I was moving toward “Room 7” to see if Little Beth was there when the hallway started to vibrate. I braced myself against the wall, wondering if Beth was having some sort of disturbance in her brain. The vibrating stopped only to begin again seconds later. Pieces of the ceiling broke off and fell to the floor. I decided that, if something was happening, it was best for me to exit and let a nurse know. I withdrew from her mind and back into the hospital room. As it turned out, it was my cell phone buzzing in my pants pocket. I took it out and saw Katie’s picture on the screen.
“Katie?” I answered.
“Dad,” she said through the line, her voice shaking. “I’m not doing so good.”
“What is it, peanut?” I asked.
“The voices,” she answered. “I can’t make them stop.”
I got up from my chair and walked over to the window. “Yes, you can, sweetheart,” I told her. “And they’re not voices, remember? They’re other people’s thoughts and you can shut them out. Where are you right now?”
“I’m in my room. I told the school nurse I was having my period and she let me come home.”
“That’s more information than I needed but okay,” I said, trying to lighten the situation.
“You’re not helping!” She giggled nervously. “What do I do?”
“First of all, only look directly at someone if necessary and, when you do, make sure it’s only for as long as he or she is speaking. Once they stop, look away.”
“For how long?”
“Until either you or they start speaking again.”
“I’m so screwed.”
Linden entered the room and I held my finger up to signal “just a minute.” “Look,” I said to Katie. “I know it’s overwhelming right now, but it’ll get better, I promise. Just practice what I told you. I gotta go but I’ll call you later. I love you, peanut.”
“I love you, too,” she said. “Call me back as soon as you can.”
“I will,” I said. “Bye, sweetheart.”
I ended the call and turned to face Linden. “My daughter,” I told him. “She plays volleyball at her school and needed a pep talk.”
Linden was the last person I would tell about Katie’s developing psychic abilities. First of all, it’s up to Katie who she shares it with and, secondly, there was no way I’d let her get put on a government list of potential specialists so they could recruit her for some future assignment. I didn’t want her to have to experience the horrors I had and, frankly, hoped to protect her from them as long as I could.
“Must be tough being a dad,” he said.
“It can be,” I said. “You ever thought about having kids, Agent Linden?”
“Hell, no,” he replied. “After the shit I’ve seen, not a chance. Speaking of which, Margaret Stevens was found dead in her apartment an hour ago.”
“Damn. Suicide?”
“It appears that way, but we won’t know for certain until forensics gets done with the scene. Maintenance discovered her in the bathtub with her wrists slit. I thought it might be good for us to go and look. Maybe something in her apartment could give us a clue as to why she did it or what it has to do with Beth.”
On the way to Margaret Stevens’ apartment, I perused a file on her that Linden had brought along. She had a long history of depression, beginning in high school when she spent a week in a treatment facility after trying to overdose on pain pills. She later regularly saw a psychiatrist who prescribed various medications until one finally did the trick. She went without incident for several years but then, shortly after Beth was attacked, returned to see the psychiatrist. Evidently, this time it didn’t go as well.
In addition to depression, Margaret had also been treated for drug and alcohol abuse.
She had been arrested on one occasion for a DWI, received counseling, and, following a probationary period had no subsequent run-ins with the law. According to her employers, she was a model employee during her short time working at the Law Offices of Baxter, Freeman, and Lester. So much so that it came as a complete shock to them when she quit abruptly and without explanation.
“You don’t think it was our visit that finally pushed her over the edge, do you?” I asked
Linden as we approached her apartment building.
He shrugged. “Maybe,” he answered nonchalantly. “But then it’s possible she’d been planning it all along and was going to do it either way. When I first started out with the bureau, we investigated a man accused of embezzling money from a very high-profile corporation. He swore up and down that he didn’t do it. Right as we were getting close to the truth, he jumped off a thirty-story building. A few days later, we discovered that it was his secretary that had stolen the money. He was completely innocent.”
“Then why did he kill himself?” I asked.
“Who the hell knows?” he replied. “Did he think he was going to be found guilty? Was he hiding something even worse? Or was he just a nut job that slipped through the cracks when the school counselor passed out pamphlets about the importance of expressing your feelings? My point is you can drive yourself crazy wondering why but, ultimately, it doesn’t make any difference. A person ended his life and there’s nothing you can do to bring him back.”
“I never realized there were so many layers to you, Linden,” I jested. “I always figured you for a two-dimensional type.”
“I’m practical,” he said as he parked in the same spot in front of the leasing office he did the last time. “Now let’s go see the dead girl’s apartment.”
