Psychosis_When a Dream Turns Deadly

by Roger Bray

  When she didn’t appear after a minute, Alex open the cupboard next to the front door and took a winter coat hanging inside. He started to pull the coat on and open the front door when he finally saw the headlights of the Volvo come on. He took half a step outside when the car pulled away from the curb and drove quickly down the street. Disappointed, he stepped back into the house.

  *****

  Then he realized what it was he had seen as he played that few moments back in his mind. He had seen something. Honestly, if asked, he would have thought that there could not possibly be anything else left in his memory of that evening. He had been through it so many times.

  “Shit.” He remembered. “All the times I’ve thought about those minutes and I missed what was in front of me all along.”

  “The windshield!” Alex spoke quietly.

  *****

  By the time Alex entered the visitors’ area and saw Alice and Steve he knew his memory had dragged up something he had forgotten completely. A silly little thing, but a missing piece.

  He quickly went over the minutes before Hazel left the house and told what he had remembered.

  “The what?” Alice asked, looking at Steve as she spoke.

  Alex shook his head and smiled slowly.

  “I knew there was something wrong that evening as she drove away, I didn’t see it for what it was.”

  “What?” Alice asked sharply, wishing he would get to the point.

  “Hazel walked out to the car, to her car where she had parked it on the road out the front of the house.”

  “Where did she park exactly?”

  “On the right, more in front of Jim’s house.”

  “And you could see it clearly?”

  Alex shook his head, “No, only the front of the hood and the grill. We have a fence and a hedge and Jim has a big shrub in that front corner of his yard and an overgrown hedge that runs along the boundary. It goes all the way to the back fence.”

  “As well as blocking your view, all that foliage would dull any sound as well, if it’s thick enough?” Steve asked.

  “I guess.”

  “What sort of car did she drive?” Steve asked, writing in his notebook.

  “A Volvo.” Alex and Alice said together and smiled at each other before Alex continued.

  “V50, station wagon.”

  “Why didn’t she park on the driveway, next to the house?”

  Alex though for a moment, “Because my car was parked there, so she parked on the road.”

  “Jesus,” he said softly, “… was it that simple, if she’d have parked on the driveway, she may still be alive?”

  Alice and Steve waited, glancing at each other as Alex gathered his thoughts.

  Finally, Steve asked, “The windshield, what about it?”

  Alex looked at him and then at Alice.

  “It was a cold night and there was a light frost starting to form, not the heavy, spray it and scrape it off after a whole night type frost, but a light dusting, when it’s starting to form, and you can tell that it’s there more by the sparkly reflection if gives off from the streetlight. The windows were fogged up as well, so with the frost and the fogging up it was hard to see through the windshield. The point is, when Hazel drove away the windows were still fogged up.”

  “Why does that make a difference? It was a cold night; the windows would have fogged up.” Alice asked before looking at Steve, and annoyingly she saw, by the expression on his face that he understood, and he began nodding.

  “Yeah it was cold, which is why Hazel told me not to go out,” Alex continued, “I was sniffling, a bit of a head cold coming on I think, there was some bug going around …”

  Alex’s mouth fell open, and he stared at Alice.

  “Shit.” he muttered.

  Steve and Alice exchanged a puzzled look and Steve waited a moment before asking.

  “What Alex? Something came to you, what?”

  Alex was furiously rubbing his thumb and forefinger together, eyes unfocused as he tried to get a hold of the memory that he had caught the edge of and looked as though he was about to give up when he suddenly exclaimed.

  “Ron Balfour!”

  “Was in the car with Hazel?” Steve speculatively finished for Alex while Alice sat with a lost look on her face.

  “What? No, he wasn’t in the car, he had a cold.”

  “He had a cold… and he’s what, your neighbor?”

  “Not an actual neighbor he lives diagonally over the road, through the intersection, and has a clear view down the street in front of our house.”

  “And he has what to do with the fogged up windows?”

  “Nothing at all to do with the windows, but maybe something to do with the car.”

  “OK,” Steve said quietly, while Alice looked from one to the other, “why don’t you finish off about the windshield on the Volvo, then we can move onto Ron…?”

  “Balfour.”

  “OK, Ron Balfour.”

  Alex was shaking his head slightly and chewing his bottom lip in a manner like Alice but in his case, he looked bemused that this memory had come to him.

  “Windshield, OK. Because I had a sniffle, this head cold coming on Hazel didn’t want me to go out in the chilly evening so told me to stay in when she left. I waited until I thought that she had gone before I was going to turn the porch light off, but I glanced out before I did, and I realized that she was still there, well at least her car was still there.”

  “How long?” Steve asked.

  “Well, you know, normally I would have expected her to go out and start the car up, let it warm up and then drive off. I know that it was a cold night, but even so I would not have expected it to take any more than two or three minutes.

  “So, how long was it?” Steve asked again.

  “Probably seven or eight minutes. I thought she had left but when I looked through the window, I could see the street light over the road reflecting off the front grill of the car, so I knew she was still there.”

