Peggy Holloway - Judith McCain 05 - Monroe Beach (7 page)

“So far there have been thirty two
women that the FBI knows about, all up and down the coast of Florida and Georgia.”

I noticed
Delilah close her eyes and put her hands over them.

“He’s on the beach now.
He’s wearing a long white robe and he’s wading into the water. I don’t understand it very well but someone’s telling me this.”

Simon and Robert
jumped up and ran out of the diner without saying a word. We watched out the window as we saw Simon get behind the wheel of his Crown Victoria and Robert get on his cell phone.

CHAPTER 14

Delilah
opened her eyes and shook herself, “I never seen anything that clear before, but it’s still confusing. I saw the man from our dreams but it was like someone else was telling me he was the killer.” She said.

“Did he have white hair?” I asked.

She slowly nodded. “He has white hair, light blue eyes, white skin, and is very thin. I think maybe an Albino.”

“Yes, an Albino,” Sarah said.
“That has to be it. I couldn’t make out the skin but did see the white hair. Let’s go down on the beach and see what’s happening.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Sarah,” I said.

“Oh, come on. We’ll stay out of sight. How about you, Delilah, are you game?”

“It ain’t safe,”
Delilah said shaking her head. “It just ain’t safe, no way, no how. But if you’re bound and determined to go, I need to be goin too.”

Robert and Simon had left in such a hurry they didn’t pay the check and the other two started searching in their purse.

“I got it, I said,” taking out a credit card. “Or I should say the FBI has it.”

We walked down on the beach and took off our sandals.
It was getting toward the end of May and the air was nice and warm but the water was still cold. We didn’t see the men. We were just three women enjoying the day and talking.

“When did you realize you had this gift,
Delilah?” I asked her.

“I don’t know exactly when but it was before I could talk.
I had learned to walk. I was living with some relatives; I believe an aunt and uncle at the time.”

“Where were your parents?” Sarah asked her.

Delilah stopped walking and dug her toes into the sand. “Both of my parents were hung by some white KKK men who came in the middle of the night. I don’t remember much about it except that I was crying because they was taking my paw and maw away. One of the men picked me up and put me in the back of one of the pickup trucks and my parents in the back of another one.

“They drove
me to my aunt and uncle’s house. It wasn’t long after that that I started seeing things. At that young age, I thought the things I was seeing were real. I was punished by my aunt and uncle for lying. It was very hard for me since I didn’t understand what I was doing wrong.”

“Let’s sit down on that sand dune over there,” Sarah said, “I want to hear some more about this.”

We sat on the dune and I noticed several families with picnic baskets were setting up their beach spots with lawn chairs and blankets. Several small children started digging in the sand. I thought of Jennifer and Brad and wished they were here but then decided that wouldn’t be a good idea with what was going on.

I noticed the other two were watching the children also.
A part of me didn’t want to break up the peace and tranquility of the moment but I wanted to hear the rest.

“
How old were you when you learned that these were insights or whatever you call it and not real?”

“Because of being punished so much, I guess my young mind learned to suppress these insights.
I didn’t see anything more until I reached puberty. This time when I started having these insights, I knew they were real but they scared me so bad I didn’t tell anyone.

“It wasn’t until a white girl, whose family I worked for, got raped that I knew I had a gift and that I could have prevented her being rape.
I had a lot of guilt about it for a long time but I never told anyone about it until now.”

She stopped talking and we waited for her to continue.
I noticed one of the little girls was splashing in the water. Her mama was trying to coax her in without getting wet herself and they were both laughing.

To keep her talking I asked, “How old was the little girl?” and Sarah quickly looked at me and then away.

“She was thirteen, just beginning to bud. I was the same age and lived in their attic. I did the washing and helped some in the kitchen. Her name was Katherine but they called her Kat. She was always nice to me and would sometimes sneak up into the attic and we’d play together until her paw found us playing together and had me whipped.”

“That’s terrible,” Sarah and I said together.

“Well, it was all right for her father to try to have sex with me and I think he had me whipped partly because I wouldn’t have sex with him. Anyway, it wasn’t long after that that I had the dream.

“In the dream, the school bus had let her off at the end of the road from the plantation and she was walking along like she did every day.
The woods on each side were thick and there was Live Oaks with moss hanging down on each side.

“Kat had walked this half-mile from the bus stop everyday and nothing had ever happened.
Anyway, in the dream I saw her plain as day. She was wearing her little pink and white dotted Swiss dress and black leather shoes. Her fine long blond hair was tied back with a big pink bow.

“She was carrying her books and all of sudden she stopped and looked to her right like she
heard something. She walked to the edge of the woods and looked in and suddenly she threw her books down and started running, but a big white hand reached out and grabbed her.

“In the dream, I followed them into the woods.
He had his hand over her mouth and was holding her facing away from him, but he had a stocking over his face. I couldn’t make out what he looked like.

“She was kicking him and he suddenly looked like he’s had enough and threw her down on the ground.
Her head hit a fallen tree and she was knocked out for a few minutes. He roughly pulled her panties down and unzipped his pants and raped her.

“She came to before he finished and started crying but he didn’t s
eem to notice. I woke up while this was going on. I was in a panic. At first I thought it was a bad dream, but the next day, when it happened just like I dreamed, I knew I still had some kind of gift and that my aunt and uncle hadn’t beat it out of me.”

