Blind Spots, page 22
CHAPTER 28
When Owens wakes in the middle of the night, it’s so dark he can’t see a thing.
Then he realizes: he literally cannot see anything.
His entire body jerks and he pulls himself into a sitting position. From sleep to full-on panic like that. His heart racing. Until finally he remembers the previous day, and what he did to himself, and where he is.
He hears other people breathing. They had retired to a large dorm room, more like a barracks based on the way sound traveled. Augustine had passed them off to an older woman named Sister Lucy, who spoke soothingly, as if to children. She’d explained that there were half a dozen acolytes who had bused in from the city that day, and that they were joining three others who had come a day earlier.
Owens leans back, gradually, into the hard bed. Someone who had been snoring chokes a bit, then coughs, then breathes more quietly. In the distance he hears a rooster, which he knows from past trips to rural areas do not crow merely at dawn but whenever they feel like it. So he has no clue what time it is.
It’s so odd not to know, to have no way of knowing. At least during The Blinding he had a digital assistant he could ask for the time, the weather. He’s always lived a regimented life, taking advantage of every spare minute, calculating how much more sleep he’s going to get whenever he rolls over at night. Now he doesn’t know if it’s midnight or six in the morning, and he feels that sense of helplessness all over again.
Hoping he can fall back asleep, he closes his eyes, not that it matters.
* * *
They had eaten the night before in some sort of dining hall. It felt large, the clink of silverware and glasses coming from far off on either side. He wasn’t sure how many such dining halls they had: was this the only one? If so, did all the residents eat here together, or just the new recruits? Does Sarah eat in her house or here? Maybe she might hear his voice—do they eat in shifts? He didn’t feel ready to meet with her, not yet.
It occurred to him that he’d had no clear idea how many people lived here. Could have been a hundred, could have been several times that. He’d never ventured too deeply into the property and wasn’t sure how large it was. If Augustine had been telling the truth about how many newcomers they got each day, they could have thousands by now.
He had feared initially that the new acolytes were going to be asked to introduce themselves, but it turned out the newcomers didn’t have to say anything. At least not yet. As time went on he began to gather that they were being sequestered from the long-timers.
Sister Lucy and a few others had helped them with their food at first. They sat on a cold bench in a room with central heating (no fireplaces, thank goodness, as he didn’t trust them around flames, although he knew that would insult Sarah). They guided his fingers to a spoon, to the bowl of soup, to a crusty hunk of bread, a mug of water, its ridges suggesting that it was handmade. This too brought back bad memories of The Blinding: the awkward grasping, the common slips between cup and lip. The knowledge that he occasionally left stains on his shirts, embarrassing even though he knew no one could see them anyway.
Some of the people here smelled very bad indeed, as if hygiene was another affectation to leave behind.
While they ate, Sister Lucy switched from explaining the basics of care and feeding to delving into far weightier matters.
“First they gave the devices to the police and the Army,” she had said. Her voice so calm, not quite as eerie as a monotone, but close. “To subdue the masses, arrest the agitators, and cart away those who did not agree. Then they gave them to the government officials, to write new laws that would bind us, and then to the business leaders, to set up a new society that would profit from us, construct the labyrinths that would forever restrict our movements, even our thoughts. Then, they implanted their devices onto us, inside us, and all we could see was the horrible world they’d created. A false world.”
Her voice was soothing despite the dark news she imparted. The utter calmness transporting, like a drug. He felt completely at her mercy.
Hell, they didn’t need to drug the food. The entire experience cast a spell.
When they’d finished eating, they’d been handed wet cloths to clean the table, which again felt odd, to be in charge of cleaning something they couldn’t see. Sister Lucy told them that eventually they’d do their own dishes, but not yet. She led them to the barracks, where one by one they fumbled about in the restrooms, then found their assigned beds. They didn’t seem to be divided by gender in this room, which struck him as reckless, but it went with their egalitarian vibe, their belief that they were all united, that they had somehow left the world of sin and violence behind.
So here he is, some unknown number of hours later. He lies and listens to an owl and waits for sleep to take him.
* * *
They’re awakened by what sound like chimes. They’re as soothing an alarm as he’s ever heard. It takes him a while to realize what they must be—one of the brothers or sisters walking while lightly hitting a triangle, the high notes rousing everyone.
He doesn’t have a toothbrush or deodorant and sure as hell isn’t going to try shaving. No matter, because just like last night no one offers him a shower. People use the bathroom, and then they’re led outside again, toward the dining hall. Before bed last night they were given canes; holding his is both a sad reminder of the state to which he’s returned and a profound relief, making it easier to get around.
It’s cold out, surprisingly bitter (how early is it? Again, no clue—he hears birds calling, but he’s a city boy and doesn’t know how normal that is, what time they wake). He imagines his breath would be visible before him. Tiny clouds he can’t see. He remembers how all the people here, when he visited his sister, wore cloaks that they themselves had sewn. He wonders how long it is until they’ll be so clad, if that attire is something they must earn over time.
