by C. M. Sutter
Clayton bent his fingers back and cracked his knuckles. He peeked over the row of framed family pictures lined up on his desk. “How old are those cases?”
I pulled the newspaper articles out and checked the dates. “It looks like she helped on two cases in Nashville nine years back and another seven years ago.” I flipped to the Chicago articles. “The first one there goes back six years, and the other was from three years ago. I guess she hasn’t helped law enforcement since.”
Billings smirked. “That’s because she moved here, and we aren’t that gullible.”
I wasn’t so sure anymore as I read them over for the second time. “Well, according to these news articles, she’s the real deal. Hopefully the police she worked with are still on the force.”
I found a comfortable spot in my worn chair, looked up the metro police department’s phone number in Nashville, and dialed. I explained to the officer that answered the phone who I was and who I was hoping to speak to. She said Detective Amoroso was indeed still at that location, and she would transfer me to his phone. I thanked her and waited for a few brief seconds before a deep voice picked up, introducing himself as Detective Joe Amoroso.
After making my own introduction, I told him why I was calling. Kate Pierce was living in North Bend and had been for the last two years. I explained to Detective Amoroso how she had confided in me about several disturbing nightmares of women being murdered. The dreams were very detailed, down to the clothing worn by one woman in particular. I wanted his opinion of Kate and whether I should take her premonitions seriously.
“Ah, yes, we remember her well. I’m not quite sure why Kate moved away, but it seemed like she was always looking over her shoulder—as if something bad was about to happen. I never asked about her personal life, but she reminded me of a tortured soul.”
I understood what he meant now that Kate had explained her past to me.
“I don’t think she wanted to settle here for the long term, anyway. She seemed a bit introverted. Nashville is a party town, but she was very helpful to us on several cases.”
“Well, that’s why I’m calling. I’d like your opinion of her work.”
“Kate certainly has a gift. It’s amazing how some people are that fortunate. Although, I’ve heard others call it a curse.”
“That’s what you consider it—a gift?”
He laughed into the phone. “You sound like a skeptic, Sergeant Monroe.”
I felt my face blush but admitted he was right.
Detective Amoroso excused himself, and I heard him talking to someone in the background. He returned to the phone a few seconds later.
“Sorry about that. We just got another missing-persons call. I wouldn’t mind having Kate back here right now. It seems like these kind of cases never have happy endings.”
“Unfortunately, you’re right.”
Detective Amoroso continued, “Anyway, her visions didn’t work out all the time, but I’d say in three out of five cases, they did. She was instrumental in helping us find an abducted child. That was one case that did have a happy ending. She helped us locate a missing woman that was unfortunately found murdered. On another case, she actually tracked down the perpetrator that was beating and raping college girls. He’s still behind bars. If you give her the tools she needs and actually believe in her capabilities, you’ll be surprised. I can’t explain her gift, but she has proven herself to us, and I wish she would have stayed in our community.” He chuckled. “We even had a nickname for her.”
“Really? Which was?”
“We called her our psychic investigator. Give her a chance, Sergeant. She may have a valid concern.”
I thanked Detective Amoroso and hung up. The next call was to the lead detective at the Chicago Violent Crimes Division, a Detective Bill Branson. His account of Kate was very similar to Detective Amoroso’s. Kate had been a big help in the cases she’d assisted them with. I hung up with a sense of relief and a certain amount of anxiety. If her visions were accurate, there was a dangerous person out there who had already committed vicious crimes, or was about to—we just didn’t know the who, where, or when.
Chapter 8
I went home that night with Kate Pierce weighing heavily on my mind. I wasn’t sure whether working with her would be like opening an enormous can of worms or not. If I gave her the go-ahead, we could possibly be spending our days chasing down every shadowy figure in her dream world. Had the crimes in her nightmares actually been committed? And if they hadn’t, there wasn’t a way to prevent them, anyway. We didn’t have a perpetrator to go after. I wasn’t going to let Kate Pierce take the lead in our investigations.
“Want a glass of wine?”
Amber closed the dishwasher after stacking the dinner dishes inside. She stood at the counter and poured a glass for herself. She waited, the bottle suspended in her hand, to pour a second glass. I stared at her but hadn’t heard a word she’d said.
“Hello…Earth to Jade. Is anyone home in that head of yours?”
“Sorry. I have a lot of thinking to do. What did you say?”
“I asked if you wanted a glass of wine, but never mind. I poured you one, anyway. Here.”
Carrying two glasses of Chardonnay, Amber walked around the breakfast bar and handed one to me.
“Thinking about the Mandy Blakely case?”
“Nah—that’ll go on for another week before they wrap things up. I might sit in on more of the trial, though, since work has been relatively quiet. Dean’s sister from Medford and the minister from Madison are going to be testifying sometime this week.” I took a sip and gave Spaz a thorough three-minute scratch behind his ears. He purred as he lay curled between Amber and me on the couch. “I wish they’d just finish things and put her in an institution where she belongs. They can’t bring back the dead, and the media is on a feeding frenzy about this case like a herd of piranhas.”
