that freaky sword killing.” He handed an eight by twelve manila envelope to Paddix. “It came by courier about an hour ago, so Handy and Hawkins already know about it but they left it for you to look over.”
Addison pulled the paper out of the envelope. “Thanks Barry,” he glanced at the slightly older man. “How’s the wedding coming?”
Barry gave a noncommittal shrug and a chuckle. “Hey, I’m the daddy. All I gotta do is walk her down the aisle. Her mama though, that’s another story. She’s about to crap wedding bells trying to choose flowers, buy invitations and pick out a wedding cake with Janie. She and Janie can’t agree on anything. I told her it was a good thing this wasn’t some big society wedding. She’d be in the nut house for sure.”
Addison laughed. Barry was his kind of guy, easy-going and to the point with a few creative curses thrown in. Add to that the fact that he had two daughters just like Addison and that Addison could see himself going through the same junk in a few years, well that just made Barry even more likeable.
“Good luck with the wedding. I’ll see you later,” he said, and headed for his desk. He was going through the report when Brice rolled in ten minutes later looking like mud on ice. “Oh man, you look like you been riding on the back of a bad tempered crocodile all night. Did you forget to go to bed? Or maybe it’s the bed that’s the problem.” Then he looked at his partner’s unsmiling glare and all kidding stopped. “What’s going on?”
Brice took the envelope from Addy, sat down at his desk and rubbed a thumb and forefinger across his eyes. “Glynnis had another dream last night, Addy. Is there any coffee?” His eyes swept around toward the break room.
“I just started it. Finish your story and by then it’ll be done.”
“This is the second time she’s dreamed it. She didn’t remember any real details first time around, so she was hoping it wasn’t the real thing.”
“Are you saying she thinks there’s gonna be another murder?”
Brice nodded. “She called me at 1a.m. all shook up about it. Says it’s a couple this time, a young couple. There’s at least one stabbing involved.”
“I don’t suppose she got their names.”
Brice just stared at him. “I know you don’t exactly believe this whole precognition thing, but she was on target last time.”
“Yeah, I wish she hadn’t been.”
“I went over to her place and stayed with her all night.”
Addy’s eyes lifted. “You stayed with her?”
“I slept on the couch.”
“Oh.”
Brice walked into the break room and came back with two cups of coffee. “The worse thing is that she didn’t know the vics and couldn’t give me much of a description. This could be anybody in town between the ages of 18 and 25. Oh shoot, it could be anybody in the world in that age range.”
Addison took a gulp of sugared, creamy coffee. “Maybe, but what do you wanna bet it’s gonna happen right here?”
*****
They spent the day interviewing people who might have had a reason, any reason to be angry enough with Claude Danning to want him dead, or perhaps would benefit from his death. None of the people they interviewed rang that intuition bell with which both men were very familiar. Though everyone on the list had motive, nobody had motive, opportunity and means. On top of that, nobody in the group was especially versed in Shakespeare which might or might not have been important, depending on whether Glynn’s theory was correct.
According to the police services report, none of the unknown hairs from the house matched anything in the system, so they were of no use at all. That didn’t mean that none of the hairs came from the murderer, but without something to match it to, they were no good. Everything they had led them back to square one. And, of course, the search for the Ketamin origin had turned up nothing.
“Maybe we should turn this one on its ear.” Brice murmured almost to himself. That was their way of saying think outside the box. “Maybe it’s time to look at the murder weapon a little harder.”
“We don’t have one.” Addison reminded him.
“Yeah, but we know what it was, pretty much anyway, and we have Glynnis’ description from her dream.”
“Which won’t even be considered in court.”
“No, but maybe it’ll take us to something that will.” Brice logged onto his computer and went to Google. “You try the weapon’s database. It’s not gonna be there but we have to check.” Then he entered three words into the search engine—dragon long sword.
*****
At two o’clock, after diving down a zillion internet rabbit holes, Brice gave up the search for dragon long swords and decided he’d give it over to Handy and Hawkins for the time being. He and Addy had a funeral to get to.
Claude Danning’s funeral was attended by the best and the brightest of Clearview. There were also many who just wanted to view the event out of morbid curiosity. Brice and Addison weren’t interested in either group. They were looking for a stand alone. Someone who tried to blend in with the crowd but perhaps didn’t fit. Depending on the type of killer, it was a common thing for murderers, especially the ones with outlandish styles, to stalk the family after the fact, to mingle with the crowd in order to hear bits and pieces about his or her work. That was the man they were searching for. But nobody stood out as that personality. Brice took photos of the crowd at the graveside just in case, but he didn’t expect them to turn up a murderer.
Afterward, he and Addy gave the widow and the rest of the family their condolences and headed back to the station to put in just a little more time.
*****
Glynnis was finishing up at the theatre for the day when her cell phone rang. She sat down the lighting gel she’d been examining and flipped the phone open. “Hello?”
“Glynn, it’s me.” Dorsey sounded sober for a change. “Don’t hang up, okay?”
“Did Mom give you this number?”
“No, I promised I wouldn’t tell where I got it.”
“Erica! I’ll kill her.”
“Don’t be mad, Glynn. I bugged her about it until she felt sorry for me.”
Glynn didn’t respond.
“If Erica thinks I deserve a second chance, shouldn’t you at least think about it?”
Glynnis was in no mood for this. “What do you want, Dorsey?”
“Glynn, I’m sober…and I’m working. You said if I got my act together…”
Glynnis sighed. He was right, she had promised. “Okay, but remember, it’s not a date.”
“Will you let me take you to dinner tonight? I can pick you up at your place in an hour.”