He’s maneuvered to be the last in line, though he’s not sure if he’s succeeded. He hears Sister Lucy calmly welcoming people ahead of him—she must be standing by the door to the dining hall, helping people up the steps. When it’s his turn, and he feels her hand grasping his forearm to guide him, he turns his face toward her and says, “I need to talk to Reverend Miriam.”
“You will, my brother. But there is much to learn before then.”
She’s trying to guide him up the steps and past her, but he stops, his body a wall.
“This can’t wait. Tell her Dr. Jensen would like an audience with her, today. Do you understand?”
Silence for a few seconds.
“I’m not sure that I do. But I’ll tell her.”
CHAPTER 29
The funny thing about eyewitness testimony, a public defender once told Amira, is that it’s simultaneously flawed and deeply respected.
“It is a false god,” she’d explained.
This was years ago, Amira still a rookie, and angry that a kid had just received a sentence for a murder she was pretty sure he hadn’t committed. The kid came from a bad family in a rough neighborhood, but he had a good heart. Over the year Amira had known him, before he was arrested, he’d offered up information on a number of scary dealers, helping investigators build cases. Then one day he’s picked up for a murder in a part of town he never visited, all because some rich lady ID’d him in a lineup.
“Jurors love eyewitnesses,” the disgruntled public defender explained to Amira, in a bar, after the verdict. “Even though it’s bullshit. Jurors find forensics confusing, DNA evidence makes them feel stupid, and he-said/she-said testimony makes them want to throw up their hands or just play favorites. An eye wit, though, will close a case every time. No matter how many times I cite them studies proving how fallible visual memory is, no matter how many stats I recite about how often eye wits are actually wrong, and prone to racial bias, and half a dozen other things … All those stats and actual facts just give them headaches. It’s so much easier for them to get caught up with the drama of a person on the stand pointing out with their skinny finger and saying, Him. Then it’s Let the record show the witness is pointing to the defendant and boom, case closed. Doesn’t matter if the defendant is a different race and the witness doesn’t know anyone personally who looks like that and maybe is mistaking one face for another, doesn’t matter how bad they are at telling apart faces that are so different from theirs. Does. Not. Matter. You say you saw someone—even if it was months ago! A year ago! Even if it happened in two seconds and you’d barely been paying attention!—bam, I have lost my case.”
“Almost makes you wish we had recorders in these things,” Amira had said, tapping her vidder. “Let the debate end, just rewind and watch the footage.”
“And so the police officer recommends a police state,” the public defender had said, lifting a glass to her lips. “What a shock.”
“But wouldn’t it do more good than harm?”
The public defender had laughed. “Isn’t that funny, how backwards that phrase even sounds? No one ever says ‘more good than harm.’ Human beings, girl, we are always doing more harm than good. That will be on this species’ headstone. Did more harm than good.”
That conversation would work its way into Amira’s long-term memory, maybe because she’d been a rookie then, and everything during her first year had seared itself into her brain with a painful clarity. And maybe because she’d liked that public defender, despite the fact that in the ensuing years they would often find themselves on opposite sides of cases, and would talk less, and drift apart. And maybe because of how disquieting the thought was, the incredible fallibility of our vision, and therefore of our memories. Something happens, but then it’s gone. If you want it back, we say that you are remembering it, but really you’re daydreaming it. You’re imagining it. You are pretending that something is happening even though it isn’t. Pretty much the definition of daydreaming. You are taking a historical event, something that once occurred in the real world, and wrapping it in the gauzy haze of fiction. The next time you remember it, you are wrapping another layer of fiction around it, impressing your imaginings upon its delicate surface. Convincing yourself that it’s real, being so sure of yourself that you will one day swear to its veracity on the stand, before a judge and a Bible and the laws of this nation.
Even though you’ll be wrong.
Because certainty isn’t the same as truth. It just means you’re really, really deluded.
* * *
She doesn’t want to be thinking of the public defender right now but she knows why she is. She wants Owens to be wrong, wrong about what he said to her. That the very FBI agent who tried to arrest him is in fact the black blur that Owens claims he saw kill someone.
Claims. So she’s doubting him already.
But if Owens is wrong, that means either he’s created a royal mess for himself or, worse, that he’s done something horrible and is now erecting a crazy narrative around it to justify what he’s done. And she’s at risk of being dragged in too.
She does some online research on Obscura Technologies, the company he asked her to look into. Not fully sure why. She stumbles down one rabbit hole after another. Layer upon layer of digital paranoia. She can’t tell if the company ever even existed or is just an online folktale. She’s wasting time.
She finds the names of some of the supposed founders. Looks up their names in various police databases, doesn’t find any police records. Or death records. Cross-references the names against a few nationwide databases, finds a few, some minor criminal records, not even sure if these are the right people or just folks with the same name.
She’s getting nowhere.
But wait, no. This is interesting.
One of the three founders does indeed have a record. A death report.
Killed himself two years ago. Threw himself off the Steve Jobs Bridge.
The file is short, but what she sees is enough to turn her stomach.
