The Killing Vision (19 page)

They had found nothing in Carver’s office.  He and
Chapman had combed through every drawer, every cabinet, every niche.  They had
looked in every file, had thumbed through every paper, had looked at every
entry in Carver’s calendar.  Nothing.  Not even any cryptic notes.  The state
crime lab had hauled off Carver’s computer, but there would be no word on that
until at least the middle of next week. 

Likewise, Carver’s Navigator had come up clean.  No
stray hairs or visible bodily fluids anywhere.  Even running a blacklight over
the interior of the vehicle failed to come up with anything.

“I hope we’ve got something here at the house,”
Chapman said.

Halloran grunted.  The last thing the department
needed was to come up empty after this circus.  He and Chapman would both be
lucky to have jobs.

He parked behind the chief’s car and watched as the
mayor climbed out of the police cruiser behind.  Carver was red-faced and
exuded anger like heat waves.  Halloran met his gaze but didn’t let his face
betray the turmoil he was feeling in his gut.

Officer Brooks met Halloran and Chapman at the front
door.  “Lieutenant, the Chief wants to see you in the basement.”

A spark of hope lit up Halloran’s chest.  “Have we
got something?”

Brooks shrugged.  “Not sure.”  He led the detectives
through the massive living room down a short hallway to an open door.  Brooks
point toward the door.  “He’s down there.”

Halloran ducked down the narrow stairs into the
jumbled basement.  He heard Chapman blow out a breath behind him and suppressed
a grin; he knew Chapman hated tight spaces.

“Halloran!”  The chief waved them over to a dark
corner.  “What’d you find at the office?”

“Nothing,” Halloran said.  “The office and the
vehicle are as clean as a whistle.  You find anything here?”

Pettus grunted and gave him a hard look, then shined
his flashlight down at a pile of newspapers in the seat of a straight-back
chair.  “Here are the clippings.”

Halloran leafed through them, reading the
headlines.  “Just like Joel Roberts said.”  He looked at the top one, at the
fuzzy photograph of Carmelita Santos, and felt a shiver as he remembered their
visit to give the family the bad news.  He dropped the pile back into the
chair.  “Anything else?”

“Just this.”

Pettus reached behind him and swung open a section
of the paneled wall, revealing the sex sling suspended from the ceiling in the
vinyl-covered room behind.  Halloran squinted against the maddening flicker of
the strobe light.  “Lab guys were here and took some swabs off the floor and
walls, but I can tell you what they found wasn’t blood.”

Halloran gave a humorless chuckle.  “So the mayor
and his wife are a little kinky.”

Pettus shook his head.  “Evidently not.  We talked
to Mrs. Carver.  She had no idea the room was even here.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope.  She was as surprised as your man probably
was when he stumbled over it.”

“Interesting.”

Pettus closed the door and looked at Halloran. 
“Look, I want to catch this perp as much as anyone, but I’m beginning to think
this lead is as good as dead.  All we’ve managed to do so far is piss off the
man in charge.”

“There’s got to be more,” Halloran said.  “This
can’t be all.”

Pettus lowered his voice to a whisper.  “You’d
better hope so.  Otherwise the whole goddamned department’s going to be looking
for work.”  He left them and made his way up the stairs.

Halloran blew out a breath.  It was going to be a
long night.

Saturday, July 14

7:47 AM

Joel came awake slowly as the early morning sunlight
peeked in through the crack in the blinds.  He rolled over and looked at the
clock, then started to reach for the cigarettes.  He stopped himself and lay
back down but continued to stare at the pack.  He hadn’t given in even after he
got home last night, even though he had been dying for a smoke.  But something
about being with Dana had made his willpower stronger.  He wondered if it was
love.

Dinner had been great.  They talked over their meal
as if they had known each other all their lives.  Dana told him all about
growing up with her gift, how many of her schoolmates had avoided her out of
fear or mistrust, how she had felt like a freak most of her life, how she
hadn’t really begun to find herself until after graduation when she entered
college.  “That’s when I found the group,” she said, “I knew I wasn’t alone. 
It was the best feeling in the world.”

“But what about your parents?” Joel said.  “They had
the same gift as you.”

Dana shook her head.  “You don’t understand.  I
wanted
friends
.  People my own age to run around with.  I didn’t want to
go stale sitting at home every night with my parents.”

“That makes sense.”

“Getting involved with the group gave me the
self-confidence to try new things and meet new people.  I was able to stop
focusing on my abilities and actually live for a change.”

Joel looked at her across the table and thought she
was the most remarkable human being he had ever met.  He found himself suddenly
wanting to lean across and kiss her, to feel her moist lips press against his,
to explore her mouth with the tip of his tongue.  It was a feeling that lasted
all through the meal and continued to course through him as they sat in the
darkened theater watching an Andy Samberg comedy.  Listening to her laugh was
like hearing a jazz combo playing a light, lilting tune you knew you would
never get out of your head.  Again, he wondered what he would see if he reached
over and took her hand, but she caught him staring at her and gave him a quick
smile before turning back to the screen.  And later, as he dropped her back
home and she thanked him for the evening, she brushed her lips against his
cheek—just softly and quickly enough that all he read off of her was that she
was happy.  And that was enough.

And now he lay in the bed wondering what would have
happened if he had just wrapped his arms around her and kissed her like he
wanted.  Would he have fallen into pure ecstasy at the touch of her lips?  Or
would the sensation have been too much?  Just like—

Did you know there were canals on
Mars?

Just like that night long ago.

Hey,
Roberts!