  “And you went out?”

  “Yes, well … actually … no I didn’t. I got my coat and opened the door but as I was stepping out, pulling my coat on I saw the headlights of the Volvo come on, and a moment later the car pulled out and drove off.”

  “Definitely the Volvo, Hazel’s Volvo?

  “Definitely, absolutely.”

  “And the windows were still fogged up.”

  Alex nodded as Alice asked, “Why is this important?”

  “Because,” Alex frowned as he answered, “it was a cold night, but the Volvo warms up quickly, it’s especially good at demisting the windscreen and windows.”

  Alice caught up. “So, there’s no way that Hazel sat in the car, with it running without it demisting in that time.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So, Hazel wasn’t in the car, or at least, if she was, she hadn’t turned the engine on and tried to demist. What was she doing then?”

  Steve looked at her and then at Alex, he drummed his fingers softly on the stainless-steel table top for a few moments before he said, “Now we need to know what Hazel was doing for the time you say she was outside. Seven or eight minutes is a long time to be standing outside in the cold when you have a potentially nice warm car to be sitting in?”

  Alex nodded as Steve continued, “The police have her phone records and there’s no call registered to or from her cell around that time, so it must have been something else.”

  Alex nodded again as Steve finished writing in his notebook and looked up.

  “Ron Balfour?”

  Alex laughed, “I remembered because of the head cold, flu bug that was going around—I was starting to get it and it lasted a week or so, as they do. I’d reported Hazel missing, and the police got their ass into gear and, well, you know how that turned out. But, it was probably about a couple of days later when I spoke to Ron. He was walking that humongous, fluffy dog that he has …”

  “Komondor.”

  “Tha
t’s it, huge, white, dread locked, but intelligent and friendly. So, he’s walking his dog, and I was outside and he stopped, neighborly like and offers condolences about Hazel.”

  “He thought she was dead? I didn’t think that even the police had reached that conclusion.”

  “No, I’m probably using the wrong word, sympathy maybe, not specific. Not that he thought she was dead. ‘It’s a real shame, everything will work out, stay positive’, that sort of thing.”

  “OK.”

  “He mentioned that he had come down with a cold as well, a few days before Hazel went missing. He said that he had been up a couple of times during the night and had seen Hazel’s car.”

  “He said that? He had seen the car, but not Hazel?”

  Alex nodded. “But he thought that it was later, after the time the police said she was there.”

  “Did the investigators speak to him?”

  “He said they did.”

  “And did they take a statement?”

  “Apparently.”

  “Well, in all the boxes of paperwork that I’ve been through, I haven’t seen any statement from a Ron Balfour, or any statement saying that Hazel’s car had been seen later in the area, or anything like that.”

  He looked at Alice who shook her head.

  “Why didn’t they use it?”

  “Maybe it went against their case?”

  Steve whistled softly, “I can’t see it, it would be nice, a smoking gun of the DA’s frame up, but I can’t see it.”

  “Why else?”

  “No idea. He may have seen the car, but it may have been earlier than he thought, when everyone knew it was there, anyway. I’ll look into it though, for sure. Is Ron approachable, friendly, will he talk to me?”

  Alex nodded again, “No problem, he’s a nice guy. I’m sure that he’ll be happy to help.”

  “Great, I’ll get over and speak to him. Do you know him?” he asked Alice who nodded.

  “Good, friendly or not, he might not want a complete stranger knocking on his door.”

  “If there’s anything else, I’ll let you know.” Alex said.

  “OK, fine. I have a few more questions.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Forensics went over your house,” he stated to Alex rather than asked.

  “With a fine-tooth comb,” Alex agreed.

  “We already know what they found inside, not a real lot, but what about outside, where the car was parked did they check that, did they search around there?”

  Alex nodded again.

  “When I first reported Hazel missing they were only interested in what time she had arrived at the house and at what time she’d left. I think once they decided she was more than ‘missing’ and were focusing on me, then they went through the house and checked the gutters and curbs all along the street. Yeah, I think they checked it, but I’m not sure they found anything. There was no mention at the trial they had.”

  “Why is this relevant?” Alice wanted to know, “If nothing was found, and there was nothing there—how does this help Alex?”

  “OK,” Steve said slowly as he considered his words. “There was nothing to find but maybe there should have been.”

  “Why?”

  “Something happened in those minutes, between Hazel leaving the house and her car driving away.”

  “What though? What could have happened?”

  “I don’t know, she may have been abducted, not later where her car was found or somewhere else, but there, outside your house.”

  “But the police found nothing, no evidence of foul play at all.”

  “And neither would they if Hazel had been taken away, still alive. Not attacked but incapacitated in some way.”

  “Because an attack would have left evidence?”

  “Probably, if she had been attacked in some way there could have been blood, if not on the road, in the car. I don’t buy the police theory of where they found the blood. We’ve already discounted that, Hazel told you that it was animal blood a long time before she left Alex, so I think that we can discount it as hers, regardless of what the DA might want to believe. Think about it, if she had an open head wound, she would have had to have been upended and shoved behind the passenger seats so that the blood got onto the carpet where forensics found the traces.”

