“Maybe you were right,” I stammered.
I know nobody likes being wrong, but the Scorpio in me really hated being wrong.
Chuck grinned at me. “You might be the psychic medium, but I am pretty intuitive myself, pretty lady.” Chuck sat down in the chair next to me and threw on a Detroit Red Wings baseball cap. “But, it all worked out. I’m not possessed. Or am I?” He widened his eyes and stuck out his tongue.
I couldn’t even laugh. I honestly felt bad for putting us in the predicament in the first place. After all, Poe’s rage should’ve been an indication that something was going to happen. It’s like that person who touches the iron even after someone says to not touch the iron. I touched the iron, and I didn’t just get burned, so did Chuck.
Chuck could sense my melancholy and my guides stood by feeling helpless, too, although they tried to convince me to not beat myself up too badly. “Let’s go into Plymouth for some lunch and a drive,” Chuck suggested.
Plymouth, Michigan, a quaint town just twenty miles west of Detroit, was first settled in 1825 and was greatly influenced by its New England counterpart. There was always something comforting to me about walking through the town. It helped to temporarily sooth a homesickness that I had from another time, another place. Although over the years Plymouth had become yuppified, with house prices some of the highest in the area and restaurants that lined the main street offered expensive dining options. We, however, often ate in an area of Plymouth that was a bit more blue-collared called Old Village.
George Starkweather was the first child born to settlers of Plymouth. He saw the potential of a railroad to the mostly farming and industrial community, that was thanks to Henry Ford, who built a mill there. It was George Starkweather who decided that the North Village of Plymouth would become the new center of town, so he built a new store on the corner of Liberty and Starkweather, near the railroad. Other business owners took heed and began building around him in the area that is presently known as “Old Village.” Housed in the building that was George Starkweather’s general store is Hermann’s Olde Town Grille, one of our favorite hangouts.
In Michigan you never knew day-to-day if you would have to turn on your furnace or air conditioning, but this particular May day was in the low 70s and mostly sunny, so we decided to sit outside on the patio that ran parallel to Starkweather Street. After ordering our meals, we looked around at the houses that lined the street. Each one had its own unique architecture and was painted with bright and friendly colors. Many boasted large front porches and several of the neighbors sat and waved in greeting to passersby, strangers, and friends alike.
After a delicious lunch of margheritta pizza, barbecue chicken salad, and iced teas, we decided to take a stroll to my favorite house in the area. It was the house reminiscent of the one in Charleston that I fell to tears in front of. I could sense Poe walking with us. He also felt at home in this town and often urged me to move away from our 1950s brick ranch. But until he gave me the winning lottery numbers, we weren’t going anywhere.
“Do houses hold energy?” Chuck asked, his head cockeyed.
We stood in the park that sat in front of the house that I sorely loved, even ached, to call ours.
“Absolutely,” I said, nodding. “Houses, furniture, souls … ”
“And do things miss like people do, or is it that people miss the energy from things?”
“I think both,” I answered in what felt like a faraway voice.
I knew that I couldn’t explain it, but I did believe that they did. I could pick up a piece of 1800s stoneware pottery and know that it belonged in my china cabinet in a house that I never owned in this era. Or look at a doll and become frightened because it reminded me of the doll my mother from another time had made as a remembrance for my sister who died from a disease that no longer existed.
“We have to go back to Baltimore, Chuck.”
He looked at me once more with his head cocked, but this time the other way. “Okay, when?”
I looked over at Poe, who was leaning against an old oak tree and staring off into his own world, whether this one, a past one, or into the other side, I didn’t know. He didn’t give me any indication, but I knew that we had to go soon and didn’t have any indication as to why.
“Soon. I will look at my schedule tonight and see what I can work out.”
When we got back to the car, I turned my cell phone on to find a voice message from an out-of-state number. It wasn’t abnormal for me to get strange calls. Several years ago I quit my corporate job to do life coaching, psychic mediumship sessions, and psychic detective work. Since then, there hadn’t been one day when I looked back and regretted that decision. With the support of Chuck, the kids, and my guides, I never once thought that I couldn’t do it, but there were some dicey times when I wondered if I would have any clients that week so that I could pay the bills. It only took me two years to build up a large clientele base, and a whole lot of hustling, and although I was grateful—instead of wondering if I would have clients, I wondered when I might be able to take time off as I was booked six months to a year out. Many times I forgot to cross myself out for holidays and birthdays, making the family threaten to take my calendar and choose my available days and times. It was a work in progress being an entrepreneur. And I loved every second of it.
I hit play on my voicemail:
Kristy, my name is Brent. I am a private investigator for several families who have missing or unexplained murdered sons, brothers, and/or boyfriends. I received your name from an officer that you know. Could you give me a call when you have time to talk?
Chuck heard the message and looked over at me. “Call him,” he softly urged.
I tried to unplug, but it was hard. I was learning, or trying to at least, but I had this constant urge to help others. Sometimes at the cost of losing myself.
I hit call back on the phone. I heard just one ring when Brent answered with an informal, “Hey, Kristy.”
For the next twenty minutes he attempted to explain the cases. “Ever hear of the Midwest Killer?”