“Hey!” someone yelled and we looked up and saw that it was Robert and Simon.
We jumped up and ran to meet them.

Robert picked up Sarah and swung her around, “We got him, baby.
That’s why we took so long. We had to wait for two of my deputies to pick him up. You’re all safe and everyone can go home.”

“Robert!” Sarah said.
“Where’s your southern hospitality?”

If he hadn’t been black he probably would have blushed and we laughed at him as he started sputtering and apologizing.

“It’s okay, Robert,” I said. “We don’t take offence. I’d like to stay a few days in this paradise though. What about you, Delilah?’

She was shaking her head, “It ain’t over, no ma
’am, n o way, no how. You’ll need me and I’m staying.”

We all stared at her
. I put my hand on her arm, “What are you saying, Delilah?”

“You think just because you got his body locked up, we safe?
You folks don’t know what this one is capable of. Bars mean nothing to him. He is without boundaries.”

Simon looked amused, “What are you trying to say,
Delilah?” I noticed he was looking with admiration at her like he really found her attractive.

“I don’t know,” she said “That’s all I have right now,” and I noticed the attraction was mutual.
I wished that she had left her hair down.

CHAPTER 15

We decided to stay just a few
more days and nothing happened. Sarah ran her shop on the beach and wasn’t having any more visions in the mirror or any more dream invasions. None of us were.

We called our loved ones and I had to do some fast talking to persuade Tracy to let me stay.
Julia and “Walt Baby” were flying in for the week-end, after I told Julia what a paradise Monroe Beach was. Wade wanted to come for the weekend and I agreed with the understanding that he got a separate room.

I learned from Mimi that she and Dr. Anna were having a blast, sho
pping and cooking together.

Dr Anna got on the phone an
d said, “Judith, I found my son, Kenneth. He has straightened his life out. He lives in Tyler, Texas. He has been trying to find me. He said that he was in therapy for many years and has gotten through all the anger he had toward me.

“I had hired a private detective and he only took one day to find him.
We’ve talked over the phone and he’s coming soon. He has two children and three grandchildren so I’m a grandma and a great grandma. What do you think about that?”

I
laughed. “That’s wonderful, Dr. Anna. I’m so happy for you.”

“How
are things there,” she asked.

“Since they caught the killer, we’re just enjoying this paradise.”

Brad had adopted Dr. Anna as his other grandma. Dr. Anna was talking about retiring for real this time and hiring a manager for Ocean Sands. I would believe it when I saw it.

Delilah
and I walked the beach and shopped in Sarah’s shop. We bought some beachwear from the Sarah James collection. Sarah and I finally talked Delilah into losing the scarf and wearing her hair down. She had dinner with Simon once. He wanted to take her dancing but she held back and I didn’t know why.

The prisoner was to be taken to Atlant
a the following Monday to be tried in Federal court. He refused to make a deal and only laughed when offered it. He claimed his name was Randy Zandy. His fingerprints weren’t on any database, which only meant he didn’t have a record. But then neither did Ted Bundy when he was caught.

The Thursday before our big week-end we
had planned, we three women decided to see if Robert and Simon would let us visit Randy Zandy in the county jail. Robert was totally against it, but I was surprised when Simon said he thought it would be a good idea. Robert finally relented.

We slept late that day and Sarah closed her shop at noon.
Delilah and I had lunch in our room at the Mulberry Inn and Sarah joined us. The weather was perfect and we had on shorts, tee shirts, and sandals.

# # #

He was so tiny he looked like a little boy. His hair was very white and his eyes were pink and sort of bulged out of the socket. Robert told us that they had to give him a small woman’s jump suit and it was loose on him.

When we approached the cell door, he stood and walked over.
Robert had escorted us and told us not to stand too close. Randy’s snake-like tongue kept darting in and out of his mouth and I noticed that his teeth were sharp pointed like he had filed them.

He had fine white hair growing all over his hands, face and neck.
I looked down at his feet and he was wearing flip flops. Baby fine hair was growing all over his feet.

He grinned as he approached us and that tongue kept darting in and out of his mouth.

When he spoke, his voice was high pitched like a woman’s, “Nice to meet you at last, Judith McCain. I was hoping they would bring you here. I saw your old nightmare the other night. Kidnapped at age three, huh?”

There was no way I was going to allow him to pull me into his games
, like I had allowed Jupiter to do when I first started visiting her in jail, when I was a green psychologist and thought I could help her. So, I just shrugged.

He giggled and looked at
Delilah, “Oh, yeah, my beautiful black friend. You haven’t told them about the dream we shared have you? Wasn’t it exciting? You were so caring and giving. I wish my mother could be more like you.”

Delilah
stared straight ahead, looking at nothing.

I looked at her and remembered that everyone else had talked about their dreams he had been in except
Delilah. “You is one evil white boy, you is,” she said and I realized that she spoke differently when she was under stress.

He then turned to Sarah, “In a way, we are one of a kind aren’t we, Elizabeth?”

She gasped and I wondered how he knew about her MPD and that one of her personalities was Elizabeth, the evil woman who had helped Twoon with his murders.

“I’ll see all of you in your dreams tonight,” he said and then walked back to his bunk, sat down and started humming.

# # #

“Well, that was a waste of time,” I said as we were walking down to the diner for some dinner.