Murder On The Mind Page 17

CHAPTER 9

  “The pot’s empty.”

  Brenda and I looked over our sections of newspaper to stare at Richard.

  He turned his coffee cup over to show us it, too, was empty.

  “I made supper,” Brenda said, her voice flat. “And washed up.”

  “I can’t get the filters out with only one set of fingers,” I said, showing him the limited range of motion my cast allowed.

  Richard scowled, let out a breath, and got up to make a fresh pot.

  Evenings had fallen into a pattern. After dinner, we’d sit around the kitchen table drinking coffee and reading the paper. Later, I’d try to stay out of Richard’s and Brenda’s way. Things seemed strained between them, and no doubt my presence was a contributing factor. Then, for as long as I could concentrate, I’d reread the newspaper articles on the murder, or maybe glance at the library books, before going to bed. A boring lifestyle, but I wasn’t up to much more.

  The coffeemaker chugged and Richard took his seat again.

  The front doorbell rang.

  We glared at one another for long seconds, daring each other to answer it.

  It rang again.

  Without a word, Richard pushed back his chair and disappeared down the hall.

  I turned my attention back to the financial page and felt sorry for old Rich. It seemed like he was doing all the fetching and carrying lately. Did a man as well-educated and professionally situated as my brother feel degraded by such trivial matters?

  Brenda got up to pour herself another cup of coffee, as Richard returned with another man.

  “Jeff, this is Detective Carl Hayden. He’d like to speak with you.” He didn’t bother to introduce the plainclothes cop to Brenda.

  My stomach knotted. I recognized the name from the newspaper articles. Hayden was the lead investigator on the Sumner murder. He was big—about six-four, two hundred and fifty pounds—and he looked pissed. Crew-cut and heavy-featured, he reminded me of a slow-moving freight train—deadly, not to be underestimated.

  “Detective Hayden.” I offered my hand, which he ignored.

  “Would you like some coffee?” Brenda asked politely, but her body language belied her solicitous words as she eyed the cop with suspicion.

  Hayden shook his head, all business, turning his full attention to me. “Sir, Mrs. Claudia Sumner called Orchard Park Police Department this afternoon. Said you’d paid her a visit.”

  “Yes, sir.” I figured I’d better be as polite as he was. After all, I didn’t want to be charged with obstructing justice, if that’s what he ultimately had in mind.

  “You told her you were an insurance investigator. But she doesn’t deal with The Travelers.”

  Neither did I, any more.

  “Sir, do you now work for Travelers?”

  I carefully considered my answer.

  “No.”

  “Have you ever worked for that company?”

  “Yes.”

  “In Buffalo?”

  “No.”

  I hoped my curt answers wouldn’t bug him, but I didn’t want to give him any more information than I had to.

  “Mr. Resnick, just what is your interest in Mr. Sumner’s death?”

  “How did you track me down?”

  “DMV. Mrs. Sumner’s security guard took down the license plate number. Please answer my question.”

  Polite but firm.

  “Like everybody else, I just want to know what happened to him.”

  “Everybody else doesn’t pass themselves off as insurance investigators and visit the bereaved,” Hayden said. “Where were you on Thursday evening between four and eight o’clock?”

  “You can’t suspect Jeff,” Brenda cried.

  “I was with them.” I nodded toward Richard and Brenda. “All day, all evening.”

  “We can vouch for him,” Richard added. “Detective Hayden—” He turned the cop aside and spoke quietly. “My brother recently suffered a rather severe head injury, which can account for—”

  “Richard!”

  Just what I needed—to be branded a nut.

  Listening intently to Richard, Hayden looked at me over his shoulder, his expression grim. He turned back to me with no hint of sympathy.

  “Mr. Resnick, I’d appreciate it if you’d refrain from visiting the Sumner family; they’ve suffered enough. And it would be unfortunate for you if they decided to press harassment charges. Besides, the Orchard Park PD is capable of solving this murder without outside interference.”