I used to read everything and anything about true crime cases, but my schedule didn’t lend itself to do much reading and when it did, I picked up some inspirational nonfiction most of the time. The name sounded familiar, though, and I wondered if I had possibly heard it on a 60 Minutes or 20/20 type show.
“In a nutshell, there are several young men, mostly college kids, who have gone missing. Some are still missing, others are found but almost always found in the water near where they went missing. There are several common denominators in these cases—they go missing from a bar, they are in a college town, they are men between the ages of seventeen and twenty-eight and many are thrown out of the bar for being intoxicated.”
I tried to think back if I had read anything on the cases, and I wondered curiously if this wasn’t related to a case that I took on with another private investigator back in 2006—the Brian Shaffer case. Brian had gone missing from a bar in Columbus, Ohio. On the night of Friday, March 31, 2006, Brian Shaffer, a twenty-seven-year-old, second-year medical student at Ohio State University went out with friends to have a few drinks and celebrate the beginning of spring break 2006. Around 9:30 p.m., the men headed to the Ugly Tuna Saloona, a bar located near the OSU campus. At 9:56 p.m., Brian called his girlfriend, Alexis, who at the time was visiting her family in Toledo, Ohio. He told her he loved her and that he would see her when she came back to Columbus. The two had planned on taking a vacation to Miami and were scheduled to leave for Florida on Monday, April 3. Shortly after talking to Alexis, Brian and his friend walked/barhopped until their final destination led them to the Ugly Tuna Saloona where they are seen in the surveillance tape at 1:15 a.m. The next time Brian is seen on camera, he was outside of the Ugly Tuna, at the top of the escalator, talking with two girls; he appears to say “bye” and turns toward the bar. He disappeared from the camera’s view and has not been seen since. Despite a search I did with several connected to the case, the police refused to accept any psychic information that I received and to this date, Brian remains missing.
“The men are all determined by the cops and the med-ical examiner to have died accidently or by suicide. We don’t believe this to be the case at all. Two retired New York City detectives coined these ‘killers’ after a cryptic calling card left behind at most all of the murder scenes. Whatever you call them, we believe we have a serial killer, or killers, on our hands.” Brent took what sounded like a puff from a cigarette.
“Wait, why is it just a theory? If you see the same calling card at each scene, then there is no coincidence with that, right?” I thought about what Poe always told me—nothing is ever a coincidence.
“Police discount it as pure graffiti. And it is always different. Serial killers are often consistent. That is why this is so baffling. There is an awful lot of inconsistencies. And to be honest, I think because of that the police and the FBI are staying far away from this.”
“And calling it an intoxicated college boy falling into the water is nice and clean.”
“Exactly.”
Chuck pretended to not be listening, but if he had antennae, they would have been high in the air.
I put my hand to my forehead and rubbed my brow, anticipating a headache. I hated disappointing anyone. “Brent, I only work with the police on cases. It is a hard-and-fast rule that I adhere to since putting my life in jeopardy a few years ago.”
It was true. I was like a psychic vigilante, assisting families of missing and murdered people, and I ended up having a killer chasing me. It sounded like a Lifetime movie, but it was my life. I honestly don’t know if I would believe it if I wasn’t living in it myself.
“Fair enough,” Brent answered. “I can give the cops your name, but I highly doubt they will call. But, your friend told me that you have visions and feelings, right?”
“Uh-huh,” I answered, already knowing where this was going. “Nighttime is a nightmare, no pun intended.”
“Well, if you see, feel, or hear anything, do you mind passing it along to me? I have one kid that is missing and his parents are beside themselves. I am pretty sure he is in the river … ”
This Brent was good. In the beginning of the conversation he explained that he was also a retired detective. Working for many detectives over the years I recognized their manipulative tendencies. It was rarely done in a vicious manner, but the theme was consistent—befriend and get information. Clean and cut.
Chuck whispered, “Throw the man a bone, Kristy.”
I hushed Chuck and rolled my eyes. “Yeah, he’s in the river. Not far from where he went missing. There is an abandoned house a block away that he was killed in—poisoned. He’s stuck in some brush under the water, which is why the divers didn’t find him. He’ll float as soon as more boats get on the waterway and shake him loose.”
I was beginning to not feel well and my head felt dizzy. No matter how many murder cases I saw, it never got easier. And I hoped it stayed that way. If I ever got to the point where I felt desensitized, I feared my abilities as a whole would do the same.
“And the killer, or killers, Kristy? Do you know who it is?”
I could almost feel Brent holding his breath. I only wish I had the answer to give him. It would be like a lottery ticket for him—not that he didn’t care about his clients, but it was a job. Unfortunately I came up blank on the who. I could just see the where and the how. Two of the three wasn’t so bad, right?
“Okay, well, thanks anyhow. If any of your spidey, or smiley, senses tells you more, I would really appreciate a call.”
I agreed to call him if I saw anything and hung up just as we pulled into our driveway. What I weekend, I thought—secrets, scandals, portals, demons, killers, and past lives. Could it get any weirder? I looked over at Poe, who was intensely talking to Alto. Maybe weird was the new normal.