Amber chuckled. “I think they’d be called a school of piranhas, but I get your drift. So what’s bothering you?”
“Have I ever mentioned Kate Pierce to you?”
“You mean the local psychic?”
“Yeah, that’s the one. I’m not quite sure how to handle her. Nashville and Chicago police departments tell me she’s legit and has been helpful on some of their cases.”
Amber stretched her long legs out across the coffee table. “Okay, so what’s the problem?”
“We don’t have a case to bring her in on. She’s bringing her cases to us.”
“What does that even mean?”
“She’s having dreams of violent crimes and wants us to do something about them, but we have nowhere to go. We don’t have any victim or perp names to start the process with.”
“Do you want my take on things?”
I grinned and picked up my wineglass from the end table. “Absolutely, go ahead and do your psychology, criminal-justice thing on me.” I snuggled deeper into the couch cushions and waited.
“You have no victim, no location, and no perp. There’s really nothing anyone can do with that information because there isn’t any. Once there’s a case to work on, call her in and see how she does. You can’t solve a case that hasn’t happened.”
“What do you think of psychics? Do you believe they actually have merit?”
Amber shrugged. “The cops in Nashville and Chicago do. There are some things that common logic can’t explain, Jade. Damn, I’d love to have that ability.”
“Really?”
“Hell, yeah. Could you imagine being an FBI profiler and having psychic powers too? Man, I’d rock the law enforcement world.”
I laughed. “Leave it to you. Anyway, what do you think of having a sketch artist render pictures from Kate’s dreams?”
Amber appeared to ponder that bit of information. “That may not be a half-bad idea, but what would you do with them?”
“I’ll enter their descriptions on the national unidentified-persons database and narrow down the search by approximate height, weig
ht, age, and hair color and see if anything pops. Better yet, I’ll bring Kate in and have her go through the photos herself. If she finds someone that looks like the ladies in her dreams, we might have something to work with. This could be my only opportunity to see if Kate’s premonitions are real. I have enough free time to dig into this now, but if a real case comes up, it would have to take precedence, and Kate’s stuff would go on the back burner.”
I went to bed that night with a plan of action. In the morning, I’d call Marie, the sketch artist, and have her sit down with Kate and come up with real faces to go forward with.
Chapter 9
One piece of peanut butter toast and a single cup of coffee was enough for me. I was anxious to get to work and get busy. Kate would have to prove herself to me before I’d become a believer, but my mind was gradually opening up to the possibilities. I fed and watered Polly and Porky, gave them each a kiss, and headed to the door with my travel mug in hand. I yelled out a good-bye to Amber as I hit the garage door opener and left.
I passed the bank clock then checked the time in my car. They matched, and I gave the dashboard an attaboy pat. Billings and Clayton pulled into the parking lot right behind me, and we walked into the bull pen together. With my coat hung and my purse and gun at my desk, I sat and listened as Horbeck and Jamison updated us on the overnight activities. Jack walked in at seven thirty, surprising all of us.
With a fresh cup of coffee on my desk and everything I needed within reach, I dialed Kate Pierce’s phone number.
“Hello?”
The voice on the other end sounded like Kate’s, although raspy and groggy.
“Kate, it’s Jade Monroe. What’s wrong? You sound awful.” I waited for her response and heard her clear her throat.
“Sergeant Monroe, hang on please. I need a glass of water.” She returned to the phone a few seconds later. “Sorry, I had a terrible night.”
“Bad dreams?”
“Horrible ones. I called the prison yesterday, and they confirmed Robert’s release. He’s being paroled today. I guess that prompted the nonstop nightmares last night.”
“Did you get any sleep at all? As in restful sleep?”
She groaned through the phone line. “I don’t feel like I did. Anyway, what can I do for you? It must be important for you to call this early.”
“I’m sorry, Kate. I wouldn’t have called if I’d known you didn’t get any sleep.”
“No worries, I’ll live.”
“I’d like to run something past you. Are you able to come down to the station this morning and talk?”
“Sure thing. I’ll be there in an hour.”
I clicked off and called Marie Ashton, the sketch artist who worked with law enforcement in North Bend. She agreed to come in at nine o’clock and try to put Kate Pierce’s dream faces on paper.
At eight thirty, Jan called my desk phone and said Kate had arrived. I ushered Kate through the bull pen door, where she greeted my colleagues. At the beverage station, I offered her a choice of coffee or tea. She decided on spearmint tea, so I made two cups. Something different now and then couldn’t hurt.
“Let’s have a seat in the conference room.”
I glanced at the clock above the door. Marie was scheduled to arrive in a half hour. That would give me enough time to explain to Kate what I had in mind and hear the details of her latest nightmares.
I grabbed a folder off my desk and jammed my cell phone into my pocket, then led the way down the hall. We entered the conference room, and I closed the door at my back. Kate sat on the third chair on the left. I closed the blinds and took a seat across from her.
“Do you want to talk about your dreams from last night?”
Kate sighed as if even talking about them would zap every ounce of her energy.