  Defiance flashed through me, but I kept my mouth shut.

  Hayden nodded at Richard and Brenda, then headed back the way he’d come, with Richard struggling to keep up.

  “Of all the nerve,” Brenda said.

  “I haven’t stepped on anyone’s toes,” I said, but she wasn’t the one I needed to convince. I was out of the hospital on Richard’s say-so. As my next of kin, and a physician besides, Richard held all the power. I wasn’t sure of my rights should he decide to have me committed, or—

  I forced myself to breathe evenly. No way could I let paranoia get the better of me. It made me react like those brain-injury case studies in the pamphlets.

  Footsteps approached. I must’ve looked panicked, because Brenda moved closer, put a hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay, Jeffy. Everything’s okay.”

  Richard’s face betrayed no emotion. “We need to talk,” he said, voice calm, his attention fixed only on me. He took his seat at the table across from me.

  I felt like a kid who’d been caught spying on a skinny dipper. I hadn’t done anything wrong. Not really. Certainly nothing too illegal.

  He composed himself, and I wondered if he assumed that stance before telling patients they had only weeks to live.

  “Something’s not right with you, and I don’t believe it’s physical.”

  “Why? Because I know about this murder?”

  He nodded. “I’m having trouble dealing with this whole situation.”

  “You’re having trouble? What about me? I feel like I’m going crazy. It’s like the inside of my brain itches and I can’t scratch it. My whole life is fucked, because a couple of street punks needed crack money.”

  Richard remained controlled, rational. “Just what do you know that you didn’t read in the paper?”

  My voice rose. “I know that a man was murdered.”

  “Everybody knows that.”

  “I know he was killed in a field. I know that a little kid witnessed it.”

  “What little kid?” Brenda asked.

  “Jackie.”

  “The kid on the invitation you saw in Sumner’s office?” Richard asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And how did she witness it?”

  “I don’t know—he just did.”

  They were both staring at me; Brenda aghast, Richard incredulous. But the impact of my words had only just hit me. Until that moment, I hadn’t known Jackie was a boy or what he’d seen, but I was as sure of it as I was about my own name.

  “If you don’t want to talk to me or Brenda, I think you should talk to someone else,” Richard said, his voice deadly calm. “You need professional help to get over the trauma of your . . . accident.”

  “It wasn’t an accident—it was an unprovoked attack. A robbery. And they got a whole lot more than just my money. They took my life!”

  “Which proves my point. You need to work through this anger. Until you do, your subconscious is going to keep harping on it, which is why you’re obsessing on this murder.”

  “No.” Our gazes locked. “I know what I know. I had those dreams in the hospital before Sumner was murdered.”

  “Do you actually believe you have psychic power?”

  “Whatever’s happening to me is real. It’s not a psychotic reaction, or a delusion, or something I’m making up to get attention.”

  “You must admit your behavior has been a little strange.”

  “How so?”

  “The fact that you can’t go upstairs
, for one.”

  Just thinking about it filled me with dread. “It’s because of your grandmother.”

  “Oh, so now you think the house is haunted?”

  “Richard!” Brenda chided.

  He whirled on her, eyes blazing. “Stay out of this.”

  “Just who do you think you’re talking to?”

  “Him!” He turned back to me. “Well?”

  “I don’t believe in ghosts—but there’s something of her up there. It’s leftover anger—rage. I don’t understand it, but it’s there and it hurts like hell.”

  I changed the subject. “What happened to the sympathetic doctor I spoke to the other day, the one who wanted to help me? Now, because the police got wind of my investigation, you want to shut me down, hide me in a closet, and pass me off as some kind of brain-damaged fool!”

  I bolted from my chair. I didn’t have the stamina for an extended battle with Richard.

  “Where’re you going?” Richard demanded, following me through the house.

  “Out.” I grabbed my coat from the hall closet, struggled to get it over my cast, and opened the front door.

  “Jeff.”