And before he could stop himself, he was back there
on that crisp October evening a decade ago.  Friday night after the football
game.  Cruising around with Mike Bennett and Scott Harris in Mike’s T-Bird. 
Drinking Bud Light and blasting Nelly.  All stoked up because they had won
their game and now they were going to celebrate and have some fun and maybe
tear some shit up.  And Joel didn’t care because at least he would be out of
the house and not having to take a bunch of grief from Clifton.  And maybe he
could forget about these weird sensations he was having every time he made
contact with someone on the football field, as if he was seeing inside them,
feeling inside them.  How brushing against someone was like hearing fifty
radios blasting at him all at once.

And when they caught up to Candy Johnson walking
along Eighth Street, he was more than happy to scoot over and share the
backseat with her, to pull a bottle from the second six-pack of the night and
hand it to her.  And how he had watched—fascinated—as she turned up the bottle
and drank it down in four gulps and asked for another. 

And soon he and Candy were talking about school and
Mr. Peterson’s astronomy class and he said, “Did you know there were canals on
Mars?”

“Really?” she asked and took a sip of beer. 

He wasn’t sure if she was actually interested or she
was just zoning out from the beer, but he said, “Yeah.  A long time ago they
thought that meant there was water there.  And life.”

“Real Martians?”

“Yeah.”

A little while later they were parked at a clearing
out by the railroad tracks, and Joel and Scott sat draining the last of the
beer while Mike and Candy were getting busy in the back seat.  And it wasn’t
long before Mike crawled out, zipping up his jeans, and said, “Hey, Roberts! 
She wants
you
now,” and Scott clapped Joel on the back and shoved him
toward the car.

And suddenly Joel was standing at the open door of
the T-Bird, staring in at the darkness where he could just see Candy lying in
the backseat illuminated by the lights from the dashboard.  Usher was pounding
in the speakers, and Joel could feel the throb of the bass course through his
chest, down through his belly to his cock, which strained against the fly of
his jeans.  And all he could think, even through the fog of the beer buzz, was
that it all seemed wrong somehow, that a few minutes ago they were discussing
Mars and now she was fucking them all and it was dirty and wrong but he still
wanted to do it because this would be the first time he had ever had sex with
anyone besides his own hand.  And immediately he ripped open his jeans and
knelt between her legs and plunged into the slickness and felt her arch up to
meet him.

And that was when all the sensations hit him.  A
roar of sounds and a dizzying array of visions pierced through him.  He saw
Candy with a dozen other guys.  Felt the emptiness that was her soul.  Saw her
whole filthy, stinking squalid existence in a matter of seconds.  He managed to
pull away from her and stumble back out of the car, his erection wilted and his
pants still wrapped around his knees.  His body was coated with sweat, and he
realized tears were streaming down his face.

“That was quick,” Mike said, laughing.

Scott moved toward the car and threw his empty beer
bottle into the woods.  “My turn,” he said.

Joel hadn’t been with anyone since.  The thought of
being pummeled by that cacophony of energy and emotion again was more than he
could bear.  He had quit football not long after that, and when he understood
the weight of his ability he began to shut himself off from other people.  Sex
had not been something he had wanted to repeat.

But now he found himself thinking of Dana and how
much he enjoyed being with her, and he wondered if she felt the same.  And
would she still want him if she knew they could never be together physically?

His phone buzzed on the table beside him, startling
him out of his thoughts.  He grabbed it and looked at the number, hoping it
would be Dana.  But it was a number he didn’t recognize.  Against his better judgment,
he accepted the call.  “Hello?”

“Is this Joel?” said a male voice.

“Yes.  Who’s this?”

“This is Barry.  From the group.”

Joel remembered him.  The creepy red-haired guy. 
“Hi, Barry.”

“Listen, I’m really sorry to bother you, and I hope
you don’t mind me calling you, but I need to tell you something.”

“Yes?”

“I think you’re in danger.”

Joel sat up in the bed.  “What?”

“I think something may happen to you.  Something
bad.”

A cold sweat had broken out on Joel’s forehead. 
“Like what?”

“I’m not sure.  I don’t want to alarm you, I. . .
just think you should be careful.”

Joel stared straight ahead at the blinds over the
window.  His skin prickled and he realized he had goosebumps down his arms.

“Joel, you there?”

“I’m here.”

“Tackle him.  Even if you think it’s too dangerous. 
Do it anyway.  You’ll know when.”  He disconnected and Joel sat with the dead
phone against his ear, listening to the silence.

* * *

10:35 AM

Wade watched Derek work the lug nuts on the wheel of
the Mustang.  Today he was going to replace the brakes and hopefully take the
car out for a spin when he was done.  It was already sweltering in the barn,
even though he had propped the doors and windows open and a breeze was flowing
through like a hot river.  He wiped the sweat off his face with the tail of his
t-shirt and leaned back against the workbench.

“Think you’ll be done by the time I get home from
work?” Derek said.

“Should be.”

“I’d like to take Chad for a ride.  I’ve been
telling him about it and he really wants to see it.”

“As long as you don’t do any drinking.”

Derek blew out a breath.  “We won’t.”

“I don’t want to have to bail you outa jail.”

Derek shook his head.  “Why are you always saying
that?”

Wade grunted.  “Hey, I was sixteen once.”

“Was alcohol even invented yet when you were
sixteen?”

Wade picked up a rusty washer and chucked it at the
kid’s ear.  “Watch it.”

Derek stood up and stretched, then looked at his
watch.  “Crap, I gotta get to work.”  He tossed the lug wrench to Wade.  “If
I’m late again, I’ll get an ass-chewing.”  He cracked his neck and headed out
into the yard.  “See ya.”