“That’s okay, we don’t have to. I just thought—”
“I know,” she said, “you thought I’d be gushing about my dreams and sending you on a wild goose chase again.”
I kept silent. If she wanted to tell me, she could, and if not, so be it.
“I’m sorry I snapped—I’m just exhausted. I dreamed about Robert, of course. This time it actually was him, and he found out where I lived. He came after me and—”
“And what?”
“And he caught and killed me.”
I saw tears spring up in Kate’s eyes, and I felt her pain. She was scared to death of this man.
“What did he look like, Kate? Was he exactly as you remembered him or had he aged in ten years?”
She squeezed her head between her open palms as if she needed to keep it from falling apart.
“His features were familiar except older looking, of course. His temples were graying, and his hair was buzz cut. He had prison tats too.”
“He didn’t have tats ten years ago?”
“Nothing that was visible.”
“Could you make out what they were?” I opened the folder as she closed her eyes. I hadn’t told Kate about the current photo of Robert Lynch I had printed out from the USP Atlanta inmate registry.
Her eyes opened, and I could see she remembered. “He had the word revenge on the back of his right hand and two teardrops under his right eye.”
“Can you describe them?”
“Just that they were small tattooed tears and the word revenge was in block letters. They were done in dark ink.”
I wrote the descriptions she gave of him and his tattoos in my notepad. I knew most prison tats were done in black or dark blue ink. They weren’t given the luxury of colored ink in most penitentiaries.
“And you said you haven’t physically seen him or a picture of him in ten years?”
“No—I’d rather forget that face forever.”
“So you don’t want to see what he looks like now?”
“Are you going to make me?”
“Of course not.” I could barely contain myself as I closed the folder. “Would you like another cup of tea?”
“Sure, if you’re making one for yourself.”
“Okay, I’ll be right back.” I picked up the folder and our cups and left the room.
Jack looked up from his desk when I entered the bull pen. “What gives? You’re as white as a ghost.”
Clark walked out of his office, pulled out my guest chair, and sat. Billings and Clayton stopped filing reports and stared at me.
I shook my head in disbelief. “How is this possible?”
“Take a breath, Jade. What’s going on?” Clark asked.
“She just gave me a description of Robert Lynch from the nightmare she had of him last night. He’s being released today, and she thinks that anxiety led to the dreams.”
Jack scratched the back of his hand. “And?”
“And she didn’t know I printed out a recent photograph of him from the USP Atlanta inmate registry. Her description was dead-on.”
“But she doesn’t have access to that list,” Clayton said.
“Exactly my point. She actually is a psychic.” I opened the folder and showed the guys the printout.
Clark stared at the photograph. “You do know what those teardrop tats signify, don’t you, Jade?”
I nodded. “The outlined tattoo means attempted murder, and the filled-in one means he has actually killed someone.”
“But his record doesn’t show any accusation or arrest for murder,” Jack said.
I filled our teacups and headed toward the hallway. “There might be a lot more to Robert Lynch than we actually know.”
Chapter 10
I had five minutes left to explain my plan to Kate before Marie was scheduled to arrive. I placed the tea on the conference room table and apologized for taking so long.
“So here’s what I’d like to do, Kate, if you’re on board. Our sketch artist will be here in a few minutes, and I want to get the images of those two women on paper before they start fading from your memory. Soon they could be nothing more than dream characters with red or blond hair. We need to prese
rve everything you can remember about their features.”
Kate leaned in with curiosity. “But then what?”
“Then I have a job for you. I’ll show you how to use the nationwide unidentified-persons database instead of the missing-persons database. That way we can enter their names as Jane Doe since we don’t actually know who we’re looking for. All I need is for you to find faces that match as closely as possible the sketches Marie will draw. It’s a way to narrow down our pool of potential women. Are you willing to do that?”
“Absolutely.”
A knock sounded on the door, and I got up to answer it. Marie greeted me and walked in with her satchel of supplies. I made the introductions, explained to Marie what we needed, and excused myself. I’d let those two work together and do what they did best—without any interruptions from me.
“Just let me know when you’re finished. I’ll be in the bull pen.”
Jack rose when I walked in. “Want to tag along? I’m caught up on my paperwork for the week.”
“Going to sit in on Mandy’s trial?”
“Yep. Today the owner of Unhappilyhitched Inc. has to testify about his confidential client list. That ought to stir the pot with plenty of people.”
“Sounds interesting, but I better pass. I want to be here when Marie and Kate finish up.”
Jack nodded and exited the room.
It seemed as though I was glancing at the clock every half hour. Patience wasn’t my strongest trait. I drummed my fingers on my desk then got up and poured a cup of coffee for Billings, Clayton, Clark, and myself and went back to fidgeting.
“So what do you make of Kate Pierce now after that description of Lynch?” Billings asked.
“I don’t know. I’ve never put much credence in psychics, and her visions baffle me. Detective Amoroso in Nashville calls it a gift. What I don’t understand is, does she sees things that have already happened, or is she predicting things to come?”