  “Let him go,” Brenda said, as I stormed out into the cold.

  “Jeff, come back!” Richard called after me again.

  I stalked off toward Main Street, my breath coming out in foggy wisps. The cold air felt good, cleansing. With every step I felt empowered, even though I hadn’t won the argument.

  The Snyder business district was to the right. I headed for it.

  Biting my lip in frustration, I faced the reality of my situation: Richard had lost all patience with me. That meant no more lifts around town. No more getting me in places like the bank. The strings were now firmly attached, and I would either have to play the game his way . . . or get back on my feet. To do that, I needed a job.

  The answer seemed simple, but was I physically ready to work? The headaches weren’t as bad, but they still came daily and probably would for some time. I couldn’t even remember how much longer I needed the cast on my arm. I had no money and nowhere else to go. I’d paid taxes—I might be eligible for Social Security. But how long would it take to get it, and what was I supposed to do in the meantime?

  I paused, looking around. Where the hell was I going, anyway? In the back of my mind I remembered a cozy little bar up ahead, next to the fire station.

  The penetrating wind made me huddle deeper into my unzipped jacket. What was the name of that tavern? Oh, yeah, McMann’s. Richard had taken a few hours off from the hospital to take me there on my eighteenth birthday. My first legal drink. We’d stood at the bar, sipping our beers, surrounded by a bunch of old geezers, and shared a fleeting moment of camaraderie. Afterwards we’d returned home to find Richard’s grandmother waiting for us. Her shrill voice cut my soul as she ranted about our alcoholic mother.

  I’d been a forgotten bystander as Richard argued that as my guardian he could take me where he wanted, do exactly as he saw fit. It hadn’t occurred to him that on that date I could legally make my own decisions. That same night I decided I’d enlist in the Army at the end of the school year.

  Richard tried to talk me out of it—he wanted me to go to college. But I wouldn’t listen and traded one four-year sentence for another. I wanted to get away from that old woman the way I now wanted to get away from him.

  The wind whipped around me and I stopped dead. Déjà vu dragged me back to the night of the attack. The circumstances were the same: a lonely street, a bitter cold night. Panicked, I looked ahead and behind me, expecting two shadowy figures.

  No one.

  Slower, my feet crunched the crusted snow once more.

  Time to play devil’s advocate. What if Richard was right? Could some injured, twisted part of me be fooling me into thinking I knew things I couldn’t possibly know?

  No.

  I’d seen Sumner’s face in my mind before Brenda showed me his picture in the newspaper. I don’t know why I was blessed—cursed?—with this knowledge, but I trusted it. If I didn’t believe there was a reason for this happening to me, it would drive me crazy.

  A look around helped me get my bearings. Up ahead, the lights of my alma mater, Amherst Central High School, illuminated an entire city block. On really bad days, Curtis the chauffeur would drive me . . . unless Mrs. Alpert rose early. Then she insisted he be at her beck and call. She always picked the stormiest days.

  I hated that old woman with a passion I’ve never felt since, and I wanted to get out of that house so badly. . . .

  Why did it always come back to her?

  Forcing my thoughts back to the present, I continued walking.

  A bakery sat at the crossroads. What had been there years ago? I’d already walked past the Snyder fire station before realizing something was wrong. Hadn’t McMann’s been right there? The fire station looked big and new and had obviously been expanded to sit where that quaint little tavern had been.

  Confused, I glanced around me. The cold seeped through my thin-soled shoes. I was too far from home to start back without first stopping to warm up. All the little stores were dark and the night seemed to be closing in.

  An elderly woman peered through the bakery’s plate glass window. She’d rubbed a hole in the condensation and motioned to me. I looked around. No one nearby. She was beckoning me.

  I waited for a car to pass before crossing the street, not knowing why I felt drawn. She met me at the door.

  “Come in—come in. It’s too cold to be out on a night like this.”