* * *
She digs up the personnel records of Albert Chen, the detective whom Peterson said investigated Jeanie’s case. Hopefully he can set her straight; the case was only two years ago and he likely remembers it well since it involved a cop’s wife. He’s retired with a full pension, moved out of state, but she sees a phone number for his new place.
She calls, reaches Chen’s wife. His widow. He died of cancer four months ago.
Amira feels horrible as she apologizes and the widow’s voice sounds hollow as she says goodbye and hangs up.
* * *
Later she makes her way down to Records, a large windowless section in the rear of the building’s second floor. Like the Evidence Room, this place went to hell during The Blinding. Electronic files were corrupted, paper records destroyed by fires and water leaks. The official record pockmarked with black holes. So cops, like everyone else, have grown inured to the fact that important information won’t be there when they need it, though it’s always worth checking.
The Records clerk is an older woman, early fifties, gray hair in a bun. Incompetent, or punished for something, to be working here with so many years’ experience?
They don’t know each other but Amira grins and makes nice as she requests the death records for Jeanie MacArthur.
She could have done this before, she knows. Should have done it before. As soon as Huntington warned her. But she’d been afraid. Afraid, first of all, that if she requested the report, it would have gotten back to Owens somehow, and he’d want to know why she was snooping around. There was no non-awkward way to explain to your lover that you were just double-checking that they weren’t a murderer.
She’d also been afraid of what she’d find. It felt better trying to peer into Owens’s soul than to try to look up the official report, see it all spelled out in black and white.
The clerk taps some keys, regards a screen Amira can’t see. Amira hopes this lady doesn’t know her, doesn’t know her connection to Owens and his connection to Jeanie. She tells herself she’s paranoid for even fearing it.
“Be a minute,” the clerk says. She slinks off to a back room.
Amira wonders what Peterson is doing now, if he has some better plan to figure out how to clear Owens’s name. Or if he’s just in a bar drinking somewhere. At least he’s a detective, with probably a better plan for how to proceed. She’s only a beat cop, not entirely sure what she can even do, what information she could find, how to find it, what to do if she does, whom to tell.
The Records clerk returns with an apologetic look on her face.
“Sorry, no such file.” Figures, with Amira’s luck. “I checked under her name and her SSN—nothing. Sorry, girl, but you know how bad the systems were then.”
Does Huntington have the file? she wonders. Why would he tell her to read a file that doesn’t exist?
“Can you see if it’s in the records of the investigating detective? He’s retired now. Albert Chen.” She tells the clerk the date of the incident.
Another ten minutes as the clerk digs thorough the archives in the back. Returns with a thick stack representing Chen’s activities during that time. Amira thanks her, heads upstairs, reads a lot.
Nothing whatsoever about the death of Jeanie MacArthur. She reads a couple months before and after, just in case it was misfiled. Nothing. She can’t decide if this is more suspicious or annoying.
Back to Records. Returns the file.
“Anything else?” The clerk so obviously has nothing better to do.
“How about the files for Detective Mark Owens from that same date?”
The clerk raises an eyebrow. “Owens. The one who’s on the run.”
“Yeah.”
It’s possible someone else has that file now, Amira knows, but she wants to check. More minutes pass. The clerk returns with another fat file.
Amira signs it out, thereby creating a traceable record that she accessed Mark’s file. Something that could come back to haunt her, she knows. She’s taking risks she won’t be able to justify later.
Back at her desk, she reads quickly. Three other cops sit at their desks and she worries one of them will drop by, chitchat, ask what she’s looking at.
She learns that Mark took bereavement leave for a month, then returned to duty. She goes backward, to the date of Jeanie’s death, and there’s her case file.
But the case file shouldn’t be here. It wasn’t Owens’s case, yet it got filed with him. A random mistake, because it was his wife?
A coded flash in the file connects to her computer and she sees the images. Shit, Jeanie MacArthur’s corpse. The rope still cinched around her neck.
Amira’s never asked him if he was the one who found her, but she figured.
Another image of Jeanie’s corpse, this time lying on a gurney, the swollen blue neck so different from the chalky pallor everywhere else.
She wonders if this is all in Mark’s file because he requested it, read through it, misfiled it. Did he look at all these pictures, read all these findings?
Then she sees why it wasn’t filed with Detective Chen: he’s not recorded anywhere as the investigating detective.
Peterson is. That’s odd, and isn’t what he said yesterday.
She reads through more notes, find’s the mortician’s report, checks stomach and blood analyses. Then she understands.
“Wait a minute. Wait a minute,” she says under her breath.
Rereads, feeling dizzy. Surely she’s missing something.
Looks through the rest of the file, which is not voluminous. Which is, in fact, way too short. Which also doesn’t make sense.
Two other cops laugh about something and she looks up, worried she’s been found out. She feels warm under her uniform, sweat rolling down her back.
Huntington was right. Jeanie didn’t kill herself.
CHAPTER 30
An audience with Reverend Miriam takes less time than he’d feared.