  Steve stood up and was going to pace until he caught the eye of the guard, standing at the edge of the room, slowly shaking his head and making a “sit” motion with his fingers.

  He sat down again and drummed his finger softly in place of being able to move around.

  “If I had a body, alive or dead, that I needed to move in that car I would have either put it in the luggage space or across the back seat. If Hazel had a head wound, then forensics would have found something in the back, maybe on the seats, not just in the rear foot well.”

  “So, she was unconscious, but not injured?”

  Steve nodded as Alice continued.

  “But how and with what?”

  “There are lots of ways to knock someone out, chloroform, ether, cardiovascular neck restraint. Actually, that would be my preferred method.”

  “Which could knock her out?”

  Steve nodded slowly and continued, “I’m starting to think that if something did happen there, then it wasn’t planned at all but an impromptu event. Maybe the assailant had no intention of doing what they did, but something happened. If I needed to take someone out quietly and quickly, with no mess and no fuss that’s what I’d do, hide so I could be behind them, and put them out like that. If this was a male assailant, and statistics tell us that it probably was, then he would have no problem doing it to a slim woman like Hazel.”

  “A stranger?”

  Steve wasn’t convinced, “It happens but, it was a cold evening in a quiet neighborhood, the chances that some psychopath is wandering along and comes upon Hazel are pretty remote.”

  “Someone known to her then?”

  Steve nodded, “More likely.”

  The three of them sat looking at one another before Alex spoke, “It doesn’t help though does it? Even if everything that you have said is true, Steve, what difference does it make to me, in here?”

  Steve nodded, while Alice looked glum as the thought struck her.

  “You’re right, Alex, of course you are. But I think what it’s telling us is either Hazel was assaulted by someone she knew, who may not have intended to attack her but did, or a stranger attacked her.”

  Alex laughed and shook his head, “Basically anyone then. Someone that she didn’t know is a fairly long list, Steve.”

  Steve shook his head slightly.

  “I know, Alex. Look I’m throwing ideas around. All we’re doing is talking this through, although you’ve done it, what?” he raised his hands as he asked, “a hundred times. Well, this time you’ve thought about the windshield and realized something that you hadn’t before, and your neighbor. There’s now a real window where something might have happened, and a potential witness to something. I understand your frustration, actually I probably don’t as I’m not stuck in here,” he looked around the visitor’s area as he spoke.

  “Steve, I’m sorry, it’s….”

  Alice looked at each man and could sense the despair in her brother and the feeling of achievement from Steve. Steve continued, “Look, I have always thought of an investigation as like a science. The DA’s theory is that you killed Hazel; our counter theory is that you didn’t.

  “We put ideas forward to prove our theory and we test them. Until they’re proven or dis-proven, they remain theories. At the moment, my theory is that Hazel was abducted outside your house by a person unknown, bundled into her own car and driven away. If we can prove that it wasn’t you, then I would be quite happy with that.”

  “And how are we going to ‘test’ that?” Alex wanted to know.

  “Evidence, that’s how. Is Hazel’s car still impounded?”

  Alex shrugged his shoulders, “I guess so; they wer
e keeping it until the appeals were over. They are well and truly over now, so I don’t know if it’s been released to Hazel’s mom, destroyed, or still in police possession.”

  “We need to find out and see if we can get to see it.”

  “What are you hoping to find there now, it’s been over three years and we know the prosecution didn’t find anything?”

  “I’m hoping to find something they didn’t, because they weren’t looking for it.”

  “Like?” Alice asked.

  It was Steve’s turn to shrug, which he exaggerated as he did then he smiled.

  “No idea, no idea at all, but I’ll know it when I find it. Talk us through the rest of the night, Alex.”

  “From when?”

  “Hazel finally leaves, her car has gone. You said you didn’t go outside. What did you do then?”

  “Other than tidy up after a murder?” he smiled without much humor.

  “Yeah, apart from that.”

  “I was starting to feel a bit sick. The start of a cold when you feel queasy and aching. I took some aspirin and thought about going to bed.”

  “And did you?”

  “Yes, I did but only for an hour or so.”

  “You got back up?”

  “Yes. Because of the excitement of Hazel having been there, but also because the cold was starting to kick in and the aspirin didn’t seem to have helped.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I logged onto my computer and got online. I worked on a couple of our apps from then until about four thirty. I finally wore myself out and fell into bed.”

  “And you fell asleep then?”

  “Yeah, I did. I took some NyQuil and that finally worked. I was exhausted and slept until a bit after ten in the morning.”

  “And we can prove this?”

  “The investigators took Alex’s computer and pulled the Image Signal Processor records, these show that the computer was being used, keystroke analysis and things, proving that he was telling the truth.” Alice told him.

  “So, the DA’s timeline of the opportunity you had to kill Hazel and dispose of her body is based between when she arrived and when the record shows you were working.”