  The dead bolt snapped behind me, sending a shiver up my back. She led me to the rear of the shop, the aroma of fresh-baked bread and cakes still heavy in the warm, moist air.

  A storeroom acted as a buffer between the storefront and the actual bakery; a bare bones affair, not much more than stacked crates and boxes, a card table, and a couple of chairs. On a shelf over a sink sat an ancient hot plate—a dangerous arrangement, but the old woman seemed unconcerned. She filled a saucepan with water and turned the burner on high. Taking two cups from the shelf, she carefully measured cocoa from a canister.

  “All I have is instant. Not very good, but it warms me.”

  “Look, I don’t want to put you to any trouble—”

  “It’s no trouble.”

  In her late seventies and heavyset, she moved stiffly, as though with arthritis. Her accent was Polish, her wrinkled face careworn, but her eyes were bright and loving—an odd assessment coming from me. I don’t take to people right off. Yet her whole demeanor encouraged trust, like you could tell her all your troubles.

  Why had she invited me here? I was a stranger—a man. She should be afraid of me—instead, I was leery of her.

  I shoved my good hand into my jacket pocket, feeling self-conscious. “What am I doing here?”

  “You look like you need to talk. I need to listen. Sit,” she said and ushered me to a folding metal chair, taking one on the opposite side of the wobbly table.

  “You here all alone?”

  “Yes.”

  Why didn’t that question frighten her? I could be an ax murderer, for all she knew.

  “My son—he’s a big shot with his own business downtown,” she said. “He wants me to move to Cheektowaga to live in one of those old folks’ homes. But I like living over the shop.”

  “I lived over a bakery when I was a kid.”

  “The bread smells so good in the mornings, yes?”

  “That was the only good part about living there.”

  “That’s not true. I’ll bet there were many good things. You just don’t want to remember.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  She shrugged theatrically, her smile enigmatic. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “For me?”

  “For a week. Maybe two.”

  “But I’ve only been back in Buffalo a week.”

  “But it’s good now that you’re here, eh?”

  I shook my head. “I sho
uld’ve stayed in New York.”

  “There’s nothing for you there. Here you have a girlfriend, your family.”

  “I don’t have a girlfriend. My brother is my only family.”

  “See,” she said, the creases around her eyes doubling, her smile warm.

  I leaned back in my chair. This was too creepy.

  “You need to talk,” she repeated. “I’m here to listen.”

  “Why would I tell a stranger about myself?”

  “Maybe I understand—tell you something about yourself you don’t know. Maybe I’ll tell you something about yourself you already know.”

  The hair on the back of my neck bristled. “Like what?”

  “Give me your hand.”

  Her creased hands caressed mine; her clear brown eyes looked into my soul. She shook her head, released it. “First I’ll tell you about me; then you can decide if you want to tell me about you. My name is Sophie Levin. Look.” She pulled back her sweater sleeve to reveal a tattoo—numbers.

  “Buchenwald?”

  “See, you know.”

  “A good guess.”

  She shook her head. “No, this you know. Like lots of other things you know, eh?”

  I wasn’t sure how to answer.

  The water began to boil. She got up, poured it into the cups, and stirred. Then she disappeared into the shop and came back with a placek. I hadn’t tasted one of those sweet crumb loaves in years. She cut thick slices and put them on napkins from the shelf, set one in front of me.

  “Now, I’ll tell you how I survived the camp. I would volunteer for the work groups. I did anything they said. Dig holes, bake bread—anything. And I knew when to be away from the barracks. To stay was to die.”

  “How’d you know?”

  She tapped her temple. “I knew. Like you know. For me there are colors. Everyone has colors that surround them. I would watch certain guards and when their color was black, it meant death. I knew to stay away. Right now you are red. Very angry. Your brother—don’t be hard on him. He loves you, you know.”

  “How do you see these colors?”

  “Not with my eyes, with my mind. It’s not wrong, it’s not bad. Just different. You see things a different way, too. But then you always have.”