A small crowd gathered near the stairwell leading to Margaret’s residence. We got out of the car and moved toward them. Among the spectators were the apartment manager and a tanned maintenance man with three-day stubble and a shell-shocked look on his face. We made our way to the front of the mob and the apartment manager. She was just as excited to see us as she was on our first visit.
“Oh, it’s you two,” she said. “I hope you’re not back for more questions. Maggie’s—”
“We know,” Linden interrupted her. “Are you the one that found her?” he addressed the maintenance man.
“Yeah,” he said with a distance gaze in his eyes. “I was just going to check the stove. Ms. Stevens had called about it goin’ out yesterday, but I couldn’t get to it till today. I can’t help but think this wouldn’t have happened if I’d gone when she first reached out to me.”
“Oh, Glen,” the apartment manager said with a deadpan tone. “You’re not Jesus. How could you have known she was going to kill herself?”
As tempted as I was to inquire about the apartment manager’s apparent belief that Christ had psychic powers, I stayed focused on the matter at hand. “What happened right before you found her?” I asked Glen.
“Well,” he continued. “I let myself in with the master key. I called out to Ms. Stevens, but she didn’t answer. I was in the hallway when I noticed blood coming out from under the bathroom door. I went in to see if everything was alright and there she was, all bled out. Was she sufferin’ from depression? ’Cause I got this cousin that—”
“Thank you for your time,” Linden cut him off. “I imagine this experience has been very traumatic for you. We have counselors available if you need to speak to someone.” He turned to me. “Come on, Crawford.”
I followed Linden through the front of the crowd and up the stairs. One man peeked his head out of his door but quickly shut it when he saw us. When we reached Margaret’s apartment, there was a police officer standing in the entryway. Linden flashed his FBI badge and the officer nodded and stepped aside. Upon entering, I noticed the kitchen had been unattended to for quite some time. A pile of dirty dishes in the sink had attracted flies and a nearby trashcan overflowed onto the floor.
We moved past the living room area, which was equally unkept, and made our way into the hallway by the bathroom. There was a forensic specialist inside taking pictures. Through the open doorway, I saw Margaret’s arm draped over the side of the bathtub. Linden pushed the door open and there she was, naked and still in the water. I felt like she was being intruded upon the way the burly man with the camera was snapping pictures of her exposed like that. Then I reminded myself that it didn’t bother her. In fact, nothing would ever bother her again.
“Any chance you can get some kind of reading?” Linden asked.
“Seriously?” I replied. “What do you think I am? Some kind of medium?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I thought maybe there was something still lingering.”
“Nope,” I said. “When she goes, it goes.”
Linden frowned and then turned to the specialist. “Anything out of the ordinary?” he asked him.
“Not really,” the man replied as he took another picture. “I’m almost done here. Once you guys are through poking around, I’ll give the all clear for the coroner to wheel her out.”
Linden nodded and walked past me to the bedroom. The door was wide open. He stepped inside and started looking around. I cautiously entered and stood near the unmade bed. Linden opened the closet door and riffled through some of her clothes, yet another act that irrationally seemed like an invasion of privacy. Her wardrobe consisted of a few nice dresses, probably used for work, and some more casual wear. There was one t-shirt with an image of the Arc de Triomphe at the Champs-Elysees in Paris.
I suddenly got a chill as I imagined Jessica digging through her closet at home for a kid-friendly outfit to wear. As a kindergarten teacher, she had to keep it simple and avoid clothes that couldn’t withstand the occasional splash of paint or student that had a passion for taking a pair of scissors to anything that stood in his way. Linden closed the closet and the vision of Jessica vanished, snapping me back to reality.
“Why don’t you check that dresser over there?” he suggested, motioning to a small vanity in the corner. “I’ll take a look under the bed.”
As Linden leaned down and glanced under the bed as if there might be a monster lurking underneath, I went over to the vanity and found a few jewelry cases and makeup kits. I opened one of the cases and uncovered a couple necklaces, several earring sets, bracelets, and a high school ring. I pulled out one of the drawers and stumbled upon some useless knickknacks but didn’t see anything that particularly stood out to me.
“There’s nothing here,” Linden said as he rose to his feet. “Let’s get back to the hospital while there’s still time.”
Right as I was about to concur and shut the drawer, I spotted a photograph under a stack of old candy wrappers. I picked it up and examined it closely. In what appeared to be a picture taken around Christmas time, Beth was standing in front of a tree. To her right was Oscar Freeman and two men in suits who, given their older ages, I assumed were his law partners, Baxter and Lester. To her left was another man in a suit and, based on his build, I figured it must’ve been Bobby Fugate. Honestly, it was hard to tell because his head had been meticulously cut out of the picture.