  “No.”

  She shook her head, dismissing my protest. “Of course you did. I can tell you many times—but it’s better you remember yourself. Little things. Finding lost things. Waiting for a letter—a phone call.”

  I hesitated, afraid to ask my next question.

  “Are you . . . psychic?”

  She shrugged. “I just see colors . . . and then I know. You feel things, deeply. Before this happened . . .” She reached across the table, traced a finger down my shorn temple, “. . . you never let yourself. Now you have to. The plug is pulled—the feelings leak out—other people’s feelings find you. It’s very hard for you, but good things will come of it. They will,” she insisted. “But sometimes things will seem worse because you can’t understand them. Sometimes it’s hard to understand.”

  I wanted to believe her. Hadn’t I just been telling myself the very same things? Yet suddenly I was as skeptical as Richard.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  She thought for a moment. “You like to take photographs, eh?”

  I nodded uncertainly. How could she know these things?

  “You take a picture—it’s there, in your camera. Even when it’s not developed—it’s still there.”

  “A latent image?”

  “Yes. These things you know, it’s a latent talent. You always had it, but it wasn’t developed. Now you can develop the pictures in your head. You can see them when others can’t. You can know things when others don’t.”

  “My brother wants me to have tests—”

  “How will knowing the science of it help you? If they can even tell you.”

  That was pretty much how I felt about it, too.

  “Still, you must be careful. Believe what you know, and be watchful. Even innocent situations can hide great danger.”

  She held out her hand. “Now, tell me about me.”

  I felt her pulse thrumming rhythmically in her fingers, her smile encouraging.

  “Well?”

  “You’re a nice lady. You want to help people.” I didn’t know what else to say.

  She took back her hand, frowned. “You’ll get better at it.” She picked up her cup, took a sip. “Not bad for instant, but better with marshmallows. That’s what my granddaughter says.”

  She launched into a monologue about her grandchildren, giving me a chance to digest what she’d said. I think she knew I wasn’t listening, but she seemed to like the sound of her own voice.

  She was right. I’d always been good at finding lost objects. I assumed it was a matter of remembering where you’d last seen the missing item. That and begging help from St. Anthony. Were emotions the psychic key for me? I remembered returning home from school and knowing, before I opened the apartment door, when my mother would be passed out drunk in front of the TV. And I’d learned early to keep the hurt, anger, and humiliation inside.

  Most of what I knew about Sumner’s murder hinged on emotions. Those of the killer—and a witness. Anger and triumph and terror, all mixed up.

  I looked down at my empty cup.

  “Time for you to go,” Sophie said, rising. “My son would be upset if he knew I entertained a gentleman here.” She patted my shoulder. “It’s a long walk home. I’d let you call your brother to come get you, but my phone hasn’t worked all day. The bar down the street has a pay phone. You call from there.”

  I followed her back into the shop. Snow fluttered and settled on the empty parking spaces outside.

  “That’s okay. I think I’ll just head on home.”

  “Oh no—it’s too far to walk in the snow. You’re not as strong as you think. You must promise me you’ll go to the bar.” Something about her tone made it seem like an imperative.

  “Okay, I promise.”

  “Good.”

  She clasped my hand and I nearly staggered at the burst of unconditional love that suddenly enveloped me. I looked into her smiling, wrinkled face, and didn’t want to leave.

  “Can I come back and visit you again?”

  She shrugged. “Sometimes I’m here. Sometimes I’m not. Best you come at night. Alone.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s just best.” She winked at me. “Good-bye, Jeffrey.”

  She locked the door behind me, and waved. As I headed down the sidewalk, I realized I’d never introduced myself. I looked back. The shop was dark, but a light blazed in the apartment overhead.

  My anger toward Richard had waned, but the sour feelings it evoked lingered, depression settling in.

  I had other things to think about. Like what inspired Sophie to direct me down the road instead of going home.

  Curiosity got the better of me.

  I headed for the bar.